Who would notice? They were four tourists interested in the Western Wall. They would be lost mingling among the other tourists, the shoppers, the steady flow of humanity up and down David Street. At least, Bohannon was hoping that was true.
Levin detested night duty. With his years of service, his seniority, his connections, he should never have to neglect his family like this. Besides, this was poker night, and for the first time in three years, he had been on a winning streak. Levin detested night duty.
But his senior lieutenant was in a nasty automobile accident and would be in the hospital for at least another week. His duty sergeant was on vacation in Majorca. That left Levin with five nights of duty this week, and he was as coiled as a scorpion’s stinger.
Captain Avram Levin had served with Shin Bet for a dozen years, carefully selected out of the main Israeli army corps in the second year of his service. Tall, broad, muscled—the body of a competitive volleyball player, a striker of confounding accuracy and deadly power. A defender who once stepped into a Levin “kill” was knocked unconscious for ten minutes and never played the game again. For many years, Levin held hopes of gaining a berth on the Israeli Olympic volleyball team. A knee injury sidelined him once, the Intifada sidelined him the second time. Now, his only “kills” were the days when his team of spooks nailed a carrier. Now, it was nights, also.
Shin Bet, the domestic Israeli security service, had a tougher job than Mossad, the international security service, though a lot less visibility and fewer accolades. But every Israeli citizen knew, respected, and was grateful for Shin Bet, because Shin Bet kept the streets, the busses, the cafés as safe as possible, as safe as could be expected, when it seemed the entire Palestinian population was being trained as suicide bombers.
One of the main weapons in Shin Bet’s arsenal was the unobtrusive surveillance cameras that continuously scanned nearly every street in every major city in the country. Here in Jerusalem, the concentration of cameras was even denser, the attention to monitors more widespread and more diligent. This was Levin’s domain. He was Watch Commander at Shin Bet’s Aleph Reconnaissance Center in the Old City. The men in his command called him “The Hawk,” an appellation he coveted and nurtured.
With a striker’s aggression and immediate decision making, Levin was legendary in his corps for swooping in behind a monitor, stabbing his index finger at the screen, and demanding “target status” for someone who triggered his intuition. Levin intercepted more carriers, terrorists intending to become suicide bombers with explosives taped around their midsection, than any other officer. He missed once in a while, but by experience, when The Hawk pounced, every soldier in the security station elevated their surveillance to red alert.
There was a prowling, predatory Hawk circling the security station that night.
Bohannon and his coconspirators reached the entrance to the Western Wall Tunnel just after 9:00 PM. The tunnel had become an instant Jerusalem tourist must-see attraction almost from the moment it was uncovered. But they were surprised to see that the tunnel’s ticket office was still open (a half-dozen people bought tickets in the few minutes they stood by the entrance), and would remain open most evenings until 11:00 PM. Surprised, also, to read that “guided tours are available for booking at any time of the day or night.”
Clearly, this would not be an entry point for their search.
This was a disappointment for Bohannon, primarily because he remained ignorant of so much about the Old City, the Temple Mount, and its surrounding areas. During the weeks of preparation, he had been briefed by Doc, Sammy, and Joe on the basics of Jerusalem topography, the layout of the Old City and its walls, plus the physical dimensions and orientation of the Temple Mount. Telling was one thing; seeing was another. And the more he saw, the more doubtful Bohannon was of being able to fulfill their plans.
For one thing, while Jerusalem was no New York City, the human activity around the Temple Mount, even at night, was significant and discouraging. Bohannon often imagined the Temple Mount as being off by itself, outside the mainstream of Jerusalem’s urban bustle, a quiet, secluded location that would be all but deserted in the wee hours of the morning. What he found was a city intricately entwined with itself. While the Old City and the Temple Mount were certainly different from and separated from New Jerusalem on the west, the whole place was a thriving metropolis of which the Old City and the Mount operated more like the hub of wheel spokes going in all directions. It was certainly not isolated.
Bohannon looked wistfully at the entrance to the Western Wall Tunnel. How convenient that would have been.
Glancing at his watch, Captain Levin barked an order to his men, who were already kicking themselves for getting posted on night duty with Levin. “Sweep the Mount and the Western Wall,” snapped Levin. “Do it now.” Hands moved, dials twisted, keyboards were punched, and backs straightened. It was going to be a long night.
“Warren’s Gate is inside that tunnel, isn’t it?” Bohannon asked, knowing the answer, his eyes still on the entrance. “We’re never going to be able to use that for an entrance. And Warren’s Gate is supposed to be the closest to the Holy of Holies, right?”
Nobody tried to answer; nobody looked toward Bohannon. They just stared at the tunnel entrance, wondering where, how they were to find an opening like this that would allow them access to the underbelly of the Temple Mount. Standing not far from the Western Wall, with the Temple Mount rising above them, despondency began to build like storm clouds. Bohannon’s voice was a bit plaintive. “How are we going to do this?”
Without explanation, Levin abruptly stopped his restless pacing and perched himself on a high stool, with a small, straight back. Looking over the shoulders of his squad, he took a much-maligned pipe out of his shirt pocket and began gnawing on its stem. The taste of tobacco was still there, but that was all the vice he allowed himself since the first spot was discovered. Which didn’t matter here since this watching post was strictly nonsmoking, a rarity in the Israeli military, but a necessity to maintain the integrity of their highly sophisticated equipment. And this was not a detail where any of them would have introduced any distraction. All of their families lived in the city.
“Daniel, hold that position,” Levin said quietly, the mangled stem still in his mouth. His eyes remaining on the fifth screen, the one in the middle of the bank. Levin lowered himself from the stool. “Bring it up.” Like an unfolding telescope, the picture on the screen narrowed its focus over and over, pulling the small knot of men into closer relief. There were four of them, three Americans by the look of them, one of them very short. But it was the cut of the fourth man that initially caught Levin’s interest. The fourth was dark, rather tall, dressed like a native. But he just didn’t look “right.” And “not right” was what had been drilled into Levin and all of his men so often that they thought about it in their sleep. “Not right” was always dangerous, often deadly.
“Can you hear anything?”
“No sir, they’re not speaking.”
“Well, they certainly don’t look happy. If they look any harder at the tunnel entrance, they’ll bore a hole through it. Are you making a second copy of this for print?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Send it to the Avina Station as soon as it’s complete. Request they let us know if they come up with any matches.”
“Yes, sir.”
Levin put his left hand on the soldier’s shoulder and leaned in closer to the screen, where the four men were still gathered close together. They were speaking, but so softly the sound could not be recorded. Yet their eyes remained on the opening to the Western Wall Tunnel. “The old one dresses like an academic. From the cut of his clothes, he could be British,” said Daniel Stern, a recently commissioned lieutenant who had come up through the ranks. “The second one is clearly American, but he looks more like a businessman on holiday than anything sinister. The small one? . . . dark features, perhaps Italian, but the dress is American, also.”
&
nbsp; Levin inclined his head toward Stern, but kept his eyes on the four men at the tunnel entrance. “It is not the Brit nor the Yanks that I’m concerned about,” said Levin. “It’s the tall one, the dark one, the one who looks like a local. And what those three are doing with him . . . and what the four of them are thinking about.”
“I think we had better get moving,” said Rodriguez. “If we stand here any longer looking at that tunnel entrance, somebody could think we’re up to no good.”
The men turned to their right, walked back through the Wailing Wall plaza, and stood at the southernmost point of the Old City. For years, the Wailing Wall had been the only exposed section of the Temple Mount’s Western Wall, a sixty-foot-long exposed section of one of Herod’s great walls. A narrow walkway ran in front of the Wailing Wall, a space where only a few at a time could come face-to-face with the stones that supported the Temple. After the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israeli soldiers captured East Jerusalem—including the Old City—and united the city for the first time in nineteen years, General Moshe Dyan ordered the immediate bulldozing of an entire neighborhood, creating the huge plaza in front of the Wailing Wall, which now allowed thousands of Israelis to come and pray at any time.
“Back to the hotel . . . or more snooping?” Rizzo asked, rubbing his hands together.
“For me,” said Rodriguez, “I think if we keep hanging around out here at night, we’re just asking for somebody to take an interest in us. Let’s get some sleep and come back tomorrow when the place is crawling with tourists.”
Contact was lost as the four men passed the Wailing Wall plaza and turned north, along the very edge of the Old City. Trees, hillocks, and buildings blocked the view, and there were no navigable streets in that area—thus no cameras looking for car bombers.
“Copy it and send it. I want multiple images of all four men, different angles, and I want them posted in here immediately, so all the watches will have them fresh in their minds.” Captain Levin chewed on the stem of his pipe and suddenly longed for more than the taste of tobacco. “There may be nothing wrong with these guys, but they just feel wrong,” Levin said to the room, turning away from the monitors. “Somebody get some coffee in here. Reuven, increase the frequency of all scans. Daniel, call command. Recommend a higher level of alert. All right, gentlemen, let’s stay sharp.”
The Hawk went back to his chair but remained standing. Both his pipe and his talons were in restless motion. His instincts were telling him this was going to be a long week.
30
It was not quite midmorning Sunday when they met Kallie for breakfast at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, near the convention center and not far from Jerusalem’s central train station.
On the ride home the night before, Bohannon had convinced the others that they needed more information, and more help, from the archaeologist. Although Sammy was adamantly opposed and none of them were happy about the risk she would take, Kallie was all for it. All of them knew they might as well pack up and go home if they didn’t have somebody they could trust, somebody who had the information they needed and who would be willing to help them in this seemingly crazy scheme.
It was another bright, sunny morning, with cobalt blue sky and a menacing promise of withering heat. With a light morning breeze still on the air, they sat on the patio, under a large umbrella, luxuriated in the luscious local fruit, and tried to avoid fixating on Kallie, whose flowered summer dress had become the central point of several orbits. Perhaps she was oblivious to the attention, Bohannon thought, as he watched a young waiter nearly fall over an errant chair. Or perhaps, she had gotten so accustomed to it that she didn’t notice anymore. It was clear Kallie relished this opportunity to share as much information as she possibly could and that she was determined to prove just how invaluable she was to their purpose, whatever that purpose was.
Popping in pieces of melon as her punctuation points, Kallie attacked Dr. Johnson’s question.
“Even though they are linked now, Warren’s Gate and the Western Wall Tunnel are two different stories with two different histories,” Kallie explained. “I’ll try to give you the condensed version, but if my passion begins to overwhelm our time, just give me a wave.
“So, you know some things about Warren, but,” she said, pointing with her fork, “did you know he was suspected of being ‘Jack the Ripper’?” That stopped everyone at the table, cups in mid-delivery, food spared the final spearing. “Weird, eh? After stirring up all his controversy here, Warren returned to London and became the city’s police commissioner. He was one of the key investigators during Jack the Ripper’s bloodletting, and when the murders continued and no viable suspect turned up, rumors and speculation became more vocal that someone on the inside or someone with privilege was the Ripper and was being protected by the police. Some thought the Ripper was a member of the royal family. Other speculation was that it was one of the investigating detectives, perhaps the commissioner himself. Of course, we still don’t know.”
Kallie took a moment, resuming her attack on the fruit salad. Seizing the break, Johnson stepped in to get back on point. “But how did Warren get such unfettered access to make all the finds that are attributed to him?”
“In 1897, Warren and his associate Charles Wilson gained the approval of the Muslim Authority to embark on a series of exploratory digs in the areas around the exteriors of where the Temple Mount walls were surmised to exist. Warren was a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers and a member of London’s Palestine Exploration Fund. Leading a team of engineers and with financing from the PEF, Warren and Wilson began exploring along the walls of the Mount.
“He discovered a series of tunnels beneath Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, some of which were directly underneath the headquarters of the Knights Templar. Various small artifacts were found which indicated that the Templar order had used some of the tunnels, though it is unclear who exactly first dug them. Some of the ruins that Warren discovered came from centuries earlier, and other tunnels that his team discovered had evidently been used for a water system, as they led to a series of cisterns. On one of his nightly forays, Warren uncovered what was a small, stone archway with a lintel. It was clearly an entrance, or exit, for something, but the archway had been sealed shut with stones and mortar.
“What has since become known as Warren’s Gate is shrouded by legend and surrounded by mystery.” Kallie abruptly stopped her breakfasting. “Most archaeologists and temple experts believe there is a high probability that Warren’s Gate is just outside the location where the Holy of Holies from Herod’s Temple would have been located. The Holy of Holies, or most inner court of the Temple, was home to the Ark of the Covenant, which held the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments; a container of manna; and the staff of Aaron, which budded before Pharaoh. Also in the Holy of Holies was the mercy seat, the location where the Jews believed the glory of God, his presence, resided. Only one person, the Israeli high priest, was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, and that was only once a year. If you believed that, then Warren’s Gate was the closest you could get to God on this earth.”
“Dangerous stuff in this neighborhood,” Rizzo chirped, finishing off the remnants of his oatmeal.
“That’s for sure,” Kallie resumed. “Warren’s Gate became a lightning rod for conflict. Tradition claims the Muslims, when they gained control of the Mount, flooded a cistern that is supposedly on the other side of the gate, to keep anyone from gaining access to the Holy of Holies.”
The others finished their breakfast much sooner than Kallie, so she waited while a waiter cleared the table and then jumped into story number two.
“For over one hundred years, the only way to reach Warren’s Gate was through a narrow shaft, and access to the shaft was severely regulated. But in 1967, the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs approved an archaeological dig that took twenty years and uncovered the foundations of the Western Wall for hundreds of yards to the north of the Wailing Wall. Ignoring the impassioned complaints
of the Muslim Authority, the Israelis carved out this tunnel to follow the path along the wall. In 1996, Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered that an exit for the tunnel be cut from the Struthion Pool out into the Via Dolorosa. The Western Wall Tunnel now gives everyone access to some of the most fascinating historical locations in the Old City, including Warren’s Gate and a series of massive Herodian foundation stones for the walls upon which the Temple Mount platform was constructed. These foundation stones had not been seen for nearly two thousand years.”
Each had gotten the obligatory small cup of sweet diesel fuel the Israelis call coffee and sat quietly for a moment, waiting for it to cool.
“Devout Israelis have someone sitting in front of Warren’s Gate, praying, twenty-four hours a day,” said Kallie. Bohannon saw her glance up at him, then look at Dr. Johnson. “So, if you were thinking of using Warren’s Gate to get under the Temple Mount, you can forget that option. You’ve got to look for another way in.”
The twinkle in Kallie’s eyes indicated that she knew she had guessed correctly.
Bohannon shot an accusing look at Rizzo.
“Hey, I didn’t say a thing,” Rizzo objected, rattling his chair with his denial. “Tell them, Kallie. I’m not a rat.”
Kallie’s smile was encyclopedic. It exonerated Rizzo, defended her honor, and acknowledged the depth of her insightful wisdom, all without a word. “Sammy didn’t reveal your secrets,” she said. “I can put two and two together . . . Warren’s Gate and the cave-exploring equipment that was waiting for you at Tzuba.”
A thoughtful, appreciative smile creased Bohannon’s cheeks. “I can see why Sammy is smitten with you, Kallie. Doc, why don’t you fill in our new teammate. Let her know what brings us to Jerusalem.”
The Sacred Cipher Page 22
