Daniel Silva - The Fallen Angel

It was 2:12.

By 2:15, the hole was about a foot in diameter, and by 2:20 it was large enough to accommodate the shoulders and hips of a slender man. Gabriel shimmied through first, scraping the skin from his arms in the process, followed a few seconds later by Lavon. After returning the kippah and hard hat to his head, he stood stock-still for a moment, speechless with awe. Before them was the cistern, and beyond it, rising into the darkness, was the first flight of Herodian stairs.

“There’s only one reason for this cistern to be here,” Lavon said, dipping his hand in the water of the long, rectangular pool. “It was a mikvah . They would have cleansed themselves ritually before heading up to the Temple.”

“This is all very interesting, Professor, but we need to keep moving.”

“At least let me take a few pictures.”

“We’ll stop on the way out.”

Lavon skirted the edge of the pool and raced up the first flight of ancient steps, the beam of his light bouncing over the walls and ceiling of the arched passage. At the top, he froze again. “Look at this!” he said, pointing to a few lines of ancient Hebrew chiseled into the wall. “It says that gentiles are forbidden to enter the courts of the Temple. Why would there be a sign like this if there wasn’t a Temple to begin with?”

It was a logical question, but at that instant, Gabriel’s thoughts were elsewhere. He was wondering why four large Arab men with flashlights were coming toward them down the next flight of steps. Then the first bullet came scorching past his ear, and he had his answer. It seemed the neighbors had heard the pounding. It was hardly surprising, thought Gabriel. Blood never sleeps.

IT LASTED JUST FORTY-FOUR SECONDS, but later, Uzi Navot would swear it seemed like an hour or more. From his limited vantage point, it sounded as though Gabriel and Eli Lavon were under attack from an Arab legion. What struck Navot most, however, was the sound of Gabriel’s breathing. Not once did it break its normal rhythm. Nor did he speak except to twice tell Lavon to keep his head down.

The recordings would indicate that Gabriel did not begin to return fire until almost twenty seconds into the engagement. After his first shot, there was an agonized wail that seemed to rise from the very depths of the Well of Souls. Five seconds later, Gabriel fired a second shot, after which the intensity of the opposing gunfire decreased sharply. His third and fourth shots were fired with double-tap quickness, and once again there was a scream of pain from somewhere in the passage. Two more shots followed in rapid succession. Then the gunfire ended, and there was only the sound of an Arab man pleading for mercy.

“Who sent you down here?” Navot heard Gabriel ask calmly.

“Go to hell!” a voice shouted back in Arabic.

Navot heard another shot, followed by a scream.

“Who sent you?” Gabriel repeated.

“The imam,” the Arab replied through gritted teeth.

“Which imam?”

“Darwish.”

“Hassan Darwish?”

“Yes . . . it was . . . Hassan.”

“Where’s the bomb?”

“What bomb?”

“Where is it, damn it?”

“I don’t know anything . . . about a bomb!”

“Are you telling me the truth?”

“Yes!”

“Are you?”

“Yes! I swear.”

Navot heard one more shot. Then there was nothing but the sound of Gabriel’s steady breathing.

“Are we still in business?” asked the prime minister.

“For the moment,” replied Navot.

“I suppose that answers the question about whether there’s really a bomb somewhere up there.”

“Yes, Prime Minister, I suppose it does. But we now have another problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Gabriel Allon is inside the Temple Mount with only Eli Lavon for protection.”

“Do you know what’s going to happen if they get their hands on them?”

“Yes, Prime Minister,” Navot said, staring at the CCTV images of the crowds pouring out of the al-Aqsa Mosque. “They’re going to tear them both to pieces.”

“Should we order them out?”

“I’m afraid it’s too late.”

They had just entered the first aqueduct. It was 2:23.

It was no wider than a phone booth and scarcely tall enough for them to walk fully upright. Here and there, rivulets of water wept from tiny seams in the walls, but otherwise the bedrock was as dry as the bones of Rivka. Lavon navigated by compass. Softly, he counted their steps.

The channel wound its way through the limestone in a serpentine pattern, which meant they had only a vague idea of what lay ahead. Despite the fact they were now only a few feet beneath the surface of the Mount, they could hear no sound other than their own footfalls and Lavon’s steady counting. At two hundred paces exactly, they reached the next cistern. Lavon paused and looked around in wonder. Then he raised a forefinger to his lips to tell Gabriel to keep his voice down.

“Do you recognize it?” Gabriel whispered.

Lavon nodded his head vigorously. “The T shape is consistent with a cistern that Warren found here,” he answered, his voice a hoarse whisper. “It was probably dug during the time of Herod. The stone quarried from this spot might very well have been used for the Temple itself.”

“Where are we on the Mount?”

“Just outside the entrance to al-Aqsa.” He pointed down the length of the horizontal portion of the T. “There should be another small T-shaped cistern right over there. And then—”

“The Great Sea?”

Lavon nodded his head and then led Gabriel across the upper portion of the ancient cistern. At the opposite side was the mouth of another aqueduct, narrower than the last. As he expected, it bore them into the next cistern. This time, they made their way to the foot of the T and entered the next aqueduct. After a few paces, the vast cathedral-like chasm of the Great Sea opened before them.

And it was entirely empty.

“Well?” asked the prime minister.

Navot shook his head.

“What are they going to do now?”

“They’re working on it.”

At the roof of the chamber was an opening, like the oculus at the top of the Pantheon in Rome. Through it streamed a shaft of brilliant sunlight and the sound of the amplified sermon blasting from the minaret of the al-Aqsa Mosque.

“How far below the surface are we?” asked Gabriel in a whisper.

“Forty-three feet.”

“Or thirteen meters,” Gabriel pointed out.

“Thirteen point ten meters,” Lavon corrected him.

“If Dina is right,” Gabriel said, “the bomb would be in a chamber more than a hundred feet beneath us.”

“Which would make sense,” Lavon said.

“Why?”

“Because if I were going to take down the Temple Mount plateau, I’d want to place the charge lower than this.”

“Is there a way down from here?”

“No one’s ever been below this—at least no one we know about.” He turned and studied the distant wall of the cavern. There were three more aqueducts, each leading in a slightly different direction. “Pick one,” he said.

“I’m an art restorer, Eli. You pick.”

Lavon closed his eyes for a few seconds and then pointed to the aqueduct on the right.

At that same moment, Imam Hassan Darwish was less than one hundred feet away, in the cistern beneath the Well of Souls. In his hand was the Makarov pistol that Abdullah Ramadan had given to him before heading into the depths of the Noble Sanctuary to confront the invading Jews. The sound of the brief but intense battle had carried through the aqueducts, directly to Darwish’s ears. He had heard everything, including the sound of his own name being shouted in agony. Now he could hear the soft, muffled footfalls of at least two men approaching the chamber that Darwish had secretly carved from the Holy Mountain. It was there he had hidden the bomb that would destroy it and thus destroy the State of Israel. But there was something else inside the chamber other than explosives—a secret that no one, especially the Jews, could be allowed to see.