“I can see it,” he shouted into his headset. “I can see the Dome straight ahead.”
Even Akiva Ben David had to admit it, at least to himself. He’d certainly never admit it out loud. But it was an empirical fact. Qubbat al-Sakhra known in English as the Dome of the Rockwas an awe-inspiring sight, even to the founder and leader of the Temple Mount Battalion. With its hand-painted cobalt blue tiles and stunning twenty-four-carat golden roof all lit up by powerful spotlightsthe splendor of the Dome simply wasn’t in dispute. Islam’s third-holiest site, together with the Al Aqsa mosque, was breathtaking, even when seen through the greenish haze of night-vision goggles
But that was hardly the point. It didn’t matter to Ben David that the site
claimed by a billion Muslims worldwide was supposed to be the exact place
where Mohammed was taken up to heaven to meet with Allah. They were
simply wrong.
The Muslims could believe whatever they wanted. But theirs was a false
religion. Theirs was a false god. And they were occupying sacred ground,
Jewish ground. That didn’t mean their architecture wasn’t sublime. It was,
especially from this angle.
What the Muslims thought or believed or preached didn’t matter to Ben
David. What mattered was liberating the Temple Mount and ending its
desecration at the hands of Islamic invaders. What mattered was ushering in
the triumphant arrival of the coming Jewish Messiah. What mattered was
forcing the hand of God.
Soon his feet would touch down on the site where King David’s son
Solomon built the first Temple, nearly three thousand years ago. The Babylonians, of course, had destroyed the Temple in 586 B.C.E. But that didn’t stop the Jews from rebuilding it in the exact same location. Construction of the second Jewish Temple began in 520 B.C.E. and came to completion around 20 B.C.E., during the reign of King Herod. The Romans, of course, had destroyed it in the year 70and the city of Jerusalem as wellburning the Temple to the ground and not leaving one stone standing upon another. For two thousand years, the Jews had been scattered around the globe, without a home and without a Temple. But no more. Now they were home. And it was time to rebuild.
This, he told himself, was Jewish ground. This was holy groundthe most coveted thirty-five acres on the face of the earth. And the most dangerous.
Every few years, ever since the Israelis seized control of the Temple Mount during the Six Day War of 1967, teams of Jewish zealots, worried that the Israeli government might be persuaded to give away part or all of the Old City of Jerusalem in the name of peace, had tried to seize the Temple Mount and blow up the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. On March 10, 1983, twenty-nine Jewish terrorists armed with machine guns, grenades, and dynamite scaled the walls of the Temple Mount, stormed the grounds, and were stopped by security forces only at the very last minute. One of the most dramatic attempts occurred in January of 1984 when a team armed with hundreds of pounds of dynamite, grenades, and mortars again scaled the walls, sprinted for the Dome, and very nearly accomplished their mission.
Much to the disappointment of Akiva Ben David and his followers, however, the zealots were spotted by Arab guards and an alert unit of the Israeli Border Patrol. They were captured, arrested, and eventually convicted in an Israeli court of law. The government tried to make an example of them, hoping to send the message that any attacks on Muslim holy sites would be dealt with severely. It was a pretty simple calculation, after all. Someday, some militant Jewish sect might actually succeed in blowing up the Dome of the Rock in the name of building the Third Jewish Temple. But in so doing, they would be unleashing the wrath of a billion Muslims and two dozen heavily armed Islamic nations, not to mention the entire world.
It was a volatile situation, to say the least. The head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence service, once sent a confidential letter to Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak warning that an extremist strike on the Temple Mount would likely lead to an “all-out war” and “unleash destructive forces that would imperil Israel’s existence.” It was a letter passed along to every Israeli prime minister since.
Nothing held the power to trigger an apocalyptic holy war so quickly as failing to protect those thirty-five sacred acres. It was no wonder, therefore,
that the Israeli police forces vowed to protect the Temple Mount at all costs.
But tonight, Akiva Ben David had found a weak link in the armor.
One of the phones on Ziegler’s desk rang.
Startled, Bennett grabbed the phone. Maybe it was his mother. It wasn’t.
“Jonathan, it’s me, Dmitri,” whispered an exhausted Galishnikov.
“What’s going on?”
He could hear Sa’id in the background, talking heatedly on another phone.
“You need to hear it straight from Ibrahim. Only him. How fast can you be
here”
“I don’t know. I just woke upI need a shower, a shave”
“No, no, you don’t understandwe need you here in five minutesno more.”
The line went dead. Bennett wasn’t used to taking orders from Dmitri
Galishnikov. But this time he didn’t seem to have a choice.
TWENTY FIVE
The first bullet sliced past his head.
It missed by inches. A second shot ripped through his parachutethen a third, and a fourth. The ground was coming up fast. He had to concentrate. He had to choose.
“Shlomo Six under fire, we’re under firemove, nowgo, go, go.”
Akiva Ben David was shouting as he twisted his head from side to side, trying to see who was firing at him through sheets of rain. He only had a few seconds before he smashed down on the stones below. If he wasn’t dead by the time he hit the ground, he’d soon be a sitting duck for surecovered with a parachute, tangled up in cords, exposed and out in the open, a good thirty or forty yards from his target.
He cursed his ground units for not being in position already. He cursed himself for having trained them so poorly. Fools. How badly did they want this to happen? They knew what was at stake. Weren ‘t they ready to make history? Where the heck were they?
Then he saw the shooter. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a guard sprinting from the northeast corner. Ben David lifted his M-4 carbine, aimed the laser scope, centered the red dot, and squeezed off two rounds, one after the other. The guard dropped instantly, landing in a pool of his own blood.
Now the entire Temple Mount erupted in a ferocious gun battle. Everyone was shooting. Tracer bullets whizzed back and forth across through the cold night air. Security horns began blasting. Sirens could be heard approaching from every direction. The entire operation was a matter of split-second timing. Ben David figured they had less than fifteen minutes, and that was his
best-case scenario. In that time they had to take out the guards already sta tioned on the Mount, hold off the reinforcements, and rig the two buildings for detonation.
He’d played the scene over and over again in his mind’s eye for years, and vivid images now flashed before him. He could see the stunning Byzantine architecture of the Dome, built by Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik in the year 692. He could see the somber black dome of Al Aqsa, started by Abdul Malik ibn Marwan, completed by his son Al-Walid in the year 705, recon structed in the year 1035, then refurbished during the Second World War. He could see the backpacks stuffed with C4 explosives positioned strategically in and around the structures.
He could see, too, the massive, simultaneous explosionsthe cataclysmic fireballsthe raging flames and towers of smoke that would be seen for miles, all of which would be captured by at least a dozen security cameras, possibly more.
They would catch the world off guard. No one was expecting this. No one had predicted this. The attacks would dominate international headlines for weeks. The world would be talking about them. Who were they?
Why had they chosen to strike? And why now? Was the attack related to the war in the territories? Was it payback for the suicide bombings? Would the Tem ple really be rebuilt? Was it a sign of the last days, the fulfillment of ancient prophecies?
Soon enough, the Israelis would have to release the videotapes made by all those security cameras. The international media would demand it. And
the Israeli Supreme Court would eventually require it. Then, finally, the world would see exactly how Ben David and the Temple Mount Battalion had done itthe first airborne attack on the Temple Mount in historyall to right a wrong and unleash a movement of religious Jews ready to seize their destiny.
Three police officers burst out of a guardhouse. Ben David saw them immediately. He raised his weapon, fired two bursts, and saw two of the men drop instantly to the ground. The third dove into a grove of trees and began returning fire. Three of his fellow commandos were about to touch down. One, if he were lucky, might even land dead center on the golden Dome. Perhaps he’d be able to attach explosives far above where anyone on
the ground could easily get at them. They’d thought about that. They’d trained for it. But Shlomo Five might actually get to do it. More machine-gun fire. Two more teammates were already on the ground, about forty yards away. They were unhooking their parachutes and about to sprint to the octagonal base of the Dome, spectacularly adorned with brilliant
blue hand-painted tiles. But again Ben David cursed to himself. Where were the ground units? Why weren’t they providing cover fire?
A scream suddenly exploded through his earpiece.
“I’m hit, I’m hit.”
In all the gunfire and noise, Ben David couldn’t make out the voice. He didn’t have time to figure it out either. For a moment, he let go of the M-4 strapped to him, pulled down on the cords dangling close by to slow his landing, bent his knees and touched down perfectly, just as he’d mastered it in months of training in the western deserts of the United States. He dove to the ground for cover and began rolling right.
Bullets were slicing the night sky above him. He needed to get the chute off quickly and get moving. He was now exposed on the southeastern corner of the massive plateau. The Mount of Olives was behind him. The Al Aqsa mosque loomed dead ahead. Over his headset he could hear more screams. The crackle of gunfire was almost deafening. But somehow the cries of a dying mana friend and comrade-in-armscut through it all.
Bennett showered and threw on jeans, a white T-shirt, and black sweater.
They were Ziegler’s. He’d give them back later. Seven minutes later, he was punching in Tariq’s code number and opening the door. Galishnikov and Sa’id were sitting on the couches near the TV, huddled around the coffee table with McCoy and deep in discussion. All three looked up to greet him, but it was McCoy who immediately noticed how pale Bennett looked.
“You OK?” she asked. “You don’t look so good.”
“It’s nothing, I’ll be fine,” Bennett lied, not sure where to begin.
“Jon, obviously you’re not fine, what’s the”
“I said I’m fine,” Bennett shot back, more abruptly than he meant.
He didn’t mean to be harsh, certainly not with her, and he was surprised by the edge in his voice. But he didn’t have time to process all the thoughts and emotions roiling under the surface. He felt lazy for sleeping so long and guilty for being out of the loop. He wanted time alone to talk to Erin. But for now his top priority was to get back up to speed as fast as possible.
“Erin, I’m sorry. I really am. It’s justI’m sorry.”
They were all punchy. They were all under a lot of stress. Certainly McCoy was, and she hadn’t gotten anywhere near the sleep Bennett just had. She could feel herself ready to fire back. But she held her tongue. Now was not the time to get into a fight. Too much was at stake. She nodded, accepted his apology, then looked over at Ibrahim Sa’id, the man whose news was about to change everything.
Marsha Kirkpatrick was suffering from sleep deprivation.
So was the rest of her team. Now they were tracking a series of suicide
bomber attacks throughout Israel. The carnage began with the bus bomber
and then the “Walkman Bomber” at Tel Aviv University. But those weren’t
isolated incidents. Another bombing ripped through a nightclub along the
beach in Tel Aviv. Ten minutes later, another incinerated a bus stop in the
French Hill section of Jerusalem. Eight minutes later, a bomber attacked
the bus terminal in Haifa.
Prime Minister Doron and his Security Cabinet were meeting behind
closed doors to discuss their options. They knew full well the risks of launch ing an all-out invasion of the West Bank and Gaza, and they knew the
American president had asked them to stand down just the previous day. But if a Palestinian civil war was going to mean a new wave of attacks against
innocent Israelis, the prime minister and his government could not afford to
sit on their hands, no matter what the international repercussions might be.
That was the message Doron had delivered to Kirkpatrick by phone ten
minutes earlier, just before going back into the emergency session with his top advisors. It was a message he needed to have passed on to President
MacPherson, immediately.
Kirkpatrick promised to get back to him quickly, but asked that Israel do
nothing until the two leaders could speak. Doron agreed, but he made it
clearthey were running out of time.
“Mr. President, I’m so sorry to wake you. It’s Marsha in the Situation
Room.”
“What… what’s going on?” MacPherson stammered, barely conscious.
“We need to meet. All of us.”
He tried to focus on the small digital clock beside him.
“Right now? The whole team?”
It was just after eleven at night. He’d been asleep less than two hours.
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
Kirkpatrick knew the president was still recovering from his own life—
threatening injuries sustained during the terrorist attacks against him in Den ver just before Thanksgiving. She knew the immense pressures he faced and
how badly he needed some rest. She also knew that the White House doctor
had insisted that MacPherson break away from the almost nonstop NSC
meetings just a few hours ago to get some sleep and try to regain his strength,
But the president also knew that his National Security Advisor wouldn’t
callwouldn’t insist on a meetingif it wasn’t absolutely critical. “OK, gather the team. I’ll be right down.”
Ben David pressed himself to the ground.
He flipped on his night-vision goggles and scanned the courtyard. Two of his men were sprinting for the Dome. He could see they had bags of C4. They were firing off bursts of machine-gun fire on the run. An Israeli opened fire from behind a stone. Ben David could clearly see the muzzle flashes. He took aim, and squeezed off six rounds. The flashes stopped, but not for long. By his calculations, they now had less than three minutes before Israeli commandos would swarm in from every direction.
“Shlomo One, this is Shlomo Sixwhere are you guys?”
It was chaos on the radios. Gunfire, men screaminghe’d never heard it this bad. His men were rattled. The Arab guards and Israeli first responders were putting up a far tougher fight than they’d expected.
“I’m at Mughrabi Gatewe’re under heavy fire. We’ve got two KIA. Repeat, two KIA. Taking sniper fire from one of the minarets. Shlomo Nine and Eleven are badly wounded. Don’t think they’re going to make it. Shlomo Ten and Twelve are pinned down in a gun battle on the North Portico. “
Ben David’s mind reeled. They were on the cusp of victory, the cutting edge of history. They were so close. They couldn’t fail now. His people had trained so long and so hard for thi
s operation. They knew the stakes, and he wanted desperately to believe they were uniquely chosen for this moment in history, in Jewish history.
They all knew that in the “last days” the State of Israel would be reborn after two thousand years of desolation and exile, and that Jerusalem would someday, somehowonce again become the eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish people. They knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Holy One of Israel would supernaturally draw the Jewish people back to the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And they knew, too, that the day of Israel’s eternal redemption was drawing near.
They knew because he’d taught them day after day, verse after verse. The “Day of the Lord” was almost here. Events were already in motion. The Divine Clock was already ticking. Akiva Ben David could still hear the scratchy, crackling voice of Israeli general Mordechai Gur on his parents’ transistor radio in June of 1967, announcing for all the world to hear, “The Temple Mount is in our hands.” It was a moment he would never forget, a moment of electrification, a moment of instant identification with five thousand years of Jewish history. It was as though in a split second, something inside of Ben Davidsomething deep inside millions of Jews worldwide clicked on, a palpable sense that he was part of something larger than himself, something transcendent and real.
Ben David’s family was not religious at the time. They were all agnostic, secular Jews. Living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in a world of wealth and sophistication, they barely even thought of themselves as Jews. They were Americans. They were modern, hip, cosmopolitan, not a bunch of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals trying to find the source of fire and the meaning of life. But something happened. Israeli forces were standing on Mount Moriah.
For the first time in thousands of years, Jews were standing where Abraham once stood, where he nearly sacrificed his only son, Isaac, until God intervened and provided a ram as a substitute. Moreover, these Jews weren’t simply standing at the epicenter of monotheistic faith. They now controlled it foreverthe Temple Mount, the site of two great Temples, and a third yet to be built.