The Jerusalem Assassin

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The Jerusalem Assassin Page 34

by Joel C. Rosenberg


  111

  Marcus shoved the phone in his pocket and ran back to al-Qassab.

  He found Tomer Ben Ami standing over the Syrian. Blood was pouring from al-Qassab’s knee, and no one had given him any medical attention because Tomer had ordered them not to. He knew what Marcus was trying to do, and he approved.

  Al-Qassab had stopped screaming. Gritting his teeth and writhing in agony, he was nevertheless trying his best not to make a sound. But he gasped as he saw Marcus approaching and drawing his pistol.

  “All right, Mohammed, you ready to try this again?”

  The Syrian said nothing and turned his head, refusing to look Marcus in the eye.

  “How many of your operatives have a body cavity bomb surgically inserted into them here in Israel?” This time Marcus chose not to pause between questions. “What are the names and exact locations of each of the bombers at this very moment? How can we prevent the bombs from exploding?”

  Marcus chambered a round. The sound of him doing so turned al-Qassab’s head. Marcus raised his eyebrows.

  “I’m waiting,” he said.

  But the Syrian did not reply.

  “Fine, Mohammed—just don’t say you weren’t warned.”

  Marcus again pressed his boot on the man’s bleeding shoulder and pressed down until he convulsed in pain. Then Marcus kicked the man in the ribs and tried to roll him over, but this time al-Qassab refused to budge. Marcus looked at Tomer, and Tomer ordered the commandos to roll the naked man onto his stomach. The moment they did, Marcus pressed the barrel against al-Qassab’s left knee.

  “Last chance, Mohammed,” Marcus said.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll talk,” the man suddenly growled. “There’s only one bomber.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “A man.”

  “Where is he?” Marcus demanded.

  The Syrian said nothing, so Marcus pushed the barrel deeper into the back of the man’s knee.

  “I don’t know,” al-Qassab said. “I gave him three options where he could strike. I don’t know where he is right now.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “You really want this bullet?”

  “It’s true, I swear; it’s true—he was recruited in Jenin and trained by one of our operatives on the West Bank. I only met him when the Pakistani performed the surgery on him. But I wasn’t told his name, and I didn’t ask.”

  Marcus was skeptical, but with the clock running, he moved on.

  “How can we override the system?” Marcus asked.

  “You can’t,” the Syrian replied.

  “There’s no way to defuse the bomb?”

  “Once it’s been implanted, it cannot be deactivated. It cannot even be removed from the shahid—if someone tries, it will go off.”

  “Then how can we stop him?”

  The Syrian said nothing, so Marcus stood upright and slammed his boot down on the man’s shoulder once again. This time al-Qassab could not stop himself. He cried out loudly, and Marcus pressed down even harder.

  “You can’t,” the man cried. “You can’t stop him.”

  “But you can, right?”

  Nothing.

  “Right?” Marcus asked again, applying still more pressure to the shoulder wound.

  “Yes, yes, I can—only I can,” the man gasped.

  “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How can you reach him?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Forget it, Mohammed. I have no time to play games with you,” Marcus yelled.

  Then he bent down and shoved the Sig Sauer into the back of the man’s left knee again. Before he could fire, however, the man blurted out the answer.

  “The phone,” he yelled. “The one you took from me—the man entered his own mobile number in my speed-dial system. Call him, and I will tell him to stand down.”

  “What’s the number?” Marcus said, turning back to al-Qassab.

  “I told you it’s on speed dial—I don’t know the actual number.”

  “Fine, what’s the speed-dial number?”

  “Five,” said the Syrian. “Call him, and I’ll tell him to stand down—I promise. Just give me morphine and make the pain stop.”

  112

  Marcus looked at al-Qassab’s phone.

  He stared at the number five key. But just then his own phone rang. Marcus removed the gun from the back of the Syrian’s knee, stood, pulled his own phone from his pocket, and took the call.

  “Hey,” Marcus said, turning to look at the Dome of the Rock.

  “It’s me,” said Pete. “What do you need?”

  But Marcus didn’t respond to Pete directly. “Really, just now?” he said instead, loud enough that the Syrian and Tomer and all the commandos could hear him. “Where?” He paused, then added, “What did he say?”

  Again Marcus paused, pretending he was listening while actually paying no attention to Pete’s confused questions.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “Keep him isolated. If he tries to move toward you, shoot to kill. Got it? Good. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  Marcus hung up and shoved his phone back in his pocket. Then he knelt down again and looked into al-Qassab’s frantic, bewildered eyes.

  “Game’s up, Mohammed—Israeli forces just stopped your pal Hussam Mashrawi,” Marcus said. “He was walking across the plaza on the Temple Mount, toward the holding room where he was to greet the president, the prime minister, and the king. Fortunately the soldiers noticed he was limping and perspiring, even in this cold. So they stopped him and forced him to strip down, and guess what they found, Mohammed? They found a bloody bandage taped to his chest. And under that, a six-inch scar. And once they told him we had you and your phone in custody, Mashrawi began crying—sobbing like a little girl. He confessed to everything, Mohammed, and he laid all the blame on you. Said he’d had to leave his own phone at home because of the last-minute security protocols. But he said you had the other phone, and all you had to do was press speed-dial number five.”

  Al-Qassab stopped struggling, stopped trying to get away, and all the color drained from his face. “I don’t believe you,” he said after a long silence.

  “I couldn’t care less what you believe, Mohammed,” Marcus replied, standing again. “It’s over. Your boy’s in custody, and he’s talking—talking up a storm—about everyone and everything he knows about Kairos. And by the way, he’s begging the Israelis to remove the bomb from him.”

  Suddenly al-Qassab let loose with a torrent of profanity that caused Marcus to actually take a step back from the man. His face was dark red, almost crimson, and he was screaming at the top of his lungs like a man possessed. Marcus didn’t understand a word he was saying. It was all in Arabic.

  Tomer translated some of it. “He says he knew Mashrawi was a coward. He says he was always against choosing him, that he told Abu Nakba that Mashrawi was not really one of them, that he never should have been trusted for a mission as important as this, that the man never truly believed in jihad, that Mashrawi is a liar and a traitor and a kafir.”

  “A kafir?” Marcus asked.

  “An infidel,” said Tomer.

  Marcus turned, looked al-Qassab in the eye, and smiled.

  “Why?” the Syrian roared in English. “Why are you smiling?”

  Marcus shook his head. “Because until this moment, Mohammed, I didn’t know for sure whether Hussam Mashrawi was really your bomber. And we don’t have him yet. But I guarantee you we will.”

  113

  Marcus’s personal phone rang again.

  It was Roseboro.

  Carl explained that he’d been in a SCIF—a sensitive compartmented information facility—updating the director of the Secret Service back in Washington on the latest developments. Marcus quickly filled his colleague in on the latest and told him about the order he’d given Geoff Stone to evacuate the Temple Mount.

  “I heard about that,�
�� Roseboro said. “But there are two problems.”

  “What problems?”

  “POTUS and the PM. They were furious at the idea of an evacuation and countermanded the order.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “One of the agents told POTUS that Hussam Mashrawi might be the bomber but that Mashrawi hadn’t been seen in hours and might, in fact, have departed the Temple Mount,” Roseboro said. “When POTUS heard that and relayed it to the PM and the king, all three men said they wanted to proceed. Secretary Whitney cautioned against it, saying they should at least wait in the holding room until the situation became clearer.”

  “Did they listen to her?”

  “So far.”

  “Thank God,” said Marcus. “That may be the only reason they’re all still alive.”

  “Where are you now?” Roseboro asked.

  “On a rooftop in the Muslim Quarter.”

  “What’s being done with al-Qassab?”

  “Tomer and I are going to take him into custody. I’ll keep interrogating him and see what more I can get.”

  “No, that can wait—have Tomer bring you here. I want you to brief the president on what you’ve learned and just how dangerous the situation really is.”

  Marcus agreed, and soon he and Tomer had turned custody of al-Qassab over to the Mishmar Hagvul commandos and were racing across the rooftops to the two aluminum ladders the commandos had used. The two men quickly scrambled down and sprinted through the shuk, then through another labyrinth of alleyways until they reached a now even more heavily fortified checkpoint onto the Temple Mount.

  They showed their IDs and explained what was happening, but that wasn’t enough to allow them to enter. The commander of this checkpoint explained that he’d been given strict orders to allow no one in or out of the Temple Mount.

  Marcus was furious at the thought that he was being blocked by his own order. Pulling out his phone, he speed-dialed Roseboro, explained the delay, and handed the phone to the commander. Still, the commander refused to budge.

  Tomer lit into him in Hebrew, but the commander only dug in his heels. So Tomer pulled out his own phone and dialed the personal number of Asher Gilad, director of the Mossad. Tomer spoke in rapid-fire Hebrew, then a moment later hung up and called another number. This time, he spoke more slowly, though still in Hebrew. The conversation lasted for almost a minute. Then Tomer handed the phone to the commander, and fifteen seconds later, the commander ordered his men to stand back and let Marcus and Tomer pass.

  “Who was that?” Marcus asked as they cleared through the stone archway and enormous green wooden doors and stepped onto the Temple Mount together. “Who did that soldier just talk to?”

  “His prime minister.”

  Ahmet Mustafa ordered all of his senior advisors out of his office.

  The moment they were gone, the Turkish president went to his wall safe, unlocked it, removed the satellite phone that Hamdi Yaşar had given him months before, and called the Al-Sawt producer in Doha.

  Yaşar answered on the fourth ring.

  “What is going on?” Mustafa demanded. “Why can’t I see what is happening on the Haram al-Sharif?”

  “I don’t know,” Yaşar replied. “My guys say it was not them.”

  “Was the feed cut? Did Israelis cut it? Why?”

  “I said I don’t know,” Yaşar repeated, the tension thick in his voice. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you when I know more.”

  “Where are you going?” Tomer asked. “The holding room is this way.”

  “I’m not going to the holding room,” Marcus replied, heading the opposite direction down the colonnade. “Not yet.”

  “Then where?”

  “To see the Grand Mufti.”

  Tomer caught up with him just as Marcus burst past two Secret Service agents into the front doors of the administrative offices of the Waqf and headed down the hall toward a dozen more heavily armed U.S., Israeli, and Saudi security men. When he got to the door of the office, he did not stop to knock but entered without warning.

  114

  Startled by the sudden intrusion, Amin al-Azzam rose abruptly to his feet.

  “Put him in handcuffs, now,” Marcus ordered.

  Confused by the unprecedented demand, none of the six IDF soldiers standing guard moved. Tomer repeated the order in Hebrew. Only then did the commander of the squad order his men to comply.

  “What is the meaning of this?” the Grand Mufti complained.

  “Strip him,” Marcus ordered. “You heard me. Do it. Quickly.”

  The soldiers and the two DSS agents standing post in the room were wide-eyed. But again, Tomer repeated the order in Hebrew.

  “This is outrageous,” the Grand Mufti shouted. “Get your hands off me. I demand to—”

  But Marcus cut him off. “Your Excellency, you’ve accused your own son-in-law of being a suicide bomber. Yet by all indications, Dr. Mashrawi left the Temple Mount hours ago. How do we know you’re telling the truth? I have to be sure you’re not a threat.”

  At this, al-Azzam stopped resisting, though he turned his head away from Marcus and the others as the soldiers followed their orders. Marcus hated having to do this but was relieved when there was no evidence that the Grand Mufti had recently had surgery of any kind.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “Get him dressed again. Let’s go. Move.”

  A minute later, the cleric was back in his robes.

  Marcus looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We had to know for sure.”

  Al-Azzam said nothing.

  “He hasn’t called?” Marcus asked.

  Al-Azzam shook his head.

  “And you still have no idea where he is?”

  “Wouldn’t I tell you if I did?”

  “That’s not an answer, sir.”

  Al-Azzam glared at Marcus, but Marcus stood his ground. He was genuinely sorry that such measures had to be taken. But the situation was extraordinary. There had been no other option, and both men knew it.

  “No,” al-Azzam finally replied. “I don’t.”

  “Fine,” Marcus said, turning to the two DSS agents. “Keep him comfortable, but keep him away from the phone—you guys answer any calls that come in—and he doesn’t leave this room or see anyone else unless you hear from Tomer or me.”

  The agents nodded. Tomer signaled the Israelis to lower their weapons, which they did. Then Tomer followed Marcus out of the office, back down the hall, and across the plaza as Marcus explained his plan.

  Even before they reached the holding room, they were met by two dozen Israeli commandos guarding the perimeter. The commander checked their IDs, then radioed their presence up the chain of command. It took two full minutes—time they did not have—but finally both men were allowed to proceed.

  115

  President Clarke stood up when the two men entered the room.

  He looked furious.

  “Agent Ryker, what the hell is going on here? The world is watching this delay, and it’s undermining the entire point of this peace summit.”

  “I understand, Mr. President, and I’m sorry it had to be done,” Marcus said. “But it’s time to proceed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re ready for the three of you and Secretary Whitney to tour the complex, take the photo, and make your remarks,” Marcus said. “And afterward, of course, we will take His Majesty to the mosque so he can have some time alone to pray.”

  The holding room was silent. Besides Marcus and Tomer, only eleven other people were present—POTUS and the head of his Secret Service detail; the Israeli prime minister and his bodyguard; King Faisal, the head of the Royal Guards, and his intelligence chief, Prince Abdullah; Secretary Whitney and Agent Geoff Stone; and Senator Dayton and Annie Stewart.

  Suddenly the senator spoke up.

  “Marcus, you know I have the highest respect for you, but I’m confused,” Dayton began. “I share the president’s frustration, and I want
this summit to proceed and to succeed as much as everyone in this room. But if you tell us it’s not safe out there, then I’ll believe you. Don’t tell us what we want to hear. Tell us the truth.”

  “Yes, Agent Ryker, tell us the truth,” Prince Abdullah added. “What is really going on out there?”

  Marcus looked at Clarke, who nodded his consent.

  “Very well,” Marcus began. “Ali Haqqani is dead. Mohammed al-Qassab is wounded but in custody. We’ve just confirmed the Grand Mufti is not the bomber and poses no threat. And we’re now convinced that Hussam Mashrawi is the bomber. We’re also certain that you all are the target and that Mashrawi intends to rush you and detonate himself the moment you all appear together at the photo op with the Grand Mufti in front of the Dome of the Rock. The problem is, at this moment, we don’t know where Mashrawi is. Personally, I believe he’s still here, somewhere on the Mount.”

  “That’s impossible,” said Prime Minister Eitan. “Our people—and yours—have been over every square meter of this place and there has been no sign of him.”

  Marcus was about to reply, but Tomer spoke first.

  “With respect, sir, no one knows this place better than Hussam Mashrawi. I believe Agent Ryker is correct. Mashrawi is here, somewhere, lying in wait.”

  “Then why in the world would you send us out there?” the president asked.

  “To flush him out, sir,” Marcus replied.

  “I’m sorry?” Clarke said in disbelief.

  “Sir, you’re insistent on doing the photo op,” Marcus explained. “That’s your prerogative. So let’s go do it. If I’m wrong and Hussam is not here, then there’s nothing to fear. The summit will proceed apace.”

  “But what if you’re right?” asked Secretary of State Whitney.

  “Then we’ll stop him before he can get close to any of you, and I assure you, we’ll take him out.”

  For several moments, the holding room was silent again.

  Then Clarke said, “Agent Ryker, would you give us a minute?”

 

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