Fuse of Armageddon (47 page)

“That should tell you how bad we believe the worst-case scenario would be. That we were willing to risk the fallout of the operation going wrong just on the possibility the WMDs were there. The Mossad wanted to confirm the story, but politically, it would have been impossible to go in, let alone do anything to disarm the weapons.”

“True. And you couldn’t exactly ask the Waqf to confirm it.”

They had reached Hamer’s vehicle, a small, unmarked white truck. Hamer paused before unlocking the door, talking across the hood to Quinn, who stood on the passenger side.

“Consider our options,” Hamer said. “One, we permanently evacuate the city, which really isn’t an option. Two, we request the Waqf to allow us to search for it. They refuse, and all we’ve done is alert them to the fact that we know something’s in there. Three, we do nothing, and someday, sooner or later, when the breeze is right and the terrorists are primed, it hits us, wiping out half a city. Four, we storm the place to search for it, and the political fallout is as disastrous. All it took was for Sharon to visit the place looking for archaeological damage and the result was a five-year uprising.”

“So you went to option five,” Quinn said. “Mossad and IDF work together to put men on the Temple Mount at night when the entire world believes your guys are Palestinian terrorists stuck until another chopper can move them to Jordan. Just bold enough to work. I mean, who is going to suspect anything but what the television shows them?”

“We needed night as a blanket of cover. By dawn, the weapons are either confirmed as a false story, or they’ve been found, disarmed, and moved onto the helicopters. The hostages are released through the gates, and the helicopters fly away with the Arab world believing that their terrorist heroes have succeeded in outwitting Israel.”

They reached Hamer’s truck in the parking lot. A small Toyota. Hamer opened his door and slid in behind the steering wheel. He waited for Quinn to get in on the passenger side.

“I’m with you so far,” Quinn said. “But no matter what you do to try to convince me, I won’t believe you turned Safady to help you with this op.”

“We had someone buried deep in Iran—someone who could get close to Safady. We supplied funds to Safady through this contact. The condition was that our Iranian op worked with Safady to set this up. Our guy, the Iranian double agent, found Safady the orphanage as a base. It used to be army barracks. That gave us time to set up the tunnel into the orphanage. Our plan was to spring our men on Safady just before the choppers arrived. This would do three things: save the hostages, take out Safady, and get our guys on the Temple Mount.”

“You didn’t need a negotiator except for window dressing.”

“The hostages were not supposed to be in danger. We had assurances. Our Iranian guy was supposed to make sure of that.”

Quinn snorted. “Rule one in negotiating: never believe assurances.”

“Still, you now understand why we had to take the risk.” Hamer rubbed his face. “WMDs in the heart of the city. But we both know this was flipped. Someone replaced our special unit and landed a different army on the mount.”

“Cohen was working you,” Quinn said. “He got rid of Rossett, tried to get rid of me, and let you continue as if everything was good. So the big question is why.”

“And who replaced the IDF soldiers. You and I don’t have those answers. I don’t like this.”

“I told you the CO believed the replacement soldiers were Americans.”

Hamer started the engine and put the truck into gear. “I can’t see the CIA being behind it. No motivation. Even if somehow they knew what we’d intended to do.”

“Not unless the CIA is into livestock.”

That startled Hamer. He put the truck back into park and turned to stare at Quinn. “What?”

“There was a small cow on board one of the choppers. Your IDF CO down in the tunnel at the orphanage told me he’d seen it. I found fresh manure that seemed to confirm his story.”

Hamer shook his head. “It wasn’t red, was it? Tell me it wasn’t red.”

“It was red.”

“Stick with me, Quinn. You and I may be the only two people able to stamp out the fuse of Armageddon.”

“You’re just figuring that out now?”

44

Somewhere in Jerusalem • 20:32 GMT


Cohen had switched Kate and Kevin from Kevin’s car to his own, a gleaming black BMW. Kevin drove toward the Old City. At a security checkpoint, Cohen got out and spoke to the IDF soldiers and showed his ID; the soldiers waved them through after Cohen moved into the backseat again beside Kate.

He gave Kevin directions, navigating him through the streets before instructing him to park at the entrance to a narrow alley. Kate didn’t know much about Jerusalem, but she realized they’d reached the Old City. To her, it seemed as if they had entered an Indiana Jones movie set of a market bazaar . . . without the crowds.

“Don’t scream for help,” Cohen told Kate as he helped her out of the BMW. “It won’t do you any good, and it will only irritate me. The soldiers around here have better things to do, and if I tell them you’re my prisoner, they won’t help anyway.”

Handcuffed, she didn’t think there was much point in trying to escape. It was too dark for her to see where she could run. But she remained alert for any chance. She owed Quinn a call to warn him about Hamer.

“We’re near the Temple Mount,” she said.

“The Muslim Quarter of the Old City,” Cohen answered. “This street is Via Dolorosa. The way of suffering. You might know it as the way of the cross.”

The cobblestones were worn smooth, and in the quiet and the dark with the cramped buildings seeming to push in on her from both sides, Kate could easily imagine Jesus of Nazareth stumbling from step to step with the weight of the wooden cross on His back. She wasn’t given much time to contemplate, however; Cohen turned her down an alley that seemed barely wide enough for a motorcycle to navigate.

“Not too far,” Cohen said. “Bear with me. Then you’ll get the answers.”

He stopped at an ancient door of carved wood and opened the lock with a large key. The door was surprisingly quiet on its hinges, and the interior was dark. He took a small flashlight from his back pocket and clicked it on, then walked directly to a wooden bench on a small square of carpet. The scope of his beam didn’t show much of the interior, but Kate had a sense it was simply a bare room.

Cohen dragged the bench off the carpet and onto the tile floor. In the almost eerie silence of a stone building centuries old, the scraping of the bench across the tiled floor was magnified. Cohen moved the carpet aside. His flashlight beam showed a nearly invisible latch. He pulled it up and revealed a trapdoor.

Kate thought of the trapdoor in Gaza, leading to a tunnel with captured and bound soldiers.

Cohen reached underneath the bench. A rope ladder had been hidden there. He attached the end of it to two prongs at the edge of the trapdoor opening and dropped the rope ladder down.

“Kevin,” Cohen said, “you’ll know where we are once you get down there. The Western Wall tunnel.” He turned to Kate. “For centuries, houses here had openings like this to give them access. Residents simply lowered buckets to get water from the aqueduct below. The water flow is gone, of course, and now tourists go through the tunnel during the day when the lights are on.”

“Don’t quit your day job,” Kate said, trying to read what was happening by the tone of his voice. It was dark except for his flashlight beam, and she couldn’t take cues from his body language.

“Day job?”

“As a tour guide, it’s pitiful when you have to handcuff someone to force her to go with you.”

His answer sounded patient, not vexed. “You need to know what’s down there so that you understand there’s nothing to fear. It’s going to be a lot more difficult to get you down the ladder if you decide to fight me. So I’m asking you not to fight.”

Cohen surprised her by handing her the pistol. “I’m going to take off your cuffs because I don’t want you falling off the ladder. It’s about a twenty-foot drop. I’ll stand up here shining the light. Kevin will go down first. I’m asking you to follow him. I’ll go last.”

“So you can slam the trapdoor on us and walk away.” Still, Kate was thinking that when a guy gave you his weapon, there was a little more reason to trust.

“Kate,” Cohen said, “a couple hundred yards down, the tunnel below us ends at a gate at the Wailing Wall. That’s where Hamer has set up his base of operations. If I walked away, you could be there in minutes if the lights were on and you could see inside the tunnel.”

“He’s right,” Kevin said. “I’ve been on the tour.”

Cohen removed her cuffs. “You ready?”

“Ten minutes,” Kate said. She backed away, giving herself a little room. She wasn’t going to hold the gun on Cohen as she made her deal, but she wanted time to lift it if he tried to disagree. “You get ten minutes to make this clear. If not, I find Quinn.”

“Give me fifteen,” he answered. ”You’re going to have to see what’s in one of the caverns to understand why I had to do it this way.”

“Ten,” Kate said firmly. After all, she now had the pistol.

Temple Mount, Jerusalem • 20:32 GMT


Joe Patterson had a small, high-powered flashlight on the top of his gun barrel and flicked it toward the approaching figure, catching just enough features to recognize the man. Jonathan Silver.

“It’s him,” Byron Davidson said to Patterson, speaking in a hushed tone. Davidson was the new Freedom Crusader assigned by Saxon to report anything unusual that Patterson might try. Davidson was a chunky, muscular man with the type of build doomed to middle-aged flab that would show no history of his former athleticism.

“Yeah,” Patterson said without any of Davidson’s enthusiasm.

Days earlier, Patterson wouldn’t have made this remark with any degree of cynicism. But the Gaza events had taken away his blind allegiance to the cause even before he’d learned that the Freedom Crusaders were holding Sarah hostage to ensure his good behavior. The threat against her had been the tipping point. Now he doubted everything he’d been taught about the cause. Especially the leaders. They’d chosen to kidnap his wife and threatened to kill her.

“He’s better than the pope to me,” Davidson whispered. “Catholics ain’t doing a thing to fight for God’s Kingdom. But look at all Silver’s done for Israel.”

Patterson didn’t answer. He put his hand on the back of the red heifer tethered beside him. His job was to keep guarding it until the sacrificial ceremonies were ready to begin.

Silver reached them seconds later and made a point of asking them their names and shaking their hands and congratulating them on doing God’s work.

Patterson remained politely distant. Davidson, however, gushed praise for Silver. Patterson hated the thought that he might have once been like Davidson, remembering the days on campus at Freedom Christian University when a glimpse of the man sent students buzzing, Patterson and Sarah included.

“Praise the Lord,” Jonathan Silver said, patting the red heifer on its back. “Here’s the animal that God sent us to deliver the Temple unto Him.”

“Yes, sir,” Davidson said.

To Patterson, it sounded like Davidson was as proud as if he’d actually given birth to the heifer.

“It shouldn’t give me any trouble, should it?” Silver asked.

“Sir?” Again it was Davidson speaking. Patterson’s coldness toward Jonathan Silver and what the man stood for was the coldness he felt toward his own foolishness in signing up for the Freedom Crusaders.

“They want me to lead the heifer there now,” Silver said like a kindly uncle. “It’s not an honor I deserve. You boys are the ones who did everything to make this possible. But I don’t want to let them down. You understand.”

“Yes, sir; yes, sir,” Davidson said. He turned to Patterson. “Need help untying it?”

Patterson was looking for any excuse to be insubordinate. He knew this feeling. It reminded him of his teenage years, when he had to sullenly listen and obey his own father. He’d eventually done what he was told, but in such a foot-dragging way that it vented his frustration and, better yet, consistently angered his father.

“I don’t need help,” Patterson said. “But we’ve got our orders from Lieutenant Saxon. This heifer doesn’t move anywhere without Saxon’s express permission.”

“Joe!” Davidson said. Then he spoke to Silver. “Sorry, sir. He doesn’t mean it as an insult.”

Yes, I do,
Patterson thought with juvenile satisfaction.

“No offense taken,” Silver replied. Then he addressed Patterson. “I appreciate your concern for the heifer. But let’s not delay things.”

“Of course not, sir,” Patterson said. “I’ll just radio Saxon.”

They didn’t have walkie-talkies. Too few channels; too much chance that someone could listen in. Instead, they had cell phones. Patterson beeped his.

“Son,” Silver said, “there’s a lot of things happening right now, and my patience is wearing thin. I need to bring this animal as soon as possible.”

Patterson’s cell phone beeped back, giving him an excuse to ignore Silver. “Sir, just want confirmation that I’m to release . . .” Patterson stopped briefly. He’d almost said
Orphan Annie
. “. . . the red heifer to Jonathan Silver.”

“Hang on,” Saxon’s voice came back. “I’m right here with Brad Silver. I’ll clear it with him.”

A few moments of silence.

Then came Saxon’s terse order. “Hold the heifer there. And take Jonathan Silver prisoner.”

Western Wall Tunnel • 20:38 GMT


“It’s just ahead,” Cohen said. “We’re walking north along the Hasmonaean aqueduct. It parallels the Western Wall of the Temple Mount.”

This portion of the shifting and turning tunnel had been so narrow that they’d been forced to walk single file, with Cohen at the back holding his flashlight high and shining it ahead for them. Occasionally, they’d pass a light fixture, and Kate thought this would be so much easier if the power had not been shut off for the night.

Without warning, the tunnel widened, and it seemed the air grew cooler. Cohen’s flashlight played over a small pool. The dark water was still, filling the width of the tunnel ahead of them, with the pool ending at a brick wall that entirely blocked the tunnel to its arched ceiling.