The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies)

by Terry Brennan

  “Hurts, but I’ll be fine. You need to get moving.”

  Tom reached out with his right hand and grasped Kabir’s bicep. “Thank you. We won’t forget what you did.”

  The goodbyes were rushed but heartfelt as the two teams parted ways, Bohannon and his gang climbing aboard the Gulfstream whose engines were still running hot. Annie had her cameras; Rodriguez had the packs in one hand and was using his other hand to help Rizzo up onto the high, first step into the jet; Tom had the staff back in the gun bag and slung over his left shoulder as he came up beside Whalen.

  “You saved our lives,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Again.”

  “Part of the job, going all the way back to ’Nam,” said Whalen, his smile bringing one to Bohannon’s lips. “No man left behind, eh? Goes with the territory. But I’m glad the guys and I could be of some service. Really glad we got you all here in one piece. And thrilled that you’re taking that nasty stick away from here.”

  “Come with us,” said Bohannon. “It’s too dangerous for you here.”

  “Wish we could,” Whalen responded. “But some of my crew are still out there. Once we meet up in Baghdad and we’re all on a plane together, I can relax. Not before. I gave up writing those letters to widows years ago. C’mon. Get moving. We’ll take care of Kabir. He’ll be okay. And you take a vacation. Just not anywhere near us, okay?”

  Annie was waiting in the doorway of the plane as Tom climbed the steps. He had to pull the gun bag from his shoulder and slip it through the hatch. As he did, he noticed Kabir, steadied by Vordenberg and Atkins, had his right hand up in farewell. Annie’s eyes were out the door, but she turned to Tom, smiled, slipped her arm into his. “Let’s go home.”

  47

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3

  2:12 p.m., Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  “Twenty thousand were in the streets yesterday.” Prince Faisal was looking out one of the few windows of King Abuddin’s palace that afforded a view of life outside the Saud family compound in Riyadh. “There will be double that today. Aramco has closed all its facilities indefinitely. They say it’s because the pumping stations have been destroyed and there’s not enough oil flowing to keep their operations open.”

  “So the Arab Spring comes to our nation, to our doors,” said Abbudin as he joined his son at the window. “Whitestone is shrewd. He uses our own plot against us. And there will be one hundred thousand in the streets today.”

  King Abbudin was sixth of the Saudi kings, fifth son of Abdul Aziz al Saud to rule the absolute monarchy since his father consolidated power and created the nation in 1932. Six years later, oil was discovered under the rolling sand of the Arabian peninsula, leading to unprecedented wealth and unparalleled luxury for the family Saud, its friends, and the army officers who helped keep it in power.

  But despite the $364 billion in export revenue that poured into Saudi Arabia each year, ninety percent from its oil exports, and despite the fact that education was free for Saudi nationals and that Saudi Arabia had twice the per capita income of Egypt, Iraq, or Iran, little of this monumental wealth filtered down to the twenty-three million native Saudis. Over eight million people were employed in Saudi Arabia, but more than eighty percent of those were foreign nationals. Unemployment was reported by the government at eleven percent, nearly thirty percent of its youth, but independent sources reported only ten percent of the native population had jobs and more than twenty percent of all Saudis lived in poverty.

  Abbudin crossed the small room, sat in one of the deeply cushioned chairs, and picked up the telephone from the small, carved olive wood table to his right.

  “Yes, Cousin, have the planes fully prepared for takeoff. Keep them in the hangars until we arrive. I want no warning. Family members will begin arriving soon, in FedEx delivery trucks. There will be much luggage. It will be heavy. You must deal with it as you can. I will contact you after my speech.”

  He gently replaced the phone in its cradle, leaned back in the chair, and closed his eyes. “Have all the transfers been made?”

  Faisal’s voice came from the window. “Yes. A little over twenty billion has been moved as you desired—the Cayman Islands, Tokyo, Switzerland.”

  “Yes, the Swiss,” said Abuddin, his head back in the cushions, his eyes still closed. “We will have to make some trouble for the Swiss one day soon. The diamonds?”

  “We carry with us. There will be no immigration checks when we reach Paraguay.”

  Suddenly Abuddin realized his son was beside him. Abbudin opened his eyes. Faisal had one knee on the floor, his hands on the arm of the chair. “Father, we can fight. We can resist. Send in the army and the police. Rout these protestors from the streets. We still have all the power. Why run?”

  Abbudin, now the last of the Saudi kings, placed his hand on his son’s. “My dearest wish, Faisal, is to see you and your sons sit on the throne of Saud. But that hope will no longer be realized. Mubarak tried to resist the rising of the people. Qaddafi tried. Even with all of the military power at their disposal, even with ruthlessly effective secret police and death squads, neither survived. Mubarak is dying in prison. Qaddafi, like Saddam, was found hiding in a hole in the ground. This is not the fate I have in mind—either for me, or for you, or for any of my sons. We can stay and fight, perhaps gain some time. But you know the truth, Faisal. Once the people turned, once they believed they had a voice and someone was listening, our time was over. Even more so, now, with Mossad and CIA agents stirring up the revolt, pouring in money and weapons. No one will come to our aid, Faisal. We dared take on the West. We dared too much. We raised the banner of jihad for Allah, but this time, fate was not on our side. We could stay here and fight—and die. Perhaps be tortured, perhaps imprisoned, perhaps, if the unwashed break through these walls while we remain, perhaps your sisters defiled?

  “No, my son. We leave. Tonight. And we all will continue to live in luxury and safety. My counsel will still be heard at the table of the Muslim Brotherhood. We live, and we wait, and we prepare. This is one day. Another day will come. And you, Faisal, you will be ready.”

  4:37 p.m., Plain of Megiddo, Israel

  Rabbi Ronald Fineman stood on the ruins of the city of Megiddo, a stiff breeze flapping his robe and making a mockery of the last time he brushed his hair. He stood on the brow of a high escarpment, balanced on the edge of a foundation wall, looking out over the vast valley to the east, stretching north and south as far as his eyes could see—the Plain of Megiddo, biblical location of the prophesied battle of Armageddon. The Bohannons, Rizzo, and Rodriguez stood at Fineman’s side, waiting for him to move. The crate holding Aaron’s staff lay unopened at his feet.

  “All of a sudden, I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” said Fineman, his gaze fixed on the vast plain, covered by haze in the distance. “I just thought it fitting to bring it out here, you know, to test it out? If the staff is ever going to be used again as a weapon, this is probably where it will be used. Maybe this is the weapon that allows God to strike down all of the invading armies of Revelation. I don’t know. It’s pretty desolate out here, but … but …”

  “But what if it goes off again?” asked Bohannon.

  “Absolutely,” agreed Fineman. “What if this thing starts shooting off lightning bolts as it did for Mr. Rizzo? Or causes an earthquake? Or sends out a death ray that kills everyone for one hundred kilometers?”

  “Don’t get carried away, Padre,” said Rizzo. “I don’t think it’s got any juice left. Believe me, ever since we got rescued from the sandstorm and that helicopter got obliterated—”

  “Which could have been caused by Whalen and his guys blasting away,” reminded Rodriguez.”

  “Yeah. We’re not sure. But I’ve been trying to get it to heat up again ever since. Nothing … nada … zippo … bubkes … you get my drift? I think she’s kaputski!”

  Rodriguez moved over closer to the crate and the rabbi, and sat on a raised portion of the foundation wall. “But you’re forgetting one
thing, Sammy,” said Rodriguez. “None of us has the power, the authority, to use the staff.”

  After returning to Jerusalem, Bohannon and his team decided to keep the existence of Aaron’s staff a secret, at least until they could carry out one crucial test. They wanted to see what the staff would do in the hands of an Aaronite priest, a rabbi in the line of Aaron. Having a priest wield the staff would be the best way to discern if the staff still held any supernatural power.

  And Ronald Fineman was their willing guinea pig.

  “Well, we’re not going to find out anything standing here in the breeze,” said the rabbi. He opened the padded crate and looked down at something as outlandish as the Loch Ness monster. It was still a dried out, gnarled stick. Sort of looks like me—old, bent, and brittle.

  Fineman gently withdrew the staff from the crate. Rodriguez helped him stand to his feet. Fineman stepped out to the brow of the escarpment and lifted the stick over his head, pointing up. If the lightning bolts start flying, at least they’ll be flying back into the sky.

  Nothing happened.

  Slowly, putting a strain on his aging muscles, closing his eyes, Fineman lowered the staff until it was pointing over the Megiddo plain. He felt nothing. He heard nothing. He opened his eyes. “Nothing?”

  “Other than scaring a few birds and boring me to death, you’re as bubkes as I was, Padre. Do you know any magic prayers? Anything in the Torah about turning on the juice?”

  “Prayer is a good suggestion, Samuel. Prayer is always powerful.”

  Fineman stood at the brow of the hill and swung the staff back and forth over the plain. He began with Shema Yisrael.

  Thirty minutes later, his arms and his prayers exhausted, Fineman gladly gave the staff back to Rodriguez, who returned it to the crate.

  “Maybe it needs the Ark to come alive again,” said Annie. “Maybe your life needs to be in danger.”

  “Maybe,” said Bohannon. “But if it has no power now, then nobody needs to be chasing it anymore. Maybe we can finally go home.”

  Rodriguez closed the lid on the crate. “Wait a minute. We can’t forget what happened in the desert. The staff got hot, it separated the sandstorm so we could escape, it opened a way for Krupp’s jet to land. Maybe it even wiped out the helicopter. The staff had power then.”

  Bohannon held his ground. “Did it?” he asked. “Yeah, the staff got warm—hot, really. But it never changed. It’s never exhibited any indication of life. It’s been the same dried-out hardwood since we found it.”

  “Or it found you,” said Fineman.

  “Yeah, but now, here, with a priest in the line of Aaron, there is still no glimmer of life or power in the stick. I don’t know, none of us do, for sure. Only God knows what he wants to do with Aaron’s staff. But I think we’ve done what we’ve been called to do. I really believe it’s over for us. Our task is completed.”

  10:44 p.m., Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  The ancient yellow Volkswagen, the color of desert afternoons, went into a sideways skid as it cleared the empty stalls of the bazaar, empty since the street protests began three days ago. The car’s tires spun wildly for purchase on the sandy street.

  Fouquari Yesid squeezed the steering wheel so hard, his fingers throbbed and cramped. The VW shot forward, and Yesid wrestled for control, slamming on the brakes as he squeezed into a tight, dark alley in the peasant section of Riyadh.

  In spite of his excitement and urgency, Yesid halted in front of the door to the crumbling concrete-block building and took a deep breath to slow his heart and a moment to remember that day’s code—one long knock, a pause, then three quick knocks—and he was through the door.

  Israel was in the first of the two small rooms, an Uzi—comfortably ready to blast whomever entered—in his capable hands. Peter would be in the rear, working on the devices.

  “He leaves tonight, after the address. The airplanes are being prepared.”

  Israel Klein was second-generation Sabra and Mossad’s chief in Saudi Arabia. A broad, bald man of limited speech and less joy. “We will be ready.”

  “Where?” Peter Carver came out of the back room, his tiny, square-rimmed glasses pushed down to the end of his nose. Klein’s counterpart in Riyadh’s CIA office, Carver spoke even less than Klein.

  “The main highway. He has no fear of being discovered,” said Yesid.

  “Good.”

  Defiant and combative in his television address to the nation, Abuddin had vowed to destroy those who protested and preached, demanding the death of the Saud dynasty. It was good theater, and Abuddin was confident his performance would provide the time needed for him and his family to complete their rape of the Saudi treasury. It appeared to work.

  But the soon-no-longer king was anything but defiant as he sat on a hard, wooden bench bolted to the side of the hastily refurbished FedEx delivery truck. He desired to travel to the airport in a phalanx of black, armored limousines—one last act of royal prerogative—but wiser counsel prevailed. He and his family were widely dispersed in various forms of delivery trucks. Only Faisal and his brothers were with Abuddin.

  Yesid watched, a smile on his face, joyful anticipation in his heart, as Carver completed placement of the devices. It was only a small bridge spanning a dry wadi, but enough to set and conceal six devices—two at each end, two in the middle of the bridge. Carver joined Yesid and Klein behind the sand dune to the east of the bridge.

  A cell phone to his ear, Yesid said, “They are coming.”

  “When we arrive in Asunción,” said Abbudin, “contact the bank immediately, perhaps go there personally, and begin the second set of transfers. Three should be enough to cause the necessary confusion until we get the funds secured.”

  Faisal was bored. He wanted to get on with his new life away from the constraints, mostly ignored, of restrictive Islamic law. “How much—”

  The light was blinding, the noise deafening, the impact catastrophically destructive. The explosive force on the ends of the bridge would likely destroy the FedEx truck. The two in the middle were just to be certain. The truck was crushed from the front and back, and the bridge obliterated at the same time, but the two central charges cleaved the truck in two across its midsection, allowing the fire ball created by the explosives to not only roll over the length and breadth of the truck, but also to rush into its interior.

  “The world may not know who,” said Klein, “but those who call for jihad will know why.” He turned to Carver. “What did your colonials have on their flag?”

  Carver was stuffing the transmitter and his gear into a small bag. He stopped and looked at Klein. “‘Don’t Tread on Me.’ Is that what you mean?”

  “‘Don’t Tread on Me.’ My people should borrow that flag. It’s a good one. Do not try to assassinate our prime minister. Or your president.”

  “Or try to take over the world,” said Carver, closing the bag and standing up. “That’s not a very wise prescription for your future health.”

  Carver looked to the west.

  His work had been deadly efficient. The king of the Saud and his future kings had returned, in a flash, to the desert sand from which they sprang.

  48

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26

  4:44 p.m., New York City

  Prior to the turn of the twenty-first century, the last significant renovation of the Bowery Mission took place just after World War II. When Tom Bohannon began his tenure, the Mission was well worn.

  There hadn’t been much disposable income in New York City in the seventies and eighties. That was the era when most folks used the words New York City and bankrupt in the same sentence. During those decades, it was tough enough for the Mission to find donors willing to provide thirty thousand nights of shelter and a quarter-million meals each year for homeless men addicted to drugs, alcohol, and the myth that freedom slept on the streets. There wasn’t much left over for sprucing up the buildings.

  But at the turn of the century, that changed. Bohannon and one of
his directors had taken a walk around the three buildings that comprised the Bowery Mission, the third-oldest rescue mission in the United States, and it didn’t take much to convince Bohannon they needed to act.

  So the Mission leadership joined together with the board and some key donors and embarked on what became a five-year rebuilding project. First the men’s dorms—where eighty men enrolled in the Mission’s recovery program lived for nine months while they took their first steps of sobriety—were gut renovated, one floor a year. Then the overnight dorm, with forty beds for men still on the street, allocated by lottery each afternoon, was moved from the basement of one building to a newly renovated space, with windows, on the second floor of an adjacent building.

  Then the real work began.

  Coming close to its hundredth anniversary, the Mission embarked on a historic renovation of its 1909 landmark building and a major overhaul, modernization, and renovation of nearly every other square inch of its space.

  It took years. It took millions. It took determination and vision. And it turned out magnificently.

  Back in the old days, the Bowery Mission chapel was a long, narrow, hulking kind of place, darkness surrounding its rafters, century-old wooden pews filling its space, deep burgundy terra-cotta tile floor and stone walls offering little in the way of warmth.

  Bohannon stood on the platform that late Saturday afternoon of Labor Day weekend and soaked in the view. The lighting changed everything.

  In the old chapel, the lights hung down from the rafters and lit the chapel space below. The rafters, and the space above them, were painted black, emulating the empty void of a dark cave, giving the chapel a claustrophobic feel. With the renovation, new lights were installed to shine up into the vault, which was painted a deep crimson, and to illuminate the beautifully carved ornamental rafters that were painted a rich, bright gray. The chapel looked bigger, glowed brighter, and felt warmer than it had in five decades.