The Sacred Cipher

by Terry Brennan

  Hovering again over Stern’s shoulder, Levin tried to focus on all three photos at once. “Is that a child or a midget?” he said to the back of Stern’s head.

  “He moves like an adult, not like a child,” said Stern.

  “The other two,” Levin asked, “English or American?” Stern snapped a quick glance to his left. “American . . . this one could be British. But the other is clearly American,” he said. “It’s the same men as last night.” Looking back to his screen, Stern was relieved. “Here, see, the black SUV. All of them got in it. Pulling back onto the Ha-shilo’akh Road. North,” he called across the room, “10:37 and heading north.”

  Stern froze the image on his computer screen.

  “Got it,” said Levin, who was already moving. “Keep going after them.”

  Speed-dial number two. “Lubich . . . black, Toyota SUV . . . late model . . . plate number IV 3-77AY. No, they had no bags, no backpacks going in or coming out. It was reconnaissance. We get them, we don’t have to worry about the tunnel. Stern,” he snapped, pulling the phone away, “what have you got?”

  “They looped around the Old City, heading west on the Bar-Lev. We’ve still got them going west. Looks like they may be headed for Highway 1.”

  “Still west . . . I know if they leave the city, we’ll lose contact. I know, Lubich, I know.”

  The handset slammed into the cradle. Levin looked at his watch . . . 20:15 . . . be getting dark soon. How would they find these men?

  “Captain.” It was Sergeant Ehud, across the room. “The guides say they have no record of anyone being hired this morning for a visit to the tunnel. And the Toyota is rented to an American from New York City. They gave their local address as Hotel Tzuba.”

  Speed-dial number two. “Lubich . . . forget before . . . Hotel Tzuba . . . get the bird in the air to look for the black SUV . . . alert two squads and get them moving toward the kibbutz, but carefully. No sirens, no notice. Keep the other two on hold for now.”

  Speed-dial number three. “Major? Yes, we have a bird up and two loaded squads en route to the kibbutz, two in reserve. Yes, at least one is positive as an American. Stern has e-mailed you all the details for you to share with the consulate. No, not sure of the others, but one certainly looks like a local. Yes, sir . . . the King’s Garden Tunnel. Yes, sir, if the Toyota SUV is there, the squads will be in place in an hour. Yes, sir, no sirens. Yes, sir . . . we’re all still on duty. Thank you, sir.”

  Captain Levin turned on his heel, took a deep breath, and once again thanked God that he worked for a commander who understood his work and his men. While The Hawk was ripping up his own insides for failing to move more quickly, the major was only complimentary. “Good work, Stern,” said The Hawk, a much gentler hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder. “Good work, men. The major sends his gratitude and compliments. But we need to remain vigilant. We’re still not certain where these men may be, or what they may be planning. Stick to it, and question everything.”

  The Hawk returned to his perch. His face was a steely mask, reviewing the images on every screen. Inside, he was furious at his own blunder. I had him. Last night, I had him.

  Mahamoud immediately recognized the voice of Leonidas. “Hotel Tzuba . . . in the kibbutz. The vehicle has been positively identified, and Shin Bet has two armed squads en route, probably thirty minutes away. But they have no orders yet to engage. They will likely stage at the Mevasseret Zion interchange awaiting orders. You don’t have long.”

  The phone line went dead.

  Mahamoud had gotten the earlier report from Leonidas and passed it along to the leader of En Sharif, the renegade arm of the Northern Islamic Front. Shin Bet had recorded the four men entering the King’s Garden Temple and had now tagged them as suspected terrorists. But no one knew their allegiance. And the Imam’s instructions had been clear. “Alert Yazeer and his team. I want these men eliminated tonight. They must never come near the Mount.”

  Now, the last remnants of light fading in the western sky, Yazeer was at his right, his two men in the back seat, as they sat in the deep shadows of an olive grove just off the Sataf Roundabout.

  “Shin Bet will move the reserve squads to control the intersection at Highway 1 and move the other two squads into Tzuba,” said Yazeer. “We can’t fight Shin Bet . . . too many, too well armed. If they capture these men in Tzuba, there will be nothing for us to do.” Yazeer rested his head in his hands. “We are in Allah’s hands.” Turning to the back seat, he looked at his men. “Take your vehicles farther down this road, away from Highway 1. About four kilometers south, the road ascends over a hill and then drops down to the right on the far side of the hill. Take your vehicles to the base, on the far side of the hill, one on each side of the road. Remain out of sight. Only move when you receive my call.”

  Kallie was filling a fourth backpack with bottled water, trail mix, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Johnson was checking their lanterns and flashlights and packing extra batteries while Rizzo was filling a backpack with their caving gear. Rodriguez had the toughest job, making sure the thin arthroscopes didn’t get crushed by the small, tanklike, pipe inspector and that all of the monitors and control cables were secure and undamaged. Bohannon was stowing the mini cameras and recorder, extra CDs, and the communication equipment when he nearly had a heart attack. He had just placed the satellite phone in the backpack when it lit up like a pinball machine and started spitting out its annoying beeps. Bohannon didn’t know whether to answer it, or hit it for scaring the living hoots out of him. Gingerly, he picked it up, realizing he didn’t know how it worked. He put the receiver to his ear. “Yes?”

  “Tom, is that you?” The voice sounded as if it was in the next room, not halfway around the world. “Tom, listen, this is Sam Reynolds at State. We don’t have time to chat. Mideast desk just got a flash from Shin Bet. They know where you are and they have some very unpleasant ideas about what you are up to. Two squads of their counterterrorism unit are staged at the Highway 1 interchange, just north of you, waiting for the ‘go’ order. The only thing holding them back was to notify us they were about to pick up a very suspicious American and the three men he’s traveling with.

  “I’d say you have less than five minutes to get out of there and get lost, or you will be inside an Israeli jail cell within the hour. Get out . . . get out now.”

  The lights went off, the phone went in the bag, and Bohannon was yelling for his partners to move.

  The Israeli pilot had not yet seen his relief on the radar screen and was beginning to register a little anxiety about his dwindling fuel. For this job, he couldn’t just hover in place. He had to remain some distance away, downwind, flying gentle loops that generated the least amount of noise. He was beginning to stir up some righteous indignation toward his dispatcher when the door to the hotel room swung open, no lights showing, and five people raced to the black SUV, each one toting an overstuffed backpack.

  “Targets are running . . . say again . . . targets are running.” No longer concerned about stealth, the pilot swung his chopper hard to the left and accelerated as the Toyota came to life and bolted past the kibbutz gates. “Intercept is moving,” came the disembodied voice from his radio.

  “Target vehicle is moving at high speed toward the Sataf Roundabout,” reported the pilot.

  “Understood. We’ll be on them shortly.”

  The phone rang. “Mahamoud, they are moving. They are coming to you. Shin Bet will not be far behind.” Yazeer already had his automatic weapon at the ready.

  The phone rang. “Effendi, they are moving. We are ready. The others are just below us.”

  “Very well, Rasaf. You know what to do.”

  Rasaf bit his lip and shifted the dirty leather cap on his head. “But, Effendi. We have seen watchers from the Northern Front. They also pursue these Americans. These Muslim brothers of ours may interfere. Of course, we would kill the infidels to recover the scroll. But our brothers? How—”

  “Fool,” snap
ped the voice in his ear. “Anyone who stands between the scroll and the Prophet’s Guard is an enemy. For the first time in over one hundred years, we have a chance to recover the scroll. Do not allow anyone to stand in your way. Not anyone. Do you understand me?”

  Rasaf held his breath to quiet his heart. “Yes, Effendi. We are ready.”

  The phone rang. In the back seat, Johnson dug it out of the backpack. Bohannon was driving at a ridiculous speed, and Rodriguez, riding shotgun, was vainly trying to spot potholes in the distance. “We’re coming to the roundabout,” said Rodriguez. “Slow down. Tom, slow down!”

  “Yes . . .” Johnson listened, then turned to Bohannon. “Shin Bet has two squads coming down 3095 right now, two more at the interchange, and a helicopter on our tail.”

  “Faster,” Rizzo shouted. “Come on . . . faster!”

  The black SUV careened past them, wildly ignoring the laws of physics. Two wheels clung to the asphalt as it hurtled round the circle, then all the weight shifted to the other two wheels as the black monster headed south on the 3095.

  “Now, Mahamoud. Now,” called Yazeer as he crawled halfway out the passenger-side window. “Call them.”

  “Target vehicle gaining speed. Just turned south on the 3095,” reported the pilot.

  “Roger that,” said the voice.

  “Wait,” the pilot stammered. “Another vehicle just came out of the trees at the roundabout and is pursuing the SUV, also at a high rate of speed. No lights. It appears they are trying to intercept.”

  “Say again?” came the voice. “Is this two hostiles?”

  “I have no clue,” said the pilot. “What I do know is that my fuel is getting very low.”

  “Understood. We’re minutes out.”

  Five sets of eyes were on the road ahead. None of them saw the dark shadow closing fast from behind.

  Rasaf had placed his men on the hill. He had chosen wisely. He had good sight lines in many directions, overseeing the 3095.

  Noise like firecrackers. Thuds against the steel gate on the back of the SUV. Headlights burning to life just behind them. Sensory overload for the flash of a second. Then he knew they were being fired upon. Bohannon floored the SUV as it climbed the crest of a hill, then almost lost control as the road on the other side fell away to the right.

  The pilot realized that he didn’t know the guy’s name. “Ground,” he snapped, “we have hostile fire on the target vehicle. Say again, hostile fire on the target vehicle.”

  A momentary pause, then the voice came back. “What?”

  “Now,” Yazeer yelled into the night, the Uzi in his hands ripping into the Toyota’s rear gate. “Now, close it off.”

  Hanging on for life and praying for deliverance, Bohannon saw two cars emerge, one on each side of the road, and form a roadblock at the bottom of the hill. Men got out, pointing something at them. “Oh, God!” blurted Rodriguez.

  “Now,” said Rasaf.

  “Mahamoud, why are we shooting rockets at the SUV?” Yazeer screamed from the window. For the shortest instant, Mahamoud turned to the voice. And saw the trail of light coming toward them.

  Nolan, Rizzo, and Johnson were on the floor in the back, Rodriguez was holding on to any handle he could find, and Bohannon was looking for a way out when it whooshed past the Toyota’s right side and homed in on the cars in the middle of the road. A blinding flash of light.

  “Ground! Ground! Acknowledge. There is rocket fire. I don’t know who’s shooting at who. Two cars formed a roadblock ahead of the SUV, but they’ve been blown away by an RPG round . . . God, there’s another RPG. It just took out the pursuing vehicle. Rocket fire is coming from the hill to the west. Target vehicle is—Oh, no. My fuel alarms are going off. You’re on your own, ground. Shalom.”

  “Understood,” said the voice—not very convincingly.

  “Floor it,” yelled Rodriguez at the top of his voice, swamped by flashbacks from his youth in the Bronx. “Floor it. Don’t you dare slow down. Bust right through them.”

  The two squads of Shin Bet troopers pulled up to the carnage on the 3095, each Hummer cautiously closing in on one of the burning heaps of metal. Two troopers, now on foot after being dropped off, closed in on the hill from the other side.

  They didn’t find much. Charred bodies in the mangled wreckage, RPG casings on the hill sitting beside flattened grass in the shapes of bodies. Few answers for all their questions, no sign of the black Toyota SUV, and no helicopter to track it down.

  One of the other men was driving the battered Subaru. They were headed west, intending to make a big, lazy loop before heading back to Jerusalem. Rasaf was on the cell phone. “Yes, Effendi, the scroll is safe. We were successful in helping the Americans avoid the ambush, and Shin Bet stopped to deal with the wreckage on the road. No, Effendi, we could not follow. But we will be waiting for them at the King’s Garden Tunnel. Be assured, Effendi, the scroll will soon be returned to the hands of the Prophet’s Guard. And then we may all return home. Thank you, Effendi. I am blessed that you are pleased.”

  Rasaf closed the phone and leaned his head onto the seat back. It was only then that he realized he had somehow lost his leather hat.

  The phone rang in Aleph Reconnaissance Center. Captain Avram Levin knew it was Shavuot. Much of Jerusalem was closed and quiet. But security never sleeps. This weekend, neither would he.

  Levin had been on duty for three days. So had his team at the computer terminals. None of them were thinking about leaving. Their replacement details had been reassigned to other tasks, a good thing since the threat alert had been elevated, leaving Levin and his detail to deal with ensuring the security of the Temple Mount and the Old City of Jerusalem.

  The phone rang again. The Hawk reached for the handset.

  “Yes?”

  Stern had turned away from his computer screen to watch Levin. He would have to be reprimanded for that. Yes, it was three days. Yes, Stern had a family. But there . . .

  “Yes,” said Levin, no change of inflection in his voice. “Yes . . . I see . . . and forensics will gather any clues? Yes, all right. Thank you.”

  The Hawk carefully replaced the handset. Stern waited for his voice. As the silence stretched, hope deflated.

  “Threat level has been elevated once more. We are now at Threat Level Red. The Americans escaped. They escaped from Shin Bet, they escaped from two hostiles in a car who attacked them with automatic weapons, they escaped from an additional group of hostiles who attacked them with rocket-propelled grenades. Four men are dead, apparently all Muslims, apparently all part of the first group of hostiles who attacked the Americans as they fled Kibbutz Tzuba. And apparently, this first group of Muslims was killed by a second group of Muslims, those with the RPGs. Why all of this has happened, we have no idea. Why the Americans are in the company of one who appears to be an Israeli, we have no idea. Why these two groups of Muslims are pursuing the American group, we also have no idea.”

  Levin sat on his stool, his eyes closed, and allowed the silence to build in the room. The Hawk was not opposed to the dramatic.

  “We have no idea where they are. But we do have one advantage, isn’t that right, Stern?”

  “Yes, sir. We know where they are going,” said Stern. “They are coming to us.”

  “Yessss,” hissed The Hawk. “And we will be ready to welcome them.”

  33

  Kallie Nolan was on the ground, barely balanced on all fours, retching and crying at the same time. Johnson had pulled out one of the blankets and draped it over her back. Bohannon and Rodriguez were sitting on the ground next to the building, Rodriguez rocking back and forth from his waist up. Bohannon had his hand on a large wad of gauze, pressing it against Rizzo’s bicep, trying to stop the bleeding. Approaching the building, Johnson could actually feel the menace of restrained aggression.

  For a long time, no one spoke.

  It was later, but none of them knew how much later. It was farther away, but none of them knew for sure how muc
h farther away.

  Bohannon had driven like a maniac for miles, making random, rapid turns onto one road and then another, without thought, without direction. He heard the nearly silent sobbing coming from behind his seat and knew that Doc was holding and comforting Kallie. He stole a glance at Joe and was not surprised to see panic in his eyes, yet a dangerous resolve locked in his jaw. “Sammy’s been hurt,” said Joe. “Something caught him in the arm, and he’s bleeding.”

  “And I ain’t got that much blood,” came a strained voice from the back.

  After an interval that could have been thirty minutes or three hours, Bohannon slowed the car and shut down the headlights. They were on a thin ribbon of road, darkness all around them. For quite some time, they had seen no other vehicles in either direction. Descending a hill, the road bottomed out into a flatland that appeared to be farms. Guided only by the faint light of moon and stars, Bohannon carefully navigated the middle of the road, his eyes searching ahead. Suddenly, but slowly, he turned the Toyota to the right and flicked on the switch for the four-wheel drive. The large SUV rocked down a short embankment at the side of the road. There was silence in the car as Bohannon gingerly picked his way along what he hoped was a dirt track. His hope was soon fulfilled.

  There were no lights. As quietly as possible, Bohannon steered the Toyota alongside a building that had appeared on their right. It looked like a barn or a storage building for machinery. Beside it was a huge cypress tree. Bohannon stopped the SUV in the blackness under the tree, hard against the side of the building.

  Spilling out of the car, Kallie scrambled into the distance to relieve the upheaval in her guts while Joe helped Rizzo to the side of the building and Tom dug a first-aid kit from one of the backpacks.