The rabbi tried to imagine Herod’s Romanesque porticoes running along the outer wall, where, during the Passover festival, Jesus would have challenged the moneychangers for their profiteering and blasphemy. And when the holiday had passed, pagans would have refurnished the temple with their idols and resumed sacrilegious offerings on the Lord’s sacred altar.

Oh, how the temple priests had prostituted God’s most hallowed sanctuary!

It came as little surprise that God had brought destruction to Jerusalem in 70 c.e. Jesus had tried to warn the people of the Lord’s anger, the imminent doom that would befall them should they continue to break the covenant. But as they had done to Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and all others who had come before Him, the Israelites chose not to listen to Jesus. Like a dark avenger the Roman scourge came down upon the brood of vipers, the den of thieves.

Just as He had with the Babylonian exiles, for whom the prophets promised a return to this land, so too had God mercifully gathered the tribes once more in 1948. Yet even now they did not heed His message. They embraced an impotent, secular government and bowed down to Western culture. Worse yet, they had still failed to retake the Temple Mount—the Lord’s most sacred ground. In 1967, the Israeli army had an incredible opportunity to expel the Muslims during the Six-Day War, yet they lacked the faith to follow through.

“Be very careful.” The rabbi intently watched over the priestly attendants as they eased the Ark up the steps, the pair in the rear pressing the poles up above their shoulders to compensate for the sharp angle. It was imperative to keep the vessel level so as not to disturb its hallowed contents.

The rabbi turned his attention up to the Dome of the Rock. Over the three millennia since King David made Jerusalem the Israelite capital, Jews had suffered many setbacks, even expulsion from these holy lands. When God’s covenant was ignored, His punishment was without pity. But when the people abided by His laws, His blessings had been limitless.

Though the temple had been destroyed twice, its third incarnation would stand until the very end of time.

For decades, he’d dreamed of this moment. For millennia, his family had waited. So much preparation. So much sacrifice.

He was close now.

Having safely emerged from the opening, the priests stood beside the rabbi with the Ark raised up. Seconds later, Charlotte was dragged up and out of the hole.

Clasping his hands together, Cohen bowed his head and began praying. Where the true eastern gate of the temple courtyard would once have resided, he sprinkled more blood from the mizrak.

Then he slowly made his way to the stairs leading up the dome’s platform, the procession following behind him. Once all had reassembled in front of the shrine, the seven priests stepped forward, each wearing a blue satin side pouch.

For a long moment, the rabbi glared at the Dome of the Rock, helplessly captivated by its Arabian tile work and gold-leafed cupola. Up until this day, he’d seen the building only from afar. Standing at its foot was intimidating. Then again, Jericho had once intimidated Joshua.

He motioned to the seven. In unison, each man pulled from his pouch a shofar and brought the twisted ram’s horn to his lips. Their guttural bellow filled the air.

Cohen signaled for two of the gunmen to proceed to the shrine’s southfacing double door.

The priests lifted the Ark to prepare for a grand entrance.

Then something shocking happened.

The moment the men pulled open the doors to the shrine’s darkened interior, they were immediately gunned down in a hail of bullets.

“Protect the Ark!” Cohen yelled. He motioned for them to move away from the door, to take shelter beside the shrine’s solid marble wall. “Bring her immediately!” he said to the priests handling Charlotte.

As they all scrambled for cover, the rabbi’s six remaining gunmen raided the shrine.

79

******

Two things let Enoch know he hadn’t been killed by the blast: the raging pain that shot through his left shoulder, and the frigid bite of the chestdeep water into which he’d plunged.

High overhead, the tunnel glowed orange through a thick haze of dust. On four sides, sheer block walls formed a huge rectangular pit set below a lofty barrel vault.

An ancient cistern.

When he looked around he could see that there were no doors, no stairs, no ladders. Once he’d slogged to the nearest wall, his fingers confirmed that the surface was impossibly slick. The opening to the tunnel was a good five meters up. There’d be no climbing out of this hole.

His teeth were chattering uncontrollably, his body vacillating in the stinging water.

“Hey!” Enoch yelled up through cupped hands. “Down here!” He repeated a similar SOS multiple times over the next minute.

No response.

There was a good chance he’d pass out from hypothermia before the soldiers would hear his screams and pull him out.

Above, the flickering fire glow taunted.

Unexpectedly, something bumped up against his leg, making him flinch. When he looked down he simultaneously gasped and pushed back in repulsion.

A grisly corpse floated face-up. And there wasn’t much face to talk about. The front side of the skull had been reduced to pulp—one eye swollen shut, the other stripped of its fleshy lids so that a single hazy green eye stared up at him. Even the lips had been violently peeled back so that the dead man’s few remaining jagged teeth seemed to

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