Authors: Michael Byrnes
After taking down one of the gunmen, Enoch rounded the ambulatory. That’s when seven robed men came charging across the rock, screaming like banshees. As far as he could tell, they weren’t armed. But he needed to get below the shrine immediately, which meant there was no time to negotiate. The best he could do was show some civility by shooting them low.
Enoch made three sweeps with the Galil, strafing the marauders below the knees, dropping six of them onto the rock. The seventh man managed to hobble even closer and gripped the railing to vault himself over it. A nasty shot to the groin put an end to those ambitions, and the man crumpled back onto the rock, screaming in agony.
Enoch went directly for the steps descending beneath an elaborate marble arch ornamented with gold Arabic text—the access way to the cave below the rock called the Well of Souls. He knew it to be a mystical realm where, according to legend, the voices of the dead could be heard. Running purely on adrenaline, he needed to remind himself not to be foolish and turn
himself
into one of the dead down there.
Ducking low, he peeked at the bottom of the steps. What little of the space below he could make out was brightly lit. There didn’t seem to be any shadows moving across the ornate Persian rugs covering the ground. It was also evident that there was nothing that would provide cover. If another gunman were hunkered down at the bottom of the stairs, he’d be a fish in a bowl. And this time, no Kevlar vest, either. Down there, at close range, head shots would be easy.
But if Cohen had secreted a bomb into the building, the cave would be the most logical place to position it: right where a strong explosion could be amplified enough to take down Islam’s sacred rock, right along with the foundation supporting the shrine’s walls.
And it all came tumbling down.
Taking a deep breath, he pressed forward, weapon at the ready on his shoulder, trying his best to keep his muscles loose and his trigger finger flexible.
The marble treads were like ice against his bare feet. He crouched low and dashed down the steps. Two thirds of the way to the bottom, he jumped and immediately did a tuck and roll when his feet connected with the ground. Heroism aside, he knew he stood a better chance moving abruptly and unevenly. Better than getting his legs shot out from under him.
One controlled tumble and Enoch rolled up into a well-executed crouch. He immediately depressed the Galil’s trigger and emptied a third of the clip in a wide sweep.
The biggest danger was the wild ricochets. One deflected round managed to graze his left shoulder.
The cave was empty. No hidden gunmen.
No bomb either.
Heart pounding, Enoch exhaled and pulled himself together.
That’s when he noticed the stark white angular casing of a newly installed security camera mounted high up the cave wall just beneath the stairs. And if he didn’t know any better, he’d swear that its lens winked in the light to tighten in on him.
“Crap.”
“Rumor has it you’re the next messiah,” a deep voice said.
Amazed that she was still alive, Charlotte eased her eyes open. There was a broad-shouldered guy with a goatee standing over her, smiling.
“Amit Mizrachi,” he said, introducing himself. He slung his machine gun over his shoulder and maneuvered to help her to her feet.
Dazed, Charlotte glanced over at the column, where, just beyond the railing, Cohen’s last gunman was facedown and spread-eagle, soaked with blood.
“Your throat all right?” He tried to see where the blood was coming from but couldn’t make out anything.
Probing it with her fingers, she found that the four-inch gash that had been there just seconds ago had already smoothed over. “Yeah. It . . . it is,” she said. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done if . . .”
“Looks like you handled yourself just fine without us,” Amit said, giving the rabbi’s charred corpse a sideways glance.
“Us?” Charlotte could see only dead bodies.
The rumble of rotor blades was shaking the cupola again, much closer now.
Then the second man materialized through an archway to her left. When he saw that Amit had secured the area, he slung his Galil over his shoulder and let out a whistle. “All clear below.”
As Enoch hopped the rail onto the rock and made his way over, a repulsed look twisted his face when he saw what had happened to Cohen. Despite the grotesqueness of it all, he found himself moving closer to inspect the body, and more important the magnificent glimmering relic looming over it. “What in hell—”
“Don’t touch the box!” Amit yelled over to him.
Startled, Enoch immediately fell back a step and held up his hands. “What the—?”
“Sorry,” Amit softly replied. “It’s just that . . . well, you can see what it did to the rabbi.” He’d barely glimpsed the rabbi go up in flames upon contact with the Ark’s lid.
“Gotcha.” He cringed again. It appeared to Enoch that the rabbi might have been the victim of intense radiation burn. His eyes suddenly went wide and he pointed to the Ark. “Is it nuclear?”
“Something like that,” Amit said. “But if you don’t touch it, you’ve got nothing to worry about.” That piece of Ark legend certainly seemed true. “Right, Charlotte?”
She pictured the glowing bones inside the Ark. Moses? Her eyes went back to Cohen’s charred corpse. Shaking her head, she didn’t quite know how to respond.
“Ah. There’s one up here too,” Enoch blurted, pointing to the cupola’s base where his gaze happened upon another discreetly mounted security camera. “Have a look.”
Taking two steps closer, Amit craned his head until he saw the device’s tiny lens glinting in the light. “Well, that should make things a bit more interesting.” If the camera wasn’t just for show, the Muslims were sure to have a field day with the footage.
“A camera downstairs got a great shot of me shooting up the Well of Souls, too,” Enoch confessed. “That can’t be good.”
Both Amit and Charlotte looked at him and cringed.
“What were you shooting at?” Amit said.
Enoch’s cheeks immediately reddened. He shrugged, saying: “It was a precaution.”
Amit’s eyebrows tipped up.
A stupendous mess.
And the Israelis were going to have one helluva a time spinning it all. Striding to the Rock’s edge and clambering over the railing, he inspected the walls above the ambulatory. Immediately he spotted another camera glaring down about three meters behind the Arab he’d riddled with bullets. He groaned in frustration.
“Another one?” Enoch yelled over.
“Yep,” he sighed.
“You did what you had to do,” Charlotte said. “If you hadn’t stopped him . . .” She motioned to the rabbi’s remains and the Israeli’s eyes followed. “Can you imagine what might have happened?”
“I suppose.” Slouching on the railing, Amit momentarily transfixed on the Ark. Did Cohen really believe that by returning the legendary relic to the Foundation Stone he’d invoke God’s retribution upon the Muslims? Did he expect legions of angels to come liberate Zion? Then again, what if Cohen
had
actually fulfilled his ambitions? Suddenly sensing the enormous weight of the death spread about him, Amit felt a cold chill come over him.
He knew the maelstrom had only just begun.
Amit and Enoch immediately collected the weapons from the two dead Palestinians and Cohen’s six guards and piled them in a faraway corner. Confirming that the seven robed men were all immobile and posed no threat (thanks to Enoch’s crafty shooting), they tossed their own weapons on the pile too. Then they sat beside Charlotte, in clear view of the shrine’s open doorway.
“Best to raise our hands so they don’t confuse us with the bad guys,” Enoch suggested.
They all raised their hands high.
A minute later, the rover bot came treading over the threshold and squeaked to a stop three meters from the door. Its camera arm telescoped out and panned side to side, then settled on the three survivors.
“Wave hello,” Enoch said. He waved and flashed a thumbs-up. Then he loudly reported his name and rank for the bot’s microphone. “All clear in here,” he added.
Within seconds, soldiers began funneling into the shrine with weapons drawn, fanning out along the ambulatory.
“Just don’t touch that big gold box over there!” Amit yelled to them as they passed by.
Charlotte conveyed instructions to the Israeli commanders on how Cohen’s men had safely covered and transported the Ark. Then Amit assisted her out of the shrine, holding her by the arm.
Amit was still buzzing with excitement. This night had far and away surpassed the raw excitement of any raid in Gaza. And having beheld firsthand the Ark of the Covenant was the ultimate archaeological dream come true.
The scene outside was chaotic: helicopters set down on the Dome of the Rock’s raised platform and Israeli troops as far as the eye could see. And Enoch was at the center of it all, taking quick drags on a bummed cigarette between sentences. Encircled by IDF commanders, he was recounting in great detail what had transpired inside the dome.
Charlotte looked up at Amit. “Do you really believe that’s the Ark of the Covenant in there?”
The question surprised Amit. “You saw what it did to Cohen. Absolutely, I’d say it’s the real thing.”
“And how about me being a messiah?” she jested.
He paused to consider this. “Rabbi Cohen might have been a bit crazy. But if
he
believed you were . . .” He shrugged.
“Hey!” a female voice yelled over to Amit.
Glancing up, Amit was surprised to see Jules tottering over to him, shirt tied below her chest and clutching a bandage taped to her left side. Grinning widely, he stopped in his tracks.
“What is this?” Jules said with pretend offense. “I’m gone only an hour and you’re already in the arms of another woman? Haven’t you learned
your lesson?”
Amit shook his head. “You’ve got chutzpah, I’ll give you that.”
Jules threw her arms around him and held him tight for five seconds. “God, I was worried sick about you.”
“How did you—?”
“The police got to me before the ambulance arrived. When I told them what happened, they were kind enough to share their first aid kit and give me a ride here.”
“Good to see that chivalry is still alive and well,” Amit said.
“After all you told me about the temple and the Ark, I knew they’d find you here.”
“Clever.”
“Thanks.”
Amit formally introduced Charlotte.
Jules had been so focused on Amit that she hadn’t noticed the woman’s neck was covered in blood. Alarmed, she said, “My goodness, Charlotte . . . Are you all right?” Gently cradling Charlotte’s chin, she tried to find the wound. “Is this your blood?”
“Yes, but—”
“Where are you hurt? We need to take care of this.”
“Actually I’m fine, Julie. It’s a bit complicated. But thank you. How about you?” Cringing, Charlotte pointed to her bandaged stomach.
“I’ll get to the hospital later. It’s just a graze.”
“Actually, maybe I can help you with that.”
Three Days Later
As Ghalib had hoped, the Israeli prime minister and president were claiming no responsibility for the events that had taken place at Temple Mount. Naturally, they were having great difficulty explaining why the Israeli army had laid siege to the site, and why an underground tunnel had been secretly excavated beneath the site by a fundamentalist rabbi who’d been a former member of the Knesset. The firefight that had erupted inside the Dome of the Rock, however, proved most difficult to spin.
“An attack upon Islam’s third-holiest shrine will not be taken lightly,” Ghalib’s delegate promised the prime minister.
Finally, a clear line had been drawn in the sand—the tipping point.
What Ghalib’s eyes had seen over the closed-circuit cameras he’d installed in the shrine had been astounding. He’d played silent witness to the uncovering of a most profound relic. Islamic legend told that the Ark of the Covenant heralded the coming of the true Messiah—and the beginning of the Last Judgment. He’d witnessed the woman open the box. He’d witnessed how it so horribly burned the rabbi alive in mere seconds.
Shortly thereafter, he’d watched the IDF secure the building. The goateed Israeli and the woman whom Cohen had taken hostage had coached the IDF commanders on how to safely remove the relic, how to cover it first with the blue cloth and animal furs. The audio feed had crisply recorded the entire conversation.
Less than an hour after the Israelis had locked down the shrine, the relic had been ferried outside by a team of men in blue jumpsuits, heavily guarded. They’d brought it down to the Western Wall Plaza and loaded it onto a truck.
Outside, Ghalib had used his digital camcorder to secretly shoot video of that too.
All that remained now was to compile the recordings onto a single DVD, carefully edit the footage, then have a courier deliver the video to Ghalib’s contact at al-Jazeera.
Soon the world would witness firsthand the savagery of the Israelis: the carnage, the desecration, the defilement. The audacity of it all. The Islamic outcry would be deafening.
This would breathe new life into the intifada and force the Arab nations to formulate a response to the Jewish nation’s growing threat to the region. No doubt, the coalition would grow by the day as the entirety of the Middle East would be forced to take a stance—to choose a side.
His tired caramel eyes gazed out at the Dome of the Rock’s cupola, which shimmered like liquid gold against the morning sun.
“Allahu Akbar,”
he whispered.
“Taqwa
.
”
Fear God.
“Sorry I am late,” a breathless voice said from the doorway. “I came as fast as I could.”
Ghalib turned to the bearded Palestinian toting a laptop bag—the Waqf ’s lead IT specialist, who managed the council’s Internet sites, telecommunications, and press releases. “You are forgiven, Bilaal,” he said with a crooked grin, waving the young man inside. “Come. I am anxious to finish this.”