eleven o'clock Tom decided to go to bed and Decker went up on the roof of the building for some fresh air.
As he sat on a large gray fixture on the roof, Decker thought back to his discussion with Goodman about the boy, Christopher. In truth, the matter was never very far from his mind. There has to be some way that I can write that story without hurting people, he thought. A dozen scenarios ran through his mind, but all had the same conclusion: too great a risk of exposure; someone was sure to figure it out.
Decker looked out over the beauty of the old city of Jerusalem. For the most part, the city lay silent in the late evening darkness, with only scattered points of light shining in defiance of the moonless night. The gold-covered Dome of the Rock sparkled in the starlight near the Wailing Wall.
'That's it!' he said to himself suddenly. Decker ran at full speed from the roof to the hotel suite. 'Tom, get up!' he shouted as he burst through the door. Tom had not gone to bed, but was watching an old John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart movie. Decker reassessed the situation and restated his command, 'Quick, damn it! Get your shoes on!'
Tom grabbed his camera, coat, and shoes while running toward the door. 'What's going on?' he asked.
'The phone call!' Decker said, abbreviating his speech to save time. 'They're going to blow up the Wailing Wall!'
Tom thought for a second as he boarded the elevator on the way to the lobby. 'Of course, 'weeping' but 'no place for their tears to fall!'' he said, catching Decker's sense of alarm.
Halfway down to the first floor it occurred to them that they should call the police to let them know what was going on. When they reached the lobby Decker went for the car while Tom called and left a hurried message for Lt. Freij.
Decker drove the short distance from the hotel to the Joffa Gate and turned down David Street into the old city. They were only about a mile from the Wailing Wall, but at their present speed Tom felt that the car would shake apart on the ancient roads before they reached it. Because it was late, the one way street was fairly clear and Decker had no trouble as he made the sharp right onto Armenian Patriarch Street, past the Zion Gate and then onto Bateimahasse Street. They were almost there.
Decker pulled the car into the parking lot at the Wailing Wall and slammed the door as he and Tom ran the remaining hundred yards to the Wall. All was quiet and deserted in the cold, late night. Even the tourists had gone to bed. Decker and Tom waited and looked around for signs of activity but found none. The only sound was the wind and the barely audible late night sounds of the new city outside the walls. They looked at one another.
Decker was the first one to speak. 'You know,' he said, 'any minute now Lt. Freij is going to be driving up here with his sirens blaring and his lights flashing and we're going to be standing here looking like total idiots.'
They sighed together. 'I don't suppose that we could call him back and tell him to forget it,' Tom said in strained jest.
'No use,' responded Decker. 'They'll be here any minute.'
That's when it hit them. They stopped talking and looked around them.
'What's wrong with this picture?' Decker quipped, as he scanned the scene more closely.
'Police,' Tom answered dryly. The ever-present Israeli security were nowhere to be found.
The next instant they were startled as a young boy emerged from the entrance to the tunnel Joshua Rosen had shown them. Seconds later he was followed by about eight men for whom he apparently had been standing watch. As he ran, the boy passed close enough for Decker and Tom to get a look at him. It was the Palestinian boy from Jenin.
Decker and Tom ran to the tunnel entrance and found the bodies of four Israeli security personnel laying in pools of blood, their throats cut. Decker stooped down over them, vainly looking for any sign of life. He had seen worse in Vietnam, but dead was always dead. Tom turned his head away from the bloody sight and as he did he caught the distinctive smell of a burning fuse.
'Decker! Run!' he shouted as he grabbed Decker's arm.
The two men ran from the tunnel as fast as they could. Sixty yards away they stopped, thinking that they were probably safe. In the distance they could hear the sounds of Lt. Freij's sirens. As Decker looked toward the approaching police cars, the ground shook with the first of a rapid series of huge explosions.
Decker dropped to the ground as dirt and fragments of rock landed all around him. In a moment he looked over to see if Tom was all right and, to his surprise, found him standing there taking pictures. Decker mused at how far Tom was willing to go to get a great picture. But Decker was not that much different than his friend: as he got up he thought only briefly about how glad he was to be alive. And though he was sickened by the destruction of this awesome historical site, he could not help but think of what a great article this was going to make. Exclusive coverage! Exclusive photos! No question about it, this would be next Monday's cover story in NewsWorld.
When the police arrived, Decker and Tom told Lt. Freij what had happened and showed him approximately where to find the guards' bodies under the rubble. They did not, however, tell him about the boy; they would talk to him themselves in the morning and maybe come away with a second exclusive.
By the time they left the scene, crowds of Israelis and tourists from the surrounding area had gathered behind the police lines to look in shock and horror at what had been the last remnant of the ancient Temple. The phone caller had been right: there was much weeping that night. The Palestinians had planted far more than enough explosives to do the job. Bits and pieces of broken stone lay everywhere. The earth of the Temple Mount behind the Wall caved down upon the rubble. And of the Wall itself, not one stone was left standing upon another.
Chapter 8
When in the Woods and Meeting Wild Beasts
The next morning Decker and Tom got up early and drove to Jenin to talk to the Palestinian boy. On the way there it occurred to them that they really didn't have a plan.
'Okay, so when we get there, then what?' Tom asked.
'We'll just talk to the kid and tell him to tell the people he was with last night that some American reporters want to talk to them. We're not their enemy. They like the media. That's the only way they can get their story out. Besides, if they didn't want coverage they certainly wouldn't have called us on the phone to tell us it was going to happen. The bigger problem will be Lt. Freij wanting us to reveal our sources once the story comes out.'
When they arrived at the boy's house, Tom decided to leave his camera in the car – just to be extra sure nobody got nervous. They walked the short path to the house and Decker knocked on the door.
'Do you think anyone's home?' Tom asked after a moment. But before he had even gotten the words out, the door opened and the boy's mother motioned for them to come in. 'Great,' Tom said, pleased at the reception. 'Maybe I should have brought my camera, after all.'
As the door swung shut Decker heard a loud crack and felt a sudden intense pain spread through his head as his skull absorbed the impact of a wooden club.
Somewhere in Israel
The pain in Decker's head crawled down his neck and shoulders and came to rest in the pit of his empty stomach. Ropes bound his feet and hands. They were loose enough to allow circulation but no movement. Lying on his side with his face to the floor, he wondered where he was and how long he had been there. The air was stuffy and from the stench and the slight dampness of his pants it was apparent that while he was unconscious, he had urinated on himself. From this he judged that he had been unconscious for less than a day, because any fluids in his system would have been vacated in the first twenty-four hours. After that his body would retain any remaining fluids as dehydration set in.
He could hear two men talking in the room. For right now it made sense to not let them know he was awake. Slowly he opened the eye closest to the floor to a small slit; then just a little more. When it became clear no one had noticed, Decker strained to look around as much as he could, but with each eye movement he winced at the pain in his head. And what he saw told him very little. He was in a room with one small boarded-up window. About
