by Conrad Jones
He looked through a pair of binoculars over the walls into the city. He was stood on the viewing platform on the Mount of Olives, watching the comings and goings. It was as good a vantage point as you could get. Tank didn’t realise that he was standing just two hundred yards away from the decaying body of the man that had financed the release of his nemesis, Yasser Ahmed. He was mouldering in the scorching heat, covered in a pile of broken gravestones further down the grassy slopes.
Tank looked through the binoculars again and scanned the length of the thick walls, left to right. The giant golden dome dominated the skyline. He didn’t think that a radiological dispersion device could be hidden atop of the Temple Mount. Heat sensors would have picked it up by now. Wherever it was, it needed to be inside a building, out of site. Tank took the baseball cap that he wearing off his baldhead and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He was wearing thick denim combat shorts that went just past his knee, and a baggy white short-sleeved short shirt. Despite the tourist gape, he still stood out because of his muscular build.
Tank scanned the city again looking for a potential building, suitable for hiding a dirty bomb inside. It would need to be close to the Wailing Wall, or the Church of the Sepulchre, but nothing really stood out. He panned right past the golden dome and Temple Mount. It had to be inside somewhere. The city was a shambolic mixture of architectural designs, and every inch on the residential space had been contested for thousands of years, at the cost of millions of lives. There were residential buildings built into part of the old Temple Mount wall, just to the west of the mosque. They would be an ideal hiding place but the Israelis had already searched them with a fine toothed comb. Most of the inhabitants of that quarter were Muslims, and it was the first place the Israelis looked.
Tank elevated the glasses and located the spire of the Church of the Sepulchre. The Christians believed that it contained both the site of Jesus crucifixion and the rock slab where he was interned. The buildings around it were predominantly ancient retail units and narrow market lanes. It would be an ideal target, but there was far too much activity up there for a large device to be hidden for any length of time. It would take a conspiracy of biblical magnitude for a secret that big to remain a secret. Tank ruled out that section of the city and scanned down to The Mount again.
He scanned the bedrocks to the west of The Mount, and then remembered the tourist trip that he made here some years before. The guide had informed them about the ancient caverns and ornately carved chambers beneath the Temple Mount, which had been flooded to create huge underground reservoirs. It was probably a mile away across the valley. The device had to be inside of a building somewhere, or underneath somewhere better still.
He stood up and headed down a steep winding narrow path, which led from the Mount of Olives, through the graveyards to the Garden of Gethsemane, situated at the foot of the ancient city walls. It was slow going, and the gradient of the road, combined with the sweltering heat took its toll on the big man. His Glock was holstered in the small of his back beneath his baggy shirt. He kept the baseball cap in his hand as he made his way down the steep hill. There was a blind beggar on the left hand side of the road, but the way his head turned and followed passing tourists indicated that there was nothing wrong with his eyes. Tank tagged him as an Israeli agent.
A catholic monk was walking up the hill toward him wearing a long white hessian robe, tied around his fat belly with a pleated rope, leading a donkey. Tank wondered at the holy man as he approached, leading the animal that would carry Christ upon his return, according to the scriptures. He stepped aside to allow the man to pass with his beast.
Tank wiped the sweat from his baldhead again, keeping the baseball cap in his hand. It was too hot to wear it, despite its disguising properties. He plodded down the steep narrow lane avoiding the beggars sat on either side. There were low walls on either side of the lane, protecting the massive Jewish graveyards beyond them. A sudden bend in the road offered a view of the rock face beneath the Temple Mount, to the west of the city. Tank stopped and inspected it through his binoculars.
He studied the rocks and the walls above them, but he couldn’t see where an entry point would be. The guide had told him that access was granted only to the city’s employees, and that the entrance was a loosely guarded secret known to everyone except tourists. He looked oddly out of place standing in the narrow lane, looking through binoculars. He was a huge muscular bulk, with a shaved head. Several of the wrinkled old cripples studied him as he looked over the city, but one in particular was more interested than most. Tank looked back down the road that he had to negotiate, winding steeply down the mount. A hooded one-armed beggar past him and Tank glanced briefly at the man’s face. An uneasy sensation crept into Tank’s bones as his powers of recognition worked unconsciously. He suddenly stopped and turned around; facing back up the hill, but the one armed man had disappeared.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Director Ruth Jones
Everything that Ruth Jones had tried to avoid had blown up in her face. She was woken up in the early hours of the morning to the shocking news that a terrorist plot had been foiled in the Queen’s district of New York, resulting in the deaths of four CIA agents, two terrorists and twenty-three members of the public. The tenement building where the incident had taken place had been burned to the ground along with most of the adjoining block. The shocking part of the breaking news was that the terrorist cell, which were killed in the swoop were planning a dirty bomb attack, targeted at the financial area of New York. Once the news reached the press, the area had been completely evacuated as a response.
Director Ruth Jones had been hauled over the coals by the Whitehouse, and she was struggling to explain why the Northern Command’s ground troops had been stood down to amber alert, when an attack was imminent. They also wanted to know who had organised the swoop, and on what intelligence. Of course, she didn’t know the answers, but she had a good idea who did.
Forensic teams were ploughing through mountains of charred remains, but there was little useful evidence untouched by the fire. There were secondary teams working outside the building, and they seemed to be having a more productive search. Recovering any good ballistic evidence was impossible, as the fire had melted the nine millimetre slugs. The victim’s bodies were burnt beyond recognition, and it was only an anonymous tipoff that alerted the New York Police Department to the fact that it was a terrorist incident. The remains had been removed hurriedly before the rest of the building collapsed, destroying the crime scene.
“Tell me that you’ve found something useful,” Ruth Jones said. She was sat in the back of an agency vehicle being driven through the suburbs of New York.
“It’s a real puzzle Ruth,” her science officer replied. “But we do have some solid leads.”
“Okay, give me what we have so far,” she urged.
“We have an anonymous call reporting agency involvement in a terrorist incident at one o’clock this morning. The police department informed the local agency office, and they confirmed that a four man snatch squad had been deployed to capture two suspected terrorists linked to the incidents in the United Kingdom.”
“What, who deployed the snatch squad?” Ruth asked incredulously.
“According to the paperwork you did,” he explained slowly.
“This stinks,” she said.
“The fire started in a basement stairwell beneath the tenement building, and spread rapidly, destroying everything we have to work with,” he continued.
“Can we prove it was set deliberately?” she asked
“There are human remains near the seat of the fire, probably a vagrant, meaning it could be accidental,” the scientist explained.
“That’s bullshit, and just too much of a coincidence,” Ruth was getting frustrated.
“Try explaining that to a judge, reasonable doubt and all,” he responded, playing devil’s advocate.
“How much of the financial dis
trict have they evacuated?” Ruth Jones was mentally trying to assess the damage.
“All of it.”
“Is there any sign of any radioactive devices anywhere,” she asked.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing. We have scanned the whole area above ground, and our teams are searching everything below ground as we speak,” he replied.
“How long will it take?”
“A minimum of two weeks.”
“Fucking hell,” she whispered under her breath. “Is there any good news?”
“Well there is some news. Whether it is good or not is for you to decide,” he replied.
“Okay, let’s hear it,” Ruth needed a break.
“The agents’ cars have been processed, and we have found some evidence that we can’t explain,” he began.
“What evidence?”
“We found a pubic hair in the back of the car, belonging to one of your agents, but not one that has worked in New York long enough to have left it there,” he explained.
“Don’t tell me, Agent Japey?” she was flabbergasted.
“You’ve got it in one, shall we bring him in?” he asked.
“Oh yes, bring him in. It looks like he’s going to be taking it rough for the next thirty years,” she smiled looking out of the windows at the massive skyscrapers. It was all the information that she would need to nail him to the wall. The knot in her stomach relaxed a little and she decided to get some coffee for the rest of her journey. It was going to be a good day after all.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Jerusalem
Tank leaned over the low wall that bordered the narrow lane he was on. There was nothing to see but acres of shattered headstones and grass. He turned and ran to the other side of the road and repeated the process, with the same result. Wherever the hooded beggar had gone would remain a mystery. Tank was almost certain that he recognised the shark like eyes that he’d glimpsed as they passed one another, but by the time the information registered, he was gone.
Tank saw movement at a bend in the hill; several beggars huddled together were walking up the hill away from him. He sprinted fifty yards up the hill toward them, holding the handle of his Glock behind his back. The group of men heard him approaching and stopped at the sound of the big man stomping up the hill. They turned around and stared at Tank. He looked into their eyes one at a time, left to right. Their eyes were old and watery, and not the eyes of a stone cold killer like Yasser. He leaned against the wall to catch his breath.
Tank pulled out his cell phone and dialled the fat controller at headquarters in Liverpool.
“Agent David Bell speaking,” he answered on the first ring.
“Bell it’s Tank, I need you to check something out for me.”
“Okay, give me a second to grab my pencil and I’m all ears,” he replied reaching across the desk to retrieve his writing implement.
“I need to know if Yasser Ahmed received any permanent injury from the shoulder wound I inflicted in Chechnya,” Tank was almost certain that he had made a mistake. He was just being jumpy because of the seriousness of the situation.
“Oh, well I can help you there my big friend,” the fat controller sounded as chirpy as only he could in a crisis. “He had the wounded arm amputated at the shoulder; it’s all here in the file we’ve received.”
Tank hung up immediately without another word and ran back up the hill to the viewing platform. He had run about two hundred yards, scouring every nook and cranny, looking for the one armed beggar, but to no avail. The narrow lane up the hill was a steep incline and he was sweating like a racehorse when he reached the top. He leaned on the wall to catch his breath, and then looked through his binoculars again. Tank panned the entire hillside cemetery from the summit to the valley below, but he couldn’t locate the beggar. He focused in on the rock face beneath the mount, and felt torn between looking for the location of the dirty bomb, and finding the one armed man, that could have been Yasser Ahmed. He switched on the coms unit.
“Chen, I need you to locate the Israelis commander,” he panted, still out of breath. The sun was blazing down on his baldhead, and sweat ran in rivulets down his neck, soaking his shirt.
“Roger that, what’s the problem?” Chen moved away from the wall he was leaning on and headed across the square toward the Wailing Wall. There was a temporary checkpoint set up by uniformed Israeli soldiers, and their squad commander was positioned there, coordinating operations. The American Delta Force unit and the Terrorist Task Force were supposed to be acting in advisory roles, communicating via the Israeli officer. At least that’s what the Israelis thought.
“Ask him if the chambers beneath the Well of Souls have been searched, I think they would be ideal to stash a device out of sight, plus the city’s water supply is stored there,” Tank said, getting his breath back.
“Roger that, the Well of Souls, sounds like an Indiana Jones film,” Chen said nervously as he approached the Israelis soldiers. He approached the commander casually so as not to disturb the thousands of Jewish pilgrims who were waiting to pass through the check point to pray at the wall. The commander listened to Chen and then spoke to his men. There was a brief conversation, a shaking of heads, and then a realisation that they had missed something important. Orders were barked out and the Israeli officers broke away from the checkpoint flanked by a dozen of his elite men.
“The chambers were not part of the sweep,” Chen said into the coms unit. “He is taking a unit down there now, shall we follow?”
“Roger that, you and three men assist the Israelis, leave the others in place, and tell them to be on the lookout for a one armed beggar. If they see anyone missing an arm they’re to contact me with a location immediately and tail them,” Tank ordered.
“Roger that, we’re on our way,” Chen replied without questioning the order.
Tank studied the rocks beneath the Temple Mount again, and a flurry of movement further to the east attracted his attention. Three canvas covered army trucks were pulling to a halt on the road, about three hundred yards east from the base of the rock face. Troops swarmed out of the vehicles and began to fan out, securing the area. Tank figured that Chen and his three-man squad were about fifteen minutes away from the area. The Israelis had obviously alerted a unit to secure the area until the commander arrived and took control. That gave Tank the opportunity to search for the one armed man.
Chapter Sixty-Four
New York
Agent Japey was sat on his favourite tall bar stool in the pink pickup joint, which was becoming his local haunt. The regulars knew that he was in law enforcement, and an agent of some kind. Japey enjoyed the mystery that surrounded him. He was munching on a bowl of peanuts and swigging his third bottle of Bud, while he watched the newsreels repeating themselves repeatedly. Pictures of the burnt out tower in Liverpool were followed by the burnt out brownstone tenement block in the Queen’s district of New York. The international news agencies were linking the incidents, and calling them a coordinated terrorist attack on the Atlantic allies by Islamic extremists. The press was having a field day, Islamaphobia had reached fever pitch. Vigilante groups were burning and destroying Muslim businesses on both sides of the Atlantic. It couldn’t have worked out any better if he had planned it.
The picture on the screen changed again, and Japey smiled as he watched himself walking out of the New York agency building, mobbed by excited reporters. He stopped in front of the cameras and gave a brief statement, flanked by his solicitor, claiming that he was the victim of a conspiracy and had been set up. The news footage was from earlier that morning upon his release from the agency’s New York interrogation suite. Ruth Jones had him arrested and questioned about the Queen’s incident, but apart from a single hair sample, there was little solid evidence to hold him on. Japey knew that he had covered his tracks. There was nothing to link him to the killings. He would be suspended, and investigated, cleared and reinstated in a higher position, to avoid any messy compensation lawsuits
. So far, everything was going to plan.
Japey had especially enjoyed the frustrated look on the director’s face, as he had walked free. It was great to get one over on the smug bitch. A real shot in the arm to prove to everyone that he was the superior being. The agents in the office were silent as he walked through; cold silent stares followed his every move. They had lost four of their colleagues, and the finger of guilt was pointing directly at Agent Japey. He had attracted the attention that he craved in many ways, but it would all pay dividends in the end. He smiled to himself again and finished his beer. The barman was leaning against the till watching the newsreel, along with a handful of gay regulars.
“You look good on camera,” the barman said as he replaced Japey’s empty beer with a full one. He put on an effeminate swagger, trying to earn a bigger tip, or something.
“Thank you,” Japey flirted, and made a mock salute to the barman. They both laughed and Japey noticed a guy opposite laughing with them. Their eyes lingered a little too long and Japey knew there was an attraction immediately. How could the poor guy not be attracted to a handsome successful man such as Japey, and he was only human after all. His newfound fame was already proving fruitful. Japey was incredibly vain, and arrogant, and it would be his downfall.
