She pulled her hand away. “I’ve known you for fifteen years and you’ve been ‘protecting’ me the whole time?”
He nodded.
Tears fought in the back of her throat. “I trusted you. I thought you were my only friend.”
He looked about ready to cry. “I am your friend.”
She gave him the meanest look she could muster and her voice got cold. “What was there to protect me from?”
He reached for her hand but stopped and settled his hands in his lap. “It is complicated but we knew that sooner or later they would find you and use you. We couldn’t have predicted how or when. So we had to stay close.”
Nothing made sense. “Why is everyone so intent on protecting me? It’s hard to believe I’m so special I warrant my own bodyguard even though I have no money, no connections, don’t care about anything but curing a bovine disease. And let’s see, when you met me, I didn’t even have that going for me.”
“You don’t understand. The Jews knew about you before you were even born. They have been directing you toward this moment.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh for the love of cheese.”
“It’s true. The Jews believe prophecy points to your pivotal role in rebuilding the Temple.”
“You’re full of malarky.” She held out her hand. “I want the samples you took.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have them.”
“Really?” she said, her voice dripping sarcasm. “Then who does?”
“The same people who stole the data from my computer. The Jews, Annie. And David is one of them.”
She wanted to slap him! No, she really didn’t want to put a hand to his face. It looked so painful. But she wanted him to shut up. “David has nothing to do with any of this.”
“Please believe me. Your life depends on it.”
“Why would I believe anything you’ve ever said or ever will say? We’re through.”
His eyes teared up. “I love you, Annie.” He said it plainly as if he pointed out a common DNA sequence.
“You don’t lie to people you love.”
“You do whatever you have to do to protect people you love. Even if it risks your life.”
She felt her lips turn up in contempt but her heart felt as though a dull scalpel slashed through it. “Cut the crap, Hassan. I want the samples. Now that I know you for what you are, there’s no reason for me to stop the research.”
He blinked to clear the moisture from his eyes and looked down at his hands. “You have to stop the research. You are in danger.”
She stood, anything to keep the pain of his betrayal from turning into tears. “And you’re paranoid. You lied to me. You aren’t my friend. You’re probably just what David warned me you were, a murderer and religious freak.”
He reached up and grabbed her wrist. With surprising force he pulled her down beside him. “Listen to me for a minute.”
She glared at him. Hassan began in a low voice. “Even though there are different branches of Islam, much like the different churches in the Christian faith, Muslims believe in the oneness of Allah. Islam is not a religion of violence and conquest, as some would like you to believe. It is based on total commitment to the Oneness of God. Islam respects other religions and invites all racial and ethnic groups to accept our tenets. We wish to be at peace with the East and West but will not be dominated by them.”
She folded her arms as much to protect herself as to reject Hassan. She resisted but as he’d talked she’d heard the devotion in his voice, his gentleness, his care. He sounded like the same Hassan who had been beside her through all the terrible pain and loss in her life. She couldn’t imagine him wishing harm on anyone. And yet, he’d lied to her as long as she’d known him. Her heart and head weren’t in sync. She didn’t know which to believe, the heart that said Hassan was a loyal and dear friend, the family she’d lost? Or the head that said Hassan was a liar with a secret agenda?
Hassan continued his lecture. “The Silim is sworn to protect the Dome of the Rock. We aren’t trying to convert others because we know that eventually the world will accept the Oneness of God without coercion. But we can’t be passive and let the violent and fanatical Jews take what Allah has given us to defend.”
“You’re talking about the Dome? What does bombing a kibbutz and killing Avrel get you as far as the Dome is concerned?”
He clenched his teeth a moment then said softly. “The Silim didn’t bomb the kibbutz.”
“Right.”
A crackle of a loudspeaker wafted over the people in the plaza and a man began to talk in excited Arabic.
Hassan resumed in his reasonable voice. “Jerusalem was captured by Muslims without bloodshed in 639 A.D. Can you imagine how long ago that was? Except for the Crusades, Jerusalem was always ours, until 1917, when Britain took over. Jerusalem has been occupied since then.”
Annie fought with her temper. “Let me get this straight: Muslims think Mohammed tagged this place for them. The Christians think Jesus gave them dibs. And the Jews are convinced God wants them to do a scrape-off of the Dome and build on the lot.”
Hassan didn’t look pleased with her flip retort. “I’ve seen your face when you speak about the ranch where you grew up. You know the land is alive. Place is more real than time. I think you know that.”
Annie gritted her teeth against the pain of loss. She closed her eyes and saw the grass-covered hills of the Nebraska ranch. The big bluestem, switchgrass, and wild wheat rippling gold, red and brown in the sparkling fall sunlight. Soft honking from a V of southbound geese floated through the air. The sun warmed her face, even as the brisk breeze riffled her hair, freeing strands from her braid. Home.
The voice over the loudspeaker had the crowd sending up periodic cheers.
Hassan continued. “You know my family was originally from Jerusalem. We lived here for hundreds of years. But we were driven out by the Jews. And what’s more, they destroyed the graves of our ancestors. We immigrated to Syria, and in the 1960’s, my parents moved to Detroit.”
“Yeah? Well my family immigrated, too. My great-great grandfather made it from England to Ohio, his son went to Iowa, then to Nebraska, where the land has passed from generation to generation.”
Hassan smiled sadly. “Yes, but your family moved toward opportunity. My family ran from persecution.”
A group of ten rowdy young men filled the pathway in front of their bench. The men jostled and spoke in rapid, loud voices. The whole area filled with people.
“I understand how your family felt they belonged here, but it has nothing to do with God giving it to Islam,” she said. “Jerusalem is a city like any other city, just with more effective marketing so everyone believes it’s filled with God’s special favor.”
Hassan looked sad. “It is sacred. Why are you hiding the holiness of this place from yourself?”
Annie scowled at a man eying her from the other side of the loud group of young men. “I’m not hiding anything. I just don’t have the imagination the rest of you seem to.”
“You can’t deny God forever. I see you flinch and turn away. He will demand you turn to him.”
“As long as I turn as a Muslim, right?”
He sounded slightly impatient. “I’m not here to convert you.”
“No, you’re here to ‘protect’ me. To keep me from continuing my research. You’re a hero, Hassan. Thanks.”
She realized English was coming from the loudspeaker. She tried to focus to understand what the voice said. “Only when this nation launches a jihad against the Zionist thieves and hate-filled settlers, will we fulfill our obligation to Allah. Allah shall take revenge on behalf of his prophet against colonist settlers who are sons of monkeys and pigs.”
Annie lifted her eyebrows to Hassan. “Nice guy.”
Hassan looked embarrassed. “I can’t control what they say. But you must believe me when I tell you that I’d never hurt anyone. Not unless they threaten something or someone I love.”
She gave him a disbelieving look.
He looked down again as if trying to build up courage to speak. He took a deep breath and searched her face. “I know you’re not going to like this. I hate it, too. But it is the only way to keep you safe.”
Alarms went off in her head. She searched the crowd. A large man with dark skin and hair snaked toward her. She looked the other way and saw a smaller man every bit as focused on her. She spun to Hassan. “What is going on?”
He put a hand on her arm. “I promise you will not be hurt. We just need to keep you out of harm’s way for a while.”
She wrenched from his grasp and stood up. “You’re kidnapping me?”
He shook his head, looking distressed. “No. We’re saving you.”
The two men were closing in on her.
Annie bolted through a tight group of older men in long robes. Whether their shouts and jeers were against her or for the vitriolic voice on the loudspeaker she didn’t care. She raced to the gates, shoving and dodging.
“Annie!” Hassan shouted at her.
He was following her, too. He shouldn’t run with his broken ribs and bruises. Let him run, she corrected herself. He lied to her and tried to kidnap her, why should she care if he hurt himself.
Just as she reached a family group with men, women and children knotted together, a hand landed on her back, fingers scrambling to grab her shirt. She dropped her shoulder and plowed into two plump, middle-aged women in headscarves and loose knit pants. The hand on her shoulder lost purchase and a jolt of adrenaline shot her away from the shouting, complaining women.
Annie flew out the nearly closed gates and down the stairs, taking several at a time, shoving and bumping faceless people.
Hassan’s voice sounded further away. “Wait! Annie! Please…”
EIGHT
Annie crashed through the gate and flew down the stairs, knocking into people and banging against the stone wall. Where was David?
Behind her Hassan appeared in the gateway and started down the stairs, holding his ribs with each step. The other men stayed at the gate within the confines of Al Aksa. They probably didn’t want to venture outside into a crowd that wasn’t purely Muslim.
It seemed to Annie that there were people everywhere, and they all had angry faces. She had no way of knowing if they were Muslim, Jewish, disturbed tourists, or like her, just trying to survive.
The area before her opened into a wide plaza facing an expanse of wall. Across a low barrier Annie looked over an open courtyard with knots of people scattered throughout and a larger gathering around a man next to the wall. One side of the area was sealed off with a huge wall of sandstone bricks rising above the ground about fifty feet. Chairs were shoved against the wall, facing it, and twenty feet away stood a waist-high concrete barricade. The wide area in front of the wall was partitioned in two sections by a set of panels. A checkpoint, guarded by armed soldiers, stood at the left of the plaza.
Blocks of sandstone looked to be about four feet high on the bottom and gradually decreased in size. Spidery green ferns grew out of cracks between broken and ill-fitting blocks.
Annie searched for David, glancing over her shoulder frequently to check on the progress of Hassan. He had disappeared in the crowd or maybe given up and gone back to Al Aksa.
She spotted David just as he saw her. He was on the other side of the plaza on the outskirts of the crowd gathering around the man with a bullhorn. He started for her, a look of concern clouding his handsome face. Annie fought the crowd to get to him, anxious to put more distance between her and whoever chased her. And even more anxious to be close to David.
The man standing on the knoll at the other end of the plaza held a bullhorn to his face. He wore a white button-up shirt that had come untucked from black trousers. His long, curling side hair looked Orthodox, yet he seemed to be a mixed bag of different sects. “The words of our Sages instruct us in an endless number of sources, and it is explicit in Mishpat Kohen, section 94, ‘If there will be a desire, that we rebuild the Temple, even before the Messiah comes.’ My people. The Lord’s chosen people. We have a desire. Today we will lay the cornerstone. It is time for the Messiah.”
A cheer went up from the crowd around him. More people squeezed into the plaza, and all of them were men. Several of them gave her disapproving looks but most had tense expressions and didn’t pay any attention to her.
David reached her and leaned close. “This is the men’s side. You can’t be here.”
A man in a black suit knocked her into David. “What is this place?” she asked.
“The Wailing Wall. The closest they’ll let us get to the Temple Mount to pray.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the street.
Shouting voices rose from a side street. A crowd surged toward her. She scrambled to get out of their way but they overtook her and carried her along in their fervor. She lost her hold on David’s hand. Fear sucked air from her lungs and her heart thundered like a runaway stage. She fought to get to David but his face receded into the press of men.
The men surrounding her all wore black: hats, coats, long curls, and they chanted something Annie didn’t understand. Moving against them was like battling a dangerous undertow.
The people gathered in the plaza roared with excitement. The whole place thrummed with expectation. Chanting turned into song. The man on the bullhorn joined the group and shouted, “The cornerstone is here. We are doing the Lord’s will today. Blessed be Israel!”
Growing panic pulsed through Annie. She felt trapped, forced along with the crowd toward the wall. She searched for David, wanting desperately to get out of the roiling mass of people.
From the corner of her eye she saw something drop from the sky. A man raised his arm above his head. Suddenly more objects fell. People screamed and shielded their heads. A man next to her cried out and dropped to the ground, grabbing his head. Blood seeped between his fingers.
A stinging blow grazed her ear, followed by a smashing on her shoulder that drove her to her knees, numbing her arm. She finally understood that people above, on Al Aksa, were hurling rocks into the crowd. Covering her head with her good arm, she struggled to her feet and fought the mob to get away from the onslaught.