Read The League of Night and Fog for Free Online

other sons had offered him because he had to avoid attracting attention to his father. But avoiding attention no longer mattered. I’ll do it! he thought. But this isn’t business! This is personal!
    If my father isn’t back by tomorrow, after forty years you bastards will finally get what’s coming to you!
    For Icicle!
    For me!

THE RETURN OF THE WARRIOR

1
    N orth of Beersheeba. Israel. Hearing a sudden rattle of gunfire, Saul threw his shovel to the ground, grabbed his rifle, and scrambled from the irrigation ditch. He’d been working in this field since dawn, sweating beneath the fierce sun as he extended the drainage system he’d constructed when he first came to this settlement almost three years ago. His wife, Erika, had been pregnant then, and both of them had been anxious to escape the madness of the world, to find a sanctuary where the futility of their former profession seemed far away. Of course, they’d realized that the world would not let them ever escape, but the illusion of escape was what mattered. In this isolated village where even the conflict between Jews and Arabs was remote, they’d made a home for themselves and the baby—Christopher Eliot Bernstein-Grisman—who’d been born soon after.
    The villagers had commented on the boy’s unusual name. “Part Christian, part Jewish? And why the hyphen?”
    Bernstein was Erika’s last name, Grisman Saul’s. Christopher had been his foster brother, an Irish-Catholic with whom he’d been raised in an orphanage in Philadelphia. Eliot had been their foster father, the sad-eyed gray-faced man who always wore a black suit with a rose in his lapel, who’d befriended Chris andSaul had been the only person to show them kindness, and had recruited them for intelligence work, specifically to be assassins. In the end, their foster father had turned against them. Chris had been killed, and Saul had killed Eliot.
    The bitterness Saul still felt over what had happened—the grief, disgust, and regret—had been his main motive for wanting to escape from the world. But love for his foster brother and indeed, despite everything, for Eliot had prompted him to want to name the baby after the two most important men in his life. Erika, understanding, had agreed. Generous, wonderful Erika. As graceful as an Olympic gymnast. As beautiful as a fashion model—tall, trim, and elegant with high strong cheeks and long dark hair. As deadly as himself.
    The sound of gunfire scorched his stomach. Racing frantically toward the village, his first thought was that he had to protect his son. His second was that Erika could protect the boy as well as he could. His third was that, if anything happened to either of them, he’d never rest till their killers paid.
    Though he hadn’t been in action since he’d come to Israel, old instincts revived. Some things apparently could never be forgotten. He leaped a stone wall and neared the stark outline of the village, making sure that dust hadn’t clogged the firing mechanism or the barrel of his rifle. Though he always kept it loaded, he inspected the magazine just to be certain. Hearing screams, he chambered a round and dove behind a pile of rocks.
    The shots became louder, more frequent. He stared at outlying cinder-block buildings and saw strangers wearing Arab combat gear who fired from protected vantage points toward the homes at the center of the village. Women dragged children down alleys or into doorways. An old man lurched to the ground and rolled from repeated impacts as he tried to reach a young girl frozen with fright in the middle of a street. The girl’s head blew apart. An invader tossed a grenade through an open window. The blast spewed smoke and wreckage. A woman shrieked.
    Sons of bitches! Saul aimed from behind the pile of rocks. He counted six targets, but the volume of gunfire told him that atleast six other invaders were on the opposite side of the village. The shots increased, other rifles joining the fight. But