Had I missed my chance?
Captain Rajoub told me to follow him closely and not to say a word, and then he set across the plaza at a rather brisk pace. I did what he said, amazed that I was really on the Temple Mount for the first time in my life.
Rising before me was the stunningly beautiful Dome of the Rock. Built in the seventh century and completed around AD 691, it was larger than I’d expected, rising several stories from its stone base. The octagonal structure of the building, covered in exquisite blue-and-green tile work with Islamic decor, was spectacular. And of course the expansive wooden dome, gilded in pure gold, was even more spectacular—and very nearly blinding as well—gleaming majestically in the noonday sun.
Captain Rajoub and I turned the corner and headed for the front door of the mosque, on the south side of the complex, but there was still no sign of the king. I saw several soldiers patrolling the grounds, but not the royal entourage. I was tempted to despair, I’ll admit, but I wouldn’t allow it—not yet, anyway. Rather, I started asking questions.
“Excuse me,” I said in Arabic to a pair of soldiers walking nearby. “I was told to wait here to conduct an interview with His Majesty. Have I missed him?”
Both men looked at me suspiciously, but the captain assured them my story was true and showed them the telegram. What’s more, the captain promised them he would stay at my side and make certain I caused no trouble. They glanced at the pistol strapped to the captain’s belt and then looked back at me, apparently satisfied.
“No, you have not missed him,” the older one replied in reasonably good English. “His Majesty is on his way. Wait over there.”
“Shukran,” I replied, thanking the men, amazed at my good fortune.
I did my best to look calm, but my heart was racing. The angels must be looking out for me, I thought. Somebody up there was.
Perhaps there really was something mystical, even magical, about this spot, I mused while I waited. It was here, the Jews said, that the biblical Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac, until God intervened and saved the day. It was here—on this very spot—that not one but two Jewish Temples had once stood, and where the Jews believed a third Temple would one day be built. That certainly seemed implausible, given that the Jews hadn’t controlled the Old City, let alone the Temple Mount, for more than two thousand years.
Besides, the Moslems would never allow the Jews to build here. After all, they too considered the site sacred. They believed that Muhammad, their Prophet, had arrived here after taking his famed night flight from Mecca on a winged, white horselike creature. Furthermore, they claimed that from this very spot he had been taken up to heaven.
The Christians, meanwhile, believed that not far from here Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified, buried, and resurrected—and that he would return to this very spot at the End of Days to judge his enemies and set up his eternal Kingdom.
I had no idea who was right. I’d never been religious growing up—never cared much about it, I must say. But if there was a God, he had certainly shown me kindness this day.
While I waited, and the soldiers eyed me warily, I tried to get my thoughts in order. What was I supposed to do first when I met the king? Did one shake his hand? Bow down? Kiss his feet? I suddenly realized that I had no idea what the protocol was. No one had told me, and foolishly I had not asked.
I brushed such thoughts aside. There was no reason to be anxious. This man had agreed to meet with me because I had something he wanted: a worldwide audience. He and his advisors had obviously vetted me. They surely had read my dispatches from the region. They must have concluded I was a fair-minded reporter who strove for balance and accuracy. More important, His Majesty clearly had something he wanted to say through me to my readers, to the nations, and to the men who ruled them. But what?
There was something about this particular monarch that intrigued me a great deal. On the face of it, one could argue that King Abdullah didn’t matter much to my American readers or even to most Europeans. His kingdom possessed no oil, no gold, no silver, no diamonds or precious minerals. It had no real natural resources to speak of at all, in fact. It had no heavy industry, nothing of substance to export. It had far too little water and precious little arable land. The king ran a tiny, tribal nation of bedouin Arabs who had not exactly distinguished themselves by splitting the atom or curing polio or inventing the wireless or creating the world’s tastiest breakfast cereal. This wasn’t a nation abounding in Pulitzers or Nobel Prizes. If Jordan was known for anything, it was instability and shifting sands. The nation had gained its independence amid the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. It was first governed by a man who wasn’t even born there but rather in Mecca. Then it was overrun in 1948 by hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, most of whom had fled the war with the new state of Israel, though some had been driven out of their homes by the Jews. The Palestinians called the war “al-Nakbah”—the “catastrophe,” the “disaster”—and they were deeply embittered. How loyal were they to the current king? I couldn’t say. But my sources told me officials in London worried about the stability of the throne in Amman. So did officials in Washington.
So beyond a few government officials, who in the U.S. or Great Britain really cared about the fate of Jordan? The AP didn’t even have a bureau in Amman. Neither did UPI or the New York Times or Reuters. Cairo? Yes. Jerusalem? Of course. Damascus and Beirut? Without question. But not Amman. Didn’t that say something? Nevertheless, there was a story here—I was sure of it—and Abdullah was the key.
Suddenly I saw him.
He was approaching from the east, through a grove of trees and an ancient stone archway, flanked by a handful of bodyguards in plainclothes—I counted six—several aides, and a dozen uniformed soldiers, each carrying a submachine gun. The king was dressed entirely in white cotton robes that shimmered in the sunshine, and he wore a white turban. He appeared to be bald, but he sported a well-groomed mustache that connected with a full goatee. As he drew closer, he struck me as more diminutive in stature than I had expected, no more than four or five inches over five feet, if that. But he strode purposefully across the warm stones with a regal bearing, commanding and self-assured. His skin was the color of hot tea with a splash of milk. His eyes were bright and intense, though they never looked at me.
Several minutes behind schedule now, the king headed straight for the ancient mosque. The captain beside me stood ramrod straight and saluted, as did the soldiers nearby. Then I noticed a young boy, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, dressed in full ceremonial military garb, walking a stride or two behind the king.
“Who is that?” I whispered to the captain.
“That is Prince Hussein, of course,” the captain whispered back.
“The king’s grandson?” I asked, startled because no one had told me he was coming.
“Who else?”
As the entourage rushed past me, I feared the deal was off and the interview had been forgotten or ignored. But then one of the king’s aides caught my eye and motioned me to follow. I quickly complied. As we headed down a flight of steps toward a small crowd of worshipers and well-wishers, the aide moved to my side.
“Mr. Collins, I am Mansour, His Majesty’s spokesman,” he said in a hushed tone as we walked. “Please forgive us for being late.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, yes—well, it is now,” he said. “I confess we had a bit of a scare as the motorcade came over the Mount of Olives. There was a demonstration of some kind—a roadblock, quite unexpected. And as you can imagine, our security detail is on heightened alert.”
“Yes, of course,” I said, trying to keep pace with him and the others.
“At any rate, our security men were worried for a few minutes, but it all worked out. Everything is all right. I think we should have a good day, and then we will find a time for you and His Majesty to sit down and speak together. He is looking forward to
meeting you, and he has confided in me his desire to give you quite a . . . scoop, I believe you call it.”
I was elated. This was really happening. Here I was, being escorted into the Al-Aksa Mosque, the third-holiest site in the Islamic religion, right behind one of the descendants of the prophet Muhammad, and I was soon going to speak with him as well.
Ever since my days as a young boy at Phillips Academy in Andover, I’d wanted to be a news correspondent in foreign lands. I cannot explain the obsession. There was no obvious rationale. My classmates certainly did not aspire to be journalists. They wanted to be baseball players and bankers, congressmen and corporate titans. There were no journalists in my family. My father was a tax attorney. My mother was a piano teacher. My father was a good man, kind and generous, but he never traveled outside the United States. He didn’t even own a passport. Yet since childhood I harbored an insatiable desire to explore deep jungles and vast deserts and exotic locales of all kinds. My father couldn’t stand meeting new people; I lived for it. At Princeton, my father immersed himself in numbers. At Columbia, I immersed myself in history. My father read the King James Bible and the Wall Street Journal. I’d had my own subscriptions to Life magazine and National Geographic since I was eight years old and used to sneak a small transistor radio into my bed at night to listen to the reports of Edward R. Murrow. And here I was, in Jerusalem—at the Dome of the Rock itself—in the presence of royalty.
A thousand questions flooded my head. Where would I possibly begin? Here was a man who was already eighteen years old when the twentieth century began. Here was a member of the Great Hashemite Dynasty, the son of Sharif Hussein bin Ali, onetime ruler of Mecca of the Hejaz. This king had been schooled in Istanbul at the peak of Turkish power. Later, he had gone back to Arabia and emerged as the esteemed commander of the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottomans. He had been personal friends with T. E. Lawrence, the legendary British colonel who became known as Lawrence of Arabia. Together they had taken the region by storm, organizing the Arab tribes to fight against the Ottomans. And when it was all over and the dust had settled, the Turkish empire had collapsed, and the Hashemite family had been amply rewarded. The Brits carved up the remains of the Turkish fiefdom and gave the Hashemites three territorial gifts: the desert region known as the Arabian Peninsula, the fertile Mesopotamian region that became known as Iraq, and the land on the eastern side of the Jordan River that became known as Transjordan. It was over this last swath of territory that Abdullah now ruled, and as the door to the mosque was opened for us, it finally dawned on me which question I had to ask him first.
5
As the king neared the doorway of the mosque, I saw a flicker of movement.
It happened fast, but it seemed odd—out of place.
I looked to my right and saw a man bolt from behind the door and jump from the shadows. He pulled out a small pistol. He aimed it at the monarch’s head. The guards didn’t react at first. Neither did the king. They were all too stunned, as was I. Then I saw a flash from the barrel and heard the boom—then another—and a third.
Horrified, I watched the entire scene unfold before me as if in slow motion. The king jerked back again and again and finally collapsed to the ground. I turned and saw his grandson lunge forward without a second thought, attacking the shooter. The two men struggled for a moment before I heard another shot. And then the young prince crumpled to the ground, writhing in pain.
A flutter of birds raced for the sky. People screamed and ran for cover. But the shooting didn’t stop. For several seconds, the man kept firing, and then he began to run. He was coming straight for me. The king’s guards pivoted now and began to return fire. I dropped to the ground and covered my head and face. The Temple Mount had erupted in gunfire at this point. Bullets were whizzing past my head and I was certain these moments were my last.
But a split second later, the assailant crashed to the ground not far from where I was. I didn’t know if he had been shot or had simply stumbled. Without thinking, I sprang up and jumped on him. Before I realized what I was doing, I was beating him about the face and head. Soon I could see that he had been shot in multiple places. He was bleeding profusely. But he was not dead—not yet—and I was determined he was not going to run. For the moment I had forgotten I was a journalist. I had forgotten, too, that I was now in the line of fire. I was enraged, and my fists kept raining blows down upon him.
Seconds later, soldiers surrounded us, guns locked and loaded and pointed at both of us.
“Stop—don’t move any farther!” they shouted.
Immediately I stopped beating the man. The soldiers yelled at me to put my hands above my head, where they could see them. Then they ordered me to slowly get off the man and step away. I did as I was told and saw two of the king’s personal guards running toward us. Before I realized what was happening, someone behind me smashed the back of my skull with what must have been the butt of a rifle. I collapsed to the ground, not far from the assailant. I could feel blood running down the back of my scalp. My eyes were tearing, and I was in intense pain. But I did not black out, and as I lay there, I watched a soldier scoop up the still-smoking pistol lying by the assassin’s side. They checked the man for more weapons but found none. Then they checked his pulse.
“He’s done for,” one of the guards said.
I could hardly believe it was true. Dead? Already? But who was he? What was his story? Who had sent him? I was seething. This man had tried to kill a king. He had tried to kill a prince. He had done so on sacred, holy ground. Why had he done it? I wanted answers.
A soldier grabbed my arms and tied them behind my back. Another took my satchel and patted me down for weapons. As he did, one of the king’s guards was rifling through the assassin’s identification papers and personal effects.
“What’s his name?” his partner asked.
“Mustafa,” the guard replied. “Mustafa Shukri Ashshu.”
“He’s not a Jew?”
“No, his papers say he’s a Moslem, sir, a Palestinian.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“I am, sir.”
“Are they forgeries?”
“No, they look real.”
“Let me see them.”
The guard handed the papers over to his partner.
“They are real,” he said in disbelief. “He lives right here in the Old City. He’s a tailor.”
“How old was he, sir?”
“Just twenty-one.”
The older guard let fly a slew of obscenities.
“How in the world did he get by all of us?” he fumed.
That, of course, was a question the papers did not shed light on.
Suddenly the two bodyguards turned to me.
“Who are you?” they shouted. “Where did you come from?”
Their questions came fast and furious. I explained I was an American, there to meet the king. They pressed for details, and that’s when Captain Rajoub came running up, gun in one hand, the telegram from the palace in the other. The guards read the telegram, checked my papers, and conferred with one another. Rajoub confirmed I was telling the truth, and finally the men untied me, pulled me to my feet, gave me my bag and hat, and ordered me to leave.
“But I was expecting to interview His Majesty,” I protested.
“You must go. There is nothing for you here,” the older guard said. “His Majesty is dead.”
I just stared at him, unable to speak. The king was dead? They were confirming this? I don’t know why I thought it would be otherwise. I had seen the entire event unfold before me. His Majesty had been shot in the face and chest at point-blank range. But with all that had just happened, it had not yet occurred to me he might actually be dead. Call it denial. Call it the fog of war. Or perhaps I simply still wanted the interview I had been promised. I’d had an appointment. I had made it on time. He was the one who was late. I had been there. I was ready. I had my questions. And now I was being ordered to leave.
A
chill rippled through my body. Despite the intense noontime heat, I suddenly felt cold. I was lonely and intensely tired. I knew I was in danger of slipping into shock, and there was a part of me that wanted to succumb to it. I could hear the sirens. Within minutes, doctors and nurses would be arriving. They would take care of me. They would whisk me off to a hospital and pump my body full of drugs and I could sleep and try to forget all this had ever happened. But there was another part of me that forced my legs to straighten, forced myself to stand, and before I realized what was happening, I was walking straight toward the lifeless body of the king, my right hand instinctively pulling a notebook out of the leather satchel hanging from my shoulder.
A crowd of guards and soldiers had surrounded His Majesty, guns drawn, as the young Prince Hussein, weeping over his grandfather, knelt at his side. But it was instantly clear the soldier had been right. The king was dead. His skin was white. His eyes were closed. His white cotton robes were smeared and stained with blood.
I turned to a Moslem cleric of some sort standing nearby, his mouth agape, tears in his eyes, saying nothing.
“Do you have a telephone?” I asked in Arabic, handing him my damp handkerchief. I was surprised by how calm my voice sounded.
“No, no, not in the mosque,” he stuttered, accepting my gift and wiping his eyes. “But there is one in the office.”
“I must use it to call the palace,” I said, choosing for the moment not to identify myself.
“Yes, of course,” he said, obviously not thinking about my request clearly or questioning who I was.
As if in a stupor, he led me to a squat outbuilding nearby that housed the administrative offices of the Waqf, the religious institution charged with protecting and maintaining the Islamic holy sites on the Temple Mount. Fumbling with his keys, the cleric opened the door. He led me to his office, showed me the telephone, and explained how to get an operator to place the call to Amman. Then he left me in peace and shut the door behind him.