Covenant

29

Ethan plunged into the alley behind Rachel, running hard as they dashed between the narrow walls, dodging abandoned litter and leaping the rusting carcass of an old bicycle. Rachel burst out into another street, this one narrower still, looking left and then right as Ethan rushed out behind her.

Another café to their left stood with chairs abandoned outside on the pavement. A pram with a missing wheel lay on its side on the opposite side of the road, and somewhere above them a series of window shutters slammed shut. At both ends of the street, cars accelerated toward them.

Ethan turned and saw the shapes of men rushing toward them through the alley. He felt his guts twist deep inside him as panic fluttered through his chest. The cars screamed up to them, armed and masked men leaping from the interiors with assault rifles in their hands. Ethan moved closer to Rachel, and realized that he had failed to protect her.

“Game’s up,” he said.

In the abandoned street Ethan raised his hands, watching as a group of fifteen or so men poured out of the alley behind them, AK-47s in their hands and unimaginable thoughts running through their minds.

Within seconds Ethan and Rachel were surrounded by shouting Palestinians, several of whom began punching the air and firing loud staccato shots from their rifles into the night sky. Ethan placed a hand on Rachel’s forearm and squeezed it as reassuringly as he could.

“We’ll be okay,” he whispered.

From behind him, a gruff voice shouted out in broken English, “Get on the ground, hands on your head!”

“We’re American,” Ethan said, “and we’re looking for—”

Something hard cracked across the back of his legs and he collapsed, his knees smashing painfully on the unforgiving concrete. He had just enough time to see Rachel being grabbed by two men, and then a musty-smelling sack was shoved over his head.

“We lost them.”

Spencer Malik stood behind a MACE technician operating a computer and two monitors, one of which was filled with the face of a helicopter pilot glowing in the light of his instruments.

“How the hell can you lose a damned airplane?”

“They bailed out,” the pilot explained. “Israeli air traffic control ordered us to cease jamming their signals. We saw two ’chutes go down somewhere in the Gaza Strip. We’re tracking them with cameras but they’ve been grabbed, probably by insurgents. We’re having trouble keeping them in sight outside of Gaza airspace.”

“Does air traffic know that anyone has bailed out?”

“Not yet. My guess is that whatever they’ve been up to, the pilots are not going to admit anything to the IDF. Best we’ll get is a detention and questioning, but we can’t prove a thing.”

Warner had the camera footage, Malik reasoned, and his priority was getting it back to Israel without MACE being able to intercept him. Now, Malik had to find the little bastard before he managed to get to any of the crossing points on the Gazan border. Byron Stone was due to arrive soon, and if Israel got hold of the footage, heads would roll. He had the distinct impression that his would be first.

“Let the aircraft go,” Malik said quickly, “stay on the refugees.”

Malik looked down at the technician.

“How soon can we have a Valkyrie drone over the Strip?”

“An hour,” the technician replied, “but it would have to be cleared by Israel first.”

Malik nodded, looking at the helicopter pilot. “Relay the camera’s tracking data here.”

The pilot said something over his intercom to a crew member in the rear of the helicopter. Instantly, a grainy image from a night-vision camera appeared, following a convoy of four cars through the streets of Gaza.

Malik watched the screen for several seconds before making his decision.

“Track them to their destination. Mark the coordinates and relay them here. I’ll organize clearance for the UAV.”

“Roger that.”

The helicopter pilot’s image vanished, and the technician turned to look up at Malik.

“Israel’s not going to give us UAV clearance over the Gaza Strip easily.”

Malik looked thoughtfully at the screen. Having a foreign-owned, built, and armed unmanned aerial vehicle marauding over Gaza wasn’t going to be a walkover, but Israel’s deeply ingrained xenophobia had served MACE well in the past.

“Get all of the video data downloaded to my workstation. All Israel needs to know is that we’re tracking terrorists who may pose a threat. Enhance anything that may give that impression from the footage and remove everything that suggests otherwise.”