Nick emerged from the tunnel into a wide plaza and jogged to a halt amid a throng of eclipse-watchers. To the east rose a shining limestone wall, spotted with tufts of green rock plant. A crowd of worshippers at its base stuffed tiny prayer scrolls into the cracks between the stones. At the top, in the same place where Katy had stood and the fire had risen up in his vision at the bottom of the Thames, he saw the flaming golden dome of the Qubbat As-Sakhrah, the Dome of the Rock, brilliant in the light of the morning sun.
“The mosque?” asked Drake, following his gaze.
“Not the dome itself,” said Nick, panting to catch his breath, “the flat stone inside. The Hashashin believe that rock is a portal, and I think they’re planning to blow it wide open.”
CHAPTER 72
A dense mass of tourists threatened to overwhelm the spindly ramp leading up to the metal detectors at the Moors Gate, the only access to the Temple Mount open to non-Muslims. Nick had run through the market toward that gate on memory and instinct. Now he realized they could not get through, not even by fighting their way through the line. The ramp was too narrow and the crowd too thick.
“The SWARM still has nothing,” said Drake, looking down at the tablet.
Nick shielded his eyes to gaze up at the drones. “Release them. Send them east. We’re confined to one gate, but Muslims can use the gates to the north and east. We’ve already covered the north.”
Drake did as commanded, and as soon as the SWARM flew over the wall, an alarm sounded from the tablet. The southernmost drone picked up a radiation signature. The formation automatically shifted southeast to compensate, with the eastern bird picking up the signature next, and then the northern one. In half a minute, they had centered over a radiation source in the archaeological park south of the Temple Mount. There, under the crosshairs, was a man dressed in loose-fitting desert garb—a long tan shirt and olive trousers—with a black-and-tan shemagh around his neck. He carried a large gray backpack slung over one shoulder.
“Bingo,” said Drake, and the two of them started cutting through the crowd toward the southern exit from the plaza.
“Is it Kattan?” asked Molly, over the SATCOM.
“Unknown,” said Nick, as he and Drake stutter-stepped through the crowd. “We couldn’t see his face.” He shot a glance at the screen in Drake’s hands. The target continued to work his way north and west through the labyrinth of walkways and stairwells of the archaeological park, entering the sparse ruins of a seventh-century Arabian palace that once stood against the Temple Mount wall. He seemed completely unaware of the drones. “He’s heading for the middle of the south wall, Lighthouse. Where is he going? There’s no gate there.”
After a long moment of silence on the SATCOM, Molly came back with her answer. “My guess is he’s heading for the southern access to your plaza, west of the temple. From there, he’ll make for the Cotton Merchants gate, two hundred yards north. You’re on a course to intercept now.”
Seconds later, Nick and Drake popped out of the crowd near the southern access Molly had described. The drones were still southeast of them.
“We’ve got him,” said Drake, slowing to check his tablet.
Nick clicked off the safety of the M4 rifle and checked the video as well, but the man with the backpack did not continue toward their position. He turned due north and disappeared beneath the sand-colored ruins of an archway that jutted out from the southern wall of the Temple Mount. The SWARM continued north for a moment, turned east, turned north again, and then hovered there, making tiny adjustments in all directions.
Nick’s world grew a shade darker. The eclipse was more than halfway through. He stared at the tablet in disbelief. “He’s gone.”
Drake grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the plaza exit. “No. Look at the drones.” He pointed to the sky where the SWARM still hovered. Occasionally the UAVs jerked one way or another in a synchronized dance that kept them centered on the radiation source. “They still have him. He’s gone down a hole, probably planting the bomb right now.”
The two operatives hopped the turnstile that separated the plaza from the archaeological park and raced toward the ruins.
Nick was the first to reach the area where the terrorist had disappeared. In the shadow of the crumbling archway, he found a set of steps leading down. “There’s a tunnel here,” he said in a low voice, depending on the SATCOM for Drake to hear.
The steps dropped only a short distance, but they turned east into a tunnel completely shaded from the half-eclipsed sun. Nick lit the flashlight on the rail of the Israeli M4, lifted the weapon to his shoulder, and moved cautiously forward. “What are the drones doing?” he whispered.
Drake had his pistol in his right hand and the tablet in his left. He raised the screen to his eyes. “Still hovering. The center point of the radiation is twelve meters ahead and ten meters left.”
“Left?” Nick put a hand against the stone wall next to him. “Left is solid rock.”
“That’s what it says.”
On a hunch, Nick let his fingers drag along the wall. The vines and weedy rock plants in the cracks grew increasingly thicker until he came to a point where his fingers lost contact with the stone. He stopped, pressed his hand deeper, and only found more plants. “There’s a passage here.”
Nick backed up and held his light on the vines while Drake tried to pull them away, but they were too thick to manage. They pushed through instead, with Nick in the lead, flashlight off, trying not to wonder what kinds of insects made their homes in the dark hollows of the tangled greenery sliding across his neck and poking into his ears.
A few feet in, the stones beneath Nick’s feet dropped. Another set of stairs. There were just a few, and soon he emerged from the hanging foliage into open darkness. He raised his weapon to his shoulder and flipped on the light, turning in a slow circle. They had discovered a small chamber inside the Temple Mount wall. After Drake came through, the vegetation fell back into place behind him, closing up the portal like a natural seal. More vines and rock plants spread out from the stairway, covering the walls and ceiling of the chamber with matted green.
“Where is he, Drake?”
Other than the foliage, the chamber was empty.
CHAPTER 73
Typical Hashashin trick,” said Drake, lowering his pistol. “Vanishing into thin air.”
Nick pursed his lips, slowly scanning the walls with the flashlight on his rifle. “With a nuclear weapon? Check the drones.”
Drake did as commanded, and then shook his head. “The radiation signature is here, right on top of us. He should be here.”
Nick could see enough of the stone walls through the vegetation to see that there was no other passage besides the one they came through. The rear wall was different, though, set with a tile mosaic. Crescents and stars in blue and white peeked out from behind the dark green vines. “Help me out,” he said, lowering the weapon and stepping over to the wall.
The two of them started yanking vines away from the tiles. Some fell to the floor. Others stubbornly clung to the ceiling and formed a living curtain behind them. When enough had been cleared away to get a good look, Nick saw that there were several rows of larger round tiles set amid the square mosaic pieces—five rows of twenty, to be exact. Each large white tile, maybe ten inches in diameter, was painted with a word in blue Arabic calligraphy and with blue horizontal crescent moons at the top and bottom.
“Is this that Persian-Turkish mix again?” asked Drake, rubbing dirt off one of the tiles with his thumb.
Nick pulled another vine away and scrutinized the script. “No. These are the ninety-nine traditional names of Allah. They’re always written in Quranic Arabic.”
“Well, they’d better tell you something. Our nuke is on the move again, look.” Drake showed Nick the tablet. The SWARM crosshairs drifted along the roof of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount direct
ly above them. Then the terrorist emerged from beneath the stone awning at the entrance, as if he had simply taken an elevator up a few floors and continued on his way. He started pressing his way through the thick crowd of eclipse-watchers, all staring east through cheap square glasses of paper and black film.
Nick returned his focus to the tiles. “The answer has to be here.”
“Why ninety-nine names?” asked Drake. “Why not a hundred?”
Nick snapped his fingers and slapped Drake in the arm with the back of his hand. “You’re a genius. There are ninety-nine traditional names, but there are one hundred tiles. One of these serves another purpose.” He started reading the names in English, looking for one that didn’t fit. “The Mighty, The Judge, The Reckoner, The Humiliator—”
“The Humiliator,” Drake repeated with a chuckle. “Nice.”
Nick kept going, reading faster. “The Watchful, The Causer of Death, The—” He paused. He couldn’t read the next tile. He stared at it for a few seconds and then tilted his head to one side.
Drake tilted his head as well, and kept it tilted as he stepped closer, examining the tile with Nick. After another heartbeat, he whispered, “Why are we sideways?”
“This one is upside down.” Nick ran his fingers across the tile. The blue crescent across the bottom had a small bump in the center. “The Key,” he said out loud, reading the inverted words. On a hunch, he pressed the crescent inward. It gave way and then sprang back.
Suddenly the answer hit him. Nick pulled the Hashashin knife from his pocket. The calligraphy on the hilt was not Turkic, like the Hashashin prophecy. It was Arabic, just like this wall. He muttered the phrase as he pressed the knife into the tile. “I am the key.”
The bump activated the springs in the hilt and the blades shot out, a perfect fit inside the crescent-shaped indentation, but still nothing happened. Tentatively, Nick tried turning the tile with the knife in place. It worked. The tile rotated with a soft scraping sound.
Nick kept going until the crescents above and below had switched positions and the word was right side up. There was a heavy thump and the sound of stone sliding across stone. Nick removed the knife. The blades retracted. The chamber was still again.
Drake panned his light around the room. “What just happened?”
The walls had not changed. There were no new passages, no stairwells leading up into the mosque above. At a loss, Nick looked up at his partner, and caught a hint of rose-colored light pouring down through a space between the ceiling vines. He motioned to Drake and shined his light on the area, revealing a vertical passage that had opened above them.
Drake didn’t hesitate. He bent down and threaded his fingers together for Nick. “Going up?”
Before taking the boost from his teammate, Nick pulled the sling of his M4 over his head and laid it on the ground. Guns weren’t permitted on the Temple Mount, even for the IDF, and there was no way he could conceal a rifle that size.
With Drake’s help, Nick was able to get his hands on a stone jutting out from the interior of the octagonal well. Similar stones studded the well on either side, all the way up, forming a ladder. Nick pulled himself up, hand over hand, until he was high enough to get a foot on the lowest stone. Then the climb was easier.
Moments later, Nick emerged in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, into a narrow space between the mosque’s rounded southern wall and a tall partition of solid red-and-white marble. A wide dome spread out above him, painted with elaborate patterns in gold and burgundy and illuminated by a ring of red and purple stained-glass windows. The sunlight shining through was dim, like on an overcast day.
Nick could see little to his left and right. At either end, the marble partition curved closer to the rounded wall, leaving only a narrow gap, but the partition itself was cut all the way through with intricate arabesque patterns, so that he could peer out through the carvings into the mosque’s expansive prayer room. He did not like what he saw.
Nick had hoped that everyone would be outside, watching the celestial event. Instead, he saw scores of men reclining in circled groups on the carpet, many wearing the black-and-white keffiyeh headdress of Palestinian nationalists, either on their heads or around their necks. Several of these would be Al-Aqsa Brigade terrorists, here to protect their territory during the tourist hysteria of the eclipse.
“This is it,” said Drake, shouldering up beside Nick. With his greater height, he had made it up through the well on his own.
“This is what?” asked Nick.
“This is the death Kattan had planned for me all along.”
CHAPTER 74
Kurt Baron sat alone on a weathered bench amid a grove of olives on the northwest corner of the Temple Mount. If not for the timeless etchings in the other stone benches, he would not have recognized this spot. The trees here were tall and full, adolescents nearing their prime, but he remembered them as saplings. Had it been so long?
A paper bag with four pastries from the American Colony sat next to him, as did a set of eclipse glasses he had purchased from a vendor near the Jaffa gate. He picked up the glasses and peered through the black film to see how the sun fared. The orange disc was now two-thirds shrouded by the black silhouette of the moon. Soon the occultation would be complete, and the whole of Jerusalem would be covered in darkness despite the early hour of the day. Avi was going to miss it all.
Kurt put the glasses down and checked his phone for the seventh time in the last ten minutes. In the time since he had arrived at their old spot, he had sent his friend three additional text messages asking where he was and if he was coming. The texts appeared to have gone through, but he could never tell with these over-complicated smartphones. Either way, Avi had not replied.
He resisted the urge to break into a cheese-filled Danish and lifted the eclipse glasses to his eyes again. After a few seconds of watching the shadow creep across the sun, the image was suddenly blocked. Kurt lowered the glasses to find a young Israeli policeman standing in front of him.
“Dr. Baron, I presume?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Baron, Professor Avi Bendayan asked that I come and collect you.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
The policeman shifted his feet uncomfortably and scanned the area behind the professor, adjusting the submachine gun slung over his shoulder as he turned. Kurt vaguely remembered that guns were not allowed up here, but the thought was pushed out of his mind when he noticed the hand with which the young man held the weapon. It was mechanical, a prosthetic designed to hold a machine gun and pull the trigger. He wondered if the kid had lost the appendage in a suicide bombing or a rocket attack.
“Sir, Professor Bendayan has arranged for you to take your tea in the Kipat Hasela,” said the young man, using the Jewish name for the Dome of the Rock.
Again, Kurt was confused. He glanced southeast toward the central platform where the great mosque stood. “Non-Muslims are not allowed in there.”
The policeman pursed his lips. “That is not entirely true. Some are. In particular, archaeologists are permitted to enter the Kipat Hasela for research or in special circumstances. Please, Dr. Baron. Professor Bendayan is waiting.”
Kurt did not need much convincing. A total eclipse and a look at the Holy of Holies in the same day was a blessing you did not argue with. Anyway, as the kid said, Avi was waiting for him. He tossed the eclipse glasses into the bag with the pastries and got up to follow the policeman.
—
“This is where we part ways, boss,” whispered Drake, looking out through the partition at the Palestinians lounging on the carpet. “I said I wouldn’t leave you, but that’s the only way you’re getting out of here in one piece.”
“No. There has to be another way.” But Nick didn’t see one. The Al-Aqsa Mosque was expressly forbidden to non-Muslims. Jews had been stoned just for opening a copy of the Torah on the pla
za outside, and those events were on good days, when the mosque was full of regular worshippers. There was no way a guy in an IDF uniform and a big American in a loud Hawaiian shirt were going to survive the seventy-meter gauntlet of Palestinian nationalists between their current position and the front door.
“I have to do this. We don’t have a choice,” argued Drake. He held the tablet up between them. The man with the backpack had already made it to the cypress grove at the edge of the Dome of the Rock platform. He stood there, leaning against a tree.
Nick watched him for a few seconds. The terrorist kept his eyes on the Dome, but showed no sign of continuing toward it. “What is he waiting for?”
Drake shrugged. “Maybe he’s savoring his last moments on earth. It doesn’t matter. What matters is, you’ve got to get a move on and catch him before he decides to finish the job he came here to do.”
“If you step out there, there’s going to be a riot.”
Drake grinned. “I know. A riot is exactly what you need.”
The big operative suddenly pressed his pistol and the tablet into Nick’s hands and squeezed out into the open. The closest Palestinians were a good fifteen meters away. At first, none of them saw him. He glanced back through the gap and whispered, “Godspeed, boss.” Then he strode out into the prayer room with his arms open wide, shouting, “Shalom everybody!”
At first there was confusion. Heads jerked in Drake’s direction. A Palestinian shouted. Then several more began shouting angrily from different parts of the wide prayer room. Those first sparks ignited the fuel of hatred that is always waiting at Al-Aqsa, and the crowd rippled to its feet like spreading flame. Drake’s dubious plan worked. The men all rushed to attack as he led them to one side of the mosque. He belted the first challenger across the chin and threw the next into the wall behind him. Then he disappeared behind the flood, just like a character in one of his late-night zombie movies.
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