fists filled with the deadly steel balls. He was shouting something, a
challenge or a war cry, a harsh triumphant screech that carried clearly
above the screams of his victims.
Before he could release the grenade, David hit him with a full burst, a
dozen bullets that smashed into his chest and belly, and the Arab
dropped both grenades at his feet and doubled over clutching at his
broken body, trying to stem the flood of his life blood with his bare
hands.
The grenades were short fused and they exploded almost immediately,
engulfing the dying man in a net of fire and shredding his body from the
waist down. The same explosion knocked down the third assassin at the
end of the terrace, and David came to his feet and charged up the steps.
The third and last Arab was mortally wounded, his head and chest torn by
grenade fragments, but he was still alive, thrashing about weakly as he
groped for the machine pistol that lay beside him in a puddle of his own
blood.
David was consumed by a terrible rage. He found that he was screaming
and raging like a maniac, and he crouched at the head of the stairs and
aimed at the dying Arab.
The Arab had the machine pistol and was lifting it with the grim
concentration of a drunken man. David fired, a single shot that slapped
into the Arab's body without apparent effect, and then suddenly the Uzzi
in David's hands was empty, the pin falling with a hollow click on an
empty chamber.
Across the terrace, beyond range of a quick rush, the Arab's face was
streaked with sweat and blood as he frowned heavily, trying to aim the
machine pistol as it wavered. He was dying swiftly, the flame
fluttering towards extinction, but he was using the last of his
strength.
David stood frozen with the empty weapon in his hand, and the blank eye
of the pistol sought him out, and fastened upon him. He watched the
Arab's eyes narrow, and his sudden murderous grin of achievement as he
saw David in his sights, and his finger tightening on the trigger.
At that range the bullets would hit like the solid stream of a fire
hose. He began to move, to throw himself down the stairs, but he knew
it was too late. The Arab was at the instant of firing, and at the same
instant a revolver shot crashed out at David's side.
Half the Arab's head was cut away by the heavy lead slug, and he was
flung backwards with the yellow custard contents of his skull
splattering the white-washed wall behind him and his death grip on the
trigger emptied the machine pistol with a shattering roar harmlessly
into the grape vines above him.
Dazedly David turned to find the Brig beside him, the dead security
guard's pistol in his fist. For a moment they stared at each other, and
then the Brig stepped past him and walked to the fallen bodies of the
other two Arabs. Standing over each in turn he fired a single pistol
shot into their heads.
David turned away and let the Uzzi drop from his hands. He went down
the stairs into the garden.
The dead and the wounded lay singly and in piles, pitiful fragments of
humanity. The soft cries and the groans of the wounded, the bitter
weeping of a child, the voice of a mother, were sounds more chilling
than the screaming and the shouting.
The garden was drenched and painted with blood.
There were splashes and gouts of it upon the white walls, there were
puddles and snakes of it spreading and crawling across the paving, dark
slicks of it sinking into the dust, ropes of it dribbling and pattering
like rain from the body of a musician as he hung over the rail of the
bandstand. The sickly sweetish reek of it mingled with the smell of
spiced food and spilled wine, with the floury taste of plaster dust and
the bitter stench of burned explosive.
The veils of smoke and dust that still drifted across the garden could
not hide the terrible carnage. The bark of the olive trees was torn in
slabs from the trunks by flying steel, exposing the white wet wood. The
wounded and dazed survivors crawled over a field of broken glass and
shattered crockery. They swore and prayed, and whispered and groaned
and called for succour.
David went down the steps, his feet moving without his bidding; his
muscles were numb, his body senseless and only his finger-tips tingled
with life.
Joe was standing below one of the torn olive trees. He stood like a
colossus, with his thick powerful legs astride, his head thrown back and
his face turned to the sky, but his eyes were tight-closed and his mouth
formed a silent cry of agony, for he held Hannah's body in his arms.
Her bridal veil had fallen from her head, and the bright copper mane of
her hair hung back, almost to the ground. Her legs and one arm hung
loosely also, slack and lifeless. The golden freckles stood out clearly
on the milky-white skin of her face, and the bloody wounds bloomed like
the petals of the poinsettia tree upon the bosom of her wedding-gown.
David averted his eyes. He could not watch Joe in his anguish, and he
walked on slowly across the garden, in terrible dread of what he would
find.
Debra! he tried to raise his voice, but it was a hoarse raven's croak.
His feet slipped in a puddle of thick dark blood, and he stepped over
the unconscious body of a woman who lay, face down, in a floral dress,
with her arms thrown wide. He did not recognize her as Debra's mother.
Debra! He tried to hurry, but his legs would not respond. He saw her
then, at the corner of the wall where he had left her.
Debra! He felt his heart soar. She seemed unhurt, kneeling below one
of the marble Grecian statues, with the flowers in her hair and the
yellow silk of her dress gay and festive.
She knelt, facing the wall, and her head was bowed as though in prayer.
The dark wing of her hair hung forward screening her and she held her
cupped hands to her face.
Debra. He dropped to his knees beside her, and timidly he touched her
shoulder.
Are you all right, my darling? And she lowered her hands slowly, but
still holding them cupped together. A great coldness closed around
David's chest as he saw that her cupped hands were filled with blood.
Rich'red blood, bright as wine in a crystal glass.
David, she whispered, turning her face towards him. Is that you,
darling? David gave a small breathless moan of agony as he saw the
blood-glutted eye sockets, the dark gelatinous mess that congealed in
the thick dark eyelashes and turned the lovely face into a gory mask.
Is that you, David? she asked again, her head cocked at a blind
listening angle.
Oh God, Debra. He stared into her face.
I can't see, David. She groped for him. Oh David I can't see.
And he took her sticky wet hands in his, and he thought that his heart
would break.
The stark modern silhouette of Hadassah Hospital stood upon the skyline
above the village of Em Karem. The speed with which the ambulances
arrived saved many of the victims whose lives were critically balanced,
and the hospital was geared to sudden influxes of war casualties.
The three men, the Brig, Joe and David, kept their vigil together all
that night upon the hard wooden benches of the hospital waiting-room.
When more was learned of the planning behind the attack, a security
agent would come to whisper a report to the Brig.
One of the assassins was a long-term and trusted employee of the
catering firm, and the other two were his cousins who had. been
employed as temporary staff on his recommendation. It was certain that