The Brotherhood Conspiracy

by Brennan, Terry

  A split second? An hour? A day? Time stood still for Tom Bohannon as he fought against distance and gravity.

  Falling.

  His eyes and heart and hope were fixed on the far balcony, coming no nearer. He wished away fear, but fear was flying with him. And neither of them were getting any closer.

  He felt the falling, and it was real. His body on a downward arc, not a crossward flight. Panic grasped for mastery, but Bohannon grasped for life, he grasped for Annie, he grasped for that far, stone spiral . . .

  He crashed hard onto the stone floor of the balcony with a shoulder-shuddering, knee-ripping thud as the front of his forehead came down and violently kissed the stone. The world blackened, then brightened, then the pain poured through him. Something was probably broken, but he was up before the thought could penetrate his resolve. Stumbling through the doorway into the minaret, he was surprised to find that Fischoff was not that far in front of him. It hadn’t been that long. The sergeant was bounding down the circular stairs, but not that far in front.

  3:15 a.m.

  Colonel Levin took the radio receiver out of his ear as Major Abner Katz ran up to his side.

  “We may have a problem.”

  Levin focused his full attention on the major. “Only one?”

  “I sent out two squads of men—one to roam around underneath us and sweep the caverns, and the other into the archaeological digs of the Ophel . . . places where men could hide. The squad that went through the Ophel digs just got back. That’s all clear and the troops on that side of the valley are keeping a close watch. But we’ve lost contact with the squad that went under the Mount. They could just be out of radio contact down there. But . . . I don’t like it. I sent twenty men down to look for them.”

  Now robed priests were carrying golden lampstands past Levin and Katz, who stood just to the side of the Tent’s open portal.

  I truly can’t believe what I’m seeing.

  “The reinforcements?”

  Major Katz shook his head. “The streets in this part of the city are a mess. With the Jerusalem and Jericho highways shut down completely and most of the roads around the Old City closed to civilian traffic, the streets that are left open are a parking lot, clogged with people trying to get a look at what we’re doing here. Those reinforcements have just abandoned their trucks and are on their way to us, on foot, double-time. Shouldn’t be long.”

  The singsong prayers of massed priests and rabbis rose from inside the Tent enclosure. Levin watched as a second tent, smaller, covered with animal skins, rose inside the outer walls. Four priests—led by four singers and followed by four singers—carried a long, golden table down the length of the platform and into the enclosed area. “No . . . it shouldn’t be long,” Levin agreed. “They’ll have to wait for sunrise, but it sounds like they’re ready.”

  Fischoff cradled the Uzi in the crook of his left arm, his right hand skidding along a thin, metal railing mounted on the outside wall of the descending spiral stairs. Bohannon, on the other hand, discovered that his right shoulder was not responding to the neuron signals of his brain, his right knee throbbed, and something seeped into the corner of his right eye; likely blood, but he had no way to test that theory. The gun held aloft in his left hand, Bohannon lurched down the stairs, out of control, his muscles desperately trying to exert some influence on his runaway body, and failing miserably. And he was gaining on Fischoff.

  Fischoff slowed near the bottom of the stairs and stopped at the last step. His face was turned to the doorway leading out of the tower. He didn’t see Bohannon glance off the stone wall to his right, or carom against the inside railing to his left . . . didn’t see him until Bohannon’s rampaging body catapulted past him and hurtled toward the open doorway.

  The flat ground at the bottom of the spire accomplished what the circular stairs failed to do. Bohannon’s knees buckled and he crashed, sprawling through the door and onto the stone walkway outside.

  Fischoff was instantly at his side, kneeling, his back to Bohannon and his attention on the open square around them.

  Pushing against his elbows and knees, Bohannon elevated his head and shoulders and looked across the open expanse of the Citadel. It was empty except for shadowy forms that materialized into the corporal, the other two men in his squad, and Rizzo, running toward them from the direction of the front gate.

  There was no sign of Annie or Kallie. Bohannon sagged.

  “A brown Mazda sedan pulled out of here just moments after we split into two groups. We found a porter outside who saw it go by.”

  The sergeant spit out a Hebrew word that had the sound of how Bohannon felt. It must have been profane.

  “Great . . . there are probably a thousand brown Mazdas in Israel tonight. The shots?”

  The corporal looked over at Rizzo, who was bent at the waist, gasping for air.

  “C’mon, tell me while we get to the Humvees,” said Fischoff, who took off at a gallop, his men in close stride. “Get up, Bohannon,” he shouted over his shoulder, “or we’ll leave you behind.”

  As Sergeant Fischoff and his men ran back toward the vehicles, he was already on the radio.

  “We missed them. They’ve taken the women. We think they’re still alive.”

  On the other end of the radio, Major Levin cursed.

  “Your assignment is to find those women, and find them alive.” The edge in Levin’s voice could cut a rock. “What do you know?”

  “A witness told us a brown Mazda sedan pulled out of the Citadel. They waited until we split up and entered the fortress. Sir, we think they’re headed west. My guess is that they’re running for Gaza. Can we get something in the air to track them?”

  “Negative, sergeant,” Levin’s voice crackled. “Everything I have at my disposal is tied up in and around the Temple Mount. You’re the closest. If they’re headed for the Strip, they’ll stay off the major highways. They’ve got to take either the Thirty-Eight or the Forty-One. Even a brown Mazda, moving fast, shouldn’t be hard to spot. I’m sorry, Sergeant, but you’re on your own.”

  Fischoff grabbed the corporal by the shoulder as they ran around the corner of the Citadel and came to the Humvees. “Take the Ashdod Road. I’ll be on the Thirty-Eight to Ashkelon. Traffic should be light, but I don’t know, with much of the city being locked down. And I don’t care. Move, fast. Our only hope is that they are running to Gaza. If so, they’re still on the road. If they’ve gone to ground somewhere else, we’re screwed. So get moving. Don’t let anything stop you. Run every brown Mazda you see off the road, I don’t care. Just find those women.”

  They piled into the Humvees, but Fischoff stood on the running board and hollered over the roof. “And stay on your radio. I want to know everything that’s going on.”

  Ten minutes later, the corporal toggled his radio switch. “Nothing yet. Too much traffic.”

  “What happened at the Citadel?” The sergeant’s voice showed the strain of the long night and their empty quest.

  “The basement corridor forked about fifty meters in,” said the corporal. “Rizzo and I went left. There were four of them in the last room we swept. They were wiring up bricks of C-4. Some well-placed explosives down there could have destroyed half the Citadel.”

  “But I heard single shots,” said the sergeant.

  The corporal nodded his head and smiled into the back seat. Rizzo gave him a thumbs-up, but it brought no smile to his face. “We cracked the door and somebody inside started shooting. I shoved it open and there were two, just inside the door, against the wall. I couldn’t see them. Mr. Rizzo did. Three shots before anyone could react. Took them both. The others I got.”

  3:48 a.m.

  More Israeli soldiers were coming through the tunnels below the Temple Mount. The Hezbollah commander stepped around the dead bodies of the first squad and addressed his second-in-command. “I don’t care what he said. We’ve got to move now. Send ten men. Ambush them at the crossroads. Then lead the Martyrs’ Brigade up
the steps.” He looked at his watch. “Even if we don’t hear from him, ten minutes, then over the edge of the platform.”

  Without waiting for a response, the Hezbollah commander turned quickly and waved his men forward. The beams of the high-density flashlights, carried by the men behind him, bounced off the walls of the low-ceilinged tunnel as the men ran crouched at the waist up the steep incline. Nearly seven hundred years old, the tunnel had been dug from the foundation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a precaution—a way to escape if the infidel Crusaders ever returned. Now it led to a section of the concrete rigged with explosives . . . explosives that would blow the concrete out, onto the platform, and into the eyes of Israeli soldiers. At the back end of this long string of Muslim soldiers were ten who struggled under the weight on an immense burlap bag.

  3:55 a.m., Tel Aviv

  “What about the women? There hasn’t been any word.”

  Baruk paused before responding. He wanted better news for the American president.

  “We received a tip that they were being held in David’s Tower . . . to be executed, on live television, if we didn’t withdraw from the Temple Mount. Our men got there quickly. Can you believe they have Rizzo and Bohannon with them? But the kidnappers fled before we could capture them. We think the women are still alive, with the captors. We think they are making a run for the safety of the Gaza Strip. Our men are in pursuit. But . . .”

  “But you’re not sure where they are?” said the president. “Well, maybe this is something I can help you with.”

  4:26 a.m., Jerusalem

  Levin and Katz were at the south end of the platform, near the place where the Al-Aqsa Mosque once stood. They were moving fast, a small squad of men in their wake, when the singing stopped. Levin pulled up and looked back at the tent.

  “Now what?”

  4:29 a.m., Balata Camp, Nablus, West Bank

  The telephone on the table rang. Al-Sadr reached it before the second ring.

  “Speak.”

  He listened, then slapped the handset into the cradle and looked up at Youssef.

  “The singing has stopped. Send them.”

  Moussa al-Sadr opened his own cell phone again and pressed a speed dial number. When it was answered, there was no greeting.

  “You know where he is,” said al-Sadr. “He won’t be there long. This is your mission. Strike at the heart of the Zionists. Go with Allah.”

  4:44 a.m., Jerusalem

  The blast slammed Levin’s body backward and drove him to the concrete, but not before he felt a crushing blow to his right side. Gunfire erupted around him, not the heavy thumping of the perimeter fifty-caliber machine guns, but the staccato bursts of automatic weapons. His ears were ringing. His right side failed to respond, so Levin pushed himself up with his left arm. He nearly vomited from the pain in his right side . . . and the sight of Abner Katz, his head half severed from his body by a shard of concrete almost as long as his arm.

  The gunfire was fierce in every direction, shouts of Allahu Akbar! and the screams of the wounded and dying. Two arms hooked under his armpits and grasped his shoulders, one on each side. The Israeli soldiers had closed ranks and were returning fire as Levin was pulled toward the center of the Temple Mount platform. As he was being dragged away from the raging firefight, he could see two things more clearly. One was a steady stream of Muslim fighters pouring onto the platform from a ragged hole of smoking concrete, surrounding and wiping out the machine gun batteries on the southern end. The other was the heavy trail of blood left behind by his dragged body.

  With his hands shackled in front of him, the explosion threw Rodriguez off the hood of the truck and onto the concrete at the platform’s edge, knocking the wind out of his lungs. As he struggled to his feet and stumbled toward the front of the truck, a relentless cacophony of rapid arms fire raced across the surface of the platform. All hell had erupted and every soldier nearby was running to the sound of the guns. Except one. One of Joe’s guardians stopped short, spun around, ran back to the truck, and tossed him a set of keys. Then he was off again, following his brothers in arms.

  Rodriguez removed the shackles from his legs and wrists. For a split second, he wondered what to do. Then a lethal spray of bullets clanged off the metal side of the truck. Without thinking, he jumped up into the small space between the cab and the body of the hauler. Not as exposed, he felt safer. Unsure of what attention he might attract if he took off running, or the response a running man might get from the Israeli soldiers, Rodriguez figured the best course at the moment was to stay put. And keep his head down as much as possible.

  From his hiding place, he still had a clear view across the Temple Mount platform, a clear view of the vicious ferocity unleashed on the far side of the concrete slab, and a clear view of the Tent of Meeting, standing in the midst of a raging gun battle between Israeli soldiers and a small army of Muslim fighters who were pouring out from under the concrete at the far end of the platform.

  4:59 a.m., On the Ashkelon Road

  Bohannon’s world was a blur. . . blackness broken by sporadic slashes of light quickly left behind. Since breaking out of the snarled traffic in the city, they were speeding at a manic pace. Jerusalem’s suburbs were far behind, the Humvee racing through hills and farmland as the Jerusalem Heights fell away to the Mediterranean basin.

  Both Sergeant Fischoff and the driver slipped into silence as reports came in over the radio of the battle on the Temple Mount. But there was no report from the other team. Tom found himself praying that this was good news. He was praying the prayer of the disillusioned, the prayer of the desperate.

  God, I don’t know why you’ve left me. I don’t know what I did for you to punish me . . . to punish Annie . . . like this. I didn’t want this. You called me into this. I thought this was what you wanted. That you had a plan for me. So why has it all gone so wrong? Why are you letting all this happen? What have I done, that is so bad, that you would abandon me like this?

  “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

  “What?” Tom lifted his head and saw that Fischoff was turned around in his seat, staring at him.

  “It’s part of our holy book, too,” he said. “We got it before you did.”

  Bohannon’s mind—scattered in so many directions—found it hard to focus. “What are you saying?”

  Sergeant Fischoff once again swung into the space between the two front seats of the Humvee and crouched in front of Bohannon. “It’s in the book of Joshua,” he said. “Joshua was one of the greatest warriors, greatest leaders, in Jewish history. But when God first spoke to Joshua, three times he told him not to be afraid, to be strong and courageous. If Joshua wasn’t afraid, if he wasn’t feeling weak and fearful, why would God have talked to him like that?”

  Bohannon stared at Fischoff.

  “I looked back at you and I could tell,” said the sergeant. “You feel like God’s abandoned you. Like you don’t even know what to pray. What’s the point? Have you been listening to the radio reports?”

  “Sounds like some kind of battle on the Temple Mount.”

  “Yeah, and it’s not good. We’re getting hammered. And I’m afraid it might be some of my friends up there. I’m worried about them. I want to turn around and go help.”

  Now the sergeant had Bohannon’s attention.

  “I was in Lebanon in oh-six. We got chewed up by Hezbollah. They knew our tactics and they ripped us to shreds. Sent us running back over the border. Worst defeat I’ve ever experienced. Where was God then? When my friends were dying all around me, where was God? How could he let this happen? Why had he forsaken his people?

  “I felt just like you do now. I could feel that same kind of despair about what is happening on the Temple Mount right now. But there’s one thing we need to remember. We’re not God. We don’t get to have all of life’s questions answered for us before we start. We don’t know what God’s plan is. How can we ever expect to understand God’s plan? But there is something we can understa
nd. And that is what God has spoken to us. We have it in the Talmud. You have it in both the Old and the New Testaments.

  “And when God first talked to Joshua—before Joshua ever did anything special, before he ever won any battle—God told him, ‘No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous.’ ” I don’t know why either. But we don’t always get why. What we get is, hang in there. We’ll get your wife back, Mr. Bohannon.” Fischoff pushed himself back into his seat, facing the windshield. “Just hang in there.” He seemed to be talking to himself.

  10:41 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, Washington, DC

  Jonathan Whitestone watched the video feed from the orbiting satellite. “You’re certain?”

  “We’re getting reports from the ground as well,” said Cartwright. “Our team, and others we have in Jerusalem. There is still fierce fighting—on top of the Temple Mount and in the surrounding streets. Hezbollah and Martyr’s Brigade together. Don’t know how, but they got inside the Israeli defenses.”

  “What are the Israelis doing?”

  “Orhlon’s got nearly the entire army on the move. They will crush whatever opposition they find on the ground in Jerusalem,” said Cartwright. “What’s more alarming for us are the number of men and the amount of ordnance Israel is deploying to its borders with Lebanon and Syria. And half their air force is in the sky. This could get a lot worse.”

  “How about the women . . . Bohannon?”

  “Our birds are incoming now.”

  5:10 a.m., Western Israel

  They came out of the blackness over the Mediterranean, skimming the wave tops so tightly that sea spray dripped from their undercarriages. Two helicopters flashed across the coastline into a desolate area between Israel and Gaza, south of Ashkelon. They were nearly invisible.

  U.S. Army Commander Browne Counsil dialed in his wide-angle helmet display—showing flight info, night vision sensors, and sight system for use with weapons—as the Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche stealth helicopters lifted to one hundred feet and sped inland at two hundred miles an hour.