The Temple Mount Code

by Charles Brokaw

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Lutfi didn’t look happy.

  ‘Now that you are here, and I have made contact, we’re going to escape.’ Davari finished his coffee. ‘You have a car?’

  ‘Of course. But I have no weapons.’

  ‘That’s fine. I’m sure they’re carrying enough for all of us.’ Davari stood. ‘Let’s get your car.’

  ‘Do not glance around. If you alert those men that we are onto them, I will slit your throat myself.’ Davari walked slightly behind and to Lutfi’s right as they passed a half dozen closed shops.

  ‘I do not care for this.’

  ‘If you talk about anything other than the weather or sports, I will kill you.’

  Tucking his head into his shoulders, Lutfi kept walking, choosing not to talk at all.

  That suited Davari. The streetlights behind the two men trailing them allowed him to track them by their shadows, but it was good to be able to hear their movements as well. The men were good, probably Israeli, judging by how patient they were, but they’d grown confident and didn’t try hard to mask their presence. They also didn’t pull in the second unit, and Davari was certain there was a second unit. If the men had been Hamas, they would have seized him an hour ago and taken him to a torture chamber to find out why he was in the Gaza Strip.

  If they were Israeli, they would be operating on foreign soil, as he was. This was in his favor, because they wouldn’t want to draw much attention to themselves. On the other hand, they would be very good at unarmed combat, as the Mossad seemed to live and breathe krav maga. Davari smiled in anticipation of the coming confrontation.

  ‘Where is your car?’

  Lutfi nodded at the end of the alley. ‘Around the corner.’

  ‘When I step away from you, run for the car and bring it back here.’

  ‘If I do not, you will kill me?’

  ‘Most assuredly.’

  ‘I do not like you very much.’

  Davari smiled at that. ‘Thankfully, you do not have to like me.’ He heard the two men behind him exchange a brief conversation, then their steps quickened. Obviously, they felt they had waited long enough, and the alley was ending soon.

  Davari immediately turned and ran at them.

  They were good, he had to give them that. They separated at once to give each other room to maneuver.

  Davari went for the bigger one first because closing with him would give the smaller man less room to position himself, and the bigger man would provide a better shield. The man set himself, obviously expecting Davari to pull up short. The colonel continued his headlong pace and slammed into the man’s chest, giving his opponent no time to decide whether to shoot him with the pistol he suddenly held.

  Using his weight and speed, Davari powered the man backwards till he was almost running, then slipped and started to fall. Instinctively, the man reached forward to grab him. Davari planted his own feet, caught the man’s shirt in one burly fist, and snared his opponent’s gun wrist with the other.

  Yanking backwards, Davari spun the man around so his back faced his partner, then kicked him in the crotch. The man groaned in pain and threw up a little. Still, he clung stubbornly to his weapon as the second man sprinted toward him, leading with a silenced pistol.

  Maintaining his grip on the man’s shirt, Davari swung his elbow into the man’s throat, then head-butted him in the face. His opponent’s nose broke, and blood gushed. Nearly out on his feet and sagging heavily, the man’s hold on the pistol loosened.

  With a quick twist, Davari slid the pistol free and popped it into his hand. He raised the pistol and fired by instinct.

  Three shots struck the approaching agent in the chest and threw him off stride. Davari fired two more rounds into the man’s left leg as he came down on that foot and he fell, sprawling into the alley. The colonel placed the pistol silencer under the chin of the man he was holding and pulled the trigger twice, blowing the top of his head off.

  Shoving the dead man from him, Davari strode toward the second agent. The man was trying to roll over onto his back and get a shot off. He managed to fire two rounds, but both missed, ricocheting off the alley wall.

  Davari shot two rounds into the man’s face and kicked the pistol away. Working quickly, he knelt and went through the men’s pockets, taking their IDs, cash, and personal effects, and dropping it all into his jacket pockets. He found a spare magazine on the big man and quickly changed out the one in his captured weapon. He kept the half-empty magazine, then picked up the other pistol and the spare magazine for it and switched that one to full capacity as well.

  He turned and headed for the end of the alley, thinking Lutfi had bolted and run and that he would kill the man if he ever saw him again. Then an ancient Russian sedan rounded the corner and headed toward him.

  Davari stepped out of the way and fisted the pistols in his jacket pockets.

  The car’s brakes squealed as the vehicle shuddered to a stop. Lufti stared through the bug-spattered windshield as Davari opened the passenger seat and got inside.

  ‘They’re dead?’

  ‘Yes. Go.’ Davari relaxed in the seat as Lutfi shifted into gear and drove over the dead men in the alley.

  Minutes later, Davari followed Lutfi into a pottery warehouse. They walked in silence to the back of the building, aided only by a flashlight Lutfi carried. Davari didn’t mind the darkness. He was armed, and he’d just emerged victorious from a confrontation. His blood sang.

  At the back of the warehouse, Lutfi stood against the back wall, then stamped his foot in a practiced rhythm. ‘If I didn’t do that, you would be dead.’

  A moment later, a section of the floor lifted, then slid noisily across the floor. Lutfi descended a narrow set of stairs into a small room. Three men armed with AK-47s stood at the bottom.

  They all wore olive drab pants, khaki shirts, and red berets. One was in his early forties, sallow-faced, with acne scars and a salt-and-pepper hair and beard. Commander Ahmad Meshal calmly smoked a cigarette and studied his guest.

  ‘Colonel Davari?’

  ‘I am.’

  Meshal stood his ground. ‘Commander Meshal.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You have blood on your face and on your shirt.’

  ‘There was trouble.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘I was picked up at the airport by two men. They moved and acted like Mossad agents.’

  Meshal glanced at Lutfi.

  ‘They did not follow me.’ Fear etched Lutfi’s face. ‘They were there when I arrived.’

  ‘As I said, they picked me up at the airport.’

  Davari glanced around. There did not appear to be any other exits. A wire shelf on the wall to his left held a small selection of food. Next to it, a curtain covered the far half of the wall. A laptop computer and other equipment sat on a card table in the corner. A stack of magazines sat on the floor.

  ‘May I borrow your table?’ He nodded at the card table.

  ‘Of course.’

  On the table, Davari spread out the IDs and papers he’d collected from the men he’d killed. ‘These are probably fake, but we have experts who can tell who did the work. If I may use your computer.’

  ‘Please do.’

  Davari used the scanner to copy the IDs and papers onto the laptop, then used an encryption sequence from a Web site the Quds Force had set up for him. Then he uploaded the images to another Web site accessed by the Quds intelligence division. He probably already knew as much as they would find out, but confirming his suspicions would be good.

  He turned to Meshal. ‘I would guess that the two men I killed are here looking for the ones you have.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘When the Mossad finds those two agents dead, they’ll send more. Unless we give the two men back to them. Where are they?’

  ‘In the next room.’ Meshal walked over to the far wall and pushed the curtain back to reveal a glass window.

  Inside the room, two men knelt in apparent agony
. Both men wore plastic zip-ties that cuffed their hands behind their backs and to the chains that bound their feet together. Blindfolds covered their eyes and ears. One had wet himself, the dark stain showing on his beige pants. Their arms and legs showed evidence of burning, cutting, and assault with blunt instruments.

  ‘These are two of the guards that were with Lev Strauss?’

  Meshal nodded.

  ‘What were they? Bodyguards?’

  ‘Yes. For a time Strauss was here, in the Strip. We couldn’t get to him, but we got to two of his men.’

  ‘What was he doing here?’

  ‘He spent most of his time at the library.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Reading old books.’

  Impatient, Davari turned his attention back to the men. The Supreme Leader had told him about the Book he sought, and what he was convinced it was, but Lev Strauss was proving to be a unique quarry.

  And now he had run back to Jerusalem, where he would be even harder to reach.

  Davari didn’t even consider interrogating the prisoners. From what they’d been put through, he knew they held no secrets. Otherwise, they would have already bartered them to keep the pain at bay.

  Davari turned to the computer and sent an e-mail to Klaus Von Volker, requesting a meeting in two days. ‘Kill them. Cut off their heads and hands and mail them back to their families.’

  ‘It will be done.’.

  8

  Nangpa La Mountain Pass

  Himalaya Mountains

  People’s Republic of China

  July 26, 2011

  At twenty-thousand plus feet, the world was bitterly cold and so bright that it hurt Lourds’s eyes, even through his protective filtering lenses. He slapped his gloved hands together to get some feeling as he stared up at the mountain.

  Only a few miles to the east, the 8,000-meter Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain in the world, stretched for the heavens. Clad in white snow, it looked beautiful.

  The native Tibetans and Sherpas of Khumbu often made their way through these mountains regularly to trade. Less than a mile ahead of Lourds and his group, a few of the hardy mountain folk were coming toward them.

  ‘Well, I guess we’ll soon have a look at the neighbors.’ Lourds smiled under his ski mask. Despite the protective layers, his face still felt frozen.

  ‘We’ve traveled a long way, Thomas. Are you sure about this?’ Professor Hu hunched over, resting his hands on his knees for additional support as he gasped for air.

  ‘I’m as sure as I can be. You saw the map.’ Lourds waved at the mountains. ‘Cho Oyu translates literally into Turquoise Goddess, and there was a drawing of a suspiciously blue-green mountain on it.’ He turned slightly. ‘And there’s Mount Everest, called Zhumulangma Feng, or “Holy Mother” by Chinese historians. The Tibetan name for it is Chomolungma, which means Saint Mother.’ He felt the excitement of the expected discovery thrum through him again, always thrill him each time it happened. ‘I think that’s close enough to the drawing of the woman on the mountain to fit our map, don’t you?’

  ‘You know, while we were back at Jiahu, I felt mostly certain that you knew what you were talking about.’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  Hu shot Lourds an indignant grimace. ‘So you say. Thomas, if I die up here, I am ordering you to drag my body after you and make sure I get partial credit for whatever you find.’

  ‘What if it turns out there’s nothing to find?’

  ‘Drop my body into the first crevice you come across. I’ll never be able to show my face at the university again.’

  ‘Nonsense. Everybody has a setback once in a while.’

  ‘Says the man who found Atlantis.’

  Lourds laughed.

  ‘You know, once you’ve uncovered a mythical land, you end up with a lot of street cred, my friend.’ Hu took a water bottle from his pack and drank. ‘The only reason I agreed to come along is because you have the devil’s own luck at finding things that have been misplaced for thousands of years.’

  A slight chill that came from more than the frozen landscape around him shivered through Lourds. All he had to do was think back to Elliott Webster and what the man – or whatever he was – had almost accomplished in the Middle East to realize how his ‘good fortune’ cut both ways. Maybe Lourds had found a lot of things, but he’d also risked his life on a lot of those occasions to muddle through.

  A lot of people had died, both during his trip to find Atlantis, and his more recent adventure in the Middle East.

  ‘And at Jiahu, you managed to find a BBC film crew that would follow you up to this godforsaken piece of real estate. Want to tell me how that happened?’

  Lourds shook his head. ‘I got a call from Leslie Crane yesterday morning saying her company was willing to bankroll the expedition for an exclusive on the find.’ Leslie Crane was a friend and a sometime lover. She’d managed to survive the Atlantis chase with him and had produced a nice documentary on the search. ‘We needed transport and supplies, and if we’d had to beg it from Peking or Harvard, we’d still be trying to explain what we’d found to them.’

  ‘I’d like you to take us through the discovery one more time, Professor Lourds.’

  Lourds looked askance at the young man heading up the BBC crew. ‘Ronald?’

  ‘It’s Rory, sir, actually.’ He was a tall, well-built young man with carrot-colored hair and a freckled face.

  ‘Of course.’ Lourds stood with his back to a rocky outcrop where the group sheltered from the howling winds during lunch.

  No one really felt like eating, but they did like sitting down instead of slogging through the snow.

  Gloria Chen had gotten Professor Hu to allow her to come along. Lourds didn’t know why she’d bothered. Since they’d taken up the expedition, she’d kept her distance, although she seemed to watch him constantly. She was doing that now, and the effect was somewhat unnerving.

  ‘Rory, I’ve already told this story for the camera before.’

  ‘I know, but my producer likes to have separate shots of some of the same material in different areas. When they edit the piece, I don’t know which one they will choose. So I have to shoot a lot and wait to see how the story turns out.’

  Reaching into his backpack, Lourds took out a rolled-up twelve-by-fifteen picture of the inside of the small tortoiseshell he’d found in the Jiahu grave. He tapped it with a forefinger. ‘This is Jiahu. Professor Hu and I placed this location easily because of the proximity of the Yellow River.’

  ‘How do you know that’s the Yellow River if there’s no real language attached to the people who drew that map?’ Rory asked.

  ‘We don’t know for certain. That’s why this is what’s called an educated guess. Logic dictates that if you were going to draw a map and leave it for someone to find, you would use local landmarks as a reference.’

  ‘But the tortoiseshell wasn’t left for someone to find.’

  Lourds grinned. ‘Really? Someone found it.’

  The group huddled around the rock laughed at the young reporter’s embarrassment.

  ‘Honestly, Rory, I don’t know how that tortoiseshell ended up in the grave if it was meant to be left behind. Or why it was encased in pottery, though it’s possible the covering was there to protect it. Or maybe to disguise the shell from enemies. From that point, the shell might have been deposited in the grave by mistake. Thankfully, it was there for me, or I’d still be swilling the local brew in Jiahu.’ Lourds looked around thoughtfully. ‘Given the local weather conditions, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.’

  Even the reporter laughed at that.

  ‘After we figured out the tortoiseshell was a map, Professor Hu and I had to figure out what it was a map of. As you can see up here’ – Lourds tapped the jagged lines near the top of the tortoiseshell – ‘these look like mountains. This is a tortoise.’ He indicated the drawing of a circle with six extremities. ‘Four legs, a head, and a tail. Although that was a
source of debate for a time. And this is a woman. You can tell that because she’s – rather well endowed.’

  The breasts were definitely enhanced on the stick figure.

  ‘Assuming these were mountains, which – after a very spirited discussion – is what Professor Hu and I did, we had to figure out what mountains they were.’ Lourds waved at their surroundings. ‘Lots of mountains in China.’ He paused. ‘But not many that featured a tortoise and a woman.’ He quickly explained about the origins of the mountain names.

  ‘Now that we’ve found the mountains, what are we looking for?’ Rory asked.

  Lourds pointed to a small symbol on the map. ‘This. A structure located somewhere off this pass.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I have no idea. That’s just part of the adventure.’

  Less than an hour later, the Sherpas reached them. The group was friendly and used to outsiders coming to the mountains to climb. Most of them spoke rudimentary English.

  Lourds explained the map to Gelu, the oldest member of the group. He was a short, stocky man with weathered, dark features, iron gray hair, and a scar along his left cheek. He liked to laugh and joke a lot, and was a consummate storyteller. For a time, in the lee of the stone and out of the wind, they swapped tales because business was something to be approached slowly.

  He studied Lourds’s map for a moment. ‘I know this place. Very old place.’

  ‘How old?’ Excitement filled Lourds.

  Gelu shook his gray head. ‘Long, long time ago. This place has seen many people live and die. It is home to Tibetan monks who renounce the world.’

  ‘Monks that renounce the world?’ One of the BBC guys, Thompson, looked totally lost. ‘For generations? Dude, monks don’t reproduce. How are they going to keep people in some nearly forgotten temple? They’d die out from attrition.’

  Lourds chuckled, and Gelu barked laughter. ‘Many monks renounce world. Some say to study better. Others say so they not have to work.’ He shrugged. ‘Sometimes we bring them food. Monks not grow much up here.’

  ‘I’d say not.’ Lourds glanced at the white landscape.

  ‘Snow not fill belly.’