The light didn’t span the distance across the dark cavern, and his footsteps echoed in the emptiness, but he also heard the sound of running water. The water was a constant flow, but it wasn’t a rush.
Something snapped underfoot. When he shined the flashlight down, he discovered he’d stepped on a rat skeleton, snapping the rib cage like small firecrackers.
Realizing he was walking out into the darkness with no point of reference, he turned back around. He felt panicked for just a moment when he discovered he’d walked farther than he’d thought. Gratefully, he reached the cave wall again, then lifted the flashlight to peer into the tunnel.
His light struck the eyes of the man hiding within the tunnel. Before Lourds could back away, the man leaped at him and knocked him backwards. Lourds tried to stay on his feet, but the man’s speed and strength overwhelmed him and drove him farther back and back, until he finally tripped and went down.
The man crashed on top of him, forearm pushed up under his chin and so heavy on his throat that he couldn’t breathe. Lourds swung his flashlight at the man’s head, but the man simply shifted his forearm and smashed it into Lourds’s face.
The blow on his still-sore nose brought tears to his eyes as his head rebounded from the cavern floor hard enough to fill his vision with spots and make blood roar in his ears. Lourds gasped for breath, and the man shoved the snout of a vicious-looking pistol into the professor’s mouth.
‘Professor Lourds, my name is Colonel Imad Davari. I have traveled very far to find you, and what you seek. I will not be denied. If I have to, I will shoot you. I will not kill you, but I have learned from great personal experience that you can shoot a healthy man a number of times without any of those wounds being lethal. To do what I need you to do, you don’t need to be able to walk or to move your arms. Therefore, I will shoot out your knees and your elbows to begin with.’
Lourds focused on the man. Miriam had mentioned the colonel in her description of the events that had happened in Evin Prison. There was no doubt that the man would do exactly what he said.
‘Do we have an understanding?’
It was hard speaking around the gun barrel in his mouth, but Lourds was a trained orator, used to making himself understood in many languages. ‘Yeth.’
Davari smiled. ‘Good.’ He patted Lourds’s cheek with his free hand, then pushed himself to his feet. ‘Get up.’
As Lourds stood, he noticed the other five men standing behind Davari. All of them wore thobes and keffiyehs. His heart sank.
The Revolutionary Guards colonel shined his flashlight around the cavern. ‘What is this place?’
‘Before the Dome was built, this was the site of the First and Second Temples.’ Despite his fear, Lourds studied the walls. Some of Davari’s men carried high-powered lanterns. ‘The Temples were carved out of the mountain, taking advantage of natural caverns here. This one was evidently forgotten.’
‘Where are Mohammad’s Koran and the Scroll?’
‘I don’t know.’
Davari grinned at him. ‘Then perhaps we need to explore a little further.’ He waved Lourds forward with his pistol.
The colonel needn’t have bothered with the weapon threat. Lourds picked up his flashlight and went willingly. He didn’t know what he was going to do if there was no Koran and no Scroll.
Except die. Only he felt pretty sure that was going to happen no matter what.
Mufarrij watched as the last of Davari’s men clambered into the hole in the wall beside the stairs. Two other Revolutionary Guards remained on the main floor, keeping an eye on the exiting tourists. They had talked briefly before most of them had split off to follow Davari into the Well of Souls.
Moving swiftly and fearlessly, his wounded face still throbbing, Mufarrij threw himself over the side of the stairs and dropped. When he landed on his feet, his injuries filled his head with such screaming pain that he almost dropped to his knees. He forced himself to move through the agony, reaching out and yanking the stone section back before it completely closed.
The action caught the man in the tunnel off guard. Still holding the wall section, he got dragged forward. His hand flashed to the pistol holstered on his hip, but the thobe got in the way.
Grabbing the man’s neck, Mufarrij twisted violently, shattering his spine like a rotten stick. The body fell to Mufarrij’s feet, and he knelt beside it, searching him. Beneath the loose folds of the thobe, the man carried a silenced 9mm pistol and a machine pistol, an ammo belt around his waist holding extra magazines for both weapons, and a boot knife.
Evidently Davari had an agreement with the Ministry of Awqaf that most visitors didn’t enjoy.
With the ammo belt around his own waist, the pistol in his hand, and the machine pistol looped over his shoulder, Mufarrij climbed into the tunnel. He was doing God’s work now, and he intended to see that Mohammad’s Book and the Scroll did not fall into the Ayatollah’s bloodthirsty hands.
Only a short distance away, Lourds discovered the source of the water noise. A short flight of steps led down into a cistern filled halfway with water. He supposed it had been built during the time of the First or Second Temple and used to supply the people that had lived there. Or, since the Muslim builders of the Dome had lived there as well, perhaps it had been used by them as well.
‘Where are Mohammad’s Koran and the Scroll, Professor Lourds?’ Davari glared at him.
‘I don’t know.’
‘This is a trick.’
Lourds glared back at the man in disbelief. ‘How can it be a trick? I’ve never been here before. I’ve never seen this place. The first time I got here is the first time you got here.’
For a second he thought Davari might shoot him just on general principles. Then a thought occurred to him.
He cocked his head. ‘I hear running water.’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’
‘Running water has to go somewhere.’ Ignoring the pistol in the man’s hand, drawn by his own curiosity, Lourds tracked the noise. ‘Water is a notorious destroyer. Give it the tiniest little crack, and it will cut a chasm through the earth if there is an endless supply. It destroys things more completely than a fire, because you can reconstitute something from ash, but once water has its way with something, there’s usually nothing left.’
Lourds walked to the end of the cistern area, tracking the noise. Directing his light down, he discovered that the cistern had been built in sections. He thought perhaps it might be for rotating the water supply and keeping it fresh.
Set into the center of the last chamber was a block of stone. Water seeped around and under it. Lourds knelt and shined his light into the center of the cistern chamber.
‘What is that?’ Davari was at his side, adding his light to Lourds’s.
‘That is a drain that has evidently worn down over time.’
‘A drain?’
‘Possibly to keep the water fresh, or to get rid of any that was contaminated.’ Lourds shined his flashlight across the tops of the section walls. ‘See there? Those are built like dams.’ He played the light over the sections. ‘Open them up, and the water in that section drains into the one next to it.’
‘Where are the things we came in search of?’
Lourds paced back along the cistern, puzzling it out for himself. Then, in the next-to-last section, he spotted the image of a flying beast lightly chiseled into the stone. Leaning low over the murky water, he directed his beam at the bottom of the cistern.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the murk. He looked up at Davari and held out a hand. ‘I need your flashlight.’
Davari hesitated a moment, then handed it over. ‘What do you see?’
‘Nothing yet, but that carving wasn’t done for no reason.’ Even though Davari and the Revolutionary Guardsmen were all around him, Lourds couldn’t draw back from the puzzle before him. He leaned down, his face only inches from the still water.
The more powerful be
am barely penetrated the water, but there at the bottom of the cistern chamber, a bronze disk nearly a yard across gleamed dully in the light.
52
Dome of the Rock
Temple Mount
Jerusalem, the State of Israel
August 18, 2011
‘Quickly! Drain the far chamber!’ Evidently Davari had seen and figured out the significance of the bronze disk as well.
Lourds silently cursed himself for being so drawn into the mystery. But in his heart, he knew he hadn’t had a choice. If Davari was going to kill him, if he was going to die, Lourds couldn’t resist solving the puzzle first.
And his hubris might have damned the world. Always the puzzle solver, never the voice of salvation. Ah, Thomas, at least the planet will soon be saved from any more of your selfish predilections.
Lourds started to rise as two of the men leaped down into the far chamber and yanked at the plug. The gurgling of the water increased in speed and intensity.
‘Not you, Professor Lourds. I think you are fine where you are.’ Davari kept his weapon directed at him. ‘I would like very much for you to stay alive a while longer. In case you are needed.’ The colonel smiled a little. ‘Who knows? Perhaps the Ayatollah won’t mind very much if I leave you here alive.’
Lourds didn’t believe him, not after what Davari had done to Professor Namati in Evin Prison. Around him, the guards were distracted enough by the recovery operation that he thought he had a good chance at escape, but he couldn’t leave. He was stuck fast. He was also struck by the incongruity that Davari now had six followers instead of five.
The first cistern chamber hadn’t quite emptied when the partition on the second one was released. Water rushed from the second chamber into the first with thunderous gurgling, and the drain flow increased dramatically. The two other cistern chambers, including the one with the flying beast marking it and the bronze disk at the bottom, were quickly emptied as well.
Davari waved Lourds toward the empty cistern. ‘Get down there. Find out what is there.’
Knowing that Davari expected the disk to be booby-trapped in some way, Lourds dropped into the chamber. Even without the gun pointed at him, even without the notion of traps, he was going. He couldn’t stay away now if he tried. His boots splashed through the shallow water puddles on the uneven floor.
Reaching for the bronze disk, Lourds felt through the silt that had drifted down over the area. They were lucky that the last thirteen hundred years hadn’t filled the cistern entirely with silt, but it meant that the source – whatever it was – was mostly clean. Or perhaps it was filtered through an aquifer at the other end.
‘Stop right there.’
Lourds couldn’t believe it. One hand held his flashlight and the other hovered only inches from the surface of the bronze disk. He was pinned in the glare of Davari’s flashlight and at least three of the others.
‘What?’
‘There are no traps. I will not have the hands of an infidel on the holy words of God and Mohammad. You will touch the disk and go no farther.’
Helplessly, Lourds watched as one of the men clambered down into the chamber at Davari’s direction. The man seized the disk, twisted, then shook his head at the colonel.
‘Help him.’
Lourds put his flashlight to one side, then gripped the disk as well and heaved. Grudgingly, the disk turned, the bronze metal grating against the stone. After a few more coordinated heaves, the disk slid from the opening.
The Revolutionary Guardsman pointed his flashlight into the hole. Lourds grabbed his own light and added its beam.
Below, in the musty darkness, was a small room. A stone writing table held two ceramic oil lamps. In the far corner sat an old stone chest covered in tiles. Even in the weak light, Lourds made out the flying beast on the tiles, blue against the white.
‘Lourds, look out!’
As Lourds glanced up, the Guardsman beside him started to draw his weapon, but his head burst apart, spilling blood, brains, and bone across the wet floor. The dead man rolled bonelessly to one side.
At the top of the cistern chamber, Davari jerked, and blood jumped from the side of his neck. The colonel threw his light down and dodged for the darkness.
Muzzle flashes strobed the inky blackness that suddenly filled the chamber. The attacker’s shots had been silenced, but the Guardsmen’s weren’t. The hollow booms of their weapons filled the cavern space, deafening Lourds, who clapped his hands over his ears.
Filled with adrenaline and a need to flee, but also overcome with the desire to see what lay within, Lourds grabbed his flashlight and dropped through the opening. He landed on his feet and headed for the stone chest. An inscription was chiseled in Arabic across the top: ‘God is great. We shall all meet in Paradise.’
Above, the bullets continued flying, and someone cut loose with an automatic weapon. The gun battle seemed surreal against the solid reality of the chest.
Lourds braced himself and pushed the lid off with a grunt, dropping it gently to the floor. He shined his flashlight inside. A richly decorated book covered in green leather and decorated with gold and silver filigree and precious gems lay beside an ancient roll of parchment.
Unable to stop himself, Lourds opened the parchment. The language was hard to read, but the promises of a global jihad and a supernatural fire claiming the world were prominent.
Then another man dropped into the room.
Lourds whirled to face him and realized only then that he had no means of protecting himself.
The man reached up and removed his keffiyeh. The bloody face was swollen and barely recognizable, but Lourds recognized him as the bearded man from Evin Prison. He held a machine pistol in one hand, the muzzle pointed at Lourds. He had his other wrapped around his middle.
‘Is that Mohammad’s Koran and the Scroll?’
‘I think so.’
‘What does the Scroll say?’
‘That Mohammad’s people should rise up and declare war on the world.’
The bearded man shook his head. ‘That’s unacceptable.’ He coughed and blood spewed from his mouth and down his chin. ‘Your lucky day, Professor. I cannot let that Book and Scroll fall into the hands of the enemies of Saudi Arabia. So I’m going to let you live to steal it from them.’ He took his hand from his middle, and it was covered with blood. ‘I can’t go on. But I can survive long enough to get you out of this place.’
Lourds carefully placed the Book and the Scroll under his robe and tied them into place. He felt fairly confident they would stay put as he moved.
‘How?’
‘Back out the way you came. I’ll give you cover.’ The bearded man coughed more blood and shoved a fresh magazine into his weapon. ‘Now we’ve got to move, or they’ll get brave. If they get their wits about them, they’ll surround this cistern and either shoot us or starve us out. There are only a couple left. I killed the rest.’
Lourds felt terrified, but he knew what the man said was true. ‘All right.’ He started for the ladder built into the wall that led to the opening.
‘I’ll go first, but you’d better be at my heels.’ The man pulled himself up the ladder with flagging strength. Just as he reached the top, a Guardsman shoved his gun and his head into the chamber. The bearded man shot the Guardsman point-blank in the face and waited till the falling body cleared the opening. Then, leading with his machine pistol, he pulled himself through.
Lourds followed, switching off his flashlight first because he knew it made him an instant target.
In the cistern, the bearded man grabbed the wall and heaved himself up. He looked back. ‘Hurry.’ He fired a long burst toward the far end of the cistern cavern.
Lourds climbed up and got his feet under him, instantly focusing on the barely illumined doorway ahead of him. The muzzle flashes, even sustained ones, didn’t provide much light.
‘Go!’ The man removed the magazine from his weapon and inserted a new one. Then he growled as at least one
more bullet struck him.
Fighting panic, trying to keep his head clear, Lourds ran. He hated leaving the dying man behind, but the man was … dying. That had been evident from his injuries. Automatic fire thundered and filled the chamber, sending out echoes that rolled into the next cavern.
Once he cleared the cistern chamber, Lourds switched on his flashlight and ran for the hole in the wall. Before he reached it, the firing behind him died away. Then Davari’s voice filled the silence.
‘Lourds!’
Scurrying into the hole, Lourds crawled as fast as he was able. His elbows and knees bruised painfully. The Book and Scroll tied to his body made his efforts cumbersome. The sound of running feet followed him, but by then he’d already reached the turns, where a straight shot wouldn’t hit him.
Then he was at the hidden entrance by the steps. He slammed a hand into it and pushed it open. Legs under him again, he sprinted up the stairs, driving forward hard.
In the main room, the faithful slowed his pace and blocked his path, but he pushed through them, bumping and jostling and twice just running people down. When the bullets started flying, coming from behind him, the crowd hit the ground like they were practicing for an air raid.
Two men at the far end didn’t drop, though. They drew weapons and took up the chase.
Standing tall above the crowd, Lourds leaped over the last few people in his way. He saw bullets splinter the door ahead just before he ran through it. Heart pounding, ears burning, air whistling in his lungs, he took off down the streets.
Sprinting off the curb, he caused a pileup as a driver tried to brake to avoid hitting him and got rear-ended by the vehicle behind it. A taxi parked on the other side of the street. Lourds couldn’t change his stride or direction in time, so he leaped forward, sliding across the hood as bullets hammered its body and smashed through the windshield and windows.
As he rose to his feet, a body crashed into him from behind. The impact against the cobblestoned street drove the wind from his lungs and made his senses reel. The Guardsman who had tackled him tried to shove his pistol into Lourds’s face, but Lourds caught the man’s wrist in both hands. Only then did he realize that the impact had knocked the Book and the Scroll loose.
The Temple Mount Code Page 33