The Nostradamus File

CHAPTER FIFTY

The Conference Center at the Dan Panorama Hotel in Tel Aviv was packed. Ari Herzog stood near the back of the room and eyed the crowd. On stage, Joshua Weisner was railing about the policies of the current government. The man could speak, Ari gave him that, but the longer he listened, the more his head hurt. One thing Ari knew for certain was that there was no easy solution to what was usually called the Palestinian Problem. He considered rabble rousers like Weisner part of that problem. For Ari, Weisner's so-called solutions were a recipe for disaster and perpetual war.

Agents of Shin Bet were scattered throughout the Center. Herzog monitored their murmured comments through his earpiece. A riot had started the last time this man had addressed a large crowd like this, with forty people ending up in the hospital. Herzog wished people like Weisner would just go away. But they weren't going to go away until there was peace, which seemed farther off to Herzog than it had ever been.

Weisner had just finished describing the need for more settlements on the West Bank when the first shot rang out, the deep bark of a large caliber rifle. An aide crumpled forward onto the stage. The second shot took out a security guard rising to his feet. Weisner ducked down behind the podium. People began screaming.

Herzog yelled into his mike. "In the back! The shooter is in the back!"

He drew his pistol and turned in time to see the third shot fired. A man with a rifle stood at the back of the room. One of Ari's agents lay unmoving at the man's feet.

Ari fired. The Jericho was an accurate weapon as far as side arms went, but the range wasn't good. He missed. The man swung the rifle in his direction. Ari ran toward him and fired again, three shots, then three more. Screams filled the room. People tripped over chairs and trampled each other as they tried to scramble out of the way.

Some of Ari's bullets went home. The man staggered and the rifle fired. A woman dressed in a gold evening gown was blown backward by the round. Ari fired again. He kept firing until the slide locked. The shooter jerked spasmodically as the rounds struck and fell back to the floor. Ari ejected the empty magazine and inserted another as he reached the rifleman. His agents were converging on the body. The shooter lay on the floor, blood pooling around him.

"Call the ambulances," Ari shouted. "Lock down the hotel. Now! And keep people away from this man."

He looked down at the body. How the hell did he get past security with that rifle? It was a question a lot of people would be asking. Another was who the shooter was and where he'd come from. Maybe he was Palestinian. Maybe he wasn't. That was part of the problem. Jews and Arabs often looked the same. They carried the same genes. They just didn't believe in the same things.

One of his agents came up to him.

"Ambulances on the way. The hotel's being sealed." He paused. "The Broadcasting Authority was live on the air."

Damn, Ari thought. This was a key election event. Practically everyone in the nation would have been watching on television. Weisner's stock would rise to the stratosphere. He'd be seen as a champion, an almost martyr to the security of Israel. The election had just gotten a lot closer.

Ari prodded the body with his toe. "Get this piece of crap to the morgue. Find out who he is. If he's Hezbollah or one of the other groups, there's going to be big trouble."

"What about Weisner?"

Ari looked at the stage. Joshua Weisner was gone, hustled away by his security detail.

"What about him?"

"Do you want to talk to him? He's backstage."

"No," Ari said. "I've heard enough talk from him for one day."