The ancient wall seems to rise from the ground like a mirage, a chalky brown façade that can’t help lending a terrible and awe-inspiring perspective. They’ve stood so long. They’ve withstood so much. They contain everything.
“You want here?” The Russian taxi driver’s accent communicates decided impatience. Jeremy swallows a response.
He looks back over the walls that fortify the Old City. Jerusalem.
He nods. “Thank you.” He hands the man money.
He stares at the Damascus Gate, the main entrance to Arab East Jerusalem, located on the city’s northwest side. Arch-shaped, gray bricked, majestic and so fragile. How has it survived? He begins a purposeful march.
Inside, past security, he sees blue block letters on a white sign: via dolorosa.
The way of grief, the way of suffering. The winding walk; Jesus bearing his cross.
The name of Nik’s dog. Rosa, short for Dolorosa.
Where else would a Guardian come? A Guardian? The Guardian.
Jeremy takes in the midday cacophony, the clanging of pots and pans, the merchant shouts and bickers from the hole-in-the-wall trinket sellers, apothecary, the butcher — this, the world’s most ancient mall. A soldier walks by, a young woman, jet-black hair, jet-black rifle. Jews, Muslims, Protestants, Catholics.
Spitting distance from the Wailing Wall, the Jews’ holy prayer site. Behind it, the Dome of the Rock, one of the holiest Muslim shrines. Here, the stations of the cross, the final steps of Jesus Christ.
Jeremy looks at a grimy-toothed boy, toes poking through sandals, dirt and grime pasted against his legs, smiling. Jeremy can’t help wondering: Is this the portal — for the Messiah? For something? So much energy here. So much danger.
He sees Nik.
In a doorway, a face, that cherubic jowl, still visible but facing away, angled in the other direction. In a casual conversation with a man in a black robe. Nik, maybe sensing something, begins to turn toward Jeremy. Jeremy presses himself into a doorway, out of Nik’s sight.
Jeremy takes a deep breath, pictures himself grabbing the gun from a soldier — trying to — and drilling a million holes into Nik. Instead, from his pocket, Jeremy extracts his phone. He dials. The line picks up.
“Shalom.”
“Cute, Atlas.”
“No.”
“No, he’s not there?”
“No, please don’t call me Atlas.” Unspoken: I can’t handle that weight. Added again after a pause: “Please.”
Andrea doesn’t respond.
Jeremy says: “Yes, he’s here.”
There’s a pause. “We’ve got it from here.”
“You’ve got it from here.” As in: yeah, right.
“Do you see the candlestick seller?”
Jeremy places a man along the dusty corridor, just a few feet ahead, sitting cross-legged on a blanket covered with silver candlesticks. The man’s wrapped in a shawl, looking like something from an ancient bazaar. Jeremy grunts into the phone.
“Look behind him.”
There’s a doorway, closed on the bottom half, open at the top. Inside, a figure with a dark head covering. The figure pulls back the cover a tad, just enough. It’s a woman, tall and thin, Andrea’s aide-de-camp. A colleague Andrea has told Jeremy she trusts implicitly, brought on initially to help Andrea make sense of all the strange signs, and to help find the missing lieutenant colonel, Lavelle Thomson, their boss, the man behind Surrogate.
The woman covers her face again. Jeremy winces; post-traumatic stress disorder.
“What do you need me for?”
“No substitute for old-fashioned eyeball confirmation from a target’s intimate.”
Jeremy absorbs the jab; he was indeed intimate with Nik and yet, Nik was for so long invisible to Jeremy.
Andrea clears her throat. “Goodbye, Jeremy.”
Jeremy slips out of the doorway, walking away from Nik. He allows himself a look over his shoulder, sees the Guardian looking in the other direction. He picks up his pace, hustles back toward Damascus Gate. He runs out of the city.