The Lance

CHAPTER THREE

Carter sat with his back against the wall at a café in the New City, drinking espresso, watching the crowd. The night was warm. The pedestrian mall where King George and Ben-Yahuda streets and the Jaffa Road came together in Jerusalem was packed with people.

For the Jewish people, Jerusalem was the center of the world. It was where the Messiah would some day appear. It was the place where God had commanded the building of His Temple, where every stone, pebble and grain of dust on the Temple Mount was sacred ground. Devout Jews all over the world recited prayers each day for the restoration of the Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

The most important shrines of Christianity were here. The tomb of Christ, the room of the last supper, the Garden of Gethsemane where Christ received the Judas kiss. The place where Pontius Pilate passed sentence. The place of crucifixion. Every Christian denomination in the world had a church or shrine somewhere in the Old City.

For Muslims, the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount was one of the holiest sites in Islam. The Mosque faced the Dome of the Rock, where they believed Muhammad had ascended to heaven on a winged horse to receive instruction from God. The Muslims had lost Jerusalem to the Israelis in the 1967 war. They wanted it back.

Armies had fought over Jerusalem for three thousand years. The narrow streets of the Old City had run ankle deep in blood more than once. Unless someone found a path to peace in the region, Carter figured the streets would run with blood again.

He'd thought he was done with all that, with the blood, when he left the Marines. Now he worked for the Project. Even though he was a civilian, he was still waking up in war zones. He did his best not to think about it. Best thing, focus on the mission. It was why he was in Jerusalem on a perfect October evening. Someone had to do it.

Carter drank his coffee and watched the crowd, tracking, reading expressions, looking for anything unusual. His eyes never stayed still. It was an old habit and it was why he was still alive. He never assumed he was safe. He never trusted appearances.

A young woman in a red dress played an accordion nearby. She had long, dark tresses and she laughed while she played. A small group of smiling people stood in front of her, tapping their feet in time to the music. Children ran through the throng. Carter smiled.

The night disappeared in violent white light.

The blast sent Nick backward into the wall and down to the pavement. Pain shot up his spine.

Everything went white. He was back in Afghanistan. He could smell the dust, hear the AKs firing, the explosions all around him. Then the white faded. The flashback faded. He could still hear the echoes of the AKs and smell the dry dust of the street. For a moment he didn't know where he was. A pall of black smoke hung over torn bodies spread in a red smear across the plaza. A flat, dead silence filled his ears. Then the screaming started.

A heavy café table lay on top of him. He pushed it to the side and got to his feet. The woman in the red dress lay crumpled and torn nearby, her accordion shattered and silent.

Broken glass and smashed furniture littered the plaza. There was blood on him, but it wasn't his. Carter took a step and tripped. He looked down at a child's foot in a blue shoe. It was just a small foot. A piece of white bone stuck out of a pink sock.

He bent over and threw up the espresso in a yellow brown stream. The acrid, coppery stench of blood poisoned the clean night air. He straightened up and wiped his lips. Something caught his eye across the way.

A man stood off to the side of the plaza. He was of medium height, with close set dark eyes, black hair, a thin black mustache and neat beard. He wore a shapeless brown jacket, baggy brown pants and a dirty yellow shirt. He was talking on a cell phone.

He was smiling.

The smile vanished when he saw Carter looking at him. He turned and walked away, holding the phone to his ear.

Who smiles at a slaughterhouse? Carter started after him.

Brown Jacket picked up his pace. He glanced back and turned into a wide alley between two buildings. Nick wished he had his .45. The Israelis had refused to let him carry it. He began running. Shouts sounded behind him as he sprinted into the alley.

The alley crossed between the buildings to the next street over. Brown Jacket and two others stood halfway down. At the far end of the passage a white Volvo waited, motor running, one man inside. Brown Jacket said something to the two men and walked toward the car. The others started toward Nick.

The larger man wore a loose blue jacket over a dingy white shirt and jeans. His head was bullet shaped and shaven. His face was dissolute, with ridges of old scar tissue over eyes that looked dead. His ears were crumpled cauliflowers and his hands were broad clubs, scarred with swollen and broken knuckles. A street fighter, a boxer.

The other man was the leader. He was small, mean looking and dark, with shiny, squinty eyes, a scruffy beard and a nasty smile that showed gaps in his teeth. The two separated, a few feet apart, Squinty to Nick's right, Boxer to his left. A flash of steel appeared in each man's hand.

Knives. He hated knives.

Words echoed inside his head.

You've got two choices in an alley fight. Run or attack. If you attack, if there's more than one man, go for the leader. Always take out the leader first.

He walked straight at them. Not what they expected. Then he sprinted at Squinty and shouted from deep in his gut, a harsh, primal scream that vibrated off the alley walls. It froze both men, just long enough.

Squinty lunged forward, the knife held straight out and low, coming up for a classic strike under the rib cage to rip the diaphragm and the aorta. Carter grasped his wrist and reached over with his left hand, levered up and out and broke Squinty's elbow, using momentum to fling him to the side. He side kicked and took out Boxer's knee.

The knee folded sideways at an impossible angle. It crunched and broke, an unmistakable sound of terrible injury and unbearable pain. Boxer screamed and slashed out as he went down. A cut cold as ice opened along Nick's thigh.

Boxer tried to sit up. Carter kicked him in the throat. He clutched his neck and fell back choking. His eyes opened wide in terror as he tried to breathe. At the other end of the alley, Brown Jacket got into the Volvo. As the car drove off, he threw Nick a look of venomous hatred.

Squinty reached for his knife with his left hand. Nick kicked him hard in the head, a kick that could have got him into the NFL. Back at the entrance of the alley two cops appeared, guns drawn, shouting. Carter raised his hands, fingers spread wide.

He guessed he was about to find out what the inside of an Israeli police station looked like.