The Brotherhood Conspiracy

by Brennan, Terry

  He saw this style vault once before, when the Prophet’s Guard attempted to break into a secure diamond deposit vault in South Africa. This was not what he was told to expect. The vault door was imprinted with the highest level Swiss Security rating, UL3. A fingerprint scanner he expected to be able to deal with. But this? The fingerprint scanner on this safe required a unique customer code and a biometric hand scan before access was permitted to the fingerprint scan. Worse for Ali Suliman was the seismic alarm which would detect any vibration in the walls, floor, or ceiling of the vault. Neither his skill nor the scrambler would overcome this vault’s security. A bomb would fail to move the double-plated, welded doors.

  Suliman stood before the vault, absently fingering through his black shirt the amulet that hung around his neck. This vault was an unexpected impediment, a barrier to overcome. Somehow, he would discover a way to fulfill his mission.

  Suliman moved away from the vault as if it were a sleeping infant. And his eyes fell on the ragged hole he had ripped in the room’s wrought-iron gate. Only, now, the task had become much more difficult.

  There were only five of them now, huddled around a table in the back corner of Berket, a twenty-four-hour Middle Eastern gyro and hummus fast-food eatery on Houston Street on the Lower East Side.

  The chagrined driver of the flat-bed truck had his arm, broken from the whipsawing steering wheel, in a makeshift sling. Mustafa, the right half of his body darkened by the ground-in dirt from their abrupt encounter with the park, held a wet towel, filled with ice, against the purple knot growing above his right eyebrow.

  The other two sat slackened in their chairs, with the vacant look of unbelief, so common to disaster victims, imprinted upon their faces.

  Tariq Ben Ali felt the same sense of despair and desperation as the others. Yet he could not mentor these men in doubt. They had been chosen for this task, set apart by their leader. Ben Ali would not allow them to fail. Yet . . . what to do?

  “We will not break into the vault,” said Suliman. “Never. And soon they will know we were there.”

  Ben Ali turned to face Aziz.

  “Are you sure Kais was dead?” Ben Ali was not mourning. He wanted to ensure there was no chance they were betrayed.

  “His back came apart like a ripe melon,” said Aziz, his eyes on the dirty floor. “I saw it before I ran into the park. He was dead.”

  Ben Ali nodded his head. “In a few hours they will realize the mistakes they have made. They will know we are here. As long as the scroll is inside that vault, it is out of our grasp. But the mezuzah . . .” Ben Ali scratched the stubbly beard that vainly tried to cover his chin. “They may not realize what it is we seek. Perhaps the mezuzah is also lost to us . . . unless they are fools. We will wait to see what kind of fools they are.”

  13

  MONDAY, AUGUST 10

  New York City

  The dirt-and-grass-covered steel safe was too big to fit into an evidence locker. So the officer on duty directed the freight haulers to put it into a corner where he sealed it off behind some spare cyclone fencing attached to rickety wood slats, wrapping the whole thing in overlapping layers of yellow crime-scene tape.

  “We got lucky that they were driving a truck illegally on the FDR,” said Rory O’Neill, commissioner of the New York City Police Department. “It took awhile for the precinct captain to get the mess on the FDR cleaned up and gather the reports of all the officers involved. It was late when he saw the incident report about the shooting on 42nd Street. But he’s a good man. He picked up the connection right away and immediately contacted the duty officer at Central Command. They had patrol cars outside the mission, the library, and the Collector’s Club within ten minutes. The club was dark and quiet. There were no alarms. It was only this morning, when they opened, that the break-in was discovered.”

  Tom Bohannon wrestled with the panic that held his life in bondage. “Nothing was taken?”

  “No,” said O’Neill. “But . . . we know the stamps weren’t the target.”

  It was whispered, almost a thought. “Then it wasn’t a drunk driver.”

  “What?” asked O’Neill.

  “The black SUV.” Eyes closed, pulling air into his lungs, Bohannon turned away from the safe, toward O’Neill.

  “They’re back,” he said.

  “’Fraid so,” said O’Neill.

  “I thought . . . maybe it was over.” His words fell from his lips with a weight as heavy as the safe.

  Jerusalem

  “One of the assassins is dead. The others have vanished.”

  He could sense outrage rising in the silence.

  “How do you know such a thing?”

  Leonidas thought the new imam a fool. His laugh was an intended insult.

  “Because I know more than you, and because what I tell you is true. That is why you pay me such exorbitant sums.”

  “We pay you for information, Mister Leonidas, not for insults.”

  “It’s not mister anything. Just call me Leonidas. And you pay me to keep Shin Bet off the necks of the Northern Islamic Front. You pay me in order to have the freedom to operate, the freedom to exist. Without me, you and your faithful would be in jail tomorrow. You don’t pay me for information. You pay me for disinformation. The information I throw in for free.”

  Leonidas allowed the silence on the cell phone to build. “I do it because it amuses me,” he said. “That is why I have returned.”

  Once again, he let the tension and the silence build. This imam—the arrogant, half-wit brother of the murdered imam Leonidas originally engaged—might bully his ignorant followers in En Sherif, his splinter group from the Northern Islamic Front. But Leonidas would buy none of his bluster. This imam was, of course, a fanatic. But he was also a fool. As a fool, he would not survive long against Israel’s internal security forces, the Shin Bet. Leonidas needed to extort as much money from this man as quickly as possible. He wouldn’t be around long. Neither would Leonidas.

  “So,” said the imam, properly chastened, “the Prophet’s Guard did not succeed?”

  Better, thought Leonidas. Better.

  “No, they did not succeed. The Americans still have the scroll and the mezuzah. But, be assured, the Prophet’s Guard still has men in New York who are both determined and ruthless. Their attempts at recovering the scroll, or destroying those who possess it, are not over.”

  “Good . . . good,” said the imam. “I am pleased. It would grieve me deeply should the Prophet’s Guard succeed.”

  Leonidas believed it was only a matter of time until the Prophet’s Guard did succeed in fulfilling its quest. Those men were relentless, and single-minded. But, let the fool learn that for himself.

  “You still have your opportunity. Take it if you can,” said Leonidas, uncertain of the imam’s ability to exact any revenge. “I’ll be checking my account. You know the number.”

  He hung up before the imam could respond.

  Perhaps a month . . . perhaps two. Then he would find a place to hide in the South Pacific. He would hide well. He already knew that secret.

  Washington, DC

  It seemed to President Whitestone that his heart was racing all the time now, ever since the earthquake in Jerusalem changed everything. As he closed the door to the Oval Office, he laid a hand against his chest, and the racing beat forced him to take in a deep breath before he turned to face Bill Cartwright once again.

  “You’re sure these guys were Prophet’s Guard?” asked Whitestone.

  “Yes, Mr. President. They hit the library, the Collector’s Club, and tried to hijack the mission’s safe, nearly all at the same time. And the one who was shot wore the amulet.”

  “Why?” asked Whitestone. “Why are they still after the scroll?”

  Cartwright crossed the Oval Office and looked out the windows to the Rose Garden. It appeared to the president that his CIA chief was leaning heavily on the wood frame of the door. “I don’t think it matters why,” said Cartwright, his voi
ce low, speaking almost to himself. “Sir,” he said, turning back to the room, “Reynolds will be here soon. We need his help.” He walked over and sat across from the president before continuing.

  “You and I are pretty confident that God has been using Tom Bohannon in a powerful way recently. Someone else may have been able to decipher that code. But not only did Tom—and his friends—decipher a code in an extinct Egyptian language, they then followed the clues in the message, evaded Israeli intelligence agencies, survived attacks and three days under the Temple Mount, and found the key to a stunning, regional peace in the Middle East. For two librarians, a retired academic, and a guy who runs a homeless shelter, that’s quite a feat. How could they have accomplished all of that—and survived—on their own strength, their own ability?

  “But,” said Cartwright, “if God’s hand was in this, then it probably still is. If God has a plan he’s working out through Tom Bohannon, I don’t think that plan has been completed. Do you?”

  “No,” said the president, “I guess not.”

  “Then we need Bohannon’s help. We need Reynolds on board . . . I believe he can carry the message.”

  A knock on the door . . . and Sam Reynolds stepped into the Oval Office.

  Whitestone got up from the sofa and turned toward the door. “Sam, thanks for getting here so quickly.”

  “Of course, Mr. President.”

  “Sit down, Sam. Bill?”

  Cartwright wasted no time. “Last night there was a break-in at the Collector’s Club in New York City, an attempted break-in at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, and the Bowery Mission safe—the one that held the mezuzah and scroll—was hijacked while it was being moved to the library. The safe was recovered.”

  Reynolds moved his gaze from Cartwright to the president, and Whitestone could read the question in his eyes. “It was the Prophet’s Guard,” said the president. “One of them was killed by a policeman. He was wearing the amulet.”

  “They’re back?” asked Reynolds, shaking his head. “How’s Tom, his family?”

  “Pretty shaken, I’m sure,” said Cartwright. “They’re okay, but I’m also sure Bohannon hoped he was done with all this, that somehow this cross would pass him by and leave him to live his life.”

  Whitestone hated this part. But he knew it had to be done. They had to be sure.

  “Sam,” said the president, “I want you to go see Bohannon. Seems the Guard is awfully hot to get the scroll back. We need to know why. We need to find out if there is anything else that Bohannon knows that we don’t . . . anything about the scroll that we should know . . . that might help us deal with the situation in Israel. We need his help.”

  The president watched as one question after another flashed across Sam Reynolds’s face. He was encouraged when Reynolds didn’t ask any of the obvious ones.

  “Excuse me, Mr. President, but I don’t understand. The Middle East has exploded, but not because there was a temple discovered under the Temple Mount. Hezbollah has taken over the government in Lebanon and they still have forty thousand rockets sitting in the Bekaa Valley near the border and pointed at Israel; corruption and riots have crumbled the government in Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhood engineered an overthrow of President Kamali in Egypt, Qaddafi is dead and buried, and Libya is in a shambles. All of it part of this so-called Arab Spring that is spawning revolution in nearly every Muslim capital in the region. Al-Musawi is butchering his own people in Syria, and we’re sitting on the brink of a third land war in Asia. So why do we care about a temple that’s now destroyed? Why do we need Bohannon? We’ve got enough on our hands.”

  “All very true, Sam,” said the president. He moved to the edge of the sofa, rested his arms on his knees, and stared hard at Reynolds, trying to take stock of this young man—a career diplomat from the State Department who had the chutzpah to lay his career on the line when he thought it was the right thing to do.

  “Whoever is behind this reincarnation of the Muslim Brotherhood has a lot more planned than the overthrow of an oligarch in Egypt. The sands in the Middle East are shifting so fast we don’t know where we stand. But let me tell you something that you and the State Department don’t know. Baruk has not only decided to rebuild the Temple Mount, but he’s also got both Mossad and Shin Bet looking for the Tent of Meeting. He thinks, if he can find it—a big if—he can erect the Tent of Meeting on the Temple Mount and solidify Israel’s claim of sovereignty.”

  Reynolds looked as if someone had offered him a gold Rolls Royce, for free. Both surprise, and unbelief.

  “The Tent of Meeting . . . but that can’t exist. It was hides and wood and would be thousands of years old. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Neither did a temple under the Temple Mount,” said Cartwright. “Listen, Sam, we are scrambling right now trying to keep the Middle East from erupting into an all-out Islamic revolution that would overthrow all semblance of order as we know it. If the Egyptian president can be taken down, who’s to say the Saudi king might not be next. And you know what that would mean to our economy and our security presence in the Middle East. If access to our military bases in the Middle East is cut off, Iran and Russia will own that part of the world. And we might as well kiss Israel goodbye. We’re at a tipping point right now. This unrest sweeping North Africa has all the trappings of an Islamic revolution against governments that supported peace in the Middle East and were our allies against terrorism. A change like that, in the hands of radical Islamists, could threaten the economic stability of every nation in the West. Somehow, we’ve got to prevent that from happening.”

  Whitestone joined in. “Baruk’s decision to rebuild the Temple Mount and keep the Arabs away is bad enough. But if the Israelis find the Tent of Meeting, and try to erect it on the Mount . . . we could easily see all Islam rise in a holy war. Sunni and Shi’a banded together to destroy the West. If that Tent exists, we can never allow the Israelis to get it to the Mount. We need to know if there is any clue to a Tent on that scroll and we need to know it now. That’s where Bohannon comes in.”

  “All right . . . yes, Mr. President, I’ll call him,” said Reynolds. “The reason we’re pulling him back in . . . sir, do we want to share that with Bohannon?”

  Whitestone smiled inwardly. Smart . . . I’m glad his job was salvaged . . . him helping Bohannon get out of Jerusalem alive was not such a bad thing after all.

  “Sure—tell him it’s a very simple reason,” said the president. “And, actually, it’s true.” Whitestone cast a glance at Cartwright, picked up a folder with thermal satellite scans of Bohannon’s neighborhood, and handed it to Reynolds.

  “Sam, this has only just begun,” said the president as Reynolds scanned the images, his mouth tightening. “Somebody else might be able to look at that scroll, or that mezuzah, and help us. But, for whatever reason, I think Tom and his friends have been divinely called to be in the middle of . . . well . . . of what may be the most climactic period in human history.” Whitestone reached his left hand across the coffee table between the sofas and placed it on Reynolds’s arm. “My father often told me, ‘Son, you don’t want to get between God and his purposes.’ It’s not only that we likely need Bohannon’s help as we try to navigate our way through the international minefield we’re facing. But a higher power may still have a part for him to play. And we’ve got to ask him to play that part.”

  Reynolds met the president’s gaze without a flinch. “At any cost?”

  “At any cost, Sam,” said Whitestone. “We may all be asked to make the same investment. But we need to know if there is any more information on that scroll, or that mezuzah. And it appears Tom Bohannon has been selected.”

  New York City

  Hell’s Kitchen was getting almost as trendy as the Meat Packing District. Manhattan’s continuing renaissance swept through the warehouses of the West Side, and now joined forces with the immensely popular Hudson River Greenway that stretched the length of Manhattan Island. But in this corner,
along 11th Avenue, industrial buildings stood their ground.

  The sun was still hard to the east. Bohannon needed to cup his hand over his eyes to shade the glare as he and Commissioner O’Neill emerged from the NYPD evidence storage facility. O’Neill stretched out his hand to say goodbye.

  “Listen . . . can I buy you a cup of coffee or something?” asked Bohannon.

  O’Neill looked at Bohannon then glanced at his watch. “You’ve got something to tell me?”

  “Well . . . sort of.”

  The commissioner reached out and grasped Tom’s elbow. “C’mon, I’ve got a few minutes.”

  O’Neill waved off the two linebacker-size plainclothes officers and led Tom across 11th Avenue to Jimmie’s Coffee Shoppe. They found a booth in an empty corner as the two linebackers came in and sat down by the door.

  A round man with a two-day growth of beard called from behind the counter.

  “What’ll it be, gents?”

  “Corn muffin and coffee regular,” said O’Neill. Bohannon thought even that was courageous in Jimmie’s.

  “Hot tea with lemon . . . that’s it.”

  O’Neill tapped a bent spoon on the laminate tabletop. “Tom, you understand, right? These clowns haven’t stopped. And they’re not going to.

  “Look, I don’t think you have to worry about the Northern Islamic Front, at least not here in the U.S. To be honest, from the intel we’re getting, the leaders of the Islamic Front are still after your blood. They blame your group for the death of their imam, and for the deaths of hundreds more under the Temple Mount when it collapsed. But they’re not the immediate problem.

  “No,” said O’Neill, “clearly it’s the Prophet’s Guard you have to worry about. You still have the scroll and the mezuzah in your possession, artifacts they protected for over eight hundred years and still consider their birthright. I’m convinced they won’t stop until they possess the mezuzah and scroll again. That puts you square in their crosshairs.”