Page 25 of Out of Control

“Yes. Absolutely. I swear, I want to show you something, not make a run for it.”

Spencer scooped up the car keys and tossed them across the table at him. “You know where we’re going. You drive. But I’m warning you, I have a hypodermic in my pants.”

Drago commented drolly, “I’d describe your junk as slightly more impressive than a hypodermic, my friend.”

“Shut up,” Spencer laughed.

THE GOLANHeights were quiet tonight. The warring settlers and various militia groups trying to force the settlers out weren’t active, and they made the drive without incident; their American IDs granted them no-questions-asked access to Israel.

Drago guided the Land Rover through downtown Tel Aviv to the coast, driving past resort hotel after resort hotel perched along the shore of the Mediterranean. He reached a gap in the row of high-rises. It looked like a smile with a tooth knocked out of it, a jarring void that didn’t belong in this place.

“Aww, no,” Spencer breathed. “Not here.”

Drago’s jaw muscles rippled with his own stress at being in this place. But where else was he going to convince Spencer to listen to him? To really listen. And to think for himself.

He parked the Land Rover next to the memorial site for the Grand Mediterranean Hotel. Once it had been a shining white high-rise on the beach, with white marble floors, crystal chandeliers, and palm trees growing in the cavernous lobby. Now it was a crater lined with black granite on which the names of 1,343 men, women, and children were inscribed for posterity. The victims of the Grand Med bombing.

The bombing he and Spencer were supposed to stop.

And hadn’t.

They’d failed every one of those colorless, faceless collections of letters etched in the stones. Except each name had been so much more—a human being with a past and a future, family and friends, loves and hates, laughter and pain. And hope. They’d all had hope, even the expectation, of a tomorrow.

He and Spencer had been so wrapped up in each other, so at odds with each other as they fought over a future or the lack of one for themselves, that they must have missed something. Some detail, some gesture or casual word dropped. There had to have been some hint of… this.

He climbed out of the car and didn’t look back to see if Spencer had followed.

In the middle of the crater, a fountain gurgled gently. Of course there was water. In this part of the world, water symbolized life. Renewal. Rebirth.

Not that he and Spencer were going to get either one.

But they could get revenge.

Spencer bit back a moan. It came out instead as a soft exhalation laced with pain and guilt and remorse. So much remorse.

Reluctantly, he followed Spencer into the crater, with its circular wall covered in carved names. He headed for the fountain while Spencer walked slowly around the perimeter, reading names.

He knew from a previous visit here that some were written in English lettering, some in Hebrew script, some in flowing Arabic. He’d even spotted a few names in Cyrillic letters. It had been a veritable United Nations of victims, brought together by chance, linked forever by unkind fate.

Eventually Spencer walked over to him where he sat on a plain granite bench in front of the fountain that bubbled up out of a waist-high granite ball carved to look like planet Earth. “Why here?” he asked.

Drago looked up bleakly. “We have a chance to make this right.”

“How can this possibly be made right? All these people died. Nothing will bring them back.”

“True. But we can give them justice. Give their surviving friends and families closure.”

Spencer sank down on the cold, hard bench beside him and planted his elbows on his knees as he stared at the gurgling water.

Good. This was easier without Spencer’s mesmerizing, soul-stripping stare pinned on him. “I’ve been working for the past decade to track down Jabril Hamza and the members of his cell.”

“And?”

“I got close in Berlin. I got even closer in the Hamad Desert until that fucking missile hit.” An urge to rant and punch something surged in his chest. So close. He’d been so damned close to nailing Hamza. He shoved down the rage and frustration by brute mental force. Neither would help him sway Spencer. That would require cold, hard logic. “I want you to help me.”

Not even a hint of surprise crossed Spencer’s face. “Yeah. I saw that one coming.” He fell silent, staring at the fountain and appearing to think hard. Eventually he murmured, “What do you want from me?”

Drago snorted. “Now there’s a loaded question.”

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