See How They Run (24 page)
Troop trucks were roaring down the streets. So were bounding jeeps full of Russian officers. Some sort of correspondent sat on the lawn at Pushkin Mall, his portable Olivetti in his lap, looking at the passing crowds, typing a sentence, looking at the people again. For some reason, David felt an urge to go over and punch some sense of dignity into the man.
Everyone was studying everyone else in the crowds, he noticed.
How could this be happening to me
was on at least every other face that passed him.
At 2:55
P.M
., with swarms of unstrung, war-weary tourists streaming into Sheremetyevo Airports I and II, Aeroflot Flight #101 majestically burst into flames and black billowing smoke clouds where it sat on the crowded tarmac.
The nose blew five hundred feet out onto the runway. The wings flew off. Several other nearby jetliners caught fire.
The planes were
empty
at 2:55.
Moments later, more than three hundred people would have been boarding the Olympic Special scheduled to fly to Kennedy Airport in New York.
A stern warning from the Dachau group was left in communiqués at both air terminals.
“NO ONE IS TO LEAVE THESE OLYMPICS UNTIL THE DEMANDS OF DACHAU TWO HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFULLY NEGOTIATED. NO ONE!
IF A SINGLE PLANE TAKES OFF, HUNDREDS OF LIVES MAY BE LOST. THIS IS A FINAL WARNING.”
Gary Weinstein, meanwhile, was feeling somewhat like a teenage hell-raiser back in his hometown of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Dangling his long, skinny legs, he sat on a green metal children’s swing in Marx Plaza. Weinstein calmly watched the unending procession of saris, dashikis, Levi’s, drab Russian suits and dresses, and very frightened faces.
When Colonel Alexander Belov and General Iranov finally appeared on the Security Headquarters front steps, the Engineer pressed a wallet-sized detonator inside his trouser pocket. Not fifteen feet from Soviet Russia’s top secret policeman, a duffel bag planted beneath the bronze figure of a heroic farmer blew the heavy statue fifty feet into the air. It was the first time Gary Weinstein had actually watched his own handiwork, and he was momentarily pleased.
Both Belov and Iranov were kissing the pavement. Both had a completely new awareness of the seriousness of their situation.
At 6:00
P.M.
, a blue-and-white Russian maintenance truck rode very cautiously down a side street that abutted the northwest corner of Olympic Village.
The truck swerved onto a parking apron in front of Numbers 110-125.
First Alix, then the Führer stepped out of the van. They were immediately approached by Russian soldiers with Kalashnikov assault rifles raised.
These particular soldiers, however, were the Architect, the Medic, the Dentist, and the Weapons Expert.
“If you are frightened and very unsure of yourself,” the leader of Dachau Two whispered to Alix, “then you are exactly the same as me. Believe me, though, the large numbers of police and other officials begin to work for us from now on. These people are confident they are trained for every kind of emergency, and that also works in our favor.”
Alix watched as the others began to filter onto the small, important street.
She saw the Engineer, Housewife, and Lawyer. They were all indistinguishable from the Russian security force. Some of them were actually checking identifications themselves.
“You must be a truly great actress for the rest of this day,” the Führer was whispering to Alix. “You must trust me.”
They all began to walk in the direction of Olympic Village.
Having left Harry Callaghan and the rest of the American intelligence people in a hopeless strategy session, and feeling unbelievably frightened and confused now, David reeled through the swelling crowds.
His ears were full of the insistent wailing of the police and ambulance sirens. David’s senses were offended by the awful, hospital-emergency-room ambience.
Walking across a flat, grassy plain above Olympic Village, he happened upon a ragged circle of Russian grandmothers in heavy gray-and-black babushkas.
The women were leaning on their canes. They were kibbitzing like Jews, it seemed to David. The assortment of grandmothers made him think of Elena.
Hello, Grandma, David said in his mind. How are you, Elena? You understood what was going to happen—you and Nick did—and you were right. An isolated cell of your Jewish defense network got out of control. A few Jewish defenders finally went mad!
David finally found a grassy space for himself on the hillside. His own little niche, looking down on the Village proper.
Lighting up a cigarette, he watched two Russian helicopters hover between the starkly modern athletic dormitories. A nearby observation needle pierced the Moscow skyline.
Dachau Two
, David thought for the eleven-millionth time.
Why Dachau Two? A prison here? A death camp? Did that make any sense at all? Did he want the Jews to have some revenge for the Holocaust?
As David’s eyes traveled down the steep, cool slope of the hill, he suddenly found his body jerking straight up again on its grassy seat.
His heart was pounding as if he’d been slapped awake during a vivid nightmare. The fear that was spreading through his body was absolutely paralyzing. David actually
wanted
to disbelieve his eyes.
Sauntering calmly through the hillside crowd was a man David recognized at once.
David recognized the man from glossy photos and a film shown at the Security Center meeting the day before.
Even dressed as he was, in the brown-and-red uniform of the Russian Army, David recognized this man with absolute certainty.
Colonel Ben Essmann, the Soldier, was heading down toward Olympic Village.
David tried to watch both his own unsteady step and the back and bobbing black head of the retreating killer.
Fear clouded his vision, badly fogging the edges out of focus.
The blinding bright red sun didn’t help, and at one point the Soldier stepped right into it.
But the Israeli commando quickly appeared again. He stopped to light a black Russian cigarette, looking around casually to check his flanks.
David crouched on one bended knee as Ben Essmann’s eyes slowly crept back up the hill. The young doctor’s heart was crashing big bass drums and he’d begun to sweat uncontrollably. David’s shoulders and the back of his neck were already soaked.
Finally, the Israeli man looked straight at David. Their dark eyes met and held for no more than a split second.
Then the Soldier bolted away.
David began to run as well.
He began to scream at the top of his voice.
“One of the terrorists. Stop him! Stop that man!”
Some people who understood English looked around. A Russian policeman tried to grab Ben Essmann and was shot in the shoulder. A Russian soldier was wounded in the chest by the Israeli.
Then Ben Essmann was scrambling down into the nearby tunnels that ran under most of Olympic Village. He was getting away, David saw, and he just couldn’t let that happen.
Down in the tunnel David found a rushing four-lane highway lit with overhead sodium lamps. For maybe two hundred yards both David and the Soldier ran at full speed against the flow of traffic. They sprinted down the right-side lane of the highway.
Fiat and Chaika horns screamed. Brakes screeched. Moscow drivers cursed. David continued to yell out that one of the terrorists was getting away.
“You crazy asshole!” A VW van with “U.S. Olympic Team” on the side paneling just missed hitting David.
David actually felt the speeding van nip his shirttail.
“One of the terrorists!” David continued to shout and point.
Off to the side of the main road were shadowy delivery routes that snaked out beneath specific sections of the Village. Suddenly the Soldier veered off onto one of the side routes.
Not far behind, David followed the Israeli. He ran at three-quarters speed down an eerie cigar-tube tunnel. Listening to his own steps. Listening for the Soldier.
At the tunnel’s end, David had to turn right or left along a greasy wall marked with sprawling red Cyrillic letters.
Colonel Essmann suddenly stepped out of the shadows behind David.
The shock made the whole right side of David’s body go numb.
His heart jumped up into his throat and stayed there.
“Not another word, Dr. Strauss. Not a peep or you’re very gruesomely and needlessly dead.”
Without hesitation, David Strauss turned, lunged, and struck the Israeli man in the chest. A Russian service revolver went skidding off across the concrete pavement.
Then Colonel Essmann was standing in a flat-footed crouch, confidently waiting for David to move on him again.
David desperately wanted to strangle the dark-haired commando, but he understood that his real job was to keep from getting killed. The absurd phrase
Float like a butterfly
ran through his head and seemed like moderately good advice.
Stay away from him
.
Survive
.
Somehow
.
Surprising both of them, David hit the terrorist with a good right hand to the lower jaw. It was six-foot-one and 190 pounds behind a shot that David would have described as just about his best punch.
The Israeli shrugged off the solid blow. He maneuvered even lower in his crouch.
David hit him again.
A cracking hard left jab to the nose.
“Come,” Ben Essmann whispered with excitement in his voice. He smiled at David, and the American understood that they were playing a game he didn’t understand.
“You love Alix still?” Colonel Essmann asked. “I love Alix as well. Come, David.”
The Israeli threw a sharp right cross and David’s head snapped back hard.
So
—he was a boxer after all.
David could taste thick, warmish blood in his mouth. His legs were feeling wobbly and unreal.
He tried to remember every boyhood street-fighting trick he’d ever known.
Survive. Somehow. Anyhow!
David hit the Soldier’s forehead with a tremendous right hand, and he immediately wished he hadn’t. It was like trying to punch out a steel door.
Nevertheless, the other man’s knees buckled. For the first time, Essmann’s face showed doubt, fear. He’d
hurt
this man, David understood.
David attempted a quick combination, and very suddenly the Soldier exploded into his stomach, head and shoulder first. He chopped David across his collarbone and the American went down hard.
David tried to focus on the wet concrete. Pebbles. Russian cigarette butts. He couldn’t hold focus, and he couldn’t get up.
Then David Strauss was being pulled roughly to his feet.
“Stronger than you look.” The military man from Tel Aviv was short of breath, at least. Ben Essmann stared at David and seemed to make a difficult decision.
“Elena Strauss’s grandson! You want to come with me? You wish to see Dachau Two for yourself?” the fiery Soldier challenged.
David nodded weakly.
“So come …
David
. Son of Saul, King of all Israel. Jewish boy from America. I can’t kill you, and I can’t leave you. Come and meet the Führer. He’ll make the decision.”
David Strauss went along with the Israeli. He didn’t have a choice. Just questions, questions, questions.
Who was the Führer?
6:15
P.M
. inside Olympic Village.
“Happy Hanukkah!” Marc Jacobson from Los Angeles—the Medic—called out in his clear California schoolboy’s voice.
More than eighty women looked up from steaming platters of eggs and biscuits, from large beakers of bubbly milk and juices, from an extraordinary amount of juicy prime beef.
What these women saw was not one, but eight, very frightening terrorists, who had somehow gotten into their private cafeteria.
The intruders wore brown policeman’s uniforms or blue Olympic Village maintenance coveralls. Some of them carried duffel bags or toolboxes. They had handguns or Uzi machine gun pistols pointed in every possible direction around the dining room.
Standing in the midst of the seven terrorists, Alix tried to quickly take in the rows of frozen, petrified faces lining the cafeteria tables. All in all, there were eighty-three women and teenage girls inside Yuri Gagarin Hall when the Dachau team attacked.
All members of the United States Olympic Team. The U.S. Women’s Team.
“To put it in terms the Americans and others will understand,” the Führer had said just before the attack, “it is a five-hundred-million-dollar kidnap package. We have taken the best of their young people.
Just as they once took the best of ours
.”
As they stood grouped at the center of the dining room, the Führer asked Alix to speak to the teary and anxious American women.
Suddenly beginning to shake all over, Alix stepped forward.
“I am Alix Rothschild.” As she spoke, Alix was thinking that she was obviously as frightened as the young athletes. She wondered what they must be thinking about her. She tried to imagine their confusion right then.
“Once upon a time, I, uh, I made a movie called
Sara, Sara
.” Somehow, Alix was managing to produce a soft pleasant speaking voice. She was thinking that she didn’t want these women and little girls to be so afraid. She didn’t want them to suffer any more than was necessary.
“We”—Alix gestured around to the other Dachau team members—“we are part of a Jewish army. We’re here partly because of terrible things that happened many years ago. Things that you’ve heard about, read about. And we’re here partly because of terrible things that are happening right now in the world. Things that you
don’t
realize are happening. None of this has to concern any of you right now, though. All you have to remember now is that you must obey any orders that are given to you.”
“I am
also
Jewish.”
A thin girl with red, frizzy hair—a twenty-two-year-old gym monkey from Houston—had broken the petrified silence inside the dining hall.