The Last Days by Joel C. Rosenberg

bombing was out. News of Arafat’s death spread through the city and refugee camps like wildfire. Angry crowds were pouring out of their homes. Teenagers were setting tires and Dumpsters on fire. Lake and the team worked their way toward the beach. It was simple, direct. It was a landmark they knew and could follow most of the way out of the city.
    They were driving through wretched, filthy slums. Bennett had never seen poverty like this. None of them had. Crumbling cinder-block tenement buildings. Bombed-out shops. The scorched remains of cars. Empty playgrounds. The stench of uncollected garbage. The farther they moved from center city, the farther they seemed to plunge into a wasteland of human misery.
    The road ahead would only get worse. They’d still have to make it through or around the Shati Refugee Camp—then through or around the Jabalya Refugee Camp—before racing north for the Erez Checkpoint and the relative safety of Israel. Both camps were Islamic strongholds. But there weren’t a whole lot of options. If they weren’t dead, they should be on Ahmed Orabi Street along the Med in less than ten minutes. Where they’d go after that, Bennett had no idea.
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    Lake suddenly slammed on his brakes.
    But not in time.
    From out of nowhere, a massive green garbage truck pulled out in front of the lead Suburban and cut it off. Lake’s team plowed into its side at almost forty miles an hour. The SUV burst into flames. Bennett turned the wheel hard to the left and skidded to a stop. All they could hear was the crash of metal and glass.
    Lake—not wearing a seat belt—smashed against the front windshield, then back against the driver’s side window. The air bags never fired. He was dead. The interior quickly filled with smoke. An engine fire engulfed them. Panicked, Lake’s team burst out the side doors, gasping for fresh clean air. They didn’t even see them.
    Two men, dressed as garbage collectors—except for the ski masks over their faces—pulled out AK-47s and opened fire. They emptied their entire clips into the bodies of Lake’s security detail.
    For a split second, no one in Bennett’s vehicle or Banacci’s could comprehend what was happening. It all seemed like slow motion. They saw the shooters. They saw Lake’s team fall. Then they saw a beat-up black Mercedes pull up to the scene and watched the two masked men toss their weapons and themselves inside and speed off. And then—their minds still trying to process the hideous scene—they watched in horror as the garbage truck blew up right in front of them.
    The fireball engulfed the lead Suburban. There was nothing they could do. More of their team was dead, and their killers were gone.

SEVEN
    McCoy grabbed her satellite phone.
    She punched a button. The line crackled with static. Come on, come on, she silently screamed. A moment later, the garbled voice cleared up.
    â€œPrairie Ranch, go secure.”
    â€œSecure, go—it’s McCoy—who’s this?”
    â€œErin, it’s Marsha.”
    â€œPaine’s dead—so is Arafat and Mazen.”
    â€œWe know.”
    â€œWe’re taking heavy fire. We’re in a convoy headed west to the water. Jon’s driving. We’ve got Galishnikov and Sa’id. We’ve just lost another team of DSS agents.”
    â€œWe’ve got you on video from the Predator….”
    Bennett swerved around a corner and hit his high beams. The rain was coming down so hard visibility was becoming a serious problem. Still, they could see a Jeep of some kind—fitted with a .50-caliber machine gun on top—racing toward them. It wasn’t firing yet, but Bennett kept glancing back through his rearview mirror, sure the Jeep saw them now.
    â€œHold on!” Bennett screamed.
    McCoy dropped the phone and grabbed for something to hold on to as Bennett turned the wheel hard to the left, plowed through a