Commandments, the tablets that God gave to Moses at Mount Sinai as the ancient Israelites wandered the desert in search of the Promised Land. Deker thought God—Yahweh to the Israelites—should have simply given Moses a map. It would have saved the Israelites forty years and countless lives.
But the Knights Templar couldn’t hold the Temple Mount for long. A few years later it was back in the hands of the Muslim Waqf, where it had remained that past millennium.
Recently, the Waqf had quietly begun a massive subterranean tunneling operation. The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, feared that the Waqf was on the verge of discovering an ancient network of chambers and corridors deep beneath the mount that predated even the First and Second Jewish Temples. The front door to that network was none other than the well of souls beneath the Dome of the Rock.
Adjan Husseini, the Palestinian head of the Waqf in Jerusalem, was kneeling facedown in prayer when Deker entered the cave. At the sound of Deker’s footsteps, he lifted his head and started at the sight of the C-4 brick Deker removed from his pack.
Looking Husseini in the eye, Deker held the brick up and said, “Boom.”
“Commander Deker.” Husseini rose to his feet. “Go ahead. Take the shot.”
Deker put the C-4 brick back into his pack and took out his BlackBerry. Draping one arm around Husseini’s neck, he extended the other and snapped a photo with his phone’s camera. He then e-mailed it to Colonel Elezar.
“It’s time-stamped,” Deker said, putting the phone away. “I copied you too.”
But Husseini, eyes wide, was staring at the explosives and blinking LED displays inside Deker’s open pack, catching on that the C-4 charges were real. “You could have blown us all to bits!”
Deker said, “I promised you that I would expose loopholes in your security in the hopes you’d finally relent and let us put up the electronic surveillance net.”
“So you can spy on us.”
“So we can better defend the Dome of the Rock from the ultra-Orthodox Jews who want to destroy it so that they can erect a Third Temple. Or from radical Palestinians who would pin the blame on Orthodox Jews. You’ve seen the intel. The threat’s real and it’s imminent.”
Husseini said nothing for a moment. A hole in the six-foot rock ceiling allowed a shaft of light from the mosque above to illuminate several small altars and prayer niches around the chamber. Deker could see Husseini’s eyes study him with bitter resentment through the haze of incense and flickering candlelight.
“You knew from the start that we’d never agree to Israeli surveillance,” Husseini said. “Yet, you proceeded to pull this dangerous stunt only to humiliate us.”
Husseini was baiting him now, stalling. Deker sensed a trap and realized he had no idea where the Waqf guards outside were at the moment. He thought of Stern back at the van. It was time to leave.
“This security test isn’t nearly as dangerous as the weapons cache you’ve been stockpiling in the southeast corner under Solomon’s Stables,” Deker said.
Surprise registered on Husseini’s face, although Deker wasn’t sure if it was real or manufactured by the man.
“Oh, yes, we know about that,” Deker told him. “And that tunnel you’ve been digging right under this cave. If anyone is going to start the fire, it’s going to be you.”
Husseini picked up a bronze candelabra and brought it down heavily onto the floor’s marble slab. It gave out a hollow thud, revealing the existence of a lower chamber, the well of souls. His face was an unreadable mask again.
“Is that really your concern here tonight, Commander Deker? Or are you afraid we might find something that Israel has been hiding from the world? Wise men have long believed that a cosmic portal exists here, a tunnel through space and time that leads to paradise.”
Deker paused. “Or maybe it’s the gate to hell.”
Husseini was angry now. The expression on his face didn’t show it, and his voice was steady and subdued. But his words were bitter and sharp.
“You think you’re so special, Deker—better than the rest of us. That you’re the human pin in a live grenade, standing alone between old Arabs like me and Jews like your Colonel Elezar. But know this: the Jews won’t stop until they have destroyed the dome above us. Armageddon is inevitable. It’s a time bomb that will go off. You can’t stop it. Just like you couldn’t prevent your girlfriend from blowing herself up with an explosive made by your own hands.”
Deker felt the world give way under his feet at the thought of his Rachel and the horrible mistake he had made that had cost her her life. But he stood firm, emotionless in his expression, and turned to face Husseini, who picked up a ceremonial washbowl with a candle from the altar.
“I’m told the device looked something like this,” Husseini said, stroking the red and black ceramic pattern. “You and your IDF masters intended to assassinate a Hamas militant inside the home of a Palestinian government official. But by some mystery known only to Allah, you mixed up the bowls, and the one with the explosive ended up in the hands of your beloved as she prepared to light her Shabbat candles to celebrate the first night of the Passover at the Western Wall. Mercifully, she perished the instant you hit your remote detonator. News reports said the six injured Jews around her took several hours to die.”
In that second, Deker wanted to reach over and rip out Husseini’s throat. And he would have, if he didn’t know that’s exactly what Husseini wanted him to attempt.
“The grief of your error must torment you every waking hour and haunt you in your sleep,” Husseini went on, the corners of his mouth turning into a slight smile at having gotten even the suppression of a reaction out of him. “Perhaps that’s why you can’t leave this place. To you it was always a holy pile of rubbish, but to her it was her faith and life. Now it’s her tombstone and you are a ghost stumbling in the graveyard of history. But it’s impossible to bring her back. We can’t change the past any more than we can change the future.”
“That hasn’t stopped you from trying.” Deker produced a pottery shard he had found in an open trench at the base of the eastern wall. He pointed it like a dagger at Husseini’s chest. “Your bulldozers are destroying ancient First and Second Temple artifacts. As if you can erase Israel from history.”
Husseini’s eyes flickered in fear for the first time that night as he looked at the shard in Deker’s hand, clenched so tight that Deker didn’t know he had cut himself until he felt a trickle of blood through his fingers. The Palestinian seemed to realize he had pushed Deker too far, but he stood defiant.
“Keeping your dead lover’s memory alive doesn’t change the fact that Jerusalem has always been an Arab and Islamic city,” Husseini said, sticking with the party line to the end. “This piece of pottery you are waving at me is a plant. No Jewish temple ever stood here.”
“Right,” Deker said, placing the bloodstained shard on the small altar as a souvenir of this encounter. “Neither did I.”
“Would that were true,” Husseini told him. “But a man at war with himself can’t keep the peace forever. You have a gift for destruction. You cannot suppress the expression of your nature forever.
Deker wiped his bloodied hand on his trouser leg, gave him a slight bow and turned toward the cave entrance. He then vanished up the steps, leaving Husseini to his prayers.
• • •
Three minutes later—and six minutes later than he had promised Stern—Deker rappelled over the eastern wall and landed on the roof of a yellow Caterpillar backhoe loader parked against the base. He jumped off and raced down the slope of the Muslim graveyard abutting the wall, weaving his way through the tombstones toward the parked Gihon Water and Sewage Company service van.
He stopped the second he saw the cracked windshield and unmistakable bullet hole.
Deker whipped out his Jericho 9mm pistol from his pack and rushed to the driver’s side of the van, aiming his Jericho through the window with one hand as he threw open the door with the other. Stern was slumped over the wheel, motionless. Deker felt sick with rage. He pushed Stern’s head with the steel nose of his gun. The head rolled to the side, lifeless, revealing a bloody hole in the temple.
A flash in the driver’s-side mirror caught Deker’s eye and he glanced back to see a black van barreling up from behind. In the same motion, Deker jumped into the Gihon van, pushed Stern’s corpse away and slid behind the wheel. He heard the squeal of brakes and the crash of boots on the ground. As he turned the ignition and shifted
