To the Death

Right now he had narrowed it down. The forensic investigators had ascertained that Abdul had been in that front room when he died. So had the bomb. The shards of a big table were so small that it had definitely been right in the upward path of the explosion.

Therefore, whoever had watched had had their eyes on that room. That meant the opposite side of the street, which narrowed down the options. There were only about three places where a would-be assassin could observe the Rashood residence. And only one of them was empty.

Colonel Abdullah had been met with total noncooperation from the real estate agent, and that heightened his suspicions. Which was why he and a young Hamas freedom fighter were about to break into the back entrance of the apartment block lately vacated by the Mossad hit team. In fact, the younger warrior had just wrenched the back door lock open, and was now beckoning the colonel to join him in the building.

Five minutes later, they were both outside the top-floor apartment. The building was quiet, and the colonel himself, using a small crowbar, ripped open the lock to the sound of splintering wood, and they were in.

Silently they moved through the deserted rooms. All empty. Too empty. Someone had wiped out everything. At first sight, there was not a trace that anyone had ever been there, and Colonel Abdullah stood gazing out of the window, muttering to himself, “These were real professionals.”

For in his honed, alert, and instinctive terrorist soul, he sensed he was in the right place, enjoying a perfect view of the gaping hole where once there had been a house, right across Bab Touma Street.

Quietly, he drew back the curtains. Very slightly. They were made of brand-new material, too good for an old slum of a place like this. And then he peeped through the space between them, thinking to himself how little he would have liked that, even if the room was dark. Anyone looking out of the old Rashood residence could have seen the telltale gap. And perhaps wondered who was up there, spying. Especially if they were trained security guards.

And then Colonel Hassad Abdullah spotted a flaw in the obviously new curtain material. Not so much a flaw, actually: a hole, very deliberately cut. And not just one hole. Two of them, about four inches apart.

He poked his fingers through, and tried to look through, out across the street. But the holes were too wide apart. Hmmm, he thought, perhaps just right for binoculars.

They searched for another half hour, but Jerry had been thorough. There was indeed nothing to discover. This had been a ruthlessly planned, most daring and savage attack on the commander in chief. Hamas, in their bloodthirsty and vengeful creed, were vowed and determined to catch, and execute, whoever had been responsible.

But all Colonel Hassad Abdullah had to show for his investigation were two small holes in the curtains. And in his opinion, that was quite sufficient.

Because that apartment had confirmed a great deal. First of all, the place had been rented for only one month. Second, the other apartment on the top floor had been purchased by the same people, and was now for sale. The real estate agent had provided at least that.

Third, it was the perfect observation post. Those three facts alone suggested that the attempt on General Rashood’s life had been conducted by a professional organization, almost certainly state-sponsored. The newly cut curtains, the sheer size of the explosion, the perfection of the cleanup. It was all carried out with absolute professionalism.

This was no murder attempt by a bunch of hoodlums. This was military. And that really narrowed it all down. Because in all the world, General Rashood had only two copper-bottomed, grudge-bearing, rich, relentless enemies — the United States of America, and Israel’s Mossad. No one else could possibly hate like them.

In the city of Gaza where the High Command of Hamas was ensconced, the first minister, Commodore Tariq Fahd, was already following the case along those lines. And he had a set of circumstances that were leading him ever onward.

He called a meeting at the secret underground situation room in the house where Ravi and Shakira lived. Colonel Abdullah was back from Damascus; his second in command, Major Faisal Sabah, was in the city; and two other senior Hamas councillors, Ahmed Alaam and Ali al-Fayed, were also summoned.

They gathered together at 10 A.M. on Wednesday, February 15, six jihadist warriors, plus Shakira, who would, if required, kill her Western opponents without mercy.

There were no chairs in the room, just a table. They sat beneath plain whitewashed walls on big colored cushions set upon the sandy floor. There was no window in the room, but there was a stone air vent which led outside into the garden. Lengths of four-inch-thick wood had been carved into elaborate double doors, beyond which were four armed guards.