Fuse of Armageddon (53 page)

Silver froze. He knew that voice.

“Let’s talk,” the voice said. “We both want the same thing.”

Silver switched on his flashlight and swept it in the direction of the voice.

“Enough!” the voice barked. “Take it out of my eyes!”

With more courage, Silver would have thrown the flashlight and bolted. It might have provided enough distraction to get those precious few steps to freedom. But Alyiah was with him. He didn’t believe he could make it with her. So he obeyed and turned the beam downward. Then he realized how much easier a target it made him. He flicked off the flashlight beam. He’d seen the machine gun held waist high in the man’s hands. And he’d seen enough of the man’s face to confirm the owner of the voice.

The terrorist. Safady. Wearing the uniform of an Israeli soldier.

Silver was a prisoner again. With the life of this little girl to protect.

Western Wall Tunnel • 21:20 GMT


With the tunnels fully lit, Quinn, the two paramedics with a gurney, and two bomb squad technicians made fast progress. Quinn knew the tunnels; he had taken the tour before. After the Muslim general Saladin had taken Jerusalem from the crusaders in the twelfth century, he had raised the city to the level of the Temple Mount by constructing arches and vaults to support a foundation for the buildings above this tunnel. Archaeologists had discovered it all these centuries later and excavated.

From the entrance at the Western Wall, they moved through the Secret Passage, named because of an inaccurate legend that said King David had used it to move under the city. There was a turn, and the western plaza with the floodlights set up by IDF appeared through a grill above, then disappeared as Quinn hurried forward toward Wilson’s Arch, part of an original bridge built by Herod.

Quinn wondered if he needed to explore any of the side rooms. Then he heard a sound from somewhere farther down the tunnel—a piercing sound above the noise of the gurney’s wheels. Quinn didn’t pause to explore nearby chambers. He knew that sound.

By the time he reached Warren’s Gate, a filled-in entrance to the Temple Mount, Quinn was certain.

Kate had activated her wrist alarm.

The sound took his mind back to their first meeting at the harbor in Acco. The dress swirling around her legs in the breeze. The flat look on her face when she’d activated the alarm to call in Israeli police.

He moved as fast as he could, grateful that Hamer had had the foresight to power the lights in the tunnels. The sound drew him like a beacon. It took him through a narrowing called the Kotel Tunnel, past the Hasmonaean Water Cistern, and then into an ancient promenade with upright blocks of stone and walls built around ancient pillars.

Then he saw her.

Kate. Kate. Kate.

Her face and body were flooded with the bright halogen of the tunnel lights. She was still sitting upright against the wall. Her eyes were closed, her head fallen sideways. The blood soaked in her clothing seemed black. Like death.

Quinn knelt beside Kate and lifted her wrist. He remembered that she’d pushed a finger underneath the alarm watch. He did the same here and found a small button. The shrieking of the alarm ended.

Her wrist was clammy and cold. He couldn’t tell if she was still alive. No time to guess. One of the medics was already pushing him aside. The other was moving the wheeled stretcher.

Within seconds, Kate was on the gurney.

“Quinn,” one of the bomb squad men said. Stefan, if Quinn remembered correctly. Short and wide with lots of dark beard. Stefan focused his light on a nearby pistol. “Hers?”

“Don’t think so.”

“She’s got a pulse!” One of the medics was applying a pressure bandage to Kate’s wound. The other was inserting a needle into her arm to begin an intravenous drip.

“The shooter was this close and she’s still alive?” the other bomb squad guy said. Tall, thin. Easier name to remember. Paulie.

“She text-messaged me after she was shot,” Quinn answered. Later he’d allow himself the emotions of relief and hope that she was alive. “He wouldn’t just stand here and watch her do it. She’d have been shot first, then escaped long enough to use her phone.”

“How did he find her?”

“Look to your left,” Quinn said. There was a small, shallow pool of blood on the tunnel floor. “That’s how he tracked her. A trail of blood.”

Paulie focused up the tunnel and spotted the first small spatter. “Let’s move. If there’s a bomb, we should be able to follow the trail back too.”

Again Quinn forced away an emotional response. There was nothing he could do for Kate. Not in this moment.

He had taken a step when one of the medics called out.

“Something on her other arm. Looks like writing.”

Quinn hurried back and leaned in close. She’d used ballpoint pen, her writing barely legible. Three short, crooked lines of words.

timer set for midnight

mq, sorry dinner didn’t work out

Rember rule one. dont let lions get you too

“Lions?” Paulie said.

“Let’s go,” Quinn answered. The first line was for the bomb squad techs. The second two were for him, and he was going to keep it that way.

Kate had written the message thinking it might be her last communication to the world. Thinking of him. The memory flashed into his mind again—the first time he’d seen her by the harbor, that hint of allure.

Quinn glanced at his watch.
Push aside feelings and regrets,
he commanded himself. He could do it. He’d spent five years doing it. “That gives us less than forty minutes.”

50

Dome of the Rock • 21:30 GMT


Earlier, Safady had seen the girl at the entrance of the shrine. Crouched by his gym bag at the far end, he hadn’t been able to follow her out. And he hadn’t even been sure if she had seen or understood the significance of what he was doing. Her return meant she probably had, especially because she’d brought the old man. No matter. It was a complication, but nothing he couldn’t handle.

Silver’s voice trembled as he spoke. “It’s done, Safady—this whole operation. My son said so. He’s surrendered, and by now Israeli soldiers are on the Temple Mount.”

Safady listened closely for another scuffle of footsteps to warn him if Silver was moving closer. With a machine gun, or even bare-handed, Safady wasn’t afraid of Jonathan Silver. But if he had to fire the machine gun, it would draw attention from outside. Ten minutes from now, that attention wouldn’t matter. He needed to stall the old man.

“Typical American cowardice,” Safady sneered from the darkness that hid him. “But this can end in a way that both of us desire.”

“We’ll never want the same thing,” Silver said.

“No?” Safady’s voice was lightly mocking. “Your son, though a coward, would disagree. He went to a lot of trouble to get me here.”

“Brad believed you’re an actor. I don’t.”

“We needed him to believe that. Do you want to know the truth?”

“You are a terrorist. I know that already.”

“There’s more to it than that.” Safady was happy to keep the conversation going, strange as it was to be talking to a man he hated in the near darkness. “Much more. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

The old man didn’t answer. But there was no movement.

“The Mossad and IDF set this up,” Safady continued. “It was pitched to me by an Iranian double agent who was going to turn on me. Mossad and IDF wanted soldiers on the Temple Mount to search for weapons of mass destruction. I was supposed to be killed just after taking you to the orphanage. Then the Mossad could pretend from there to negotiate your release and demand the choppers. The hostages would not be in any danger.”

“You killed two of them right away.”

“Along with the Iranian traitor,” Safady said, glancing at the luminescent hands on his watch. Just a few minutes more. He had to time the old man’s death perfectly and get out of the shrine. Not too late. Not too soon. “From the beginning, the Mossad had no idea how wrong the operation had gone. It all comes down to money. In this operation, there was some CIA involvement. I have a contact in the Mideast branch who has received a substantial amount of money to keep me informed about the hunt for the Black Prince. He knew enough about it to make a lot more money by feeding me the plans for this. Your son, it seems, was also paying him.”

“What do you mean?”

So easy to string along the old man. “The CIA contact betrayed the Mossad operation twice. Once to your son. Once to me. Except Brad only knew about the Mossad, not that I would be coming along for a free ride. Brad believed he was on a mission from God. It was easy to fool him. I made sure to set up a Web site that focused on his theology to make sure the world would blame him for this.”

“And your mission?”

“What does it matter?” Five minutes, Safady decided. He would shoot without warning. “You’re going to get the credit for what happens next anyway. No one can stop what’s next. A united Arab world, blessed by Allah.”

“You want war?” Silver asked.

“You and I will be on different sides of the war, but at least it will have begun. Then we’ll find out. Is your Bible the ultimate truth? Or the Koran?”

“This is what you want? A battle to test God?”

“Don’t you? Isn’t that what you’ve been preaching for the last decades? The end of time according to the timetable of Revelation? So now it’s upon us. Embrace it. If you’re right, you have nothing to fear.” Safady laughed. “Nothing to fear except the combined will of millions and millions of Muslims united against your God because of the desecration that will take place here tonight.”

“Too late,” Silver said. “IDF forces have secured the Temple Mount.”

“Brad and I wanted the same thing,” Safady said. “The Dome of the Rock. It’s the fuse of Armageddon. He wants a new Temple. I want a reason to lead my people against you. I’m betting my civilization wins. Not yours.”

Another voice rang through the darkness. Higher pitched. Urgent. “Bumb. Bumb.”

The girl. She
had
understood the significance of the gym bag. She was struggling to find the English word to explain.

“What?” Silver asked.

“Boom! Boom! Boom!” the little girl said.

Safady could work with this. “I blow up a portion of the shrine, old man. Just enough damage to enrage all Arabs against Israel and the West. Israel will be destroyed.”

Silver’s flashlight beam snapped on. Safady could tell he was looking for the explosives. The beam stopped first on the gym bag that Safady had carried onto the helicopter, then on the C-4 containers and the wires leading to them. A very simple timer was attached. That’s why Safady needed the delay. IDF’s bomb squad could defuse the explosives in seconds.

“Drop the flashlight,” Safady said.

“You wanted us to keep talking until it blew,” Silver said.

“Drop it. I’ll shoot the girl first.”

Silver dropped the flashlight.

Good,
Safady thought.

Then he heard the old man and dimly saw that he’d lifted the girl and was carrying her out of the shrine.

“I can see you!” Safady shouted. “Stop! Or you’re both dead!”

Western Wall Tunnel • 21:23 GMT


Three waves of death,
Quinn thought. The first wave—an explosion that would wipe out the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. The second wave—radioactive fallout. And the tsunami wave—global jihad.

The bomb squad guys had gone into more detail for Quinn about the Davy Crockett as they’d followed the blood spatter trail. It had ended here, at the Struthian Pool. The dark water was motionless, glinting from the lights installed by the tourism bureau.

Kevin’s crumpled form lay next to the pool, a single bullet hole in his forehead. Quinn glanced at the dark form, then looked away. There would be time for grieving later.

“I don’t like this, Paulie,” Stefan said.

“Maybe she had it wrong,” Paulie said. “Really. What are the chances it really is an M-388?”

Both men were in black pants and gray T-shirts, with tool bags hanging from their belts. Quinn had asked them about the lack of protective gear at the tunnel entrance. The answer had been grim. They needed to move fast. And if they were going to defuse a nuke, it didn’t matter how much protective gear they wore.

“She had to be right about the bomb,” Quinn said. “Why else call it a Crockett in the text message?”

“That’s what I don’t like,” Stefan said. “Too easy to hide.”

“Her blood trail starts here,” Quinn said. “It’s got to be in the water.”

“The thing doesn’t even weigh eighty pounds,” Stefan said. “Could it have been moved after she was shot?”

“One way to find out,” Quinn answered. He waded into the water. His feet hit something. Bulky, easily moved. He reached down. It was a large backpack. Empty.

He tossed it on the stone floor. “Maybe that’s good news. If Cohen moved it after Kate was shot, he would have used the backpack.”