Pandora's grave

“ ‘To drive the Arab from the lands of God’,” Shoham breathed, reading from the top of the page. “All right. Find out where Arel is now. We’ll want to pull him in for questioning.”

An aide hurried in, holding a secure satphone in his hand. “Lt. Laner on the phone for you, sir.”

“Give it here,” Shoham ordered, composing himself. He had enough to deal with without handling these lunatics. “Lieutenant?”

“Sir, we’re looking at a situation,” Laner began, his voice hushed, tense. “The word on the street is that Jews were responsible for the attacks.”

The general hesitated for a long moment before responding. “Here’s what’s worse. They’re right…”

9:29 A.M.

A cafe

Jerusalem

Taking a final sip of tea, Fayood al-Farouk returned the cup to its saucer and typed the last two commands into his laptop, tapping the ENTER key at the end of the sequence. The next moment, the commands went racing across the cafe’s Wi-Fi into the ether.

With any luck, the Lions of Jehovah wouldn’t even know they had been hacked until after Mossad showed up at their door. An archived copy of the website and the video claiming responsibility had already been sent to Al-Jazeera for dissemination across the house of Islam…

9:31 A.M.

Haram al-Sharif

Jerusalem

“GUNHAND, you have a policeman at your eight o’clock,” Hamid advised, keeping his voice low as he pushed his way through the crowd, toward Harun. “Recommend that I make the snatch.”

“Taking up overwatch, FULLBACK,” the Texan acknowledged.

The al-Magribah Gate was only a hundred feet away, maybe less. The window of opportunity was closing. Time to move. Hamid’s hand closed around the suppressed.45 Glock in the pocket of his jacket.

He saw Harun glance around once more, the anxious look still in his eyes. Careful, but not careful enough.

He had run out of options. In desperation, he had placed a fourth phone call to the secure line of the Ayatollah Isfahani, but someone else had answered the phone and he’d hung up in panic.

Someone was watching. Someone was always watching. Harun could feel their eyes boring into his back. Farouk would be expecting him back soon enough.

Suddenly, without warning, a hand closed over his arm and the barrel of a gun jabbed into his ribs.

“Don’t do anything foolish,” a voice admonished in perfect Farsi and Harun froze, fighting the impulse to face his stalker…

“FULLBACK to EAGLE SIX,” Hamid’s voice came over Harry’s headset, “Grab successful. I repeat, I have the subject. Proceeding to your location.”

“Good work,” Harry replied, turning to Major Hossein. “I need you to convince him that it’s in his best interests to cooperate with us. You’re sure that he’s not ideologically invested in this?”

“Harun?” Hossein shook his head. “He’s not a jihadist. He doesn’t have the stomach for it. Give me a lever, and he’ll move.”

“Good. One other thing,” Harry added, a shamefaced grin spreading across his countenance, “I don’t speak a word of Farsi, so I’ll be relying on you to communicate with him during the entire interrogation.”

9:36 A.M.

The Madrasa al-Karimiyya

Jerusalem

It was a stately building-an Islamic school, or madrasa, dating back to the Mameluke rule of Jerusalem in the 14th century, built only thirty years after the expulsion of the Crusaders from Palestine by al-Malik al-Ashraf al-Khalil.

It had been the second target of the Lions of Jehovah. Gideon and his men deployed through the gathering crowd-listening carefully, observing. Eavesdropping to be blunt.

The bomb had been planted in the empty assembly hall of the madrasa, and the upper floor had caved in upon it. Whoever had chosen the target had known what they were doing. The entire ground floor of the school was considered sacred, an extension of the al-Haram, and the mood of the crowd was growing violent…

9:41 A.M.

The Haram al-Sharif

“You are with the Americans, yes?” Harun asked, half-turning back to look at his “escort”.

He received no reply from the grim-faced man at his side as they hustled across the courtyard of the Masjid al-Aqsa. After a moment of uncertainty, Harun decided to take his fate in his own hands. “The bacteria is already in place, within the masjid. I am willing to cooperate with your team-tell them what they need to know to find it.”

Harry was watching the pair as they approached the stairs leading down and around to the surveillance center. So far, so good. Tex was still deployed in the courtyard, making sure Harun wasn’t being followed.

They made it to the staircase, then abruptly went out of camera range. And didn’t reappear. “What’s going on?” Harry demanded, glancing at Abdul Ali, the Jordanian.

The bodyguard glanced from the screens to a map in front of him. “There’s a dead spot right there, ten feet in length. They will reemerge on screen H19, near the bottom of the stairs. Almost outside our door.”