The Temple Mount Code

by Charles Brokaw

  ‘I thought I was dead.’ Foad looked shaken as he picked his rifle up from the floor.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like that.’ Adan tentatively tested his bloody shoulder with a wince. Evidently the wound was messy but not debilitating, because his movement wasn’t restricted.

  Lourds stared at the young woman.

  ‘Hours and hours of xBox 360.’ Miriam turned to Adan. ‘We need to get out of here.’

  Adan took the lead again, with Miriam running by his side. Shaking his head, Lourds followed, while Foad and Shahram watched their rear.

  47

  Evin Prison

  Evin District

  Tehran, the Islamic Republic of Iran

  August 13, 2011

  ‘I’ve hacked into the prison’s closed-circuit TV.’

  Mufarrij ducked as men inside an office area fired at him. Squatting, he took shelter behind a low wall. Unclipping a grenade from his Kevlar vest, he pulled the pin, released the spoon, counted off two seconds, and heaved it over the heads of the men firing at him.

  The grenade went off, and shrapnel spun out in razor-sharp pieces that dotted the walls and turned the Revolutionary Guards into bloody rags.

  ‘Find Lourds.’ Mufarrij stood and ran into the office, killing the survivors before they could do anything to save themselves.

  ‘I’m tracking people now. The inside of the building is very confusing. I am having to make up a legend so I know which camera is which.’

  ‘You are talking far too much.’

  ‘I have you now. There is an ambush ahead of you. Is that talking too much?’

  Mufarrij grinned despite the dangerous circumstances. Death and he were old acquaintances. There was no fear of dying in him any more. That had been worn away on far more battlefields than he could remember. Only the fear of failure remained now.

  He pulled up short at the next doorway and waved the men following him into position. He freed another grenade. ‘Is the ambush to the left or right?’

  ‘Left. About eight meters down.’

  ‘Find Lourds.’ Mufarrij leaned around the doorway and threw the grenade, bouncing it off the far wall.

  After the deafening blast, wounded men cried out in fear and pain.

  Mufarrij swung around the doorway and opened fire, blazing through one magazine, then pulling back to reload. As he did, Haytham slid out into the hallway and emptied his magazine as well.

  There were no survivors after that.

  Striding out into the hallway slick with blood and body parts, Mufarrij kept going.

  ‘I have Lourds. He and the men – and woman – with him have reached an emergency exit area. They’re meeting heavy resistance.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I will guide you. Continue down the hallway you are in now.’

  Mufarrij increased his pace to a jog. Lourds needed to go free. The Ayatollah’s butchers would not be allowed to get him. He followed the intel officer’s directions, turning again and again, making his way through rows of pitiful wrecks who had once been human.

  When Mufarrij rounded the final turn, he arrived at the intersection at the same time as a group of Revolutionary Guardsmen. Recognizing their leader as an old enemy, he brought up his rifle.

  Just as triumph seemed imminent, Davari’s good feelings vanished when he saw a hated face appear in front of him. The security people had tracked Lourds, the woman, and the traitors to the emergency exit leading to the prison hospital. A separate entrance was used there to keep the prison populace under guard at all times. A narrow, barred walkway crossed to the hospital.

  Just as Davari was about to close the trap and seize the American, Rayan Mufarrij appeared as if dropped there by Shaitan himself. Davari recognized the Saudi even though a scarf covered the lower half of the face.

  It was the vilest of tricks. Mufarrij had killed two of Davari’s brothers and many friends over the years of the war between the Sunni and Shiite Muslims. In the intervening years, the man had been a ghost, appearing to strike against Iran many times, then vanishing like he’d never existed.

  Davari dodged to the side, and the bullets Mufarrij had intended for him pulped the face of the Guardsman standing behind him. Bringing up his weapon even while falling, he fired and watched in satisfaction as his line of bullets stitched up Mufarrij’s chest, and his head snapped backwards in a rush of crimson.

  ‘Die, Mufarrij!’ Davari rolled to cover, then got up and ran as one of the Saudis threw a grenade into the area.

  Instead of shrapnel, though, the grenade spewed dark red tear gas. The choking haze filled the hallway, searing Mufarrij’s lungs, nose, and eyes. Through his tears, he glanced back at the hallway, but could no longer see Lourds and the traitors.

  ‘Wafaei!’ Davari hacked and choked as the tear gas burned him. ‘Wafaei!’

  ‘I am here, Colonel.’

  ‘I have lost the American. Where is he?’ Davari roped an arm over his lower face in an effort to cut down the effects of the tear gas. That didn’t help his eyes, and they watered incessantly.

  ‘I have locked the emergency door. They cannot escape.’

  ‘Good. Make sure the men know I want the American alive.’ Davari put a fresh magazine into his assault rifle as Wafaei broadcast the instructions. Then the colonel readied himself for when the cursed smoke thinned enough to proceed.

  Adan threw himself against the emergency door, but only bounced off.

  Lourds bulled up against the door with the man, intending to use his greater bulk to power through the door. He set himself. ‘Again. Together. On three.’ The tear gas was leaching the oxygen from his lungs and blurring his vision. He coughed through one and two, then they hit the door with their shoulders at the same time.

  The door didn’t move.

  ‘They’ve locked it.’

  Wincing, Lourds drew back and looked at the door. A small mesh-screened window was inset high on the door, not large enough to crawl through.

  ‘We’re trapped.’ Adan turned back toward the hallway, where two groups were momentarily held at bay.

  Lourds had been surprised when the two groups had started firing at each other. That had been a bit of luck, but it hadn’t been enough to get them to freedom.

  Foad talked into one of the walkie-talkies. When he finished, he looked at Adan. ‘Sediq is still with the car. No one has bothered him.’ He coughed and wiped tears away.

  ‘Get him over here.’

  Foad spoke into the walkie-talkie again, then shook his head. ‘If we can’t get out, having him over here won’t do any good.’

  ‘Thomas Lourds!’

  Startled by hearing his name on a stranger’s lips, Lourds whirled around and spotted a barely-visible man with a bloody face, wild hair and beard, and an assault rifle leaning against the wall.

  Adan jerked his weapon up and fired. Miriam held her fire, but she was ready as well.

  The bullets thudded into the wall where the man’s head had been a moment earlier. Out of view, his voice carried to them. ‘When the lights go out, the door will open. You must go before the generators come online. We will cover your exit. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tensely, Lourds waited, one shoulder still pushing against the door.

  Head throbbing in agony, Mufarrij gave the command over his headset. ‘Blow the generators.’ He gripped his assault rifle, willing himself to stand despite the dizziness that swept over him. Davari’s bullet had glanced off his skull and left a deep, bleeding gouge behind.

  A huge, dulled thump sounded outside, then the lights inside the prison dimmed, then went out. It was pitch-black for a moment, then the battery-powered security lights came on.

  Mufarrij knew it would only be a few seconds before the prison’s power came back on. He heaved a pair of grenades into the hallway where he’d seen Davari. As the explosions blasted the dimness with bright light, Mufarrij saw Lourds and his group running out the security door.

  Mufarrij fired into the hallw
ay, but a barrage of return fire zipped through the air. He’d considered trying to get out the same way as the American, but couldn’t get there without being shot by Davari or perhaps even Lourds’s companions. Mufarrij resolved to extricate himself and try to catch Lourds again. There were only so many ways out of the country for a man the Ayatollah’s butchers were searching for. He knew them all.

  Frustrated, Davari pulled back from the hallway as the Saudis hammered the area with grenades and bullets. He’d had Lourds within his grasp. Then, when the power had gone off, the security door had unlocked. And just that quick, the American had escaped from the building.

  But not necessarily the grounds.

  Davari ran back toward the security point. ‘Wafaei! Get troops to the hospital entrance! The fugitives have escaped that way! Hurry!’

  When the door opened as the lights went out, Lourds pushed through in a rush and almost stumbled. He got his balance back and whirled around to grab the door and keep it open. As he caught it, the security lights inside the building flashed on. He expected a bullet to cut him down at any moment, especially when more gunfire erupted and what sounded like grenades exploded in the hallway opposite the bearded, wounded man.

  Adan came through next, followed by Miriam, Foad, and Sediq. Lourds held the door open a moment longer, thinking the bearded man might try to follow them, but the gunfire was loud and dangerous. When bullets started whining off the open door, he realized the Revolutionary Guardsmen were shooting at them. He pushed the door closed and heard the electronic locks click back into place.

  ‘Come on.’ Adan grabbed Lourds and pulled him into motion.

  Lourds caught up to Miriam and ran beside her, ready to help in case she tripped in the too-big boots.

  Near the front of the prison, a car with one headlight roared through a downed section of the wall. It skidded to a stop on the rough terrain, drifting well past the fugitives.

  Adan opened the rear passenger door. ‘Get in.’

  Foad ran around to the other side and opened that door. Lourds loaded Miriam into the backseat, then slid in beside her. Shahram jumped into the front seat, joined by Adan, and Sediq tromped on the accelerator. The car hesitated just a moment, then roared forward.

  Turning the wheel sharply, Sediq pointed the vehicle back toward the impromptu entrance.

  ‘Someone is coming!’ Adan peered behind them, his face tightened by fear.

  Glancing back, Lourds spotted a military vehicle gaining quickly on them. Bright flashes came from the windows, right before the first bullets rattled the escape car’s body and shattered the back window.

  In the next instant, the Revolutionary Guards’ vehicle blew up and overturned. It flipped three times, throwing flaming bodies in all directions, and finally came to a stop on its side as Sediq drove them back across the downed prison wall.

  Adan looked at Lourds. ‘Who was that man that called your name?’

  Lourds shook his head. ‘I don’t know. A fan? Those people turn up in the oddest places.’

  A white grin split Adan’s smoke-smeared face. ‘You are crazy.’

  ‘After tonight, I wouldn’t doubt it.’ Lourds looked behind them to see if anyone else was pursuing them.

  No one did.

  ‘Whoever that man is, he knows you, Professor Lourds. I do not know if he means you good or evil, but I do not think you have seen the last of him.’

  Lourds assumed that as well. He’d seen the maniacal look in the man’s eyes.

  Head pounding, senses swimming, Mufarrij jogged from the prison as fast as he could move. As soon as he exited the hole in the back wall, four vehicles sped in from the front of the prison. No Revolutionary Guardsmen left alive inside the prison came out to challenge them.

  His men got in, carrying their dead with them. They had lost six of their brothers in arms. It was a high price to pay.

  ‘Where do we go now?’ Haytham sat beside Mufarrij in the rear seat of the car.

  ‘There is only one place the American can go if he wishes to escape Tehran and the wrath of the Ayatollah.’

  ‘The Kurd lands.’

  ‘Yes. We will follow.’ Mufarrij mopped blood from his face with his sleeve.

  ‘And when we find him?’

  ‘We keep him safe. Davari is involved in this.’

  ‘I know that name. He is a colonel among the Guardsmen.’

  Mufarrij nodded and instantly regretted the action, as his head pounded. ‘Davari is a very dedicated warrior who serves the Ayatollah. Also a very dangerous man.’

  ‘So I have been told.’

  ‘Evidently he has been assigned to find the American and bring him before the Ayatollah. Davari will not quit until he has Lourds or he himself is dead.’

  Haytham smiled coldly. ‘There is no reason we cannot arrange the latter. It will only be a matter of timing, my friend.’

  48

  Young Revolutionaries’ Safe House

  Tehran, the Islamic Republic of Iran

  August 15, 2011

  When Miriam woke, she saw Lourds sitting at the small desk in the corner of the basement room they were hiding in. Reza and his friends were working out the details of the rescue effort to get Lourds and her out of the country. One of Reza’s people had already retrieved the book hidden in Lourds’s former hotel room.

  The story about the prison break-in – touted as an attack by US- and Israeli-backed terrorists in the Iranian papers and media – was all over the news. They also declared the Revolutionary Guardsmen had provided a good accounting of themselves, killing upward of a hundred of their attackers.

  The tale had been concocted to account for the damage that had been done, to make the Guardsmen look better, to refute the idea that a small force could have reduced the place to shambles, and to explain all of the bodies coming out. Whoever the other team was, they had been lethally efficient.

  Fully dressed under the blanket in case she had to get up and bolt at a moment’s notice, Miriam watched Lourds working. She didn’t know if he’d slept on the thin pallet Reza had provided beside the small bed she slept in.

  Fresh scrapes and bruises showed on his face and arms. Every now and again, he touched his face and jerked as pain sliced through him. It reminded her that he wasn’t a soldier – or a Mossad agent – used to hardship and injury.

  He leaned back in the chair and stretched, and she wondered at how he could put in such inhuman hours. After Reza had gotten Professor Namati’s statue of al-Buraq from his office, Lourds had been extremely excited, and had even told her that he’d figured out how to break the code in the book.

  But, as the hours had stretched on, he’d become more dispirited and morose. The solution hadn’t come as easily as he’d expected.

  He leaned back now, putting his hands on his forehead and staring up at the featureless ceiling. He was lost, she knew, tangled somewhere in all the evaluations and permutations of his thoughts. She felt sorry for him.

  She could only guess how afraid he’d been to go along with the risky plan the former Revolutionary Guardsmen had come up with to break into the prison and get her out.

  But, in the end, he’d been there.

  It said a lot about him.

  ‘Stuck?’

  Startled out of his reverie, he turned and looked at her. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Beg pardon?’

  ‘Morning. I’ve lost all track of time.’

  ‘It is.’ Lourds looked at his satphone. ‘No. I’m wrong. It’s two in the afternoon.’

  ‘Have you slept?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Much?’

  ‘Not really.’ Lourds gestured at the book and the statue. ‘I don’t like being stymied. It’s always part of the process, but I’ve never gotten used to it.’

  Miriam threw the blanket back and swung her legs over the side of the bed. ‘Would you explain what you were talking about with the flying horse again? I can barely remember yesterday.’ She�
��d slept most of yesterday, with her pistols under her pillow and Lourds in the room with her.

  ‘Why don’t I go get us something to eat, and we can talk over lunch. You haven’t eaten very much, and I’m famished.’

  ‘You’re always famished.’

  Lourds showed her a mock scowl, then headed for the corner of the room where the ladder led up to the house above them. He knocked, was allowed to exit, and went up.

  Miriam lay back on the bed and stared at the winged horse.

  She awoke again when Lourds sat on the bed. Her hand curled on the butt of one of the pistols almost before she realized it.

  Lourds grimaced, knowing what had happened. ‘I’ve never had a graduate student quite like you.’

  Feeling slightly embarrassed, not sure if Lourds’s naïveté was genuine or not, Miriam left the pistol under the pillow and sat up.

  He held a plate loaded with food. ‘I thought we could share.’ He handed it to Miriam, who balanced it on her crossed legs.

  Lourds got up and returned with the statue and the book. ‘Lev caught onto the secret behind the code before I did. Maybe it was something he saw or something he read. Maybe he read Sahih al-Maliki’s name and realized that the man had made the statue of al-Buraq that Professor Namadi had, I don’t know. Perhaps he learned we’re starting with different theories in our translations.’ He held up the winged horse. ‘The code is with the horse.’

  Leaving the food alone for the moment, Miriam took the horse and examined it. It felt heavy and solid, just as she remembered it had from the previous day. ‘There are no hiding places in the statue.’ She hesitated. ‘I think you said the secret wasn’t what was inside the horse, but what was on the outside.’

  ‘Exactly.’ He captured one of her hands in his and held her fingers flat as he stroked the horse’s side. At first, she felt nothing, then she noticed the small nubs, irregularities. ‘Do you feel those?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We were very fortunate. Those could have been worn away over the years. I don’t think the secret of the horse and the book were supposed to be separated. They were meant to stay together. Maybe only one or two people each generation knew their secret as they were handed down. A death robbed the world of this treasure for hundreds of years or even more than a thousand. The important thing is that they’re meant to be used together.’