by Chris Ryan
TWENTY-EIGHT
A pair of eyes stared out of the open window of a dark attic. They were perfectly still as they looked across the ramshackle rooftops. They were unblinking, when a crack of rainless thunder seemed to shake the very bones of the city.
But it did not shake Maya Bloom.
She stared, and she stared. Two hundred metres away, over the last of the roofs, she could just see the top of the Western Wall. And rising above it, bathed in light, was the cupola of the Dome of the Rock. The place from where, according to Islam, the Prophet Muhammad ascended into heaven.
Her lip curled. People could worship their imaginary gods if they wanted to. Maya Bloom had long since given up any belief in the supernatural. Death was death. She’d learned that at a young age when her parents were taken from her by a cowardly Palestinian; she had learned it when her brother, the only human being for whom she had retained a spark of feeling, had been killed by the Arabs in Iraq. She did not know which angered her more: the golden dome, so honoured by the people she hated with every scrap of her being; or the Western Wall, where men offered up prayers to a God who had failed to protect her family.
The thunder cracked again. Maya Bloom continued to stare as the face of Alistair Stratton rose in her mind.
The Book of Daniel. She heard his voice as clearly as if he was in the tiny room with her. It tells us it is here that the End Times will start. It’s quite clear about that, Maya. Quite clear.
A cold wind gusted in through the open window. She felt it blowing the hair back from her face.
Do you want to be part of history?
A church bell rang in the air. Maya Bloom counted the chimes. Ten. When the last one had faded away, she turned and looked into the tiny, anonymous room – the only place in all Israel where she felt sure she could be safe. On the small single bed, laid out neatly, was a small arsenal. A Knights Armaments M110 sniper rifle. Two handguns. Silencers. Match-grade ammunition in ten-round magazines. A twenty-centimetre knife with a black handle and a white blade.
Thunder echoed across the skies. The city shook. Maya Bloom stared implacably through the window as she waited for Hanukkah to arrive.
23.03 hrs.
If he’d been here with the Regiment, Luke would have had all the assets he needed. Every square centimetre of Jerusalem Old Town would have been covered by detailed mapping. The expertise of the Israeli law-enforcement agencies would have been at his disposal. He’d have had unmarked vehicles, sights, scopes and men at his disposal; he’d have had access to the intelligence feeds of all the major agencies. And enough weaponry to start a small war.
But tonight was very different.
His imagery consisted of the tourist map he’d swiped from the café. It told him that the Western Wall was located in the eastern part of the Old Town. It was part of the Temple Mount compound and no more than fifty metres from the Dung Gate, one of the entrances in the high wall that surrounded the Old Town. He had no vehicle. And far from having men and access to intelligence, every time he saw a police officer or a member of the IDF, he put his head down. He was familiar enough with the way things worked to be sure his image had already been circulated and he couldn’t risk being recognised. But if Stratton truly was planning an atrocity at the Western Wall, Luke needed to get eyes on the potential strike area as quickly as possible: to work out how the place was most likely to be attacked and to spot any suspicious activity in advance of the hit.
The entrance to the Western Wall compound was buzzing with security. In the fifty metres between the entrance and the perimeter wall of the Old Town he counted eight armed soldiers among the hundred or so members of the public that were milling around even at this late hour. There were two security gates, one for men, one for women. Each gate had a metal detector. Luke knew that a small amount of metal – a watch or a bracelet – probably wouldn’t set one of these devices off; the Sig in his Bergen, however, definitely would.
He retreated from the entrance and made his way back into the Old Town, down narrow, winding commercial streets with few pedestrians and even fewer cars. Here he soon stumbled across an alleyway where big metal bins and overflowing bin bags were parked against one wall. He slipped into the alleyway and secreted the Bergen underneath a pile of bin bags. He’d be back within an hour to pick it up, he reckoned. It should be safe for that time.
Luke hurried back to the security gates. There were about fifteen people in the male queue and it moved slowly as each visitor passed through the gates and one or two were patted down by the soldiers on guard. Luke drew some strange looks in only his trousers and a T-shirt when the December night air was cold, but he could live with that. It was if anyone recognised his face that he had to worry. He passed through the metal detector with no problem and less than a minute later he was standing alone at the back of a large plaza which extended some seventy-five metres from his position. At the end of the plaza, lit up in the darkness, was a landmark he knew from the TV: the Western Wall.
The section of the wall he could see was about twenty metres high and fifty metres wide. Ancient. Sturdy. There were maybe fifty people standing close to it and praying – half of them at the male section to the left, many wearing traditional black suits and wide-brimmed hats; the other half at the female section to the right. The two sections were separated by a barrier about a metre high. A further hundred or so people were milling around the plaza. At each end the wall was illuminated by a large spotlight which lent the honey-coloured stones a mystical air. Easy to see how people could be impressed, but Luke wasn’t here to have his breath taken away. He was here to stake the place out.
If Stratton was planning an atrocity at the wall, how would he do it? You couldn’t attack from the air, because the second an unknown aircraft violated Israeli airspace it would be taken down. A ground attack? He’d seen for himself how high the security was at ground level. Smuggling weapons into the Western Wall plaza through the metal detectors was almost impossible.
As he examined the wall from a distance, he became aware of a group of people approaching from his left. No more than ten, their cameras marking them immediately out as tourists, and one of them – a fat man with a jowly face – wearing a T-shirt under his denim jacket with the words ‘Cincinnati, Ohio’. Fucking idiots, Luke thought, visiting a place like this at a time like this. One of them – a young man – stood apart from the others. He spoke with a slightly raised voice, in English, but with a strong Israeli accent that immediately reminded him of Maya Bloom.
‘The Western Wall is constructed on the site of the original Temple,’ he announced, sounding like he’d spoken these words a thousand times before. ‘Half of it dates from the end of the Second Temple period and was constructed around 19 bc by Herod the Great. The rest of it was added around the seventh century. It has long been an object of conflict. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, it came under Jordanian control. Israelis were banned from the site for nineteen years until the Old City was recaptured in 1967. What you can see from here is the exposed section. It continues behind the buildings to our left, and extends as far as the Muslim Quarter of the city . . .’
The tourist group moved on, leaving Luke to continue his examination of the area. From his vantage point he tried to spot any plainclothes operators. These would be men or women pretending to be visitors, but who stuck around for a suspicious amount of time. He saw no one, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there – any decent security arrangement would involve some kind of rotation; and the guys – or girls – guarding this place would be pros. He counted six armed IDF soldiers, in their olive-green uniforms, circulating around the plaza itself and even approaching the wall. Clearly the security restrictions didn’t extend to their assault rifles and he immediately identified that as a security weak spot. Might an Israeli soldier be involved in an atrocity here? Men could be bought, of course, and a couple of guys with M16s could kill a lot of people. But what had Stratton said? When the wall falls . . . It would take more than
an assault rifle to cause the sort of damage he’d implied.
Luke needed a closer look at the wall itself. With his head down, he started walking across the plaza, losing himself in a little crowd of tourists who were doing the same thing. They passed a post, about a metre high, bearing a tourist sign written in Hebrew and English: ‘on the sabbath and holy days, smoking, photography and cellphone use are strictly forbidden.’
A voice. Behind him. ‘Excuse me. Excuse me!’ It was urgent. Luke felt his fist clenching as he turned to look. A thin man with a wispy beard and square spectacles was running towards him, suspicion on his face. ‘You, sir. Stop.’
Thirty metres to the exit. If he wanted to get out of here, he needed to do it now.
‘You cannot approach the wall bare-headed,’ the man said.
‘What?’
The guy held out a thin cardboard skullcap. Luke felt his muscles relaxing.
‘Right,’ he muttered. ‘Thanks.’ He put on the cap and continued his approach. On his left, he passed a low, sand-coloured building with a series of arches built into the foundations. Most of his attention, however, was on the wall itself.
The lowest seven courses of the wall were made from blocks about a metre wide and half a metre high; above that, they were a quarter the size. The blocks were sturdy, certainly, but also crumbling away in places and with weeds and plants growing out of the mortar here and there. It struck him that a Regiment demolitions expert could bring the wall down in minutes. He observed a couple of tourists squeezing hand-written notes into the cracks. It occurred to him that the cracks in the wall could easily be filled with explosives, but he discarded that idea as soon as it came to him. The wall was surely guarded 24/7 – stick anything except a prayer note in it and you’d be flat on your face with an M16 in the back of your head.
Think like the enemy, he told himself. Anticipate their movements.
Prepping for a combat situation, he would learn in advance what he could about the enemy’s SOPs. In Iraq they’d been alert to the dangers of roadside bombs. In the Stan, IEDs. He understood the psychology of war. He understood that if a method of combat worked well once, chances were it would work well again. The Micks had never stopped using car bombs or letter bombs just because Special Branch were cute to it. Even the Yanks and the British were addicted to their drones and guided missiles. In battle, you do whatever gets the job done best.
What were Stratton’s SOPs? How was he going to strike?
To his left, as he faced the wall, there was a low arch leading into the building adjoining the plaza, about two metres at its highest point, and a single glance told him that the wall itself continued just as the tour guide had said, forming a kind of tunnel. Luke approached it. If the wall was not just the exposed section at the plaza, he needed to examine the rest of it. To put himself in the mindset of a terrorist and work out where the weak points of this target were.
He was in a dimly lit room with a vaulted ceiling. Beyond it the tunnel continued. There were thirteen people in here, all dressed in traditional black garb, sitting on seats. The atmosphere was quiet, prayer-like. One of the men looked over his shoulder and, seeing Luke – casually dressed and dirty – gave a look of disapproval. But then he went back to his praying and Luke passed through the room and along the tunnel.
He moved quickly, but as he went he took in the geography. The tunnel followed the wall, along which there were more men seated and praying. After another hundred metres or so, he arrived in a second, wider room that was more populated than the first one – thirty people, maybe more. Against the wall there was a Perspex plaque with white writing – in Hebrew at the top, and underneath in English: ‘opposite the foundation stone and the site of the holy of holies’. Luke edged through the little crowd, and continued his recce.
As he continued north, the tunnel became less well lit, the walls more roughly hewn. He passed a metal grille on his left, and anterooms off the main tunnel. Further on, the tunnel was held up by a series of wooden joists and columns. There were fewer people here, and he passed what looked like ancient water pits. A sign told him they were cisterns from long ago. Checking to see he was unobserved, he worked a small piece of loose mortar away from the opposite wall and dropped it into the cistern. It took a second or so before he heard the mortar hit the ground. Three or four metres deep, he reckoned. Possible to cache something there? Unlikely – to remove it would risk drawing attention to yourself. He continued down the tunnel. When he had walked about 400 metres in all, the tunnel ended abruptly. Perhaps there had once been an exit, but now it was blocked.
Luke hurried back along the tunnel. Past the cisterns. Past the joists and columns. Past the grille.
He suddenly halted and looked back.
The grille was ten metres behind him. Retracing his steps, he bent down to look at it. Where did this thing lead? Could it be removed? Could you stow anything behind it?
Then something caught his eye.
It was difficult to see in the dim light of the tunnel, but Luke’s eyes were sharp. Tied round the lowermost metal bars of the grille were lengths of fishing line. Worming his fingers in through the grate, he pulled at one of the lines. Weight at the end. He pulled the line up, and what he found puzzled him. A clear plastic bag, filled with coins. Tugging on each of the other lines, he found the same thing. What the fuck was this? Some weird ritual, like chucking loose change into a fountain? Or was it something more suspicious?
A few bags of shekels weren’t going to bring down the Western Wall. But something nagged at him as he returned to the plaza and checked his watch.
23.30 hrs. Fuck, the clock was ticking.
Think, Luke told himself. Think SOPs. Think.
How had Stratton and Maya Bloom struck last?
He remembered the images he’d seen of the train bombings. The pictures of the Palestinian men who’d blown themselves up. He remembered the kid in Gaza, his body strapped with fuck knows what kind of explosive.
The Palestinians used suicide bombs. They were well known for it.
And Stratton? Stratton used the Palestinians.
Luke narrowed his eyes as a scenario formed in his mind. To bring down the Western Wall you had to get close. To get close, you had to remain unobserved. Suicide bombers would do that. And even if one was discovered, there’d be others to back him up. There were no countermeasures – you either spotted the bomber or you didn’t. And even if you did, you had to take him out before he knew you had eyes on.
But what about the security? How could you get past security – the metal detectors? Luke ran through the make-up of a suicide vest. Explosives – they’d get through the gates easily enough. It was the rest of it that would be problematic. A detonator – anything that could send a surge of voltage into the explosives. And most vests were packed with shrapnel to cause maximum collateral damage . . .
Shrapnel.
The bags of coins. Small, hard lumps of metal. Get one of those in the skull and you’d know about it. They’d cause just as much carnage as the usual nuts and bolts that got stuck into suicide vests . . .
‘Fuck,’ Luke breathed. The mist was clearing. What if the bombers had been bringing in the makeshift constituent parts of their equipment in piece by piece?
He was already moving back towards the tunnel when something else caught his eye. Two of the soldiers who had been patrolling the plaza were standing next to each other, almost exactly at the midway point between Luke and the Western Wall. They were conferring and looking very obviously in Luke’s direction.
He cursed again as several possibilities shot into his mind. Had the Regiment circulated his image to the Israeli authorities? Or were the military and police simply on high alert? Did Luke just look suspicious, standing there staking the place out? Either way, it wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with anybody. He moved immediately, as fast as he could without running, in the direction of the security gates. His skin prickled as he went, but he resisted the temptation to lo
ok over his shoulder as he hurried out of the exit. He retraced his steps to the alleyway where he’d cached his weapon.
If he was right, and a suicide bomb attack was planned, he had to consider everything he knew, everything he’d ever learned, about such things. The bombers would be ordinary people without military training, but they’d be organised by someone who knew what they were doing. Was that where Maya Bloom came in? She’d been involved in the train bombings. She was, or had been, a Mossad agent. Somebody with a background similar to his own. If he was organising the bombers, what would he tell them to do?
It was rudimentary that they shouldn’t walk any further than necessary in a suicide belt. They’d be nervous. Sweating. Conspicuous. And with Jerusalem in a state of high alert, no one in their right mind would risk them being on the streets for any longer than necessary.
What about the bombers themselves? Would he trust them to go ahead with their suicide mission? He thought back to Gaza, to the kid with the remote detonator. Truth was, even the most idealistic nutter could bottle it at the last minute. If Luke was organising this thing, he’d give the bombers as little information as possible, and only issue their final instructions at the very last minute. He’d make sure they got as close to the target site as possible before leaving them to their own explosive devices . . .
His Sig was where he’d left it. Luke shouldered the Bergen and hurried from the alleyway. Slowly, he was working on a plan.
If the squadron was here with him, he’d have eyes on every gate in the city and the Western Wall plaza would be surrounded by snipers. But there was no squadron. No backup. Just Luke. And if he let anybody know where he was, there’d be a team on its way to lift him within minutes. All he could do was watch the gate nearest to the Western Wall.
The tourist map of the Old Town was a photograph in his mind. He headed south between the city’s Jewish and Armenian Quarters. When the road forked, he headed south-west and five minutes later he found himself approaching the Zion Gate. It was small – barely the width of a car – and as Luke passed through it he looked back up at the city walls. The area around the stone entrance was pockmarked with bullet holes – a reminder of Jerusalem’s violent past.
