The Flaming Sword

by Breck England

  Now he remembered a passage from Tanakh: Who shall ascend into the Mountain of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place? It was a forgotten song unexpectedly launched into his consciousness. Probably recited a thousand times and then filed away in a sort of mental cold storage, like so many other things.

  He walked through the humming pylons of the perimeter defenses and looked over the dust of the plaza drying in the bright heat. It was empty—no tourists today. The great flagstones under his feet were as white as salt. He surveyed the scaffolded silver tower of Al-Aqsa and then raised his eyes to the golden Dome.

  He motioned to the soldiers and they walked toward the Dome. A couple of Waqf men stood in the shade of the entry and watched them, clearly listening to a discussion of their identity and their intentions over their earphones. One of Toad’s escorts grinned nervously. “I wish I was them. If somebody blows up the Dome, they go straight to martyr heaven. Doesn’t apply to us.”

  Toad looked blandly at the man. “Shin Bet has no sense of humor about this place.”

  The soldier’s grin disappeared. “Sorry, sir.”

  Toad nodded at the Waqf men half-hidden in their guard post and entered the sanctuary. It was blindingly dark inside, but after a moment he could distinguish flowers in the green marble of the walls. Shutting off his own murmuring earpiece, he stood silently, thinking, just inside the southern porch.

  Toad looked up at the Arabic inscriptions circling the lintels of the Dome, barely visible in the yellowish light of the hanging lamps. When he had come here as a schoolboy, he had watched a young man kneeling on the red carpet, gesticulating in prayer toward the south. The man had stood, then bowed, then knelt, his hands moving gracefully, again and again chanting to his God. There was holiness in this place; Toad understood this intellectually, but that was all. He knew about its drawing power, although it was all ambiguous to him. He was a reader. He needed words more than emotions. And he was irritated that he could not make out the stylized words overhead. The builders had turned writing into illegible art. Everything in this case was connected to this Dome, he sensed—to its unreadable message.

  He tried to read what was before him. The shrine was perfectly round and perfectly square at once, seated on an octagonal drum. Eight columns held up the canopy of the dome, its golden gloss only vaguely lustrous in the light from below. Beneath the dome, a high wooden screen encircled and concealed the Rock that was the center of the world. Here they said God had created Adam and Eve, here was the center of the Garden of Eden, here Adam had died and was buried, from here the waters of the flood had boiled up, here Abraham was ordered to sacrifice his son, here Solomon raised the altar of the Holy of Holies at the heart of the Temple. All history began here; all history would end here. It was the irresistible magnet of the spirit.

  He suspected nothing would stop Rachel from coming here, not after Catriel’s death. There was no other place to go, no other meaning to her life. The Temple had been at the center of her existence. Other women had children, lovers, possessions. She had Catriel, and together they had this vision. For Rachel, there was nothing left but the vision. It was her heart, her contribution, her Sabbath. The conflagration of the Dome would be her lighting of the candles.

  He had loved the Sabbath, too, but for a different reason. It was the day of the books.

  Rachel would not be able to get in without help. But suppose she could get it? Toad stared at the soldier standing next to him. It would take only one sympathetic IDF officer, perhaps a soldier she knew, or one of those he remembered from the military police who wore the tallit with his uniform.

  “Al ha-panim,” Toad muttered. “This isn’t working.”

  The soldier glanced back uneasily. “Sir?”

  “I want to know the names of all the officers on the watch today. Since about 800 hours.”

  “Yes sir.” The soldier spoke quietly to his GeM.

  Then Toad walked to the ornate wooden perimeter of the Rock and studied it. Beyond this border was the Holy of Holies where no Jew should walk, he knew. Yahweh would strike him dead if he did, or so it was said. On this rock had once stood the canopy of God, the dwelling, the shekhinah or light of the Presence. Here, on the Ark of the Covenant, God himself had reigned from the mercy seat between the golden cherubim, the glory of God filling the Temple. In the books, God had taken Israel for his bride on this rock. As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall God rejoice over thee, O Israel. Rachel would surely come here to give herself. It was a matter of watching for her.

  Unless she had already come. Words from the Zohar filtered into his mind like old rays of dust. The seat of comfort…the canopy of the bride. For the Sabbath is queen and bride. Come, O bride, come, O bride! Receive the lady with the many lighted candles!”

  At once he vaulted up the stairs leading to the Rock and surveyed it anxiously. “Here, give me a torch,” he called to the soldiers. Behind them, the Waqf guards ran inside at the sound of his voice, shouting angrily at him. He knew enough Arabic: “Get off!”

  He scoured the Rock with the torch and soon found what he was looking for, shoved into a crevice where the Rock met the screen of the enclosure.

  The body of Rachel Halevy, bleeding white and dead under a bridal veil.

  Shin Bet Headquarters, Queen Helena Street, Jerusalem, 1535h

  Without air-conditioning, the blue room was unbearable. Grateful that Kristall had the mercy not to smoke, Ari paused in his story to take a breath and rub the sweat from his face.

  “So you think that someone connected with this cabal, this order of Cherubim, has gone rogue,” Kristall summed up. “And the Interpol woman is part of it.”

  “Absurd,” Kane interjected. He stood and stared at the blue screen on the wall. “She only heard about them a few days ago.”

  Ari held up the little ring. “She had this in her possession. She knows about the Order.”

  “It’s fantastic,” Didi Mattanyah said. “I’ve never heard anything about them. A secret cult dedicated to protecting the Temple Mount? And now someone is trying to wipe them out? How do we verify any of this?”

  The doors of the stifling, soundproof room had closed only minutes before on Tovah Kristall, her deputies, and the President of Interpol. The news screens surrounding the room were filled with tense, perspiring reporters babbling soundlessly, and a horizontal blizzard of text in Hebrew, English, and Arabic.

  “I don’t know. I’m only telling you what Maryse told me. She said it was all she knew. It’s my theory, not hers.”

  Didi looked skeptically at him. “Can you explain your theory again? I’m afraid I’m not following you.”

  “All right. The Order of Cherubim was founded hundreds of years ago to protect the Temple Mount until the Messiah comes…”

  “Whoever the Messiah may be,” Kristall interrupted. “And Emanuel Shor belonged to this Order.”

  “Along with Maryse’s mentor.”

  “This…um, Jean-Baptiste Mortimer.” Kristall adjusted her glasses to inspect the electronic dossier projected on the wall beside her. Mortimer’s small round face smiled out at them.

  “Yes,” Ari said. “Here’s the hypothesis. First Shor is killed. Then Jean-Baptiste Mortimer inducts Maryse into the order to replace him because he’s afraid he is going to be next. And he is next. The Unknown takes a shot at Mortimer in Rome, but because he wears a bulletproof Caballero suit, he survives.”

  Kane looked anxious. “That means that Maryse is also in danger.”

  “We’ll have her in momentarily,” Kristall murmured. “Did she give you any indication of who the other members of this Order might be?”

  Ari shook his head. “She said there would be four, that when one dies the other three come together to choose a successor. Each one is supposed to have a replacement in training.”

  Kristall shivered as if from a chill, although the
room was oppressively hot.

  “What’s happened to the cooling system?” Ari felt sweat blooming on his skin.

  “The government have shut down the new nuclear power station at Dimona and they’re dispersing the fuel. As a precaution. So we’ve lost all our ‘nonessential’ power supply,” Didi explained to him. “They don’t want rocket blasts spreading radiation everywhere.”

  Kane’s authoritative voice broke in. “That someone is liquidating these so-called protectors only makes our situation more urgent. It lends substance to this young man’s theory about a plot on the Dome.”

  “Yes,” Kristall acknowledged. “And now there are two of those devices out there.”

  “Two?” Ari asked. “You mean, two of the nano devices?”

  Kane explained. “We think Levinsky’s wife had the other one. She tried to get access to the Dome sometime this morning, but she was intercepted and shot dead. Your friend Sefardi found her body inside the shrine. The device wasn’t on her.”

  “So they took it.”

  “Whoever they are,” Kristall muttered, looking absently around for a cigarette. “This is maddening.” She cocked her head, evidently listening to a voice on her earphone, then stood.

  “We’ve located a video I want you all to see,” she announced. “It’s a clip taken a few years ago by a Technion team in the Negev.”

  At once the newscasters disappeared from the walls and were replaced by shaky images of a desert valley in the sun. In the distance, a balloon rose from the ground—there was a loud thump followed by shouts, then a weird round bubble of vapor exploded, sparkling like an enormous pearl across the sky. The video froze there.

  “What is it?” Ari asked.

  “A test,” Kristall explained. “The Technion people shot a balloon full of water into the sky and then dropped this designer-atom device into the water by remote control. They ordered the device to transform itself into sodium.”

  “Number 11 in the periodic table,” Ari muttered.

  “Yes, Davan.” Didi looked strangely at him. “An ordinary enough member of the periodic table of elements, which in its pure form explodes on contact with water.” She nodded at the video still. “And you get a tremendous air shock and a pretty, spherical storm cloud.”

  “So this is how the Unknown proposes to blow up the Dome?” Ari shook his head.

  “Technion has done dozens of experiments like this one,” Kristall said. “No, a vapor explosion isn’t powerful enough. But there are other elements, other combinations they’ve tried, just to make sure that they’re transmuting energy into real matter.”

  “It’s got to end,” Kane said quietly, and after a silence, “Can we bring Inspector Mandelyn in now?”

  Kristall gave the order, and Maryse was brought in, still in shorts and top and splashed with dust.

  “Davan has told us about your ring, and about your association with this secretive group,” Kristall said in formal tones. Maryse glanced coldly at Ari, and he stirred restlessly in his chair. “It’s a very grave thing, withholding this information from us. As a law officer yourself…”

  Maryse interrupted. “With respect, Ma’am, I don’t answer to you. I had good and sufficient reasons to keep it to myself.” She looked to Kane for support; he returned a brisk nod, but said nothing.

  Kristall sighed. “Who else is involved in this…this cabal?”

  “I can’t tell you because I don’t know. I explained all I know to Davan here; he has apparently passed it all on to you.” Maryse gave Ari another colorless look.

  Kane spoke up. “Clearing away these so-called Cherubim, or protectors, whoever they are, looks to be part of the Unknown’s overall plan. Shor is dead. We don’t know where Mortimer is—my Intel officer is trying to track him down as we speak. And there are two others. If we could find them, they might lead us to the Unknown.”

  “Perhaps they’re dead already,” Kristall proposed. “As we don’t know who they are.”

  Something occurred to Ari. “I don’t think so. You said that Rachel Halevy’s killer deposited her body inside the Dome. Then he must have taken the device off her, had it there in his hand ready to use. Why didn’t he blow up the Dome then?”

  “Maybe the Waqf scared him away?” Kristall ventured.

  Didi laughed. “The Waqf? He’s probably one of them.”

  Ari went on. “He wasn’t ready to destroy the Dome. Not then. There’s something unfinished…business to do.” He turned abruptly to Maryse. “Where will the meeting be held?”

  “Meeting?” Kane asked.

  Maryse looked coolly into Ari’s eyes and gave him a slow shake of her head. He turned back to Kristall.

  “She told me that the Order of Cherubim would be meeting tonight in Jerusalem to replace Shor. But she didn’t say where.”

  “Is that true, Maryse?” Kane asked quietly.

  “I don’t know where the meeting will be held.”

  “All this about a meeting is mildly interesting,” Didi said, “but isn’t it a bit more imperative to find the Unknown as quickly as possible?”

  “We’ve got his face posted on every viewscreen in the city,” Kristall answered. “Every IDF trooper, every police officer, and every Shin Bet agent we can scour up is looking for him now. The airspace is secure, the cordon around the Temple Mount is impenetrable, and the Waqf is at full strength guarding the shrines.”

  “But if we find the meeting, we find the Unknown,” Ari interjected. “He’s not going to lose the opportunity to light them all up at once, is he? With all the surviving Cherubim in one place?”

  Kristall nodded. “It’s only logical.” At once she broke off, turning her head to listen to her earphone; then she rapidly scribbled a note and handed it to Ari.

  “Davan, I’ve got an assignment for you.”

  “I thought I was suspended.”

  “Who said that? Take your team and get on this immediately,” Kristall said, pointing at the note. “We might have found the connection we’ve been hoping for.”

  King’s Garden Restaurant, King David Hotel, Jerusalem, 1615h

  Lucien Grammont disliked eating his evening meal so early, but he had been warned that the kitchens would close at sunset because of the holiday. Yom Kippur began then, and for the next twenty-four hours the nation of Israel would fast—along with all guests of the nation of Israel. The sun still slanted through the skylights in the webbed ceiling, so he had an hour or so to enjoy his dinner. And in any case, he would have his hands full with the Order meeting this evening, so it was just as well.

  He ordered fish and ate it with a strong white kosher wine, a Binyamina. Although it was not French wine, it was agreeably flavorful and cooling, particularly in this under air-conditioned restaurant. He had brought with him his leather-bound Shakespeare, but didn’t get into it, as he was distracted by the diners around him—a small, loud American in a white suit blaring away in his odious accent at his tablemates; Jewish grandfathers in blue suits and skullcaps surrounded by children; families brashly toasting each other, elderly men swaying with full plates from the buffet tables. Israel, he thought, would be ready for the fast.

  For dessert, hamantaschen—delicate poppy-seed cakes with honey. He loved them, although he was worried that a seed might make its devastating way into one of his splintered back teeth. Afterwards, he took his book and his coffee to the lobby veranda and sat down to admire the ruined towers of the ancient citadel. Beyond them, the Dome of the Rock reared its golden head.

  Although people did not move him, nor did he even attempt to hide the shallowness of his feelings for them, he was passionate about history. The age of the great Dome, its uniqueness, the ambiguity of it fascinated him. Five hundred years older than the Order, its reason for existence had been lost in time even before Richard the Lion Heart and Saladin fought over possession of it. It was not a mosque,
it was not a temple, it was not a church—it was none of them, but somehow transcended all of them. A jeweled canopy over the navel of the world. He had grown curious about it over the years, had acquired many old prints of it, and surrounded himself with books about it. With a peculiar possessiveness, he marveled at it.

  His GeMphone buzzed tactfully and he spoke into it.

  The time and venue for the meeting had changed? He should arrange transportation? This was unexpected. But yes, he would see to it.

  He rang off, made a call, and sat back to look at the Dome with new interest. For thirteen centuries it had sheltered the holiest of secrets and held the world together. For how much longer? He wondered. His own Catholicism was august and ceremonial, and he disapproved of the unruliness that had recently come over the Church; but here, at the gates of the Holy City, he felt the forces of history converging and caught a glimpse of the cogency of God. This was the first and the last of places, the beginning and the ending point.

  At first Grammont didn’t recognize the young man who approached him across the veranda, wearing a black official-looking t-shirt and shorts like a bicycle policeman. Then he remembered.

  “Mr. Grammont, we meet again,” the young man said, holding an Israeli government credential in his face. “I’m Inspector Davan, and this is my associate, Inspector Sefardi.” He motioned to a squat, nondescript man in gray shirt and slacks who stood off to the side—Grammont had not noticed him before. “Please come with us.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t. I have business to attend to this evening, and I was about to arrange a few things.”

  “This won’t take long.”

  Obligingly, Grammont adjusted his tie and preceded the two policemen into the lobby.

  Shin Bet Headquarters, St. Helena Street, Jerusalem, 1720h

  “You’re not going into the interrogation?” Toad asked.

  Ari stretched out in his office chair, for the first time in his memory grateful for this little sanctuary. He was exhausted. Before picking up Grammont, he had had time only for a quick shower and a sandwich.