Sacred Stone

THE HINDU MERCENARIES arrived outside the hatch that led down to the water cooling pipes under the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina. The hatch was located in an open space next to an apartment building on the far edge of a dirt lot used for overflow parking.

The lot was nearly empty, with only a dozen or so cars near the building itself.

The leader of the Hindus simply backed the truck up next to the hatch, cut the padlock with bolt cutters, and then led a team down the iron ladder into the tunnel. Once they were inside, the driver and another man who had stayed behind backed up on top of the hatch and waited.

The concrete tunnel was six feet in diameter with a series of pipes marked in Arabic that denoted their purpose. The pipes were propped up from the bottom of the tunnel on brackets, and there was a thin walkway along the side for inspections. The inside was dark and cool with the smell of wet concrete and mold. The leader turned on his flashlight and the other men followed suit.

Then they began walking single file toward the mosque.

They had traveled nearly a mile underground before they came to the first fork. The leader stared at a handheld GPS. The signal was weak because of the concrete sheathing above his head, so he pulled out the tunnel diagram Hickman had provided and whispered to his men.

“You five go that way,” he said, quietly pointing to the men. “The tunnel will arc around and eventually form a rectangle. Set charges as you go at the intervals we discussed, then meet up with us at the far side.”

The one group set off along the tunnel to the right, the leader and his men to the left.

Forty-seven minutes later they all met up on the far side.

“Now we switch sides,” the leader said. “You men go down our tunnel and check our charges as you go. We’ll take yours and do the same.”

The men set off in opposite directions, their flashlights waving through the tunnel.

At each of six spots along each passage, C-6 and sticks of dynamite were wrapped together in bundles almost a foot in diameter and attached to the pipes with duct tape. On each of the stations was a digital timer that was counting down the hours.

The first timer read 107 hr: 46 min. The charges were set to go off midday on the tenth, when the mosque would be crowded with nearly a million pilgrims. The amount of explosive force the Hindus had stowed would reduce the mosque to near rubble. The largest charge they placed, with double the C-6 and dynamite, was directly under the spot on the diagram showing Muhammad’s tomb.

If the charges worked, in less than five days, centuries of history would be erased.

THEY MADE THEIR way back through the tunnel to the hatch that led up to the surface, and the leader climbed under the truck and slipped out the side. Stepping over to the driver’s window, he tapped and the driver rolled it down.

“Pull forward,” he said.

Once the men were back in the truck, the leader took out a padlock he had brought and relocked the hatch.

Four minutes later, under a thin sliver of moon, they set off back to Rabigh.

AT 6 A.M. THAT same morning, Hanley assembled the Corporation operatives in the conference room of the Oregon. The ship was offshore of Tel Aviv in the Mediterranean, making slow, lazy circles in the water. Hanley stared at a television screen showing the Robinson approaching from the bow.

“That’s the chairman,” he said, pointing. “He’ll be leading the briefing. Until he makes it down here I want each of you to go over your notes. There’s coffee and bagels on the side table. If you need something to eat, get it now. Once Mr. Cabrillo starts, I don’t want any interruptions.”

Hanley walked out to go to the control room for the latest updates. He picked them up from Stone and was just exiting the room again when Cabrillo and Adams walked past.

“Everyone’s waiting for you in the conference room,” he said, following the pair.

Reaching the conference room, Cabrillo opened the door and the three men walked inside. Adams, dressed in his flight suit, took a seat at the table. Hanley positioned himself next to Cabrillo, who walked behind the podium.

“Good to see you all again,” Cabrillo began, “especially Gunderson and his team. It’s nice to see they finally let you go,” he said, smiling to Gunderson. “We’ll need everyone for what is about to happen. I just returned from Tel Aviv and a meeting with the Mossad. They sent a large team into the mosque around the Dome of the Rock early this morning to search for explosives. Nothing of any type was located. Nothing conventional, nuclear or biological. They did locate a video camera that was not supposed to be there, however. It was hidden alongside a building inside a garden in a tree.”

No one spoke.

“The camera was hooked to a wireless uplink that sent the images out to a processing unit outside the mosque, then on through a conventional cable to a nearby building. The Mossad was making plans to enter the building when I left. They should have an update for me soon.”