Fuse of armageddon, p.37
Fuse of Armageddon, page 37
To Patterson, it sounded like Davidson was as proud as if he’d actually given birth to the heifer.
“It shouldn’t give me any trouble, should it?” Silver asked.
“Sir?” Again it was Davidson speaking. Patterson’s coldness toward Jonathan Silver and what the man stood for was the coldness he felt toward his own foolishness in signing up for the Freedom Crusaders.
“They want me to lead the heifer there now,” Silver said like a kindly uncle. “It’s not an honor I deserve. You boys are the ones who did everything to make this possible. But I don’t want to let them down. You understand.”
“Yes, sir; yes, sir,” Davidson said. He turned to Patterson. “Need help untying it?”
Patterson was looking for any excuse to be insubordinate. He knew this feeling. It reminded him of his teenage years, when he had to sullenly listen and obey his own father. He’d eventually done what he was told, but in such a foot-dragging way that it vented his frustration and, better yet, consistently angered his father.
“I don’t need help,” Patterson said. “But we’ve got our orders from Lieutenant Saxon. This heifer doesn’t move anywhere without Saxon’s express permission.”
“Joe!” Davidson said. Then he spoke to Silver. “Sorry, sir. He doesn’t mean it as an insult.”
Yes, I do, Patterson thought with juvenile satisfaction.
“No offense taken,” Silver replied. Then he addressed Patterson. “I appreciate your concern for the heifer. But let’s not delay things.”
“Of course not, sir,” Patterson said. “I’ll just radio Saxon.”
They didn’t have walkie-talkies. Too few channels; too much chance that someone could listen in. Instead, they had cell phones. Patterson beeped his.
“Son,” Silver said, “there’s a lot of things happening right now, and my patience is wearing thin. I need to bring this animal as soon as possible.”
Patterson’s cell phone beeped back, giving him an excuse to ignore Silver. “Sir, just want confirmation that I’m to release . . .” Patterson stopped briefly. He’d almost said Orphan Annie. “. . . the red heifer to Jonathan Silver.”
“Hang on,” Saxon’s voice came back. “I’m right here with Brad Silver. I’ll clear it with him.”
A few moments of silence.
Then came Saxon’s terse order. “Hold the heifer there. And take Jonathan Silver prisoner.”
Western Wall Tunnel • 20:38 GMT
“It’s just ahead,” Cohen said. “We’re walking north along the Hasmonaean aqueduct. It parallels the Western Wall of the Temple Mount.”
This portion of the shifting and turning tunnel had been so narrow that they’d been forced to walk single file, with Cohen at the back holding his flashlight high and shining it ahead for them. Occasionally, they’d pass a light fixture, and Kate thought this would be so much easier if the power had not been shut off for the night.
Without warning, the tunnel widened, and it seemed the air grew cooler. Cohen’s flashlight played over a small pool. The dark water was still, filling the width of the tunnel ahead of them, with the pool ending at a brick wall that entirely blocked the tunnel to its arched ceiling.
“We’re at the northwest corner of the Temple Mount,” Cohen said. “In the time of the Temple of the Jews, this water was a moat for the fortress that held the Roman barrack overlooking the mount. After the Jews were defeated in their final revolt against the Romans, the emperor Hadrian covered the pool. This is one of two arches that support the foundation for the streets and buildings above us. The newer bricking at the end of the tunnel splits the pool. On the other side is an entrance into the basement of the Convent of the Sisters of Zion.”
“Fascinating,” Kate said, not fascinated at all. “Your ten minutes is down to about one minute.”
“You mock me,” Cohen said. “You have no understanding of how proud I am to be a Jew. Or of the injustice that we cannot fully reclaim our heritage. The Temple was ours centuries before the Muslims stole the mount from us.”
Cohen squatted. His flashlight beam showed the end of a thin, nylon rope along one wall of the tunnel, disappearing into the water. He pulled on the rope, and like dragging a large, dead fish, he was able to retrieve a black backpack.
“Help me,” he said to Kevin. Cohen held the flashlight and grabbed one side of the backpack. Kevin grabbed the other side. Water splashed as they dragged it onto the tunnel floor.
“There’s a container in there,” Cohen said to Kevin as he trained the beam on the backpack. “Pull it out and open it. Then you’ll both see why we’re here.”
Kevin had to struggle to get a square, watertight container out of the main compartment of the backpack. He grunted as he set it on the tunnel floor, then hesitated.
“Go ahead,” Cohen said. “Open it.”
With the pistol in her right hand and pointing at the floor, Kate found herself leaning closer briefly. She stepped back a little. She was intensely curious but wanted to keep space around her.
Kevin unsnapped the container lid. He opened it to reveal dull metal in Cohen’s flashlight beam. The object looked like a watermelon with fins at the rear. It had a U.S. military stamp on it.
“Not much to look at,” Cohen said. “It’s nearly fifty years old. Goes by the name of Davy Crockett. It’s long been considered obsolete, and few outside of military buffs will remember it. Kate, even with your police background, I’d be surprised if you know anything about it.”
“You could have explained back in your car without going to all this trouble.”
“I needed you here where it would have a lot more impact on you,” Cohen said. “But of course, maybe you don’t even understand I just made a great pun. Impact.”
“This is a bomb,” Kate said.
“Designed to be launched from soldiers in the field like grenade rockets,” Cohen said. “With one big difference. This one has a nuclear payload.”
Old City, Jerusalem • 20:38 GMT
Hamer had gone around the Old City by driving out through the Jaffa Gate near David’s Citadel then going south and east around the perimeter to come back in through the Dung Gate near the Temple Mount. On the short trip, Hamer had been in constant contact with his subordinate officers via cell phone and walkie-talkie. Hamer had driven Quinn as close as possible to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. They’d walked the remainder; the Old City had been in existence for centuries and was not set up for automobile convenience. It was also obvious that the military factors that had required months of siege for the Romans to conquer the Temple Mount in the first century AD imposed the same difficult logistics on the Israeli Defense Force.
The east and south sides of the mount faced the extreme drop of the Kidron Valley; soldiers were in place on both sides but merely for containment. It was just as impossible for soldiers under attack to scale the walls as it had been two millennia earlier.
Residences of the Muslim Quarter crowded against the wall to the north and northwest of the Temple Mount. Hamer was reluctant to move many soldiers into the nooks and warrens here. It was too easy for a riot to start and too difficult to contain it. Instead, he’d arranged for large spotlights on the ramparts to be trained on the Temple Mount in that direction with concentrations of troops in strategic areas nearby for more containment.
The entire Western Wall was about five hundred yards long, but it wasn’t until the final portion along the south that there was an open plaza at the Wailing Wall, which was as close to the Temple as Jews were permitted to pray. From a military viewpoint, the best that could be said for the open plaza here was that it was in the Jewish Quarter and that the area was large enough to comfortably set up a base.
The downside was obvious to Quinn as he reached the communications center with Hamer. The wall loomed over them, forty feet high, made with some of the biggest stones produced by man before the machine age—stones as big as semitrailers. The base seemed open and vulnerable to attack from anyone on the wall above.
“It would feel safer with choppers giving support,” Quinn said. Soldiers kept a respectful distance from the two of them. “But then I suppose the media would wonder why you have them in the air and open to ground fire from Palestinian terrorists on the Temple Mount.”
“Exactly,” Hamer said. “Of course, when I believed IDF was in there instead, I wasn’t worried about getting shot here. And since we don’t know who is inside . . .”
“And you’ve only got until dawn to clear them,” Quinn said. “Less if they decide to broadcast to the world that they’ve taken over the mount and the Dome of the Rock.”
“Don’t need the reminder. I can’t even consult with any of my generals on this. Nobody is supposed to know we were going to put IDF in there. I mean nobody.”
“Your paradigm has shifted,” Quinn said. “But I’m sure you’ve realized that.”
“Keep talking.”
“You’ve got the Temple Mount surrounded on the original premise that this was just for appearance, right? You didn’t expect hostile fire, and you knew the IDF men on the mount would be gone in a few hours.”
“Right.”
“The world thinks you can’t storm the place because there are Palestinians with hostages behind those walls.”
“Right.”
“What if they aren’t hostages? It’s not hard to make a link between Jonathan Silver and a red heifer and end-time prophecies. Not when it sounds like Americans replaced your IDF.”
Hamer looked at the massive wall ahead of him, then back at Quinn. “That would mean, from my point of view, all of them are hostiles. I don’t have to worry about hostage casualties.”
“It’s a theory.”
“If it were more than theory, I could mount a military op. In and out before any Muslims even knew about it. There’d be a lot more casualties on their side than ours; I can promise you that.”
“If,” Quinn said.
“We might have to move in regardless. Think of the consequences otherwise.”
Quinn nodded. “How much better would you feel if you could verify who was on the other side? maybe even negotiate a surrender?”
Another thoughtful stare from Hamer. “I can’t send anybody in. I’d have to explain why I did. If that leaks, it’s as bad as anything else that could happen.”
Quinn stared back at him, waiting.
“I see,” Hamer said. “You already know about the situation.”
“And I won’t leak anything to the media, either.” Quinn said. “You have nothing to lose.”
Temple Mount, Jerusalem • 20:38 GMT
“Dementia,” Brad snapped at his father. He was carrying a laptop and faced Silver. It was obvious that he didn’t care that Patterson and Davidson were right there and easily able to overhear the conversation. “Can you come up with any other reason for what you tried to do? Or has Satan entered you the way he did with Judas?”
“I’m afraid for you,” Silver said. “First you compare yourself to King David. Now to Jesus Himself.”
“God has given me an important role. I will not let you or anyone else stop me from fulfilling it. Now tell me what you expected to do with the heifer.”
Silver spoke truthfully. “I don’t know.”
He’d never been a man of action. Not real action. He’d built an empire based on his ability to speak passionately and sincerely, knowing his fundamentalist audience well enough to understand how to push emotional buttons that would give him the response he wanted.
Action?
Until he’d stepped in front of Safady to save the little girl’s life, he hadn’t realized he was capable of action instead of words. He’d chosen to try to take the red heifer because it seemed like the only way of stopping this. Without the ashes from the heifer, the Temple Mount could not be purified. Without the chance of purification, perhaps Brad would have abandoned the operation.
“You don’t know?”
“Hide it from you, I suppose,” Silver said. “Maybe find a way to let it escape.”
“To stop the sacrifice.”
“Don’t do this. Muslims are God’s children too. Their lives are as important to Him as ours.”
“They can find their way to heaven?”
“We can show them. But not by destroying them. By helping them. We could take ministry money and help Palestinians in the name of Christ and—”
“This is a holy war!”
“War kills people.”
“You’ve preached the doom of Armageddon your whole life. You’ve raised money to help Israel by telling everyone the end of time is upon us. I don’t understand why you fear this.”
“Because it’s no longer about preaching. You’re making it about action.”
“Exactly.”
“But it shouldn’t be about destructive action,” Silver said.
“Suddenly you’re the voice of political correctness?” Brad laughed. “I brought this over to show you something.” He opened his laptop, and the screen brightened. “You say Safady isn’t an actor. I say he is. Paid to work for us. And look what else he delivered to me—his interview with you. Here’s what he put together for me.” Brad turned the laptop toward his father.
Jonathan Silver saw himself in the first image and immediately recognized the backdrop as the pulpit of his television ministry.
“Israel is the chosen people of God,” he spoke in the video clip.
Then a blank spot in the video.
Back to a different shot of Silver, at a fund-raiser. “God will bless those who bless Israel. God will curse those who curse Israel.”
Blank.
An image of Silver in the campus church, raising his hands in triumph. “The end times are unfolding in front of our eyes as Revelation has foretold. God will triumph over His enemies.”
Blank.
Jonathan facing the camera and speaking directly to it. Here, he’d been facing Safady, answering questions. “The Temple must be rebuilt to fulfill the prophecies. Why else would God tell us to measure it in Revelation 11?”
Blank.
Again from when he faced Safady. “God’s people will do what is necessary on earth to help God usher in His Kingdom.”
A long shot of Silver behind his pulpit. “The Palestinians are a tainted and brainwashed people.”
Blank.
A shot of Jonathan Silver during a daytime talk show. “Osama bin Laden will be repaid a hundredfold for daring to attack God’s people.”
Blank.
The Dome of the Rock, with floodlights directed on it.
A cut back to Silver. “What is God’s will be returned to God.”
Blank.
Silver at the pulpit. “Americans are God’s people because America helps Israel.”
Blank.
Jonathan Silver at the pulpit again, eyes closed in prayer. “Forever and ever; amen.”
The video ended.
“Those things were taken out of context,” Silver protested. “Some of it from my interviews with Safady. It looks like I’m totally in favor of the Temple takeover. You can’t show that to the media.”
“In about an hour,” Brad answered, “this is exactly what we’re going to deliver to the media, along with a press release stating that the Dome of the Rock has been conquered on behalf of God. Like it or not, you will get full credit. And millions of Americans who have always supported you will rise up in their pews and cheer.”
“I’m begging you, father to son, please reconsider.”
“Just so you know,” Brad continued, “the video isn’t quite complete.”
The blank spots, Silver thought.
“We’re going to insert other footage,” Brad said in confirmation. “The world is going to see the red heifer and the sacrifice.” He snapped the laptop shut. “God and America will triumph, and the world will know it by morning.”
Western Wall Tunnel • 20:40 GMT
“The Davy Crockett was decommissioned because of its disadvantages in the field,” Cohen said. “Its explosion radius is too small to do much damage to approaching tanks unless it was a direct hit. Of course, the explosive yield could be increased. But dialing up the yield made it impossible for troops to launch it without harming themselves. The Crockett’s propulsion range was a little over a mile.”
He still had his flashlight on the bomb. “Davy Crockett was essentially an incredibly expensive one-shot, one-kill weapon against tanks. It wasn’t accurate and didn’t have recall feature. Once in the air, it was committed to detonation. It couldn’t even self-destruct. All in all, a bad military weapon. But perfect for what’s above us.”
Cohen flashed his beam at the arched ceiling. “The Muslim Quarter. This fat little thing has about three times the explosive power of the bomb that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City. Just enough to limit the damage to the Muslim population. Everyone else will clear out before the radiation harms them, but the radioactive fallout in the hours and days following will make the Temple Mount a place the Muslims can’t visit anymore. Israel can clean it up, but then Israel will own the Temple Mount.”
In the darkness, Kate raised her pistol slightly. Cohen sounded like he enjoyed the prospect.
“So we need to get it out of here,” Kevin said. “Let’s get it in the backpack.”
“Kevin,” Kate said, raising her pistol higher and stepping farther back from Cohen. “Maybe ask him first why he didn’t get someone else to remove it. Or how he knew it was here in the first place.”
“Very relevant questions,” Cohen said. “But you missed the important question: why did I need both of you here?”
Cohen’s flashlight beam settled on Kevin’s chest.
“Hey,” Kevin said. “You’re creeping me out.”
No warning. A silenced shot from the black shadows behind the flashlight. A bloom of red across Kevin’s chest. He fell, gurgling.
Then the beam found Kate. She dove sideways, rolling.
Cohen crisscrossed the beam, trying to find her.
Kate had the pistol up as she made it to her knees, aiming at the flashlight beam and pulling the trigger.
Nothing but a dry click. Twice more.
The noise alerted Cohen to her location and the flashlight beam swung toward her. He fired two quick shots, and the bullets caromed with the whining noise of angry wasps.
