Shadow Maker (30 page)

T
ypical Hashashin trick,” said Drake, lowering his pistol. “Vanishing into thin air.”

Nick pursed his lips, slowly scanning the walls with the flashlight on his rifle. “With a nuclear weapon? Check the drones.”

Drake did as commanded, and then shook his head. “The radiation signature is here, right on top of us. He should be here.”

Nick could see enough of the stone walls through the vegetation to see that there was no other passage besides the one they came through. The rear wall was different, though, set with a tile mosaic. Crescents and stars in blue and white peeked out from behind the dark green vines. “Help me out,” he said, lowering the weapon and stepping over to the wall.

The two of them started yanking vines away from the tiles. Some fell to the floor. Others stubbornly clung to the ceiling and formed a living curtain behind them. When enough had been cleared away to get a good look, Nick saw that there were several rows of larger round tiles set amid the square mosaic pieces—five rows of twenty, to be exact. Each large white tile, maybe ten inches in diameter, was painted with a word in blue Arabic calligraphy and with blue horizontal crescent moons at the top and bottom.

“Is this that Persian-Turkish mix again?” asked Drake, rubbing dirt off one of the tiles with his thumb.

Nick pulled another vine away and scrutinized the script. “No. These are the ninety-nine traditional names of Allah. They're always written in Quranic Arabic.”

“Well, they'd better tell you something. Our nuke is on the move again, look.” Drake showed Nick the tablet. The SWARM crosshairs drifted along the roof of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount directly above them. Then the terrorist emerged from beneath the stone awning at the entrance, as if he had simply taken an elevator up a few floors and continued on his way. He started pressing his way through the thick crowd of eclipse-watchers, all staring east through cheap square glasses of paper and black film.

Nick returned his focus to the tiles. “The answer has to be here.”

“Why ninety-nine names?” asked Drake. “Why not a hundred?”

Nick snapped his fingers and slapped Drake in the arm with the back of his hand. “You're a genius. There are ninety-nine traditional names, but there are one hundred tiles. One of these serves another purpose.” He started reading the names in English, looking for one that didn't fit. “The Mighty, The Judge, The Reckoner, The Humiliator—”

“The Humiliator,” Drake repeated with a chuckle. “Nice.”

Nick kept going, reading faster. “The Watchful, The Causer of Death, The—” He paused. He couldn't read the next tile. He stared at it for a few seconds and then tilted his head to one side.

Drake tilted his head as well, and kept it tilted as he stepped closer, examining the tile with Nick. After another heartbeat, he whispered, “Why are we sideways?”

“This one is upside down.” Nick ran his fingers across the tile. The blue crescent across the bottom had a small bump in the center. “The Key,” he said out loud, reading the inverted words. On a hunch, he pressed the crescent inward. It gave way and then sprang back.

Suddenly the answer hit him. Nick pulled the Hashashin knife from his pocket. The calligraphy on the hilt was not Turkic, like the Hashashin prophecy. It was Arabic, just like this wall. He muttered the phrase as he pressed the knife into the tile. “I am the key.”

The bump activated the springs in the hilt and the blades shot out, a perfect fit inside the crescent-shaped indentation, but still nothing happened. Tentatively, Nick tried turning the tile with the knife in place. It worked. The tile rotated with a soft scraping sound.

Nick kept going until the crescents above and below had switched positions and the word was right side up. There was a heavy
thump
and the sound of stone sliding across stone. Nick removed the knife. The blades retracted. The chamber was still again.

Drake panned his light around the room. “What just happened?”

The walls had not changed. There were no new passages, no stairwells leading up into the mosque above. At a loss, Nick looked up at his partner, and caught a hint of rose-colored light pouring down through a space between the ceiling vines. He motioned to Drake and shined his light on the area, revealing a vertical passage that had opened above them.

Drake didn't hesitate. He bent down and threaded his fingers together for Nick. “Going up?”

Before taking the boost from his teammate, Nick pulled the sling of his M4 over his head and laid it on the ground. Guns weren't permitted on the Temple Mount, even for the IDF, and there was no way he could conceal a rifle that size.

With Drake's help, Nick was able to get his hands on a stone jutting out from the interior of the octagonal well. Similar stones studded the well on either side, all the way up, forming a ladder. Nick pulled himself up, hand over hand, until he was high enough to get a foot on the lowest stone. Then the climb was easier.

Moments later, Nick emerged in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, into a narrow space between the mosque's rounded southern wall and a tall partition of solid red-and-white marble. A wide dome spread out above him, painted with elaborate patterns in gold and burgundy and illuminated by a ring of red and purple stained-glass windows. The sunlight shining through was dim, like on an overcast day.

Nick could see little to his left and right. At either end, the marble partition curved closer to the rounded wall, leaving only a narrow gap, but the partition itself was cut all the way through with intricate arabesque patterns, so that he could peer out through the carvings into the mosque's expansive prayer room. He did not like what he saw.

Nick had hoped that everyone would be outside, watching the celestial event. Instead, he saw scores of men reclining in circled groups on the carpet, many wearing the black-and-white
keffiyeh
headdress of Palestinian nationalists, either on their heads or around their necks. Several of these would be Al-Aqsa Brigade terrorists, here to protect their territory during the tourist hysteria of the eclipse.

“This is it,” said Drake, shouldering up beside Nick. With his greater height, he had made it up through the well on his own.

“This is what?” asked Nick.

“This is the death Kattan had planned for me all along.”

K
urt Baron sat alone on a weathered bench amid a grove of olives on the northwest corner of the Temple Mount. If not for the timeless etchings in the other stone benches, he would not have recognized this spot. The trees here were tall and full, adolescents nearing their prime, but he remembered them as saplings. Had it been so long?

A paper bag with four pastries from the American Colony sat next to him, as did a set of eclipse glasses he had purchased from a vendor near the Jaffa gate. He picked up the glasses and peered through the black film to see how the sun fared. The orange disc was now two-thirds shrouded by the black silhouette of the moon. Soon the occultation would be complete, and the whole of Jerusalem would be covered in darkness despite the early hour of the day. Avi was going to miss it all.

Kurt put the glasses down and checked his phone for the seventh time in the last ten minutes. In the time since he had arrived at their old spot, he had sent his friend three additional text messages asking where he was and if he was coming. The texts appeared to have gone through, but he could never tell with these over-complicated smartphones. Either way, Avi had not replied.

He resisted the urge to break into a cheese-filled Danish and lifted the eclipse glasses to his eyes again. After a few seconds of watching the shadow creep across the sun, the image was suddenly blocked. Kurt lowered the glasses to find a young Israeli policeman standing in front of him.

“Dr. Baron, I presume?”

“Yes.”

“Dr. Baron, Professor Avi Bendayan asked that I come and collect you.”

“I'm afraid I don't understand.”

The policeman shifted his feet uncomfortably and scanned the area behind the professor, adjusting the submachine gun slung over his shoulder as he turned. Kurt vaguely remembered that guns were not allowed up here, but the thought was pushed out of his mind when he noticed the hand with which the young man held the weapon. It was mechanical, a prosthetic designed to hold a machine gun and pull the trigger. He wondered if the kid had lost the appendage in a suicide bombing or a rocket attack.

“Sir, Professor Bendayan has arranged for you to take your tea in the Kipat Hasela,” said the young man, using the Jewish name for the Dome of the Rock.

Again, Kurt was confused. He glanced southeast toward the central platform where the great mosque stood. “Non-Muslims are not allowed in there.”

The policeman pursed his lips. “That is not entirely true. Some are. In particular, archaeologists are permitted to enter the Kipat Hasela for research or in special circumstances. Please, Dr. Baron. Professor Bendayan is waiting.”

Kurt did not need much convincing. A total eclipse and a look at the Holy of Holies in the same day was a blessing you did not argue with. Anyway, as the kid said, Avi was waiting for him. He tossed the eclipse glasses into the bag with the pastries and got up to follow the policeman.

—

“This is where we part ways, boss,” whispered Drake, looking out through the partition at the Palestinians lounging on the carpet. “I said I wouldn't leave you, but that's the only way you're getting out of here in one piece.”

“No. There has to be another way.” But Nick didn't see one. The Al-Aqsa Mosque was expressly forbidden to non-Muslims. Jews had been stoned just for opening a copy of the Torah on the plaza outside, and those events were on good days, when the mosque was full of regular worshippers. There was no way a guy in an IDF uniform and a big American in a loud Hawaiian shirt were going to survive the seventy-meter gauntlet of Palestinian nationalists between their current position and the front door.

“I have to do this. We don't have a choice,” argued Drake. He held the tablet up between them. The man with the backpack had already made it to the cypress grove at the edge of the Dome of the Rock platform. He stood there, leaning against a tree.

Nick watched him for a few seconds. The terrorist kept his eyes on the Dome, but showed no sign of continuing toward it. “What is he waiting for?”

Drake shrugged. “Maybe he's savoring his last moments on earth. It doesn't matter. What matters is, you've got to get a move on and catch him before he decides to finish the job he came here to do.”

“If you step out there, there's going to be a riot.”

Drake grinned. “I know. A riot is exactly what you need.”

The big operative suddenly pressed his pistol and the tablet into Nick's hands and squeezed out into the open. The closest Palestinians were a good fifteen meters away. At first, none of them saw him. He glanced back through the gap and whispered, “Godspeed, boss.” Then he strode out into the prayer room with his arms open wide, shouting, “Shalom everybody!”

At first there was confusion. Heads jerked in Drake's direction. A Palestinian shouted. Then several more began shouting angrily from different parts of the wide prayer room. Those first sparks ignited the fuel of hatred that is always waiting at Al-Aqsa, and the crowd rippled to its feet like spreading flame. Drake's dubious plan worked. The men all rushed to attack as he led them to one side of the mosque. He belted the first challenger across the chin and threw the next into the wall behind him. Then he disappeared behind the flood, just like a character in one of his late-night zombie movies.

Ahead of Nick, the bloodred carpet of the Al-Aqsa prayer room was clear, all the way to the door.

“What are you waiting for?” grunted Drake through the SATCOM.

Nick didn't argue. He made one last, unsuccessful attempt to catch a glimpse of his best friend through the mob, and then bolted for the door.

F
our more Palestinians pushed through the tall green doors of the mosque right before Nick reached them. One of them took a swing. Nick ducked left and came up throwing a hook. He dropped the man to the floor in one punch. He took the next one down with an elbow to the temple and then ducked the other two and made it into open air.

Confusion was settling in. The crowd was beginning to notice the disturbance. Palestinians filtered out from the tourists and headed for the mosque. Nick was surrounded, but the group was thin, nothing like what Drake was facing inside.

Nick also had help.

Long experience had prepared the Israelis for trouble on the Temple Mount during a big event like the eclipse. They were ready. Police in riot gear rushed out of a tent to Nick's left. He fought his way toward them. One Palestinian made the mistake of bear-hugging Nick from behind, trying to throw him down. He bought himself a head butt to the nose and a quick trip to the stone beneath the feet of his friends. Two more quickly followed, grabbing at Nick's IDF uniform. He pulled one man's head to his knee and heard the nasty
crack
of a jaw breaking. The other one got an arm around Nick's throat, but then a black baton flashed over Nick's head. There was an ugly
thock
and the arm went slack. The Israelis pulled Nick past the riot line to safety. Several patted him on the shoulders as he stumbled through, assuming he was one of the regular Temple Mount police group. Nick shouted that there was an American tourist trapped inside and kept going.

Unfortunately, the troops would not likely be much help to Drake. In the crazy world of the Temple Mount, the Israeli police were not permitted inside the mosques. Their few breaches of this protocol in the past had created massive riots all over the West Bank. The police could only set up a perimeter on the outside to protect the civilians on the plaza. In that capacity, always with unnatural patience and discipline, they had often faced rocks and Molotov cocktails thrown from the entrance of the mosque.

As he left the police line, Nick searched for the target, but a wall of sun-watchers crowding north to get away from the riot blocked his view. He could see the SWARM above them, though. The drones were drifting north. The Hashashin was on the move again.

Nick saw two men in green uniforms pushing toward him through the crowd, and he suddenly realized what the terrorist had been waiting for. The riot had lured the Islamic Waqf Authority guards away from their post in front of the Dome of the Rock. They would have stopped the target at the entrance to search his big backpack. Now they were out of the way, heading south for their customary harassment of the Israelis forming around Al-Aqsa. Nick winced. Once again, his team had become one of the dominoes in Kattan's string of outcomes. Unbelievable.

In his earpiece, he could still hear Drake being pummeled, grunting with pain and occasionally making a snide remark that his attackers couldn't understand.

“Hurry!” pleaded Molly. Nick could hear the tears in her voice. “Get the nuke so you can help him!”

“Working on it.” Nick shouldered his way north through the crowd and slid into the narrow cypress grove that bordered the Dome of the Rock platform. He finally saw the Hashashin again, almost to the unguarded entrance of the mosque. In the cover of the trees, he drew his suppressed Sig Sauer pistol. He could end this right now and go back to save Drake. He lined the Hashashin up in his sights.

The moment Nick pulled the trigger, a group of civilians passed between him and the terrorist. He jerked the weapon up but it still spit out a round. A puff of dust erupted from the side of the mosque as the bullet obliterated a patch of five-hundred-year-old ceramic tile. With the noise of the riot, no one noticed.

By the time the tourists passed, the target had disappeared again. The SWARM hovered over the great gold dome.

There was a terrible
crack
in Nick's earpiece. Drake let out a pained cry and then his SATCOM went totally dead.

“Drake? Molly?”

No response from either.

Nick's phone chimed. He risked a glance at the screen.

TheEmissary has taken your second knight and put you in check. Your move.

Nick growled as he put the phone away. He vaulted up onto the platform. This game was over.

A paper sign irreverently duct-taped to the mosque's great wooden door said
CLOSED FOR CELESTIAL EVENT BY ORDER OF THE WAQF AUTHORITY
in three languages. Nick held his pistol tight against his chest, pulled open the heavy door, and slipped inside. Blood stained the rich green carpet just beyond the marble entrance. A third Waqf Authority guard listed to one side in his chair, a bullet hole in his head.

Nick quietly pressed deeper into the octagonal mosque. Two circles of gray-and-white columns interspersed with five-foot-long partitions formed a maze of marble around the sacred Foundation Stone at the center. They offered a good deal of cover, but they obscured his line of sight to the Hashashin.

The great rock itself jutted four feet above the floor and was surrounded by a four-foot-tall wood-and-marble fence. Above it rose the massive dome, inlaid with dizzying floral patterns in green and blue and thousands of pounds of pure gold, barely lit by a few chandeliers and the darkening sunlight seeping through blue stained-glass windows.

Creeping up behind one of the rounded partitions, Nick got eyes on the terrorist, kneeling on the Foundation Stone with a semi-automatic in his left hand. A metal suitcase lay open in front of him.

To Nick's surprise, it was not Kattan. No matter. This guy had the nuke. Nick could find Kattan and the vaccine later. He leveled his weapon and was about to fire when he noticed a remote trigger in the terrorist's right hand—a black oval with a red trigger underneath, no bigger than a presentation remote. Nick lowered the Sig. In the throes of death, the Hashashin might still trigger the bomb.

Nick stuffed his gun behind his back and rushed forward from the inner ring, his footsteps muted by the thick carpet. He ran in a crouch, planning to spring up and knock the trigger away.

The Hashashin stood and turned just as Nick's feet left the carpet. Nick knocked the remote from his hand, but the terrorist caught his shoulders and threw him down on the rock. He let out a pained
“Oof!”
as the air left his lungs. The remote skipped across the carpet, coming to rest at the base of a marble column.

Nick took too long to recover from the fall. The Hashashin lifted him off the rock by his lapels, and before he got his hands up, the terrorist landed a cruel punch straight to his teeth.

“Infidel!” he shouted. “You cannot stop this. The signs have been cast. The Emissary has spoken.”

“Your Emissary is a con man,” retorted Nick, spitting out blood with the words. He rolled onto his side and kicked his top leg, sweeping the Hashashin's feet out from underneath him, bringing him crashing down onto the Foundation Stone. Then he scrambled on top and landed a counterblow to the man's face, bloodying the terrorist's lip to match his own.

The Hashashin swung up with a right, but Nick caught his arm and swept it across his body, sprawling his knees back and pressing down with all his weight to pin both of the terrorist's arms to his chest. Their bloodied faces were inches apart. Nick slowly raked his forearm across the man's jugular. The Hashashin coughed. His eyes bulged and he started to turn purple.

Nick put even more weight on the forearm. “You're not going to detonate any nukes today. Now, where's your boss?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw a man in an Israeli police uniform approaching. He leveled a submachine gun at them both.

“Don't!” Nick shouted, but the policeman pulled the trigger. Nick jerked up and shielded his face as the Israeli riddled his captive with bullets.

The light beneath the dome grew another shade darker. The Hashashin coughed and gurgled and then went silent, staring sightlessly up at the rich gold above.

Nick slowly stood, raising his hands. “Easy, buddy, I'm not your enemy.”

“How can you say that?” asked the policeman. Then he pulled the trigger again.