The Illumination (33 page)

A surge of people rocked them, and she was suddenly caught in their midst, carried backward several feet away from him.

“Four o'clock . . . there isn't much time—” she shouted, fighting to make her way back toward him, but the crowd was too strong, too panicked, and only carried her farther away.

“Go to your consulate! Nablus Road!” he ordered, trying to shove his way through the crowd, forging after her, one step, two. It was useless—she was stumbling backward, trying to keep her balance. Fighting to turn around and merge with the flow. But she could see from his expression that he was deciding whether to follow her or to alert his superiors.

Then Natalie forgot all about the soldier. Her attention was riveted on a woman not two feet from her, about to pass her in the crowd.

The woman was young, dark-haired, and beautiful, despite a scar on her cheek. She was wearing a pink head scarf. And Dana's
hamsa.

Natalie nearly stumbled. She fought to catch up with her, struggling to keep sight of the pink head scarf bobbing through the crowd.

Her heart was thumping in her chest. She knew she was right—it was Dana's
hamsa
. It was unique—the amethysts, the turquoise cloisonné eye, their mother's pearl at its center. Her glimpse had been brief, but the image was seared in her brain.

Desperately, she wedged her way around a stout man with a beard, then cried out as she lost sight of the woman. But a moment later her frantic gaze found the pink scarf again, and by now the crowd was beginning to thin. Natalie pushed after her, ignoring the annoyed complaints of those she bumped into in
her haste. She knew only one thing—she had to keep the dark-haired woman in her sights.

Then the woman rounded a corner and Natalie scurried to keep up. She spotted the pink scarf again just as it disappeared into a doorway.

Heaving to catch her breath, Natalie edged up to the souvenir shop the woman had entered and ducked to the side of the door, pretending to window shop. But she only had eyes for the woman wearing Dana's
hamsa,
standing now at the counter, lifting the landline phone from its cradle and putting it to her ear. Natalie watched her for a moment as the woman frowned, then slammed the phone down hard.

The power. It's still out.

Even as the thought took hold, the woman whirled and slipped through the beaded curtain that punctuated the back wall.

Pretending now to admire the evil eye amulets and silver crosses strung on kiosks on either side of the doorway, Natalie scanned the shop's interior. There was no one else inside.

Her stomach knotted, she slipped across the threshold and moved quietly toward the beaded curtain. Peered through. To her surprise, it led only to a steep wooden staircase.

From above came the sound of conversation, low and urgent. The words were Arabic. She could pick out the voices of several men—and of the woman.

Her knees went limp. She didn't know the identity of the woman, but she knew the voice of one of those men.

Hasan.
Right upstairs. In this very same building.

She heard the door upstairs click closed, and the voices were muffled.

Half of her wanted to run. The other half of her couldn't. If she left now to find help, there was no guarantee Hasan would still be here when she returned. It might take hours to explain, to get anyone to believe her. And if he was gone, they might never find him again—or the
tzohar.

As quietly as she could, she climbed the stairs.

 

 

 

The fourth step from the top creaked beneath her foot. Natalie froze, certain she'd given herself away. The sound had seemed to reverberate through the narrow stairwell, loud as a gunshot.

Three seconds passed, four. The low murmur of voices continued unabated from above and her breath wheezed out in a slow exhalation of relief.

Hugging the wall, she inched up onto the next step. And the next. Then cleared the landing. Before her was a stub of a hallway with two doors to her left, side by side. The first door was open, the second closed, and it was from behind the latter that the voices emanated.

But voices weren't all that emanated from the room.

A distinctive silvery glow escaped beneath the door.

The
tzohar
. Her muscles burning with tension, Natalie crept closer, easing her way through the first doorway, the open one, into a small space that looked like a storeroom. It was crammed with metal shelves stacked with various-sized cartons, some still taped shut. Stock—boxes of incense, ornate metal matchboxes, jewelry, candles, and the usual cheesy souvenirs.

Sidling between the shelves, Natalie maneuvered closer to the wall that adjoined the next room. Pressing her ear against it, she closed her eyes to block out the pain of her bruises, the fear corroding her stomach, everything but the swift flow of the
Arabic words. Her brain struggled to string them into English sentences.

 

“The Eye of Dawn. Finally. It is ours.” Farshid Sabouri held it aloft as his brother, Hasan, and Fatima stared. Excitement and nerves hummed through all three as the lamp on the desk fluttered wildly and went out again.

“It is a sign,” Fatima crowed. “A sign that today is the dawn of a new beginning.”

“Yes, Fatima, but—” Hasan's brow was creased as he reached for the glowing crystal. Farshid relinquished it to him. Hasan's fist closed around it.

“Perhaps Natalie Landau is right. She insisted the Eye of Dawn would disrupt the power. We all can see what's happening to the electricity throughout the city. It seems we have much to learn about the wonders, the powers of this stone,” he said. “Its energy must be causing this unexpected interference.”

Farshid squeezed the edge of the desk. “Without working cell phones, how will we detonate the bombs simultaneously?”

“We must destroy the Temple Mount!” Fatima exclaimed.

“We will—but with far fewer casualties,” Farshid said in disgust, “now that the Israelis are evacuating the platform.”

As Hasan paced around the desk, the furrows in his forehead deepened. “Our six heroes are already circling their stations, waiting to take their positions.”

Farshid leaned over the map on the table, tracing his thumb across the six locations circled in red. Each corresponded to a point on the drawing below—a schematic of the tunnel and the placement of the bombs. A vein of tension began throbbing in his neck. “If only you'd left the Eye in its case, Hasan, we wouldn't be facing this problem now.”

Farshid could not resist the criticism. He folded the map and stuffed it into his pocket.

“There was no way to know—” Hasan erupted angrily, but Farshid cut him off.

“Of course not, but your impatience has complicated everything. And on a day when we cannot afford complications.” He
strode to the window, past the tiny corner bathroom, and back again. “When you think of how long we've dug, shovel by shovel, how much money has gone into the tunnel, the bribes, the secrecy, the deaths—” He stopped himself, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“Why don't we try to reseal the Eye of Dawn in the jeweled pendant?” Fatima interjected hopefully. But Hasan shook his head.

“That isn't possible. I left the pendant in the tunnel.” He exploded at Farshid's angry indrawn breath. “It doesn't matter! Metal is metal—whether it be gold, tin, copper, lead. Let me show you!”

He whirled toward the wall safe behind the desk and spun the dial, left, then right, then left again. With a tiny click, the vault yawned open, revealing stacks of cash, gold coins, and two Glocks, along with several fifteen-round magazines.

Slipping the shimmering crystal inside its painted pouch, he hid it behind the stack of cash and relocked the vault.

The glow that had suffused the room was extinguished with the closing of the door. But still the lamp stayed dark.

“Now—your cell phone,” Hasan ordered his older brother tersely. “Try it.”

Farshid flicked it open and saw three bars. He nodded grudgingly. “It's reading the tower.”

Fatima smiled as the lamp suddenly sputtered back to life.

“Now, my brother,” Hasan said smugly, “you and I will go to witness history. The rebirth of the khalifate. And you”—he turned to Fatima and touched the pearl centered in the Hand of Fatima amulet at her throat. “You have the honor of safeguarding the Eye of Dawn.”

“Hasan.” She touched his arm, keeping her gaze just below his eyes. “I would dearly like to see the explosion.”

“You will hear it, Fatima,” he told her, his words a caress. “Close the shop and remain up here until we return.”

 

D'Amato cursed as a teenager pushing a cart loaded with watches nearly ran over his foot. The road was narrowed now, a ribbon of mobbed confusion. Three little boys playing kickball
in front of a doorway laughed as he jumped quickly aside, momentarily falling a step behind Ahmad.

“How much farther?” he asked, scarcely able to contain his impatience.

Ahmad lifted a hand as if to say
trust me.
They reached El Madana Elhamara only to be confronted by a fresh wave of pedestrians. From the snatches of excited conversation, D'Amato realized that the summit on the Temple Mount had been canceled. Everyone had been ordered to leave the area.

Ahmad and D'Amato pushed on, turning right at the corner, heading now, D'Amato realized, for the Via Dolorosa.

Jaw clenched, he wondered just where his friend was leading him. He wondered if Natalie was still alive.

They passed a huge, modern bookstore, a toy shop bright with puppets, a café buzzing with people, tourists and natives alike. Suddenly Ahmad came to a stop.

“Continue on a short distance, not much past the silversmith, and you'll find a very interesting souvenir shop. My source hinted that the people you seek meet sometimes above the store. Be careful.”

He clasped D'Amato's hand. “It was good to see you again, my friend. I pray you find what you're looking for. And I pray we find peace. And may it be soon.”

Then he was gone, slipping seamlessly into the throng, threading back the way they'd come.

 

When the door creaked open in the adjacent room, Natalie dodged behind a tall carton and crouched out of sight. She held her breath, trembling, as footsteps thundered down the stairs. Then came the soft clinking of the beaded curtain, and the woman's voice coming from below now, Natalie moved stealthily around the carton and into the hall. In two steps she was inside the second room.

It was an office, a messy one, the desk piled with papers and files, tape, markers, and scissors. Against one wall stood a metal file cabinet, along with more stacked boxes.

She spotted the safe at once. And she knew.
Metal is metal.
Isn't that what Hasan had said?

She yanked the hammer from her waistband, but she controlled the urge to smash the dial. The woman—Fatima—was sure to hear the first blow and know immediately that she wasn't alone.

First I'll have to take her by surprise. I'll make her tell me the combination.
. . .

She listened as the woman's light footsteps crossed the shop floor below. Heard again the click of the beaded curtains. Fatima was coming back.

 

Mundy paced beneath the large archway trimmed with Jerusalem stones. He was at the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, scouring the paved courtyard for a glimpse of the Sentinel as pilgrims and tourists flowed past him, intent on exploring the site where Jesus had been crucified, laid in his tomb, and resurrected.

He'd visited the huge church yesterday with his wife, praying in the many chapels tended by various faiths. He'd crawled beneath the altar in the Greek Orthodox chapel lit by candle and oil to stare at the bronze disk purported to mark the spot of Christ's cross. This church, raised in
A.D
. 326 by Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, had a history—like the Temple—of being repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. But the cycle had ended after it was demolished the final time by Khaliph el-Hakim in 1009, and the Crusaders rebuilt it to look much the way it still stood today.

A sense of awe and excitement competed in him as he watched impatiently for his second-in-command. The Sentinel had only told him that the Light of Dawn was for sale, and Mundy was prepared to pay any price.

Finally, he spotted the tall, imposing figure, the sandy-haired man who stood head and shoulders above most others.

“Have you heard anything more? Other than that we're to meet the seller at the Church of Saint Anne?” Mundy asked quickly, softly, as the Sentinel joined him. They strode inside where it was more secluded, past the rectangular pink slab of stone—the Stone of Unction, where the faithful believe Jesus' body was prepared for burial.

“Not yet,” the Sentinel said curtly. “Phone usage has been spotty, or haven't you noticed?”

“Of course I've noticed. Did you recognize the voice of the caller? Do you know who has the Light?”

“It was impossible to tell. He spoke in a whisper.” The Sentinel's frown was even more sour than usual. He had no clue which of the many players had managed to steal the Light from Shomrei Kotel's grasp.

“Well, I have a damned good guess who it might be.” Mundy lowered his voice. “I've just left some of our Shomrei Kotel partners. We've been betrayed—
all
of us.”

His companion stopped in his tracks. “What are you talking about?”

“Menny Goldstein is dead, so is Yuvi Katzir.”

“And Shmuel . . . what about Shmuel?”

“Vanished—along with Natalie Landau and the Light.” Mundy's eyes sparked with anger. “You connect the dots. Shmuel was one of the few entrusted with your encrypted cell number. It looks to me like he's now in business for himself.”

“And a mighty big business it is.” The Sentinel's jaw was tight, his hawk eyes narrowed. “He wants the money wire transferred to a Cyprus bank account at the time of the exchange. His asking price is ten million dollars.”