“You called your brother.”
“And implored him to take action. Now he lies near death, a victim of the very force he helped to create.”
“A victim of another member of the Tau, Tovah.”
“No,” she protested. “No! That can’t be. It just can’t!”
“Who else could have preserved your legacy for all these years? Who else could have known about the intricate details of your methods, the training procedures? Who else could have known the exact location of the chamber where the White Death could be found?” Blaine stopped and stared deeply into her eyes. “The fourth person who ventured down into that cavern and killed the other three, Tovah. That’s who’s responsible for reviving the vengeance of the Tau.”
The old woman’s face became eerily calm. “But they can be stopped. You can stop them.”
“How did you find me?” McCracken asked her.
“The manner was rather indirect.” Tovah eyed first Blaine, then Melissa. “The trails the two of you followed led to individuals we have been watching for some time. When my brother was nearly killed, I knew the time had come to intensify our surveillance. Women of Nineteen were dispatched to watch over our subjects. The woman at the toymaker’s alerted us of your presence. I ordered her to assist you, if it became necessary.”
“Lucky for me,” said Blaine.
“But why watch Gunthar Brandt?” raised Melissa. “He was simply a soldier at Altaloon. I found him through his journal. Why would you bother watching him?”
“Shouldn’t you be asking instead why he wanted to kill you? The answer to both questions is the same. Gunthar Brandt did not write that journal; he merely supplied the notebook that already bore his name to a young soldier.”
Melissa recalled that the name “Gunthar Brandt” and his hometown had been penned on the inside page of the journal. A name at the end she had assumed to be Brandt’s must have been that of the journal’s true author.
“Gunthar Brandt was the board of science’s representative at Altaloon to oversee the operation and report on it,” Tovah continued. “Until his purported stroke, he remained militantly active in the rising neo-Nazi movement within Germany today.”
“But why would he try to kill me?” Melissa raised.
“He must have thought you were getting close to the truth. When he had learned what you knew and who you had seen, killing you was the soundest strategy to keep himself safe.”
“From you?”
“Very perceptive, young lady. I would imagine that he initially feared that we had sent you. He spoke only after being satisfied there was no connection, at least not yet.”
“And in spite of all this you let Brandt and the toymaker live,” Blaine challenged.
“Because it was equally important for us to know who our true enemies were. I preferred to watch who might come for an audience with either one of them.”
“Quite a risk.”
“The stakes were worth the risk. I don’t have to tell you about the dangerous state the world lies in today.” The old woman’s stare grew distant. “In Germany, the marches and parades have begun again. The persecution of foreigners has begun again. Outlawed Nazi anthems are sung in public with the police standing passively by; sympathizing, even supporting the madness.” Her eyes sharpened again. “You see, the Tau is not the only thing that has returned. Imagine for a moment the White Death in the hands of a new generation of madmen!”
“Something that never could have happened if not for the return of one of the Tau’s original members to Ephesus to remove the rest of the crates containing it. We’ve got to track down the surviving members, Tovah. It’s the only way to—”
McCracken broke off speaking and stiffened, as a pair of armed women rushed into the area and headed straight for the table. One of them leaned over and whispered a message into the old woman’s ear. She nodded and sent the two of them on their way.
“It seems,” she told McCracken, “that we have company.”
Chapter 30
“Who?” Blaine asked, rising deliberately to his feet.
“Terrorists, or some pretending to be terrorists.”
“The Tau,” Melissa said, eyes meeting McCracken’s.
“Whoever they are, how’d they get through the IDF security lines?”
“Such things have been known to happen before,” Tovah explained. “There is no need to worry. We are prepared for this. Our early warning system makes use of its own security lines.”
McCracken was suddenly fidgety, agitated, like a Doberman straining at its leash. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to check that out for myself.”
“I have no problem with that, Mr. McCracken, so long as you take me with you.”
They came in a single wave attack from the west: eight gunmen dressed in camouflage gear with Arab headdresses and masks covering their faces. Judging by the figures they saw at the kibbutz, bent to their accustomed tasks, the gunmen’s presence had gone undetected. Once within range, they would kill everyone they came across en route to their primary target.
The men fanned out as planned and easily bypassed the trip wires in entering the grounds of the kibbutz. Each one headed toward his assigned sector. In the fields and within the kibbutz itself, the figures they had glimpsed continued to go about their business, unknowing, unseeing. Thirty seconds later, the leader gave the signal.
The men lunged into the open, their bullets slicing the air in constant fire. The victims who had the misfortune to be exposed took the brunt of the initial barrages, slammed again and again by bullets.
The leader screamed hoarsely as he opened fire on another victim from in close. At once his mouth dropped. The victim’s guts had been spilled into the air. There was no blood, though, just raggedy straw stuffing.
“What …”
“Take them!” a voice screamed in Hebrew.
The leader had barely had a chance to move before the bullets found him. He crumpled to the ground, just managing to press the single red button on his communicator.
“Take them!”
The order had been given just after McCracken had stowed Tovah’s wheelchair in a position that afforded a clear view of the kibbutz’s western side. He had begun to advance himself when the next wave of gunfire froze him.
“As I said,” Tovah reminded, “everything is under control.”
“Dummies,” Blaine realized.
“Inevitably effective against the overanxious attacker.”
“So it seems.”
With the signal given, the aimed commandos of Nineteen had appeared from dozens of concealed positions. Before the terrorists could respond, they were cut down in incessant hails of fire that spared nothing. Not a single one was left standing after mere seconds.
“A pity we didn’t have a chance to witness your skills,” Tovah called forward to McCracken.
Blaine had remained rigid, immobile. “When was the last time you faced an attack?”
“Two years ago. But why—”
The sound of revving engines stopped Tovah in midsentence. Her face crinkled with fear, mouth trembling and gaze swinging in search of the sound’s origin.
“Because I don’t believe in coincidence,” Blaine said.
Heavy-caliber automatic fire begin to ring out. Before them the armed women of Nineteen had begun rushing toward the front of the kibbutz. In the narrowing distance, Blaine could see eight six-wheeled, armored enemy jeeps storming the area, each heavily armed.
“Help me!” Tovah implored, starting to wheel herself forward over the uneven ground.