Maria knew well that attempting to transport the HMX explosives into and through the country was another matter. Zakkar and his associates in the Mules could handle that risk, at a cost that was well worth the price. The Arab smuggler had carefully outlined to Maria how the explosives would be transported via truck, then on foot, even strapped to the bellies of a herd of sheep at one point, in order to reach the destination without being detected by the Israeli security forces.
But that was only half of the challenge. The Turkish woman had other equally important business to conduct in person. With the help of a tourist map, they entered the busy streets of Jerusalem, bypassing the Old City in making their way to one of the newer neighborhoods to the west. Locating the recently opened Waldorf Astoria Hotel, they parked their car on the street and walked to the next block south. Tucked into a row of trendy tourist shops, they found a tiny teahouse, with strings of beads shading the windows, and stepped inside.
At a corner table in the dimly lit café, Maria spotted a bearded man rise to his feet and smile in her direction, revealing a gold-plated front tooth. Maria approached him with her Janissary in tow.
“Al-Khatib?” she asked.
“At your service,” the Palestinian replied, bending toward her in a slight bow. “Won’t you join me?”
Maria nodded and sat down at the table with the Janissary beside her. Al-Khatib took a seat across from them and poured them each a cup of tea. Maria noticed that he had the sunbaked skin and callused hands of an old artifact plunderer, which was exactly what he was.
“Welcome to Jerusalem,” he said by way of a toast.
“Thank you,” Maria replied, gazing around the room to ensure there were no prying ears nearby.
“Have you succeeded with the task for which you were hired?” she asked in a low voice.
“Yes, with ease,” the Palestinian replied, smiling again. “The aqueduct was exactly where you indicated it would be. It is an amazing historical validation. May I ask where you obtained the research data?”
It was Maria’s turn to smile.
“As you know, the present wall around the Old City was constructed by Suleiman the Magnificent in the early fifteen hundreds. His engineers mapped the route in detail, incorporating the locations of existing obstructions. The maps, which we have acquired in Turkey, are replete with abandoned aqueducts and other features constructed back to the Age of Herod, which have since been lost or hidden.”
“A marvelous discovery, and one that I would love to examine some time,” al-Khatib said hungrily.
“I’m afraid I didn’t bring the documents with me on this trip,” she lied. “My family has an extensive collection of Ottoman artifacts, and the maps were part of a larger acquisition.” She neglected to mention that they had all been stolen from a museum in Ankara.
“Historical documents of prized value, I should think. May I ask the purpose of the excavation?”
Maria brushed aside the inquiry. “You were able to expand the opening around the aqueduct?” she countered.
“Yes, I have done as you requested. I quietly enlarged the opening, then burrowed a meter or two into the hillside. The entrance is properly concealed by scrub brush.”
“Excellent,” Maria replied, then reached into her pack and retrieved an envelope filled with Israeli banknotes. Al-Khatib’s eyes widened as she slid the fat envelope across the table.
“There is a bonus for your timely work,” she said.
“I am most grateful,” the Palestinian gushed, quickly stuffing the envelope into his pocket.
Maria finished her cup of tea, then said, “You will show us to the site now.”
Al-Khatib looked at his watch with dismay. “It will be dark shortly, but there is a bright moon tonight.”
Then he saw the cold, determined look in Maria’s eyes and quickly backpedaled.
“Of course, if that is what you wish,” he stammered. “Do you have a car?”
He paid the bill, then the trio made their way down the street to the rental. Following al-Khatib’s directions, Maria drove around the southern end of the Old City, then turned north into the Kidron Valley. The Palestinian directed her to the fringe of an ancient Muslim cemetery, where Maria concealed the car behind an adjacent stone warehouse that was crumbling at the seams.
Their shadows disappeared under the approaching twilight as the Janissary removed a pickax and a bag filled with electric lanterns from the rear of the car. He and Maria then followed the Palestinian as he hopped over a low stone wall and wound his way through the dusty cemetery. The grounds were all but deserted at the late hour, but the group kept to the remote western section, well away from a mosque in the center and a side road to the east. The Janissary did his best to conceal the ax, hiding the business end under his arm as he walked.
To the east of them rose the Mount of Olives, dominated by a large Jewish cemetery and several churches and gardens. Rising from a hillside to their immediate west stood the towering stone wall that surrounded the Old City. Just over the wall was the original Temple Mount, now occupied by the al-Haram ash-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary. At the center of the holy grounds was the Dome of the Rock, a towering structure that housed the stone upon which Abraham had prepared to sacrifice his son. In Islamic tradition, that rock was also deemed the departure point for Muhammad’s visit to heaven during his Night Journey, earmarked by his footprint in the stone. Maria could just make out the top of the Muslim shrine’s large gold dome, the towering structure appearing maple brown in the fading light.
Al-Khatib reached the simple marker of a Muslim Emir who’d died in the sixteenth century and turned left. Stepping to the end of an irregular row of grave sites, he began climbing the rocky hillside that rose sharply toward the Old City. Maria fumbled for a flashlight in her pack but kept it turned off, stumbling over rocks and scrub, until reaching a slight plateau, where al-Khatib slowed.
“We are close,” he whispered.
Flicking on his own penlight, he led them higher up the hill, stopping finally beside a pair of desert shrubs. Panting for breath, Maria noticed that both plants were actually dead, their roots wedged into a small mound of stones. Behind the dead shrubs was an orderly stack of limestone rocks.
“It is behind here,” al-Khatib said, waving his light toward the plants. He turned and nervously scanned up and down the hillside to ensure they were not being observed.
“There are occasional security patrols in this area,” he cautioned.
Maria pulled out the pair of night vision goggles and carefully scanned the surroundings. The nearby sounds of the city wafted down the valley, and a blanket of lights twinkled across the surrounding hills. But all was empty in the cemetery below.
“There is no one about,” she confirmed.
Al-Khatib nodded, then knelt down and began tossing the stones aside. When a small opening appeared, Maria ordered the Jannisary to assist. Together, the two men quickly cleared away a concealed entrance, exposing a narrow passageway almost five feet in height. After removing all of the obstructions, the Palestinian stood and rested.
“The aqueduct was actually quite small,” he said to Maria, circling his hands together in a tight diameter. “A good deal of digging was required to enlarge it.”
Maria looked at the man without pity as she considered the original construction history. The aqueduct opening found on the hillside was simply an outlet, she knew, for a much more elaborate engineering feat. Nearly two thousand years before, Roman engineers under Herod had constructed a series of aqueducts from the distant hills of Hebron, which brought fresh water to the town and the fortress of Antonia, built on the site of the Temple Mount. The aqueducts were all constructed by hand, by laborers much more fit than the pudgy Palestinian who stood before her, Maria thought.
She held her flashlight to the mouth of the passage and flicked it on. The light revealed a narrow tunnel that ran five feet into the hillside. In the rear, she could see the small aqueduct opening at floor level, which continued deeper into the dirt wall. The tunnel was cleanly carved, and Maria could see that al-Khatib had excavated it with some skill.
“You have done nice work,” she told him, turning off her light. Then she took the pickax from the Janissary and handed it to the Palestinian.
“I need you to dig another two or three feet,” she demanded.
The well-paid artifact hunter readily nodded, hoping for an additional bonus while curious as to the task at hand. Taking a lantern from the Janissary, he squeezed to the rear of the tunnel and began digging into the rocky wall. The Janissary stepped in behind him and with gloved hands began removing the loose dirt and chipped debris accumulating around al-Khatib’s feet.
As Maria stood watch near the entrance, al-Khatib labored steadily, swinging the ax for nearly twenty minutes straight and carving away several more feet of soil. Breathing hard, he laid a heavy stroke into the hillside, feeling an odd lightness through the ax’s handle. Yanking back the ax, he realized he had punched a hole through to an open space behind the wall of dirt. The startled Palestinian stopped and held up the lantern. He could see only a black expanse of emptiness through the small hole but marveled at the rush of cool air that flowed through it.
With renewed energy, he furiously attacked the barrier, quickly expanding the hole to man-size. Pushing the debris aside, he barreled through the opening with the lantern, stumbling into a wide, high-ceiling cavern.
“Praise be Allah,” he gasped, tossing the pickax aside as he gazed at the far walls.
They reflected alabaster white because of the electric lantern and revealed even rows of chisel marks. Al-Khatib’s trained eye recognized the rock as limestone, showing where large blocks had been cut and removed by hand.
“A quarry, like Zedekiah’s Cave,” he blurted as Maria and the Janissary entered with another pair of lanterns.
“Yes,” Maria replied. “Only this one was lost to history when the Second Temple was destroyed.”
Beneath the walls of the Old City, less than a mile away, was another vast cave, carved by slaves who chiseled limestone for Herod the Great’s many engineering projects. Its name was acquired from the last king of Judah, Zedekiah, who reportedly used it as a hiding place to escape the armies of Nebuchadnezzar.
With the added light, the trio could see that the quarry dispersed into multiple passages, extending like fingers of a hand into the darkness. Al-Khatib eyed a large main tunnel that stretched directly east as far as he could see.
“This must extend well under the Haram ash-Sharif,” he said uneasily.
Maria nodded in reply.
“And the Dome of the Rock?” he asked, tension apparent in his voice.
“The Dome’s sacred stone is itself situated on bedrock, but the main tunnel does underlie the structure. Another tunnel approaches the al-Aqsa Mosque, in addition to other points on the grounds. That is, if Suleiman’s maps are accurate, which they have proven to be so far.”
The Palestinian’s face turned pale as his initial excitement turned to trepidation.
“I do not wish to tread beneath the site of the sacred rock,” he said solemnly.
“That will not be necessary,” Maria replied. “Your work is finished.”
As she spoke, she reached into her pack and retrieved a compact Beretta pistol, which she leveled at the startled Palestinian.
Unlike her brother, Maria felt no rush or thrill at taking the life of another. In fact, she felt nothing at all. Committing murder was the emotional equivalent of changing her socks or eating a bowl of soup. They were at different ends of the sociopathic scale, products of abusive childhoods and genetic homogeneity, but they had both ended up as remorseless killers.
The pistol barked twice, sending a pair of slugs into al-Khatib’s chest as the echo of the shots reverberated loudly through the chamber. The relic hunter dropped to his knees, a momentary look of incomprehension in his eyes, before he fell over dead. Maria calmly walked over and removed the envelope of banknotes from his pocket and stuffed it in her pack. Then she glanced at her watch.
“We have less than an hour before the explosives are to be delivered,” she said to the Janissary. “Let us survey the quarry and select our sites.”
Stepping over the dead man’s body, she retrieved his lantern, then quickly scurried off into the dark.
45
I
T WAS NEARING TEN O’CLOCK WHEN SOPHIE PULLED INTO a small dirt lot outside the northeast wall of the Old City and parked behind a closed dress shop. Across the road and down a short hill was the northern tip of the Muslim cemetery, which meandered south across a widening gulch as part of the Kidron Valley headlands. Shutting off the ignition, she turned to Dirk, who gazed at her from the passenger seat.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked. “Most night operations turn out to be a boring exercise in futility.”
Dirk smiled as he nodded his head. “I’m not one to waste the chance for a stroll in the moonlight with a beautiful girl.”
Sophie suppressed a laugh. “You’re the only one I know who could find something romantic in a stakeout.”
But she had to admit to similar feelings. They had enjoyed an intimate dinner at a quiet Armenian café inside the Jaffa Gate, and as the evening progressed she developed a compelling desire to cancel the surveillance operation and invite him to her apartment instead. She quelled the notion, knowing the prospect of obtaining potential information about the killers of agent Holder was much too important.
“It’s not like Sam to be late,” she said, checking her watch, then gazing out the window for his vehicle.
A minute later, her cell phone vibrated, and she answered, speaking animatedly in Hebrew.
“It was Sam,” she said after hanging up. “He was in an auto accident.”