The Temple Mount Code

37

Tense and anxious, Miriam sat in the taxi’s backseat and watched the line of cars approaching the Israeli airport checkpoint.

‘Shouldn’t be much longer.’ The heavy-set driver cranked down his window, filling the car interior with the smell of exhaust along with his sharp cologne, and picked up his papers. ‘Some days you get through quickly. Other days, like today, not so quickly. That’s why it’s always better to arrive early. Have your passports ready.’

Miriam dug hers out from her purse. Next to her, Lourds was lost in Lev Strauss’s mysterious book. He had it open on one knee and was making notes in his journal.

They’d had breakfast together that morning, but only after she’d beaten on his door to wake him. Lourds hadn’t been a scintillating conversationalist. It had taken him most of yesterday to get tickets for her and himself, and he’d gotten frustrated. Miriam had finally taken it upon herself to spend time on the phone talking to travel agents, and even had to have Katsas Shavit intercede — quietly — to make the trip happen. Travel at the time was exceptionally high.

Part of his frustration, she felt, was related to his inability to make sense of the journal. He seemed to be translating it quickly, and she was impressed by that because she’d worked at translating some of the pages herself and found it almost beyond her grasp. She’d even copied some of the pictures with the specially encrypted phone the Mossad had provided for her and sent it off to the intelligence division. The encryption staff there had only marginally improved on what she’d been able to do.

Katsas Shavit had admitted that the book was beyond what the intelligence division could do — and many of them were linguistics professors. She’d also learned that Professor Thomas Lourds was a frequent translation go-to person for the Mossad, CIA, and other international intelligence agencies.

That impressed Miriam even more because Lourds had never mentioned it. She didn’t know if he was merely being secretive or if he really didn’t think that much of the work he’d done for those agencies. In some ways, he was different than she’d thought he would be. Arrogant and egotistical, definitely, but he was also putting his life on the line to find out who had killed his friend.

She nudged his knee, then had to do it again, almost hard enough to dislodge the book. ‘Hey, Professor.’

He looked up at her and, for an instant, looked like a small child who had just woken up in a strange place. He glanced around, then took a deep breath and stretched. ‘What?’

‘Passport.’ Miriam brandished hers.

Turning to his backpack between them, Lourds withdrew his passport and handed it to her. She was amazed at how thick it was. He returned his attention to the book and his work.

‘Have you been to Istanbul?’

She nodded, then realized he wasn’t watching her. ‘Yes.’

‘Beautiful city.’

‘One of my favorites.’

‘When did you go there?’

‘My father took me when I was a little girl.’

Lourds looked up at her then and smiled. ‘Your father traveled a lot?’

‘Some. He repped some art-acquisition galleries.’

Before Lourds could respond, a bullet cored through the back window behind them and spread their driver’s brains over the windshield in a crimson splash.

Colonel Davari cursed and reached for the microphone headset’s transmit controls. ‘Watch what you’re doing, you imbecile! You almost hit Lourds. Do not kill him! We need him alive!’

The images on the computer monitors jerked and heaved now that the attackers were in motion. The wireless cameras attached to their headsets connected to a nearby van loaded with equipment that relayed the signal to the Ayatollah’s palace.

The man himself stood nearby, watching the scene much more calmly than Davari.

Putting the whole picture together in his head from the six camera views was difficult. Even though he’d planned the attack with the Hezbollah operatives he’d briefed on the task, the action was proving distracting. Attacking at the checkpoint was risky, but it was the only place Davari knew for certain they’d get a chance to take Lourds.

With the driver dead at the wheel, the taxi lurched forward and slammed into the car ahead of it. Only two vehicles were in front of the taxi. They were enough to hold up progress, but they allowed the taxi to get blocked in by other cars when they tried to scatter amid the gunfire.

‘I’ve got the van camera online, Supreme Leader,’ said one of the men at the computers in front of the Ayatollah. Davari looked up at the screen before him as it filled with images.

The van had a mounted camera that telescoped up from the top to give an overview of the attack site. It hadn’t been deployed until the attack and kidnap attempt had been initiated.

Almost immediately, the scene at the airport’s security checkpoint became much clearer. The Israeli security people responded to the attack, but it was too late to hope to control anything. Drivers behind the taxi steered wildly in an effort to get out of harm’s way and only ended up miring themselves in the resulting confusion. Vehicles slammed into each other, effectively choking off escape routes.

One of the Hezbollah attackers stopped and brought up a rocket launcher. No sooner did the long weapon rest on his shoulder than he fired. The warhead slammed into one of the outside cars broadside, flipping the vehicle into the air. It crashed down roof-first onto the car beside it with a spray of glass and shriek of overstressed metal. Flames roared from it, and the passengers scrambled out and away to escape the pyre.

By then the snipers were in place. Sharp cracks carried over the streaming audio. The synchronization between the audio and video wasn’t complete, and there was at least a two-second lag between them, giving the events a surreal feel that Davari found irritating. The uniformed security guards dropped and spun, helpless before the Hezbollah snipers.

Davari smiled in anticipation. Now that they were certain Lourds had the book, they could take him and force him to help find Mohammad’s Koran and the Scroll.

Nothing could prevent that.

As soon as he realized the driver had been shot, Lourds dove for Miriam. She was already in motion, though, opening her door and throwing herself outside.

At first he thought she was running for cover, and he was vaguely disappointed. He’d thought she was made of sterner stuff, or maybe he’d only wished she was because of the journey they were undertaking. She hadn’t flinched at all when he’d told her they were going to Iran.

Instead of running, though, she stayed low as one of the vehicles behind them suddenly exploded and flew into the air. Shrapnel slapped against the taxi like popcorn popping, and tongues of fire flashed across the back glass, coming in through the hole left by the rifle bullet for just a moment before dying.

Miriam opened the car door and yanked at the dead driver. Despite her desperate efforts, she couldn’t move the bulky corpse. She glanced back at Lourds. ‘Help me!’

Galvanized into action, Lourds got out of the taxi on his side, crept up to the passenger door, and threw it open. He hesitated for just a moment at all the blood, then put both hands on the dead man and shoved as Miriam pulled.

The driver toppled out of the car as at least one round shattered the passenger-door window and rained broken pieces down over Lourds’s back. Thomas stayed low across the front seats. Miriam put her hand in the middle of his face, mashing his sore nose hard and causing him to yelp in protest as she shoved him into the passenger seat.

Behind the wheel, she shoved the transmission into reverse and backed swiftly toward the burning car atop the other vehicle.

Lourds pointed. ‘The car.’

‘I see it.’ Miriam stomped on the brake, and rubber shrieked as the tires locked up on the pavement. The taxi’s rear butted up against the bottom car, and the burning wreckage above slowly started to topple — and was heading straight for their battered taxi.

‘The car!’

‘I see it!’ Miriam changed gears and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The taxi’s engine screamed like a tortured animal, but the tires caught and propelled them forward. ‘Hang on.’

Lourds braced himself with his hands and feet as Miriam crashed into the rear of the car ahead of them. Metal crumpled, and the front windshield shattered, spraying bloody glass fragments into his lap.

Miriam shoved the transmission into reverse and backed again at a sharper angle. Lourds reached for the open passenger door, intending to close it, but one of the security posts took it off in a wrenching rasp.

This time when the taxi backed up, it hit the burning car. Flames spread across the back of the vehicle and stayed with them as Miriam sped forward again.