The Temple Mount Code

24

One of the two hard-faced men in front of Miriam waved his weapon. ‘We’ll take Lourds from here.’ His words were clipped and efficient, with a German accent. ‘No one has to get hurt.’

‘Who are you?’ Miriam glared at the two men and dropped her right hand behind Lourds’s back to the pistol at her waistband. She did that without thought, but once she felt the cold metal in her hand, she had all kinds of doubts about what she was going to do next.

‘The men who are going to take Lourds.’

‘Wow.’ Big Mike belched. ‘This is turning out to be some night, huh?’ He grinned, let go of Lourds, then threw himself at the nearest man.

Idiot! Miriam couldn’t believe the big man wouldn’t fight the guys in the bar, but he’d throw himself at men with guns.

The move either caught the pair off guard or they hadn’t wanted to reveal themselves, because the man Big Mike grappled with got knocked backwards and barely stayed on his feet. Pushing his opponent away, he snap-fired his pistol, the bullet tugging at Big Mike’s sleeve as it passed through.

‘Whoa!’ Big Mike said, as the gunshot echoed off the buildings around them.

Hesitation gone, Miriam freed her weapon and brought it up, slapping her left hand around her right to set up the familiar push/pull hold she’d been taught. She flicked off the safety with her thumb, aimed at the shooter’s center mass, and squeezed the trigger three times.

With three rapid-fire rounds in the man who had fired first, and him already stumbling backwards as crimson covered his coat, Miriam moved her pistol toward the other man. He was just getting his weapon up to fire.

Miriam stood her ground, centered her pistol on the man’s chest, and squeezed the trigger, certain she was going to feel bullets rip into her flesh at any second. Instead, the man staggered as one of her rounds tore into his shoulder. Two of his shots went wide of her, and his face turned panicked, then slack as he stumbled and fell.

Heart hammering, afraid she was going to throw up because she was so afraid, and the adrenaline was sending her senses into overdrive, Miriam stepped forward, toe to heel, toe to heel, never crossing her feet to avoid tripping herself in case she had to move quickly.

She kicked the pistol from the dead man’s hands, shifting her gun back and forth between the two men. Kneeling, she checked the second man’s pulse with her fingers. He was dead as well.

Voices sounded behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted the bar patrons crowding the open doorway, but none of them was brave enough yet to come outside. It wouldn’t take long, though. They had liquor in them, tended to be men with too much testosterone and not enough common sense, and Miriam was willing to bet the bartender or one — or several — of them had a weapon.

She rifled the men’s pockets, taking papers and personal items. This wasn’t a random event. Her superior would want to know who they were, and who they were working for.

The crowd at the door grew bolder. ‘What’s going on out there?’

‘What happened?’

Big Mike stared at her and looked dumbfounded.

Miriam stood and stuffed her haul into her jacket pockets. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, but that was wicked.’

‘They pulled their weapons first.’

‘I know. That’s what makes it so wicked.’

In training, her instructors had commented on her natural proficiency and quickness with a pistol. When she’d been a child, her father had trained her to shoot. By the time she entered the Mossad training, she was very comfortable with weapons and targets.

Tonight was the first time she had knowingly shot — and killed — a man.

Kneeling once again, this time beside Lourds, Miriam checked the professor. The man snored peacefully though his nose had swelled, and one eye was already turning black.

She stood. ‘Get him to his room. If you can’t do it yourself, have someone help you.’

‘Sure. Aren’t you going to help?’

‘No. I’ve done enough already.’ Miriam shoved the pistol into her pocket and walked into the shadows. She couldn’t stay. She had to hope those two men were the only ones who had been sent after Lourds.

In her rented room, Miriam paused only long enough to wedge a chair under the doorknob. Then she went to the bathroom and threw up. When she was finished, she washed her face, brushed her teeth, returned to the room, and sat on the edge of the bed.

Automatically, so suddenly glad for all the things her Mossad masters had taught her to do, finally understanding what all of the grueling hours of training had been about, she field-stripped the pistol and cleaned it with the kit she’d bought with the weapon. The familiar activity calmed and focused her.

When she was satisfied that the pistol was clean and battle-ready, when she was satisfied she was calm, she put the gun on the bed beside her and took out her satphone. She punched in one of the numbers she had been given for the cutouts.

‘Hello. You have reached Best—’

Before the message could continue, Miriam punched in the code to break free of the answering service.

Another voice, this one calmer and in control, answered. ‘May I help you?’

‘I’m an agent.’ Miriam gave the telephone operator her ID number. ‘I need to speak to my field officer.’ Katsas Shavit was another number. The connection was made quickly even though it was night in Israel.

‘Is something wrong?’ Even over the phone, Shavit wasn’t going to use names.

‘Two men tried to take the package tonight. They used force. I had to kill them.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

There was a moment of silence. ‘This was an unfortunate occurrence.’

More unfortunate for the dead men. Miriam tried not to think about that, or the fact that the men might have had families that would miss them. In her job, she’d learned that usually even the worst of men were loved by someone. Someone’s heart would soon break with the news.

‘Are you there?’

Miriam realized Shavit had been speaking. ‘Sorry. I am now.’

‘Can you do this?’

‘Of course.’

‘I know this is hard. Something like this … it’s always hard.’

‘I am fine.’ Miriam brushed at the tears that had started running down her cheeks.

‘Has your situation with the package been compromised?’

‘No.’ Miriam didn’t even want to go into the situation because it was ludicrous in light of what had happened. This terrible thing she’d done couldn’t be linked to something so trivial. ‘He still doesn’t know who I am. I can make the rendezvous points without his being any the wiser.’

‘We will pick him up at this end.’

‘All right.’

Shavit’s voice softened. ‘Try to get some sleep if you can. Even though you are there, you are not alone. What happened tonight wasn’t your choice. We put you in the position you found yourself, and those men decided their own fates.’

‘I know.’

‘You did well. I will see you soon.’

Even after Shavit hung up, Miriam clung to the phone a little longer, not wanting to let go of that human contact.

Standing in the shadows just outside the yellow glow spilling from the bar, Mufarrij let his frustration flow from him and disappear into the cold wind blowing around him. He had been close to getting his hands on Lourds, to finding out what the man knew about Lev Strauss’s secret, but the German mercenaries had been hanging around too closely for him to snatch the man.

He’d almost interceded in the bar when Lourds had so stupidly risked himself over the young woman. She was a surprise, though. The way she’d handled herself in the bar had impressed him. Of course, taking out a drunken man was no great feat, but she had done it with no wasted movement.

She was young, though. A more practiced agent wouldn’t have stepped into the limelight so quickly or so strongly.

In the street with her pistol, she had been death incarnate. In all his years fighting against hard, desperate men, Mufarrij had seen few people who possessed that kind of speed and accuracy.

The two dead men lay in the street beside the jeep used by the local police. Sullen-faced policemen carried assault rifles and asked questions of the bar’s patrons. Most of the bar guests were only too willing to step forward and tell their stories. They were from out of country and this was probably the most exciting thing that had ever happened to them.

Mufarrij sipped his coffee and lamented that it had already gone cold. He also lamented the fact that the local police were taking Thomas Lourds and his Uighur friend into custody.

The chase was not over yet.

Lourds’s head pounded as he sat on the uncomfortably thin mattress on the jail cot and looked in the metal mirror he’d finally been able to borrow from his jailer. His nose was swollen, and his left eye had a huge mouse underneath that promised a spectacular shiner later. He sighed and placed the mirror on the cot beside him. Having a hangover and a possible concussion was not how he’d wanted to wake up.

‘It could be worse.’ Big Mike sat on the other side of the room, lounging on the cot bolted into that wall. He’d rolled up one of his socks and was playing catch with it, throwing it up into the air and catching it when it came back down.

‘How?’

‘You could have gotten your nose broken. And you missed the whole gunfight.’

That was the part that really made Lourds’s head hurt. He shook his head and regretted it immediately. ‘Tell me again about that.’

Big Mike did, and this time the story grew even grander. By tomorrow morning, the young woman — whoever she was — would be plucking their attackers’ bullets from the air and throwing them back at the men.

‘I never saw anyone so fast.’ Big Mike smiled dreamily. ‘I thought I was a dead man. Truly. I threw myself at one of those men, intending to save you.’

‘Save me?’

‘They said they were there for you.’

‘You heard them say that?’

‘Yes.’

‘You couldn’t be mistaken?’

‘No. They told the woman they were going to take you.’

Lourds took a deep breath and released it. He thought back over the last few months and couldn’t think of a single reason why anyone would come gunning for him. He’d made some enemies over the last few years, over the Atlantis thing and the problems in Saudi Arabia, but those people had bigger problems than a relatively obscure professor of linguistics.

It didn’t make any sense. And that was what scared him. He didn’t know if he was leaving trouble behind or heading straight for it.

‘Anyway, I threw myself at one of the men, intending to save you. He tried to shoot me, but this woman shot that man, then she shot the other. She was so fast, she was like Clint Eastwood.’

‘Clint Eastwood?’

‘Yes. You have seen his movies?’

‘I have. This woman didn’t look like Clint Eastwood, did she?’

‘No, she was a very beautiful woman.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course she was. I’m sure that’s why you were going to her rescue in the bar.’

Lourds barely remembered that. He didn’t know if the memory loss was from the drink or from getting punched in the face. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten hit so hard.

‘But there you were, on the floor.’ Big Mike threw his arms out and looked like he’d been run over by a steamroller.

‘Thanks for that visual. Really.’

Big Mike grinned.

‘You know, I’m beginning to think you look entirely too comfortable on that jail cot.’

‘I’ve had an exciting life since you left the village.’ Big Mike folded his hands over his broad chest. ‘Jails are all pretty much the same.’

‘Are you sure you don’t remember anything else about the woman?’

‘She was beautiful. We are truly lucky, Professor Thomas.’

Lourds narrowed his good eye at his friend. ‘How so?’

‘The story would not be nearly so good if we’d been rescued by an ugly woman.’

Footsteps sounded out in the hallway, and one of the policemen reappeared. He wore a green-and-tan uniform and had a hat tucked up under his arm. Thrusting the key into the ancient lock, he worked the mechanism and pulled the door open.

‘You’re free to go.’

‘Someone bailed us out?’ Lourds grabbed his hat and clapped it onto his pounding head. He looked past the jailer, wondering if the beautiful young woman with the fast gun was waiting out there and wondering, too, if her presence was going to be a good thing or a bad one.

‘No. You are just free to go.’

Lourds stepped out into the hallway, closely followed by Big Mike. ‘Why?’

‘You did not kill those men. All the stories have agreed on this. You were dead drunk when that happened, and your friend was barely able to stand on his own.’

‘I wasn’t dead drunk. I’d just been in a bar fight.’ Lourds pointed to his injured eye and swollen nose.

‘A bar fight.’ The man nodded, obviously very unimpressed. ‘One punch.’ He blew a derisive raspberry. ‘Then the woman knocked the man out. He’s still in the hospital. We’ll be talking to him, but we don’t believe he was involved in this either.’

‘Do you know anything about the men that attacked me?’

‘They attacked the woman, and no, we don’t know anything about them. Neither of them had papers.’

Lourds walked down the hallway. At the desk in the small, unadorned office, he recovered his personal belongings. His backpack and suitcase sat on the floor. The message was entirely clear.

A stolid man sat at the desk and eyed Lourds appraisingly. ‘If you hurry, Professor Lourds, you can still catch your airplane.’

With his head aching so fiercely, the last thing Lourds wanted to contemplate was a hurried run to catch an airplane that promised five long minutes of torturous buffeting in the Himalayan winds. But he signed for his things.

‘One other thing.’ The stolid man reached into his desk and brought out a well-worn copy of Bedroom Pursuits. ‘Would you sign this for my wife? When she heard I had you locked up here, she made me promise I would get you to sign the book.’

‘Sure.’ Lourds took up his pen again.

‘One more word of advice, if I may.’

‘Certainly.’

‘A man with a glass jaw should stay out of bar fights.’

‘He hit me in the nose when I wasn’t looking.’ Even as he said that, Lourds knew that was almost a physical impossibility. All he could remember was the big man’s even bigger fist rushing into view with the speed of a comet.

‘Very well. A man with a glass … nose.’