May 3
9822 Watchung Road
Essex County
Short Hills, New Jersey
5:13 P.M. EDT
They sprinted in a half-crouch across the expanse of lawn, their paths diverging as they neared the house. Jameson and Rachel veered toward the back, heading for the door through which the two men with the submachine guns had disappeared; Beck angled toward the curtained window that logic and architecture dictated was the room upon which that door opened.
It was a sound plan, at least in theory: Presumably, coming up behind the men with the automatic weapons would provide the policeman and the Mossad agent the element of surprise; with luck, since only a fool announces an arrest to men advantaged with automatic firepower, also the first two shots. Beck would take that as his cue to smash the window, presumably avoiding any awkward entanglement with the inside curtain, the longer barrel of his weapon also presumably less a close-quarters encumbrance than if it had been part of the entry team. Presumably, the 12-gauge would then command any others in the room, or neutralize—permanently—any who objected.
That’s a hell of a lot of presumptions, Beck told himself as he skidded to a knee below the targeted window and pressed against the brick siding.
He estimated that his heartbeat measured two to the second.
One second. Two seconds. Three. Four—
Instead of the alleged sharpshooters’ two shots, there was a sudden barking stutter of an automatic weapon.
Then hell broke loose, if hell featured a particularly active shooting gallery.
Beck stood, raked the barrel of the Mossberg against the window glass in a hard arc downward and to the side; fragments flew in all directions, but mostly inward. Holding the shotgun in his right, Beck snatched at the damnably clinging curtain and pulled it completely from the window, a stubborn shard of glass left in the frame slicing unnoticed deep across the back of his left hand.
Heedless of the blood, he leaned into the smashed window, pressing against the brickwork of the house with shotgun at shoulder and eyes focused beyond the small black ball of the foresight as he swung it across the room.
Forms were rushing in every direction, some of them dropping heavily to the bloody floor, flashes of individual shots competing with the ragged tongues of flame from two submachine guns roaring, now only one as a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses vaporized from the impact of a large-caliber bullet to the left lens…
In the middle of the room, incongruous amid the chaos, a man was in a fetal curl, cradling what looked like a video-cam, rocking back and forth on his side. Beck swung the shotgun’s barrel past him, looking for a target armed with an implement more dangerous.
And found one.
A single man, his face gray-bearded and lined; alone among the tumult of moving figures, he stood stock-still, defiant in a halo of bright-white light.
Alone but for one other: Kneeling before him, a large knife poised at her throat, a horrifyingly familiar face looked out, met Beck’s own shocked eyes.
Katie Casey stared at her father, opened her mouth as if to speak.
As she did, Beck saw the movement in Ahmad Abu Khaled’s arm.
At the same instant, he felt the recoil, heard the deafening blast of the shotgun he held.
A nanosecond later, he felt a pile driver smash into him, one-two-three hard against his stomach, even before he recognized the renewed stutter of the automatic weapon that sent them his way. The serial impacts spun him around, knocking him back and away from the window, the side of his head slamming hard into the brickwork that framed it.
Beck Casey fell, heavily, to the lush green grass of the lawn.