Angels Don't Die (Madeleine Toche Series Book 2) (11 page)

Leveling both the pistol and the pen light in the direction of the man’s head, she slid her finger off the end of the light illuminating the man’s face. It was not the man she had singled out for interrogation. With tiny spits from the silencer, Madeleine put two bullets into the man’s head, without hesitation, then doused the light and shifted towards the door, the movements of her body in concert like a dance.

Madeleine dispatched the man in the second room in the same manner.  The occupant of the third room was the man she was after.  She hadn’t seen him leave while she waited for two long hours on the roof of the café.  She needed to keep him alive for now.  Jack’s MI6 counterparts had provided her with several drug ampoules loaded with quick acting chemicals that would incapacitate a person within seconds.  Madeleine moved into the doorway and towards the bed.  She withdrew an ampoule from her pocket, snapping open the plastic covering the short needle.  She plunged the ampoule into the man’s neck, next to his jugular vein. Her pistol was pointed at the man’s head.  He opened his eyes long enough for them to roll back in his head and then close as the drug hit his brain.

Madeleine waited a full minute before she prodded his body with the end of her silencer.  He was limp.  Only then did she take some slender nylon rope from another pocket and expertly bind the man’s hands and feet, making it impossible for him to move.  She gagged him with an undershirt she found at the foot of the bed.  Even if the drugs failed, and he woke up before she could complete her mission, he would be secure until she returned to question him.

Making her way down the stairs, Madeleine did a mental count of the number of bullets left in her primary weapon and the second held under her shirt.  There might be as many as four or five other occupants of the house, she thought, as she reached the bottom of the stairs. Madeleine both sensed and heard movement from one of the bedrooms nearest the kitchen and the single toilet the home contained.

    
             
She saw a man enter the bathroom, flick on a weak light bulb inside and begin to urinate.  She moved silently towards the bathroom, keeping herself flat against the wall.  She slipped the pistol into the elastic band of her pants and pulled a knife out from under her shirt.  Its blade was made both for stabbing and slashing.  She chose the latter.  As the man exited the toilet, she slid up behind him.  She pulled his head to the left with her free hand and simultaneously slashed his throat with the other.  The attack ripped open his windpipe and larynx, leaving him unable to cry out.  Without wasted movement, Madeleine thrust the knife into his ear and brain.  He died quickly, with little struggle, as she held him upright and then slowly lowered him to the ground.  She wiped the knife on the man’s shirt and placed it back in its sheath.  She reached for the pistol in her waistband, as she moved towards the second of three bedrooms on the main floor.  Her decision to use the knife was to avoid the sound of a falling body.  Once, long ago, she had almost been caught when a target had fallen heavily to the floor.  Silence and the night had always been her allies.  She had learned from every mistake she’d ever made.

Madeleine slipped down the hall to the last bedroom.  It was larger than the ones upstairs, with two men sleeping at opposite ends of the room.  As she entered, one of the sleepers rolled over and mumbled something in his sleep.  Madeleine froze, standing motionless in the shadows by the door, then in one fluid movement she shot the man who had moved, whipped the gun around, and shot the last sleeper. Madeleine stepped out of the room, and moved into the shadows of the kitchen.  She patiently waited, watching the street through a closed window in the event there were any late arrivals.  She doubted there would be, but caution demanded it.

Satisfied that all was quiet, Madeleine checked her watch and made her way back up the stairs and down the hall to the open window.  Her escape route was already mapped out in her mind and she was reassured that the way was unblocked.  Satisfied, she closed the window, leaving only a crack wide enough to slide her fingers into in the event she needed to open it in a hurry.

Madeleine moved back down the hall and into Al Massri’s bedroom.  He was still unconscious and would be for hours unless he was given a second ampoule that would counteract the first drug and bring him around.  She knew that the second drug took about two minutes to work, so she ran a sturdy piece of duct tape over the man’s mouth to avoid any sudden yelling when he woke up. Prior to administering the antidote, she rechecked his bonds carefully two times.  She turned on the penlight and put it on the side table next to the bed to keep her hands free.

Madeleine pulled a desk chair up to the side of the bed.  Leaning forward, she plunged the second needle into the man’s neck and waited.  The drugs took effect and Al Massri shifted in his bed.  His eyes opened and he tried to focus, first on the source of the light shining in his face and then on Madeleine.  His initial reaction was to try to scream through the tape covering his mouth.

“Silence,” Madeleine whispered, firing a silenced shot into the pillow beneath Al Massri’s head.  A cloud of feathers erupted where the shot entered and she could see that he had felt the shock wave of the small caliber bullet as it passed inches from his face.

“Do I have your attention?”  Madeleine said, in a conversational tone.  Her voice was low but she no longer whispered. He needed to understand her questions and intentions if he did not comply with her requests. Al Massri nodded, his eyes wild with hate. “Good. So that you and I understand one another, all of the men in the house are dead.  I killed them and I’ll kill you unless you answer my questions.  I will only ask each question once.”  The man’s eyes widened, recognizing that if the assassin could drug and bind him in his sleep, killing his men wouldn’t present much of a problem.

“An American agent was taken within the last ten days off the streets of Jerusalem.  That is not a question, it is a statement and you know what I’m talking about, so just nod.”  Al Massri paused, hesitated, and then gave an abrupt nod of affirmation.  “Then you delivered him to somebody else in your organization, correct?” Al Massri did his best to appear to ignore the question.

Madeleine stood up grabbed Al Massri’s head with her left hand, drew her knife and then slashed his face above his left eye, so that blood ran down into his eye socket clouding his vision.  His scream was muffled by the tape and he thrashed against the bed.

             
“Stop or I’ll give you some real pain,” Madeleine said in a hollow tone.

             
Al Massri stopped thrashing and turned his head towards her.

             
“Who was the agent delivered to?”

             
Again, Al Massri ignored the question.  Madeleine stood and slashed the man’s pants from his groin to the hem of the pant leg.  Cutting again, she slashed the area of his groin, flicking the knife onto his testicles, nicking his scrotum.  Al Massri froze, his eyes wide with fear.

             
“I am going to loosen the tape covering your mouth.  If you scream, I will put a bullet in your ear.  Your scream will be the last thing you hear.  Understood?” Madeleine said.

             
Al Massri nodded.  Keeping her pistol pointed at his head, Madeleine pulled the tape from one side of his mouth leaving it attached in the event she needed to quickly slap it down into place.

             
“Who did you deliver the agent to?”  Madeleine asked evenly.

             
“Daughter of a whore!  I will kill you myself,” Al Massri shouted.

             
Madeleine pushed the tape back into position, as she pulled her pistol from her waistband and shot him in the kneecap.  The reaction was immediate; Al Massri thrashed on the bed, his body bucking in agony.  Madeleine sat back in the chair and watched, waiting for shock to lessen his pain.  In her experience many passed out at this point, but she had used a small caliber bullet on a large man.  There wouldn’t even be much blood loss.

             
After a few minutes, Al Massri stop thrashing and looked at Madeleine.  The hate in his eyes was mixed with fear and pain.  Madeleine knew that he would start to talk soon.

             
“The next one goes into your elbow.  People mistakenly believe that a sha
ttered knee is more painful than
a shattered elbow.  They’re wrong.  I’m going to remove the tape and you’re going to quietly answer my questions.  If you don’t give me any more trouble, I might let you live. I need someone to deliver a message to your superiors.” Madeleine moved over and removed the tape as she had before.

             
“I delivered the agent to Al Lubnani, Al Lubnani,” Al Massri volunteered.

             
“Is the agent alive?”

             
“I think so.  But he is beyond my reach,” Al Maasir said.

             
“Where is the agent?”

             
“I don’t know,” Al Massri spat out.

             
Madeleine moved over towards the bed.  Using the knife she slid the blade under Al Massri’s scrotum, slightly lifting it without inflicting any damage.

             
“I don’t know where the agent is! But I can tell you where Al Lubnani is!”

             
“Where is he?” Madeleine said.

             
“He is a wealthy man.  He’ll be at his home near the south coast. Maybe the agent is there as well,” Al Massri said.

             
“Where is the home located?” Madeleine said.

             
“It is outside of the town of Ashdod.  All the locals know it.”

             
“Did you and your men kill the Mossad agent when the American was taken?”

             
“Yes.”

             
Madeleine nodded her head.  She knew Al Massri knew nothing more.  She moved to reapply the tape.

             
“Don’t kill me.  I must deliver your message to Al Lubnani,” Al Massri wailed.

             
“You will, Madeleine said slapping the tape down in place.  “Do you remember the toothless hag, selling melons that you struck yesterday?”

             
Al Massri’s eyes grew wide in recognition as Madeleine showed her face more fully to him.

             
“She has one tooth left,” Madeleine said, as she grabbed Al Massri by the throat and plunged the knife in and out of his right eye, to the hilt, piercing his brain.  His body shuddered and was still.  “Yes, you and your friends will deliver my message,” Madeleine said to the man’s corpse. 

             
Using her knife, Madeleine cut a piece of cloth from the sheet and balled it up.  Blood was streaming profusely from Al Massri’s ruined eye and she soaked the cloth in it. She then moved to the wall adjacent to the bed and painted an ancient Arabic symbol on the white surface in broad rough strokes.  Next she took a card from her pocket.  It had Arabic letters that read, ‘release the American unharmed or die.’ She placed it on the table next to Al Massri’s corpse.

             
Madeleine looked around the room and checked her equipment.  She made sure she left nothing behind, as she moved towards the window at the end of the hall. The entire operation had taken less than thirty minutes.  She opened the window and looked down at the street as she pulled herself up onto the roof and was gone.

             
Later, Madeleine slid into bed next to Jack, reaching out to hold him.

             
“Was there any resistance, Madeleine?”

             
“No.  I have a name and location, near a town called, Ashdod. Maybe Tracy is being held there,” Madeleine said.

             
“We’ll discuss our next move with John and Karen later,” Jack said rolling over and wrapping his arms around her.  He could feel the tension in her body slowly recede as she relaxed and nestled her face into his chest.

             
For several long moments, Madeleine considered her actions of the evening. “The war will never be over. Will it Jack?”  She said.

             
“No,” Jack answered, holding her tighter.  His love was the only shield he could offer her against the truth.

CHAPTER TWENTY

             
Mossad agent, Joshua Simmons stood quietly next to Hartmann as he stood over Al Massri’s body and stared at the symbol painted in blood on the wall. Simmons recognized the mark, familiar to Jews and Arabs alike.  It was the ancient sign of Azrael to the Jews or Azra’il in Islam, one of Allah’s archangels in the Quran, The Angel of Death.

             
“I want a thorough forensic investigation of this crime scene,” Hartmann said turning slightly to face Simmons.  Simmons  was attached to him as one of his personal bodyguards.  Hartmann liked him; the agent was brave and resourceful.  His parents had survived Auschwitz, and were determined that in the future, the Jews would never suffer in that way again. Simmons’ character was born of patriotism and courage.  Hartmann knew that he would gladly die to protect him and Israel.