CHAPTER 22
They spent an hour or so investigating the warehouse at 1206 Fairway Avenue and its environs. It was an older building, wood-clad outside with a steel roof. The few windows in the building were small, high on the walls and covered by iron grates. There were single entry doors on the front and rear of the building, plus a large roll-up door for deliveries. It wasn’t all that large, maybe twenty meters deep and thirty meters wide—call it sixty-five feet by almost one hundred feet. It would be somewhat smaller on the inside, of course. There was a small parking lot out front and an alley behind it. There was no signage on the building or on the street side, just the address number. As anonymous as a building could be.
“Nothing unusual on the surface,” Mordechai concluded after their final drive around. “It has standard utilities: electricity, gas, and I assume water and sewage. Limited access: doors are normal types, locks appear to be normal as to types and quantities. We can get in easily enough, and as long as the big door remains shut, we can control the exits. I go in the front, you go in the back, the electric meter is right by the door so their master panel should be at about the same spot on the inside. Once the action starts, you turn off the electricity, they’re in the dark, or mostly dark even if they have emergency lighting. Twelve, maybe fourteen of them, two of us. We’ll be done in five minutes, even if they’ve built-out rooms inside.”
“Weapons?” Ariel asked.
Mordechai’s razor smile appeared. Seen from the side it was even more ominous than seen full-on. “We’ll have a couple of pry bars in case the doors are locked, but we won’t need more than our hands otherwise. Even if they are armed, in the dark they won’t be able to see well enough to target us, especially if we keep moving.
Mordechai looked directly at Ariel, and his eyebrows lowered. “You have to understand, Ariel, that in the normal course of things, you would not be participating in this operation.”
“If it’s about my parents—”
Mordechai cut him off. “No, it has nothing to do with your parents…or very little to do with them. We in Israel are a small people, and connections are widespread. It’s hard to get operatives for something like this without someone knowing someone either in the cause or in the operation. No, this is about the fact that you are about as raw a recruit as there is. Yes, you have been converted. Yes, you are now stronger and faster and tougher than any three humans now alive. But that’s your body, not your mind. Yes, you’re now a young journeyman in Krav Maga. But again, that’s your body, not your mind. You have skills and training, but you have no experience in this kind of operation. You’re more of a liability than you are a help, and you will be for some time to come.
“But—”
“No ‘buts,’ Ariel.” Mordechai’s voice was harder. “Skill and training will only take you so far, and that’s not very far at that. You need experience to learn the things that all the training in the world cannot teach you, the things that will help you survive as a vampire and as an operative.”
“But if you don’t want me involved in anything until I am experienced, how do you expect me to get experience?” Ariel was a bit surprised that Mordechai had allowed him to finish that sentence.
Mordechai sighed. “And there’s the rub, to quote Rabbi Mendel’s favorite goy, Shakespeare. You need experience to get experience. So we’re going to do what leaders and planners have done for centuries: use green, raw, inexperienced troops in operations in the hopes that enough of them survive long enough to become experienced. Experience always comes at a price, Ariel, remember that. Sometimes your opponent pays it, sometimes your companions pay it, and sometimes you end up paying it yourself, but the price is always paid.”
The older man’s face relaxed, and his vocal tones shifted from authoritarian to businesslike. “There is actually one good thing about you coming along tonight.”
“What’s that?” Now Ariel was curious, after Mordechai had spent so much time telling him why he shouldn’t be involved.
“Understand, Ariel, I could do this by myself. Twelve, fourteen of them, I could take them all out. Oh, it wouldn’t be simple or easy, and I’d probably take some injuries from it, but I could take them. I have the experience you lack, you understand: I’m fifteen times your age, and a thousand times more experienced. I might be only a child compared to Methuselah, but I’m significantly older than Torah says Abraham was when he passed. But just because I can do something alone, doesn’t mean I should. Solo operatives are bad strategy and even worse tactics. There should always be a backup.
“Tonight, you’re the backup. Your main responsibility is to survive. You’re not Jackie Chan or Jet Li. You’re not to try and take down as many of these guys as you can. Your job is to survive the encounter. That’s your priority. If you happen to take down one or two of these men, fine, but that is a secondary priority. Do you understand?”
Ariel nodded, but said nothing.
“You’ve never been in real combat. You’ve never experienced a mob scene. This is going to be very confusing to you. Just stay by the back door and try to keep them in front of you. This is not sparring, Ariel. This is the real world. This is for all the shekels, understand? No restraints, Ariel. No hesitation. Our goal, our purpose, is to eliminate these people. We move at full speed and full strength until it’s over.”
“Right.” Ariel felt resolve. And a certain anticipation at facing his parents’ murderers.
Mordechai looked at him sternly again. “What’s your job?”
“Survive.” Ariel kept his voice level.
“Remember that. Now, let’s go prepare.”
They made one stop on the way back to the hotel. Mordechai pulled into the parking lot of a big-box hardware store and parked near the exit.
“You wait here,” he said. “We don’t want you appearing on any security recordings.” With that, he was out the door and striding toward the entrance. Ariel leaned back and closed his eyes. After a moment, he leaned to the left to shift the side of his face out of the direct sunlight. He mused on the thought that had just become real to him a few minutes ago, that he might actually someday reach Methuselah’s age. The implications were somewhat staggering.
It wasn’t long before he heard Mordechai’s steps approaching. When the back door opened and a couple of items thumped and clanked on the back seat, he opened his eyes.
“Pry bars?”
“Yes,” Mordechai said as he slid into the driver’s seat. “Paid cash, of course.”
When they entered the hotel, Mordechai checked at the front desk for messages. Ariel was surprised to be handed a fairly good-sized box of moderate weight. “What’s this?” he asked on the way to the elevator.
“You’ll see in a moment.”
When they arrived at Mordechai’s room, the box was opened to reveal a couple of black leather motorcycle jackets. Mordechai checked them both out. “Here. Even though we’re vampires, prudence would dictate wearing body armor. No sense in taking unnecessary injuries, after all. However, getting body armor right here and now would have possibly attracted too much attention, so I had these shipped to us. This is stout leather, so it will offer almost as much protection against blades as body armor would have. Won’t help a lot against bullets, but we’ll have to take our chances there. Go get dressed.”
Ariel went to his room, stripped off his suit, and put on black jeans and a black T-shirt. For shoes, he went with his favorite Doc Marten boots. He’d practiced with them enough with Gil that he was pretty comfortable wearing them, even if he was going to be in a fight. He put on the leather jacket, and checked the fit, snapping the fasteners on the front and sleeves and swinging his arms around. Other than the fact that the sleeves were a bit shorter than he would have liked if he was buying it, it was fine. It certainly didn’t bind his movements any.
When Ariel went to Mordechai’s room he found the older man dressed in midnight blue, carrying the jacket. Mordechai didn’t favor black for night work. He had told Ariel that it wasn’t as stealthy as people thought.
Waiting, Ariel checked his tablet, and discovered that the police had officially released the names of the fourteen people who had been killed by the bomb blast. At the top of the list were Miriam Caan and Moses Caan. He knew that, but seeing it in the announcement just made it more concrete, somehow. He felt his jaws clench and his muscles tense, felt his fangs begin to extend.
“When did you last feed?”
Ariel looked up. “What?”
“When did you last feed?
“Two days ago. Why?”
Mordechai walked over to a small case that was plugged into the wall, unlocked it, and took out a bottle that he handed to Ariel. “Here. You’re getting ready to do some serious work. Drink it now, so you’re ready.”
Ariel looked at the bottle of blood, quirked his mouth, removed the bottle cap, and raised it to his mouth. Moments later, he lowered the empty bottle, put the cap back on it and handed it back to Mordechai.
“Israeli blood,” he said with a small smile.
“Indeed.” Mordechai put the empty bottle back in the case and locked it, then pulled a bottle of sparkling water from the room refrigerator. “Here.”
Ariel downed that pretty quickly. As he tossed the empty bottle in the trash, Mordechai pitched a bag to him. It landed in his hands with some weight. He opened it to find a pair of black leather gloves much like the ones he usually used to spar with Mordechai. Ariel put the gloves in the jacket’s pockets. He looked at Mordechai and raised his own eyebrows. Mordechai waved at the door, and they left.
* * *
Mordechai pulled the car into a parking spot on the street about a block away from the warehouse. The streetlights were on the other side of the street, so there were some shadows on the side where they parked, which was good. The block they had parked in was a mixture of small businesses, almost all of which were closed except for the check-cashing outfit on the corner behind them. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, and no panhandlers or drunks wandering around. It was as quiet as they could have wanted it. Ariel was glad.
After turning the engine off, Mordechai sat with both hands on the steering wheel for a moment. He sighed, and turned toward Ariel. “Your last chance to walk away from this,” he said. “The event in Tel Aviv was mostly impromptu and reaction to what the terrorists did. Even throwing the girl on the grenade was basically caused by her. New York was precisely targeted and a very clean operation. But this—if you get out of this car and walk down the street with me, your hands will bear as much blood as mine. This is your last chance to turn away from that.”
Ariel shook his head, but took his time in answering. “I’m not walking away from this one. They killed Jews. They killed my parents. I stand with Ehud ben-Gera.”
Mordechai gave a small smile, picked something up from the car console and placed it in his ear, then handed one to Ariel. “Put that in your ear. Short range, low power, but enough for what we’re doing tonight.”
Ariel inserted the bud in his ear, then pulled on his gloves. Mordechai reached into the back seat, picked up the pry bars and brought them to the front seat. “Just in case we need them for the doors.”
Ariel took one and hefted it as he got out of the car, then swung it up so it was riding along the back of his arm.
“Test,” he heard in his earpiece.
“Test,” he muttered back.
“Clear.”
They walked in silence until they reached the block the warehouse was in where they separated. Mordechai continued walking toward the front of the building, while Ariel jogged down the cross street to the alley that cut in behind the buildings. The light was very dim in the alleyway, but Ariel had no problems seeing what was there. He arrived at the back door to the warehouse without incident, and placed his back against the wall on the other side of the door from the electric meter.
“Here,” he whispered. He tested the door handle. It turned, but the door didn’t move. “Locked.”
“Here. Front not locked. Count five from mark and come in. Turn the power off at the second mark.” About two breaths passed. “Mark.”
Ariel counted to five, set the flat end of the bar in the space right above the lock, and pushed with all his strength. There was a creak-crunch-pop sound, and the door swung free. He stepped through, pulling the door back to the jamb as he did so.
The building was one large open bay—no interior walls anywhere. There were some cabinets along one side of the back wall, and there was a gun rack over on the side wall to his right. A large swastika flag hung on the opposite wall. The walls must have been pretty thick, because the inside was smaller than he expected—maybe fifty feet by ninety. Still a good-sized room, but the men standing in it had room to move around.
The spot he was in was shadowed, but there were bright lights farther out. He looked quickly, and determined that the power panel was immediately to the left of the door, as they had expected it to be. There was a master cutoff lever there. He hefted the pry bar and edged that direction.
There were a number of men in the building, all looking toward the front door. Ariel did a quick head count, and came up with thirteen. Most of them were wearing jackets with black dragon heads on the back. So, it looked like everyone in the gang was there.
“Who the hell are you?” a guy in the middle of the crowd snarled at Mordechai. “What makes you think you can just barge in here?”
“Ah, Mr. Campbell,” Mordechai said. “How nice of you to identify yourself right away. That will save us some time later. As for who I am”—he raised his voice to talk over the growing shouts and curses—“I am Retribution.”
“That’s the guy that stabbed me!” shouted a guy with an arm in a sling.
“And this is the guy that broke my arm!” came from a guy at the back of the crowd who was pointing at Ariel.
The noise redoubled, and one of the crowd broke for the gun rack. Mordechai’s arm blurred into motion, and his crowbar speared through the man. He contorted and fell, several feet from the wall, and blood began pooling on the concrete floor under him.
There was a moment of stark silence, which Mordechai broke. “Last night one or more of you threw a bomb in a synagogue window.” His voice was cold and hard, more so than Ariel had ever heard before. “You all approved and condoned intentionally murdering fourteen people and wounding a dozen more. Tonight, justice will be performed. Prepare yourselves. Mark!”
Ariel reached up and pulled the electricity master cutoff lever. The lights went out for a moment of almost utter darkness, then a single emergency light above the front door came on, throwing very stark shadows across the room.
Mordechai was already in motion. Ariel saw two men coming his way. He ducked under a swing by one of two men charging him and bashed the other one with the crowbar. The crunch that vibrated into his hand told him that man was done for. He then blocked another swing by the first one and punched him in the throat. Another crunch. Another one down. After that, things got crazy.
Ariel caught a flicker of motion out of the corner of one eye just before a pipe hammered into his lower back. He grunted, then spun to face the wielder, only to have another man slam a baseball bat into the bicep of his left arm. That one hurt. He pushed that guy hard against the wall. He turned again to face the guy with the pipe. Pipe guy backed up, hands in front of him. “I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it!”
Ariel snarled, exposing his fangs, and the man’s eyes widened and he froze. The acrid smell of piss filled Ariel’s nostrils as a large stain spread across the front of the man’s worn jeans. “Too little, too late,” Ariel said. He started to reach out, only to have a couple of others come flying back at him from the circle around Mordechai. They knocked him to one side, and the pipe holder screamed and ran the other way.
The two new ones started swinging punches. One landed solidly on his nose, which was just as full of nerves as it ever was, and the blossom of pain from the hit stunned him for a moment. When he focused again, the other two were gone, one of them sucked back into facing Mordechai, and the other to run toward the gun rack. Ariel looked around for his pry bar, and found it just to one side. The gang member was pulling a rifle down and racking the action when Ariel imitated Mordechai’s throw. The crowbar smashed the man’s head with a spray of blood and gray matter. Not as elegant as Mordechai’s throw, perhaps, but it did the job. Three down.
Ariel looked around. The front of the room was almost cleared. One of the gang backed into Ariel while trying to avoid Mordechai. The gang member tried to duck away, but Ariel reached up and twisted his head so he was looking directly behind him, accompanied by more crunching as vertebrae broke.
Four down.
Mordechai dropped his last target at the same moment. They looked at each other, then in unison turned to look at Cord Campbell, who was the last of the gang members standing. Ariel was surprised at Campbell’s height—or rather, the lack of it. He was actually a couple of inches shorter than Ariel.
Campbell pulled a pistol from his belt and moved it back and forth to cover first Mordechai, then Ariel, and back again. “What…what do you want?”
“I told you,” Mordechai said in his coldest voice. “Justice for the fourteen people you murdered last night.”
“You…you can’t do this. It’s illegal!” Campbell shouted.
Mordechai waved a hand across the floor. “It looks like we’ve already done it. And it’s only illegal if your police can find us. Which they won’t.”
Ariel slipped a couple of steps closer as Mordechai kept Campbell’s attention.
“But why? Why do you care? They’re only Jews.”
They’re only Jews. That statement lit a flame of fury in Ariel’s mind. He closed the distance with Campbell in less than a heartbeat, and ripped the pistol out of his hands, breaking fingers in the process.
Campbell screamed in surprise and pain, then was reduced to choked moans as Ariel lifted him one-handed by the throat.
“They’re only Jews,” he hissed, leaning forward to stare into Campbell’s eyes from less than a hand-breadth’s distance. “They’re only Jews!” He shook Campbell so hard his body flopped under his neck hold. “You murdered my parents and all you can say is ‘They’re only Jews’?”
There was a moment of almost silence as Ariel heaved breaths and Campbell pawed at the hand around his throat, choking. Ariel leaned forward again, and smiled, making sure that his fangs were showing. “Little man,” he crooned, “get ready to meet God, knowing that you’ve failed.” His smile broadened. “Get ready to meet God, knowing that you never knew anything about the Jews. We’re not demons. We’re not trash. But some of us”—he reached up and tapped a fang with his other hand—“some of us are vampires, and two of us took down your whole gang tonight. Don’t worry, I’m not going to take your blood. I wouldn’t pollute my body with it. You’re not worth it. Just die knowing that even one such as I find you to be the uttermost filth.”
He paused for a moment, lifted Campbell a little higher, and said, “You’ve cost us enough time. No farewells, filth. Go meet your judge.”
Ariel’s fist clenched, Campbell’s neck crunched, his feet kicked in the air for a few seconds, and then he fell limp. Ariel let the body drop to the floor.
Five down.
Ariel stood for a long moment, just staring at the dead gang leader. He felt…he didn’t know what he felt. There was no sense of victory, no sense of fulfillment. Just…emptiness. A void, where his mother and father used to be.