Chapter 31

Losing a Tail

Red’s finger probed inside Moses’ back. The hole went through a rib, and shards of bone cut his skin as he pressed his pinky deeper. He grabbed a steak knife and cut away the senator’s polo shirt in a long slice. The squelching music coming through ceiling speakers sounded like deaf cats mating. Or a Russian trying to yodel.

Lori pressed a thumb against the hole in her father’s sternum. She spoke in a hush. “What’re you doing?”

“Bullet channel is through a rib. I can’t get my finger in to pinch off the bleeding.” He placed the blade into the hole.

Lori grabbed his wrist. “You can’t cut him.”

There wasn’t much hope of the man living at that point, but Red had to try. “Give him something to bite on. I’ve got to slice a passage around the bone so I can get my finger inside.” Subsonic round, so the bullet might not have gone much deeper. But no way to know. He’d seen silenced 9mm bullets pass clear through a thigh. And who knew what damage the bullet in his chest had done.

Lori grabbed a thin wooden wheel spoke from the cart next to her and yanked it loose with a crack. She bent over her father. “Dad, hold...bite down on this…Dad.” Her voice shifted to a whimper, like the whine of a puppy. She slapped the man’s cheeks. “Tony, he’s not responding.” Her short black hair parted around the pale skin on her nape as she leaned. Panic swelled in her eyes.

Red pressed fingers into the warm rolls of her father’s neck, against his windpipe. Cardiac arrest. He rolled Moses onto his back and began chest compressions. A sadistic pararescue medic had once demonstrated on a mannequin how the seventies tune “Stayin’ Alive” set the perfect rhythm for CPR. Now, the Bee Gees sang in his mind as he counted compressions. What an awful song.

If the senator’s heart started again, they’d need an ambulance. Amazing no patrons had ventured down this far end of the store, but there weren’t many this time of night and it had only been a couple of minutes. Time only seemed to stand still when bullets flew. The shots had been silenced, the struggle brief, and the yodel-mating had muted any other escaping noises.

“I’ll keep doing CPR. Get someone to call for an ambulance. Keep an eye. If these guys don’t work alone, backup won’t be far.”

Lori stood and lifted her hand from her father’s chest. The next compression squirted a jet of blood a few inches into the air. She dropped back down and covered the fountain. She placed fingers against his neck and her ear to his mouth. Her eyes were moist. Her lips quivered, but she was still holding herself together.

A few more compressions and Red slipped a palm beneath Moses’ neck, straightening his windpipe.

Lori covered her father’s mouth with her palm. “It’s no use. He’s gone.” A single tear streaked her nose.

Red shoved her hand out of the way, pinched the senator’s nostrils, and blew into his lungs. The hole in his back gurgled. “Damn it!” He slammed his fist onto the senator’s chest. “I’m sorry, dear.”

Lori stood. “We need to get out of here.”

Red searched the ceiling. No CCTVs. He jumped up, grabbed the senator’s hand, stretched his arm, and scraped the fingers across the assassin’s cheek, gouging three streaks. Enough to get the dead woman’s skin under his fingernails. He wrapped the same hand around the hilt of the knives protruding from her gut and neck. He grabbed a clump of her hair and yanked it out, then shoved it between the dead man’s fingers. Lori seemed to catch the idea, and snatched up the knives that had bounced, wiped them across her shirt, and pressed them against her father’s finger pads.

Attagirl.

She reached behind canned tomatoes and pulled out an envelope. Must have been the drop. He gazed at the pistol in the woman’s hand. The rectangular outline of an extra magazine protruded from her pants pocket. But he couldn’t take the weapon without upsetting the stage.

A squeak from a cart’s wheel approached from the front. They turned and sprinted the opposite direction, careful to remain silent. Red slipped around the end of the aisle, picked up two rolls of paper towels, and studied them as if comparing prices. Only a hunched man in black pants and white yarmulke shuffled along twenty meters away. Red ripped open a roll and wiped the blood from his hands, stuffing the dirty towels into his pocket and passing clean ones to Lori. “Anyone notices our sleeves are stained, tell them we grabbed a leaky ketchup bottle.” He peeked around the corner of the fruit aisle as a young blond man pushed a cart of boxes into the center. He walked faster than an employee would. He stopped when he glimpsed the bodies and pulled something from one of the boxes. The lights were dim, obscured by palm leaves, but the squared silhouette of a Glock 17 was unmistakable. The same weapon as the assassin.

He’d have to kill this guy as well.

Lori grabbed his arm and ran toward the back of the store. “Follow me.”

She must have an exfil. A few rows down, she turned and started toward the cashiers. But they should be moving away from people. She held up her hands and spouted something in another language. Must have been Hebrew, because a young woman in a pink headscarf reached below a rainbow-colored cash register and lifted out an IMI Galil assault rifle. Looked like a Grateful Dead fan going vigilante. She thumbed the selector switch one click rearward—full auto. Nice. An off-duty soldier.

Two couples ducked and sprinted toward the front door. A few others squatted low behind checkout racks. No screaming. These people knew what it was to live under the constant threat of a terrorist attack. The woman aimed the weapon toward the fruit aisle. If Red snatched it from her, he could take the man out himself.

Before he could, Lori jerked him down the adjacent checkout aisle. He ran after her outside. She leaned into a freezer and lifted out two bags of ice. “Stay here. Then choke out the driver.” She turned and walked across the street.

What driver? Red’s taxi had dropped him and sped off an hour ago. Why’d she take bags of ice? Lori approached a red Audi A4 parked in front of a white Subaru. A sporty model. The Audi’s driver glanced up from a glowing screen, then scrambled out his door. He grabbed the plastic bags from Lori with one hand, holding the rear door open with the other.

That’s my girl. The ice must’ve been meant to set up the driver so Red could put him to sleep.

As the man dropped them into the trunk, Red snuck up behind and locked his neck into a choke hold. The driver couldn’t scream. He struggled for a few seconds; then his body collapsed. Red started to push him into the trunk with the ice, then lowered him to the sidewalk instead. He’d be safer there and come to in a few seconds.

Lori slid through the driver’s door. Red followed, shoving her across the console to the passenger seat. “I’m driving. You navigate.” Manual transmission. Perfect.

Shouts came from inside the store, echoed by three cracks from the Galil, then pops from the pistol. He shifted into second, redlined the tach, popped the clutch, and they shot forward as all four wheels squealed on the damp pavement. Steered like it was on rails. The turbo whined and gulped air as he slapped the shifter through its gate.

Lori buckled her belt and fingered her phone. Straight black hair, pale skin. She looked like the wife from The Addams Family. Kind of turned him on. “What’s your exfil?”

She lunged at him and shoved his shoulder. “What the hell was that about?”

With his wife, the line between sorrow and anger often blurred. “What was what about? I’m making this up as I go.” He yanked the wheel to avoid a pothole. “You OK?”

“Why’d you bring Dad?”

Bring her father? She trying to blame her mess on him? “I didn’t! You did.”

She clenched her fingers into fists. “Why’re you here at all?”

This was going nowhere. “Always wanted to visit Jerusalem and pick up a hooker. You’ll have to do.”

She aimed a punch at his chin, but the shoulder strap stopped her swing short. She jabbed at his head with her off hand. He tapped the brakes, and the seat belt snatched her neck. “Calm down and get us back to the airport.” He paused at a stoplight, downshifted, and accelerated through the intersection into an on-ramp. No idea where they were headed, but it was away from the supermarket.

“We’ve got a safe house ten kilometers from here. We can hole up, make some calls, and ensure all’s clear before we show our faces in public.”

“Who’s Paili Baum? That name mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“Then we’ve got a name. You can check her out once we’re stateside. Finish what your father started.”

“Dad knew he was dying when he said that. Whatever he was planning, it’s already in motion. We need to get to the safe house.”

Red glanced in the rearview. A streetlight glinted off a white Subaru five seconds behind them. “We’re not going to your safe house.”

Her eyes bulged. She shouted, “You’re out of your depth, Tony! Trust me. We can’t head to the Tel Aviv airport without making sure no one is going to be looking for us.”

Hadn’t they worked through the trust issue back in the forest? Dr. Sato wasn’t doing their relationship any good. “I’m the one who just killed an assassin with a $1.99 steak knife. You attacked her with a grapefruit. And missed. I’m not the one out of my depth. Did I mention black hair makes you look like a Goth hooker?” Abreast of an exit ramp, he slammed on the brakes and twisted the wheel. The vehicle drifted sideways, tires trailing smoke. He applied power, pulling into a turn, rear bumper slipping past yellow crash barriers, throttling onto the ramp at ninety kilometers per hour. He glanced into the rear. Four doors. Enough room for booster seats. Maybe Lori would let him trade in the Explorer for one of these.

The white Subaru made a sudden lane change and followed. He yelled over the engine and tire noise, “We can’t go to your safe house because we’ve got a tail. Just verified it.”

Down a short straightaway the chase vehicle seemed to gain. Red steered between two storefronts, one with a neon shoe in the window, then made another quick turn into an alley. He slammed on the brakes and cut the lights. “You trust me?”

She turned in his direction, but darkness obscured her expression. “Right now I think you’re a cocky, chauvinistic, egotistical sonofabitch.”

“You knew that when you married me. But do you trust me?”

“Yes! Whatever. Pull off the road if you’re trying to hide.”

“Good. Then relax. You’ll need to be loose for this.” Red shifted into reverse, gunned the engine, and released the clutch. He twisted to see through the rear windshield, and the vehicle raced back down the alley, aimed at the road from which they’d just come. The intersection was dim, and a brown cement wall stood on the opposite side. Lori braced against the seat. As they closed in, other headlights sped toward the same intersection. He pressed the pedal all the way down. Needed to time this perfectly. Past the point of no return. With a crack, he collided with the chase vehicle. Metal crunched. Glass crashed. A sharp bang, an airbag curtain exploded down the rear windshield, and the car was filled with the acrid, phenolic scent of spent gunpowder.