Ehud melted into the people perusing the rows of bread on display in a shopwindow next door. He and his team would be close by at all times.
Inside the café, Jack saw Uziel standing off to the side, next to a tall wrought-iron table where a couple of Americans were talking. The tabletop was only big enough for a few people to rest their drinks. Uziel, one forearm resting on the table, idly turned a cup of coffee round and round as his gaze darted about, looking at everyone.
He was nervous and with good reason. Those very rare individuals with his ability to recognize killers were often the targets of rare predators who could recognize them for that ability. Human predators, just like the four-legged kind, didn’t like any interference with their hunting. If spotted, the four-legged kind would usually move on and come back to hunt another time. The human predators, on the other hand, sought to eliminate anyone who could recognize them to give themselves free rein to hunt as they pleased.
More than that, though, Jack knew that Uziel was tense for other reasons. His young wife had recently died of a brain tumor. They had been married for only two months when the tumor had been discovered. Her health went downhill rapidly from there. Three months after the tumor had been discovered, she was dead. Uziel was left dazed by the trauma and feeling lost.
That was when Jack discovered him. He had been shopping for dinner and saw Uziel doing the same. Jack couldn’t tell if someone was a killer by looking at their eyes, the way Uziel could, but he had the singular ability to recognize those who could. He struck up a conversation with the young man, and eventually Jack filled a void in Uziel’s life, giving him a purpose.
To an extent, Jack understood Uziel’s pain. A woman he had once been fond of had that same special ability as Uziel. Jack had tried to convince her of the danger she was in, but she wanted nothing to do with Jack’s help. At least, not until it was too late. One of those predators had recognized her for her ability and murdered her. That experience had made him realize that in his calling he couldn’t afford the risk of emotional entanglement.
But that was before he had met Kate. Kate was different. She had of course been confused and skeptical at first, but she quickly came to grasp everything Jack had told her. He had helped teach her how to survive. Together they worked to stop a highly unusual nest of predators bent on hunting and killing those with her ability.
Over time, Kate had come to mean more to him than he thought anyone ever could. Every line of her face, her mannerisms, the sound of her voice, were now stitched into his soul.
Her ability far outstripped that of anyone he had ever found before. Not only was she able to recognize killers, but she had vague visions of what those killers had done. This was the ultimate type of person Jack searched for. From years of research he was sure they had to exist, but Kate was the only one he’d ever found with that higher-level ability.
Unfortunately, in a battle with that nest of murderers, Jack had been gravely wounded. He had died for a time even as a team of Mossad combat medics worked on him. No one thought he would make it. He didn’t remember anything after that hail of bullets, except the fading vision of Kate’s horror-stricken face.
That memory still haunted him.
He never regained consciousness before being flown to Israel to see if there was anything the doctors there could do to keep him alive. To save Kate the trauma of what they believed would be his inevitable death, and at best a vegetative state even if they were able to save his life, they told her that he had died. Everyone thought it best.
After he’d eventually come out of the coma, Jack had spent seven months in the hospital recovering from his injuries, and then there were more months of physical therapy. By the time he had been aware enough to do anything, Kate had vanished.
She was highly intelligent, as those at her level of ability were. She had come to understand both what her ability meant, and the danger it put her in. She had done what Jack had taught her to do—what he’d told her she would need to do. She had gone off the grid and disappeared. Not even his friends in the Mossad could locate her.
For people like Kate, who could recognize killers, the safest thing to do was to be invisible. Their kind were always hunted by rare super-predators. Since the ability ran in families, that kind of killer often murdered the entire family to make sure that none with the ability survived.
Jack circled an arm around Uziel’s shoulders. “How are you doing?”
Uziel forced a smile. “I’m fine.”
He didn’t look fine. He chewed gum with his mouth open as if his life depended on it while his gaze darted around at the people outside on the street.
“Let’s not draw attention, all right?” Jack put a finger under the young man’s chin to close his mouth. Uziel smiled self-consciously and spit the gum into his empty coffee cup.
“How about we get going?” Jack said. “You did good before spotting that last killer. Just remember what I told you—don’t fixate. Scan and take in as many different pairs of eyes as you can.”
Uziel swiped a lock of straight brown hair back off his forehead. He leaned a little closer.
“I’m fine, Jack. Really.” He let out a deep breath to calm himself. “I want to do this. I want to stop anyone else from losing a loved one.”
Jack pressed his earpiece, listening to his team calling out their location, before leading Uziel out of the café. The streets in this area of Jerusalem, known as the Triangle, had long been closed to automobile traffic and turned into an open-air pedestrian mall. It was a beautiful area, with trees in planters down the center of some of the streets and a wide variety of shopping along with a vibrant nightlife.
The nightlife also drew crowds, which were also a target for terrorists. But with Uziel’s talent it was easier to spot killers in the daytime. Uziel needed to be able to see their eyes. Darkness provided cover. Of course, so did sunglasses.
TWENTY
Jack kept Uziel moving at a leisurely pace. They paused at shops along the way to give him a chance to scan the crowds. It also helped the two of them to look like nothing more than a couple of tourists or shoppers. He didn’t want to look obvious to any potential threat seeking an easy terrorist target.
They made their way through some of the narrow connecting streets packed tightly with vendors or shops with their wares on display outside. Uziel occasionally glanced at the racks with hanging scarves, necklaces, and rosaries, or tables of fruits, pastries, and tourist trinkets, trying to look like an ordinary shopper as he watched the faces that continually streamed past him going in the opposite direction.
Uziel suddenly stiffened to a stop.
“What?” Jack asked, looking up.
“Faded green T-shirt,” Uziel said with a nod of his head indicating someone across the street.
Jack looked over and saw the older, heavyset man in the faded T-shirt. The faded T-shirt had what looked like a lifetime of stains. The man’s heavy jowls and hanging double chins were unshaven. He looked to be in a daze.
Jack just couldn’t picture the guy as a murderer, but then, he didn’t have Uziel’s ability and murderers were often quite unremarkable looking.
“Heavy, older man, faded green shirt, walking past the Jamin Jewelry store,” he said into the microphone under the collar of his shirt.