The Brotherhood Conspiracy (55 page)

Fischoff pulled a nine-millimeter automatic from the holster on his hip. He pushed back a large button just off the top of the gun. “Safety. Push it back to shoot. Then just aim and pull the trigger. One shot at a time. More than that, and you’ll never hit anything. Got it?”

Adrenaline swept through Bohannon’s body like a river at flood stage. What surprised him was the hunger . . . the lust for revenge. He was stunned, disappointed, when Fischoff put the gun back into its holster.

“Don’t even think about it,” said the sergeant, “unless something happens to me. If it does, then grab the weapon and do the best you can. There will be six of us on the ground. So, please, try not to kill anyone on our side, okay?”

“Yes, sergeant.”

An X-ray machine couldn’t have examined Bohannon any more thoroughly than Fischoff did at that moment. Bohannon could feel the sergeant searching for certainty.

“I need your word. Will you obey my commands?”

Bohannon leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “Sergeant, I’d give you one of my limbs, if necessary, to go with you. I’d give my own life to save my wife’s life. So, don’t worry. I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”

Fischoff gave Bohannon another hard stare, as if there might be something hidden in Tom’s eyes that would help him come to a decision.

“Three minutes, sergeant.”

“Right.” Nodding his head, Fischoff extended his hand toward Bohannon. “Don’t get hurt, or you’ll cost me my stripes.”

Fischoff swung back into his seat and toggled the radio. “Corporal, you heard our orders, correct?”

“Yes, sergeant.”

“Okay, read Mr. Rizzo the rules. If he accepts, keep him on your hip at all times. Our orders are to keep him safe. If he refuses to agree, attach his manacles to the floor rings so that he has to lie on the floor. That’s the best we’ll be able to do to keep him safe in the vehicles. We’re going through the Armenian Quarter. Come up to the Citadel from the south. Turn off into David’s Garden
and pull up tight against the outside wall. They could be in the dungeon or on the Pinnacle. You take the cellar. Move fast, but smart. Let’s go silent.” The driver killed the siren and the flashing lights.

Bohannon’s mind was traveling as fast at the Humvee. He thought of Annie and Kallie . . . were they . . . okay? He couldn’t bear to even fear the worst. That was up to God. Then he felt shame and remorse—was God really with him? Now that he despaired so much? Now that his faith had failed him? Then he thought of the Citadel. And his fear returned. Would there be a fight? Shooting?

“Here, quick, put this on,” said Fischoff, handing Bohannon a thick jacket of body armor.

Looking at the armored jacket, Bohannon’s mettle began to crack. Did he really have the courage to risk his life, give his life in return for Annie’s safety? He always thought that he did. Now he would find out. He thought of Doc, of Winthrop Larsen, and the fear began to live a life of its own in the pit of his stomach. Doc was dead—in a coffin on his way back to the States. Winthrop was dead, blasted all over 35th Street by a Prophet’s Guard bomb. Would more die? Would
he
die? Would Annie—no, he couldn’t go there.

2:15 a.m.

Clasped to the poles by brass rings, the curtains of the Tent of Meeting now hung from all four of its sides. There were upright poles in heavy brass stands and, connected to the upright poles, the framing wood ran horizontally from pole to pole. It was from these horizontal rails at the top of the frame that the hides now hung down, obscuring the work being done inside the Tent itself as the Sanctuary was erected. The Tent was huge . . . one hundred and fifty feet on each side, seventy-five feet across its breadth.

The pace and demeanor of the priests and rabbis scurrying over the Mount elevated from hurried to frantic as more material was carried inside the enclosure to erect the inner Sanctuary—the Holy Place and, inside that, the Most Holy Place which, in the time of Moses, had been the home of the Ark of the Covenant.

Activity in the skies also became more frenetic, and much louder. Not long after construction of the Tent began, media helicopters flocked toward the Mount, their spotlights searching out visual images to send across the airways. They didn’t get close. Phalanxes of military helicopters hunted down every
civilian craft that ventured near the Old City and drove them off into the distance—twice unleashing 50-caliber bursts in the vicinity of the more daring pilots. Now Israeli gunships hovered at the four corners of the platform, pairs of helicopters circled around the perimeter of the Old City, and individual choppers continued to flash across the top of the Temple Mount from random directions.

On a regular basis, the whine and thunder of fighter jets could also be heard crisscrossing the sky above.

The Humvee jumped the curb on a tight, curving street, drove across the grass of a small park, and came to a violent halt, its right front fender intimately close to a long wall of golden-hued Jerusalem stone that towered above their heads. Bohannon pulled on the flak jacket.

“Let’s go. Bohannon, you’re with me.” Fischoff pressed the shoulder mic. “Two-by-two, corporal. Through the gate. Then bear right, to the stairs.”

Fischoff squeezed through the right side door. Bohannon stood with the driver by the left fender, conscious of his empty hands as he watched the four soldiers cradle their Uzis in front of their chests.

“You okay?”

Tom looked down into the face of Sammy Rizzo. The wise guy was long gone.

“Scared,” said Tom, “but, yeah.”

“Remember when we were here last time?” said Rizzo. “Seems like a lifetime ago.”

Just south of the Jaffa Gate, the Citadel—commonly but inaccurately called David’s Tower—had been planted on the most exposed flank of Jerusalem since long before the time of Herod the Great. Every conqueror had added to this stronghold, which held a dominant view over the Old City—Herod built three massive towers; the Romans expanded and strengthened the walls; the Ottoman Turks added a soaring minaret. Was it only one month ago that Bohannon, Rizzo, Rodriguez, and Doc stood on the parapet of the Citadel, staring across the Old City to the Dome of the Rock and the Temple Mount? Yes, a lifetime ago.

“Weapons check,” whispered the sergeant, pulling Bohannon into the dangerous present.

Standing erect, Fischoff was smaller than Bohannon realized. Taut, sinuous muscles defined his arms and legs. The sergeant looked like the kind of guy who could eat nails for breakfast. He looked over his expanded squad and motioned the first two soldiers down along the ancient stone wall. Rizzo, his armored vest slipping and sliding with every step, jogged to keep up with the fast-moving corporal.

Halfway down the wall, the first group stopped. They were on a narrow lane, the Old City wall on their right. Bohannon could hear steady activity on the Hativat Yerushalayim, the main road to his left, traffic winding around the Old City even at this hour.

Fischoff led off at a trot, paused momentarily next to the first pair of soldiers, then moved again along the wall, stopping just short of a narrow wooden door. It was padlocked from the outside.

Fischoff’s driver stepped forward, reached into the right thigh pocket of his fatigue pants, and pulled out a stout, but compact, cutting tool. He wrapped the blades around the hasp of the rusty old lock, and squeezed.

Rizzo and his group arrived at the sound of the dull snap. The corporal’s group crossed to the far side of the door and crouched against the wall, mimicking Fischoff’s group. Bohannon, crouching between the sergeant and his driver, could sense the eye contact between sergeant and corporal. The corporal’s hand reached out and opened the door as if a bolt of lightning was waiting to be loosed from the other side.

Fischoff glanced inside, left, along the angle of the open door. Inching it farther open, he tucked his head around for a glance in the opposite direction. They were in shadow, below the lights that illuminated the walls of old Jerusalem. Fischoff nodded his head forward. First the driver moved around Bohannon and the sergeant, slipped inside the door to its far side, and turned his body and his Uzi to cover their backs as they came through the wall. Then it was Rizzo, trailing his team. When Fischoff broke, he didn’t stop on the other side of the door as the others had but ran straight and low across the open space and ducked under the overhang of a portico.

Bohannon hesitated.

The ground in the open space, a courtyard in its distant past, was a honeycomb of sinkholes and raised edges, collapsing in some places, sticking up like ragged fingers in others.

The sergeant had raced across what looked like the top of an old wall, maybe
twelve inches across, with gaping holes falling away intermittently on both sides. With others running up behind him, Bohannon was forced to move. He sucked in a desperate breath, focused his eyes on his feet, and ran. Fischoff was waiting. His scowl asked the question for him.

“Caught me by surprise,” said Bohannon, his voice barely a whisper. “Just a little intimidated by—”

“Let’s go,” Fischoff hissed. “Down,” he said to the corporal, pointing to the stairs, then spun on his heel and led Bohannon and the driver into the dark of the ancient Citadel.

“What’s your name?”

“Fischoff.”

Bohannon and the sergeant were pressed into a small alcove under the stairs leading to David’s Tower, catching their breath, looking for any movement and listening for any sound from above.

“No, your first name.”

“Sergeant.”

Their whispers traveled inches. Their eyes and ears stretched to unknown heights.

There were two towers lifting a hundred feet from the floor of the Citadel. The far tower was clearly a creation of the Crusaders, as square and solid as the Germanic knights who erected it after the second great European invasion. It was one of the corner battlements of the fortress, an integral part of the walls. Above them a second tower stretched into the sky. This one was also squat and square at the bottom, fastened to the wall of the Citadel by centuries of mortar and old stone. At the top of the wall’s first rampart, the tower left the security of the fortress wall and became a round minaret visible throughout the city. At its peak, the spiral flattened out again and supported a square room with balconies from which the imams would call the faithful to prayer.

Sergeant Fischoff looked up at the spiraling tower, then over toward the square Crusader tower. There was a ten- to twelve-foot gap between the square tower and the platform pinnacle of the Islamic minaret. Bohannon watched, perspiration spreading across his forehead, as the sergeant looked back and forth between the two towers. He appeared to be uncertain, choosing his route.

“If it were me,” Fischoff whispered to himself, “I’d be in the square tower . . . two men guarding the base . . . the rest at the top. Easier to defend. Easier to escape.”

The sergeant stiffened. He was getting ready. He turned his head to the driver. “Stay here. Make sure no one comes out of those towers except us . . . and the women.”

He met Bohannon’s eyes. “Stay close.”

Before Bohannon could respond, the sergeant bolted out of the stone alcove.