“Are there any other weapons on board?” Vialli shouted.
The Israeli soldier pulled the slide back on his M-16 to chamber a round and pointed his rifle at the approaching men.
Suddenly shots shattered the windshield on the right side of the bus. The soldier was struck by several bullets and thrown back into the seat behind the driver. Vialli tried to grab his M-16 but the soldier had the strap around his shoulder. Vialli crouched and retreated down the aisle.
The children were hysterical, screaming. The teachers were pleading with them to stay down on the floor of the bus.
More shots rang out and the window on the door shattered. The armed men yelled at the driver, who reached for the handle to open the door.
Vialli sat down next to Irit, bending over, trying to keep his head below the top of the seat. “You okay?”
“Yes. They’re speaking Arabic.”
“You speak Arabic?”
“Yes.”
“Now what?” Vialli asked Irit, his eyes darting around for a means of escape. He looked to the back of the bus and saw there wasn’t a rear door, not even a bathroom. There was no way out except through the front door or a window. He reached over Irit, grabbed the two handles of the top window, and pulled it all the way down. It left a hole big enough for him to get out of if he had to. “If they get on we’re going out the window,” he murmured in a low, tense voice.
She nodded, understanding. In seconds two of the armed men were on board. Vialli stood up to help Irit out the window when he saw five other men running toward them from the beach, their automatic weapons trained on the bus. They were all dressed in black jumpsuits and wore black ski masks, no insignia or rank on any of them. They yelled at the people on the bus, waving their weapons wildly.
“What are they saying?” Vialli demanded, trying to understand.
“I don’t know,” Irit said, her face suddenly colorless, her voice hoarse.
Vialli looked at her and saw she was looking straight ahead, dead calm. He tried desperately to get his running shoe off in the cramped enclosure of the bus seat. He had double-knotted it as he always did, and grunted as he forced it off. He slid his Navy ID card inside it before furiously working it back on.
The two men in the front of the bus were yelling at the driver to no effect. He didn’t speak Arabic. The driver, shaking, saw the other men outside the bus pointing their weapons at him. He opened the door again slowly as a hand reached through the broken glass and forced it open the rest of the way. The others charged onto the bus, suddenly full of men wearing black. Making their way down the aisle, they pointed their weapons at the passengers, who screamed and cowered on the floor. The men spoke rapidly to each other, trying to gain immediate control. Up front, one of the men shouted at the driver in Arabic. Another terrorist said something to the first one and pulled him away from the driver. He spoke quietly to the driver in Hebrew, and the driver nodded.
From where they were, Vialli and Irit could see everything that was happening. Irit breathed hard, trying to understand what was being said to the driver; Vialli watched the terrorists to see if they had any vulnerabilities.
One of the bigger terrorists, six feet tall and stockily built, walked back and stood next to Vialli. He pointed his rifle at Vialli’s head. Vialli recognized the gun as a Galil, the same kind Moshe had shown him on the train. The bus began moving and the man grabbed one of the handles on the back of a seat to keep his balance. He shifted the gun away from Vialli’s head.
Vialli stole a glance at him. His face wore a cold determined expression, a look that Vialli had seen before in street fighters who fought all the time. For fun. The ones who knew something hard was ahead, and were ready for it. Regaining his feet, the man suddenly concentrated on Irit. He spoke to her softly, with the same look in his eyes. Vialli watched her react. “What is he saying?” Vialli demanded. She shook her head as the man continued. The terrorist continued talking to Irit, still holding the gun to Vialli’s head. She shook her head again and again, fear in her eyes. “What’s he saying?” Vialli asked once more.
Shouting at Vialli, the terrorist hit him in the side of the head with the barrel of his rifle.
The man who seemed to be the leader came back and talked to the stockily built one, who pointed to Irit, satisfaction on his face. The leader nodded and began speaking rapid Arabic to Irit. She pretended not to understand.
The leader’s submachine gun dangled from his shoulder on a sling. Vialli recognized it as an Israeli Uzi. He began calculating whether he could grab it at about the time the leader pulled a handgun out of his belt, holding it to Vialli’s head with his left hand. “Get up.”
Vialli was surprised to hear English. “What do you want?”
“Get up,” the man repeated, swaying with the movement of the bus. The driver was speeding down the highway and the terrorists were spaced throughout the bus, covering every direction.
“What do you want?” he repeated, still not moving.
The leader brought his handgun up and hit Vialli in the mouth with the barrel, splitting his lip and shattering his two front teeth instantly. “Get up!” he yelled again.
“Thshit,” Vialli cursed through the blood and broken teeth.
“Sit there!” the man insisted, pointing to the seat in front of them. Vialli rose and staggered to the seat, sitting down heavily, fighting the pain in his head.
The leader returned his attention to Irit, putting his handgun back into his belt. He unslung his Uzi and handed it to one of his men. Some of Vialli’s blood was on the seat next to Irit. The leader touched it with his finger and looked at it. It was bright red. He touched her cheek with his bloody finger. He spoke to her in Arabic, obviously asking her a question. Vialli tried to figure out what the man wanted; he was concentrating on Irit, no one else. He peppered her with questions. She sat silently, staring at him.
Finally she spoke in fluent Arabic, which seemed to gratify the leader for a moment, as if he were making progress. He asked her another question, which she also refused to answer. He kept using the same word over and over again. Vialli knew he had heard the word, but couldn’t identify it. The bus slowed and the leader looked out the window toward the water. Turning to the man behind him, he spoke. The man looked down at the small electrical device he was holding and nodded. Vialli tried to see what it was. He could make out four white arrows on a handset with a small window — a GPS receiver. Global Positioning System. A satellite navigation system that allowed anyone with a receiver to know his position within a few feet. They were checking a rendezvous point.
Vialli stared out at the water, but saw nothing. It was growing quite dark.
The leader turned back to Irit with more intensity. He asked her one more question, which she clearly wasn’t going to answer. He nodded to two others in masks, who reached over the seat and grabbed her, pulling her screaming toward the aisle. One of the men grabbed her right arm and pulled it out. Her deformed hand was exposed for all to see.
The leader glanced at it and nodded. Satisfied. He took out his handgun, pointing it at her. Vialli leaped out of his seat, and lunged at him. He went for the man’s gun with his left hand, momentarily knocking the terrorist’s arm away and grabbing for the other’s Uzi. Vialli was much bigger and he was quick, and his movement caught the other man by surprise. Vialli managed to get his hand on the Uzi and was pulling on it roughly when the leader reached out with his gun and struck Vialli viciously on the head. He fell back, blood dripping from a deep gash. The heel of the handgun hit him again, this time squarely in the forehead, dropping him instantly to the floor. Vialli lost consciousness as his body fell to the rough rubber mat. The leader pointed the gun at his back and pulled the trigger twice. Two bullets tore into Vialli, killing him instantly.