Galishnikov told Bennett to get off the road and find a way back. They needed to be heading north, not south. They needed to be getting out of Gaza, not going deeper into it. They were rapidly heading toward the Strip's most dangerous stronghold, the Khan Yunis refugee camp where radical Is lamic forces were especially strong. What were they supposed to do then? How were they supposed to survive with no DSS agents to protect them, and no air support to extract them?
"What the hell are you doing, Jonathan? Get us off this road now — now. "
Snapshot blew down the straightaway so fast it was beginning to shake.
The engine was heading into the red zone. Bennett was pushing this car beyond its limits, but the Jeep was still closing the gap. He couldn't slow down now. He certainly couldn't get off the road or turn around. At the rate they were going they'd just flip the car and roll until they blew up or the Jeep got a clear shot at their gas tank.
Banacci continued to swerve back and forth across the road, trying desperately not to provide a clear shot, while two of his agents lay on their stomachs in the back, laying down M-16 fire, hoping to take out a tire, if not the driver behind them.
Bennett's eyes were locked on the road.
McCoy tried to keep hers from locking on Bennett. She knew he loved his Porsche. She knew he loved flooring it on the open road. But she'd never seen him like this — in total command at a hundred miles an hour, bullets whizzing by their heads.
Suddenly, both of them heard the .50-caliber machine gun unleash— again. Rounds began smashing all across the back of Banacci's already badly damaged Suburban. Then, the unthinkable — two rounds penetrated just to the left of the license plate. They ripped their way forward, into a reserve fuel tank. The force of the explosion lifted Banacci's Suburban into the air and flipped it two or three times before the flaming wreckage crashed to the pavement and skidded off the road onto the front steps of a rain-drenched apartment building.
McCoy whipped around, trying to see exactly what was happening, then instinctively shielded her eyes from the intensity of the blast and the heat, Bennett fought to keep control. The Jeep veered to the right to avoid a crash, smashing out onto the beach before the driver clawed his way back onto the main road and jammed the accelerator to the floor Banacci and his team were gone. The Palestinian gunner now had a clear shot at Snapshot. Bennett was out of options.
EIGHT
The Jeep was gaining on them.
Mitchell and Tracker couldn't believe what they were seeing. At these speeds, the slightest mistake by either driver would be fatal. They still had no way to get friendly forces to them. Whoever survived, if any of them did, might still fall into the hands of Islamic extremists, and then all bets were off. They might be executed on the spot. But that would be the most merciful scenario. More likely they'd be held hostage — tortured, brutalized, without mercy and without much hope of the U.S. or Israelis finding them, much less rescuing them.
Bennett fought to maintain his composure.
He didn't want McCoy to know how he felt. How could she stay so calm under fire? Sure, she was trained. She did this for a living. But it was more than that. She didn't seem scared. She didn't seem to fear death — not like he did.
Bennett's shirt was soaked with sweat. He struggled to breathe normally. Adrenaline coursed through his veins. Fifty-caliber rounds sliced past their windows. Snapshot was moving now at well over 120 miles an hour. They were heading deeper and deeper into enemy territory, and he was scared.
Terrified, actually — he was terrified of dying. So many people in his life had died violently. It wasn't just now, or in Jerusalem a few weeks back. During the September 11 attacks, twenty-three people he'd known well had perished in the inferno. Several dozen more he knew in passing died as well. All of them were colleagues in one way or another. All of them worked in the financial services industry. Like Bennett, they typically got to work at five-thirty or six o'clock in the morning. Like him, none of them ever missed a day of work. They didn't take sick days. They didn't take personal days or mental health days or vacations. They were driven, like he was. They were obsessive, like he was. The difference was where they worked. Their firms rented space in the World Trade Center. They worked in the towers. He did not.
GSX could have easily afforded space there, and Bennett would have loved to have an office somewhere north of the eightieth or ninetieth floors — the commanding heights, he called them. But at the time they were looking, the Trade Center didn't have any space available that high, and Bennett didn't want to consider anything lower. He eventually found the thirty-eighth floor of a high-rise office building overlooking Central Park. It wasn't as high as he wanted. It didn't have views as spectacular as those of some of the guys he'd gone to business school with. But something in his gut told him to take it. So he did. And now his friends were all dead.
Like a bolt of lightning, the message hit the satellite.
It flashed to Gibraltar. From there, it was cross-linked to the angry skies over Gaza and was instantaneously received by the Trojan Spirit II SATCOM system onboard Predator Six. It was decrypted and fed into the hard drive. Unseen at four thousand feet up and five miles out, ttie electro-optic, infrared Versatron Skyball 18 immediately engaged its spotter lens, then its zoom lens, then ran a cross-check.
A fraction of a second later, Predator Six put the Jeep squarely in its sights, fired a laser at its engine block, locked on, and fed the image and targeting data back to the ground station on Gibraltar, where it was shot back to Langley. All systems were green.
Tracker made his recommendation. Mitchell concurred.
The AGM-114-C Hellfire launched clean.
Screaming toward its prey at Mach 2, the six-foot-long, $25,000 missile was nearly as big as the men it targeted. It left no trail. It made no sound. It was essentially invisible to the naked eye. Seventeen seconds later, it slammed unannounced through the front windshield and turned the Jeep into a death trap.
The explosion stunned them all.
The Jeep was gone. A moment later, convinced they faced no other im mediate threats — at least for a few moments — Bennett slowed down and pulled the limo over to the side. When they were safely stopped on the shoulder, he turned and stared at the burning remains. He was grateful to be alive, but couldn't speak. It didn't make sense. What had just happened? His enemies had just been consumed by fire — but how? It was a miracle, That's all he could think of, and he didn't believe in miracles.
Galishnikov also stared out the back window. They were safe, that much he knew. But he badly wanted to be back in Jerusalem, at home with his wife and a good bottle of vodka. Sa'id lifted his head. He got up off the floor and sat back on the seat, staring at the fires behind him. He, too, wanted to be home with his wife and four sons. This was more than he'd bargained for. Perhaps he'd made a terrible mistake. Perhaps he'd been wrong to go into business with Galishnikov, or get mixed up in the peace process. He was sure Galishnikov felt that way. He'd always suspected that just under the surface his Russian Jewish friend despised the Palestinians and thought of them all as terrorists, just as he suspected most Israelis did.