Killing for the Company

By the time her frenzy had finished she was almost as bloody as the murdered woman. She was on all fours, an animal in the wild, and it was only the feel of cold steel against the back of her head that brought her back to the here and now. She looked over her shoulder to see the appalled face of a soldier who was pressing his rifle against her, and she became aware once more of the screaming of the children and the other women as they fled the horror.

And then the soldier started to shout as well. His voice was hoarse. He needed to scream to be heard over the noise of the chopper hovering above the heads of the crowd.

‘Lie on the ground with your hands on your head! Lie on the ground! Lie on the fucking ground. NOW! ’

THIRTY-TWO

Luke’s head was pounding. He didn’t understand. Maya Bloom was working for Stratton. What, then, had just happened?

The plaza was chaos. Noise. Children and women screaming and running, the chopper blades thundering overhead. Men, too, shouting on the other side of the barrier. IDF soldiers, one of whom had him at gunpoint, looked like they were on the verge of panic, glancing at each other, clearly wondering what the hell to do.

He felt Maya Bloom’s eyes on him, saw the calculating look in her face as she slid her makeshift weapon back into her jacket and glanced from her gruesome handiwork to the hovering chopper to the soldier who was shouting at her to get down on the ground. When she snapped back at him, it was with authority. The soldier didn’t lower his gun, but Luke could see that he was suddenly less sure of himself. Bloom continued to speak. Fast. Harsh. It sounded like she was issuing instructions and he could make out one word repeated several times: Mossad.

Twenty seconds later Maya Bloom was standing right in front of him. ‘If you try to run,’ she shouted, ‘they’ll shoot you.’

‘What the fuck have you told them?’

‘The truth,’ she replied loudly. ‘That you’re a terrorist.’ She nodded at the guards, who pushed Luke away from the wall towards her. She was close now, less than half a metre. ‘If you don’t do what I tell you,’ she said so that only Luke could hear, ‘neither of us will get out of the plaza alive. I promise they’ll kill you if I give the word.’

Luke believed her.

They moved in convoy — the two soldiers a metre behind Luke, Maya a metre in front, barking instructions at the crowd to let them through. The terrified people parted when they saw that the soldiers had a prisoner. It took less than thirty seconds to cover half the length of the plaza, by which time the chopper had set down ten metres to Luke’s right. He saw troops spilling out from either side: their cutaway Kevlar helmets, M4s and chest rigs confirmed that they were SF. He briefly considered getting their attention, but as soon as the thought entered his mind, Maya Bloom was alongside him. ‘Don’t make a mistake,’ she spat. ‘One step wrong and I’ll tell them to shoot you.’ She looked back over her shoulder and barked at the soldiers, who prodded Luke like he was cattle, urging him to move faster.

Forty metres from the wall and suddenly another six soldiers, wild-eyed and confused, were in front of them. Maya Bloom issued more instructions, and immediately they marched ahead, screaming at the crowds to let them through. Luke barely heard the chopper or the crowds. All his attention, all his focus, was on the woman. What was she doing? What was she orchestrating? Why was she setting things up to allow Luke to escape too?

Perhaps she didn’t want him to start telling the authorities what he knew about her. Even if he were dead, his corpse would be identified and this might set up a trail that would lead to her.

Luke saw the security gates twenty metres ahead. People crowding to get out. The six new IDF men rushed forwards and started clearing the way; as they did so, Maya Bloom looked back at him. It was a deadly look. He decided she intended to get him out of the way, so she could dispose of him.

The convoy triggered the alarm on the security gates as it went through, which did nothing but add to the general sense of panic. On the other side, the area between the plaza entrance and the Dung Gate was a confusion of people — families and friends looking for each other, kids on their own crying, traditionally dressed Hassidim hurrying away from the danger area. There had to be more than a couple of hundred people, Luke reckoned, and he could lose himself among them in seconds, safe in the knowledge that the soldiers wouldn’t open fire on the public.

But he wasn’t going to do that. Lose Maya Bloom now and he’d never find her again. She had too many questions to answer.

She was clever. She’d manoeuvred them out of the plaza — a place they’d never otherwise have escaped from. Now he had to second-guess her next move. If he could escape into the crowd now, so could she. But if she wanted him dead, she had to do it before she disappeared.

If Luke was right, she was about to make an attempt on his life.