The Lance (The PROJECT: Book Two) (6 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Carter
looked at the message on his satellite pone. 

Alpha
Red. 3P.FC.XG.E5.

Jesus, what now? Alpha Red was the equivalent of the Titanic sending up flares. He sent a burst acknowledging the message.
He decided to keep Arslanian's flash drive to himself for the moment.

He and Rivka were in
Herzog's office, watching the arrival of President Rice on television. Air Force One taxied to a precise halt at the end of a long red carpet. The carpet was lined on both sides by a platoon of honor guards in white and blue uniforms. Daniel Ascher, the Prime Minister of Israel, waited with key members of his cabinet at the end of the red pathway.

The President
appeared at the door of the plane and waved. He descended the steps with his security detail, followed by the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor. He stopped to speak with one of the soldiers standing at attention, then continued on to the welcoming party. The two leaders shook hands.

Rice
was here to try and get agreement for establishing a Palestinian capitol in East Jerusalem, captured during the 1967 War. East Jerusalem was the Old City, the heart of three religions. Most people in the region, Muslim, Jew and Christian alike, were opposed to any solution that gave up any part of Jerusalem to anyone. There were large protests planned and threats of violence. The Prime Minister and the President had their work cut out for them.

Ari turned off the monitor
. He leaned back and steepled his fingers in front of him.

"
So. Tomorrow your President speaks to the world from in front of the al-Aqsa Mosque, to call for peace."

Nick
tugged on his ear. "You don't sound enthusiastic."

"
I think it will create trouble, not peace."

"You must have serious security issues."

"Security will be maximum. We're placing armored vehicles and troops around the Temple Mount. Only one hundred people are invited for the speech, all fully vetted. Rice and the Prime Minister will be surrounded by security people from half a dozen agencies. The
Waqf
has been difficult, but they have decided to cooperate."

"
The Waqf?"

"
That's the Muslim authority for the Mount," Rivka broke in. "
Waqf
means
holding
in Arabic."

Ari sighed. "T
here will be many problems because of this speech. As usual, politics gets in the way of common sense."

"
Any luck on the mall bombing?"

"
The bomb was in a backpack. One hundred and thirty-seven dead and over two hundred more wounded. We're still counting. No one has yet claimed responsibility."

Ari
clenched his hand into a fist, made an effort to straighten his fingers. He picked up a glossy 8 X 10 photograph and handed it to Nick. It was a picture of the white Volvo, taken from one of the omnipresent cameras monitoring the streets and highways of Israel.

Nick tapped the picture. "
That's him. The one in the passenger seat had the phone."

"
The car was stolen. We found it five kilometers from the alley where you were attacked. The occupants are unknown to us."

"
A dead end."

"
So far. We are a patient people, Nick. We'll find them."

Rivka took off her scarf and shook down her hair, ran her fingers through it. It was a rich, deep brown, almost black, with a long,
flowing wave.

"
Let's talk about Arslanian," Ari said. "The fact he was killed tells us there must be substance to whatever he wanted to tell you. His assassin knew you were coming and tried to kill you as well. There's no purpose to that unless you are a threat to whatever is being planned."

"That makes sense
. But no one is supposed to know I'm here or why. Just a few people on my end and now your people here in Israel. There aren't many, in either case. On top of that, I haven't learned squat."

"
Squat?"

"
Anything of value."

"
Ah, but you have. Someone is worried you will find out something, therefore there is something to be found out. It seems someone has betrayed you. The question is who?"

Nick
thought of Harker's signal.

Alpha Red.

Ari leaned back in his chair.
"Arslanian was researching the Holocaust, particularly the criminal SS and Himmler's role in the so called final solution. He visited Germany two weeks ago."

"Do you think that has something to do with his death?"

"With Nazis, anything is possible," Ari said. "In Israel, the Holocaust was not so long ago."

Rivka tossed her head and pushed her hair back over her shoulder.
"What's next, Ari?"

"
We keep looking for the men in the Volvo. We watch everything around the President. Nick, you're seen as a threat to the opposition. Perhaps we can turn that to our advantage."

"Why do
I get a feeling you're thinking advantage as in bait?"

Ari shrugged, held up his hands, palms up.
"I wouldn't put it quite like that. But someone wants you out of the picture. They might try again. If they do, we have a chance to grab them."

"
Not if they're sitting on a roof somewhere with a rifle and a nice, big scope." Carter felt a headache beginning.

"
Then you should stay away from places where a sniper might have a good shot." He smiled. "No, I think if they come after you it will be, as you Americans say, up close and personal. Rivka will walk you around the Old City and I'll assign backup. It's possible we can draw them out."

Carter
couldn't think of a better plan. If painting a target on his chest would flush out the people who had killed Arslanian, it was worth it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Carter and Rivka sat in the Quarter Café, overlooking the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. The golden Dome of the Rock glowed in the late afternoon light. The view was fantastic, the food less so, but the strong
katzar
coffee was just what he needed. Nick's legs ached from wandering the maze of Old Jerusalem. His back felt like it was in a vise. The knife wound throbbed. His headache was constant.

Getting old, he thought. Maybe it's time to pack it up.

"One more sight." Rivka set down her empty cup. She was enjoying it, showing him around her city. Even waiting for something to happen.

Nick groaned.

"Let's go see the tunnels."

"Tunnels?"

"You can't see Jerusalem without seeing the tunnels. They're right over there." Rivka nodded at an arched entrance below the Mount. "There are old cisterns, chambers, dead ends. It's a maze. Where people pray is just a small portion of the Wall. There's a tunnel that follows the wall for several hundred meters under the Mount."

They walked down into Kotel Plaza, the large square where people prayed in front of the Wall. At the entrance to the tunnels, signs in Hebrew and English proclaimed "The Western Wall Heritage."

An open gate of black iron led to an arched chamber of grayish stone. They walked through the next arch and entered a long corridor. Walls of stone formed a long, narrow passageway lit by pools of yellow light at regular intervals. Far down the tunnel a group of sightseers chattered as they moved along.

Behind them a middle aged couple gawked, the man pointing his video camera everywhere. The woman was dressed in a yellow polyester dress with pink accents, her lipstick too red, her hair a damaged bottle blonde. The man was about forty, broad shouldered and red cheeked. He wore a Cincinnati Reds baseball cap. There was no mistaking American tourists.

Nick and Rivka moved along the tunnel. They came to a side passage opening onto another stone chamber. Far ahead, the group of sightseers paid no attention. Perhaps it was the long day or not enough sleep, but when it happened Nick wasn't ready.

He felt the hard barrel of a pistol in the small of his back and wasn't tired anymore. The tourist couple had come up behind, quiet as cats. The peroxide blonde slipped alongside
Rivka, her left hand concealed under a shawl. She placed her right hand on Rivka's shoulder and gripped her on the pressure point. Rivka gasped with pain.

"Just step right in there," Blondie said. "No moves. You won't make it before you're dead."

The four of them stepped down into a small room of ancient, fitted stone. Another narrow tunnel led away into darkness. It was unlit. A large sign in three languages warned that the passage was unsafe and closed to tours.

"Let's see what's down there, shall we?" Blondie's companion pressed his pistol harder into Carter's back. He smelled of cigarettes.

"What do you want?" Nick said. "All I've got is traveler's checks. They won't do you any good."

"Shut up, asshole."

They moved past the sign and into the unlit passage.

Rivka said, "If you kill us, you'll never leave Israel alive. You know that, don't you?"

The woman sneered. "Shut your mouth, you Jewish bitch. You have no idea."

Nick glanced over at Rivka. She tipped her head, a tiny movement.

The couple were too close. It was a mistake to get too close. It cut down the advantage of a gun. Close was for instant killing strikes, or incapacitating an opponent.

Nick knocked the man's gun arm away with his elbow and drove stiffened fingers into the soft area below the sternum. His fingers slammed into a rigid surface and pain exploded in his hand. The man was wearing a Kevlar vest.

The gun went off. Nick felt the bullet tug at his jacket. His attacker staggered back, raised the gun. Nick's left hand was useless, his arm numb to the elbow. He threw a forearm strike to the throat. The man went down.

Rivka whirled and landed a vicious hit with her elbow to Blondie's kidney. The woman arched backward in pain and Rivka kicked the gun from her hand. It bounced along the stone floor. Nick pulled out his .45.

It should have been enough. The paralyzing blows should have ended it. The man brought up another pistol, his second mistake. Nick shot him in the face. The back of his head disintegrated in a thick spray of blood and bone that plastered the rock behind him. The round whined away down the passage.

"Jew bitch!"

The woman grabbed a snub nosed pistol from under her dress. Rivka fired twice and the yellow dress bloomed with red.

The shots echoed from the ancient stones.

Someone began yelling in the main tunnel outside. Waves of pain ran up Nick's arm. Ripples of light moved just behind his eyes. He held his left hand against his chest and bent over the man's body. He went through the pockets, looking for identification. Nothing. Rivka searched the woman's purse. She looked up, shook her head.

"Nothing here."

"Not here, either."

Nick felt where the bullet had grazed him. A rip in his shirt, a little blood, another ruined jacket. The pain began to subside in his arm.

"You all right?" Rivka looked at Nick.

"Yeah. They're dead."

Rivka's eyebrows went up. "You think? What gave you that impression?"

"I mean, they're not going to tell us much, are they?"

"Not in words. But they had to come from somewhere. We'll track them down." Rivka looked down at the woman and the blood pooling under the yellow dress.

"Somebody really doesn't like you, Nick."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A mixed tour group of college students waited to enter Solomon's Stables, at the south eastern corner of the Temple Mount. Security was tight. Students were allowed to carry only tourist guides and literature. Cameras were forbidden. Backpacks were forbidden. A pile of them was stacked outside the entrance under the watchful eye of a security guard.

A tall, blond man
in his mid-twenties waited for the tour to begin. He was absorbed in a travel guide he held in his hand, reading about the Stables.

King Herod had built the chambers to support the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount, back in the first century, before the Temple had been destroyed by the Romans. The Stables covered an area of 5000 square feet. It was formed from
a series of high, vaulted passages lined with eighty-eight rows of pillars and arches, some of the arches thirty feet wide. A thousand years after Herod, the Crusaders had stabled their horses there and left the name. Holes in the rock could still be seen where the Templar knights had tied the animals' reins. Now the Stables housed the el-Marwani mosque, open to tours except during prayers.

T
hirteen meters above the floor of the cavernous space, preparations for President Rice's speech were under way. The halls and arches of the stables extended beneath the spot where Rice would stand and partway under the al-Aqsa Mosque.

The tour guide led his charges into the famous chambers and began his commentary. The students
straggled in spite of the guide's admonitions. The tall young man drifted further behind the group, then ducked into one of the side passages.

He knew where to go.
He stopped in a dim recess. He opened the book and removed the bomb. He checked his watch. He set the timer and molded the explosive against the stone, in the exact place where aerial sonar scans had shown a serious fracture in the bedrock supporting the mosque above.

It took only a minute.
His father was going to be proud of him.