The Temple Mount Code

17

Mufarrij took one step away from the van and aimed at the vehicle’s side. The sheet metal wouldn’t deflect the bullets much. Squeezing the Glock’s trigger, he spread a burst down the van’s length, staying level at about where he thought the last mercenary’s chest would be. When he finished, he sprang to the vehicle’s rear and yanked open the cargo door.

Inside, the mercenary leaned up against the far wall, holding a bloody hand over one of at least two wounds in his side. As the door opened, the man tried to lift the submachine gun on a sling around his neck.

Mufarrij put two rounds into the man’s face. The corpse stumbled back two steps and sat down heavily against the cargo mesh separating the compartment from the driver’s area.

Pulling a miniflashlight from his pants pocket, Mufarrij stepped up into the van and played the beam over Strauss. Blood dotted the man’s face, and at first Mufarrij feared one of the rounds had gone astray. Then he realized the spatter was from the last dead man. With a small sigh of relief, he squatted down beside Strauss.

‘Professor Strauss. Can you hear me?’

Feeling drunk and confused, Lev Strauss tried to focus. A man was kneeling above him. The face seemed familiar somehow, but he couldn’t place it. ‘Thomas, is that you?’ For a moment, he thought he was back at the plane crash in the Dead Sea. Things had been bewildering then, like this was. He thought maybe he was dreaming, but there was a sharp pain in the side of his head.

Then Lev’s vision cleared a bit, and he saw it wasn’t Lourds crouched over him at all.

This man’s black hair was long and wild, and his beard was bushy. He almost looked like an American Hells Angel, but Lev was pretty certain that no Hells Angel had ever been born with those dark Arabic features. Or maybe he only thought about outlaw bikers because the man wore black riding leathers and a jacket.

‘Professor Strauss. I’m going to get you out of here. I need you to help me.’ The man tried to pull Lev to his feet.

Lev gripped the man’s proffered arm and struggled to help get to his feet, but his limbs didn’t work well. He had no strength in his arms and he couldn’t feel if his legs were under him. ‘Who are you?’

‘A friend. You were in a car wreck. I’m trying to help get you to safety.’

As the man pulled Lev to his numb foot and held him upright, he saw the dead man sitting against the cargo mesh. Two more sat on the other side of the wire in the driver’s compartment. Blood was everywhere. Frantically, Lev fought against his ‘rescuer,’ remembering the fake Alice, the way the blood had jumped from Ezra’s neck, and the dart hitting him in the throat.

‘Take it easy. Go slow. I don’t want you to get hurt any more than you already are.’ The big man held Lev and talked in a soothing tone, and his words sounded true. ‘I’m not one of them. I’m here to help you.’

‘Where’s Ezra?’

‘Back at the abduction site.’

‘Is he all right?’

The big man shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Everything happened too quickly. When I saw you had been taken, I came after you.’

‘You were there?’

‘Yes. In the alley across the street.’

Lev thought hard, trying to imagine the scene again, but found that it kept sliding through his mental fingers. ‘I didn’t see you.’

‘You weren’t supposed to.’

‘The other team died in that car.’

‘They did.’ The big man pulled one of Lev’s arms across his shoulder and walked him to the rear of the van. They had to move while stooped over.

‘Are you Mossad?’

‘Yes.’

Lev stared ahead of them, willing his wits to come back to him. The drug had overpowered his system, and he knew he was lucky to be conscious at all. ‘Where are you taking me?’

‘Somewhere safe. Somewhere that you can work on the Book.’

‘All right.’ As Lev started to step down onto the ground beside the big man, ‘Alice’ rose in the backseat of the semiblown-up car in front of them. Blood covered her blouse and leaked from the corner of her mouth.

Lev frowned in confusion. ‘That’s not Alice …’

Startled, the big man looked up, but it was already too late.

‘Alice’ had a pistol in her hand, and bright yellow flashes burst in front of her. Something slapped Lev’s skull hard, knocking him backwards. The big man’s arm was no longer around him, and he was falling.

Mufarrij couldn’t believe the woman wasn’t dead, or that she would come up shooting instead of simply lying there hoping she would survive. The wild look in her eyes told him she was moving on pure adrenaline, which must have been the only thing keeping her alive.

He felt a bullet hammer the body armor under the motorcycle jacket, then Strauss jerked in his grip and started falling backward.

Whipping the Glock up, Mufarrij fired by instinct. Three rounds pierced the woman’s chest, then a bullet hit right between her wide eyes. Her head snapped back, and she fell once more into the backseat.

Angry at the events and at the woman, Mufarrij crouched over Strauss. A single glance at the horrible wound in the man’s face told the story. The bullet that had glanced off Mufarrij’s body armor had crashed into the man’s temple. Flattened from the body armor, the bullet had made a horrible, bloody mess of Strauss’s face.

Miraculously, the man’s mouth worked, and he had just enough strength to speak three words. ‘Get … Thomas … Lourds.’ Then the air went out of him, and he seemed to wilt there on the stone street.

Mufarrij was acutely aware of the seconds passing. It wouldn’t be long before law enforcement arrived. Or maybe the Mossad. When the bodyguard teams had gone offline, that would have triggered a response on their part as well.

Knowing there was nothing else he could do here, Mufarrij ran to his motorcycle, righted it, and threw a leg over. The machine started at once, and the back tire spun for just a moment as he wheeled it around. Then rubber found traction, and he shot out of there.

Thomas Lourds. Mufarrij knew the name. The American’s activities in Saudi Arabia only last year were well-known. Very few people knew the whole story of how Vice President Webster had gone missing and later turned up drowned during those hard times. When Mufarrij had heard the stories from his superiors, he hadn’t believed it.

But now, thanks to all the television coverage, he knew exactly where to find Thomas Lourds. Mufarrij stayed low over the handlebars and sped off into the night.

With Lev Strauss dead, he, the Mossad, and the Ayatollah’s men were all scrambling for the next clue in the hunt for Mohammad’s legendary Book and Scroll.