‘Nothing in particular,’ Zhilev said. ‘I’m just enjoying the city.’
‘What’s in the bag?’
Zhilev’s temperature went up a notch though his eyes remained steady. He took the bag off his shoulder. ‘Memorabilia.’
‘You know there are some things you cannot take out of Israel,’ the soldier said, being a pain.
‘No, I did not.’
‘Holy relics. Everyone comes here expecting to take something home but for some pieces you need special permission. What have you got?’
‘A piece of wood,’ Zhilev said, his smile appearing again.
‘Wood?’
‘Yes. I picked it up from a forest by the Dead Sea. My sister likes to carve and I thought it would be nice to have something carved from a piece of wood from the Holy Land.’
The soldier was untouched by Zhilev’s efforts to portray himself as a sensitive individual.
‘Let me see it,’ the soldier demanded.
Zhilev held the neck of his bag open. The soldier leaned over to examine the contents but was not satisfied, that or he was being deliberately obtrusive.
‘Take it out,’ he said coldly, transferring his Uzi sub-machine gun to his left hand so that he could wipe his nose with the sleeve of his right.
Zhilev didn’t move, staring into the soldier’s eyes. ‘Yoni, let’s go,’ one of the other soldiers called out from behind Zhilev. They had moved further around the corner and were only just in view.
‘One minute,’ the soldier said to them. ‘I want to see it,’ he said to Zhilev.
Zhilev slowly bent over and put the bag on the floor, glancing to his side long enough to see the other two soldiers inching away around the corner, engrossed in their conversation. He reached into the bag with both hands, gripped the log, slowly pulled it out and stood upright.
The soldier looked at the log and then at Zhilev with a smirk. ‘You’re carrying around a block of wood,’ he said, emphasising the stupidity of it.
The soldier put his hand on the log and rubbed the bark then pulled on the bottom of it to turn it over, but Zhilev held it firmly. The soldier looked at him with an annoyed expression.
‘Turn it over,’ he said.
Zhilev glanced over his shoulder to see the other two had moved out of sight and he did not waste a second. With lightning speed his hand gripped the soldier around the throat so strongly the man’s tongue flew out and he dropped the Uzi on its harness to grab Zhilev’s hands. Zhilev walked quickly forward, pushing the soldier ahead of him who stumbled backwards trying desperately to pull the vice from his throat. Zhilev held him like a rag doll and shoved him round a corner into a narrower walkway. The soldier could feel the life draining from him as his brain screamed for the oxygen that was being restricted because of the grip on his carotid artery. His hands flicked down to his Uzi and fumbled to get a hold of it but they were torn between removing the hand around his neck and gripping the gun. Before he could wrap his fingers around the weapon grip, Zhilev raised the log and brought it crashing down on to the soldier’s skull with tremendous force, splitting the skin open and severing the artery that runs around the outside of the skull.The blow cracked the log open and a chunk of it flew off to expose a dull metal sphere. Blood immediately spurted over Zhilev and he raised the device to hit the soldier once again, but he felt the man’s weight increase as his knees gave out. The soldier let go of his weapon and his hands dropped to his sides as the nerves ceased to send signals to his muscles.
Zhilev had to move quickly. He let the soldier drop unconscious to the ground, blood seeping from the wound on his head, and unceremoniously yanked the Uzi strap from around his neck, then ran past the walkway where the other soldiers were standing, and through an arch that led to the market beneath the buildings.
The soldiers, who had returned to see what was keeping their colleague, saw the walkway empty, then Zhilev run across the end of it. Their instincts immediately cried alarm and they hurried to the junction. On seeing their colleague lying on the ground they ran to him to find he was not breathing. One pulled the soldier on to his back to try and revive him while the other set off in pursuit of Zhilev.
The soldier ran into the market tunnel, the M16 in his shoulder ready to fire, and stopped to scan about. The tunnel ran straight in both directions and was not very crowded in this section, a handful of Palestinians going about their business, but there was no sign of the large Russian. It seemed impossible in the short space of time, but he had disappeared.
Raz’s car arrived at the street above the Damascus Gate and pulled to a stop, blocking traffic. Ignoring the honking horns he climbed out and made his way to the top of the steps. He was met by one of his agents who quickly explained how Stratton and the man he was with had split up, and that he had followed Stratton, who was running, and lost him outside the gate, believing he had entered the old city.
Raz could not think what to make of it. He had no information of any specific threat and was angry that British intelligence was conducting its own operation on Israeli territory without consulting him. On the other hand he was experienced enough to recognise that whatever it was they were up to had rapidly developed into something urgent, and that Stratton was reacting to what was no doubt an emergency. The British argument would be that Stratton intended to brief the Israelis but events suddenly got ahead of things. That would come later. Right now, he had a British agent in pursuit of something that was obviously important or they would not be here, and the man was operating unsupported, except for the mysterious Palestinian.
‘Go through Herod’s Gate,’ Raz said. ‘Call me as soon as you see him but don’t stop him. And get some people here,’ he shouted as he ran down the steps and hurried towards the entrance to the city.
Stratton jogged along a broad walkway that was practically deserted, the frustration of looking for Zhilev eating away at him.With every passing minute he was growing closer to quitting the assignment, the voices in his head urging him to find a gate and get out of the city and as far away from it as possible. Deserting was not in his nature but his devil was pressing him to save himself, reminding him he didn’t owe anyone anything, that he had done his best and although it was not good enough, that’s how things went sometimes. No one ever won them all. Gabriel would not be around to point the finger at him.The question would be asked why he had not brought Gabriel out with him, and it would be a difficult one to answer. Everyone would know Stratton had run, but so what? Who wouldn’t have? The simple answer was, he could not save the city and so why die just to prove he had tried? The only thing that was keeping him on the search so far was that he believed he still had some time.
It had to be assumed that Zhilev was not on a suicide mission and would most likely set the device timer to give him the leeway to escape the blast. What was eating at Stratton was the growing belief that Zhilev had already planted the device in a secure location and was on his way out of town. Finding it would be an impossible task. If Zhilev had left himself enough time to get away, that meant Stratton could also escape, but only if he left now.
He paused to check the map. Every path eventually led to an exit and the one he was on headed back towards the Damascus Gate. He made up his mind. He would search as far as the gate, and if he did not find Zhilev, he would quit. As for Abed, since he no longer knew where he was, the Palestinian was on his own.
Stratton jogged up an incline and paused at a right turn that led towards what looked like a monastery on the brow of a rise where several monks were having a conversation. Straight ahead, in the distance, was the main market again. Both paths led to the gate. He was about to take the less crowded monastery option when something caught his eye. In front of him, protruding into the street and attached to the corner of a large building at a crooked angle, was what appeared to be a small mausoleum.The entrance was protected by an iron fence linked to a pair of ancient pillars, their tops broken off just above the level of the gate, which was chained shut.What caught his attention was the carving in the stone above the door. It was of Christ lying on the ground with his cross over his back, but above that was written the number three in Roman numerals. The last thing Gabriel had said to him as he left the hotel was the number seven without knowing what it meant. Beside the number three were the letters STA. The meaning hit him like a freight train. He had read the short blurb on the back of the map about the fourteen stations of Christ’s journey with his cross through the streets of the old city to his eventual crucifixion. STA was short for station. A sign on a wall named the road as the Via Dolorosa, the Path of Pain.