The Sacred Bones (3 page)

"Let's get out of here." Conte waved the team forward.

They worked their way through the blast hole and back into the mosque. Before ascending the staircase Conte collected their respirators, stuffing them into his bag.

Emerging onto the esplanade, Conte scanned the area intently and verified that his two sentries remained posted securely in the shadows. He signaled to them and both men sprinted ahead.

The rest of the team assembled on the esplanade.

Moments later, when the sentries' silhouettes swept across the opening of Moors' Gate, they were instantly forced back by automatic gunfire emanating from the plaza below.

A pocket of quiet.

Distant screams, then more shots.

Motioning for the others to remain, Conte ran over to the gate, dropping onto his elbows as he neared the opening. Peering out he saw Israeli soldiers and police swarming into the vicinity, blocking the walkways down by the Western Wall Plaza. Someone must have either found the two dead IDF soldiers or heard the detonation.

The Israelis were hunkered down, waiting for them to make a move. Other entrances provided access to Temple Mount and Conte rapidly considered a revised exit strategy, but he was certain the IDF would be sending reinforcements to those gates as well. It wouldn't be long before they scaled the platform.

He knew that using the rented van parked in the Kidron Valley was no longer an option. Turning back from the gateway, he signaled for the sentries to follow him back to the group.

As he ran by the El-Aqsa Mosque, Conte grabbed the encrypted radio transmitter from his belt. "Come in Alpha One. Over."

Nothing but static.

He moved away from the interfering mosque wall.

"
Alpha One
?"

Through the haze a choppy voice was just audible.

Conte cut in with the transmitter button. "If you can hear me, we've got a change of plan. We're under fire." Raising his voice, he carefully articulated his next command. "Pick us up on the southeast corner of the Temple Mount esplanade, beside the El-Aqsa Mosque. Over."

A pause.

More static.

"Roger. On my way," a faint voice crackled back. "Over."

Conte concealed his relief. Just over the jagged mountain range to the south he detected a dark shadow against the night sky.

The chopper was approaching rapidly.

He clicked his XM8 to fully automatic, activating the grenade launcher and the others did the same. Fearing they might inflict damage on this sacred place, he knew that the Israelis would be reluctant to fire heavily on them. But his team wouldn't be nearly as accommodating.

"We'll need to take those guys down to clear the area," Conte commanded. On his signal, the mercenaries rushed toward the gate in neat formation, carbines drawn.

The chopping sound of rotor blades now had the Israelis' attention, many gazing skywards at the black shadow gliding low and fast toward Temple Mount.

From their shadowed position high up on the retaining wall, Conte and his men sprayed the soldiers with a curtain of firepower. Within seconds, eight had fallen. Others were scurrying for cover in the open plaza below, while reinforcements spilled into the area from the network of narrow streets feeding in from the Jewish and Muslim Quarters.

The Israeli Air Force Black Hawk suddenly rose over the embankment's southeast corner, its profile decked out in desert camouflage temporarily confusing the IDF soldiers with its familiar markings. But Conte could also see a group of men maneuvering to better positions along the embankment's southwest corner. Immediately to his right, Doug Wilkinson, the assassin from Manchester, England, suddenly recoiled, clutching his upper arm, dropping his XM8.

Sliding his finger to the carbine's second trigger, Conte centered his sights on the cluster of soldiers below and fired. The grenade rocketed off its rifle mount streaming an arc of smoke and orange sparks until it exploded, hurling fragments of stone into the air. Other grenades followed with a fiery barrage of exploding stone and shrapnel that forced the Israelis back in chaos.

The rotor blades were close behind the team now, throwing up a dust storm. The Black Hawk bounced down on the platform, coming to rest beside the El-Aqsa Mosque.

"Go now!" he yelled, waving the team toward the chopper. "Get the cargo on board!"

Retreating from the gate, Conte spotted yet more IDF soldiers between the cypress trees on the opposite side of the Temple Mount, quickly closing in on the vicinity surrounding the Dome of the Rock platform.

It was going to be close, he thought.

The box was rapidly stowed in the chopper and then his men clambered aboard. He ducked under the rotor blades, jumping inside.

Under heavy gunfire, the Black Hawk lifted off the platform and tore away from Temple Mount. Hugging the Ha-Ela Valley floor, it swept across the barren expanse of the Negev Desert, heading southwest. The chopper's low flight path was well beneath radar range, but even at higher altitudes its state-of-the-art cloaking technology would render it virtually untraceable.

Within minutes the lights of the Palestinian settlements along the Gaza Strip came into view. Then Gaza's beaches rapidly gave way to the dark expanse of the Mediterranean.

Eighty kilometers off Israel's coast, a custom-built twenty-meter Hinckley motor yacht had been anchored at precise coordinates programmed into the flight console. The pilot maneuvered the Black Hawk over the yacht's aft deck, easing down to hover in the hold position.

The box was carefully lowered to the Hinckley's crew, then one by one the team rappelled down the line. Wilkinson tucked his wounded arm tightly to his side as Conte clipped him to the line. All things considered, the wound was relatively minor. When Wilkinson had made it on deck, Conte went next.

Setting the autopilot controls to hover, Conte's pilot evacuated the cockpit, stepping over the two dead Israeli pilots who earlier that evening had set out from Sde Dov airbase on a routine surveillance mission along the Egyptian border, blissfully unaware of their heavily armed replacement hidden in the rear.

With cargo and passengers secured, the Hinckley's engines fired up and the craft moved off, slowly gathering speed. Conte loaded another grenade and found the chopper fifty meters away. A split second later the latest state-of-the-art in American military technology ripped apart, lighting up the night sky in a flaming ball.

The yacht accelerated to its cruising speed of twenty-two knots and headed northwest across the Mediterranean's choppy waters.

There would be no more fighting that night. As Conte had anticipated, the Israelis had been totally unprepared for an orchestrated stealth attack. But the messy confrontation and high death toll meant his fee just went up.

T
EL
A
VIV

As the El Al captain announced the flight's final descent into Ben Gurion International, Razak bin Ahmed bin al-Tahini gazed out of his window to watch the Mediterranean yielding to a desert landscape set against an azure sky.

Yesterday, he had received a disturbing phone call. No details had been provided, merely an urgent request from the Waqf-- the Muslim council that acted as the Temple Mount overseers-- summoning him to Jerusalem for assistance in a sensitive matter.

"Sir," a soft voice called to him.

He turned from the window to find a young flight attendant dressed in a navy suit and white blouse. Razak's eyes were drawn to the El Al insignia pin on her lapel-- a winged Star of David. "El Al" was Hebrew for "skyward." Yet another reminder that here, Israel controlled more than just the land.

"Please bring your seat to the upright position," she politely requested. "We'll be landing in a few minutes."

Raised in the Syrian capital of Damascus, Razak was the oldest of eight siblings. Growing up in a close-knit family, he frequently helped his mother shoulder household responsibilities since his father was an ambassador for the Syrian embassy and traveled endlessly. With his father's help, he had begun his political career as a liaison between rival Sunni and Shiite factions in Syria, then throughout the Arab region. After studying politics in London, he'd returned to the Middle East, where the scope of his duties had broadened to include diplomatic missions to the UN, and liaising between Arab and European business partners.

For almost a decade now, Razak had been intimately involved in Islam's most problematic issues, becoming a reluctant-- yet increasingly influential-- political figure. Faced with its maligned association to radical fanaticism and terrorist acts, and the neck-breaking onslaught of globalization, the sanctity of Islam in the modern world was increasingly difficult to preserve. And though Razak's aspiration in accepting his role was to focus on the religious aspects of Islam, he had quickly learned that its political components were inseparable.

And at forty-five, his responsibilities were showing. Premature gray streaks had sprouted from his temples, spreading through thick black hair, and a permanent heaviness showed under his dark, solemn eyes. Of medium height and build, Razak wasn't one to turn heads, though in many circles, his knack for diplomacy was sure to leave a lasting impression.

Substantial personal sacrifice had quickly transformed his youthful idealism into tempered cynicism. He constantly reminded himself of the wise words his father once told him when he was just a young boy:
"The world is a very complicated thing, Razak, something which is not easily understood. But surviving out there"
-- he had pointed somewhere far out into the distance--
"means never compromising your spirit, because no man or place can take that from you. It is Allah's most precious gift to you,...and what you do with it is your gift to Him."

As the Boeing 767 touched down, Razak's thoughts shifted to the mysterious altercation in Jerusalem's Old City three days earlier. The worldwide media was circulating reports about a violent exchange that had taken place at Temple Mount on Friday. Though the nature of the altercation was still highly speculative, all accounts confirmed that thirteen Israeli Defense Force soldiers had been killed by an as-yet unknown enemy.

Razak knew it was no coincidence that his services were now required here.

As he retrieved his suitcase from the baggage claim carousel inside the terminal, his watch alarm beeped. He had programmed it to ring five times a day, and in five differing tones.

Two thirty
.

After stopping in the men's room to ritually wash his face, hands, and neck, he found a clean spot along the concourse and set his bag down. Reexamining his watch, he referenced a miniature digital readout data-fed by a global positioning microchip. A small arrow shifted on the face pointing him in the direction of Mecca.

Raising his hands up, he declared "
Allah Akbar
" twice, then crossed his hands over his chest and began one of the quintet of daily prayers compulsory in Islamic faith.

"I bear witness that there is no God but Allah," he softly muttered, easing down on his knees then bowing in submission. In prayer he found a solitude that silenced the noise around him, reconciling the compromises he was asked to make in the name of Islam.

Deep in meditation, he blocked out the group of Western tourists scrutinizing him. To many in the modern world, devout adherence to prayer was a foreign concept. It didn't surprise him that the sight of an Arab man in a business suit kneeling in submission to an invisible presence so easily captured the curiosity of most non-Muslims. But Razak had long ago accepted the fact that piety was not always convenient or comfortable.

When he had finished, he stood and buttoned the top button of his tan suit jacket.

Two Israeli soldiers watched scornfully as he made his way through the exit, staring at his rolling suitcase as if it contained plutonium. To Razak, it was indicative of a much broader tension that defined this place and he ignored them.

Outside the international terminal he was greeted by a Waqf representative-- a tall young man with dark features who led him to a white Mercedes 500.

"
Assalaamu 'alaykum.
"

"
Wa 'alaykum assalaam
," Razak replied. "Is your family well, Akil?"

"Thank you, yes. An honor to have you back, sir."

Akil took his bag and opened the rear door. Razak dipped into the air-conditioned interior, and the young Arab took his place behind the wheel.

"We should be in Jerusalem in under an hour."

Approaching the towering ancient limestone block wall that wrapped around Old Jerusalem, the driver turned into a parking lot and reclaimed his reserved spot. They would have to make it the rest of the way on foot since the Old City, with its prohibitively narrow streets, was off-limits to most vehicular traffic.

Outside the Jaffa Gate, Razak and the driver were queued into a long line by heavily armed IDF guards. Nearer the opening, they were subjected to a thorough body pat down while Razak's bag was inspected and passed through a portable scanner. Then came an exhaustive verification of their credentials. Finally, they took turns being funneled through a metal detector, all the while being monitored by a set of surveillance cameras mounted high up on a nearby pole.

"Worse than ever," Akil remarked to Razak, relieving him of his luggage. "Pretty soon we'll be locked out all together."

They went through a narrow, L-shaped tunnel-- a design from centuries earlier meant to slow marauding attackers-- and emerged into the busy Christian Quarter. Climbing the sloped cobblestone walkways into the Muslim Quarter, Razak breathed in the complex aromas of the nearby
Souk
-- fresh bread, spicy meat, tamarind, charcoal, and mint. It took them fifteen minutes to reach the high staircase on Via Dolorosa that climbed up to the Temple Mount's elevated northern gate. There, a second security check was required by the IDF, though not nearly as intrusive as the first.