Shadow Maker (29 page)

A
mran Jazar, the Hashashin lieutenant who had dutifully delivered the lithium-6 three days before in Cairo, parked a yellow taxi at the edge of the Palestinian village of Ras Al-Amud, east of Jerusalem. The crescent-topped spire of the town mosque on the hilltop above cast a long shadow westward across the deep Kidron Valley. That valley separated the Mount of Olives from the Noble Sanctuary—the Temple Mount, as it was known to the infidels—and many scholars and prophets claimed that it would one day be soaked with the blood of Armageddon. So, thought Amran, it would.

Amran's journey to Jerusalem had taken nearly fifteen hours, beginning the moment Dr. Wahish finished his work. More precisely, it began the moment Amran slit the physicist's throat—the same way he slit the throat of the Syrian who had brought them the virus. The Emissary had been clear. There was to be no trail, no witnesses that could be captured and questioned to jeopardize the final goal. Amran had carried the device away in an unobtrusive gray backpack, leaving nothing behind in the old watchtower but a white-haired Pakistani, facedown in a sticky black pool of his own blood.

From Cairo, Amran had carried the weapon to Ismailia, on the edge of the Sinai, and then, at dusk, continued on into the desert. He crossed the Egyptian portion on an ATV; the Israeli portion on foot. Abandoning the vehicle cost him time, but taking a noisy ATV across the border would have been suicide.

When he finally reached the frontier city of Beersheba early that morning, Amran had simply hailed a cab—one with the yellow license plates that allowed service vehicles easy passage through West Bank checkpoints. The cab driver had stayed behind, bleeding out in a ditch north of town.

Now Amran climbed out of the vehicle with his backpack and tossed the keys on the floorboard. He did not bother to wipe clean the cab's interior, not even the bloodstain on the driver's door. This age of the world was ending. No one was ever going to trace this vehicle to him or to the Hashashin. At this range, the cab would not survive the hour anyway.

—

“I didn't see your dad in that taxi.” Drake was standing in the back of the pickup with the crate's lid open against the cab.

Nick pulled open the driver's-side door. “He wasn't there. Hop down and get in. I think I know where to find him. A place called the American Colony.”

Drake didn't move. He folded his arms defiantly.

“Drake, come on!”

“We can't, boss. We don't have time to play hunches.”

Nick stood there with the door open another moment. His gaze shifted to the east, toward a thin line of low clouds, burned orange by the rising sun. The eclipse was coming. Drake was right. He hung his head in frustration. Then he reached into the cab, pulled out an M4 rifle he had taken from the patrol, and slammed the door shut again.

“Good choice,” said Drake, unfolding his arms. “Now get up here and tell me what I'm dealing with.”

Nick climbed into the back. Inside the crate were four miniature UAVs, each drone two feet square with four enclosed rotors, all stacked on a short pole launcher. Titanium plates reinforced the flattened corners of their rugged, olive drab frames. “This UAV system is called SWARM,” said Nick, removing a mini-tablet computer from the foam wall of the case. “Synchronized wireless aerial reconnaissance machines. They are multipurpose, but this set is fitted out to complement a helicopter-borne radiation detector. At best, a chopper system can narrow the search for a radiation source down to a city block. SWARM is the next step. Once the helicopter finds the area, three of these UAVs work in concert to triangulate the exact position.”

Drake rapped a knuckle on the side of the top drone. “And the fourth? The payload looks different.”

“That one has a high-def camera. It hovers over the target for real-time video.” Nick toyed with the tablet screen as he spoke. A green LED lit up on each drone, indicating linkup with the controller. “Unfortunately, we don't have the helicopter to find the general area. These UAVs were designed to search one city block. Our search area is equivalent to a hundred.”

Drake lifted a hand to shield his eyes and looked out toward the Old City. “So we're hunting for the proverbial needle in a haystack.”

“A needle that will go off in”—Nick checked his watch—“fifty-two minutes.” He flipped a switch on each UAV. The rotors hummed to life, and the little aircraft hovered on the pole, separated by a couple of inches each.

He handed the mini-tablet to Drake. “You have control. Use the green toggle to—”

The UAVs shot up into the air, almost knocking Nick out of the truck.

Drake laughed. “I think I can figure it out.”

“Right.” Nick glowered at his teammate. “Let's get moving.”

They entered the worn stone streets of Old Jerusalem at the Jaffa gate, looking like an Israeli guard and an American tourist. Despite his bravado, Drake had a little trouble walking and controlling the SWARM at the same time. He bumped into several people in the crowd, none of whom noticed the quiet formation of four remote-control aircraft hovering two hundred feet over their heads.

After the big operative nearly ran down a small but very loud French woman, Nick took the tablet away. He locked a set of crosshairs onto his teammate. The central bird, the one with the high-def camera, took up a position directly above them. “There,” he said, handing it back. “Now they will follow wherever you go. We can release them when they get a whiff of the radiation.”

Drake looked down at his own image under the crosshairs. “Creepy.”

When they reached an open square inside the gates, Nick activated his SATCOM earpiece. “Lighthouse, any help?”

Molly was ready for him, but she didn't have good news. “Sorry, Nightmare. We couldn't get satellite coverage over Israel, not under State's nose. However, based on your previous encounters with the Hashashin, you can expect two or three hostiles. One will have the bomb, plus one or two outriggers, armed with knives and machine guns. Watch the top floors and the crowds.”

Drake turned in a slow circle, searching the rooftops for snipers. “I hate these guys.”

“And the target?” asked Nick.

“Unknown. Too many potentials in the area. I'd start with the most famous crusader church in town.”

Drake's Catholic upbringing rose to the surface. “The Church of St. Anne.”

“Correct,” said Molly.

Nick nodded. “I'll buy that. Big crusader church. It definitely makes a statement. We can scan east from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the way.”

“How much time?” asked Drake, squinting up at the drones hovering high above.

Nick checked his watch. The eclipse had already started. “If we're right about the bomb, every man woman and child in this crowded city has less than forty-five minutes to live.”

O
ver the next twelve minutes, Nick and Drake used the SWARM to scan seven holy sites, working northeast from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the Church of St. Anne.

The UAVs found nothing.

The small plaza in front of St. Anne's was nearly empty. There, the outer wall of the Old City rose high above the street, blocking the view of the eastern sky. The tourists had moved elsewhere to see the sun. “We're running out of time,” said Drake, slumping into a plastic chair at an open-air café.

Nick sat down across the table and waved the waiter away. “We haven't scanned a tenth of the city. This isn't working. We have too much ground to cover.”

“Maybe Dr. Heldner was right,” offered Molly through the SATCOM. “Maybe there's no nuke at all.”

Nick shook his head. “False hope. Everything we know points to a bomb, right here in Jerusalem, but there has to be something we're missing. Read me the final stanza of the prophecy.”

“We're wasting time,” protested Drake.

Nick held up a warning hand. “Read it, Molly.”

As the analyst carried out his order, Nick closed his eyes, letting the words sink into his consciousness, seeing them as three-dimensional structures and letting them float freely on their own. Somewhere in the open spaces between them was the answer he needed.

Then the sun will be blotted out and my servant will open the gate. A great smoke will rise up from the center of the world. The sky will burn like molten brass, and from the high place there will sound a deafening noise, as trumpets, announcing the entrance of the Mahdi.

Almost of their own accord, two small pieces of the whole separated and rose above the rest.

. . . my servant will open the gate.

. . . announcing the entrance of the Mahdi.

Nick's eyes blinked open. “I know what the target is.” He stood up and left the café at a run.

—

As Drake rushed after his team lead, the SWARM stayed right above him, following like a flock of loyal geese. “Are you gonna share your thoughts with the rest of the class?”

“My servant will open the gate!” Nick shouted over his shoulder, heading west down the slanted Via Dolorosa, still well ahead of his friend. “The nuke isn't a sign. It's a key!”

Molly was unconvinced. “I'm showing a long list of gates surrounding the Old City of Jerusalem. Which one?”

“The one you don't see.” Nick turned south from the empty street into a long corridor, crowded with tourists and vendors. He started weaving his way through knots of well-dressed pilgrims buying crosses and eclipse glasses from kids in soiled clothes and taqiyah skullcaps. “There's a flat stone here,” he said as Drake finally caught up. “The Muslims think it's the rock where Muhammad ascended into heaven. Some Jews and Christians believe it's the place where heavenly fire burned up the offerings of King David.” He paused to dodge a rack of leather sandals and then turned sideways to scoot through a group of chattering schoolkids and into a narrow tunnel. “Either way, a lot of mystics think it's a gateway between worlds.”

Nick emerged from the tunnel into a wide plaza and jogged to a halt amid a throng of eclipse-watchers. To the east rose a shining limestone wall, spotted with tufts of green rock plant. A crowd of worshippers at its base stuffed tiny prayer scrolls into the cracks between the stones. At the top, in the same place where Katy had stood and the fire had risen up in his vision at the bottom of the Thames, he saw the flaming golden dome of the Qubbat As-Sakhrah, the Dome of the Rock, brilliant in the light of the morning sun.

“The mosque?” asked Drake, following his gaze.

“Not the dome itself,” said Nick, panting to catch his breath, “the flat stone inside. The Hashashin believe that rock is a portal, and I think they're planning to blow it wide open.”

A
dense mass of tourists threatened to overwhelm the spindly ramp leading up to the metal detectors at the Moors Gate, the only access to the Temple Mount open to non-Muslims. Nick had run through the market toward that gate on memory and instinct. Now he realized they could not get through, not even by fighting their way through the line. The ramp was too narrow and the crowd too thick.

“The SWARM still has nothing,” said Drake, looking down at the tablet.

Nick shielded his eyes to gaze up at the drones. “Release them. Send them east. We're confined to one gate, but Muslims can use the gates to the north and east. We've already covered the north.”

Drake did as commanded, and as soon as the SWARM flew over the wall, an alarm sounded from the tablet. The southernmost drone picked up a radiation signature. The formation automatically shifted southeast to compensate, with the eastern bird picking up the signature next, and then the northern one. In half a minute, they had centered over a radiation source in the archaeological park south of the Temple Mount. There, under the crosshairs, was a man dressed in loose-fitting desert garb—a long tan shirt and olive trousers—with a black-and-tan shemagh around his neck. He carried a large gray backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Bingo,” said Drake, and the two of them started cutting through the crowd toward the southern exit from the plaza.

“Is it Kattan?” asked Molly, over the SATCOM.

“Unknown,” said Nick, as he and Drake stutter-stepped through the crowd. “We couldn't see his face.” He shot a glance at the screen in Drake's hands. The target continued to work his way north and west through the labyrinth of walkways and stairwells of the archaeological park, entering the sparse ruins of a seventh-century Arabian palace that once stood against the Temple Mount wall. He seemed completely unaware of the drones. “He's heading for the middle of the south wall, Lighthouse. Where is he going? There's no gate there.”

After a long moment of silence on the SATCOM, Molly came back with her answer. “My guess is he's heading for the southern access to your plaza, west of the temple. From there, he'll make for the Cotton Merchants gate, two hundred yards north. You're on a course to intercept now.”

Seconds later, Nick and Drake popped out of the crowd near the southern access Molly had described. The drones were still southeast of them.

“We've got him,” said Drake, slowing to check his tablet.

Nick clicked off the safety of the M4 rifle and checked the video as well, but the man with the backpack did not continue toward their position. He turned due north and disappeared beneath the sand-colored ruins of an archway that jutted out from the southern wall of the Temple Mount. The SWARM continued north for a moment, turned east, turned north again, and then hovered there, making tiny adjustments in all directions.

Nick's world grew a shade darker. The eclipse was more than halfway through. He stared at the tablet in disbelief. “He's gone.”

Drake grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the plaza exit. “No. Look at the drones.” He pointed to the sky where the SWARM still hovered. Occasionally the UAVs jerked one way or another in a synchronized dance that kept them centered on the radiation source. “They still have him. He's gone down a hole, probably planting the bomb right now.”

The two operatives hopped the turnstile that separated the plaza from the archaeological park and raced toward the ruins.

Nick was the first to reach the area where the terrorist had disappeared. In the shadow of the crumbling archway, he found a set of steps leading down. “There's a tunnel here,” he said in a low voice, depending on the SATCOM for Drake to hear.

The steps dropped only a short distance, but they turned east into a tunnel completely shaded from the half-eclipsed sun. Nick lit the flashlight on the rail of the Israeli M4, lifted the weapon to his shoulder, and moved cautiously forward. “What are the drones doing?” he whispered.

Drake had his pistol in his right hand and the tablet in his left. He raised the screen to his eyes. “Still hovering. The center point of the radiation is twelve meters ahead and ten meters left.”

“Left?” Nick put a hand against the stone wall next to him. “Left is solid rock.”

“That's what it says.”

On a hunch, Nick let his fingers drag along the wall. The vines and weedy rock plants in the cracks grew increasingly thicker until he came to a point where his fingers lost contact with the stone. He stopped, pressed his hand deeper, and only found more plants. “There's a passage here.”

Nick backed up and held his light on the vines while Drake tried to pull them away, but they were too thick to manage. They pushed through instead, with Nick in the lead, flashlight off, trying not to wonder what kinds of insects made their homes in the dark hollows of the tangled greenery sliding across his neck and poking into his ears.

A few feet in, the stones beneath Nick's feet dropped. Another set of stairs. There were just a few, and soon he emerged from the hanging foliage into open darkness. He raised his weapon to his shoulder and flipped on the light, turning in a slow circle. They had discovered a small chamber inside the Temple Mount wall. After Drake came through, the vegetation fell back into place behind him, closing up the portal like a natural seal. More vines and rock plants spread out from the stairway, covering the walls and ceiling of the chamber with matted green.

“Where is he, Drake?”

Other than the foliage, the chamber was empty.