I pulled into the lot, not caring about the scenery. I said, “So this is it? What do we do now?”
Shoshana hissed, and pointed. The up-armored SUV was in the parking lot, the distinctive gouges in the driver’s window easy to see. And it was empty. She said, “He’s here. He’s trying to get to Lebanon.”
“How? How on earth would he do that here?” I pointed to a walkway along the shoreline leading to a cable car station, saying, “Is he going to take that into Lebanon? The crossing site above this is like Checkpoint Charlie in West Berlin. He’d have better luck sneaking out of a prison than trying to cross here.”
She said, “This grotto has an old railway from the British Mandate, before we even had a country. It connected Lebanon to Israel before the 1948 war of independence.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “So you guys never closed that down? How come Hezbollah hasn’t used it to flood Israel with weapons and men?”
“Pike, I don’t have that answer. What I know is he’s here, and I’m going to kill him.”
I said, “Hang on there, gunslinger, we need to—” Before I could finish my sentence, a young girl knocked on our window. I lowered it and said, “Yes?”
She said, “You’re American, too?”
I looked at Shoshana and said, “Yes, have you seen another American here?”
She pointed to Garrett’s SUV and said, “Yes. That man is also American. Are you together?”
I said, “We are, but we’re late. Where did he go?”
She became coy and said, “I’ll tell you the same thing I told him—if you buy six boxes of cookies, you get a free ticket on the cable car.”
“Is that where he went?”
She just looked at me. I would have made an evil joke about the Jewish propensity for a profit, but Shoshana cut that short, handing over a wad of shekels and saying something in Hebrew. The girl took the money, nodded, and said something back, then handed Shoshana twelve boxes of cookies and a couple of tickets.
The girl went back to her mother, and Shoshana said, “He’s in the grotto right now. Let’s go find him.”
I said, “Weapons? What’s the security posture?”
“Leave them here. I can’t remember the security, but we can’t take a chance on getting stopped.”
I didn’t like hearing that, but pulled out my Glock from its belly holster and shoved it under the seat. She did the same.
We went down the wooden walkway to the cable car station, joined the small queue behind a family of four, and waited our turn. They boarded and began their descent. The next car arrived, and with nobody behind us, we had it all to ourselves.
I waited until we’d cleared the station, then said, “So much for security.”
She said, “Better safe than sorry.”
“You have any idea what we’re about to find here? Given your incredible memory of the security posture?”
She shot me a look and said, “Yes, I have been here before. It’s a grotto.”
I gave her an expression of amazement and said, “Really? I wondered why it was called a grotto. So it’s really a grotto?”
She scowled and said, “There’s only one way in and out, but once inside, there are tunnels that spread out all over the place, like an underground maze. The old train tracks will be to the left when we exit. Is that better?”
I chuckled and said, “Yes, Carrie, that’s better. Just remember when we find him, we need his answers before you go ape-shit on his ass.”
Truthfully, I was hoping to stop her rage. I knew what killing for vengeance did, and it was just as hard on the killer as it was on the one killed.
The car docked and she said, “I know,” but I could tell she wasn’t listening.
We exited the cable car, following the path to the entrance of a cave. We entered, the darkness of the space dramatically different from the daylight just outside, forcing our eyes to adjust to the gloom.
I saw a cave that looked like something from the ending of Planet of the Apes, with lit walkways leading in multiple directions and the sound of the ocean crashing about, the briny smell of the sea heavy in the air.
Shoshana pulled my arm and we went to the left, searching for the old railway line, dodging tourists who only wanted to see the ocean crash into the walls. We cleared a main group, saw a lit tunnel, and then the serial killer.
He locked eyes with me, I saw the recognition, and then he took off running, straight down the tunnel. Shoshana grunted like an animal, sprinting right behind him. I shouted, “Wait, wait! Don’t follow him into a trap.”
She ignored me. I started racing behind them and we hit the railway tracks, the tunnel getting narrower, the light starting to fade as we went beyond the tourist area.
I leapt over a chain, telling visitors not to continue, and the light disappeared, leaving me running blindly in the dark, following the sound of the footsteps in front of me like a bat in the night.
I heard a noise that wasn’t footsteps, sounding like something heavy sliding in the gravel, then a scream. I ran forward, holding one hand out to prevent me from bashing into a wall, then was tripped up by a body on the ground.
I rolled over, raising my fists to fight, saying, “Shoshana?”
I heard a thrashing in the gravel and realized it was two bodies on the ground. Like every teenager on earth, I whipped out my cell phone and turned on the flashlight, seeing Shoshana enveloped around Garrett’s body, just like she’d done in Bahrain, her behind him, his head cradled in her arms, her legs cinched around his waist, one of his arms stuck straight up in the air, trapped from when she’d wrapped him up.
I saw her snarl and leapt up, saying, “Don’t do it!”
Garrett felt the death wrap around him as surely as if he was in the coils of an anaconda. He quit struggling. Shoshana had lost all semblance of reason, hissing into his ear, “The man you killed in Switzerland saved my life. And now I’ll take yours.”
I said, “Shoshana, don’t. He’s defenseless. Let’s get him out of here and to your people. Let’s solve the problem.”
She seemed for the first time to realize I was there. She slowly shook her head and I said, “Killing him won’t bring back the Ramsad. It’ll only corrupt you. Don’t do it. I’m not ordering. I’m asking.”
Garrett said, “It won’t matter what you do to me. I’ve been chosen by God for a mission, and killing me won’t stop that.”
Disgusted, I said, “You sound like every terrorist I’ve ever heard.”
With a weird light in his eyes, he said, “You’ll never hear it again, because I’m going to stop every future terrorist of the Islamic faith. I’m going to wipe out Islam as a religion.”
Keeping my light on him, knowing he couldn’t see past the beam, I said, “What you’re going to do is tell me where your last Turtle went.”
He said, “Fuck you.”
Shoshana glared up at me and said, “Let me kill him. Please.”
I squatted down, getting right in his face and saying, “I will let her do that if you don’t answer.”
He said, “God has a plan for me, just as he did for Abraham. And God will protect me.”