Sacred Stone

Stone pointed to a monitor that showed a camera image from the bow of the Oregon.The large double-rotor helicopter was just touching down on the sand in the distance.

“I’m going to the conference room,” Hanley said.

He sprinted down the hall and opened the door of the conference room and burst inside. “Okay, people,” he said, “the boats are ready and we have a chopper onshore to fly you the rest of the way. Is everyone up-to-date on what we’re doing?”

The ten people all nodded.

“Mr. Seng is in charge,” Hanley said. “Good luck.”

The team began to filter out of the conference room, each holding a large cardboard box. Hanley stopped Nixon as he passed.

“Do you have the rope ladder?” he asked.

“It’s here in this box on the top.”

“Okay then,” Hanley said, following him down the hall to the rear deck.

Hanley watched from the rear deck until the two boats were loaded and had set off the short distance toward shore. Then he walked back inside to check on Murphy and Lincoln.

“WHERE AM I going to drop you off?” Adams asked.

“We’re going right to the Dome of the Rock,” Cabrillo said. “By then the team from the Oregonwill have arrived.”

“Then what?”

“Let me explain,” Cabrillo said.

A couple of minutes later, when Cabrillo had finished, Adams whistled lightly. “With all the high-tech toys the Corporation has in its arsenal it’s come down to this.”

“It’s like a high-wire act in the circus,” Cabrillo agreed.

THE TEAM FROM the Oregonclimbed off the helicopter on a closed street near the Dome of the Rock. Israeli tanks blocked all the side streets nearby and Israeli army platoons were sweeping the streets and the mosque of people. Crowds of Palestinians, not knowing their revered shrine was in jeopardy, began to protest and the Israelis had to keep them back with water ca

Seng led the team to the entrance to the mosque. “Spread out and take your positions,” he told his team. “Kevin, make sure the rope is in place first.”

“Yes, sir,” Nixon said as the team trotted off into the mosque courtyard.

Seng turned to an Israeli army officer standing nearby.

“I need hoses attached to the fire hydrants on all sides and then run inside the mosque,” Seng said. “Make sure we have enough hose to reach anywhere inside we want.”

The officer began shouting orders.

HICKMAN FLEW ALONG over the Mediterranean. He was filled with a sense of a life at an end. And the life had been a failure. All his riches, the fame, and successes meant nothing in the end. The one thing he had wished to do right he had butchered. He had never been a good father to his son. Preoccupied with grandiosity and infused with a self-importance that allowed no other human being to come too close, he was never able to allow the love of a child for a parent to penetrate his shell.

Only Chris Hunt’s death had caused it to open.

For Hickman the stages of grief had stopped at cold hatred. Anger toward a religion that fostered fanatics who killed without qualms, an anger toward the symbols they cherished.

Soon those symbols would be gone—and while Hickman would only see the first fruits of his labors, he knew he would die happy in the knowledge that the rest would soon crumble.

It would not be long now, he thought, as he glimpsed the first sight of the coastline.

Not long until Islam was ripped asunder.

NIXON AND GANNON unpacked a rope ladder from a cardboard box and quickly stretched it out on the courtyard alongside the Dome of the Rock. There was no way it would be long enough.

“I’ll open the backup,” Nixon said, cutting the tape on a second box with his knife and pulling out the second coiled ladder. “How are you with knots?”

“I own a sailboat,” Ga

Ga

Near the entrance by the Silsila Minaret, Seng watched as the Israelis pulled hoses through the opening. “Leave them there,” Seng ordered. “My people will take them the rest of the way inside.”

Walking to all four sides of the massive mosque complex, Seng repeated the instructions. Soon, teams from the Corporation began pulling the hoses inside.

“Okay,” Ga

“Now we need to start at this side and carefully coil it up,” Nixon said.

With Ga

MURPHY STARED AT the trajectory lines on the computer screen, then turned and stared at Hanley. “Is there any budget on this little party?” he asked.

“None,” Hanley said.

“Good,” Murphy said, “because this little barrage is close to a million if you want guaranteed success.”

“Go big or go home,” Hanley said.

Lincoln was staring at a track line that showed the inbound DC-3. “Let’s hope this course remains the same,” Lincoln said, “and that what you hypothesize is true.”

“From the angle of his camera,” Hanley said, “it seems like he’s going to come in low for the drop. That would make the destruction of Abraham’s Stone more visible. If he dropped it from up high, he’d need to have the camera lens set on wide-angle and it wouldn’t give the picture much detail when it shattered.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Lincoln said. “I’m worried about the second pass.”

“To make sure the DC-3 destroys the Dome,” Hanley said, “he has to know he’ll need to climb up several thousand feet then dive down.”

“We entered the climb rate of the DC-3 into the computer,” Murphy said, “and set the parameters for two thousand feet extra elevation. That takes the flight out here.”

Murphy pointed to the monitor.

“Perfect,” Hanley said.

Murphy smiled. “Me and Lincoln think so too.”

HICKMAN WAS STILL nine minutes away when Adams passed over the courtyard surrounding the Dome of the Rock and lowered the helicopter down to where Nixon was waving. Nixon raced under the spi

“Slow and steady,” Cabrillo said through the headset.

“That’s my middle name,” Adams said confidently.

Carefully lifting off, Adams manipulated the controls with all the finesse of a surgeon. Bringing the Robinson up slowly, Adams crabbed sideways as Cabrillo played out the rope. A thin web began to form over the Dome. Reaching the far side, Adams hovered a few feet off the ground and Cabrillo dropped the end of the ladder. Meadows and Ross each took a side and pulled out the slack, then stood there holding the ladder taut. Nets hung down from the rope ladders.

“Now if you could drop me off on the top,” Cabrillo said, smiling across the cockpit, “I’d appreciate it.”

Adams lifted up slowly and carefully came close to the Dome. Cabrillo opened the door cautiously and stepped out onto the skid. Then with a little wave at Adams, he stepped across and grabbed the rope rung of the ladder.

Adams carefully backed away then landed on a street nearby.

Cabrillo was atop the Dome. He stared up at a large silver plane approaching in the distance. He pulled the nets as tight as he could.

“GO, GO, GO, go, go,” Seng shouted to the seven members of the team.

They quickly began to spread the powder across the courtyard like farmers of old sowing seeds. Once they were finished, they ran to the fire hoses and waited for the orders to spray.

Nixon and Ga