by Jon Steele
“Says the warrior angel bearing the stigmata on his palms, who this night of nights crosses the River Jordan carrying the things of the Christ on his back.”
Harper stood in perfect silence, looking at the bioskin gloves on his hands.
The real deal has landed, boyo.
A numbness washed through his form. He felt the urge to slip into hibernation mode and stay there.
“My turn,” Chana said.
It took Harper 17.4 seconds to reconnect with nowtimes.
“Sorry?”
“My turn with a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“What do you call the child who was born, the one you are trying to save?”
“Why do you ask?” Harper said.
“Why not?”
Harper smiled. “You think he’s the third soul born of light,” he said.
“Don’t you?”
Legends, myths, religions. All we know of who we are and why we are here, Harper thought. The locals, us; it’s all the same.
“We call him the child of the prophecy. His mother named him Max.”
“For Maximilian or Maxwell?”
Harper shrugged. “As far as I know it’s just Max.”
Chana nodded. “This is a good name for him. Excuse me.” She reached in her satin jacket, removed a vibrating cell phone. She swiped the screen, held it to her ear. “Halo?”
She listened for thirty seconds, then closed the phone. She slipped it back in her jacket.
“Yalla, time for you to make good on your end of the deal I made with Sergeant Gauer.”
“The deal?”
Chana lifted the reliquary box by its strap and held it out to Harper.
“I show you the real Via Dolorosa and let you read the scrolls. In exchange, you help me save Jerusalem.”
TWENTY-FOUR
i
Sirens. Flashing blue lights. Ambulances and police cars racing through the streets. Chana was three minutes into the drive before Harper realized it was no longer night. The blazing disc of the sun was set in a midmorning sky, its light ripping across the Jordanian desert, skimming Jerusalem and slicing into Harper’s eyes.
“Three Palestinian terrorists have attacked a settler preschool in the Arab Quarter. Two Israeli guards were killed, one teacher. Eleven children and three more teachers are being held hostage. The terrorists hacked the school’s CCTV system and got onto the Internet. They said they would kill the hostages and themselves unless a list of prisoners is released from Megiddo prison.”
“Are the attackers known?”
“Three teenagers from Silwan. They were dressed as Israeli students.”
“If they’re human beings, I can’t help you.”
“For better or worse we are accustomed to this sort of thing. The security forces will deal with it. But there may be something else, something more along your line.”
She made a hard right onto a wide road, swerved around an oncoming tram. Civilians lined the road. Secular Jews, Hasidic Jews, worried-looking Palestinian workers. Coming into downtown West Jerusalem the road narrowed, and two trams occupied the rails in both directions. Ambulances were trapped in a bottleneck.
“Hold on,” Chana said.
She drove onto the pavement and through a sidewalk café. Table and chairs went flying; luckily no one was sitting at them. All customers were inside the café watching the breaking news on the telly. The ambulances followed Chana’s lead. She drove fast and furious; she talked slow and calm.
“My telephone call before? It was your Swiss Guard sergeant. He said Bern HQ was tracking suspicious intercommunications between radical Jewish and Islamic Web pages. Hold on again.”
“Let me guess, more deals in the works.”
“I was tracking encrypted traffic on Israeli Internet servers. It was embedded in both Hebrew and Arabic Web pages.”
Chana came to an intersection, hit the brakes, and skidded to a stop. A long line of traffic—ambulances, police cars, and four-wheel drives with the letters “TV” gaffer-taped to their windows and doors—passed from west to east. She pulled onto the pavement again, let the ambulances behind her pass to join the caravan. Harper saw a blue sign on a stone wall: TZAHAL SQUARE. This side of the intersection was modern West Jerusalem; on the other side were the walls of the Old City. Like sitting at the crossroads of nowtimes and beforetimes, he thought.
“Did he tell you what sort of comms?”
“He said they were working on it. He said to get you inside the Old City for a recon.”
Traffic cleared and Chana sped through the intersection and drove alongside the Old City. Harper clocked it as the same road he’d been on last night. He was about to ask her where they were headed, when she cut left and raced up the hill for Jaffa Gate. A barrier was set across the road. She crashed through it, and drove on to Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Square. Israelis, Palestinians, and tourists scattered. She went right down a street barely wide enough for the jeep to pass. Hasidic women pulled their children into doorways to protect them. The street followed the interior of the city’s walls, cutting left then running east, then rising to the top of a hill. Chana turned the wheel, jumped the curb, and hit the brakes. Fifty feet down was a great plaza laid out before the Wailing Wall, all that was left of Jerusalem’s Second Temple. Just now, all across the plaza, Israeli police were battling an angry mob that ebbed and flowed like water. Harper identified the rioters as Jews.
“Right-wingers,” Chana said. “They must be here to avenge the preschool attack.” She pointed to an enclosed ramp rising from the ground. “They are trying to get the ramp over there. It leads to Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock.”
Harper watched the scene, heard the curses of the mob.
“The police are Nazis!”
“Jewish traitors!”
“Death to Arabs!”
There were TV crews on the fringes of the riot, broadcasting the mayhem live to the world. Chana looked at Harper.
“So far it looks like the usual suspects from my domestic watch list. The police can handle this. You see anything?”
“I’m too far away to get a read on anyone’s eyes. I need to get closer.”
“Your Swiss Guard said to hold here for orders.”
Small explosions sounded from the plaza. Harper watched tear gas canisters skip over the stones and into the mob. Riots in one part of Jerusalem, a terrorist standoff in another.
“The traffic on the Internet,” Harper said. “Gauer is running it through the SX grid looking for lines of causality, connections.”
“Ken, that’s what he called it. But it does not make sense.”
“Why not?”
“Hard-core Islamists and radical Jews intercommunicating? The only thing they would say to each other is ‘Fuck your mother.’”
Harper added it up: Attack in the Arab Quarter, riot at the Wailing Wall. All of it being broadcast live to the world.
“Everything that’s happening just now, it’s all a bloody diversion. It’s cover for something bigger and worse.”
Chana watched the riot. She whispered to herself. “Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.”
She reached in her jacket, grabbed her vibrating cell phone. She swiped it and listened. She looked at her wristwatch, a digital job. “Rav toda.” She closed the phone, stuffed it in her jacket.
“What is a time warp?” she said, pressing buttons on her watch.
“Hard to explain. Why?”
She showed Harper the watch. It was counting down minutes and seconds.
“Your Swiss Guard says one is about to drop. He said we have less than seventeen minutes to get inside the target zone or we are fucked. Those are his exact words. He said you would know what they mean.”
“It means whatever is coming down requires blowing my cover to stop it. Where’s the target zone?”
“East end of the Arab Quarter, near Lions’ Gate.”
“How far?”
Her eyes followed t
he road. It curved around to a gate to the outer world; it was jammed with police vehicles.
“Too far to drive with this chaos. We need to run through that,” she said, nodding to the riot. She pulled her beret from her jacket, set it on her head, and grabbed her assault rifle. Jumping from the jeep, she said, “Stick close to me, do not get lost. And you should bring the reliquary box. Empty government vehicles have a habit of getting torched by right-wingers.”
Harper reached in the backseat, grabbed the box. He pulled the leather strap over his shoulder and got out of the jeep. Chana was already running down the road.
“Right.”
He took off after her.
At the bottom of the road she headed for the security checkpoint blocking access to the plaza. The gates had been shut; no one in or out. But a couple of coppers saw Chana coming their way and quickly opened one of the gates. Harper was close enough to hear the chatter on police radios.
Man in trench coat with suspicious package approaching checkpoint. Do we take the shot? Repeat: Do we take the shot?
Swell, snipers, Harper thought. He watched Chana grab a radio transmitter from a policeman’s bulletproof vest.
Negative. Man in trench coat is NOT a target. Repeat: Man is NOT a target.
Harper got to the checkpoint and squeezed by the police, following Chana through the metal detectors. Beep, beep, beep, beep. She called to one cop as she ran by him:
Radio the north checkpoint. Tell them I’m coming through with someone. Advise everyone on the plaza I’m coming through.
Yes, ma’am.
They came onto the plaza and into a cloud of tear gas, then a crush of rioters backing away from the gas and moving sideways across the plaza. Harper’s eyes and lungs burned. It was the same with the mob. Then no one could see and bodies began tripping over one another. He saw Chana go down, but she wasn’t falling; she was scooping up an onion one of the rioters dropped on the ground. She straightened up, saw Harper, nodded to her right. Her eyes were red and swollen and wet. He was damn sure he looked the same.
“Follow me,” she said.
She forced herself through the mob, taking a few punches along the way. She found a patch of clear ground behind an army jeep.
“Over here.”
They crouched down. Harper watched her smash the onion against the butt of her rifle. It broke in two. She handed a half to Harper.
“Over your nose and mouth and breathe,” she said.
Harper did; so did she. The fire in his eyes and lungs subsided; his vision cleared.
“Always take an onion to a riot,” Chana said.
“Old Jewish saying?”
“Teenage Palestinian. From the West Bank.”
She pointed toward an arch at the north end of the plaza, two hundred yards away. It was a staging area for the police. Just now hundreds of them were kitting up in gas masks, making ready for a final push against the rioters.
“We go that way.” She took off.
“Of course we do.” He went after her.
She shouted in Hebrew at Israeli Border Police dead ahead.
Get out of my way! Move!
One look at her running toward them and the police parted like the sea before Moses. They ran through the arch and into a tunnel, through another security checkpoint. Out of the tunnel, into a maze of narrow cobblestone lanes and sixteen-hundred-year-old buildings. Arab shops, Jewish yeshivas, Arab barbershops, Hasidic Jews, old Palestinian men in dishdasha and kaffiyeh. Everyone panicking, closing shops, shuttering windows, trying to get away. Chana cut right, then left, then right. She stopped at a fountain built in a wall. She quickly washed the tear gas from her hands and face. Harper did the same. They leaned against a stone wall to catch their breath. She checked her wristwatch.
“Eleven minutes.”
“How far to the target zone from here?”
“Twelve minutes.”
“Know a shortcut?”
“Ken.” She took off.
“Of course she does.”
Harper followed her along a straight and narrow lane. She cut left at a corner. When Harper got to her she was running up a set of stone steps. There was a small sheesha pipe and tobacco shop in an alcove; an old Arab man was lowering metal shutters over the windows.
“Abu Marwan,” Chana called to the man.
He turned to her.
“Aamo, ana bihajeh la musa’adatak,” she said in Arabic.
“Inti bitu’mori.”
She turned to Harper. “Give me the box. Abu Marwan will keep it.”
“You sure?”
“He believes what I believe.”
Harper pulled off the box, handed it to Chana. She gave it to the old man, spoke to him again in Arabic.
If I do not come back, you know what to do with it. Do you understand?
He bowed his head to her. The Pure God be with you, he said. The old man ducked under the shutters and into his shop.
“This way,” Chana said.
She ran back to the lane; pulling her cell phone as she ran, tapping out a text message, then shoving the phone back in her jacket. She picked up speed, cut right into a vaulted arcade lined with shops selling Arab sweets and spices. Here, too, locals gathered their goods and dropped metal shutters. There was a large arch in the wall at the end of the arcade; it held a massive green door, and Chana was heading straight for it. She shouted in Hebrew:
Open it! Open it!
That’s when Harper saw the two Israeli soldiers on either side of the door. They had their weapons trained on Chana. One of the soldiers called back:
Orders are no access to anyone!
Chana kept running, shouting, “Alpha X-ray! Noveniner, noveniner, nadazero!”
The two soldiers instantly got up and threw open the green door. The arcade was flooded with flashes of gold light. Dead ahead, perfectly framed in the arched doorway, was the Dome of the Rock. Chana charged through, stopped, and stepped aside as Harper cleared the passage. She looked at the soldiers.
Radio the soldiers at Bab al-Asbat. Tell them to open the gate and leave the area.
Ma’am?
Do it.
Yes, ma’am.
Who is here?
Only the Grand Mufti and his entourage. They are in Al-Aqsa.
Where is everyone else?
Evacuated.
Okay. Close this door and don’t open it. Anyone asks, you did not see us.
Yes, ma’am.
The soldiers pulled the door closed with a loud bang. The cacophony of sirens and mobs was gone. Harper scanned the compound. A completely leveled space of thirty-seven square acres. The space was trapezoidal in shape and walled in on all sides. The Dome of the Rock sat atop a raised platform in the center of the compound; to the south Al-Aqsa Mosque stood beyond the fountains; there were places for ablutions, there were gardens and trees. A picture of peace, Harper thought. Too bad about the war raging around it. Chana’s voice snapped him back to reality.
“Lions’ Gate is that way,” she said, pointing to the far northwest corner of the compound.
“Right.”
They ran up the steps, cut across the platform, and ran through the shadow of the dome. Down another set of steps and through the garden. Ahead, another green door in the wall; it was open. They got to the doorway, stopped, looked through it. There was a small courtyard leading to a stone arch. Chana checked her watch.
“Four and a half minutes to spare,” she said breathlessly. She pointed to the arch at the end of the courtyard. “Lions’ Gate is just beyond that arch and to the right. Your Swiss Guard said this courtyard was the target zone.”
“From the arch to the door.”
“Ken.”
“What is it called?”
“El-Ghazali Square.”
“What is it—what was it?”
“A cistern in Roman times, then a rubbish dump, then a vegetable garden. Now it’s a hot spot for clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. Could this mea
n something?”
Harper thought about it. “Not yet.”
He scanned the layout. High wall to the right, alleyways off the courtyard to the left. “Where does that lead?”
“Via Dolorosa. The tourists’ version.”
“You’re joking.”
She shook her head. “It is strange, as if whatever is happening with your infiltrators is a copy-and-paste of an Israeli–Palestinian clash. Young Palestinians came in through Lions’ Gate and into this courtyard heading for Al-Aqsa. They were trapped here. The Israelis had Via Dolorosa cut off, like today.”
“Today?”
She nodded toward Via Dolorosa. “The preschool under siege is down that way, near the Third Stage of the Cross. Like I said, strange.”
Third Stage of the Cross, Harper thought. Jesus falls for the first time. What the bloody hell are they up to?
“Trust me, it isn’t strange at all,” Harper said.
Chana’s cell phone vibrated and she pulled it from her jacket. “Halo?” She listened for ten seconds, then handed the phone to Harper. “It is for you.”
He took the phone, put the receiver to his ear. “Yes?”
“Good morning, Mr. Harper. Time is short so I will be brief. Intel suggests six of the enemy will materialize very soon. They will appear as Israeli civilians. Their mission is to film themselves using explosives to damage the building behind you. They plan to transmit the event live on the Internet.”
Harper looked back, saw the Dome of the Rock through the trees. “Got it.”
“Mr. Harper, the situation is extremely grave.”
“Just get the time mechanics to drop the warp at the right moment and keep it in place. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“That is the problem, Mr. Harper. There are undefined radio waves emanating from the location that make it all but impossible. Indeed, it is the same reason the enemy is being forced to materialize at your current location instead of closer to their target. But it’s our only chance at blocking their live transmissions of the event. As it is, we are not sure the warp will even hold. If it does fail, you will only have sixty seconds before enemy cameras reconnect with their comms satellite. If they succeed, as I said, the fallout will be biblical in its proportions.”