Fuse of Armageddon (44 page)

As he closed in on the final barricades, a tank swung toward the vehicle, turret trained on the car. Quinn stopped immediately. He put the car in park, eased open the door, and stood with his hands high. He wasn’t wearing any bulky clothing, and that was in his favor. It would appear unlikely that he was wearing explosives.

Five soldiers advanced cautiously, machine guns trained on Quinn.

Quinn threw his wallet on the ground, then put himself in the brace position—feet spread apart to prevent him from making a sudden movement, hands on the hood of the car, head down. “Check my identification,” he called out. “IDF. I have a prisoner in the trunk.”

If the lid had not been open, the soldiers might have suspected a bomb that would trigger when one of them opened it. Even with the trunk lid open and the IDF identification, they were going to be supremely cautious.

“Step away from the vehicle, take your shirt off, and walk backward toward us,” came the reply.

Quinn would have made the same request if he were among the soldiers. They needed to reassure themselves that Quinn wasn’t baiting them into range of a suicide explosion.

He did as directed.

“On your belly.”

Again, he moved slowly. Pebbles bit into his skin.

One of the soldiers stepped on the back of Quinn’s neck. “Talk.”

“No,” Quinn said. “All you need to know is that I’ve got a prisoner, and this was the best and fastest way to transport. Anything else is a matter of national security.”

“Not good enough.”

“I’m not even going to ask you your names.” Quinn’s face was pressed against the pavement. Which was good. He’d chosen the ID from the IDF interrogator that most resembled him, but under bright lights and close examination, it would be a stretch. “If you make a stupid decision and slow me down, I’ll have your schedules pulled and get your names later. I’m not going to waste time right now making threats either. Send a soldier to the trunk. You’ll see a woman. I need her in a place where she can be interrogated immediately.” Quinn paused. “It also has to be invisible. No trail. You don’t even want to make record of this.”

“Listen—”

“No, you listen. This isn’t about pulling rank, even though that will happen if you’re stupid about this. This is about what’s good for Israel. Let me through, no questions asked, and I’ll still have your names pulled. Only it will be to make sure you’re no longer guarding the border. It will be for a promotion.”

“Give me a reason to believe. Without compromising security.”

“Two choppers,” Quinn said. “Diverted to the Temple Mount. I’m sure you know that by now.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“You may think the choppers held a ragtag team of Palestinian terrorists,” Quinn said. “They don’t.”

“Our guys?” Just enough belief to give Quinn hope.

“Shut up,” Quinn said. “Do you have any idea of the massive riots that will begin if any Arabs discover the Dome of the Rock is part of an IDF operation?”

Muttering.

“We’ve got until daylight,” Quinn said. It was a strain holding this conversation with only the pavement in front of his eyes. He wished he could read the body language of the soldier in charge. “If we’re not out of the Temple Mount by then, you can expect another war. Only this one will spread to every Arab country in the Middle East.”

Quinn didn’t have to explain much more than that. Every Israeli citizen understood the tinderbox that was the Temple Mount.

“We’ll give you an escort.”

Quinn restrained himself from a breath of relief. They’d bought the story.

“Don’t be stupid,” Quinn said. “Don’t you think there’s a reason I’m driving the car I am, with Palestinian plates?”

“His ID looks good,” a voice said. “I’ll call it in.”

“Do that, and suddenly you’ve started a chain of accountability that the media could sniff out someday. It was difficult enough to take care of the Munich terrorists over twenty years ago without the world spotlight on us.”

Another reference understood by Israeli citizens, especially soldiers. The Mossad had covertly tracked down and assassinated every Palestinian responsible for the murder of the athletes and coaches taken hostage at the Munich Olympics in 1972. The Red Prince had died to a Mossad bomb planted in his car. The Israeli government had steadfastly denied the hunt, knowing it would provoke world outrage. And when it was finally leaked to the world, the predictable outcry occurred.

“Go,” the soldier said. “We didn’t see you.”

42

Temple Mount, Jerusalem • 19:01 GMT


What’s happening?” Esther asked quietly. “Those look like propane tanks.”

She stood beside Silver, watching with him as soldiers began to assemble parts from crates.

“I’m afraid to tell you.”

“It’s not weaponry,” Esther said. “Propane isn’t efficient enough.”

“An incinerator,” Silver said. “More specifically, a crematorium.”

She drew back.

“Not for humans,” he said.

“How do you know this?”

“That’s what I’m afraid to tell you.”

“Tell me.”

Silver pointed at Brad, a little distance away, supervising the soldiers. “That’s my son. He planned this.”

Esther waited for the explanation, and he gave it to her. When he finished, she took several moments to absorb it.

“Incinerator,” she said. “For the ashes of a red heifer. To allow for the Temple to be rebuilt.”

“When you put it like that, it sounds so crazy and bizarre.” Silver stopped; then he spoke more quietly. “Yet here we are.”

“Bizarre? It’s what you’ve preached your entire life.”

“Not a military takeover of the Temple Mount,” he protested.

“If what you told me about Brad is true, all the Freedom Crusaders are here because of what you’ve taught about the Bible and Revelation.”

“Yes, but—”

“So you were just preaching abstractions?”

“I was preaching what the Bible teaches about the end times.”

Esther looked at him. “Jonathan, you have to stop this.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Think about Alyiah. Imagine what will happen to her. She’s no different from the thousands and thousands of children in families that will be torn apart in riots and war if the Freedom Crusaders succeed in permanently taking the Temple Mount out of Muslim control.” She gripped his shoulder. “You can stop this. He’s your son.”

Silver kept staring at the soldiers busy with their tasks. “Maybe Brad was right. If this is succeeding, perhaps it is God’s will. Perhaps that’s why my ministry has been blessed for all these years. God had this planned for me and is finally revealing it. A rebuilt Temple!”

Esther took a breath. “Would you agree it’s heresy to say that Jesus atoned for some but not all of our sins when He died on the cross?”

“Of course. His atonement was complete and perfect.”

“Yet you preach the need for a rebuilt Temple and priestly sacrifices. Why are those sacrifices necessary if Jesus was the complete and final sacrifice?”

“Ceremonial sacrifices,” Silver snapped.

“Think through the implications. It’s a ceremony that represents the need for further atonement. To me, that’s heretical.”

He didn’t respond.

“Jonathan,” she said, softening her voice, “remember what I said before about Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. ‘A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.’ He explained to her that God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and truth. Jonathan, because of Christ we no longer need a physical Temple.”

“God made a promise to His people. This land belongs to the Jews. And the Temple.”

“Jesus promises a new heaven and a new earth to those who follow Him. But you want to restrict the surviving Jews to a piece of land by the Mediterranean.”

“Surviving?”

“You’ve raised millions and millions to help Jews gather in one spot on earth, where your prophecies say two-thirds of them will be slaughtered. That makes you not only anti-Semitic but, in theory, a proponent of genocide. If you don’t stop this, tomorrow the bloodbath will make it genocide for real.”

“How . . . how . . . ?” Silver was sputtering mad. “How dare you take something I’ve been preaching all my life and twist it into something evil!”

“There
is
evil here,” Esther insisted. “And if your son and his men succeed in their plans, that evil will be unleashed upon the whole world. This is your chance. If you don’t do something to stop it now, it will be too late.”

Somewhere in Israel • 19:18 GMT


“If you’re finished thinking,” Kate said, “I’m finished with my courtesy silence. It’d be nice if you told me where we were going.”

They were twenty minutes down the road now, past the border on the Israeli side.

“This is where it gets more complicated.”

“I’m guessing that translates to me trusting you even further.”

“With your permission, your next destination is the U.S. embassy.”

“That’s a safe place for us.”

“
Your
next destination,” Quinn said. “Not
our
next destination.”

“We separate? No deal. I climbed into the trunk because I knew you couldn’t leave the car behind without the border soldiers chasing you down. But no separation.”

“We may be the only ones at this point—outside of the men in the helicopter and whoever planned all of this—who know that there’s a military squadron on the Temple Mount. It’s crucial that we keep this from going public at all costs; the Muslim world can’t know about it.”

“That puts us out of the frying pan and into the fire,” Kate said. “If we don’t tell anyone, the outcome will be just as bad. Right? If what you said about the red heifer on the Temple Mount is true . . .”

She ran her fingers through her hair. “Options: we stop it ourselves, we tell someone else who can stop it, or we get as far away as possible and let the war begin. That about sum it up?”

“We can’t stop it ourselves.”

“We find the right someone who can. There has to be a government agency able to keep this from going public. CIA?”

“No,” Quinn said. “The CIA doesn’t have enough jurisdiction or manpower in this country. Has to be Israeli.”

“Wonderful. Would these be the same Israelis who want us dead to keep all of this a secret?”

Quinn grinned at her spunk. “Remember rule number one.”

“Of course. And what’s rule number one this hour?”

“We leverage them.”

“Right. Rule one.”

“You go to a safe place. I apply the leverage. Remember? I’m a negotiator.”

“What I wonder is how far a man might go to escape a murder indictment.”

In his silence, the wind noise of the Fiat seemed magnified.

“No,” Quinn said a couple hundred yards down the highway. “What you wonder is how much you can trust me.”

“Same thing.” A pause. “Don’t get me wrong. I want to trust you. I think I can trust you. But I’m also a cop.”

“Don’t think trust. Think risk assessment. Weigh the cost of the downside of my escape. Compare it to the downside of not trying to prevent the deaths of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, who will die in a holy war across the world if the Dome of the Rock is taken hostage or destroyed.”

“Good argument. Say you run instead of trying to get the right people to stop this. Maybe the real rule one is save the negotiator from the electric chair.”

Quinn held his hand out. “There’s a knife wound in the center of my palm. That was for one little girl. You really think I’m going to run with this much more at stake?”

The silence was Kate’s this time until she finally answered, “Like I said, I’m a cop. Still, what if you get in touch with the right people, leverage them to get this stopped, and then run while I’m in the safe place?”

“You found me once.”

“You weren’t trying to hide. All I had to do was follow you from your office to Acco. But that was a century ago, when my biggest concern was a killer hunting down Muslims. Say you’re lying to me right now about all of this risk—the red heifer, Armageddon. In theory, the way you’ve explained it, all of it makes sense. But where’s the evidence I file away to protect myself when I have to write a report?”

“Here’s what you confirm with the U.S. ambassador when you get him on the phone,” Quinn answered. “In 1982, a group sponsored by Jerusalem rabbis is tunneling along the Temple Mount’s Western Wall and begins to clear out chambers beneath the mount. Palestinian workmen hear the noise, open up a cistern, and find the Jews. To stop Palestinian rioting, the Israeli government prohibits the work and seals the entrance.”

“Rioting. But not Armageddon.”

“September 1996—an archaeological tunnel is opened for tourists. Even though it’s three hundred yards from Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, rumors begin that the Israelis are tunneling beneath the Dome. Violent protests, seventy-five dead.”

“Still not Armageddon.”

“Pay attention,” Quinn said. “Each new incident shows escalating tension. September 28, 2000—Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon and hundreds of Israeli police visit the Temple Mount under the pretext that he’s checking for archaeological vandalism by Muslim religious authorities. He was warned that riots might occur. Riots begin and within six days, fifty-five Palestinians are dead, nearly two thousand injured.”

“Escalating, sure. But—”

“The riots end, but the Arabs declare the Al-Aqsa Intifada as a result.”

“
Intifada,
” Kate repeated.

“Arabic for ‘uprising.’ It lasted five years. Palestinians fought it mainly with rocks and suicide bombers. Israelis used their tanks and jets. Nearly four thousand Israelis and Palestinians dead and countless injured. All of this simply at a hint that Al-Aqsa and the Temple Mount were being profaned. Then there was the failed plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock by a radical Jewish group. If you need a copy of the Shin-Bet report, I’ll get it to you. Conclusion was simple: had it been successful, it would have united the entire Muslim world in a religious cause against Israel.”