The Project 02 - The Lance

forty, broad shouldered and red cheeked. He wore a Cincinnati Reds baseball cap. There was no mistaking American tourists.
    Nick and Rivka moved along the tunnel. They came to a side passage opening onto another stone chamber. Far ahead, the group of sightseers paid no attention. Perhaps it was the long day or not enough sleep, but when it happened Nick wasn't ready.
    He felt the hard barrel of a pistol in the small of his back and wasn't tired anymore. The tourist couple had come up behind, quiet as cats. The peroxide blonde slipped alongside Rivka, her left hand concealed under a shawl. She placed her right hand on Rivka's shoulder and gripped her on the pressure point. Rivka gasped with pain.
    "Just step right in there," Blondie said. "No moves. You won't make it before you're dead."
    The four of them stepped down into a small room of ancient, fitted stone. Another narrow tunnel led away into darkness. It was unlit. A large sign in three languages warned that the passage was unsafe and closed to tours.
    "Let's see what's down there, shall we?" Blondie's companion pressed his pistol harder into Carter's back. He smelled of cigarettes.
    "What do you want?" Nick said. "All I've got is traveler's checks. They won't do you any good."
    "Shut up, asshole."
    They moved past the sign and into the unlit passage.
    Rivka said, "If you kill us, you'll never leave Israel alive. You know that, don't you?"
    The woman sneered. "Shut your mouth, you Jewish bitch. You have no idea."
    Nick glanced over at Rivka. She tipped her head, a tiny movement.
    The couple were too close. It was a mistake to get too close. It cut down the advantage of a gun. Close was for instant killing strikes, or incapacitating an opponent.
    Nick knocked the man's gun arm away with his elbow and drove stiffened fingers into the soft area below the sternum. His fingers slammed into a rigid surface and pain exploded in his hand. The man was wearing a Kevlar vest.
    The gun went off. Nick felt the bullet tug at his jacket. His attacker staggered back, raised the gun. Nick's left hand was useless, his arm numb to the elbow. He threw a forearm strike to the throat. The man went down.
    Rivka whirled and landed a vicious hit with her elbow to Blondie's kidney. The woman arched backward in pain and Rivka kicked the gun from her hand. It bounced along the stone floor. Nick pulled out his .45.
    It should have been enough. The paralyzing blows should have ended it. The man brought up another pistol, his second mistake. Nick shot him in the face. The back of his head disintegrated in a thick spray of blood and bone that plastered the rock behind him. The round whined away down the passage.
    "Jew bitch!"
    The woman grabbed a snub nosed pistol from under her dress. Rivka fired twice and the yellow dress bloomed with red.
    The shots echoed from the ancient stones.
    Someone began yelling in the main tunnel outside. Waves of pain ran up Nick's arm. Ripples of light moved just behind his eyes. He held his left hand against his chest and bent over the man's body. He went through the pockets, looking for identification. Nothing. Rivka searched the woman's purse. She looked up, shook her head.
    "Nothing here."
    "Not here, either."
    Nick felt where the bullet had grazed him. A rip in his shirt, a little blood, another ruined jacket. The pain began to subside in his arm.
    "You all right?" Rivka looked at Nick.
    "Yeah. They're dead."
    Rivka's eyebrows went up. "You think? What gave you that impression?"
    "I mean, they're not going to tell us much, are they?"
    "Not in words. But they had to come from somewhere. We'll track them down." Rivka looked down at the woman and the blood pooling under the yellow dress.
    "Somebody really doesn't like you, Nick."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

    A mixed tour group of college students waited to enter Solomon's Stables, at the south eastern corner of the Temple Mount. Security was tight. Students were allowed to carry only tourist guides and literature. Cameras were forbidden. Backpacks were forbidden. A pile of them was stacked outside the entrance under the watchful eye of a security guard.
    A tall, blond man in his mid-twenties waited for the tour to begin. He was absorbed in a travel guide he held in his hand, reading about the Stables.
    King Herod had built the chambers to support the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount, back in the first century, before the Temple had been destroyed by the Romans. The Stables covered an area of 5000 square feet. It