The Danger Within

by E. L. Pini

  Upstairs, Border Police and IDF secured the nearby perimeter, clearing away the shop owners and passersby. The strike team was prepared and awaiting the go-ahead. One of the Electronic Warfare team soldiers knelt down and activated the signal jammer. That was that—no electronic signals of any shape or form from this moment onward. The battery-operated drills came out and marked the path for the robotic drills, which began to chomp at the concrete wall.

  ***

  When the robotic teeth encountered the steel rebars enforcing the concrete, the threatening crunching sounds became a blood-curdling screech. Imad was struggling to keep his emotions in check. The haj had just informed him of Ibrahim’s arrest. The entire operation was hanging by a thread now. His instinct was to activate the main charge now—take out the support pillar, bring down the mosque, flee during the ensuing chaos. The two engineers, however, adamantly refused. Without the operation and broadcast from the mosque, they said, it would constitute a pointless, sinful injury to the holiest of holies. Imad aimed his weapon at them, but they just stood there, unmoving. He cocked his weapon.

  The older engineer knelt in the dust and prayed. The other one soon joined him. Bits of plaster and concrete were crumbling from the wall, and they could hear the metal beasts on the other side, chewing through the wall, getting closer. A cacophony of electronic alerts sounded, and shouts in Hebrew: “Live charge, get back, charge positively identified!”

  The engineers were still praying. Imad realized that he could only accomplish his goal by killing the two of them and attaching the detonator to the pillar himself. No time for that—the soldiers would break through in any moment. The screech of metal crunching stone came closer. Suddenly, he felt the cold muzzle of a gun, pressed against the back of his head. Young Haj Kahil was standing there, holding the gun, his hands shaking. The haj took a hurried step back and shoved a large cardboard box with his foot, sliding it in between Imad and the two engineers.

  “This is your only way out,” he said, still retreating, keeping a clear line of fire to Imad’s head. The younger engineer opened the box and took out three IDF uniforms and three short-barreled M16s. Imad scrambled to don one of the uniforms, pulling it on like a life vest. The two engineers followed.

  “Hurry,” cried out the older one, heading toward the tunnels. “Hurry, or we die here like dogs!”

  Imad and the younger engineer followed. Haj Kahil fell to his knees, muttered a prayer, pressed the gun against his own temple and pulled the trigger.

  Kahanov and I arrived at the butcher shop just as the strike team was finishing up the scans and the forensic team from the Service was taking over the scene. The sheer volume of IDF-issued explosives attached to the support pillar was mind-boggling. Had it been detonated, it would’ve taken down the entire mosque—“along with at least half of Suq El Qatanin, along with its inhabitants,” said the chief demolitions officer.

  Kahanov reported the all clear, permitting his politician to alert the media, inform them with great pomp and circumstance that the threat had been neutralized, praise the government’s impeccable security policy, and justify the absence of political progress with the same tired, well-worn bullshit about there being “no partner for peace.”

  The Almoravid activists who’d been interrogated seemed convinced this whole thing was some Jewish provocation. The old haj, who was also arrested, wouldn’t stop praying for long enough to answer the questions presented to him. His son, the young haj, was found shot. The waqf blamed the IDF for shooting at the young haj mid-prayer and presented the 5.56 IDF bullet case as evidence. The minister of public security lifted the general quarantine on the Yesha territories, keeping it confined to the greater Jerusalem area.

  The hunt for Imad and his shahids was now in the hands of the intelligence community; intensive reconnaissance activities were initiated out in the field, in homes and caves, at roadblocks and barricades, and in the various signal intelligence units. We had no idea where Imad was now, but I knew exactly where he would be tomorrow morning. I realized I had no choice but to share this intel.

  “Are you fucking insane? If you ask me, you’re fucking insane!” Kahanov yelled angrily after realizing I’d kept Ibrahim’s intel about the mosque operation tomorrow to myself. I decided to keep quiet while he came to terms with it.

  After driving silently for few moments, he said, “You were afraid that if we knew their plan to blow up the mosque, we’d close down the Temple Mount. No one goes in.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “And?”

  “And then Imad and his stuffed shahids would disappear, and reappear who knows where, when it would be much less convenient. If I were him, I’d vanish for a month or so, let everything return to normal, and then…”

  “And then Verbin?” Kahanov half-asked, half-stated. “But if you ask me, it’s not like we’re better off now, when we have no lead on him, his shahids and those engineers that set the charges in the tunnel.”

  “We’re much better off,” I insisted, “because if the Mount’s still open, he’ll be there tomorrow morning with his shahids. I guarantee it.”

  “So you thought you’d stroll on up there and take them out by your fucking lonesome?”

  “Negative,” I replied. “I need a team of undercover operatives and someone to paint a mustache on my face—”

  “You’re a goddamn maniac. Do you even realize what you’ve just signed up for?”

  Of course I did. Imad being alive—that was my fault. The fact that this piece of garbage was now threatening Verbin and little Eran—that was on me, too. So it was my mission. I’d made this clusterfuck of a bed, and I’d be the one to destroy it, whether I could live with the necessary violations or not.

  When we arrived at the hospital, I asked if he wanted to come visit Verbin and the little Ehrlich baking inside her over coffee. I’d just gotten her an espresso machine for her office—a small compensation for missing Bruno’s summer home in Umbria, and the Sting concert she was supposed to see there with his wife, Julia.

  “I have work to do,” he grunted and joined Marciano and the other guard, Chayyim, out in the hall.

  “Dr. Verbin! I was told there would be coffee,” I declared in a deep voice as I entered, but I quickly fell silent when I noticed she was in a meeting with Professor Gorni, the hospital administrator. She still got up and hugged me.

  “This is Professor Gorni, my boss. Boss, meet the Neanderthal—my doting husband, Avner.”

  “We’ve met,” Gorni and I said in unison, and he patted me on the back and quickly left the room.

  “Good guy,” I said. “Went on a couple of ops with us.” Verbin attempted to sink deeper into my chest.

  “Hey, doc, you’re wrinkling my kid’s ears,” I scolded her, then raised her shirt a bit to kiss our tiny offspring.

  “You coming home tonight?” she asked.

  Kahanov knocked lightly and entered the office.

  “No. I’m with the bad guys tonight,” I said, looking at Kahanov, who was already listening intently to Verbin’s small bulge and seemed to be having a wonderful time.

  “Tonight you’ll sleep at our place, okay?” said Kahanov.

  Verbin glanced at me questioningly. What she saw in my face made it clear that this time, it was necessary.

  “Just for tonight,” he said. “Just this one night, and tomorrow everything’ll be over. When you’re done here, go with Marciano and Chayyim. Bring whatever you need for tonight and tomorrow. They’ll drive you to our safe house in Rehavia. It’s a nice place, honestly. I’ll leave you to it,” he said and went back out to the hall.

  “I’m glad you’re not in Italy,” I said.

  “Oh, this is new,” she said. “What happened?”

  I stroked her belly. “It’s not just that the kid needs its dad, you know. A dad needs his kid, too.” I said. “And… I don’t know, maybe its m
om, too. A bit.”

  Verbin flipped me off, grinning.

  I blew her a kiss and joined Kahanov outside.

  86.

  “Now shut up and listen,” said Kahanov, back in the car. “I checked on Ibrahim. He’s still at the battalion aid station, recuperating. We’ll gently wake him and take him out of there at four hundred, four fifteen. Dr. ‘Greater Good’ will sign him over to us and mark the date and time. We’ll interrogate Ibrahim, and by the time he gives us the intel, we’ll have no time to report it, no time for anything other than getting up there as soon as possible. Gates to the Temple Mount open at five a.m. You got all that, Mr. RP?”

  It was an elegant solution.

  “I need a team of undercover operatives, with a Netline for jamming and for possible explosives.”

  “It’s all ready,” said Kahanov, snorting when he noticed my raised eyebrows. “Some of us don’t just fuck around all day, PR,” he added. “We can’t all fly to Europe once a week in swanky-ass suits and thousand-dollar shoes, change our panties and passport at some connection and have a bunch of fancy lunches with our local service buddies. This is the Levant. Here we don’t fuck around.”

  When Kahanov and I arrived at Ibrahim’s, we found out that at 02:00, he’d finally managed to claw his way into the bosom of Allah.

  “May Allah have mercy,” I mumbled, pensive.

  “You, go, now!” Kahanov ordered, “I’ll handle the paperwork here and join you later. Micha from 217 is waiting at the Damascus Gate with your mustache. Get dressed and get up there… your bike’s still here, right?”

  Kahanov brought me the clothes I had worn for the tanker operation in Lebanon. They exuded a slightly sweet odor, gunpowder and rotten eggs. I couldn’t afford to waste time, so I wore the sticky mess, taking comfort in the thought that they had served me loyally once before, and the fact that the doctor wasn’t here to smell me. She would most likely get a restraining order… and possibly stick me in quarantine.

  I took the Harley. I had to get up the Mount before Imad and his shahids got to the area, saw me there and bolted. I parked the bike in an abandoned yard surrounded by a rusted wire fence and went up to the gate. Micha and his team were waiting for me in full disguise, along with Roei, an officer from the Engineering Corps bomb squad. He was also provided with a disguise, and by the end of it he looked as local as one of the undercover Unit 217 boys. The jamming system, intended to disrupt wirelessly triggered charges, was hidden in the leg of his wide harem pants.

  On our way up the Mount, we passed an angry mob of the Almoravid wives, swarming the gates and the road to the mosque, moaning and wailing at the top of their lungs. A good enough reason, as far as I was concerned, to get our asses out of there and let them do whatever they wanted with this holy fucking mountain. Holy sites and holy men have always made me uncomfortable.

  ***

  Inside the mosque, we removed our shoes and scattered. Roei from the bomb squad went with me. We positioned ourselves about thirty yards from the eastern column and kneeled in prayer, me mimicking the movements of the worshippers in front of me, Roei mimicking me. Micha and his 217 operatives were spread in a loose arc around the mosque’s entrance and prayed devoutly. The prayer continued in a sort of monotone murmur, occasionally breaking when one of the worshippers raised his voice in a fervent “Allah hu akbar.” Roei and I joined in on the cries when others did. The rest of the time I muttered other prayers and waited.

  The morning prayer ended and the targets were still nowhere to be seen. I looked back at Micha, who had a tiny earbud hidden under his keffiyeh. I tried to put myself in Imad’s place and realized that it would make a lot of sense to wait for the noon prayer, when attendance would be at its peak.

  I went to take a piss and Micha came with me. We agreed to wait for the noon prayer, which started at 11:00. We passed the time taking shifts going to the restrooms, praying to Allah and swapping hushed jokes. Of course, the slipped discs in my back chose the worst possible time to throw a tantrum—my right arm fell asleep, and all my attempts to wake it failed spectacularly. It was nearly 11:00. If Imad didn’t show up soon, it probably meant he’d decided to postpone, even call the whole thing off. I wondered if he was aware of Ibrahim’s predicament and estimated that he would come up there and try to execute the plan either way. If he succeeded, I would be in large part to blame.

  The thought was horrifying. I envisioned the mosque crumbling to pieces—hundreds of thousands of Arab soldiers marching in from all sides. On foot, on oxcarts, on cars and tanks, up the Mount they’d go, burning and crushing. I’d call Froyke, beg him to get the prime minister to use our nuclear option. “It’s our last resort!” I’d cry. The prime minister would refuse, claiming that it would be politically unwise. I am placed in the corner of Froyke’s office. My hands are cuffed. “Never try, never fail,” I say to Froyke, winking. Froyke is cold and distant. “As usual, you have exhibited a blatant disregard for the chain of command and your direct orders. Violations we can live with, huh?” he mocked me. “Never try, never fail—and when you fail, there’s hell to pay. You’ve failed. Now pay!”

  Eran and Ya’ara were standing there, with my mother and father, and Verbin. They were applauding Froyke’s vicious rant. Fuck, it hurt.

  I snapped out of it, just barely managing to scrape away the image.

  ***

  Imad chose to ascend from the El-Hadid Gate. According to his instructions, the stuffed shahids were to come from separate gates, carrying no electronic devices save for Anwar’s cell phone, programmed to set off all three charges simultaneously. Imad passed security and slowly walked up the path to the mosque, as was appropriate for any devout, well-bearded Muslim—but inside of him, under the beard, raged a tempest. He felt the surging adrenaline, his battle readiness kicking in, taking over. Years of combat had been needed to perfect the mechanism: his vision, hearing and smelling sharpened, suddenly aware of the smallest changes in his surroundings. His muscles tensed and an armor seemed to rise from inside of him, sealing away his consciousness. Now he feared no one, and pitied no one. Not even himself.

  He moved slowly, trying to pick out his shahids from the massive crowd. At the entrance to the mosque, he finally spotted Anwar and ordered him to stay close. They entered the prayer hall together and scanned it intently. Still no sign of Latif. Imad decided that with or without him, he would order Anwar to detonate. Once they had failed to collapse the underground support pillar, the bombing in the mosque became the crux of the entire operation. His thoughts momentarily carried him to Agur, to Ehrlich’s home—he managed to shove it to the back of his mind, but it wasn’t easy. This had to succeed. And he had to find Latif, or the bombing would be lacking.

  ***

  The morning turned to noon and the worshippers were changing shifts, allowing me a moment to sneak a glance to the side. I noticed with alarm that some of them were taking out cell phones and taking videos of the prayer. We were in business. I had no idea how to stop them from filming, but suddenly I spotted Latif entering the prayer room. I choked back the urge to charge and neutralize him. I needed Imad.

  “Watch him,” I whispered to Roei, our foreheads pressed against the floor in prostration.

  The sharp smell of burning rubber filled the mosque. I inched toward Micha, who mumbled that a full-blown riot had broken out down by the gate. The younger Almoravids hadn’t been allowed to enter the Mount, and the response had been burning dozens of tires, brought along for this purpose, and throwing stones at the security forces. We each returned to our place. Micha scanned the entrance and occasionally gave me questioning looks. I signaled him to be patient and kept praying.

  I then spotted a tall, bearded man.

  It was him. Wearing dark sunglasses and a large beard, but him nonetheless. I rose, painfully slowly. I had to somehow signal Micha to block Imad’s escape route, but he was still searching the entrance w
ith his back to me, and I failed to catch his eye. I started inching toward Imad. Step, pause. Step, pause. He could make me out at any second, and then all it would take was a small, easily created distraction, and he’d disappear among the thousands of worshippers.

  I turned around to get out of his field of vision and flank him from behind. I was walking at a snail’s pace, in a sort of half-crouch—my back was screaming, demanding to be straightened. I forced myself to continue the slow, excruciating progress, estimating that I’d reach him from behind in around three minutes. By then I hoped to capture Micha’s attention and get him to block the exit. I couldn’t lose Imad, not again.

  Imad was praying now, and I could afford to move a bit quicker. About two minutes until I was on top of him.

  Latif suddenly rose, standing with his back to the eastern column and wearing a large black kippah he’d taken from his pocket. Roei didn’t wait for orders—he activated the Netline system, and a series of loud electronic alarms pierced the air. The worshippers around him stood up and started shouting, several of them closing in on him, moving quickly and threateningly. Roei, who had never been trained as an undercover operative, called out, “Live charge! Charge positively identified!” in loud, crystal-clear Hebrew.

  “Exposure! Formation!” Micha yelled and sprinted toward the eastern column. The 217 team drew their weapons and converged into a star formation, back to back. They moved like scorpions, back and sideways, on their way to extract Roei. Chaos ensued. Yelling, shoving, cries of Allah hu akbar filled the mosque. Micha fired shots in the air, violently cutting through the wall of worshippers closing on Roei. Latif, still wearing his kippah, was swaying back and forth, his eyes closed. Micha fired a bullet to his center of mass and two more to confirm, then collected Roei and began retreating toward the exit. The star formation moved slowly, occasionally firing shots in the air. Anyone who dared approach them was rewarded with a rifle butt to the face. The crowd backed away from them, yelling and wailing.