Korans had arrived from the printing presses of al-Azhar University in Cairo. Darwish stared at the message for several minutes, wondering whether he had the courage, or the faith, necessary to go through with it. Then he took a ring of keys from the top drawer of his desk and headed out onto the sacred mount.
The Darwish family had been linked to the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf for centuries, and as a child Hassan Darwish had passed his days memorizing the Koran in the shade trees at the northern edge of the Noble Sanctuary. But even now, in middle age, he could not walk past the Dome of the Rock without feeling as though Allah and the Prophet Muhammad were walking beside him. At the center of the colorful octagonal structure was the Foundation Stone, sacred to all three of the Abrahamic faiths. For Jews and Christians, it was the place where the Archangel Gabriel prevented Abraham from slaying his son Isaac; for Muslims, it marked the spot where Gabriel accompanied Muhammad on his Night Journey into heaven. Beneath the stone itself was a natural cave known as the Well of Souls, the place where Muslims believed the souls of the damned are temporarily held before being cast into hell. As a boy, Darwish used to sneak into the cave alone late at night. There he would sit for hours on the musty prayer rugs, pretending he could hear the souls wailing in anguish. In his imagination, they were never Muslims, only the Jews whom God had punished for stealing the land of Palestine.
For a time, Darwish believed it was possible for Jews and Muslims to divide the land and live side by side in peace. Now, after decades of crushing Israeli occupation and broken promises, he had come to the conclusion the Palestinians would never be free until the Zionist state was annihilated. The key to the liberation of Palestine, he believed, was the Temple Mount itself. The Israelis had foolishly allowed the Waqf to retain its authority over the Haram after the Six-Day War. In doing so, they had unwittingly sealed their own fate. A scholar of ancient Middle Eastern history, Darwish understood that conflict between Arabs and Jews was more than simply a struggle over land; it was a religious war, and the Haram was at the center of it. Arafat had used the Temple Mount to ignite the bloody Second Intifada in 2000. Now, Imam Hassan Darwish intended to use it to start another. But this intifada, the third, would dwarf the two that had come before. It would be cataclysmic, a final solution. And when it was over, there would not be a single Jew left in the land of Palestine.
With images of the coming apocalypse vivid in his thoughts, the imam passed beneath the freestanding archway of the Southwest Qanatir and set out across a broad courtyard toward the silver-domed al-Aqsa Mosque. On the eastern side of the massive structure was the newly built entrance to the underground Marwani Mosque. Darwish descended the terrace-like steps and, using one of his keys, unlocked the main door. As always, he felt slightly apprehensive about entering. As director of the construction project, Darwish knew how badly the removal of several tons of earth and debris had weakened the Haram. The entire southern half of the plateau was in danger of collapse. Indeed, on Ramadan and other important holy days, Darwish could almost hear the Holy Mountain groaning under the weight of the faithful. All it would take was one small shove, and a large portion of the most sacred place on earth would collapse into the Kidron Valley, taking the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest shrine in Islam, with it.
For now, the enormous subterranean mosque, with its twelve avenues of Herodian pillars and arches, was deathly silent and aglow with a soft, divine light. Alone, Darwish padded quietly along a vaulted passage until he came to a heavy wooden door sealed fast with a thick padlock. The imam had the only key. He unlocked the door and heaved it open, revealing a flight of stone steps. At the bottom was yet another locked door. Darwish possessed the single key to this one as well, but when he opened it, the darkness beyond was absolute. He removed a small Maglite from the pocket of his
Some men might be naturally apprehensive about entering an ancient tunnel at night, but not Darwish. As a child, he had spent countless hours happily exploring the Noble Sanctuary’s hidden caves and passages. This one descended at a treacherously steep angle for several hundred feet before finally leveling off. After that it ran largely straight and flat for approximately a quarter-mile and then rose sharply once again. At the terminus was a newly installed steel ladder. Slightly winded from the arduous walk, Hassan Darwish took hold of the handrails and climbed slowly toward the wooden trapdoor at the top. Opening it, he found himself in the bedroom of an apartment in Silwan, the neighborhood of East Jerusalem adjacent to the City of David. On one wall was a poster of a French soccer star; on another, a photograph of Yahiya Ayyash, the master Hamas bomb maker known as the Engineer. Darwish opened the closet. Inside were the “Korans” that Mr. Farouk had mentioned in his message—several hundred pounds of high explosives and detonators that had been smuggled across the Egyptian border by Hezbollah and Hamas and carried into Israel by Bedouin tribesmen. There was more elsewhere in Silwan. Much more.
Darwish closed the closet door. Then he slipped out of the bedroom and made his way through the cramped rooms of the apartment to a tiny balcony overlooking the Kidron Valley. On the opposite side, floating above the soaring honey-colored walls of Herodian stone, were two enormous domes, one silver, the other gold.
38
VATICAN CITY
FOR THE NEXT WEEK, GABRIEL’S turbulent life settled into a pleasant if cloistered routine. With the flat on the Via Gregoriana now off-limits, he took refuge in a small priestly apartment inside the Apostolic Palace, one floor below Donati and the pope. He rose early each morning, ate breakfast with the Holy Father’s household nuns, and then headed over to the conservation lab to spend a few hours working on the Caravaggio. Antonio Calvesi, the chief restorer, rarely strayed from Gabriel’s grottolike workspace. On the second day, he finally screwed up the nerve to ask about the reason for Gabriel’s absence.
“I was visiting a sick aunt.”
“Where?”
“Palm Beach.”
Calvesi gave a skeptical frown. “Rumor has it you’re going to accompany
“Actually, we prefer to call it Israel,” said Gabriel, tapping his paintbrush gently against the flowing red mantle of John the Evangelist. “And, yes, Antonio, I’m going with him. But don’t worry, I’ll finish the Caravaggio when we get back.”
“How long?”
“Maybe a week, maybe a month.”
“Do you do that just to annoy me?”
“Yes.”
“Let us hope your
“Yes,” said Gabriel. “Let us hope.”
At ten o’clock sharp, Gabriel would depart the lab and walk over to the Swiss Guard barracks for a daily briefing on the security arrangements for the pope’s trip. At first, Alois Metzler seemed annoyed by Gabriel’s presence. But his misgivings quickly evaporated when Gabriel pointed out several glaring problems with the protection plan that no one else seemed to have noticed. At the conclusion of one particularly long meeting, he invited Gabriel into his office.
“If you’re going to serve with us,” he said, glancing at Gabriel’s blue jeans and leather jacket, “you’re going to have to dress like us.”
“Pantaloons make me look fat,” said Gabriel. “And I’ve never been able to figure out how to get a halberd through an airport metal detector.”
Metzler pressed a button on his intercom. Ten seconds later, his adjutant entered carrying three dark suits,
