The Israeli commander was finally convinced the first floor was clear.
On his order, commandos poured into the building and confirmed the robot’s findings. But the procedure had to be painstakingly repeated on the second and third floors. In the end, there were no booby traps, though the commander radioed to Marcus that they had found extensive traces of explosives on the third floor.
And a body.
Outside Aspen, the Raven was glued to the live coverage.
He watched as King Faisal’s 747 touched down after the two-hour and two-minute flight from Riyadh. He was watching on RT, the Russian propaganda network, to see how they covered the story. So far they were playing it straight. The anchors noted that this was the first direct trip between the Saudi and Israeli cities ever flown by the Saudi national airline in history. It was going to be the first time a Saudi leader had ever met with an Israeli leader, at least publicly. It was also going to be the first time the remarks of an Israeli prime minister would be aired live on Saudi television and on Arabic stations throughout the Gulf region.
It was, Oleg knew, a day of many firsts. Yet, terrified by the immense danger the three world leaders were now in, Oleg Kraskin did something he had never done before—he bowed his head and prayed to a God he still wasn’t sure he believed in to keep these men safe from all evil and harm.
Yasmine Mashrawi sat spellbound as she watched the coverage on Al-Sawt.
The anchors were using every opportunity to disparage the Saudi king for betraying not only the Palestinian cause but “that of every Muslim” for daring to “normalize” relations with the “criminal Zionists.” The shoemaker and his wife, with whom Yasmine was sitting, meanwhile, wouldn’t stop talking, wouldn’t stop echoing every critical word the anchors uttered, and far worse.
Yasmine said nothing. She nodded her head occasionally, wanting her hosts to feel that she was with them. But privately, she couldn’t help but think that just maybe the Saudi king was doing the right thing. Yasmine was not a political person. She would certainly never contradict her father, who was constantly blasting the Zionists and their American “enablers.” And there was no question that the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem and the West Bank and Gaza grieved her. Yet secretly she could not understand why Ismail Ziad constantly refused every offer for peace and reconciliation that the Americans or Israelis proposed. Of course the Israelis’ offers were ridiculous and unfair. But what did Ziad and his people expect? Why not go back to the bargaining table and bargain? How were the lives of the Palestinians ever going to get better if he didn’t make a deal and start truly building their state?
Reaching into her pocketbook, Yasmine pulled out the phone her husband had given her. She powered it up and set it in her lap, full of anticipation of joining Hussam very shortly.
99
Amin al-Azzam sat in his office, watching the coverage with his staff.
All except his son-in-law.
“Where’s Hussam?” the Grand Mufti asked as images of King Faisal’s plane taxiing flickered on the screen before them. “Has anyone seen him?”
“He was here earlier,” a young cleric said. “I think he was going to the mosque.”
“Perhaps he’s in the lavatory,” said another.
“No, no, I saw him in the Noble Sanctuary,” said a third. “He said he needed to make some final preparations.”
Al-Azzam said nothing, but as he toyed with the lanyard dangling from his neck, he couldn’t decide if he should be annoyed or concerned. All the preparations they could possibly make had been completed the day before. There was simply nothing left to be done. So where was Hussam? Why wasn’t he here with the rest of the staff?
As the jumbo jet pulled to a halt next to Air Force One, al-Azzam found himself admiring the color scheme of the Saudi plane. The fuselage of flight 001 was painted beige on the top half and white on the lower half. The words Saudi Arabian were painted on the side in Arabic and English in a rich royal blue. The tail was painted the same shade of blue and featured the national symbol of the two crossed swords under a giant palm tree. The two planes looked good side by side.
A stairwell was rolled into position. The door opened. The king, stooped but smiling, appeared in the doorway. The Israeli crowd roared and applauded even more loudly than for the American president. Soon the aging monarch made his way down the steps and was greeted by Clarke and Eitan.
To al-Azzam’s astonishment, the scene stirred something deep, something hopeful, in his soul. He could not say why, not even to himself. But at that moment, he found himself looking around the room and out the windows to his left, wondering what could cause Hussam to miss it.
Donning a Kevlar vest given to him by an Israeli officer, Marcus headed inside.
He bounded up the stairs and entered the flat where the commander and his team were waiting. It took only an instant to realize whom he was looking at—the bullet-riddled, bloodstained body of Ali Haqqani.
“That your man?” the commander asked, bending down to examine the bullet holes and the coagulated blood around them.
“One of them,” Marcus replied.
“Nine-millimeter,” said the commander. “Close range. Probably a Glock. And he hasn’t been dead long. Less than an hour. But who shot him?”
“Mohammed al-Qassab,” Marcus said, almost under his breath.
It wasn’t a guess. It was a certainty. The Syrian terrorist was no novice. The man knew precisely what he was doing. He’d gotten all he needed from Haqqani. Now he was tying off loose ends.
Looking around the room, Marcus surveyed the medical equipment, the bloody sheets and pillowcases piled in the trash bin in the kitchen, and dried blood on the plastic tarp still on the dining room floor. Technicians were taking samples. They’d be sent back to a lab for analysis and DNA testing. All of it confirmed there was a bomber out there somewhere, and suddenly Marcus found himself wondering: Could it actually be al-Qassab?
As the Syrian watched the welcome ceremony, the rage within him was building.
Eitan’s and Clarke’s remarks were revolting but thoroughly predictable. Yet it was the speech by King Faisal Mohammed Al Saud that sickened him. Each line was more reprehensible than the last.
“What a joy it is to step foot on soil once trod by prophets, priests, and kings.”
“I must say how disappointed I am in my brothers in the Palestinian Authority.”
“The Arab nations have embraced rejectionism far too long, but today, new breezes—fresh breezes—are blowing in the Middle East.”
“It has been said, ‘There is a time for war and a time for peace.’ This, my friends, is a time for peace.”
This, from a Muslim?
This, from the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques?
Al-Qassab fumed. A bomb was too good, too quick and painless for such a man who epitomized the very definition of apostasy. Such a man deserved instead to be hanged. Or better yet, beheaded in the public square.
It was too late for that, of course. Yet for a moment, however fleeting, al-Qassab wondered if he’d been too hasty. Perhaps instead of killing Haqqani, he should have insisted the good doctor perform one more surgery, place one more bomb in one more shahid—in al-Qassab himself. True, he would never get close enough to the king, to such a kafir, to such an infidel. But oh, to walk into a crowded synagogue three days hence, on the Jewish Sabbath, and blow himself and all those around him into eternity.
Al-Qassab savored the fantasy, then cursed himself for it. The plan that he and the Turk had developed was sound. If it worked, it would change the Muslim world forever. But he had to stay focused. There was so much that could still go wrong.
100
Marcus called the war room.
“We found Haqqani,” he said.
“That’s tremendous,” said Roseboro. “Where?”
“In an apartment on the Mount of Olives.”
“Is he talking?”
“No, he’s dead.”
“
How long?”
“An hour at most.”
“How?”
As Tomer and Kailea, now both in the flat with him, looked around the room—being careful not to impede the work of the crime scene investigators—Marcus relayed what he knew.
“Did you find Haqqani’s phone?” Roseboro asked.
“No,” Marcus said. “The Israelis are tearing the place apart, but they haven’t turned up the phone. Still, the Raven is working with the NSA to scour his call log. Apparently, Haqqani received one message and sent another. One was this morning before dawn. The other was a few hours later. Both were to the same number in Pakistan. We’re not sure yet to whom, but the Raven is working on it.”
“So al-Qassab and the bomber—or bombers—are still out there,” Roseboro said.
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of how much trouble they were still in.
“Where’s POTUS now?” Marcus asked.
“Boarding the motorcade—the next stop is the Holocaust memorial.”
“Then the Temple Mount?”
“You got it.”
Marcus sighed. “All right. I’ll keep you posted.”
He hung up the phone. Kailea and Tomer had finished looking over the flat. Now they were staring at the lifeless body of Haqqani, surrounded by a pool of crimson.
“Who owns this place?” Tomer asked the commander.
“A dentist,” he said. “Someone named Daoud Husseini.”
“What do we know about him?”
“Lives here with his wife and kids, who are apparently abroad at the moment. Brother lives downstairs. The clinic is on the first floor.”
“Have you contacted him?”
“We’re trying.”
“What do you mean, trying?” Tomer shouted. “Get him on the phone. I want to talk with him—now.”
“We’ve called him repeatedly,” a detective replied. “He’s not responding.”
“Maybe he’s on the run,” said the commander.
“Or dead,” Kailea added.
“Or maybe the dentist has moved al-Qassab to another safe house,” said Marcus. “I mean, whoever this Husseini guy is, he probably knows the city and the country like the back of his hand. Once the surgery—or surgeries—were complete, Husseini would be a lot more helpful to al-Qassab than a Pakistani from London, right?”
“Maybe so,” said Tomer, turning to the commander and asking questions in rapid-fire Hebrew, then relaying the answers to Marcus and Kailea in English. “Husseini has another clinic. Maybe we can find more clues there.”
“Where?” Marcus asked.
“The Old City—the Muslim Quarter,” Tomer said.
“How close to the Temple Mount?” Marcus asked.
“A few hundred meters, if that.”
“Then let’s move.”
The three raced down the stairs. Marcus jumped into the driver’s seat of their sedan while Kailea tossed him the keys. With lights flashing and siren blaring, Tomer took the lead. En route, they heard him issue orders over the radio to forces in the Old City. They were not to move on the clinic or even make their presence known. They were, however, to block every street and alleyway leading to the clinic and put a drone—not a helicopter—over the building to provide live images. Simultaneously, two tactical units were to take up positions one block north and one block south of the clinic. “And put the bomb squad on standby.”
Yasmine Mashrawi adjusted her veil and kept her mouth shut.
She just wished the shoemaker would keep his shut too.
She had never been to Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial and museum. She’d never had any interest, and even if she had, she couldn’t imagine her husband, much less her father, permitting such a thing. Hussam was a kind soul, quiet, and might not have really minded, she thought. But her father was a proud and public man. It would never do for his youngest daughter to be studying the suffering of the Jews from so long ago when Jews were making her own people suffer right here and now.
Still, she found it fascinating to watch the coverage of the Saudi monarch walking through the museum with its director, asking questions alternatively about why the Nazis had slaughtered so many Jews and how scholars could be certain the number was really six million. That was the one question the shoemaker had applauded, until the king clarified his question by asking the museum director how he could be certain that even more Jews hadn’t been killed.
101
Amin al-Azzam glanced at his watch, then back at the television.
Now genuinely worried that his son-in-law still had not joined them, he found himself frustrated that no one had a mobile phone. Unable either to call or text Hussam, he would have to resort to old-school methods. Discreetly calling his young veiled assistant over to him, he asked her in a whisper to scour the grounds and buildings for Hussam. He warned her to do nothing that would alarm the Secret Service or the Shin Bet, and certainly not to tell anyone what she was really doing. If asked, she was to say she was just checking on everything at the request of the Grand Mufti.
“Report back to me in no more than thirty minutes, whether you find him or not,” he whispered, careful not to attract the attention of the others. “But if you do find him, tell him I must see him at once—it is of the utmost importance.”
Mohammed al-Qassab could not watch this trash any longer.
Yad Vashem?
Had the leader of the Sunni Islamic world completely lost his mind?
Barely able to control his rage, yet unable to scream or break things for fear of being overheard by neighbors, the Syrian decided to change out of the paramedic’s uniform and take a shower. First, however, he unzipped his backpack and took out the Uzi submachine gun. He double-checked to make sure the magazine was properly loaded and set everything on the master bed. Then he pulled out the various phones in his bag and checked to see if he had any messages waiting. Fortunately, there were none. No one was supposed to be in touch with him anyway, not even Hamdi Yaşar, not even on the satphone they used all the time. There was little or no chance of anyone intercepting their messages or tapping into their calls, but this was no day to take chances.
Realizing that he had not yet checked the roof, he poked around the flat until he found a closet off the living room with a ladder leading up to a hatch. Switching on the closet light, he climbed the ladder, unlocked the hatch, and opened it ever so slightly. Rather than linger, however, he turned on the video function on one of his phones, raised the phone above his head, and captured a 360-degree view. Then he lowered the hatch and played back the video while still standing on the ladder in the closet.
To the east was a direct and gorgeous view of the Haram al-Sharif, the golden dome, and the famed Mosque in the Corner. To the west, the most prominent building was the tower of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. In every other direction, he saw rooftops covered with water tanks and solar water heaters, a forest of radio and television antennas, satellite dishes, and clotheslines, though with all the rain of the past few days, there were few articles of clothing hanging on any of them.
It was from the roof that al-Qassab wanted to see the explosion, and just as Hamdi Yaşar had promised, it was an ideal vantage point. All the television networks would replay the close-up images of the detonation over and over again. Certainly Al-Sawt would. Yaşar would make sure of it. The most gruesome images would be immediately uploaded onto YouTube and Twitter by jihadists around the world. He would savor all those in due time. But there was something intoxicating to al-Qassab about the prospect of actually watching the explosion from just a few hundred meters away—hearing the blast, feeling the shock wave—so this was where he would be when it happened.
Leaving the hatch unlocked, he climbed down the ladder and headed back to the living room. The ceremony at Yad Vashem was wrapping up. Adding insult to injury, the Saudi king had just laid a wreath before the Eternal Flame in the Hall of Remembrance, telling the Zionist criminals that “your pain is our pain, a
nd together we must work to heal old wounds and build a new world of peace and security.”
Tasting the bile in his mouth, al-Qassab raced to the toilet and slammed the door behind him. He stood there, his head down, taking deep breaths until the wave of nausea passed. Then he turned on the shower and stepped inside, calculating just how much time he had left. The delegation still had to exit the museum and load back into the motorcade. Then there would be a fifteen- or twenty-minute drive to the Old City, followed by a walk up the ramp, through the Mughrabi Gate, and onto the Haram al-Sharif. All told, he figured he had a mere forty-five minutes until the moment of truth, and he was electrified.
102
Marcus screeched to a halt in front of the Damascus Gate.
Tomer was already out of his car and running to the checkpoint. Kailea followed close behind. Marcus needed an extra moment to turn off the engine and grab his keys, but he soon reached the checkpoint as well. Other emergency vehicles were converging on the site, but Tomer had ordered everyone else to keep their sirens off.
“Who has been through here in the last few hours?” Tomer asked the officer in charge.
“No one,” the young man replied. “We sealed it off, just as we were ordered.”
“You’re absolutely certain no one came through? No one at all?”
“Well, there was a heart attack. Some paramedics came through to help.”
“You saw the victim?”
The Jerusalem Assassin Page 31