He had to assume the worst. Quickly he took off his jogging suit and put on warm woolen outdoor clothes. Dusk cast shadows. Creeping from the house, he reached a nearby bluff from which he could watch every approach to the building.
Timer lights flicked on. The phone rang again; he could hear it faintly. After two rings, it stopped. Before he’d left the house, he’d turned on his answering machine, which now would instruct the caller to leave a message. Though desperate to know if the call was from his father, he couldn’t risk going back to the house to listen to the tape. He’d anticipated this problem, however, and brought a cordless phone with him, leaving it turned off so that it wouldn’t ring and reveal his position on this bluff. But now he switched the phone on. As if he’d picked up an extension within the house, he heard the end of the machine’s request for a name and number. But as before, the caller simply hung up.
A police car arrived, presumably because of the fire at the shop, though maybe this wasn’t a real police car. An officer knocked on the door and tried to open it, but Pendleton had left it locked. The officer went around to the back door, knocked and tested it as well, then drove away. No one else approached the house.
His father had disappeared! Just like all the other fathers. But unlike the sons of those fathers, Pendleton wasn’t typically second-generation, wasn’t an amateur. Icicle had trained him well. One day, the enemy will return, his father had warned.
Indeed it had. And taken his father.
So now it’s my turn! Pendleton inwardly shouted. He’d refused the job the other sons had offered him because he had to avoid attracting attention to his father. But avoiding attention no longer mattered. I’ll do it! he thought. But this isn’t business! This is personal!
If my father isn’t back by tomorrow, after forty years you bastards will finally get what’s coming to you!
For Icicle!
For me!
THE RETURN OF THE WARRIOR
1
North of Beersheeba. Israel. Hearing a sudden rattle of gunfire, Saul threw his shovel to the ground, grabbed his rifle, and scrambled from the irrigation ditch. He’d been working in this field since dawn, sweating beneath the fierce sun as he extended the drainage system he’d constructed when he first came to this settlement almost three years ago. His wife, Erika, had been pregnant then, and both of them had been anxious to escape the madness of the world, to find a sanctuary where the futility of their former profession seemed far away. Of course, they’d realized that the world would not let them ever escape, but the illusion of escape was what mattered. In this isolated village where even the conflict between Jews and Arabs was remote, they’d made a home for themselves and the baby—Christopher Eliot Bernstein-Grisman—who’d been born soon after.
The villagers had commented on the boy’s unusual name. “Part Christian, part Jewish? And why the hyphen?”
Bernstein was Erika’s last name, Grisman Saul’s. Christopher had been his foster brother, an Irish-Catholic with whom he’d been raised in an orphanage in Philadelphia. Eliot had been their foster father, the sad-eyed gray-faced man who always wore a black suit with a rose in his lapel, who’d befriended Chris and Saul had been the only person to show them kindness, and had recruited them for intelligence work, specifically to be assassins. In the end, their foster father had turned against them. Chris had been killed, and Saul had killed Eliot.
The bitterness Saul still felt over what had happened—the grief, disgust, and regret—had been his main motive for wanting to escape from the world. But love for his foster brother and indeed, despite everything, for Eliot had prompted him to want to name the baby after the two most important men in his life. Erika, understanding, had agreed. Generous, wonderful Erika. As graceful as an Olympic gymnast. As beautiful as a fashion model—tall, trim, and elegant with high strong cheeks and long dark hair. As deadly as himself.
The sound of gunfire scorched his stomach. Racing frantically toward the village, his first thought was that he had to protect his son. His second was that Erika could protect the boy as well as he could. His third was that, if anything happened to either of them, he’d never rest till their killers paid.
Though he hadn’t been in action since he’d come to Israel, old instincts revived. Some things apparently could never be forgotten. He leaped a stone wall and neared the stark outline of the village, making sure that dust hadn’t clogged the firing mechanism or the barrel of his rifle. Though he always kept it loaded, he inspected the magazine just to be certain. Hearing screams, he chambered a round and dove behind a pile of rocks.
The shots became louder, more frequent. He stared at outlying cinder-block buildings and saw strangers wearing Arab combat gear who fired from protected vantage points toward the homes at the center of the village. Women dragged children down alleys or into doorways. An old man lurched to the ground and rolled from repeated impacts as he tried to reach a young girl frozen with fright in the middle of a street. The girl’s head blew apart. An invader tossed a grenade through an open window. The blast spewed smoke and wreckage. A woman shrieked.
Sons of bitches! Saul aimed from behind the pile of rocks. He counted six targets, but the volume of gunfire told him that at least six other invaders were on the opposite side of the village. The shots increased, other rifles joining the fight. But the sound of these weapons was different from the characteristic stutter of the Kalashnikovs that the invaders were using and that he himself used, preferring a weapon whose report would blend with that of the type Israel’s enemies favored. No, the rifles that now joined the fight had the distinctive crackle of M-16s, the available weapon that Saul had taught the teenagers of the village to shoot.
An invader fell, blood erupting from his back. The five remaining terrorists on Saul’s side of the village directed their aim toward a corrugated-metal shed from which the volley had come. The shed quivered, dozens of holes appearing along its side. The M-16 became silent.
But others, from different buildings, sought vengeance. Another invader spurted blood, falling. Saul eased his finger onto the trigger, smoothly absorbed the recoil, and disintegrated an invader’s spine. He switched his aim, hit another target, this time in the skull, and scrambled from the pile of rocks, firing as he ran.
Another enemy fell. Caught in a cross fire, the remaining Arab glanced backward and forward, sprinted toward a low stone wall, and halted in astonishment as Saul’s favorite student popped up, firing at point-blank range, blowing his enemy’s face apart. A mist of blood hovered over the falling body.
Using the cover of ditches and walls that he and his students had constructed to provide defensive positions, Saul charged toward the opposite side of the village. At the corners of his vision, he noticed his students spreading out and heard the crackle of other M-16s, the answering stutter of more Kalashnikovs. A second grenade exploded within the building already partially destroyed by the first. This time, as a wall erupted, Saul heard no shrieks. With doubled fury, he completed the semicircle that brought him to the other group of invaders. He emptied his magazine, grabbed a Kalashnikov that a retreating Arab had dropped, emptied it, picked up an M-16 that his second-favorite student had dropped when dying, emptied it, and outraced a terrorist whose hand-to-hand combat skills were no match for the killer-instinct training that Saul had received twenty years ago. Using the palm of one hand, then the other, lunging with all his force, he drove the enemy’s rib cage into his heart and lungs.
The gunfire stopped. Saul squinted toward the enemy at his feet. His students, excited by victory, gathered around him.
“No! Don’t form a crowd! Split up! Take cover! We don’t know if we got them all!”
He followed his own directive and dove toward a ditch. But he cursed himself for being so right. He told himself that his soul was doomed for being professional. He tried to remind himself that the good of the village came first. In a culture barely hanging on, individuals had to come second. Here, sacrifice was the norm. But he desperately wanted to know about Er
ika and his son.
Forced to set a good example, he divided his students into small groups and methodically scoured the village. Cautiously, he approached and checked every enemy corpse. Despising himself for being responsible, he supervised the search of intact buildings, verifying that no invader hid within them. He organized assessment teams—ten villagers dead, fifteen wounded.
“Where’s the medic squad? Communications, did you radio an SOS to the base at Beersheeba?”
Only when every emergency procedure had been followed, when every precaution had been taken, did he allow his humanity to assert itself. And knew again that he was doomed. His former life had intruded, controlling him. Responding to the rote with which he’d been trained, he’d behaved correctly. And from another perspective, completely, absolutely, the correctness was wrong. He’d allowed his public duties to overwhelm his private needs.
The building that had received the most gunfire, that had erupted from two grenade blasts, was his own. As villagers and students surrounded him, in awe of his control, deeply respectful, he finally absolved himself of his public function. Tears streaking down his cheeks, he stalked toward the ruined building, the refuge of his wife and child. The right wall had toppled outward. On that side, the roof had collapsed, its angle bizarre.
When the first grenade had exploded, he’d heard a woman shriek. Apprehensive, he peered through what had been the window but was now just a wide jagged hole. The curtains were blackened and tattered. To his left, he saw the remnants of a toy wooden truck he’d made for his son. Next to it lay shattered plates, fallen from a shelf that no longer existed. The ruins of a table almost covered them. He smelled burnt wood, scorched cloth, and melted plastic. The fallen roof obscured his view of the central part of the kitchen.
He reached the door, which fell off its hinges as he touched it, and swallowing sickly, stepped inside. He moved slowly, suddenly fearful of what he might step on, afraid of desecrating twisted limbs and—he hated to think about it—dismembered portions of bodies. He shoved away a sheet of metal, lifted a wooden beam, stepped over what used to be a chair, but he saw no blood, and hope made his heart beat faster.
He tugged at a section of roof, throwing it out the open doorway, stooping, hefting more rubble. Still he found no blood. He heaved against the section of roof that leaned down into the kitchen, budged it far enough to expose the only part of the room that he hadn’t been able to see, and squinted at shadows.
He saw no bodies. The well-disguised trapdoor broke two of his fingernails as he clawed at it. Fingers bloody, hefting the trapdoor against a wall, he stared into the murky chamber below him.
“Erika!”
The pit absorbed his voice, giving off no echo.
“Erika! It’s Saul!”
Too impatient for an answer, he squirmed down, his shoes touching earth four feet below him. “It’s over.”
He strained his eyes to penetrate the darkness. For a desperate instant, he suspected he was wrong, then suddenly realized he hadn’t given the all-clear signal. An enemy might try to mimic his voice. In this darkness, the trick might work. “Baby Ruth and roses.”
“Lover, it’s about time you said that. You had me worried. I was trying to decide if I should shoot you.” Erika’s deep sensual voice came reassuringly from the rear of the chamber. “I hope you gave them hell.”
He couldn’t help it; he laughed. “Jews aren’t supposed to believe in hell.”
“But under certain conditions, it’s a wonderful concept. For attacking this village, our home, I hope the bastards roast.”
In the dark, his son asked, “Daddy?”
“It’s me, son. You don’t need to worry. But, Erika, watch your language in front of the boy, huh?”
“You’ll hear a lot worse if you don’t tell me what took you so long.”
He tried to interpret her tone; his best guess was that she was joking.
“The shooting stopped a while ago,” she said. “What did you do, stop off for a drink?”
Because Erika knew that Eliot had conditioned him to abstain from alcohol, Saul was sure now that she was joking, and slumping with relief, not only because she and the boy were safe but because she wasn’t angry with him for being so inhumanly professional, he couldn’t subdue his tears.
Shoes scraped against dirt. Bodies squirmed along the earthen tunnel.
“Saul?” Erika’s voice was close and resonant, concerned, against his ear.
“Daddy?”
“Son, I’m fine. I just …” Sorrow cramped his throat, choking his voice.
Erika’s strong arm hugged him. “What’s wrong, Saul?”
“I …” Wiping his eyes, he struggled to explain. “We killed them all. But if …” He mustered his strength. “If I’d run here right away, if I’d looked out only for us, for you and Chris, then everything I tried to teach those kids in the village … every principle about the group being more important that the individual … would have seemed a lie. The next time we were attacked, they’d have looked out for themselves instead of …”
In the dark, Chris nuzzled against him.
Erika hugged him tighter. “You’re a dope.”
Surprised, he stifled his tears. “What?”
“We’re professionals. Or used to be. We both know what combat means. Personal needs are a luxury. If the group doesn’t defend itself, no family has a chance. The minute the shooting started, I grabbed Chris with one hand and this Uzi with the other. I told myself that if you were still alive, you’d do what the rules required—and so would I. Which in my case meant hiding our son and protecting him. And which in your case meant doing your best to protect the village. There’s no need for tears. I dearly love you. My job was to guard the family, yours to defend the group. I’ve got no complaints. If anything, I’m proud of you. We did it right.”
Saul had trouble breathing. “I love you.”
“After the village calms down, when we organize a sentry schedule and it gets dark and we put Chris to bed, I’d be glad for you to show me how much.”
2
Twenty minutes later, an Israeli combat helicopter circled the rocky fields around the village, checking for other invaders. Two trucks filled with soldiers jounced along a potholed road and stopped at the outskirts. Their eyes reminding Saul of hawks, the soldiers scrambled down, scanned the devastation, and snapped to attention while a captain gave them orders. Well-trained, strongly disciplined, they established defensive positions in case of another attack. A squad searched the pockets of the enemy corpses.
A hot wind blew dust.
The captain, his face like a shale slope furrowed with gullies, came over to Saul. “Your radio team said the attack had been subdued.” He gestured toward the bodies. “Isn’t ‘crushed’ more accurate?”
“Well”—Saul shrugged—“they pissed us off.”
“Apparently.” The captain lit a cigarette. “The way I hear it, the last thing anyone should want to do is piss you off. It’s Grisman, right? Saul Grisman? American? Former CIA?”
“That gives you a problem?”
“Not after what just happened. This must be Erika.”
Saul turned. He hadn’t heard Erika come up behind him.
“Christopher’s next door,” she said. “He’s still afraid, but he promised he’d close his eyes and try to sleep. He’s being watched.” She faced the captain.
“You were with the Mossad,” the captain said to her. “I’m surprised this village isn’t boring for you.”
“Today it certainly hasn’t been.”
The captain cocked his head toward the teenagers holding M-16s. “Where are the men?”
“In the military,” she said. “Or Jerusalem, or Tel Aviv. This is a village of widows, orphans, and deserted wives. It was barely hanging on when we got here.”
“But that’s what we wanted,” Saul said. “A place on the edge of the world. So we decided to improve the civil defense.”
“You’re telling me the
se kids, with some help from you, took care of this team?”
“All they needed was a little encouragement.” Grinning, Saul hugged the two nearest teenagers.
“My source says that you,” the captain told Saul, “had a reason for wanting to get away from it all.”
“Did he say what my reason was?”
The captain shook his head no.
“Allergies.”
“Sure. My source also said that you,” he told Erika, “could have stayed in Israeli intelligence. Your record was clean. So you didn’t need come here.”
“Wrong,” she said. “I had the best reason possible.”
“What?”
“To be with him.” She gestured toward Saul.
The captain drew on his cigarette. “Fine. What happened here—I have a few problems about it.”
“I know,” Saul answered. “So do I.”
“For starters, this team wasn’t just a bunch of amateurs. They’re well armed. Soviet weapons. It wasn’t impromptu—they’d planned the attack, six approaching this side of the village, the other six the other. That number of men, it isn’t easy, it takes a lot of determination, and a damned good reason, to try to sneak past our border defenses. A village in contested territory, I could see them trying for it. A strategic target—let’s say an air base, a munitions site—a risky surprise attack would make sense. But a village of widows, orphans, and deserted wives? Fifty miles from the border? What’s going on?”
“Don’t think it hasn’t worried me,” Saul said.
3
At sunset, a dusty sedan arrived. Outside the ruin of what had been home, facing a small fire fueled by the wreckage he’d carried out, Saul heard the engine as he ate rehydrated chicken noodle soup and watched Erika spoon the broth into Christopher’s mouth.
Glancing up, he saw soldiers step from cover and gesture for the driver to stop at the edge of the village. The car was too far away, its windshield too dusty, for Saul to see who sat behind the steering wheel. The soldiers spoke to someone inside, examined the documents they were handed, and turned toward the village, pointing the driver in Saul’s direction. The car approached.