I silently stepped forward before the man was beyond my reach. The thought of being shot didn’t occur to me. My hands and hips moved rapidly and in concert. With my left hand I used a chin-na variation, pulling him slightly off balance and locking his wrist. Simultaneously, with my right I grabbed the Czech pistol over the slide and twisted the weapon against his trigger finger, both pulling his finger away from the trigger and breaking his hold on it. I tore the gun out of his grasp before he knew I was on him. I continued the chin-na hold, pulling his shoulder and torso forward. He was now bent over. I raised my right arm high and brought my descending elbow straight down onto the spot where the back of his neck ran into the back of his skull. There was a nice hollow there, and I hit it – hard enough, but not with everything I had. The man crashed face down to the floor.
A moment went by, and a voice came from the kitchen, but it wasn’t Josh’s.
“Mazhar!”
Once again, I put my finger to my lips to indicate that Shelley should remain quiet.
“Mazhar?”
Another few seconds passed.
“Mrs. Mandel,” the voice from the kitchen said, “If you do not come here I will shoot your husband, and then I will shoot your children.”
The man had an accent, but I couldn’t place it. Mediterranean? Slav? Romanian? And what was that name, “Mazhar?”
“Do you hear me, Mrs. Mandel? I will save your children for last.”
Shelley looked at me, her eyes wide. I nodded.
“I’m coming,” she said quickly.
I whispered in her ear, hopefully, one last time: “If you can, walk slowly.” I didn’t wait for her response.
With Mazhar’s pistol in hand, I headed into the dining room for the other kitchen entrance. I stopped at the corner, just before the opening to the kitchen. Hopefully, when Shelley would walk in from the hallway, all eyes would be on her. In that moment I’d turn the corner, take in the situation, and shoot. In theory. It really all depended on where everyone was, and if the man’s gun was pointing at someone.
I looked down at the CZ 75. I moved the slide back just enough to verify that there was a round in the chamber – there was – and waited.
“Here I am,” I heard Shelley say. I wondered if that was for me.
I turned the corner, and leveled the gun. In that moment, I saw the second man was indeed looking at Shelley. His back was almost completely to me and had a .45 to Josh’s head.
“Tell me what happened, Mrs. Mandel, or I’ll shoot him. Is someone else here?”
I was essentially behind him, but the angles were horrible: Josh and the gunman; Shelley on the other side. I could shoot the intruder, but Shelley could get hit as the bullet passed through him.
“Yes, there’s another guest,” I said from the far doorway.
The man with the .45 on Josh turned and pulled him closer.
Positions had gotten worse. He now had the rabbi almost completely in front of him.
With a quick sweep, I took in the room: exterior wall to the left with a large window midway across. Beneath the window was a sink, then a countertop to both sides. Double oven to my left, fridge to my right. Island in the center of the room with bar stools around it. Across from me was Josh and the gunman. Shelley had moved to the left between Josh and the countertop. Two young girls, maybe 8 and 10, stood in front of her.
All eyes were now on me.
Not good at all.
I looked at the man holding Josh. He was in his forties, with an olive complexion. He had a wide nose and high cheekbones.
“Mazhar is dead, ” I said. I didn’t know if he was. “This is his gun.”
I noticed Josh’s torso. He was thinner than the gunman, but I still didn’t like the shot. The man needed to take his weapon off of Josh’s head. I couldn’t risk shooting the guy and having him inadvertently pull the trigger.
Josh’s eyes darted from me to Shelley and then back to me. I relaxed, keeping my gun on the intruder, but allowing my focus to stay wide. I could see Shelley and her young girls to the left, Josh and the gunman in the center, and dishes and glasses on a small counterspace near the fridge on my right.
I really didn’t have a shot, but I smiled. “You’re fatter than the rabbi,” I said to the man holding the .45. “I’m going to shoot you in the side and then I’m going to shoot you in the head.”
I spoke to the two young girls in front of Shelley, but kept my eyes on my target. “Girls,” I said, “Close your eyes and keep them closed until your mom tells you to open them, okay?”
The two girls looked at Shelley who nodded. They closed their eyes.
I lowered my gun slightly and pointed it at the gunman’s side. The man behind Josh moved his head out and began to aim at me.
I raised Mazhar’s gun and pulled the trigger.
2
The concussive sound of the gunshot hung in the air, but the action was over in a split second. The gunman had just moved his .45 away from Rabbi Mandel’s head when I fired. The bullet hit him at the junction of his nose and his forehead. When hit, his finger didn’t twitch and he didn’t reflexively pull the trigger. The man’s head was knocked back ever-so-slightly as he collapsed backward to the floor. Behind him a spray of blood appeared on the wall.
“Josh, Shelley, take the kids upstairs. Go out this way,” I indicated the opening to the dining room behind me. “Watch out for the body in the hallway.”
They ushered their kids out in front of them, the girls’ eyes still tightly shut.
I looked at the Czech pistol in my hand, released the magazine, and ejected the round from the chamber, locking the slide open. I put the clip and single bullet in my jacket pocket, and placed the gun on the kitchen island in front of me. The body at the other end of the room instantly had that look of something discarded on the floor. A small pool of blood was collecting under the dead man’s head.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm the sudden energy surge that my autonomic system dumped into my body.
So, who were these guys? What were they doing here? A home invasion with the family still at home? No, something else. Someone had sent them...the man who had driven off in the Buick? Maybe I should reload the gun.
I stood over the body, very much wanting to go through the man’s pockets. But I didn’t. Didn’t want to mix my fingerprints with this guy’s. The police would tell me what they found. Nate would tell me.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Nate D’Allesandro’s number. Nate, who was not related to Baltimore’s old political family – though probably if you went far enough back, there had to be some connection – was a police homicide captain. He was a friend born from the aftermath of an extremely tense situation. A few years ago, his daughter was hiking with a girlfriend in the extreme north of Israel, when late one evening – early morning really – they happened across a team of Hezbollah terrorists on their way to a nearby kibbutz to kill as many Israelis as they could. She told them she was an American. They killed her friend and took her hostage. I led the unit that went in to get her. The rescue was a success, and when I came to Baltimore later, I followed up with Nate, and we became friends. His number has resided in my phone ever since.
As soon as Nate answered his cell, I knew he was in a restaurant. I could hear the background noise. “Yeah, Gidon, hold on.” My number