The Temple Mount Code

18

Rage and pain consumed Klaus Von Volker as he watched the news footage from Jerusalem.

Controlled and outwardly calm, he sat at the big desk in his office. He loved it because it was solid and heavy, a prime piece of Austrian woodcraft made with maple and ebony parquetry, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ebony, and exotic woods. It was the kind of desk that Prince Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich or Napoleon Bonaparte might have sat at while planning the future course of empires.

Von Volker did that every day that he sat at the desk. The den was a man’s room, redolent of fine cigars and brandy. One wall held a collection of weapons, swords and guns that spanned centuries. It wasn’t a place that Colonel Davari found comforting.

On the large-screen television set into the wall, news footage showed the wreckage of the three vehicles that had carried the mercenaries Von Volker had sent to retrieve Lev Strauss.

‘What happened?’ Davari sat in one of the bentwood chairs in front of the desk.

‘Lev Strauss was killed.’ Von Volker backed up the film footage and froze the screen on an image. Two ambulance workers ferried Strauss’s body to their waiting vehicle. ‘See for yourself.’

‘You’re sure he’s dead?’

‘With a hole like that in your face, you’d be dead, too.’

‘Perhaps.’

Von Volker sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. ‘We have caught some luck at this point.’

‘What?’

‘The Israeli government has chosen to hide Strauss’s identity for the time being. They’re claiming this was a terrorist action.’

‘Why?’

‘You know the Mossad, Colonel. They like to control information.’ Von Volker shrugged. ‘That explanation will hold for a while before it comes apart, but it will eventually give way to the truth. For now, though, the explanation covers all the weapons and violence found at the scene.’

‘Will the Mossad be able to track those men back to you?’

Von Volker smiled at that, but it was forced. He didn’t like having his ability questioned. The question was in bad taste and offensive. He was certain Davari intended it to be the latter. ‘No. I was careful.’

‘If you really had been careful, we would have Lev Strauss now.’

‘Perhaps. But perhaps the carelessness didn’t come from my involvement.’ Von Volker locked his gaze on Davari. ‘The man who did this has a past history with you, Colonel. Not me.’ He tapped the keyboard in front of him.

The television image changed from the newsfeed to a closed-circuit satellite feed that showed the rear of the van as the attack began. There were multiple views, from the front of the van as well as from the interior.

‘What is this?’

‘I had the van wired and uploading streaming video and audio feeds through a small satellite connection.’

‘All of that hardware will be discovered at the site.’

‘It won’t matter. It won’t lead investigators anywhere. My people know what they’re doing, Colonel.’

‘Yet, somehow, these men that you claim knew what they were doing managed to lose Lev Strauss.’

Stung, Von Volker clamped his jaw shut.

On the screen, the view shifted suddenly as the van collided with the overturned car. In the next instant, a man stepped partially into view and shot the van’s driver, then the passenger.

Colonel Davari sat up straighter, interested in spite of himself. ‘One man did all this?’

‘Yes.’ Von Volker shifted through the video feeds. He’d already marked the places he wanted to show the colonel. ‘Make sure you mention this to the Ayatollah. I certainly plan to.’ His words were a thinly veiled threat. ‘The way he moves, the quick and professional way he kills, I thought he would be known to you.’

The image kept playing, showing the attack as it progressed. Despite the fact that the men in Jerusalem had all been hardened mercenaries who had seen action around the globe, the lone killer had cut a swath through them as if it were child’s play.

When the man stepped into the van and shot the last mercenary there, Von Volker froze the screen. ‘I had some of my computer people work with this shot. They tweaked the image until we got a good look at the man’s face.’ He pressed another button, and the cleaned-up image of the assassin enlarged and filled the screen in much clearer focus.

The man looked wild and elemental. Scars showed under his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks. He’d been cut and shot, and the bottom of his right ear and the right side of his neck were covered in burn scars.

‘Do you know this man?’

Colonel Davari looked for only a moment. ‘No.’ He didn’t even bother to try to hide the fact that he was lying.

‘His name is Rayan Mufarrij.’ Von Volker spoke the words deliberately. ‘Despite the best efforts of my intelligence people, not much has turned up on him. The man is a ghost. He’s been a deep undercover agent working for Saudi Arabia’s Emergency Force, the counterterrorist division of the General Security. For years. I’m surprised you don’t know of such a man as this.’

Davari shook his head. ‘They are simply terrorists by another name.’

Von Volker ignored that. ‘This man, my sources tell me, reports solely to the House of Saud.’ He advanced the footage, and on the screen, Mufarrij finished off the last mercenary, grabbed Strauss, and nearly got away with him.

If not for Elise.

Von Volker watched the woman push herself up with the pistol and fire at her killer. In his heart, Von Volker wanted to believe that Elise knew precisely what she was doing, that she was striving to complete the favor he’d asked her to do. In reality, he knew she was already dying and probably had no clue about what she was doing.

He was going to miss her, but he still couldn’t help being angry with her because she hadn’t killed Mufarrij. If only she’d been as good with the pistol as she was in bed. The situation was truly lamentable.

Switching off the television, Von Volker focused on Davari. ‘You can tell the story any way you wish, Colonel, but I’m going to tell the Ayatollah that I’ve never had any dealing with Mufarrij. The only way that man could have found me was through you. You’ve got leaks in your organization. And don’t try to tell me that Mufarrij found Strauss on his own. If he had, the man would have already disappeared.’

Davari couldn’t argue with that, and Von Volker knew it.

‘So, Colonel, what are we to do?’

‘Our intelligence agencies are not entirely lax.’ Davari stood. ‘One of our computer technicians has already hacked into Strauss’s computer.’

‘From a remote connection?’

‘Yes.’

Von Volker shrugged. ‘Then you already know about the Facebook message Strauss sent to Ziya Kadeer?’

Davari wasn’t quick enough to hide his surprise at that, but it went away quickly. ‘Yes. We have agents en route to the Himalayas to find Thomas Lourds.’

‘What are you going to do with him when you find him?’

‘For the moment, nothing. We will wait and watch him.’

Irritated, Von Volker shook his head. ‘You could tell from the Facebook message that Lourds doesn’t know anything. Strauss was bringing him in to consult on this.’

‘I know. And only days ago Thomas Lourds discovered a hidden civilization lost for thousands of years. He was also involved in that Atlantis business a couple of years ago. Such a man bears watching. So we will watch him.’

Von Volker wasn’t happy with that. Watching was too passive, but at this point Davari had the lead. If Von Volker were in charge, things would go quite differently.