White Jade (The PROJECT) (40 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Carter sat
with his back against the wall at
a
café
in the New City, drinking espresso, watching the crowd. The night was warm. The pedestrian
mall
where
King George and Ben-Yahuda streets and the Jaffa Road
came together in Jerusalem was packed with people.

For the Jewish people
, Jerusalem was
the center of the world
. It was
where the Messiah would
some day
appear
. It was
the place where God
had
commanded the building of His Temple,
where
every stone, pebble and grain of dust o
n
the Temple Mount
was
sacred ground.
D
evout Jews
all over
the world recited
prayers
each day for the restoration of the Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

The most important shrines of Christianity were here. The tomb of Christ, the room of the last supper, the Garden of Gethsemane where Christ received the Judas kiss. The place where Pontius Pilate passed sentence. The place of crucifixion. Every Christian denomination in the world had a church or shrine somewhere in the Old City.

For Muslims,
the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount was one of the holiest sites in Islam. The Mosque faced the Dome of the Rock, where they believed
Muhammad
had
ascended to heaven
on a winged horse to receive instruction from God
.
The Muslims had lost Jerusalem to the Israelis in the 1967 war. They wanted it back.

Armies had fought over Jerusalem for three thousand years. T
he narrow streets of the Old City had run ankle deep in blood
more than once. U
nless
someone
found
a path to peace in the region,
Carter figured the streets would
run with blood again.

He'd thought he was done with all that, with the blood, when he left the
Marines
. Now he worked for the Project. Even though he was a civilian, he was still waking up in war zones. He did his best not to think about it. Best thing, focus on the mission. It
was why
he was
in Jerusalem on a perfect
October
evening. Someone had to do
it
.

Carter drank his coffee and watched the crowd, tracking, reading expressions, looking for anything unusual. His eyes never stayed still. It was an old habit and it was why he was still alive. He never assumed he was safe. He never trusted appearances.

A
young woman
in a red dress played
an accordion
nearby. She had
long, dark tresses
and she laughed while she played. A small group
of
smiling
people stood in front of her, tapping their feet in time to the music. Children ran through the throng
.
Carter smiled.

The night disappeared in violent white light.

The blast sent Nick backward into the wall and down to the pavement. Pain shot up his spine.

Everything went white. He was back in Afghanistan. He could smell the dust, hear the AKs firing, the explosions all around him. Then the white faded. The flashback faded. He could still hear the echoes of the AKs and smell the dry dust of the street.
For a moment he didn't know where he was. A pall of black smoke hung over torn b
odies
spread in a red smear across the plaza
.
A
flat, dead silence
filled his ears
. Then
the screaming started
.

A heavy café
table
lay on top of him. He pushed it to the side and
got to his feet
.
The woman in the red dress
lay crumpled and torn nearby, h
er accordion
shattered and silent
.

B
roken glass and smashed furniture
littered the plaza
.
There was blood on him, but it wasn't his. Carter
took a step and tripped. He looked down at
a child
'
s foot
in a blue shoe. It was just a small foot. A
piece of white bone st
uck out of a pink sock
.

He
bent over and threw up the espresso
in a yellow brown stream
.
T
he
acrid
, coppery stench of blood poisoned the clean night air.
He
straightened up and wiped
his lips. So
mething caught
his eye across the way
.

A man
stood
off to the side of
the plaza. He was
of medium height
, with close set
dark
eyes, black hair, a thin black mustache and neat beard
. He wore
a shapeless brown jacket
,
baggy brown pants and a dirty yellow shirt
. He was
talking on a cell phone.

He was s
miling.

The smile vanished
when he saw Carter looking at him. H
e turned and walk
ed
away, holding the phone to his ear.

Who smiles at a slaughterhouse? Carter started after him
.

Brown Jacket picked up his pace. He glanced back and
turned into
a
wide
alley between two buildings.
Nick wished he had his .45. The
Israelis had refused to let
him
carry it.
He began running. Shouts sounded behind him as he sprinted
into the alley.

The alley crossed between the buildings to the next street over. Brown
J
acket and two others
stood
halfway down
.
At the
far
end
of the passage
a white Volvo waited
,
motor running, one man inside. Brown
J
acket said something
to the two men
and
walked
toward the car. The other
s
started toward Nick.

The larger man wore a loose blue jacket
over a dingy white shirt
and jeans. His head was bullet shaped and shaven
. H
is face
was
dissolute, with ridges of old scar tissue over eyes that looked dead. His ears
were crumpled c
auliflower
s and his
hands
were
broad
clubs, scarred with swollen and broken knuckles.
A
street fighter
,
a boxer.

The other man was the leader
. He was
small, mean looking and dark, with shiny, squinty eyes, a scruffy beard and a nasty smile that showed gaps in his teeth. The
two
separated, a few feet apart
, Squinty to Nick's right, Boxer to his left.
A
flash
of steel appeared in each man
'
s hand.

Knives. He hated knives.

Words echoed inside his head.

You've got two choices
in an alley fight.
Run or attack.
If you attack, if there's more than one man,
go for the leader.
Always t
ake out the leader first.

He
walked straight at them
. Not what they expected.
Then he
sprinted
at
S
quinty
and
shouted
from deep in his gut, a harsh, primal scream that vibrated off the alley walls.
It
froze both men,
just
long enough.

Squinty lunged
forward
, the knife held straight out and low, coming up for a
classic
strike under
the
rib cage to rip the diaphragm and the aorta
. Carter
grasped his wrist
and reached over with his left hand, levered up and out and broke Squinty's elbow, using momentum to fling him to the side
.
He
side kicked and took out
B
oxer
'
s knee
.

The knee folded sideways at an impossible angle. It crunched and broke, an unmistakable sound of terrible injury and unbearable pain.
Boxer
screamed and
slashed
out as he went down. A cut
cold as ice
opened
along
Nick's
thigh.

Boxer
tried to sit up
. Carter
kicked him in the throat.
He
clutched his neck and fell back
choking
.
His eyes opened wide in terror as he tried to breathe.
At the other end of the alley
,
B
rown
J
acket
got
into the Volvo. As the
car
drove off, he
threw
Nick
a look of venomous hatred. 

Squinty reached for his knife with his left hand
.
Nick
kicked him hard in the head
, a kick that could have got him into the NFL.
Back at the entrance of the alley two cops appeared, guns drawn, shouting.
Carter
raised
his
hands, fingers spread wide.

He guessed he was about to find out
what the inside of an Israeli police station look
ed
like
.