The Illumination

by Karen Tintori

  C-4. Al-Haram al-Sharif—we’re under the Temple Mount. The blood drained from Natalie’s face. Oh, God, they’re going to blow it up. The summit . . . all those people . . .

  “Now you’re afraid.” Hasan looked pleased. She looked away. He bent down swiftly and jerked her face up by the chin, forcing her to meet his strange glowing eyes.

  “If you won’t tell me,” he spat contemptuously, “your eyes will.”

  “You should be afraid. The Mossad will stop you.”

  He laughed, and the sound echoed around the gloom of the tunnel, which was illuminated only by the glimmer of light-bulbs strung sporadicly along the ceiling, stretching like ghostly eyes into the shadowy distance.

  “Stop me? The way they stopped me from abducting you? And from reclaiming the Eye of Dawn? The way they stopped me from drilling holes deep into this ceiling and packing them with bombs?”

  Sayyed jeered, too, as he tore off more tape. “And like they stopped me from infiltrating Shomrei Kotel? I’ve succeeded in parading as a Jew for almost two years, keeping tabs on them, with none of them the wiser. Don’t hold your breath waiting for their help.”

  “Enough, Sayyed!” Hasan’s voice was sharp with irritation. “Her wrists are bound too loosely. More tape. Tighter.”

  Sayyed’s words sang through her head, penetrating even her fear. It was beginning to make sense now.

  Yuvi. Yuvi must have secretly belonged to Shomrei Kotel—Menny, too. They set up the flat tire, they stranded us in the middle of nowhere—to capture the pendant.

  But the Guardians of the Khalifah outwitted them both. With a double agent the Shomrei Kotel knew as “Shmuel.”

  “Your Mossad certainly didn’t stop us from planting evidence laying today’s events at the door of Shomrei Kotel. So much for the brilliance of the Israeli intelligence services.” Hasan loomed over her, unable to resist gloating openly. “The destruction soon to take place—all those deaths, all the outrage, all of it will come down on the heads of the Israelis. And there won’t be a nation in the world who will raise a finger to help them.”

  “It’ll never happen.” Natalie stared down those chilling blue eyes. “The Mossad suspects something. You’re going to fail.”

  “No, Natalie Landau. We’re going to succeed. And you’re going to die.” He cocked his head, as if in thought. “Your sister had no time to contemplate her death. The fool who killed her was too hasty. Too reckless. You, on the other hand, will have the next three hours to anticipate yours.” Hasan glanced at his watch. “Correction—less than that.”

  At his mention of Dana, Natalie sat taller on the lumpy ground. “You told me you had my sister’s hamsa. Where is it?”

  Hasan’s lip curled. “And what good would it do you now? You’re already a dead woman—just like her.”

  He turned to speak in rapid Arabic to Sayyed. With his attention shifted from her, Natalie tested the strength of her bonds, straining to force her ankles a fraction of an inch apart. The duct tape was taut, there was zero give.

  Still, she had three hours . . . almost three hours. Before the unthinkable happened.

  Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, her thirst growing by the minute. She fought the dizziness that signaled she was becoming dehydrated and continued flexing her ankles, her wrists, against the slick gray tape.

  Hasan was still busy giving orders to Sayyed. She picked out a few words and realized he was telling the man to stay with her. Even without comprehending the words, she knew Sayyed’s protests were being sharply rebuked.

  Then Hasan drew the leather pouch from the pocket of his khaki pants. Her heart twisted as he lifted the pendant up to the bare lightbulb, smiling as he studied the jeweled eyes for which Dana had died.

  Bile rose in Natalie’s throat.

  “It’s time to free the Eye of Dawn from its golden cocoon.” Excitement thrummed through his voice. “For too many centuries it has been hidden from the world. Now I have the honor of liberating it in the name of Allah.”

  “The pendant doesn’t belong to you,” Natalie said in desperation. “It belongs to Israel.”

  He ignored her and went to the table, followed by Sayyed. As Natalie watched, he secured the pendant in the vice, seized the hammer, and raised his fist.

  “No!” Panic coursed through her. And anguish. She twisted against the duct tape with a frantic energy. “Stop—you can’t—don’t destroy it—”

  He gave no sign that he even heard her. He slammed the hammer into the pendant with all of his strength.

  53

  Jammed inside the hotel elevator with seven other guests, Elliott Warrick looked away from the dandruff dusting the thousand-dollar suit coat on the secretary-general’s attaché, preferring to watch the floor numbers click by on the door panel instead.

  He was on his way to the presidential suite for the emergency meeting he’d called with the president, the Secret Service, and Israeli officials.

  At this late moment, based on the latest intel from NSU, he planned to recommend moving the site of the summit from the Temple Mount. Though they’d yet to pinpoint anything concrete, both the NSU and Mossad strongly suspected that the location had been compromised.

  The area had been sequestered weeks ago, checked and rechecked daily. Secret Service advance teams had scoured every inch and secured all rooftops and multistory buildings within a thousand yards of the platform. Bomb-sniffing dogs had patrolled not only the perimeter but the whole of the Temple Mount—nothing had triggered a reaction.

  Still, the increase in chatter today was alarming. Warrick knew all hell was about to break loose in the presidential suite, and he was bracing himself for the battle royale. It wouldn’t help that there’d been no update on the whereabouts of Firefly.

  He knew the Secret Service would back him in changing the locale, but he also knew Owen Garrett was married to the Temple Mount backdrop, with its unique symbolism and its importance to the world’s three major religions.

  Garrett had staked his presidency on this momentous peace accord, and in his mind, nowhere else in the holy city would embody its essence more than the site where Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac, where the Holy of Holies had stood, where Jesus had preached, and where Muhammad had ascended through the heavens.

  This commander in chief wouldn’t give up his vision—or this landmark—lightly.

  D’Amato felt a temporary, almost blinding relief. Natalie wasn’t among the dead.

  Then the sight of her shoulder bag lying abandoned in the road stopped his heart.

  As Lior and Doron sprang toward the bodies, he tore through Natalie’s bag, looking for the tzohar, knowing it wouldn’t be there. But he had to look, despite the fact that he knew he shouldn’t be touching anything. Screw Forensics.

  The Israelis were stunned by the sight of the two dead Mossad agents and a third man they didn’t know, but whose identification bore the name Menachem Goldstein. Doron was already calling the name in to the database, trying to piece together what had gone wrong.

  Lior’s face was ashen as D’Amato handed over Natalie’s bag with a negative shake of his head. “It’s gone,” he heard himself saying numbly. “They’ve got Natalie—and the tzohar.”

  “This dead guy, Menachem, he’s the key.” Lior took a step back, giving the medics space to zip Goldstein inside the body bag. “Looks like whoever brought him here killed him.”

  Doron hurried over, his round face as grim as the death scene that surrounded them. “Yuvi and Nuri never had a chance. Neither of them drew their weapons, much less fired.”

  “No way this is random.” Fear for Natalie twisted D’Amato’s gut. “What are the chances they’d just happen to have a flat tire on a back road, then happen to be ambushed? Whoever did this was after the tzohar.”

  Nobody argued with him. “I found two separate sets of tire tracks, both approaching from the south,” Doron said. “Fresh tracks.” He pointed toward the shoulder of the road. “Two cars stopped here recently,
but not to help.”

  The Guardians of the Khalifah. D’Amato knew they were all thinking the same thing. The Guardians may have gotten their Eye of Dawn.

  Natalie needed help. And fast. He needed a ride.

  54

  “Stop, damn you!” Natalie’s only weapon now was her voice.

  A second crash of the hammer against the gold was Hasan’s response. As he lifted the hammer yet again, she strained fruitlessly at her bonds, wrists and ankles simultaneously, aghast at what she was witnessing. The most ancient treasure imaginable being bludgeoned in an underground tunnel by a lunatic.

  And she was powerless to stop him.

  “If you smash your Eye of Dawn, it will be worthless to you!” she shouted.

  But he paid her no heed, and with all of his attention focused on the pendant pinched within the vise, he wielded the hammer again.

  The gold split, cracking open like a walnut, emitting an arc of white light so sudden and brilliant in the tunnel’s darkness it made her blink. Even as the lightbulbs strung through the tunnel began to flicker, the light within the pendant grew in brilliance.

  Blackness swooped down on the elevator. It lurched to a halt between floors.

  What in hell? Warrick gasped along with everyone else crammed into the now pitch-dark space. He held his breath as the woman closest to the panel groped for the emergency button.

  “Nothing’s happening,” she said, frustration raising her voice an octave.

  Shit.

  “Help!” A man behind him started shouting in his ear. “Can anyone hear us?”

  Someone else began pounding on the elevator walls.

  Not that it did a damned thing. The lights weren’t coming on; the elevator was still frozen.

  Is this part of it? The attack? Are they striking the whole city, not just the Temple Mount? He thought of Garrett upstairs in the presidential suite. Had he been hit? Or was the Secret Service spiriting him down the stairs and the hell out of here?

  Warrick wasn’t accustomed to being in the dark. Frustration ate through him. I need to get the hell out of here.

  The traffic signal over the busy East Jerusalem intersection suddenly went as dark as night. No red, no amber, no green for go. In the backseat of his cab, D’Amato was jerked forward as the driver slammed the brakes, nearly rear-ending the van in front of them.

  What now? he wondered, tension vibrating through his body. The Mossad agents had gotten him as far as the Old City. Now he was on his own, only a few miles from the home of Ahmad Zayadi.

  His former contact from his days as Jerusalem bureau chief was expecting him. He was praying Ahmad would know something, someone who could help him get a bead on where Natalie might have been taken—and who had done the taking.

  D’Amato had been a visitor to Ahmad’s home on several occasions, meeting with Palestinian sources who’d discreetly provided background information, though refusing to be seen publicly in the company of an American—much less an American journalist. If anyone had an ear to the underground currents here in East Jerusalem, it would be Ahmad. And D’Amato couldn’t get there soon enough.

  But he was going nowhere. The cabbie was slamming his hands on the steering wheel, cursing. Horns began blaring all around them. Traffic was now at a standstill. But not for long, it seemed. Several cars accelerated from different directions all at once and three collided in the intersection.

  It was D’Amato’s turn to swear. This was getting worse by the moment. He craned his neck to see up ahead as he yanked out his cell phone to call Ahmad.

  No signal.

  “Can I borrow your cell phone for a minute? Local call.”

  The cabbie flipped his cell open, then met D’Amato’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “It’s not working either. Who knows what they’re doing with this crazy summit?”

  People had begun streaming from buildings, calling to one another.

  “What happened to the power?”

  “My lights are out too!”

  “Bin Khoury was in the middle of speaking! Boom, no TV.”

  Their shouts interspersed with the insistent horns and irate shouts of the trapped drivers. Grimacing, D’Amato scanned the meter, paid the fare, and shoved open his door. At this rate he’d be better off taking a camel.

  Dodging the distraught residents now jamming the streets, he burst into a run.

  Ben Gurion Airport

  Tel Aviv

  One minute the air traffic controller was sipping black coffee, his eyes pinned to his screen as he juggled communications with the five incoming pilots, tracking their planes as they blipped across his monitor. The next he was gaping at a blank screen. His headset was eerily silent.

  “Down!”

  “It’s all down!”

  “What in God’s name happened?”

  All the air traffic controllers were shouting at once. In an instant, all visual and verbal contact with planes flying in and out of Israel had ended inexplicably.

  The supervisor grabbed the phone, desperate for help. But the phones were down, too. Landlines and cell phones alike. Useless.

  “Why aren’t the backup generators kicking in? We’ve got no lights, no phones, no GPS, no nothing!”

  White-knuckled, the controllers glanced fearfully at the planes circling overhead. Praying. Wondering.

  Was this a temporary glitch? Or a plot? Terrorism?

  But there was no way to know. They couldn’t communicate with anyone outside of the control tower. And there were hundreds of lives at stake up there in the air.

  Two planes were already into their descents.

  Please, God, help us. What is going on?

  Amman Queen Alia International Airport

  Jordan

  The control tower shift supervisor frantically tried to raise the silent system. He’d never before seen a situation like this one, where all the screens were blank, all the communications down.

  He knew solar flares could cause these kinds of disruptions, but there’d been no warnings of any such thing. Again he tried the phone, desperate to reach his superiors or to contact the ground traffic controllers, but the phones were still not working.

  Nothing was working, not the electricity, not the GPS tracking, not the cell towers. His shirt soaked now, he switched rapidly between the radio frequencies—all to no avail.

  A sickening thought came to him. Can all the satellites be down?

  Fighting the panic filling his chest, he prayed those 747s wouldn’t end up slamming into each other like blinded gulls. Insha’allah, they would all land safely—before they ran out of fuel.

  As the light surged from the damaged pendant, Natalie felt shock radiating through her body. Hasan and Sayyed fell back, instinctively throwing their arms across their faces to protect their eyes, but Natalie stared, mesmerized by the stunning clarity of the light.

  A moment later, as Hasan’s pupils adjusted to the slim dazzling rays, he grabbed up the pliers and bent over the cracked pendant yet again.

  She watched helplessly as he wedged the tool into the opening to force Daniel’s protective golden shell farther apart.

  The bulbs began flickering again. She glanced at them, a new apprehension coming over her. Oh, God, it’s more than just an ancient pendant. I don’t believe what I’m seeing . . .

  With an effort, she found her voice. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” she croaked. “What you’re unleashing. That light is ancient, it’s . . . God’s.”

  “Shut up!”

  Yet Hasan glanced up and hesitated a moment before he dug into the pendant once again.

  “Do you see what’s happening? Look what it’s doing to the lightbulbs!”

  He ignored her, wedging the pliers deeper.

  But she had a tool, too. Her knowledge. She understood more about the Middle Eastern belief system surrounding the evil eye than Hasan realized. Most Westerners would have no idea how his blue eyes would have affected him within his culture, but she knew those eyes had
marked him his entire life as a man to be feared, a man who could curse another with a single glance, intentionally or not. She’d noticed how Sayyed scrupulously avoided looking at Hasan’s eyes, and she knew the reason for it.

  “The Eye of Dawn has far more power than your blue eyes,” she burst out. “It will reflect your curses back at you. See how it’s disrupting the lights? It must be doing the same thing to the energy field above us—at the Temple Mount. Your plans are going to fail.”

  He spun then, turning the full fury of those sparking blue eyes on her. “One more word and I’ll take this pliers to your tongue.”

  He meant it.

  Natalie fell silent. But she continued to meet those glaring eyes, refusing to look away, showing him that the curses he thought he was raining on her didn’t frighten her. That his stare didn’t have the power to make her tremble.

  As he resumed his attack on the pendant, she watched in silent agony, unable to tear her gaze from the growing beam of light flooding in a luminous stream from the jeweled shell.

  No human eyes have seen this in three thousand years. Now she was trembling from head to toe, unable to stop herself. Not from fear, but from awe. Under other circumstances, she’d have whispered the shehechiyanu prayer to thank God for keeping her alive to reach this day, this moment, for allowing her to witness this miraculous sight. But it hardly seemed appropriate to thank God for this travesty of an unveiling. Not when this ancient treasure from His own hands had fallen into the hands of a madman.

  A madman who had almost succeeded in separating the two halves of the pendant just as the lightbulbs stopped flickering. They glowed intensely for a second, like a power surge after a brownout, and then they went completely dark.