Newton’s Fire (38 page)

‘What about the 1260 years? Is that true?’

Luke grimaced. ‘Yes. But so what? Newton never linked it to the Second Donation of Pepin. He mentioned Pepin, yes, but only along with Phocas and Charlemagne and plenty of other possibilities. All Jay did was pick his preferred date, subtract 1260 from it, and see what fitted.’

‘And how about us finding the Ark today of all days?’

‘We found it today because these people went to extraordinary lengths to make sure we did. You think they’d have dug up St Paul’s if they hadn’t needed it till next year?’

‘I suppose.’

‘Listen to me,’ said Luke. ‘There’s nothing ordained about all this. There’s nothing destined. We can still stop it. We
have
to stop it. If we don’t, it’ll be a bloodbath. Millions of people will die.’

She rattled her handcuff. ‘Fine. But how?’

‘By keeping our nerve. By waiting for our moment. It’ll come. And when it does, we have to seize it. No hesitation. No holding back. No regrets.’

Rachel gave a determined nod. ‘No regrets,’ she agreed.

The Prime Minister of Israel still had sleep in her eyes as she arrived in the cabinet room. The Interior Minister and the Ministers for Foreign Affairs, Finance and Intelligence were already there, while the Defence Ministry was represented by the Chief of the General Staff. And each of them were attended by flurries of frantic aides checking their devices and whispering breaking news into their bosses’ ears.

‘Are our captives from the Mount of Olives talking yet?’ she asked.

‘Not yet, Prime Minister,’ said Interior.

‘How are Gaza and the West Bank?’

He nodded briskly. ‘We have multiple reports of disorder, including several settlers’ homes on fire. At least a dozen rockets have been fired. No word on casualties yet.’

‘We’re taking fire in the north too,’ said the Chief of the General Staff. ‘Mortar shells mostly.’

‘Hezbollah?’

‘We imagine so.’

‘Any casualties?’

He shrugged. ‘If not yet, then soon.’

‘This is going to turn hot?’

‘It’s already hot. How much hotter it gets depends on the Dome. If these people bring it down …’ He shook his head. ‘We have to mobilize,’ he said.

‘If we mobilize, all our neighbours will mobilize too. It’ll only make things worse.’

‘With respect, Prime Minister, things already are worse. The moment the Dome comes down, we’ll be at war. We need to be ready.’

She looked around the table. Intelligence, Finance and Interior nodded, but Foreign Affairs was occupied with passing out copies of some new briefing paper. ‘What’s this?’ she asked.

‘Excuse me, Prime Minister,’ he said. ‘That list of prisoners they want released: these are their biographies.’

‘Any pattern?’

‘Not that we can tell.’

The Prime Minister studied her copy of the list. She recognized most of the names, and the ones she didn’t recognize fell into similar categories: Israeli citizens held on various charges in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. A mix of soldiers, spies, criminals and ordinary citizens who’d become victims of the region’s power games. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘Manageable?’

Foreign Affairs nodded. ‘We’re already in the middle of exchange talks for many of them. We should be able to expedite.’

‘Prisoner exchange?’ scowled Interior. ‘It’s
their
damned Dome.’

‘We have to give up something,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘or they’ll blame us for it.’

‘They’ll blame us anyway. They always do.’

Intelligence had just received a briefing paper of his own. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘But I think we may have found out who’s behind this.’

‘And?’

‘His name’s Avram Kohen. We’ve had our eye on him for some time.’

‘You’ve had your eye on him?’ said Finance. ‘And yet he’s taken the Dome?’

‘With respect, if you didn’t keep cutting our budget—’

‘Enough!’ said the Prime Minister. This was no time for turf wars. ‘What makes you think it’s this man Kohen?’ she asked.

‘We’ve put equipment in the homes and offices of various people we’re watching. The moment this broke, we ran a roll-call. All were accounted for, except Kohen and some of his suspected associates. And we have an additional asset for Kohen: a live-in nephew. He assured us just a fortnight ago that nothing imminent was planned.’

‘He was lying?’

‘Maybe. Or maybe they rumbled him and were using him to feed us misinformation.’ He looked up from his notes. ‘He’s supposed to check in every other day, if he can; but we didn’t hear from him last night and he’s not answering his cell or his home phone. And, like I said, several of Kohen’s other suspected associates have also vanished.’

‘It’s them, then.’

‘Yes, Prime Minister.’ He grimaced to indicate worse to come. ‘The thing is, Kohen isn’t a settler or a nationalist, the kind who might credibly want Jewish prisoners released. He’s an out-and-out Third Temple fanatic.’

She slapped her hand on the list. ‘Then why these demands?’

‘A smokescreen, Prime Minister,’ said the Chief of the General Staff. ‘He wants us negotiating rather than sending in Special Forces.’

‘Yes. But if he wants the Dome down, why not just bring it down? We’re assuming it’s already rigged to blow, right? Why play for time?’

‘Maybe they’re waiting for the media to get there,’ suggested Foreign Affairs. ‘Prime time in America.’

‘Or maybe they’re hoping to spark some kind of popular uprising.’

Intelligence had just received another memo. He scanned it and looked up. ‘Prime Minister,’ he said. ‘We’ve been running checks on all Kohen’s known associates. He has links to a group of American evangelists. They want a Third Temple for their own reasons, as I’m sure you’re aware.’

‘Fucking rapture-heads,’ muttered Interior.

‘One of their go-betweens is an arms dealer called Vernon Croke. He has close ties to the CIA, so we can’t
do
anything about him; but we keep an eye on him all the same. The thing is, he was seen with a senior American counterterrorism officer during yesterday’s dirty bomb flap in London. And then he left City Airport on his private jet late last night. He’s due to land at Ben Gurion around dawn.’

Silence fell around the room. No one here believed in coincidences, not on days like this. ‘
That’s
what Kohen’s waiting for,’ murmured the Prime Minister. ‘He’s waiting for Croke.’

‘Or for whatever he’s bringing,’ said the Foreign Secretary.

‘But what?’

The Chief of the General Staff leaned forwards. ‘When those three on the Mount of Olives took out the generator buildings, they also brought down the Golden Gate. According to our soldiers in the valley, they hit it at least six times. Predator missiles are GPS controlled; they’re accurate to a metre. That is to say: they hit the Golden Gate because the Golden Gate was what they were aiming at.’

The Prime Minister shook her head. ‘What’s your point?’ she asked.

‘The Golden Gate is the one prophesied by Elijah,’ said Interior. ‘That’s why the Arabs blocked it up five hundred years ago. That’s why they built a cemetery in front of it, to render unclean anyone passing through.’

‘Prophesied by Elijah?’ She looked utterly perplexed.

Foreign Affairs coughed into his hand, a little embarrassed by her ignorance. ‘Prime Minister, Elijah prophesied that when
he
came, he’d enter Jerusalem by the Golden Gate.’

‘When
he
came? When
who
came?’

‘Prime Minister,’ said the Chief of the General Staff. ‘He was talking about the Messiah.’

At last the story broke. Red banners announcing an incident in Jerusalem’s Old City appeared at the foot of Croke’s TV screen. He turned up the volume. The first reports were ambiguous enough that he feared the assault had failed. Then a news camera arrived near the Temple Mount and it became obvious that it had succeeded to perfection.

He’d already drafted his message to Grant, prodding him for the next set of passwords for the Rutherford & Small’s bank account. Now he sent it on its way.

The TV reporter handed back to her studio. A harried-looking anchor attempted to make sense of the information pouring in. The Dome had been seized by up to thirty armed men. The Golden Gate was a smouldering ruin. Two
Waqf
guards were confirmed dead, and many more were grievously injured. There were reports of arrests on the Mount of Olives.

Croke checked his inbox. Nothing. He wasn’t anxious, though. Seventy million was a fleabite to Grant’s friends, and they weren’t stupid. They knew he had the Ark in his hold; and while it might not fetch his full fee on the black market, it would still do him nicely.

Live feed now appeared from East Jerusalem. Thousands of Muslims were marching on the Temple Mount. The reporter stopped several for their opinions. Most sounded angry beyond control, but others strove for calm, citing rumours of a threat to destroy the Dome at any attempt to storm it.

He checked his inbox again, sighed. Looked like he’d have to give Grant a nudge. Every plane was, by law, fitted with GPS. Plug an aircraft’s registration number into a flight-tracking website, therefore, and you could follow its progress live. Grant would doubtless be following him right now, so a change of course was certain to get his attention. But even as he was about to give Craig Bray the order, the new passwords arrived. He typed them in, clenched a fist in quiet satisfaction when they worked, giving him irrevocable joint authority over the $70 million.

So close now. So very, very close.

‘So the Messiah is about to arrive on a plane from London,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘Is that what you’re telling me?’

‘I’m telling you that these people didn’t take down the Golden Gate on a whim,’ said the Chief of the General Staff. ‘Predator missiles are costly and hard to get hold of. To use so many on a single target …’

‘Let’s send up fighters,’ said Interior. ‘Let’s shoot them down before they land.’

‘What if he really is the Messiah?’ muttered Foreign Affairs.

The Prime Minister silenced the snickering with a glare. ‘If Kohen and Croke are together on this, they’re bound to be in contact. What if they take the Dome down in revenge?’

‘And kill themselves in the process?’

‘If they have to.’ But the question made her think. ‘Kohen and his friends inside the Dome, they’ll want to get out alive, right?’

‘So one would imagine.’

‘Which means they’ll have to leave the Dome before they blow it.’ She slapped the table. ‘That’s what this list is for. We get the prisoners released; they say thank you and give themselves up. And then, while we’re escorting them away …’

Silence greeted this analysis. It sounded too horribly plausible. ‘What do we do?’ asked Finance. But no one answered.

Intelligence had left his seat to take a call. Now he returned. ‘Forgive me, Prime Minister,’ he said, holding out the phone.

‘What is it?’

‘Maybe nothing. But we found a letter in Kohen’s house. A hospital appointment. This is his doctor now. He won’t tell me what the appointment was about. Patient confidentiality. But he says he’ll tell you, if you assure him it’s a matter of national security.’

She nodded and took the phone. ‘This is the Prime Minister,’ she said. ‘This is a matter of extreme national security. Tell me about Kohen.’ She felt the blood draining as he talked, but she thanked him when he’d finished, passed back the phone. ‘Kohen’s dying,’ she announced flatly. ‘Two days ago, he found out he was dying.’

‘He’s Samson,’ murmured Foreign Affairs. ‘He’s bringing the temple down on himself.’

‘What do we do?’ asked Finance again.

The Prime Minister glanced sharply at him. For all his reputation as a hawk, this crisis had exposed him as bewildered and feeble. If they survived tonight, she was going to need someone tougher. She turned to Foreign Affairs. ‘Misdirection works both ways,’ she said. ‘Have your people contact the foreign and interior ministries of everyone holding these prisoners. Plead with them. Haggle. Make offers. Brief reporters. Give interviews. We have to assume that Kohen will be monitoring your efforts, so do everything you can to convince him that we’ve fallen for his plan.’

‘Yes, Prime Minister.’

‘They’re waiting for this man Croke,’ she told Interior. ‘We need to delay his arrival. Stack him. Make him circle. Just buy us time.’

He nodded and rose to his feet. ‘I’ll get on it now, Prime Minister.’

‘Nothing obvious. We don’t want them knowing we’re on to him.’

‘No, Prime Minister.’

She turned to her Chief of the General Staff. ‘We can’t risk waiting,’ she said. ‘You’re going to have to storm the Dome.’

He gave a grimace. ‘It won’t be easy,’ he warned. ‘It’s surrounded by wide-open spaces. They have line of sight from doors and windows. They appear to be well-armed, well-trained, and they’re certain to be anticipating some kind of action.’

‘What if we drop in from above?’

‘That would mean helicopters. They’d be sure to hear them.’

‘The TV stations have been clamouring for us to let them put their choppers up,’ said Interior, pausing at the door. ‘We’ve told them no so far. If we gave them permission, would their noise cover ours?’

‘What if one of them broadcasts us doing the drop?’ asked Finance.

‘Then they’ll lose all future use of their testicles,’ said the Prime Minister curtly. She turned to General Staff. ‘Well? Could you make it work?’

‘This kind of operation,’ he said unhappily, ‘it takes precise intelligence. It takes planning. It takes training.’

‘I know it does. But we don’t have time. It’ll start getting light soon. Your men need to be in place before then.’

‘Yes, Prime Minister. I’ll set it up now.’