Highlander - Donna Lettow [71]
“Guess they’re here to make sure we don’t try to leave the party early,” MacLeod said as he made his way over to the detonator.
“I’d never think of being so rude,” Avram said. So far there was no action at the gate itself.
Silently they waited, watching over the narrow brick wall that formed the boundary of the rooftop. All around the outside of the Ghetto Wall they could see the German soldiers taking up their positions, readying their weapons. But MacLeod knew that these soldiers were simply laying siege to the Ghetto, ensuring that no one got out. It remained to be seen how many soldiers would be poured into the Ghetto itself.
Suddenly, off in the distance, the sound of gunfire. Sharp, staccato blasts followed by an explosion. “Ours,” Avram identified the sounds and their direction. “Nalewki Street. Couple of rifles and a grenade.” Then the sound of automatic fire returned and more grenade explosions. The fiery light from the Molotov cocktails flared and waned in the darkened Ghetto. The battle had been engaged in earnest. Avram could tell that MacLeod was reining himself in, that he wanted to be at the heart of the action so badly he could taste it. “Soon enough,” he counseled. “Our time will come soon enough.”
It was hard on them both, not knowing what was happening in the Central Ghetto, hearing the guns and the bombs and not knowing who was falling, who was dying. But their duty was to their station—this would not be the only battle, just the first in a long campaign. At one point their spirits were lifted as they heard a loudspeaker outside the Wall warn the men stationed there “Juden haben Waffen! Juden haben Waffen!” The Jews have weapons—they’d surprised the Germans after all. But the element of surprise would only work in their favor so long.
Finally there was movement outside the Gesia Street gate. Armored vehicles and a troop transport. Avram’s unit had placed several abandoned cars and an old wagon in front of the gate to block it, and it was obvious the Germans were having trouble getting it open. But not for long.
With a tremendous crash, the massive wooden gates were torn asunder. Wood fragments flew in all directions as an armored tank barreled through the gate, pushing the cars out of its way as if they were toys, splintering the wagon beneath its treads. As the tank entered the Ghetto, MacLeod raised the plunger on the detonator. Avram signaled to MacLeod to detonate the mine, but MacLeod shook him off.
“Wait for it …” MacLeod hissed. His fingers were itching to blow the bastards to kingdom come but he held back until both the tank and the transport were in range of the mine.
MacLeod pushed down on the plunger with all his strength. The answering explosion knocked him back from the edge of the roof as Gesia Street opened up like a pit from Hell, fire and shrapnel erupting from its bowels. Cobblestones flew and walls crumbled. Windows were shattered for blocks around. The choking cloud of smoke and dust was blinding.
MacLeod crawled back to the edge of the roof and peered through the dust at the street below, where the tank lay on its side, a behemoth beached by its own weight, belching smoke. Behind it, what remained of the troop transport was in flames. He could hear the screams of soldiers as they tried to escape the wreckage. Their luckier comrades retreated on foot back through the gate in terror, abandoning their dead and wounded.
Avram joined him at the edge of the building. His face was eerily highlighted in the glow of the burning transport. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he laughed as they watched the officers scurry back into the darkness beyond the Wall.
Chapter Fourteen
Paris: The Present
MacLeod watched the officers frisk Maral, his hands clenched in fists of impotent anger at the brusque manner in which she was being handled. When the search turned up nothing suspect, another security officer appeared with a portable detection