The Temple Mount Code (6 page)

‘At first, my son, the few who knew of the loss – and even Mohammad himself – believed he had lost his Koran and the Scroll in the other worlds. If that had been so, we could never have gotten them back. However, as time has gone on, this has proven not to be the case. The Book and the Koran are here, in this world.’ The Ayatollah ran a hand through his son’s black hair. ‘In fact, I nearly have them within my possession.’

‘That is so wonderful.’ The boy smiled.

The Ayatollah’s heart softened at the sight of his son’s excitement. ‘When I get the Book and the Scroll, Vali, I will place them in your hands and let you know the truth.’

All his agents had to do was find the man who had the book that revealed the whereabouts of Mohammad’s Koran and the Scroll. They would. Of that, the Ayatollah was confident. They almost had him now.

The infidel Klaus Von Volker knew no master except profit, and the Ayatollah had taken advantage of that. The man’s greed and ambition shackled him more completely than any chain.

Then the resulting
jihad
would unleash a rain of holy fire that would cleanse the world. The early Muslims had spread God’s word with their swords. The Ayatollah had new weapons at his disposal, a nuclear arsenal that was being planned and built at that very moment.

And in time, by my hand shall the unbelievers perish
, he thought as he gazed fondly at his son.

7

Deir al-Balah

Gaza Strip

Palestinian Territories

July 24, 2011

‘Mr. Youssef.’

Colonel Imad Davari of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution of Iran sat at a small table at an open-air café. Darkness filled the city just beyond its lights.

He felt naked without a sidearm, but getting one into the country with false papers was almost impossible and certainly lethal if he got caught. Thank God he was also trained to be deadly with only his hands. And he was a big, burly man used to fighting.

The speaker was a slim man with dark, intense features. He wore a thin cotton shirt and gray cotton pants. The only hidden weapon he could possibly have was a knife.

‘I am Youssef.’ Davari sat calmly at the table and sipped his coffee.

The man came forward. ‘I am Lutfi. I was sent to get you.’

Davari pointed to the chair across from him. ‘Sit. Have a cup of coffee.’ He motioned to the waitress.

With obvious reluctance, Lutfi obeyed. ‘I was told not to delay.’

‘You need to relax.’ Davari stared at the man. ‘If not, you’ll give us away to the two men following me.’

The man started to look around, then caught himself. ‘You were followed?’

‘They were at the airport waiting for me.’ Even after twenty years of military experience, nine of those on the Quds Force, the extraterritorial operations arm of the Revolutionary Guard, sitting there with the men watching him had been hard for Davari. He preferred to do the watching, and he didn’t like having to trust outsiders. He worked with a team of men he’d trained, whom he knew like the back of his hand. None of them were with him now. The Ayatollah had entrusted him alone with this vital mission.

Lutfi shook his head. ‘This meeting is over.’

‘If you leave so quickly, those men will follow you. Do you think there are only two of them?’

Frustration tightened the man’s mouth. ‘You should have warned me.’

Davari laughed. ‘Your boss is the one that wanted no radio contact on the ground.’

‘You could have waved me off.’

‘Do you seriously think they wouldn’t have noticed that?’

The man cursed.

‘If I had warned you off, I would be facing them alone.’ Davari sipped his coffee. ‘I don’t think they would have let me sit here much longer without taking me into custody.’

‘Or killing you if they are Israeli.’

Davari shrugged. That, of course, was a possibility. He was confident that the men didn’t know him or his work personally. Somehow they had intercepted Commander Meshal’s communications.

‘What are we going to do?’ Lutfi didn’t look happy.

‘Now that you are here, and I have made contact, we’re going to escape.’ Davari finished his coffee. ‘You have a car?’

‘Of course. But I have no weapons.’

‘That’s fine. I’m sure they’re carrying enough for all of us.’ Davari stood. ‘Let’s get your car.’

‘Do not glance around. If you alert those men that we are onto them, I will slit your throat myself.’ Davari walked slightly behind and to Lutfi’s right as they passed a half dozen closed shops.

‘I do not care for this.’

‘If you talk about anything other than the weather or sports, I will kill you.’

Tucking his head into his shoulders, Lutfi kept walking, choosing not to talk at all.

That suited Davari. The streetlights behind the two men trailing them allowed him to track them by their shadows, but it was good to be able to hear their movements as well. The men were good, probably Israeli, judging by how patient they were, but they’d grown confident and didn’t try hard to mask their presence. They also didn’t pull in the second unit, and Davari was certain there was a second unit. If the men had been Hamas, they would have seized him an hour ago and taken him to a torture chamber to find out why he was in the Gaza Strip.

If they were Israeli, they would be operating on foreign soil, as he was. This was in his favor, because they wouldn’t want to draw much attention to themselves. On the other hand, they would be very good at unarmed combat, as the Mossad seemed to live and breathe
krav maga.
Davari smiled in anticipation of the coming confrontation.

‘Where is your car?’

Lutfi nodded at the end of the alley. ‘Around the corner.’

‘When I step away from you, run for the car and bring it back here.’

‘If I do not, you will kill me?’

‘Most assuredly.’

‘I do not like you very much.’

Davari smiled at that. ‘Thankfully, you do not have to like me.’ He heard the two men behind him exchange a brief conversation, then their steps quickened. Obviously, they felt they had waited long enough, and the alley was ending soon.

Davari immediately turned and ran at them.

They were good, he had to give them that. They separated at once to give each other room to maneuver.

Davari went for the bigger one first because closing with him would give the smaller man less room to position himself, and the bigger man would provide a better shield. The man set himself, obviously expecting Davari to pull up short. The colonel continued his headlong pace and slammed into the man’s chest, giving his opponent no time to decide whether to shoot him with the pistol he suddenly held.

Using his weight and speed, Davari powered the man backwards till he was almost running, then slipped and started to fall. Instinctively, the man reached forward to grab him. Davari planted his own feet, caught the man’s shirt in one burly fist, and snared his opponent’s gun wrist with the other.

Yanking backwards, Davari spun the man around so his back faced his partner, then kicked him in the crotch. The man groaned in pain and threw up a little. Still, he clung stubbornly to his weapon as the second man sprinted toward him, leading with a silenced pistol.

Maintaining his grip on the man’s shirt, Davari swung his elbow into the man’s throat, then head-butted him in the face. His opponent’s nose broke, and blood gushed. Nearly out on his feet and sagging heavily, the man’s hold on the pistol loosened.

With a quick twist, Davari slid the pistol free and popped it into his hand. He raised the pistol and fired by instinct.

Three shots struck the approaching agent in the chest and threw him off stride. Davari fired two more rounds into the man’s left leg as he came down on that foot and he fell, sprawling into the alley. The colonel placed the pistol silencer under the chin of the man he was holding and pulled the trigger twice, blowing the top of his head off.

Shoving the dead man from him, Davari strode toward the second agent. The man was trying to roll over onto his back and get a shot off. He managed to fire two rounds, but both missed, ricocheting off the alley wall.

Davari shot two rounds into the man’s face and kicked the pistol away. Working quickly, he knelt and went through the men’s pockets, taking their IDs, cash, and personal effects, and dropping it all into his jacket pockets. He found a spare magazine on the big man and quickly changed out the one in his captured weapon. He kept the half-empty magazine, then picked up the other pistol and the spare magazine for it and switched that one to full capacity as well.

He turned and headed for the end of the alley, thinking Lutfi had bolted and run and that he would kill the man if he ever saw him again. Then an ancient Russian sedan rounded the corner and headed toward him.

Davari stepped out of the way and fisted the pistols in his jacket pockets.

The car’s brakes squealed as the vehicle shuddered to a stop. Lufti stared through the bug-spattered windshield as Davari opened the passenger seat and got inside.

‘They’re dead?’

‘Yes. Go.’ Davari relaxed in the seat as Lutfi shifted into gear and drove over the dead men in the alley.

Minutes later, Davari followed Lutfi into a pottery warehouse. They walked in silence to the back of the building, aided only by a flashlight Lutfi carried. Davari didn’t mind the darkness. He was armed, and he’d just emerged victorious from a confrontation. His blood sang.

At the back of the warehouse, Lutfi stood against the back wall, then stamped his foot in a practiced rhythm. ‘If I didn’t do that, you would be dead.’

A moment later, a section of the floor lifted, then slid noisily across the floor. Lutfi descended a narrow set of stairs into a small room. Three men armed with AK-47s stood at the bottom.

They all wore olive drab pants, khaki shirts, and red berets. One was in his early forties, sallow-faced, with acne scars and a salt-and-pepper hair and beard. Commander Ahmad Meshal calmly smoked a cigarette and studied his guest.

‘Colonel Davari?’

‘I am.’

Meshal stood his ground. ‘Commander Meshal.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You have blood on your face and on your shirt.’

‘There was trouble.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘I was picked up at the airport by two men. They moved and acted like Mossad agents.’

Meshal glanced at Lutfi.

‘They did not follow me.’ Fear etched Lutfi’s face. ‘They were there when I arrived.’

‘As I said, they picked me up at the airport.’

Davari glanced around. There did not appear to be any other exits. A wire shelf on the wall to his left held a small selection of food. Next to it, a curtain covered the far half of the wall. A laptop computer and other equipment sat on a card table in the corner. A stack of magazines sat on the floor.

‘May I borrow your table?’ He nodded at the card table.

‘Of course.’

On the table, Davari spread out the IDs and papers he’d collected from the men he’d killed. ‘These are probably fake, but we have experts who can tell who did the work. If I may use your computer.’

‘Please do.’

Davari used the scanner to copy the IDs and papers onto the laptop, then used an encryption sequence from a Web site the Quds Force had set up for him. Then he uploaded the images to another Web site accessed by the Quds intelligence division. He probably already knew as much as they would find out, but confirming his suspicions would be good.

He turned to Meshal. ‘I would guess that the two men I killed are here looking for the ones you have.’

‘Probably.’

‘When the Mossad finds those two agents dead, they’ll send more. Unless we give the two men back to them. Where are they?’

‘In the next room.’ Meshal walked over to the far wall and pushed the curtain back to reveal a glass window.

Inside the room, two men knelt in apparent agony. Both men wore plastic zip-ties that cuffed their hands behind their backs and to the chains that bound their feet together. Blindfolds covered their eyes and ears. One had wet himself, the dark stain showing on his beige pants. Their arms and legs showed evidence of burning, cutting, and assault with blunt instruments.

‘These are two of the guards that were with Lev Strauss?’

Meshal nodded.

‘What were they? Bodyguards?’

‘Yes. For a time Strauss was here, in the Strip. We couldn’t get to him, but we got to two of his men.’

‘What was he doing here?’

‘He spent most of his time at the library.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Reading old books.’

Impatient, Davari turned his attention back to the men. The Supreme Leader had told him about the Book he sought, and what he was convinced it was, but Lev Strauss was proving to be a unique quarry.

And now he had run back to Jerusalem, where he would be even harder to reach.

Davari didn’t even consider interrogating the prisoners. From what they’d been put through, he knew they held no secrets. Otherwise, they would have already bartered them to keep the pain at bay.

Davari turned to the computer and sent an e-mail to Klaus Von Volker, requesting a meeting in two days. ‘Kill them. Cut off their heads and hands and mail them back to their families.’

‘It will be done.’.

8

Nangpa La Mountain Pass

Himalaya Mountains

People’s Republic of China

July 26, 2011

At twenty-thousand plus feet, the world was bitterly cold and so bright that it hurt Lourds’s eyes, even through his protective filtering lenses. He slapped his gloved hands together to get some feeling as he stared up at the mountain.

Only a few miles to the east, the 8,000-meter Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain in the world, stretched for the heavens. Clad in white snow, it looked beautiful.

The native Tibetans and Sherpas of Khumbu often made their way through these mountains regularly to trade. Less than a mile ahead of Lourds and his group, a few of the hardy mountain folk were coming toward them.

‘Well, I guess we’ll soon have a look at the neighbors.’ Lourds smiled under his ski mask. Despite the protective layers, his face still felt frozen.