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OLD CITY JERUSALEM, CHRISTIAN QUARTER
Dylan and Sarha plunged into the thick afternoon crowd like tourists trying to win a footrace. Forty yards away from the Sepulchre walls, Dylan spotted a phone booth and nearly threw himself on it.
Accepting a phone card from Sarha, he covered the keypad with his body and dialed frantically.
“Hey, Reuven. Please don’t hang up. This is Dylan Hatfield calling. I know this isn’t a secure line, so I won’t say Mossad and you won’t say Delta Force, but you do remember me, from Tel Aviv? Early nineties. . . ?”
Dylan laughed heartily. It appeared his contact had remembered him.
“Listen, I’ve got a lot to lay on you in a very short time. And I hope you remember enough to know that you can trust me no matter what. I’m in the Old City right now. You need to know that a group of thirty to fifty serial killers . . . yes, you heard me right, serial killers . . . right, they just entered Jerusalem . . . No, I don’t know how they all got through airport security together, but maybe disguised as some kind of group? Maybe religious. So look for a large, all-male tour group, like a group of priests or monks. Anyway, it’d be a big help if you could come to the city and work with me on this . . . whatever that might entail, you know. Oh, and I’m completely freelance now. I’m not on a formal op or mission for anyone else. I’ll fill you in more later . . . No, I have no weapons on me—no comm., no cell phone, nothing . . . I’m just outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. . . . Fifteen minutes? That’s great! One more thing—bring a metal detector wand. I’ll explain later. See you soon.”
Then he hung up the phone and exited the booth.
NEW GATE, OLD CITY JERUSALEM —AT THAT MOMENT
Dylan’s off-the-cuff guesswork had actually described the enemy’s tactics to the letter. For the very moment he left the phone booth and began making his way toward the rendezvous point to meet up with his old Mossad contact, four groups of twelve men dressed in the garb of Nazarite monks, each one led by a scowling man of advanced age, approached a different gate of the Old City.
Two of the groups were composed of dark-skinned men, though all the leaders were white. All had passed customs that morning on a chartered flight from New York, traveling as an international delegation of Nazarite Brothers in Intercessory Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem. Religious groups, especially traveling en masse, tended to receive gentler treatment from Israeli security, since their common purpose of the journey was easier to determine. The authorities had failed to realize that Nazarites wear white Essene robes, not the black colors worn by this group.
On the outskirts of modern Jerusalem, their bus had stopped in an industrial area and taken on a large box from a van marked as a carrier of agricultural implements.
The box contained fifty-five razor-sharp sickle blades. Those deadly weapons now lay concealed from the walking public of the Old City by the thinnest of monastic garb: a simple fold of robe.
As for those leading each pack, each of the elderly men grasped a crooked staff for support, but the use was merely cosmetic and to evoke sympathy from passersby. Each of the senior leaders was actually one of the Elders of the Scythian Brotherhood. And the reason why none spoke to the men behind them was not a matter of protocol or religious decorum. It was because the Elders were in the throes of exercising the one ability that had elevated them to their exalted rank among their murderous brethren.
They were conversing with demons, as freely and fluently as language students on an immersion trip.
And they were headed, finally, to a certain destination. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
DEIR ES-SULTAN MONASTERY, ROOFTOP OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
“This is all incredibly fascinating,” Abby said to the Sentinel Rulaz. “But there appears to be some great mystery surrounding me and all that’s happened up to now. And somehow I have been promised that the solving of this mystery will heal a breach of some sort.”
“Maybe we should say breaches, in the plural,” added Rulaz. “Let me explain. This is a closely guarded history, one that few Watchers know, at least in full. After meeting the baby Christ, Anna the prophetess lived to see Him crucified and the fledgling Church grow and flourish. When persecution intensified, she fled with a large group to Ethiopia, where she became a formidable witness and evangelist. But something extraordinary began to happen. A large number of the women Anna had led to Jesus started to manifest visionary gifts remarkably like her own. It was as if her spiritual endowments passed on to her offspring in the faith much like parental traits in one’s children. The women whom they prayed with to accept Christ witnessed them too, and so on. As the numbers and layers of these visionary women grew, they began to notice additional wonders. It seemed a spiritual thread of interconnectedness linked them all, alerting them to each other’s dangers, victories, and fluctuations in the Spirit.
“That’s why the Iya Agba in Nigeria are aware of you and were concerned for your condition, even though they have no idea who you are or where you live.
“Now, after Anna’s death at an age approaching 130, an old age prolonged by the dry, healthful desert air of our country and the faithful care of her multiplied family, the lineage spread with the word of Christ across Africa. Amazingly, Africa’s matriarchal tradition, with mothers not only leading the family but counseling the young girls in matters of faith, caused this heritage to remain confined to mothers and their spiritual daughters.”
“Somewhere along in there,” Abby interjected, “a wealthy royal from Ethiopia traveled to Nigeria and established the Ijebu kingdom. Did you know about that?”
Rulaz closed her eyes and fell silent for a few seconds. “Yes. I remember hearing something in my youth about our Sisterhood having seeded a kingdom far west of us. Something about helping its queen, who was a native of our land, battle a powerful evil.”
“Yes. The Iya Agba of Nigeria are apparently descended from those sisters who came over.”
“I am aware of the Iya Agba in the Spirit, although I did not know their name until just now. You see, this is one of the most painful breaches I have referred to.”
“Please explain this to me.”
“It all came about through the next chapter in our continued history. Through the centuries, the Watchers evolved into far more than a spiritual family. Our gifts made us a vital but highly secret asset in the battles between good and evil all across the globe. Watchers have acted as sentinels beyond Africa: in Europe and Asia as well. We have warned countless homelands of impending invasions, kings of imminent assassination attempts, popes and clerics of every stripe of demonic attacks against all segments of society. And in the midst of all that headiness lay the seeds of our alienation.”
The State of Israel was home to twenty-one women descended from the spiritual lineage of Anna the prophetess who possessed the gift of the Watchers. These women formed an unusually tight-knit group as a result of living in a predominantly Jewish state and so close to the matriarch of the Sisterhood. They lived in virtually every corner of the nation: from the Golan Heights to the Sea of Galilee to the resort city of Eilat at the corner of the far-south Negev Desert.
At that moment, all of twelve who did not already live in the greater Jerusalem area were in their cars and within ten miles of the city, summoned by a powerful spiritual call.
Three had left children with their fathers. Five had left jobs mid-workday, having given their employers no warning or asked for time off. One would be investigated for desertion from her army post upon her return.
All but one of them had violated at least three traffic laws during their hurried trip into Jerusalem.
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ROOFTOP OF CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
Rulaz gazed back out over the Old City and blanched.
“Sister Abigail, whatever you do, do not look out there. First of all, you would be detected almost immediately. The air is thick with combatants. Secondly, the sight of it would make you ill. I
have never once regretted having the gift of my Sight. Until this moment.”
“Are we losing?”
“I cannot say who is losing or winning. The battle is fierce right now. But I’m speaking of the sheer blackness and repulsiveness of our enemies. Perhaps we in Jerusalem have been overly sheltered by our many angelic guardians all these years. But I have never seen such a grotesquerie before. It is as if the pit of hell itself flew wide open and disgorged itself into our skies.”
“I am so sorry,” Abby said. “I feel like I am the cause of all this.”
“Do not say such a thing. If your coming caused this, it’s because you are the greatest blessing to come our way in many lifetimes.”
“Well, at least let’s finish this and see if I can leave you in peace.”
“Ah . . . now, where was I? Oh yes. The breaches arose from a myriad of sources. The Iya Agbas of Nigeria fell under a shadow when their countrymen started selling their brothers and sisters from all over Africa to the slave trade. Whether true or not, a rumor began that implicated a few of the Sisterhood in the heinous practice. But that was far from all. My own foremothers in the Ethiopian Coptic church became hopelessly embroiled in the eternally tumultuous politics of our country. As a result, we gradually drifted from fraternal contact with our neighbors. Some of our more zealous ancestors accused other sisters in Northern Africa of mixing their beliefs with the newly emerging Islam. Deepest of all was the heartbreak of our sisters over in America, whose fate we lost any ability to discern. And so it went. So after all these years, the Sisterhood’s relevance, effectiveness, and anointing seem on the wane. A shadow of heartbreak and estrangement has corroded the invisible bonds between us all.”
“Isn’t it strange to you that, after all these centuries, the Sisterhood is still a black, African phenomenon?”
“I will say that it saddens me. It is a remarkable testament to how socially separate so many races remain, especially in the most intimate areas of their lives. But think about it: the Watchers are but one family line in a vast human kinship called the body of Christ. And consider how many amputated limbs litter that tree, how many breaches and schisms have caused whole parts of our strength to atrophy and wither away from isolation or under use. I mean, look at the awful way supposed Christians treat each other here at the Church of the Sepulchre, the very place on which we sit. We have struck each other with fists and quarreled amongst ourselves in a manner that shames the cause of Christ, all on account of grievances that date back centuries ago. My life is being afflicted and shortened because of the hateful pettiness of the Egyptians, who have a laundry list against us of their very own.”
“Is this weakening of the Sisterhood the cause of your own physical difficulties?”
“Oh, I would like to think that because we all share this tenuous thread between us, our general decline has caused my own. And it is possible. It is also possible, though, as my brother and some of the monks here would argue, that I have simply neglected my health in my insistence on staying up here in prayer. In either case, I am certain that a healing of these breaches would be the best form of help I could receive.”
“So the mystery remains,” Abby said adamantly. “Why am I, a white girl brought to Christ by my white mother, apparently a member of this African Sisterhood? And why are the Sisterhood’s enemies trying so desperately not only to keep me from growing but destroy me outright?”
“Because you represent two things they fear greatly: first, a healing in some of our deepest wounds, and second, a dramatic opportunity to grow the Watchers family in some whole new places. You are the greatest hope we have encountered in many, many years, Abby.”
“But it still doesn’t make sense. How, if the Sisterhood has remained confined along tight ethnic lines for so long, did I suddenly become the first breakout?”
Rulaz shook her head with a look of bewilderment. “That is why I am, unfortunately, not the end of your quest. You still have much digging to do.”
Dylan walked up to a wedge of shadow alongside the intersection of David Street and Christian Quarter Road, raised his arms and threw them around the form of a lanky man of thirty, which suddenly materialized from the gloom.
“Reuven, I am so glad you came. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“You have a pretty incredible story, Dylan. If I didn’t know what kind of man you were, I would have called out Shin Bet on you.”
“I understand. And you haven’t heard half the story yet. I’ve been through quite an adventure in the last couple weeks. Tell me though, are you armed? Do you have weapons? Do you have some backup?”
Reuven pulled aside a strap from his shoulder, revealing a machine gun. “This is all I could manage. Of course I can call in reinforcements the moment they’re needed. But first, Dylan, you’re going to have to tell me more.”
Dylan stepped aside and allowed Sarha to step up. “Sarha, this is my friend Reuven, who is an officer with the government. He’s going to help us. Reuven, you did bring the metal detector like I asked?”
He nodded.
“Good. Sarha is actually going to point these guys out for us.” Dylan then took the wand and walked on ahead.
Reuven gave Dylan another incredulous look. Why in the world, if Dylan was so confident of his claim, would he have to rely on this young African nun to find these evildoers? He had known Dylan as a tightly wound yet professional and levelheaded special ops soldier. What had happened? Had the city claimed another victim of its famed Jerusalem Syndrome—that state of religious mania that gripped otherwise sane individuals in delusions of religious apparitions and apocalypse?
In either case, he would certainly stick around and find out.
Dylan and the young woman had already melted back into the crowd that packed Christian Quarter Road. Reuven decided it was worth finding out, and followed them.
But the rejoining did not come easily. For some reason, the pair had not chosen to simply merge back into the sluggish flow of people along the bazaar street, but to weave furiously through the bodies at top speed. Reuven was out of breath and thoroughly frustrated by the time he caught up with them again.
When he caught sight of their faces, he forgot his emotions altogether. Both of them now stood stock-still in the street. Their eyes were wide open and fixed straight ahead. Reuven followed their gaze . . .
. . . to a group of about a dozen monks, turning onto Douk el Sharabba.
He watched warily as Dylan passed them quickly on the right, averting his eyes. The men seemed to be headed toward the front doors of the Holy Sepulchre, but as they entered the small plaza before it, Dylan had preceded them and was quickly shutting the church’s two large doors.
“Gentlemen!” Dylan called out to the group in a loud, echoing voice. “Due to security concerns, we must reluctantly subject you to a metal-detector search today. No weaponlike objects will be allowed inside the church. He then waved the metal-detector wand above his head for emphasis.
The men said nothing, but just turned to their leader, an old man wearing a brutally dark scowl who began to visibly tense and look about them as though anticipating some kind of fight.
Reuven glanced over at the young nun. She had now shut her eyes and seemed to be praying fervently, one arm extended toward the group. Amazingly enough, it appeared that one, two, then half a dozen other women were joining her, only one in a nun’s habit, yet all of them adopting the same expression and gestures.
A silent, coiled tension descended upon the plaza.
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From the rooftop overhead, Rulaz had detected it too. She stopped speaking with Abby, hurried over to the edge and pointed down.
“It looks as if Dylan has confronted the first group, along with some more Watchers. They’re praying to expel and banish the demons possessing most of these men. Let’s join them . . .”
And they too held out their hands and began praying fervently.
Dylan wasted no time approaching
the eldest monk with his metal detector, and the device wasted no time producing a loud, obnoxious squawk. Without a word, his eyes piercing Dylan with invisible daggers, the old man slowly reached into his cowl and retrieved something that, although expected, nevertheless provoked a loud gasp from the women watching.
The scythe was new, untried, and its half circle glinted cruelly in the sun.
The monk neither offered the weapon to Dylan nor did he drop it. Instead, he held the scythe high, and as he did the other men followed suit, filling the plaza with shards of sharply reflected light.
Reuven, without knowing why, found himself turning around his machine gun and seeking out the trigger with his right index finger.
The women’s prayers suddenly became audible, and pleading.
Two of the monks nearest the row of women turned and lunged toward the women.
The plaza erupted into chaos.
The two out-of-control monks, as soon as they touched the women, were thrown to the ground in a fury of growling, screaming, and wild gesticulations.
Dylan swiftly broke the old one’s arm with a dual twist and karate chop, kicked the man off his feet, and took up the scythe. In a split second he became a one-man killing machine, a whirl of spinning limbs, fists, and kicks against which the Scythians were no match. These men may have been hardened killers skilled with their scythes, but none were martial arts experts.
For his part, Reuven did not make a conscious choice to enter the conflict. Two monks had leaped on him, intent on gaining control of the machine gun. A deadly roar rang out across the square and the men fell dead, followed by three more who were attacking Watchers beside him.
But even as he concentrated fiercely on controlling his fire and not accidentally shooting any bystanders, Reuven’s peripheral vision revealed to him something else which made no sense.
The remaining monks had thrown themselves on the ground and were rolling around, growling like animals and foaming at the mouth. It was almost as if some invisible sound frequency had assaulted something inside their heads and ripped their sanity from their skulls.
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