The Sacred Cipher (41 page)

Bohannon put his hand on Rodriguez’s shoulder and led him to the huge trunk of the
cypress tree. “Joe, if the Israelis spotted us, if they believe we intend to pull
off some terrorist plot to destroy the Temple Mount, that would be one adversary.
But what if the Waqf, or the Northern Front, or some other radical Muslim group also
found out about us? That would be a second adversary. Both of those would do everything
in their power to keep us from returning to the Temple Mount. Different reasons, but
the same objective. The Guard doesn’t care about the Temple Mount. They care about
the scroll. The Guard would have protected the scroll at all costs, even if it meant
wiping out some of their Muslim brothers.”

“Or wiping out a couple squads of Shin Bet commandos,” said Joe. “We don’t know how
many RPGs they had up on that hill.”

“What we do know,” said Tom, “is that now we have three different groups out for our
blood, the scroll, or both. We have a car that’s obviously been identified and will
draw cops like a magnet.” Bohannon looked at his watch . . . 12:15
AM.
“We don’t have many hours of darkness left, and our original idea of getting lost
in the Muslim Quarter just got thrown out the window. We’ve got to get ourselves underground
quickly; there are no intermediate steps anymore. We need to get into that tunnel,
unseen, in the next few hours or it’s all over. We can’t take Kallie any farther,
and Rizzo needs a doctor. We’ve got to get them out of this, and fast.”

“Tom, I think I may have a way for us to get into the city. But what about Kallie?
What if they know who she is?”

Bohannon and Rodriguez squatted down in front of the rest of the team. Bohannon, particularly,
wanted to look into Kallie’s eyes, find out what he saw there. He was surprised. Kallie
was panicked, she was feeling the effects of shock, she was pale, but her eyes were
clear and angry.

“Okay. This is what we’re going to do . . .”

Rodriguez was driving a truck on a circuitous route to Jerusalem.

Earlier, he had dropped Kallie and Rizzo at one of the many roadside bus stops. With
Rizzo’s wounded arm wrapped in bandages and covered by a jacket, they had gotten on
the late-night bus from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. Carrying two of the backpacks, now
mostly empty, they would take another bus from Tel Aviv to Beirut. If all went well,
before midday they would be out of Israel. By late that afternoon, they would be registered
in a Beirut seaside resort hotel, Rizzo would have seen a doctor for his arm, and
their only concern would be buying some toiletries, a bathing suit, and a good book,
and then waiting for Bohannon to call while watching Israeli TV to see if Kallie was
a wanted woman.

Kallie would arrange for two one-way tickets, first-class, open reservation, from
Beirut to Manhattan. She had the key to Doc Johnson’s apartment in her pocket. If
they were looking for her, she wouldn’t hesitate. Get on a plane and out of the Middle
East immediately, dragging Rizzo with her.

Bohannon and Johnson, meanwhile, were in the black SUV. Avoiding all main roads, they
planned to zigzag through the farm country to a small village, southwest of the outskirts
to Jerusalem, where they would find a place to conceal the Toyota. Bohannon and Johnson
would then walk out of the village, one kilometer east, and be waiting in the shadows
by the side of the road when Rodriguez rumbled to a stop. At least, that was the plan.

The truck was slow. That couldn’t be helped. It was an ancient something-or-other,
but all discernable markings had worn off long ago. Joe had found it in the machinery
barn and jumped the wires easily. Better fortune was that the truck bed was more than
halfway full, tobacco packed into burlap sacks. But the best fortune of the night
hung in a corner of the building: a half-dozen sets of well-worn farmworkers’ clothing—overalls,
straw hats, and sleeveless shirts, plus dirty, stained kaftans and keffiyeh.

Rodriguez was behind the wheel, looking every bit the nondescript farmer on his way
to market. Johnson and Bohannon were now in the back of the truck, lying on top of
the tobacco sacks, wrapped up in their robes, pretending to be asleep.

But only a few hours of darkness remained.

He was not happy being awakened at such an hour. He was even more disturbed by the
report he received. Mahamoud’s wife was at the door to the mosque. She wanted to know
where her husband was. Her children, hanging onto her skirts, were crying. She
had
called Yazeer’s home, she told the porter, and Yazeer’s wife didn’t know where he
was, either. She wanted the Imam. She wanted to know where Mahamoud was and why he
wasn’t home at such an hour.

The Imam looked at his watch . . . 2:10
AM.
Why didn’t that idiot go home? Could he and Yazeer be out celebrating their great
victory? He would take a finger from each if that were the case. Mahamoud had many
vices. In that way, he could not be trusted.

The Imam turned to the porter. “Tell her to go away, to go home. We will find Mahamoud
and send him home.” Stepping away from the door, he reached into a drawer for his
cell phone. The number was well known.

“We may have a problem,” he said with no preamble. “Neither Mahamoud nor Yazeer have
returned home. I will check on Yazeer’s men, discreetly. But I am concerned. Call
me the moment you have news. In the meantime, I will begin to sound the alarm.”

Leonidas, on the other end of the call, said nothing. He already knew all of the answers.
Making the Imam wait longer to receive the answers would make them all the more valuable.
Life in Jerusalem was about to get more interesting.

Rasaf was again alone in his car. The mutilated and multicolored Subaru was nearly
invisible in the mottled shadows of the overhanging trees. He looked at his watch
in the dull ash-glow of his hand-rolled cigarette . . . 2:33
AM.
His men had been gone for thirty minutes. No bother. This was a good crew: disciplined,
respectful of a leader. They had handled themselves well at the roadblock.

He had made his decisions, but he was less sure of himself now than he had been on
the hill. The Effendi had been correct. Northern Front did try to intercept the Americans.
But now? Who could be sure of what would happen next?

Rasaf staged his team at obscure, high points dotted along the Kidron Valley and instructed
them to watch. The Americans had been here once; they would return. They were looking
for something, something to which the scroll had led them. It was also clear they
didn’t know exactly where it was or exactly how to get it.

Treasure?
wondered Rasaf.
Gold from the Temple, jewels from Solomon? It must be something very valuable
. Good, let them search. Let Shin Bet search; let Northern Front search. Rasaf knew
what he wanted, and he knew where it was. It was coming to him. He would not allow
it to slip through his fingers.

Rodriguez drove the truck along the Ma’ale Ha Shalom to the Derech Ha’ofel, coming
north to the Old City. At 3:12
AM,
they rounded the curve below the southeast corner of the Temple Mount area. No other
vehicles were on the road. Rodriguez felt naked and exposed. Well into the distance,
he could see the gleaming gold of the Dome of the Rock. He didn’t know if they would
make it. The truck’s engine was wheezing and sputtering with each increase in altitude.
They had decided to drive up the Ha’ofel, past the Gihon Spring, then loop back to
the south, turning onto the Jericho Road just south of the Lion’s Gate. At the junction
with the road leading to the Church of the Ascension, a smaller road cut off to the
right from the Jericho Road. Here, just above the Valley of Jehosephat, Rodriguez
pulled into a narrow wadi under a grove of heavy-limbed trees and cut the engine.
All of them were watching, furtively, looking for evidence that the area was under
heightened surveillance. But the main reason for bypassing the area around Gihon was
more practical than tactical. It would be easier to carry the sacks downhill, rather
than uphill.

Rasaf lifted his nose to the breeze in the wake of the lonely truck’s passing. “Tobacco,
rich, too. Those farmers will do well.”