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.And it was from this position, unable to move, unable to do anything more, that he witnessed it all happening.Maya Bloom scanned the wall, blocking out the sound of screaming, ignoring the air currents of the chopper and the chaos and alarm it was causing; ignoring the shouts of the idiot British soldier.It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds to locate her.She was approximately six metres further towards the south end of the wall, also dressed in a black robe, with a headscarf and a shawl, her face slightly fattened by pregnancy; and she was the only woman in the vicinity, with the exception of Maya herself, who was not crazed with panic.Far from it.She appeared calm and resolute.Not as resolute, however, as Maya Bloom.She knocked two children out of the way and now there was open ground between her and this second pregnant woman.It took less than a second to cross it.And in that brief window of time, a scene flashed before her eyes.She was a child, standing on the streets of Tel Aviv.Her brother stood beside her and together they looked upon a sight of indescribable carnage.Their mother was there, lying on the ground.The clothes had been burned from her torso; the skin was charred, filling the air with the stink of smoking flesh; both arms had been ripped from her body.The young Maya was screaming and she continued to scream even when Amit put his arms around her and pressed her face against his chest so that she would not have to look upon the aftermath of the Palestinian bomb that had just torn their parents – and their lives – apart.The pregnant woman had a mobile phone in one hand and as she saw Maya Bloom coming towards her she was gripping it firmly.The Israeli threw herself at the woman.As they tumbled to the ground, she thumped the woman’s right wrist against the stones of the Western Wall.Her grip loosened and Maya Bloom tugged the phone from her.The device became disconnected from the lead to which it was attached.A fraction of a second later it started to ring.Maya Bloom threw the detonator to the ground and raised the shard of glass up above her head, gripping it hard even though its sharp edges cut into her palms.A second later she brought it slamming down into the exposed neck of the pregnant woman.The point of the glass sank into the flesh like a knife into dough.Once it was a couple of inches in, she rotated it clockwise through ninety degrees.Then back again.She repeated this twisting motion three times and with each turn the river of blood that gushed from the wound grew stronger.A harsh gargling sound escaped the victim’s lungs and her limbs started to shake.It took her no more than twenty seconds to die, but even when her body was still, Maya Bloom didn’t stop.She raised the shard again and brought it stabbing down on the woman’s face.Piercing, puncturing, as all the hate she felt spilled out.By the time her frenzy had finished she was almost as bloody as the murdered woman.She was on all fours, an animal in the wild, and it was only the feel of cold steel against the back of her head that brought her back to the here and now.She looked over her shoulder to see the appalled face of a soldier who was pressing his rifle against her, and she became aware once more of the screaming of the children and the other women as they fled the horror.And then the soldier started to shout as well.His voice was hoarse.He needed to scream to be heard over the noise of the chopper hovering above the heads of the crowd.‘Lie on the ground with your hands on your head! Lie on the ground! Lie on the fucking ground.NOW!’THIRTY-TWOLuke’s head was pounding.He didn’t understand.Maya Bloom was working for Stratton.What, then, had just happened?The plaza was chaos.Noise.Children and women screaming and running, the chopper blades thundering overhead.Men, too, shouting on the other side of the barrier.IDF soldiers, one of whom had him at gunpoint, looked like they were on the verge of panic, glancing at each other, clearly wondering what the hell to do.He felt Maya Bloom’s eyes on him, saw the calculating look in her face as she slid her makeshift weapon back into her jacket and glanced from her gruesome handiwork to the hovering chopper to the soldier who was shouting at her to get down on the ground.When she snapped back at him, it was with authority.The soldier didn’t lower his gun, but Luke could see that he was suddenly less sure of himself.Bloom continued to speak.Fast.Harsh.It sounded like she was issuing instructions and he could make out one word repeated several times: Mossad.Twenty seconds later Maya Bloom was standing right in front of him.‘If you try to run,’ she shouted, ‘they’ll shoot you.’‘What the fuck have you told them?’‘The truth,’ she replied loudly.‘That you’re a terrorist.’ She nodded at the guards, who pushed Luke away from the wall towards her.She was close now, less than half a metre.‘If you don’t do what I tell you,’ she said so that only Luke could hear, ‘neither of us will get out of the plaza alive.I promise they’ll kill you if I give the word.’Luke believed her
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