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pulled back and pressed herself against the bedroom wall, only to see the wall
at the end of the hallway torn to shreds by twenty or thirty rounds of
automatic-weapons fire.
As soon as the shooting stopped for a moment, she pivoted around, squeezed off
six rounds, and dove back into the walk-in closet. She hit the elevator button
and waited.
Gunfire erupted again in the hall. There were two of them, she realized. One
would fire a short burst, then the other. They were tag teaming down the
hallway. They were coming for her, and they could be only eight or ten yards
away at most by now.
Erin pressed the elevator button again. She could hear the muffled sounds of
the motor kicking in, but it was still a good ten seconds away. She didn't
have that long.
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33
THURSDAY, JANUARY 15 - 4:02 A.M. - JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
Bennett could hear the gunfire above him.
It was moving east to west, toward Erin. Should he go back up the west
elevator? And do what? He still had no weapon. If Erin was pinned down, the
only good he could do would be to try to ambush these guys from behind. But
how?
Desperate, he checked every door for a stairway to the main floor, but found
none.
Instead, he ducked back into the broken elevator and noticed an access panel
in the ceiling. He grabbed an old wooden chair, set it in the elevator,
climbed on top of it, and pushed the access panel free, then pulled himself up
onto the top of the elevator.
The shaft was nearly pitch-black, pierced only by the lights inside the
elevator carriage itself. It wasn't much, but it was enough to find the metal
maintenance ladder bolted to the side of the back wall, and that's all he
needed. A moment later, Bennett reached the top of the ladder. He pried open
the elevator door, climbed onto the main floor, and found himself in a closet
in one of the east-wing guest rooms. That put him at the far end of the house.
Now the shooting stopped, but the gunman let fly a storm of profanities.
Bennett's only solace: if Erin were dead, he had no doubt the cursing would
stop.
Despite the cursing, Erin could hear the elevator rising behind her.
She could also hear both men ejecting spent magazines. It was her only chance
and she took it. She pumped five shots through the closet wall into the
hallway and hit pay dirt. Someone dropped to the floor. She lowered her aim
and fired five more shots through the drywall into the hall-way. The screaming
ceased, but now someone else was approaching, and he was coming fast.
Just then the elevator door opened behind her. She dove in, hit the down
button, and dropped to the floor as a barrage of AK-47 fire filled the
closet.
Bennett knew he had to move quickly.
He rummaged through the closet looking for a weapon, but all he found were
clothes
Mordechai hadn't worn in years and would never wear again. He scanned the
guest room but found nothing. The kitchen was on the other side of the
house with knives, a meat
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cleaver but he'd never reach it in time. He glanced into the hallway. No one
was there.
He slid off his shoes, then eased open the guest-room door and worked his way
toward the great room, terrified of making a sound and drawing gunfire he
couldn't return. He found no one there or on the stairs. Nor could he see
anyone outdoors on the deck overlooking the Old City. For the moment, at
least, the coast was clear.
He made his move, darting behind one of the leather couches and then working
his way around to the fireplace. There he stopped for a moment to slow his
breathing. He could hear one of the intruders probing room by room. Whoever it
was, he obviously had never been in the house before, Bennett realized. He had
no idea about the secret elevator. Was that where Erin had gone?
Bennett glanced at his watch. The sun would be coming up before long, and they
desperately needed to be able to make their way back to their temporary
residence in the
Moslem Quarter before daybreak, or there would be no place for them to hide.
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If he was going to do anything, it had to be now.
Slowly, carefully, Bennett removed one of the cast-iron pokers from the stand
beside
Mordechai's fireplace. Then he moved toward the hall-way leading to the west [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]