To the Death

Jerry waited around for less than five minutes, just pointing out the bathroom and the coffeepot, before he showed them the view. And now he turned out the light and walked to the window. “That’s your target right there,” he said, pointing directly across Bab Touma Street. “That big place with the steps up to the front door. There’s two guards right inside it. Be careful at all times.”

And with that, Jerry was gone, leaving Ben Joel and his men staring out at the two-hundred-year-old townhouse across the street, where Ravi and Shakira Rashood, protected by at least two armed guards and probably more, were doubtless sleeping the untroubled sleep of the innocent.

Colonel Joel called his team to order. “It’s almost 0220. We’ll have something to eat, get some coffee, and begin the operation at 0300,” he said. “Four-hour shifts. Abraham, Itzaak, you crash out on those two mattresses in the bedroom. John and I will open the surveillance chart, and maybe Abe will fire that computer up while I get the range on these binoculars.

“We’ll watch the house in twenty-minute takes, and John can start preparing the weapon. We have no schedule for H-hour — that’s H for Hit. It’s entirely up to us. We just need to call home base when we’re going in.

“Problems?”

The other three shook their heads. And Colonel Joel put out the light, while he drew back the thick black curtain that covered the window. He raised the binoculars and focused on the house across the street.

“Okay,” he murmured, “there are curtains on the windows in the upper floors, but none on the street level. The main reception room is situated to the left of the front door looking in. There’s a glass-patterned window above the front door. I can see the light from the passage spilling in. I guess the guards are stationed right there where it’s light.”

Roger that, sir. Abraham was instantly on the case, typing out every word uttered by his team leader.

Ben Joel drew the curtains over the window. And turned on the light. He reached for his sandwiches and chocolate and said quietly, “Since we are under orders to make the hit in the hours of darkness, it’s going to be in that front room left of the door. It’s the only one we can see into after dark. That’s if we use a controlled explosion. Otherwise we’ll have to knock down the entire house, and that would cause havoc.”

“Whatever it takes,” said Itzaak. “The mission is to kill Rashood, and we’ve got enough high explosive in here to knock down the Wailing Wall. We’ll just do what we must.”

“Correct,” said Colonel Joel. “Let me have some of that coffee, will you?”

“Looks like we’ll have to get rid of the guards,” observed Abraham.

“No way we’ll get in there without,” replied Ben. “Unless there’s some time in the day when the house is left unprotected.”

“Can’t imagine that,” said John Rabin.

At 0300, they started work. Colonel Rabin was locked in the tiny kitchen with his explosive and detonators. Ben Joel stood in the dark with his glasses trained on the house across the street. Three times every hour, they changed places, while Ben entered the surveillance chart on the computer, mostly reporting no movement.

A little after 0600, there was a change. The front door of the Rashood residence opened and two youngish men dressed in jeans and loose white shirts emerged into the dawn. Colonel Joel grabbed the camera and fired off six pictures of them.

They turned left out of the house and walked together down Bab Touma toward the Via Recta. Ben looked carefully for the arrival of two more guards, but none showed up. But then he saw movement in the main downstairs room of the house: two other men, both carrying machine guns, were standing there staring out of the window. The powerful Mossad binoculars picked them up starkly. Neither one of them was Ravi Rashood.

When the watch changed and Colonel Rabin emerged from the kitchen to take over at the window, Ben Joel told him, “The guard duty changed at 0600. Two of them left, but the other two, who took over, did not come in through the front door. That means they were already in there. It’s a big house. There may be a guard room where they can sleep.”

“Unless there’s a back door they use?”

“We’ll recce that today, and maybe watch that door for a few hours — check when it’s used.”

“Okay. Do we need more help? Two watches will stretch us a bit.”

Colonel Joel was pensive. “Quicker we get this done, the quicker we can get the hell out. Let’s just go for it — I’ll get around the back end of the house this morning around 1100. Is the weapon ready?”

“Affirmative. I need about thirty minutes to check the timer. Any time after that, the bomb can be put in place.”

“Size?”

“I’ve made it in two halves. If we just want to blow that front room to eternity, we use just one. If we don’t mind knocking the fucking house down, we use the lot.”