The Jerusalem Assassin

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  “No, the medics told us about it.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Two.”

  “Arab or Jewish?”

  “Jewish, of course.”

  “How do you know?” Tomer demanded.

  “They were Magen David Adom. They spoke Hebrew. They were Jewish, believe me.”

  “You checked their IDs?”

  “Of course.”

  “You say they spoke Hebrew?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they have accents?”

  “One was a sabra, for sure.”

  “And the other?”

  “I don’t know, probably an oleh,” the officer said.

  “What’s an oleh?” Marcus asked.

  “An oleh chadash—a new immigrant,” Tomer said.

  “What country was he from?” Marcus inquired.

  “How should I know?” said the officer.

  “I mean, what was the accent? Russian, French, Arabic, Persian . . . ?”

  “English.”

  “What kind of English?”

  “English English.”

  “British, American, South African, Kiwi, what?”

  “British,” the officer said, then looked around at the rest of his unit, all of whom nodded that it had been British English.

  “That’s got to be him,” Marcus said.

  “Maybe,” Tomer said. “I’m calling in the army.”

  “No,” Marcus shot back. “We move in heavy, and he’s going to hear us coming.”

  “The place could be booby-trapped.”

  “With him inside?” Marcus asked. “Why rig the doors with explosives if you’re planning to escape?”

  “Why assume he’s planning to escape?”

  “Look, we don’t have time to argue,” Marcus insisted. “If you send in the army, somebody might get trigger-happy. We can’t afford to take that risk. We need this guy alive and talking, and we need to get him fast.”

  Tomer wasn’t convinced.

  “Look, Agent Curtis and I will go in first,” Marcus offered. “If we blow ourselves to smithereens, then send in the bomb squad to make sure there’s no other booby traps. But if we live, we get al-Qassab. Okay?”

  “You sure?” Tomer asked.

  “I’m sure,” said Marcus.

  “What about you?” Tomer asked Kailea.

  “Where he goes, I go,” she replied.

  “Fine,” Tomer said. “But you’re both crazy.”

  The Israeli headed through the Damascus Gate with Marcus and Kailea in tow, both wearing body armor but no helmets. As they moved through the maze of narrow alleyways, Tomer radioed for a sitrep from the drone, in English for the Americans’ benefit. He was told there was no one in the alley that led to the clinic and only one entrance. “No back door?” he whispered. “You’re sure?”

  The answer came back affirmative—the surveillance unit was sure.

  “Do we have sharpshooters in place?” Tomer asked next.

  “You told us to keep a low profile, nothing visible—so no,” he was told. “Should we put them in place?”

  Tomer turned to Marcus, who was hearing through his headset everything the Israeli was hearing.

  “No—a sniper shot would kill him,” Marcus whispered back. “I’m telling you, we need this guy alive. Al-Qassab is the last chance we have to find out how many bombers there are, who they are, and where.”

  103

  They reached the blockade around the corner from the clinic.

  Two dozen heavily armed commandos from Mishmar Hagvul—the Israeli border police—were waiting for orders to move. Behind them were officers from the sapper unit, already fully dressed in their bomb detection and defusal outfits.

  Marcus drew his Sig Sauer. Kailea drew hers. Tomer would have none of it. They were going to need heavier firepower than that. He grabbed M4 assault rifles from two of the commandos, handed them to his American colleagues, and ordered the commandos to hand over their spare magazines, as well. They did so, and Marcus returned his pistol to his shoulder holster.

  Tomer then took an M4 and ammo for himself. He explained to the commandos what was about to happen. He radioed the same information to the mirror team at the other end of the street. They all made sure they were on the same frequencies. Then Marcus called Roseboro to quickly bring him up to speed.

  The moment he hung up, they moved out.

  Marcus led, taking care not to move down the center of the alley. Instead, he hugged close to the buildings on the right side of the alley to cut down both the line of sight and angle of attack if al-Qassab was watching from one of Dr. Husseini’s windows. Kailea was right behind him. Tomer brought up the rear. With no time to spare, there was no point making a slow approach, so Marcus broke into a sprint.

  Seconds later, they were at the door of the dental clinic. All the lettering on the windows was in Arabic, which Marcus could not read. When Tomer confirmed this was the place, Marcus reached for the door handle and turned. It was locked. Tomer handed him Semtex plastic explosives and a detonator. Marcus attached the Semtex to the handle, inserted the detonator, and unspooled enough cord for him to back off a safe distance to the left of the door. Kailea and Tomer moved back an equal distance to the right. Marcus silently mouthed a countdown from three.

  The explosion was instant and deafening. It didn’t simply blow the door off its hinges; it disintegrated the door entirely. None of them were wearing goggles, but Marcus bolted inside anyway, working on the assumption that anyone on the other side of the door had to have been badly injured or at least had his ears blown out. Either way, he’d have the element of surprise.

  Sweeping the M4 from side to side, Marcus saw no one in the waiting room. He headed down the main corridor, keeping his weapon pointed straight ahead. Using hand signals, he directed Kailea and Tomer to check the offices and exam rooms on the left and right. Each shouted, “Clear!” as they did.

  At the end of the hall, Marcus found four bloodied bodies in the break room. Keeping his weapon trained on them in case it was a trick, he immediately called his colleagues to join him. Kailea guarded their six, keeping her weapon trained back up the hallway, while Tomer entered the break room and checked each person for a pulse.

  “They’re gone,” he said. “Double-taps to the head.”

  “Nine-millimeter?” Marcus asked.

  Tomer nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Same as Haqqani?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “That’s gotta be al-Qassab,” Marcus said. “How long ago were they shot?”

  “Not long,” said Tomer. “Bodies are still warm.”

  “Then he could still be in the building,” Kailea said.

  “Find the stairs,” said Marcus. “Come on—let’s move.”

  104

  Al-Qassab had just stepped out of the shower when he heard the explosion.

  As the building shook, he knew instantly what was happening. The Zionists had found him, and they had breached the door. The only question was how many commandos were pouring into the building and whether more were fast-roping from helicopters onto the roof.

  Grabbing his Glock 9mm pistol, he came out of the bathroom stark naked. Reaching for the backpack on the bed, he pulled out his spare set of clothes. One of the Kairos operatives had stolen an Israeli police uniform, complete with utility belt, holster, boots, and sunglasses. Al-Qassab quickly put them on. He also grabbed a wallet and false set of papers from his backpack and stuffed these in his pockets, along with the satphone and the mobile phone set up to detonate the bomb inside Hussam Mashrawi.

  Putting his pistol in the holster and spare magazines in his belt, al-Qassab now snatched the Uzi and raced to the closet. He climbed the ladder, pushed the hatch up, and thrust the barrel of the submachine gun into the chilly morning air, expecting to engage with Israeli forces. He spun around to the left, then quickly to his right, but to his astonishment, there was no one on the roof at all.

  It could be a
trap, he knew. There had to be snipers hiding on adjacent roofs, but so what if there were? A head shot would be fatal, but it would also be instant and thus far better than being captured and tortured and then paraded before the media as the first Kairos operative ever apprehended, and by the Zionists, no less. Tossing the Uzi through the hatch, he finished climbing the ladder, crawled onto the roof, and picked up the weapon again. Scanning the nearby rooftops and matching the scene in his mind with the video he’d taken earlier, he quickly mapped out a route and began to run.

  Marcus slowly crept up the stairs.

  He was moving more carefully now. If there were people on the second floor, surely they’d heard the explosion. If it was al-Qassab, he was armed and dangerous and waiting for them.

  While Marcus wanted the man alive, he knew that might not be possible. If the man was wearing a suicide vest, Marcus would have just one shot—a head shot between the eyes—to take him out before he could push the button and detonate the bomb. If al-Qassab had actually undergone surgery to implant a body cavity bomb inside his chest, he might have a second or two more before the man could hit his speed dial and trigger the explosion. Unless he’d hit the speed dial already.

  Wishing he had a stun grenade, but realizing time was of the essence, Marcus stopped creeping up the stairs. He sprinted up the remaining steps, pivoted around the corner, and burst onto the second floor with sound and fury. Why wait? Why give al-Qassab any extra time to think or act?

  Sweeping the M4 from left to right, Marcus found no one in the hallway. He heard a television to his left and decided to break right, into the master bedroom, in case the running TV was designed to lure him to the left. Staying low, he kicked in the slightly open door, sweeping the weapon from right to left this time. Again he found nobody. Instead, he saw a half-empty backpack on the bed. Moving to the bathroom, he could see the steam, the water on the floor, and the discarded paramedic’s uniform. He checked under the bed and in the closet but found no one. It was clear. He was about to shout that when he heard Kailea yell from the living room.

  105

  Fearing the worst, Marcus raced to the living room.

  When he got there, he immediately saw the open closet door, the ladder, the hatch. Kailea had already scrambled up to the roof.

  “I see him,” she shouted and took off in hot pursuit.

  Marcus quickly climbed the ladder and was soon sprinting to catch up, even as he radioed to Tomer and the team that they were heading east over the rooftops. They were moving too fast to open fire, but so was al-Qassab. Darting around water heaters and under clotheslines, Marcus was rapidly gaining on Kailea, and they were both closing the gap with the Syrian. Moments later, Tomer radioed to say he, too, was now on the roof. He was pushing hard to catch up and ordering Mishmar Hagvul forces near the Temple Mount to get to the roofs and start coming toward them from the east.

  Up ahead, Marcus saw al-Qassab jump from one building to another, but when he hit the roof, he didn’t keep running. Instead, he dropped to one knee, swung around, and opened fire on Kailea. She immediately dove for cover, as did Marcus. Kailea was closer to the Syrian and returned fire. Marcus didn’t have a clear shot. Kailea was directly ahead of him, about ten or twelve yards, crouched behind an air-conditioning unit. Marcus could hear the bullets pinging off the metal unit.

  Glancing to his right, he saw a path to another AC unit and bolted for it. The movement drew al-Qassab’s attention and his fire. Marcus could hear rounds whizzing past his head and did a Pete Rose, diving headfirst and landing on his stomach behind the unit just as the Syrian unleashed two automatic bursts.

  At the same moment, Kailea leveled two bursts from her M4, then followed those up with a third. That drew al-Qassab’s focus back to her. As she popped out a spent mag and reloaded, the Syrian lit her up with everything he had in a fresh magazine.

  Sensing his opportunity, Marcus gripped his M4 close to his chest, leaped to his feet, sprinted toward the building’s edge, and jumped across an alleyway. He made it, but just barely, and was fortunate to land on his feet. A row of a half-dozen large water coolers obscured al-Qassab’s view to the south. That—combined with another three bursts of return fire from Kailea—gave Marcus the time and cover he needed to arc around several air conditioners and get in position behind the Syrian.

  He briefly debated shouting a warning and giving the man a chance to surrender but quickly abandoned the thought. If the man did have a suicide vest or a body cavity bomb, the warning would give him the time he needed to blow himself up. Both Marcus and Kailea were likely far enough away to survive the blast, but that wasn’t the point. As Marcus had told Tomer repeatedly, they needed this guy alive.

  Just then, however, he heard Kailea radio that she’d been hit. He was about to ask how badly she was hurt when to his right he spotted a team of Israeli commandos climbing onto the roof and heading in their direction. They were at least a football field away, but Marcus worried when they got within range, they would shoot to kill, no matter what Tomer had told them.

  Out of time and options, Marcus lifted the M4 carbine, trained the infrared laser sight on al-Qassab’s right shoulder, and squeezed the trigger. The .223 round spat out of the barrel at a velocity of 2,970 feet per second. A fraction of a second later, Marcus saw a puff of pink mist. He saw the man lurch forward and collapse to his left side. Then al-Qassab emitted a bloodcurdling scream that could be heard across the city.

  “Tomer, al-Qassab’s down—I’m moving to him,” Marcus shouted into his headset. “Get to Kailea and make sure she’s okay.”

  106

  Word came back almost immediately.

  Kailea was not okay. She’d been hit in the left leg. The bullet had torn through her femoral artery, and she was in danger of bleeding out. Tomer reported that he’d already ripped off his belt to create a makeshift tourniquet. But he ordered a chopper to land—or at least hover—near his position and medevac the woman out immediately.

  Even as Marcus heard the words and tried to process the severity of his partner’s wounds, he was racing toward al-Qassab. When he reached the Syrian, he aimed his automatic rifle at the man’s head and kicked the guy’s weapon out of reach. Behind him he could hear the Israeli commandos coming up fast. When they arrived, he held up a hand and ordered them to back off and give him space to operate. Then he tossed his own M4 to the closest soldier and told another to grab the Uzi.

  With the immediate environment secure, Marcus speed-dialed the war room and let Roseboro know al-Qassab was wounded and in custody.

  “Is he talking?” Roseboro asked.

  “He will,” Marcus replied. “Where’s POTUS?”

  “They’re all at the church.”

  “Did they hear the gunfire?”

  “The principals didn’t, but the agents posted outside did.”

  “What about the press?”

  “I don’t think so. Everyone covering the church visit is deep inside the cathedral at the moment.”

  “All right. I’ll call you back the moment I have something.”

  “Great work, Ryker—really.”

  “Don’t jinx it, Carl. We’re not out of this thing yet.”

  The Grand Mufti’s assistant, breathless and pale, returned to the office.

  The staff was still glued to the continuing live coverage of the most powerful Muslim in the world, a hajji from Mecca, walking through a church building that not a single one of them had ever been to or even considered going to, although the historic site was close to where they were sitting now. Indeed, the group was so captivated by the unfolding drama, no one noticed their colleague slipping back into the room.

  “Well?” al-Azzam asked in a whisper.

  “The Secret Service said he left,” his secretary said quietly.

  “What do you mean, left?”

  “Departed the plaza, left the premises—gone,” she said.

  “That’s impossible. He’s supposed to be running the whole event.”
<
br />   “That’s what I said. But apparently he told one of the agents that his wife was having an emergency, and he had to go. He said you were in charge, and he’d call you on a landline the moment he got the chance. The agent gave me this.”

  From her purse, she pulled out a lanyard. The Grand Mufti took it in his hands and stared at the printed name under the plastic. Sure enough, it read, Dr. Hussam Mashrawi, Executive Director—VIP / ALL-ACCESS PASS.

  Al-Azzam’s face grew pale. “Get Yasmine on the phone,” he whispered.

  The assistant obeyed immediately. She picked up the landline and dialed the Mashrawis’ home number by heart. After ten rings, she shook her head and hung up.

  “Try her mobile.”

  Again the assistant picked up the receiver and dialed from memory. This time Yasmine answered on the second ring.

  “Hello, Mrs. Mashrawi, I have your father on the line.”

  The Grand Mufti breathed a sigh of relief and took the receiver. “Sweetheart, is everything okay?”

  “Yes, of course,” she replied.

  “Are you at home?”

  “No, with some neighbors.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Watching the coverage, what else?”

  “Is Hussam with you?”

  “No, why would he be?” she said. “Isn’t he with you? Your big moment is coming up. I’m so excited to see it.”

  “Has Hussam called you today?”

  “No.”

  “Texted you?”

  “No, he had to leave his phone at home. Didn’t you all?”

  Al-Azzam ignored the question. “When was the last time you saw or spoke with him?”

  “This morning, just before he left for the mosque. Why?”

  “No reason, I suppose. Just a misunderstanding.”

  “What kind of misunderstanding?”

  “The kind that happens when we don’t have our mobile phones. Don’t you worry. I love you, but I’m very busy, and I have to go now.”