by Daniel Silva
Navot ran a hand anxiously over his cropped gray hair. “Do you know how many people are atop the Temple Mount right now.”
“Ten thousand. Maybe more.”
“And do you know what will happen if we go up there and start looking for a bomb? We’ll start the third intifada.”
“But we don’t have to look for the bomb, Uzi. We already know where it is.”
“One hundred and sixty-seven feet beneath the surface, somewhere between the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque?”
Dina nodded.
“Is Eli Lavon still working in the Western Wall Tunnel?”
“He hasn’t left since we got back to town.”
“Do phones work down there?”
“Sometimes.”
Navot exhaled heavily. “I can’t send Eli into the Temple Mount without the prime minister’s authority.”
“Then perhaps you should call him,” Dina said. “And you might want to think about getting Eli some help.”
Navot looked at the television screen and saw Gabriel walking a step behind the pope along the Via Dolorosa. Then he reached for the phone.
Gabriel felt his mobile phone vibrate as the pope arrived at the eighth station of the cross, the spot where Christ paused to comfort the women of Jerusalem. He checked the number on the caller ID screen, then quickly raised the phone to his ear.
“We might have a problem,” Navot said.
“The pope?”
“No.”
“Where, Uzi?”
“The one place in Jerusalem we can’t afford one.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Start walking toward the Western Wall Tunnel. Dina will tell you the rest on the way.”
43
THE OLD CITY, JERUSALEM
GABRIEL DID NOT WALK FOR LONG. In fact, by the time he reached the Church of the Redeemer, he was running as fast as his legs would carry him. In the narrow alleys of the Christian Quarter, pilgrims blocked his way at every turn, but once he crossed into the Jewish Quarter, the crowds thinned. He wound his way eastward—up and down stone steps, beneath archways, and across quiet squares—until he arrived at one of the portals to the Western Wall. Because it was a Friday, the plaza was more crowded than usual. Several hundred people, men and women, were praying directly against the Wall, and Gabriel reckoned there were at least a hundred more inside the synagogues of Wilson’s Arch. Pausing, he tried to imagine what would happen if even one of the giant Herodian ashlars broke loose. Then he walked over to the highest-ranking police officer he could find.
“I want you to close the Wall and plaza.”
“Who the hell are you?” the police officer asked.
Gabriel raised his wraparound sunglasses. The officer almost snapped to attention.
“I can’t close it down without a direct order from my chief,” he said nervously.
“As of this moment, I am your chief.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Close the plaza and Wilson’s Arch. And do it as quietly as possible.”
“If I tell those haredim they have to leave, it won’t be quiet.”
“Just get them out of here.”
Gabriel turned without another word and headed toward the entrance of the Western Wall Tunnel. The same Orthodox woman was there to greet him.
“Is he down there?” Gabriel asked.
“Same place,” the woman said, nodding.
“How many other people are in the tunnel?”
“Sixty tourists and about twenty staff.”
“Get everyone out.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Gabriel paused briefly to download an e-mail from Dina onto his BlackBerry. Then he followed the path downward into the earth and backward through time, until he was standing at the edge of Eli Lavon’s excavation pit. Lavon was crouched over the bones of Rivka in a pool of blinding white light. Hearing Gabriel, he looked up and smiled.
“Nice suit. Why aren’t you with His Holiness?”
Gabriel dropped the BlackBerry into the void. Lavon snatched it deftly out of the air and stared at the screen.
“What’s this?”
“Get out of that hole, Eli, and I’ll tell you everything.”
A mile to the west, at the apartment in Narkiss Street, Chiara was watching live coverage of the Good Friday procession on Israeli television. A few moments earlier, as the pope was leading the delegation in prayer at the eighth station of the cross, she had noticed Gabriel holding a mobile phone to his ear. Now, as the Holy Father made his way solemnly from the eighth station to the ninth, Gabriel was no longer at his side. Chiara stared at the screen a few seconds longer before snatching up the phone and dialing Uzi Navot’s office at King Saul Boulevard. Orit answered.
“He was just about to call you, Chiara.”
“What’s happening?”
“He’s on his way to Jerusalem. Hold on.”
Chiara felt her stomach churning as Orit put her on hold. Navot came on the line a few seconds later.
“Where is he, Uzi?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Damn it, Uzi! Where is he?”
Though Navot did not know it, Gabriel was at that moment perched at the edge of the excavation pit with Eli Lavon at his side. Beneath them glowed the chalky white bones of Rivka, witness to the Roman siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of Herod’s Second Temple. For now, Lavon was oblivious to her; he had eyes only for the tiny image on the screen of Gabriel’s BlackBerry. It showed David Girard, aka Daoud Ghandour, standing in an underground chamber of some sort at the side of Imam Hassan Darwish, the Muslim cleric from the Supreme Council of the Jerusalem Waqf.
“Are those pillars in the background?”
“The pillars aren’t the concern right now, Professor.”
“Sorry.”
Lavon inspected the second image—the trapezoid with the mark and the number 689 in the lower third.
“It would make sense,” he said after a moment.
“What’s that?”
“That the chamber where they’re standing is located in that portion of the Mount. The ground beneath the Dome of the Rock and the entrance to the al-Aqsa Mosque is riddled with conduits, shafts, and cisterns.”
“How do we know that?”
“Because Charles Warren told us so.”
Sir Charles Warren was the brilliant officer from the British Royal Engineers who conducted the first and only survey of the Temple Mount between 1867 and 1870. His meticulously detailed maps and drawings remained the standard resource for modern archaeologists.
“Warren found thirty-seven underground structures and cisterns beneath the Temple Mount,” Lavon explained, “not to mention numerous aqueducts and passageways. The largest ones were located around the spot indicated on this map. In fact, there’s an enormous cistern in that area called the Great Sea that was carved from the limestone bedrock. It was illustrated contemporaneously by an artist named William Simpson.” Lavon looked up. “It’s possible David Girard and the imam are standing right there.”
“Can we get to it?”
“Simpson’s illustration clearly shows the presence of at least three large aqueducts leading to other cisterns and structures within the complex. But it’s also possible the Waqf has dug new tunnels and passageways under the guise of their construction projects.”
“Is that a yes or a no, Eli?”
“You’re asking me questions I can’t possibly answer,” Lavon replied. “The truth is, we have no idea what’s really under the Mount because we’re forbidden to set foot there.”
“Not anymore.”
“Do you know what will happen if the Waqf finds us up there?”
“Actually, I’m more concerned about what will happen if a bomb goes off in an underground cavern between the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque.”
“Point taken.”
“What would happen, Eli?”
“I suppose that depends on
the size of the bomb. If it were the size of the average suicide vest, the Holy Mountain wouldn’t feel a thing. But if it were something big . . .”
“Massoud destroyed the Marine barracks in Beirut with the biggest non-nuclear explosion the world had seen in a generation. He knows how to make things fall down.”
Lavon rose to his feet and walked over to the giant ashlars of the Western Wall. The tourists had been evacuated; the tiny synagogue known as the Cave was empty. They were entirely alone.
“I always hoped I would have a chance to see what was on the other side,” he said, his eyes searching the stone. “But I never imagined it would come about because of something like this.”
“Surely you’ve found something more down here than some old bones, Professor.”
“Surely,” Lavon replied distantly.
“Can you get us in there, Eli?”
“Inside the Temple Mount?” Lavon smiled. “Right this way.”
They headed past the Cave and then took a flight of steps down to an ancient stone archway sealed with gray brick and mortar. Next to it an illuminated modern sign read WARREN’S GATE.
“It’s named for Charles Warren, of course,” Lavon explained. “During the time of the Second Temple, it led from the street where we’re standing now into an underground passageway. That passageway led to a flight of steps. And the steps—”
“Led to the Temple.”
Lavon nodded. “In 1981, the chief rabbi of the Western Wall foolishly ordered workmen to reopen the gate, but as soon as they started digging, the sound of the hammers carried through the passages and into the cisterns up on the Mount. The Arabs could hear it very clearly. They immediately stormed into the tunnels, and a small battle broke out. The Israeli police had to come onto the Mount to restore order. After that, Warren’s Gate was sealed, and it remains sealed today.”
“But obviously, it’s not the only underground passage onto the Mount.”
“No,” Lavon answered, shaking his head. “There’s at least one other tunnel that we know of. We found it a couple of years ago. It’s about fifty yards that way,” he said, pointing northward along the wall. “And it’s identical in design to Warren’s Gate.”
“Why was it never made public?”
“Because we didn’t want to start another riot. A handful of Israeli archaeologists were allowed to spend a few minutes inside before it was sealed.”
“Were you one of them?”
“I would have been, but I had a previous engagement.”
“Where?”
“Moscow.”
“Ivan?”
Lavon nodded.
“How thick is the seal on the new tunnel?”
“Not like this one,” Lavon said, patting the coarse brickwork. “Even an archaeologist with a fickle stomach could get through it without a problem. For a tough guy like you, it won’t take more than a couple swings of a hammer.”
“What about the noise?”
“The sermon should cover it,” said Lavon. “But there is another problem.”
“What’s that?”
“If that bomb goes off while we’re inside the Temple Mount, we’re going to end up like Rivka.”
“There are worse places to be buried, Eli.”
“I thought you said this place was nothing but a pile of stones.”
“I did,” said Gabriel. “But they’re my stones.”
Lavon lapsed into silence.
“What are you thinking about?”
“The pillars.”
“Get me a hammer and a flashlight, Eli, and I’ll take you to see the pillars.”
44
JERUSALEM
THE DRIVE FROM KING SAUL BOULEVARD to the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem usually took a half-hour, but on that afternoon, Uzi Navot’s motorcade accomplished it in just twenty-two minutes door to door. By the time Navot entered the building, Gabriel’s radio had been switched off the papal protection network onto a secure band reserved for Office security personnel. As a result, Navot was able to listen as Gabriel and Eli Lavon raided a storage room in the Western Wall Tunnel for the supplies they would need to break into the Temple Mount.
The prime minister was waiting in the cabinet room, along with the defense minister, the foreign minister, and Navot’s counterpart from Shabak. Live CCTV images of the Old City flickered on the video display wall. In one, the Vicar of Christ was approaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In another, several thousand Muslims were gathered atop the Haram al-Sharif. And in a third, a dozen Israeli police officers stood watch in the now-empty Western Wall Plaza. It was, thought Navot, the Good Friday from hell.
“Well?” asked the prime minister as Navot settled into his usual seat.
“They’re just waiting for your order.”
“A single analyst says there’s a bomb in the Temple Mount that could bring down the entire plateau, and you say I have no choice but to believe her.”
“Yes, Prime Minister.”
“Do you know what’s going to happen if the Palestinians find out that Gabriel and Eli are in there?”
“Someone’s liable to get hurt,” Navot said. “And then the Arab Spring comes to Jerusalem.”
The prime minister stared at the video screens for a moment before nodding his head once. Navot quickly passed the order along to Gabriel. A few seconds later, he heard the sound of four sharp blows.
Alef, Bet, Gimel, Dalet . . .
Then it was done.
From the storage room, Gabriel and Lavon had taken a sledgehammer, a pickax, two coils of nylon rope, two hard hats with halogen lamps, and whatever small hand tools they could find to disarm the bomb. Before putting on his hard hat, Lavon had first covered his head with a kippah. Gabriel had removed his suit jacket, necktie, and shoulder holster. The SIG Sauer 9mm that Alois Metzler had given him was now tucked into the waistband of his trousers at the small of his back. He left the microphone of the miniature radio open so Navot could hear his every breath and footfall.
After breaking through the cement seal, they entered an arched passageway that bore them through the base of the western retaining wall and into the Mount itself. The paving stones of the ancient street were as smooth as glass. Three times a year—on Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot—Jews from the ancient kingdoms of Israel had walked over these stones on their way to the Temple. Even Gabriel, who had more on his mind than history, could almost feel the presence of his ancestors, but Eli Lavon was plunging headlong through the gloom, breathless with excitement.
“Look at the dressings on these stones,” he said, running his hand along the cold wall of the passage. “There’s no way these are anything but Herodian.”
“We don’t have time to look at stones,” Gabriel said, prodding Lavon along the passage with the handle of the pickax.
“There’s a very good chance that you and I are going to be the last Jews to ever set foot here.”
“If that bomb goes off, we definitely will be.”
Lavon quickened his pace.
“Where are we exactly?” asked Gabriel.
“If we were on the surface, we’d be passing through the Gate of Darkness heading directly toward the eastern façade of the Dome of the Rock.” Lavon paused and then turned his headlamp toward a pair of columns in the stonework. “Those are Doric,” he said. “They’re Herodian, no question about it.”
“Keep walking, Eli,” Gabriel said with another nudge of the pickax.
Lavon obeyed. “At the end of this passage,” he said, “there’s a cistern that was discovered by Charles Wilson, the other great British explorer of ancient Jerusalem.”
“As in Wilson’s Arch.”
Lavon’s headlamp bobbed in the affirmative. “According to Wilson, the cistern is ninety-three and a half feet long, eighteen feet wide, and thirty-five feet deep. After that, we should see a series of steps.”
“And if the steps are there?”
“They’ll take us up closer to the surface. From there,
we should be able to find our way into the network of cisterns and aqueducts. We know it’s all connected because of the Warren’s Gate incident in 1981. We just have to find the right connections.”
“Before the bomb explodes,” Gabriel added darkly.
They walked a few more paces. Then Lavon froze.
“What’s wrong?”
Lavon stepped aside to reveal a coarse gray wall blocking the end of the passageway.
“Something tells me that isn’t Herodian.”
“No,” said Lavon. “In my expert opinion, it’s Palestinian, circa two thousand and ten.”
“How thick is it?” the prime minister asked.
“They won’t know until they start hammering,” Navot said. “And if they start hammering . . .”
“The Palestinians will be able to hear them on the Mount.”
Navot nodded.
It took the prime minister only a few seconds to arrive at his decision. “Tell them to break down that seal. But if they don’t find that bomb by two-thirty, I’m going to order the arrest of Imam Hassan Darwish and go in heavy from the top.”
“Israeli troops and police on the Temple Mount?”
The prime minister nodded resolutely.
“If you do that,” Navot said, “you’ll start the third intifada while the eyes of the world are on us because of the pope.”
“I realize that, Uzi, but it’s better than the alternative.”
Navot ordered Gabriel to start hammering.
Alef, Bet, Gimel, Dalet . . .
And they’d barely made a dent.
At that same moment, Imam Hassan Darwish was standing atop the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount, staring down at the empty plaza below. Security alerts were common in Jerusalem, but the Israelis blocked access to the holiest site in Judaism only when they believed an attack was imminent. It was possible the closure was the result of an unrelated threat, but Darwish suspected otherwise. Somewhere, somehow, the plot had been compromised.
Turning, Darwish headed across the esplanade toward the Dome of the Rock. As usual, only females and old men had been allowed into the Haram for Friday prayers; Darwish bade good afternoon to a few of them with the customary greeting of peace before descending into the Well of Souls. There he passed through a locked door and followed an ancient flight of steps downward into the heart of the Holy Mountain. A moment later, he was standing in one of the largest cisterns on the Temple Mount, listening to the sound of distant tapping.
