Confluence. Stephen J. Gordon

clattering, someone asking about chicken, a sizzling sound, and then quiet. He must’ve moved into an entry area, between inner and outer doors. Or maybe he was in the men’s room.

      “What’s up? You should be out with Katie at dinner or something.”

      “Well, I was on my way to dinner…”

      “Oh, Christ. What happened?”

      I told him…the whole story from being invited over the Mandels, to spotting the Buick, to the guys going in the house, to the Buick taking off, to what happened in here.

      “All right, I’ll call it in. What’s the address?”

      I gave it to him.

      “The uniform guys will be over first. Don’t shoot them when they come to the door.”

      I laughed.

      “I’ll have the waiter pack up my steak, which I just started by the way, drop off Rachel and be over.”

      “Apologize to her, please.”

      “You apologize to her when you come over this week.”

      “Deal.” I paused for a minute, looking at the body at my feet. “You will tell the uniform guys I’m a good guy, right?” All I needed was for them to enter this little scene, spot the guy on the floor, and draw the wrong conclusions.

      He hung up without responding.

      I looked around. What a mess. The guy in a heap at my feet had stopped oozing blood onto the floor. What about his partner? Hopefully, his heart was still beating. I stepped around the corpse and then into the hallway. The guy in jeans and a windbreaker – and former owner of the Czech CZ 75 – was where I had left him, facedown on the floor. The pulse in his neck, was faint, but still there. While his heart was still beating, I couldn’t vouch that any of his appendages still worked after that smash to the base of his neck. There was no need to tie him up, so I headed back into the kitchen and filled two glasses with water.

      I found Josh and Shelley and the two girls in what must have been the girls’ bedroom. It was painted light purple with a flowery border along the ceiling, had a poster of Masada and some blond kid from a television show, a white bookcase, and a pair of matching dressers. The Mandels were spread out on two beds: Josh and the older daughter on one bed, Shelley and the younger one on the other.

      “Well,” I said, “the police are on their way. “They’ll need to speak with you,” I looked from Josh to Shelley. They appeared shell shocked. I held out the two glasses of water. Each took one, but didn’t drink.

      “What…?” Shelley tried to start a question, but couldn’t get the words out.

      “I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, maybe the girls have friends on the block they can spend the night with?”

      Shelley nodded. “Next door. The Levins.” She looked at Josh. “We can take them over,” she added.

      Josh was just looking at me. Less than ten minutes ago he had two strangers invade his house, and one of them hold a gun to his head.

      “Why don’t you both go. Take them next door, explain to the neighbors there are going to be police cars all over the place in a matter of minutes. Get the kids settled, make kiddush, and then come back. I want to speak with both of you when there’s a chance.”

      They nodded and threw some clothes together for the kids. Within five minutes, the four of them headed out the front door. I watched them go to the neighbor’s, and then went back into the kitchen. Without looking at the body on the floor, I pulled a bar stool out from the island in the center of the room and sat down. Mazhar’s semi-automatic was just a few feet from me on the counter, its grip devoid of the magazine, and the slide locked open. I took the clip and single bullet from my jacket pocket and placed both near the gun.

      After a few long deep breaths, I ran the confrontation through my mind: disarming the first man, hitting him with the descending elbow, Josh held at gunpoint, baiting the other guy so he moved the gun off of Josh, and shooting the bastard through the head.

      Without being conscious of it, these images were replaced with others. Sidon, Lebanon at night, and my four man Sayeret Matkal team hustling through a second floor apartment one block from the harbor. We were hunting a bomb maker. We called him ha-bogair, the Graduate, because he looked like a young Dustin Hoffman.

      The bomb maker’s apartment was a series of rooms off a narrow hallway. We were all dressed similarly in jeans, ratty shirts, and kaffiyahs. All four of us were wielding M4 carbines. We divided into two pre-arranged groups of two. Each pair took a different section of the apartment.

      Asaf and I went straight ahead. Gal and Eitan went left. We knew exactly where we were going. We had been practicing in a mock-up of this apartment every day for a month. Asaf and I cleared two bedrooms and then moved to the end of the hall. Asaf was a big man – six-four and solid – but moved fluidly and assuredly. I knew the other pair was moving the same way. At the end of the passageway, Asaf and I turned left into a dining room that had dirty white walls, a low, slip-covered sofa and a wooden coffee table. As soon as we entered the room, we froze. We saw another team member backing out of a side room, slowly stepping away from the Graduate. The terrorist had his arm around the neck of our fourth man, Gal, and was pressing a pistol into his head. Ha-bogair saw us and started shouting, first in Arabic then in Hebrew. He ordered us to move back and drop our weapons. He was going to shoot Gal. The man was shouting quickly, almost hysterically. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. Gal was trying to stay calm, but he kept looking at me to do something.

      The Graduate continued shouting at us, but the team stayed even, pointing their M4s at him. The remaining three team members to include me had fanned out in the dining room, with all of the weapons aimed at one focal point – the bomb maker. But there was no clear shot. The terrorist was using our fourth man as an effective shield. I looked over at Asaf on the far right. He caught my silent signal and started speaking. Take it easy, take it easy. We’re lowering our guns. The three of us did so. Asaf continued: Let him go. We’ll leave. Just let him go. As Asaf spoke and distracted the man, I drew my Glock 19, and aimed it at the Graduate’s head. The bomb maker saw me and began to move his pistol off his hostage.

      I fired, but so did he. He must have already been squeezing the trigger as he turned on me. His gun had just cleared his human shield. My nine millimeter hollow point blew into the center of his forehead. His hung there for a millisecond then collapsed. His hostage, Gal, stepped away from him and nodded to me. I nodded back.

      There was movement to my right. We turned to see Asaf on the floor, pressing his big hand into the right side of his neck. Blood was spewing everywhere.

      The doorbell rang.

      I blinked a few times as the Mandels’ kitchen came back into focus.

      “Police.” The doorbell rang again.

      I got up and moved to the front door. Without hesitating, I opened it to see two large Baltimore City Police officers, each easily a head taller than me. The one on the left was Caucasian, the one on the right African American. “Gentleman, come in,” I said, opening the door wider and motioning for them to enter. Behind them, I saw their parked cruiser with its revolving red and blue lights.

      “Step back, please,” the officer on the right said.

      I stepped back.

      Both officers came in, their hands resting on their service automatics.

      “Major Aronson?” the officer on the left asked.

      I smiled. That was what the Israeli Army ID in my bottom right desk drawer said. I simply responded, “Yes.” Nate must have given them my rank to help build a sense of brotherhood and authority. I would have thought that rank would not have impressed these guys. If they felt compelled, they would have drawn their weapons regardless of my rank.

      They saw the body on the floor in the hallway.

      “There’s another