Daniel Silva - The Fallen Angel

The king of Jordan, himself a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, demanded the Israelis leave the Noble Sanctuary at once, but he stopped short of calling for violence to expel them. That was not the case, however, in Cairo, where the Muslim Brotherhood, the new leaders of the Arab world’s most populous nation, called for a pan-Islamic jihad to avenge the outrage. Hamas, a branch of the Brotherhood’s Islamist tree, immediately pummeled Beersheba and several other Israeli towns with a barrage of rockets that left ten Israelis dead. In Lebanon, however, Hezbollah remained curiously silent, as did its Shiite masters in Tehran.

Among the many challenges faced by Israeli officials during those explosive first hours was the presence of His Holiness Pope Paul VII. With the Old City of Jerusalem now a war zone, he took shelter in a monastery in Ein Kerem, the former Arab village just west of downtown Jerusalem that, according to Christian tradition, was the birthplace of John the Baptist. At the request of the Israeli prime minister, the pope agreed, albeit reluctantly, to cancel a planned Holy Saturday mass on the Mount of Beatitudes, along with Easter Sunday services at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Regrettably, the Holy Father had little choice in the matter. The Sepulchre, the sacred Christian shrine that Saladin had wanted to raze, was one of the main targets of Muslim rage.

There were many in the papal entourage who pleaded with the Holy Father to return to the safety of the Vatican, but he insisted on staying in the misplaced hope his presence might help to calm the situation. He spent much of his time at the Hadassah Medical Center, located not far from the monastery. Needless to say, the pope’s frequent appearances at the hospital generated speculation that he was ill or had been injured in the violence. It wasn’t true; he was simply ministering to a soul in need.

The patient in question had arrived at the hospital in the first minutes of the uprising, a bullet in his chest, more dead than alive. The staff was told that his name was Weiss, but was given no other information except for his approximate age and his medical history, which included numerous disorders related to stress. The blinds over his window, which looked east toward the walls of the Old City, remained tightly drawn. Two armed guards stood watch outside his door, one to its right and one to its left.

The pope was not the only dignitary to visit the wounded man. The prime minister came to see him, as did the chief of staff of the IDF, the heads of the various Israeli intelligence services, and, for reasons never made clear to the hospital staff, a large delegation of archaeologists from Hebrew University and the Israel Antiquities Authority. There was one man, however, who never moved from the patient’s bedside. He made no attempt to conceal his identity, for it wouldn’t have been possible—not with those distinctive gray temples and unforgettable eyes.

He drank little, ate less, and slept not at all. When one of the doctors offered him a bed and a mild sedative, he was met by a glare of disapproval. After that, no one dared to ask him to leave—even on the second night, when, for two terrible minutes, the patient’s heart stopped beating. For the next twenty-four hours, the visitor remained motionless at the foot of the bed, his face illuminated by the glow of the ventilator, as if he were a figure in a painting by Caravaggio. Occasionally, the nurses could hear the figure speaking softly. His words never varied. “Don’t die, Eli. Damn you, Eli, please don’t die.”

On Easter morning, the tolling of Jerusalem’s church bells was scarcely audible over the sound of gunfire. At noon, a crude Palestinian rocket fell into the Garden of Gethsemane, and at mid-afternoon bullets raked the exterior of the Church of the Dormition. That evening, a distraught Holy Father paid one final visit to the unconscious patient before boarding his plane to return home. When he was gone, another elderly man took his place. He, too, was known to the staff of the trauma center. He was the one they spoke of only in whispers. The one who had stolen the secrets that led to Israel’s lightning victory in the Six-Day War. The one who had plucked Adolf Eichmann, managing director of the Holocaust, from an Argentine street corner. Shamron . . .

“You need to go home and get some rest, my son.”

“I will.”

“When?”

“When he opens his eyes.”

Shamron twirled his Zippo between his fingertips. Two turns to the left, two turns to the right.

“Must you, Ari?”

Shamron’s fingers went still. “You have to prepare yourself for the possibility he’s not going to make it.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because it is the likely outcome. He’d lost nearly all his blood by the time they got him onto the table. His heart—”

“Is fine.”

“But it’s not as young as it once was,” Shamron said. “And neither is yours, my son. And I’m afraid of what will happen if it gets broken again.”

“I deserve it.”

“Why would you say such a thing?”

“I should have heard Darwish coming.”

“You both were distracted, which was understandable. It’s not every day that one has a chance to walk through the heikhal of the First Temple of Jerusalem.”

“Do you think the pillars truly are from the First Temple?”

“We know they are,” Shamron said. “We’re just waiting for the right moment to show them to the world.”

“Why wait?”

“Because we don’t want to do anything to make the situation any worse.”

“How much worse could it get?”

“There are ninety million Egyptians. Imagine what would happen if the Muslim Brotherhood convinced just ten percent of them to march on our borders. If that bomb had actually gone off . . .” Shamron’s voice trailed off. “It’s frightening to think how close we came—or how tenuous our existence is in this land.”

“How long are we planning to stay on the Temple Mount?”

“If it were up to me, we’d never leave. But the prime minister intends to hand it back to the Waqf as soon as all the archaeological material has been safely removed.”

“So we go back to the status quo?”

“Until the Islamic world is ready to accept our right to exist, I’m afraid the status quo is the best we can hope for.”

“I’d like to make one change to it, if it’s all right with you.”

“What’s that?”

“Massoud.”

Shamron smiled. “The next time a bomb goes off under his car, it won’t be a small one.”

Gabriel took hold of Lavon’s hand.

“If he dies, Ari, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I should have made him leave.”

“There’s no way Eli would have ever left that mountain without knowing those pillars were safe.”

“They’re just stones, Ari.”

“They’re Eli’s stones,” Shamron said. “And now they’re soaked in his blood.”

IT WOULD BE ANOTHER SEVENTY-TWO hours before sufficient order had been restored to allow the government of Israel to fully explain to the world why it had entered the Temple Mount and what it had discovered there. To do so, it assembled a pool of journalists and camera crews from the world’s most authoritative news organizations and took them down through the network of aqueducts and cisterns, to the newly dug chamber 167 feet beneath the surface. There the chief of staff of the IDF showed them the massive bomb, while the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority walked them through the remarkable collection of artifacts that had been unearthed by the Waqf during years of reckless digging. The highlight of the tour were the two rows of limestone pillars, twenty-two in all, that had been part of the heikhal of King Solomon’s First Temple of Jerusalem.