shoulder, he crept toward the entryway and the voice of the wounded gunman. In his unsteady state, he would be the easiest to take down. With a little luck, Dirk could swap the ax for an assault rifle and shoot the other man before he knew what happened.
As the conversation died, Dirk still stood several feet from the wounded man. He would have to take a blind swing at him, as he couldn’t afford to reveal his position. Halting for a moment, he slid a foot forward silently, then slid again. But even in his diminished state, Akais detected a presence nearby.
“Salaam?” he suddenly asked.
The voice was close, Dirk realized, close enough to strike. He had taken another soft step forward and raised the ax to swing when a lantern suddenly came on across the cavern. He spun to see it was Maria, with a lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other. Staring at Dirk, she eased the pistol to her left until it was aimed at the heart of Sophie, who stood crouched against the wall just a few feet away.
“Drop the ax or she dies now,” the Turkish woman said.
Sophie gave him a forlorn look as he reluctantly dropped the pickax to the ground. Looking at her eyes wide with fear was the last thing he remembered. Then Hassan smacked the stock of his rifle into the back of Dirk’s head and he crumpled to the ground in a sea of darkness.
47
A well-traveled white taxi turned into the dirt lot and came to a stop alongside Sophie’s car. Sam Levine quickly paid the driver, then hopped out. As the cab drove off into the night, Sam tried phoning Sophie. Not surprised that she didn’t answer, he sent her a text message telling her where he was. When there was no response to that, he set off for the cemetery, knowing that she usually turned her phone off during a reconnaissance operation.
He crossed the street with a slight limp, his side and hip aching from the auto accident. In the confusion, he had left his night vision gear in the trunk of his damaged car, but he did have an automatic pistol holstered at his side. By moving slowly and quietly, he banked that Sophie would be able to spot him before he disrupted the surveillance.
Climbing down the embankment, he realized that he would have no problem moving slowly. He winced as a steep step sent a shooting pain through his leg, and he resorted to taking small, stutter steps as he navigated the sloping grounds that led to the cemetery.
The cemetery appeared silent and empty as he crept past the ancient tombs. He stopped every few yards to look and listen, expecting Sophie to silently appear out of the dark and tap him on the shoulder. But she never materialized.
Hiking another few steps, he stopped again, this time at hearing a distant noise. It was the clacking sound of rocks being piled upon one another, emanating from the center of the cemetery. Sam quietly tiptoed a few yards closer, stopping behind a low retaining wall. The clattering continued from down the hill. As he peered cautiously over the wall, under the light of a half-moon, he could just make out several shadowy figures moving about a flat grave near a short stone lamp tower that had lost its illumination decades ago.
The antiquities agent pulled out his pistol, then sat and waited. Several minutes ticked by as he wondered where Sophie was and why she wasn’t making an arrest. Perhaps she had abandoned the recon, he thought, but that didn’t prevent him from doing his duty.
Climbing over the wall with a grimace, he hobbled downhill toward the grave robbers. The sound of rattling stones ceased, and he could make out several of the figures retreating toward the southern end of the cemetery. He tried to run, but the stinging pain in his joints quickly slowed him to a shuffle. With a rising sense of desperation, he stopped and shouted, “Halt!”
The demand had an inverse effect. Rather than stopping the intruders, it prompted them to flee quicker. Sam could hear their accelerated steps as they ran through the cemetery and past its southern boundary. Moments later, the sound of not one but two automobiles starting up disrupted the night, followed by the screech of tires as both cars quickly sped away.
Sam shook his head in dismay as he spotted the receding taillights. Then he thought again about his supervisor.
“Sophie, are you out there?” he shouted.
But he was only answered by the silence of the empty graveyard.
Ambling down to the light tower, he stepped to the adjacent grave site, expecting to find a hastily dug crater burrowed into it. Instead, he was surprised to see an orderly mound of stones covering the grave. It was unusual for robbers to conceal their handiwork, he knew. Curious, he lifted a few of the stones off the top of the mound. He nearly fell backward when a human hand appeared in the moonlight.
Working more hesitantly, he gently removed more of the stones until revealing the bloodied torso and head of the murdered Palestinian. Staring at the corpse with revulsion, Sam silently wondered what sort of twisted thieves had come to the graveyard to make a deposit.
48
A dull light seemed to burn through Dirk’s eyes, though his lids were tightly closed. There was nothing dull, however, in the throbbing pain that surged through his head.
With a Herculean effort, he slowly forced open an eyelid, cringing as he slowly focused on a glowing lantern sitting inches from his face. Climbing back to full consciousness, he noticed the discomfort of the cold, hard limestone floor beneath his body. His arms stirred slightly as his hands groped along the surface, searching for support.
Taking a deep breath, he pressed with his arms, raising his torso while pulling up his legs, until he reached a sitting position. An explosion of stars swirled before his eyes, and he nearly passed out again, staving off slumber by breathing deeply. Resting a few minutes until the dizziness and nausea passed, he noticed a cool dampness on his back. Rubbing a hand across the back of his head, he felt a stinging knot that was caked with dried blood.
The gears in his mind slowly began churning as he recognized his surroundings. Sitting alone in the empty cavern, he immediately called out to Sophie in a weakened voice. Only silence countered his ringing ears. Grabbing the lantern, he painfully rose to his feet, the pounding in his skull rising to new proportions as he staggered about like a drunk.
He gradually regained his strength and steadiness as he searched around the cavern, then crawled out the passageway. The cemetery appeared dark and silent around him, so he quickly reentered the quarry.
He shouted for her again, this time in a stronger voice that echoed through the chamber. From deep inside one of the tunnels, he thought he heard a faint slap in reply. Though his hearing was far from optimal, the sound, if real, seemed to emanate from the large tunnel to his right. It was the same tunnel that Maria and her men had entered with the explosives.
Ducking slightly as he entered the six-foot-high tunnel, Dirk moved as briskly as his throbbing head would allow. Unbeknownst to him, the tunnel stretched more than two hundred yards into the hillside, bisecting the grounds of the Haram ash-Sharif several feet above his head. Of greater importance to the bombers was its proximity to the Dome of the Rock, burrowing beneath it to within a few yards of the revered rock itself.
The tunnel curved and twisted, occasionally passing through small chambers where pockets of limestone had neatly been quarried away. As Dirk rounded a tight bend, he detected a faint light glowing from the tunnel ahead. With the skip of a heartbeat, he forced himself to double his pace, ignoring the pounding ache that shot through his head with each labored step.
The distant light brightened as he jogged through a small, rectangular chamber, then into a straight section of tunnel. Chasing the beckoning rays, he staggered out of the tunnel and into a final chamber that curved around like a punch bowl. Parked in the center was one of the electric lanterns. To his right, Dirk saw a mass of clear puttylike material pressed onto the wall with several wire detonators dangling from its core. To his left lay Sophie,
