The Last Days by Joel C. Rosenberg

was in a race for her life. They all knew the stakes, and they’d do anything to bring her home safely. But no one was more serious about that mission than Danny Tracker. He adjusted his headset and snapped a command at a specialist sitting just a few yards away.
    The biggest coup of Tracker’s impressive career was recruiting Erin McCoy into the CIA’s operations division. It was Tracker who’d first heard about a college-age daughter of the late Sean McCoy from MacPherson. It was Tracker who’d obtained access to Sean McCoy’s file and began poring over it. It was Tracker who’d cleared Erin to learn what her father had really done for all those years and why she’d rarely seen him. It was Tracker who helped her understand for the first time how her father had died, and why. And in time it was he who’d persuaded her to join his team, and eventually to infiltrate GSX and watch Jon Bennett’s back.
    McCoy’s foray into Global Strategix hadn’t gone precisely as Tracker had hoped. There’d been complications that he hadn’t foreseen. Still, he regarded it as a coup for many reasons, some professional, some personal. But now all of it was in jeopardy. McCoy’s life was on the line, and he wasn’t entirely sure their plan would really work.
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    Galishnikov could see the Jeep catching up to them.
    He knew they were running out of time. This wasn’t random. This was personal. They were coming after him—to kill him, to send a message to the president to stay out of their war with the Jews. Why weren’t the Americans and Israelis on offense? Why weren’t Bennett and McCoy calling in air strikes? Where was the IDF? Why weren’t they sending a strike force? This was out of control.
    If the Palestinians were going to start blowing up their own leaders, how could Israel ever make peace with them? Why should they? Maybe Ariel Sharon had been right. Jordan was Palestine. Sixty percent of the country of Jordan was Palestinian. Why did they need the West Bank and Gaza, too? All of the Palestinians should just be deported to Jordan, Galishnikov thought. Let King Abdullah take care of them. God had promised all this land to the Jews. They were willing to share some of it. He certainly had been. But enough was enough. No one could accuse him of being a hawk. He wasn’t an extremist. He wanted peace. He’d worked for peace. But a peace treaty without real security guarantees for Israel was a suicide pact and he wasn’t going to be part of that. Not anymore. Not after what he’d seen today.
    Galishnikov told Bennett to get off the road and find a way back. They needed to be heading north, not south. They needed to be getting out of Gaza, not going deeper into it. They were rapidly heading toward the Strip’s most dangerous stronghold, the Khan Yunis refugee camp where radical Islamic forces were especially strong. What were they supposed to do then? How were they supposed to survive with no DSS agents to protect them, and no air support to extract them?
    â€œWhat the hell are you doing, Jonathan? Get us off this road now—now.”
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    Snapshot blew down the straightaway so fast it was beginning to shake.
    The engine was heading into the red zone. Bennett was pushing this car beyond its limits, but the Jeep was still closing the gap. He couldn’t slow down now. He certainly couldn’t get off the road or turn around. At the rate they were going they’d just flip the car and roll until they blew up or the Jeep got a clear shot at their gas tank.
    Banacci continued to swerve back and forth across the road, trying desperately not to provide a clear shot, while two of his agents lay on their stomachs in the back, laying down M-16 fire, hoping to take out a tire, if not the driver behind them.
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    Bennett’s eyes were locked on the road.
    McCoy tried to keep hers from locking on Bennett. She knew he loved his