The Lance

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A mixed tour group of college students waited to enter Solomon's Stables, at the south eastern corner of the Temple Mount. Security was tight. Students were allowed to carry only tourist guides and literature. Cameras were forbidden. Backpacks were forbidden. A pile of them was stacked outside the entrance under the watchful eye of a security guard.

A tall, blond man in his mid-twenties waited for the tour to begin. He was absorbed in a travel guide he held in his hand, reading about the Stables.

King Herod had built the chambers to support the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount, back in the first century, before the Temple had been destroyed by the Romans. The Stables covered an area of 5000 square feet. It was formed from a series of high, vaulted passages lined with eighty-eight rows of pillars and arches, some of the arches thirty feet wide. A thousand years after Herod, the Crusaders had stabled their horses there and left the name. Holes in the rock could still be seen where the Templar knights had tied the animals' reins. Now the Stables housed the el-Marwani mosque, open to tours except during prayers.

Thirteen meters above the floor of the cavernous space, preparations for President Rice's speech were under way. The halls and arches of the stables extended beneath the spot where Rice would stand and partway under the al-Aqsa Mosque.

The tour guide led his charges into the famous chambers and began his commentary. The students straggled in spite of the guide's admonitions. The tall young man drifted further behind the group, then ducked into one of the side passages.

He knew where to go. He stopped in a dim recess. He opened the book and removed the bomb. He checked his watch. He set the timer and molded the explosive against the stone, in the exact place where aerial sonar scans had shown a serious fracture in the bedrock supporting the mosque above.

It took only a minute. His father was going to be proud of him.