“Doc?” said Kallie.
“No, all priests are from Aaron, but there were several other family lines over time that were differentiated primarily because of theological differences. Families that became known for a different interpretation of the Torah. So, tell us, what’s the link to Beni Hazir? You’ve taken us here for a reason.”
Kallie swung around to again face the computer screen and passed the book to Rizzo. She moved the mouse so that the cursor returned to the King’s Garden Tunnel. “Okay, so here’s the King’s Garden Tunnel, at the base of the Kidron Valley.
“But look to the right, on the other side of the Kidron Valley. Do you see that notation, ‘The Tomb of Zechariah’? Watch this.” Kallie mouse clicked on the “I” info icon next to Zechariah’s Tomb.
Up popped a small info balloon, with a pointer to Zechariah’s Tomb. Inside the balloon it said, “Believed to be the burial site of the prophet, one of a series of tombs belonging to the priestly family of Beni Hazir.”
“How clever,” purred Johnson. “That is an interesting connection. I’m impressed. So, Kallie, since you are clearly the expert here, what do you think?”
Kallie’s voice was low, little more than a whisper. “Abiathar needed a way, he needed an entryway to bring in his men, his material, and he needed a way that would not draw attention to itself, even if the coming and going were minimal. During his lifetime, or his father’s, no one would question a few workmen coming or going from the tombs, carrying wood beams to shore up new tombs. And even though we don’t know much of anything about the King’s Garden Tunnel, it may also have been a common access point.”
She turned her chair around to face the men, who had in the space of a few hours irrevocably changed her life. “What’s my hunch? I think we’ve found Abiathar’s entrance. I don’t have any evidence, but it seems to me, from all the possibilities you have been reviewing and all the possibilities I have been researching, if there is a secret passageway that would lead to a cavern containing the Third Temple, it would come from one of these two locations. If I had to place a bet, I’d wager on the King’s Garden Tunnel. Until a few months ago, no one knew it existed. Zechariah’s Tomb has been open for hundreds of years, and it is so much farther away. I think the King’s Garden Tunnel has to be the first place we look.”
“Hallelujah,” cried Rizzo, dropping the book off his lap.
Doc Johnson turned on his heel and paced toward the window. “Yes . . . yes . . . Tom!” Johnson turned again, facing the room. “This all makes sense. Remember what Winthrop was telling us about the Mount and the bedrock. Yes . . . yes . . . this all makes sense. Kallie, you’re . . .”
Nolan waited patiently in her computer chair, arms folded across her chest. Doc Johnson must have read her face, and the adrenalin spike drained from the room.
“Which leaves us one final, major hurdle,” said Kallie. Doc sat down at the table and Bohannon ran a hand through his hair.
“How do we get into the tunnel without notice?” Rodriguez took a deep breath, held up his two hands, palms upward, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Not only how do we get in,” said Kallie, “but also how do we determine if there is an access point that may take us under the Temple Mount? And how do we figure out where to look if we do get under the Mount? God knows how many caverns and tunnels and caves may be under there.”
“Your use of the pronoun we may be a bit premature,” said Johnson, dryly.
Nolan pressed on, addressing Bohannon directly. “Tom, the only question that remains to be determined is whether we go there during the day or during the night. Can we trust going there during the day? Can we discover what we need to discover during the night? Whatever the answer is, before we commit ourselves to either of these locations with all our equipment for what will likely be several days, we need to know if there is a likely tunnel, or an entrance to a tunnel, that could take us under the Temple Mount.
“And it’s going to be we, Doc, because the four of you, by yourselves, will appear suspicious and out of place if anyone were to take the time to look. But if you happened to be in the care of an official garden guide, such as myself, then all anyone would see would be a small group of tourists . . . affluent tourists. And they wouldn’t give you a second thought. And then we can take as long as we like trying to find the way in. That’s why we.”
Kallie was in.
Then all eyes were on Bohannon.
“To answer one of your questions,” he said, “we expect that in some way the scroll will guide us once we get under the Temple Mount. Abiathar would not have left this most important part up to chance. We believe the answer will be in the scroll.”
“Wait a minute. You’ve got it here?” she asked, incredulous. “This scroll may be priceless, and you’re carrying it around in your luggage? Are you guys out of your minds?”
“What else were we going to do with it?” snapped Rodriguez. “Leave it at home? The New York police commissioner told us to get our families out of town. Do you think the scroll would have been safe anywhere we could have left it? Besides, I agree with Tom. I’m confident we’re going to need it again before this thing is over. As far as looking suspicious, we thought of that, too. All of our equipment is in backpacks, and we’ve all come prepped with our Merrell hiking shoes and chamois shirts. We’ll look like backpackers who are visiting the sights. But it would probably help to have a guide along.”
Rodriguez waited for his brother-in-law. It was his call.
Kallie felt a shiver start at the bottom of her spine. Bohannon was looking at her like a professor about to give a failing grade. She willed her heart to slow.
“We’ll be here at seven to pick you up,” Bohannon said to Kallie, his voice somber. “Be in your guide uniform and ready to go. We’ll need to risk it during the day just to get a reasonable sense of what we’re facing. I want to get to the Gihon Spring as early as possible, before anyone happens to be wandering around.”
“Then make it five thirty,” said Kallie. “Jerusalem wakes up early. I’ll be by the front door, waiting. And you guys, make sure you look like tourists. You got that, Sammy? Hiking shorts if you have them, and rugged shoes. This will be no Sunday stroll.”
Bowing deeply from the waist, a slow extravagance of submission, he stopped when the upper half of his body was parallel to the floor. The cross and lightning bolt amulet hung straight down from his neck. “Welcome, Effendi.”
“How did you discover them?”
No greeting in return, no sharing of compliments. This was rude behavior, but this was the Prophet’s representative. A very holy man, recently arrived from Egypt. Perhaps he had no time for courtesy.
“A mere chance, Effendi. My cousin, he is a waiter at the Crowne Plaza. Often, he brings us bits of conversations, bits that prove to be valuable in furthering the cause.”
“Prove to be valuable in lining your pockets, more likely. Stand up.”
“Yes, Effendi.”
Rasaf straightened his back slowly, ignoring the pain, determined to present himself as a worthy disciple. This was his great opportunity, after all. Bad manners would not spoil this chance for him. Only the old man’s face was visible. That was enough. His skin was very dark, heavily creased by sun and wind. His face was framed by a thick, jet-black beard that oddly seemed both trimmed and wild. Rasaf took in all of those elements quickly. But he could not escape from the old man’s eyes. They were fierce, two discs of flaming onyx, consuming Rasaf. They spoke to him in songs of Jihad. They called him to great sacrifice. They filled him with ancient hate. Rasaf trembled.
“Where are they?”
“They drove to an apartment building on Bar-Lev Road near the university. We are watching.”
“Good. Continue to watch. Take no action, but stay with them without fail. We will allow them to lead us. For now.”
“Yes, Effendi.” This would be his great opportunity, Rasaf exulted.
“Rasaf, do you have children?”
“Fine. It is good to have children.”
The eyes were burning pits, harbingers of mayhem. Rasaf began to bow under their relentless power.
“Don’t do anything to make them orphans.”
Startled, Rasaf stopped bowing and looked up. And he was alone.
When they returned to the Hotel Tzuba that night, Johnson pulled out the thermal imaging photos that Larsen had gotten from his Uncle Ethan. Johnson still marveled at the thought of having the chairman of the Joint Chiefs as an uncle. The power of the Larsen family was staggering, yet appeared to be directed only to service.
Even with a magnifying glass, Johnson could detect no significant change in image along the Kidron Valley, no indication of the King’s Garden Tunnel, let alone any other tunnel branching off from it or extending from Zechariah’s Tomb toward the Temple Mount. It would have been heartening to find some evidence of a tunnel, but the lack of evidence didn’t disprove its existence. It was as he had expected. The only way they would truly know would be to go inside and find out for themselves.
And hope no one was watching.
32
Lieutenant Daniel Stern ached. Every part of his body ached. His eyes hurt, and especially, his neck hurt. Yet he would not consider leaving his post. He stayed for The Hawk. But he also stayed for his wife and children, now two and five. The sun was up, only barely, yet its unmistakable message was that it would be another withering day. And Stern had no idea when it would end.
The Hawk was on duty, sitting atop his perch. He had been on duty for nearly thirty-eight hours without sleep. Captain Avram Levin was losing his patience and getting cranky. For his squad, many of whom had joined him in the vigil, this was the most anxious time. The Hawk was a good man, a good leader, an inspiration to his men. But his talons were sharp when time and circumstance failed to follow his orders.
Levin’s team was perhaps Shin Bet’s best. That is why they were assigned to the Aleph Reconnaissance Center to protect the Temple Mount. Not to protect the shrines from tourists, but to protect Israel and its future from terrorists of any stripe.
Since the moment they focused on the four men at the entrance to the Western Wall Tunnel, the Aleph team had intensified its sweeps. In addition to its normal timetable and procedure, The Hawk would routinely, and randomly, call for a sweep of any area that popped into his consciousness, even areas that were outside of his zone.
“Command, give me a sweep of David’s Tower, then down David Street. See if we can pick them up again. Stern, roll down the Kidron Valley. If they are coming back, they will be coming back soon.”
Mahamoud pulled out the cell phone and hit the speed dial button.
One ring only. Leonidas was on the other end.
“Nothing yet . . . be patient . . . I will call you when information arrives.”
The phone connection went dead.
Kallie guided the large, black SUV into the tourist parking lot at Bev Shaloan. She popped out quickly and put on her official bucket hat with the garden guide logo so prominently stitched to the side. The bucket hat, the logo, she could abide those. The rest of the uniform was typically Israeli, stern and simple. Leaf green, short-sleeve, button-front shirt along with rolled-up shorts of the same color. The winter uniform was just a longer version of this. No, it wasn’t the uniform. It was the stupid, little “G/G” pennant, held aloft from the brim of her bucket hat by a long, stiff wire. It makes us look like targets in a shooting gallery, she thought. So the hat always went on last.
“Gentlemen, I would like to show you one of the more interesting and rarely visited sites in the Old City of Jerusalem.”
“Negotiating for a bigger tip, eh?” said Rizzo, getting a head start up the pathway. Rodriguez also strode past Kallie and began consuming the path with long, athletic strides. Like the others, he had on his backpacker outfit, including a wide-brimmed hat all of them were wearing for protection from the sun. Only Rodriguez was still wearing the kibbutz shorts he had purchased at Tzuba. “They are just so much more comfortable than the ones I brought from New York,” he told the others.
Kallie looked at the other two. “We’ll walk along that pathway, around to the other side of the hill. Would either one of you like me to share my training, give you a more detailed, historical description?”
The two men looked at each other, looked at Kallie, and then looked along the path.
“No offense,” said Tom, taking her arm, “but let’s go. The only thing I want to know is out there, underground. And for it to look right, you need to lead us. So, lead on.”
Kallie shook her arm free, spun on her heel, and, with the abhorred pennant bouncing with every step, led the men along the path to the hill, behind which was the partially obscured entrance to the King’s Garden Tunnel.
Kallie presented her identification and garden guide credentials to the guard and, after a small gift for his family was arranged, led her clients around the barrier with “No Admittance” written in Hebrew, Arabic, and English and into the tunnel.
“Nothing, Captain,” said Stern, reviewing all the screens. “It’s still pretty early. Only a few tourists out, trying to beat the heat. Some shoppers, some at the Wall, a garden guide showing a few the entrance to the King’s Garden Tunnel. Nothing yet.”
The Hawk was rocking on his chair. They had lost track of these men, and he wasn’t happy.
Rasaf’s car was so old, it barely held itself together. A Subaru wagon some affluent Westerner had abandoned, its fenders were of mismatched colors, only one door opened, and the air-conditioning had long since vanished. But it was reliable, the engine and drivetrain still running strong. Already dusty from following the black SUV into Jerusalem, Rasaf sat in his car at the far edge of the car park, just south of the Western Wall. He held a small, collapsible telescope to his eye, trained on the hill behind which was the King’s Garden Tunnel, while in his other hand he held a cell phone to his ear.
“Yes, Effendi, the guide just took them into the tunnel entrance. No, Effendi, I cannot see the entrance. Yes, Effendi, they are searching.” Rasaf listened carefully to the instructions coming through the phone. “Yes, Effendi. I will call them. We will be prepared. Yes, Effendi, tonight.”
Rasaf clicked the phone shut and stuck it in his pants pocket. Like his car, his clothes had seen better days. They were as nondescript as Rasaf, the pants a dull, dust color, his shirt only a vague reminder of its original green. On his head sat a round kufi of worn, sweat-stained brown leather. In the morning air, he still wore a light, faded blue jacket. Even with the jacket, and the temperature inching up, Rasaf shivered at the demands of the old man.
Allah preserve us, he thought. Then he sat back in the creaky seat, and waited.
Midday had passed, and evening was well upon them. The Hawk was now pacing at a feverish tempo. The day had escaped with no further contact with the four men who had raised their suspicions the night before, so Levin released Stern from surveillance and assigned him to review all the tapes they recorded that day. With three screens rolling at the same time, it didn’t take Stern long to see something that had been missed earlier.
“Captain, look at this,” and Levin was immediately at his shoulder. “Remember those tourists we noticed going into King’s Garden Tunnel this morning? Well, here they are, coming out. Sir, look at the time.”
“Roll that back again, Stern,” Levin whispered. Levin was gnawing on his pipe and berating his caution. Immediately, I should have acted immediately.
“Here, sir, you see? The four tourists with the garden guide.”
Checking the running time at the top left of the video, Levin spoke, as if to himself. “Ten thirty, and they entered just after six this morning?
“Four hours . . . more than four hours,” Levin said. “How could they be in there for four hours? There is not that much to see. Only the entrance is accessible. Not even a garden guide would
have access more than a few meters into the tunnel. Stern, zoom in. I want a better look at those people.”
Stern moved his mouse and used the scroll button to zoom the picture in closer. A female garden guide and four men, or three men and a child, the guide clearly identifiable because of the pennant on her hat, the men less so because their wide-brimmed hats obscured their faces. Stern could feel both Captain Levin’s hot breath on his neck and his growing anxiety. “Closer, Stern, closer on that man on the left.” Again the mouse scrolled the zoom, bringing the image closer, but beginning to lose its resolution. Without warning, Levin’s strong hand was on Stern’s shoulder, digging into the meat with a sudden fierceness.
“Print that . . . pull back two clicks and print that, also.”
The Hawk moved swiftly to the other side of the room and ripped last night’s photo from the bulletin board. He swept past the printer, snatched up the two photos, and spread the three images on the desktop next to Stern’s computer. Experienced, knowledgeable veterans of surveillance, Levin and Stern looked at the images, then at each other. The man, the kibbutz shorts, the visible features, they were the same.
“Pull up the records starting at 10:30 this morning, and get it on all the screens. Follow the trail of that SUV. They’ve got a ten-hour lead on us, but we should still be able to find out where they went. That black SUV will stand out like a beacon. All of you,” The Hawk said, pulling away from Stern’s monitor, “work with Stern. Follow his directions.” Two quick strides, and he was at his desk, grabbing the phone. First, Surveillance Command, no greetings, no pleasantries. “This is Levin. I want full Vehicle Tracking on line immediately. We need to track a vehicle from this morning. Stern will give you the specifics in a moment.” His finger stabbed the Cancel button and then speed-dial number two to Shin Bet headquarters. “Lubich, this is Levin. Ready four squads; full gear. And get a bird in the air. I’ll come back to you with a target.”
The Sacred Cipher Page 24