Fuse of Armageddon (42 page)

“Wow.” Kate turned off the radio. “Ground fire from Gaza, chopper in trouble, hostage standoff now on the Temple Mount instead of Gaza. Listening to the news, it doesn’t seem real that . . .” Her voice trailed off. As if she still couldn’t believe it.

Quinn took an attempt at completing her thought. “. . . that some IDF guy in the tunnel knew it was going to happen?”

“It’s hard to believe.”

“Yeah. It’s equally hard to believe in any left-behind explanation.”

“Huh?” she said.

“If it was IDF special ops, it’s hard to believe their men aren’t on the choppers and actually got left behind. Then you’d have to believe the IDF set this up and someone knew about it and had the resources to double-cross IDF. But who? And why?”

“It sounds legitimate. You think Hamer wanted us dead so we wouldn’t be able to contradict the news?”

“Maybe, but I don’t know. Once the choppers were in the air, we’d believe what the BBC and entire world believes—that Safady and his terrorists are on the Temple Mount. Why kill us for that?”

“I just want to get this straight,” Kate said. “Those soldiers in the tunnel were supposed to replace Safady’s terrorists. IDF or Mossad or whoever they are were supposed to land on the Temple Mount instead.”

“Yes.” Quinn nodded.

“But that switch didn’t happen. Someone else did what IDF was supposed to do. A different switch took place.”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know,” Quinn said. “What frightens me is that Hamer doesn’t know either. He’s listening to the news, believing the operation is successful and his guys are there in a way that’s fooled the world.”

“Why does that frighten you?”

“Because Mossad and IDF at least have Israel’s safety in mind.”

“Not
our
safety. Obviously we’re expendable.”

“Something huge must be happening for IDF to have planned a hostage situation with a known terrorist just for the chance to do this. And it went wrong. If it went wrong for IDF, it’s obviously not good for Israel’s national interest. Especially if Safady found a way to double-cross them.”

“I think I understand so far. We’re the only ones who know a switch has been pulled on a planned IDF switch. But how bad can it be? It’s only two choppers. Safady couldn’t get much of an army on two choppers.”

“It’s not the army or lack of an army that’s dangerous.”

Kate put her hand on his arm with a small gasp, just audible above the car noise. “Not something nuclear.”

“No,” Quinn said. “If it’s what I think, it’s a lot more explosive than that.”

Temple Mount, Jerusalem • 18:47 GMT


Esther stood beside Jonathan Silver. “We’re safe here,” she said. “I think you can take consolation in that.”

The night air was chilly. Balancing a crutch, Alyiah kept her tiny hand in Silver’s, and it made him feel stronger.

“Safe,” he repeated. “This is the Dome of the Rock. Non-Muslims would be executed for this.”

“We’re permitted here,” she said, “just not in the worship area itself. But what I mean is that there will be no gunfire, no rescue operations by IDF that will endanger us. The Israelis wouldn’t dare. There would be months of rioting.”

Silver was looking at the Dome again. This was thought to be the site where Abraham had offered to sacrifice Isaac, where Solomon had built the first Temple, where Herod had expanded the second Temple, where the Ark of the Covenant had been guarded for centuries.

Esther was still speaking. “That must be why the helicopters landed here. As far as the Israeli government knows, we were brought here by Palestinian terrorists, who would be protected here.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Silver was only half listening. “The problem is it’s not Palestinians who brought us here. They seem to be Americans, and no one will tell us what’s going on.” Movement near the helicopters caught his eye. Four men were unloading a large wooden crate. “Esther,” he said in a low voice. “Look.”

Her eyes followed where he had pointed. A small floodlight framed the scene.

Again Jonathan Silver wondered if he could believe his eyes as the men opened the crate.

Standing in the center of the crate was a small cow. A red heifer.

Somewhere in Gaza • 18:47 GMT


“A red heifer? Is that all?” Kate scoffed. “For a second, you really had me worried.”

“Do you have any idea how close it could bring the world to an Armageddon of global holy war?”

“By the tone of your voice,” she answered, “I guess I don’t.”

“Well, here it is in a nutshell: if whoever is on those choppers is planning to bring a red heifer onto the Temple Mount, it almost certainly means they’re planning to destroy the Dome of the Rock in preparation for rebuilding the Jewish Temple.”

“And you know this how?”

“I’ll get to that in a second. But bear with me. It’s important that you understand exactly what the implications are if the Dome of the Rock were to be destroyed. Do you remember the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad?”

“Riots in the Arab world,” Kate said. She remembered standing beside the cube van near the Hoover Dam, having a similar conversation with her partner, Frank. Neither of them had been tuned in to Middle Eastern politics, but even so, both had a sense of what was happening outside of the cocoon of America. “Death threats. Burning of embassies.”

“Those were cartoons. In a newspaper. Imagine desecrating Islam’s third most holy site.”

“A heifer will do that?”

“Stay with me. Soon enough you’re going to need to trust me on something. The most holy site is the Great Mosque in Mecca, Muhammad’s birthplace. The second is the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina, which contains his tomb. The third place, the Dome of the Rock, is where Muhammad is believed to have ascended into heaven to receive God’s commandments. Remember how you said you like making things real in your head?”

She nodded.

“Here’s some perspective. The entire city of Mecca is barred to non-Muslims. Roadblocks and all. Same with Medina.”

She nodded again.

“Rumor has it that holy water from Mecca is imported to the Dome of the Rock. The Israelis have no control over this.”

“Didn’t you say that Israel controls nearly every aspect of Palestinian life?”

“That should give you some idea of the political importance of the Dome of the Rock. It’s the only exception. Thirty-five acres under total control—I mean
total
control—of the Waqf. Which in itself is a tinder point in a field of dry grass.”

“I can imagine.”

“Not unless you know some ancient and recent history. Ancient history first. Mount Moriah is the site where it is believed Abraham brought his son to be sacrificed. How familiar are you with this?”

“I think I know the basics, but why don’t you remind me?”

“Abraham was obeying God’s command to offer his son as a sacrifice. But just as he was about to kill Isaac, a ram appeared. God gave Abraham the ram to sacrifice instead. You can imagine how much significance Mount Moriah has to the Jews. Solomon built the first Temple on the site. That Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians at the time of the Exile. The second Temple was built by the returning exiles and expanded by Herod shortly before the time of Christ, then torn down by the Romans in AD 70, within the generation predicted by Christ.”

“Still with you.”

“Six centuries later, according to Muslim tradition as I already mentioned, the prophet Muhammad visited Mount Moriah. A shrine was later built there in his honor—the Dome of the Rock. It’s the one still standing today.”

“And it’s located exactly where the two temples of the Jews once stood?”

“More than likely, although there is some scholarly and not-so-scholarly debate on this. But all agree the Temple was somewhere on the mount.”

“Scholarly means academic papers. Not-so-scholarly I understand too.”

“Do you?”

“I’m a cop,” she said. “Not-so-scholarly involves fists, clubs, knives, and guns.”

“But I’m not sure you understand what’s at stake here in comparison to the crimes you’ve seen on the streets,” Quinn said. “The Dome of the Rock is the flash point for three major world religions.”

“Three?”

“To the Muslims, of course, it’s a holy site. To right-wing Zionist Jews, it’s the place where the Temple once stood, a place that rightfully belongs to them. Today, the Wailing Wall is the only remnant of their Temple, and to say there is deep resentment that the Waqf controls the Temple Mount is a serious understatement.”

“You said three.”

“Fundamentalist Christians.” Quinn let out a sigh. “To them, the book of Revelation can only be fulfilled with the rebuilding of the Temple that was destroyed by the Romans.”

“A Third Temple.”

“Fundamentalists teach that the Temple must be rebuilt before they can expect the second coming of Christ. To them, when Israel regained control of the land in 1948, it was certain confirmation of God’s timeline, that the end times are almost upon us. Here’s what’s scary: a battle over the Temple Mount could really trigger it. A clash of civilizations and war all across the world. Muslims against Jews and Christians.”

“Why?”

“Think about it. I can’t emphasize this enough. To rebuild the Temple of the Jews on the same site as the first two, the Dome of the Rock must be destroyed.”

“And if Danish cartoons led to riots and burnings . . .”

“Remember the Israel-Lebanon conflict in the summer of 2006? Bomb after bomb shelled Lebanon, but not a single Arab country stepped up to the plate to help. It was a geopolitical battle. On the other hand, Danish cartoons that reportedly mocked Muhammad united the Muslim world in outrage. As did comments the pope made at an obscure German university, taken out of context. But if that’s not enough to convince you, let me tell you about 1967.”

“You mean the Six-Day War?”

“Right. When the war was over and Israel had regained control of Jerusalem for the first time in nearly two thousand years, the advancing Israeli army was on the verge of driving the Muslims from the Temple Mount until it was commanded to stop. Even then, Israelis recognized that profaning the site would lead to disaster.”

Quinn watched Kate think about the implications. “Israel doesn’t dare move a single soldier onto the site?” she asked.

“Not in 1967, and not for even a minute’s duration since. Not a single soldier. Not a single bullet. Not a single surveillance camera. Any attack or operation would trigger global jihad. Safady couldn’t be in a safer place in the entire world. To me, that’s the reason that the Israeli government has released so much information to the press about the situation. It’s absolutely crucial that the Arab world understand that the landing of the helicopters was demanded by a Muslim and that it is a group of Muslim warriors behind the walls on those thirty-five acres.”

“Except that it’s
not
a group of Muslims, because the Palestinians who were supposed to be on the chopper are dead in a tunnel beneath Gaza.”

“Right,” Quinn said. “And whatever else is going on here is big enough that the IDF thought it was worth risking an awful lot to sneak their agents onto the Temple Mount. If it leaks out that it wasn’t Palestinians on those choppers, at dawn a half billion Muslims will be starting a holy war all across the world.”

“But the IDF agents are tied up in the same tunnel. So whom does Safady have with him on those choppers? And why?”

Quinn was grim. “That’s what we desperately need to find out.”

Temple Mount, Jerusalem • 18:49 GMT


Silver had never felt more in a daze. So much had happened since the sniper shooting in Megiddo—hostage taking, death threats, the promise of escape, a near crash of the helicopter—all of it an emotional roller coaster that had stressed his system so badly he simply wanted to lie down on the inlaid stonework of the courtyard and sleep there for a week.

Now this. Total confusion. The men he’d thought were Palestinian terrorists had stripped down to unfamiliar uniforms and now virtually ignored him and the other hostages, who were wandering throughout the courtyard in small groups.

Silver was watching the soldiers unpack another crate. On one level—an abstract, intellectual level—he was able to put things together. He prayed he was wrong, but he feared he wasn’t. He’d seen the red heifer.

In front of him, soldiers were pulling out what at first appeared to be costumes with glass jewelry. Silver knew better. He’d once visited an evangelical group seeking funds to re-create all the priests’ clothing from the Temple days in Jerusalem. The group had impressed him with their evangelical fervor, and he had believed there was publicity value to gain from a few subsequent sermons about the glory of a rebuilt Temple, holding the work of these evangelicals up as an example of God’s work.

Silver gasped.
An ephod?
An intellectual understanding was one thing. But to comprehend this emotionally was something else.

Priestly garments. A red heifer. Did these soldiers actually have the audacity to go ahead with a Jewish ceremony on the Temple Mount? Especially this—the one that involved a red heifer?

Silver had preached sermons on this, too. He’d even donated ministry money—and done television appeals based on this publicity—to American ranchers for a breeding program to attempt to produce a red heifer without blemish.

Silver knew he could occasionally seem buffoonish, but he wasn’t stupid. A man able to build an empire like his was definitely not stupid. He was beginning to understand that the hostage taking had been a setup. All for what he was seeing from the crates. Priestly garments. Ephod. Red heifer.

Now the questions whirling through Silver’s head turned in a different direction. Not why this was being done but who was behind it.

Then he saw a man he never expected he’d see.

His own son.

Brad Silver.

Somewhere in Gaza • 18:53 GMT


“Tell me more about this red heifer,” Kate said.