Crescent Dawn

“We are close,” he whispered.

Flicking on his own penlight, he led them higher up the hill, stopping finally beside a pair of desert shrubs. Panting for breath, Maria noticed that both plants were actually dead, their roots wedged into a small mound of stones. Behind the dead shrubs was an orderly stack of limestone rocks.

“It is behind here,” al-Khatib said, waving his light toward the plants. He turned and nervously sca

“There are occasional security patrols in this area,” he cautioned.

Maria pulled out the pair of night vision goggles and carefully sca

“There is no one about,” she confirmed.

Al-Khatib nodded, then knelt down and began tossing the stones aside. When a small opening appeared, Maria ordered the Ja

“The aqueduct was actually quite small,” he said to Maria, circling his hands together in a tight diameter. “A good deal of digging was required to enlarge it.”

Maria looked at the man without pity as she considered the original construction history. The aqueduct opening found on the hillside was simply an outlet, she knew, for a much more elaborate engineering feat. Nearly two thousand years before, Roman engineers under Herod had constructed a series of aqueducts from the distant hills of Hebron, which brought fresh water to the town and the fortress of Antonia, built on the site of the Temple Mount. The aqueducts were all constructed by hand, by laborers much more fit than the pudgy Palestinian who stood before her, Maria thought.

She held her flashlight to the mouth of the passage and flicked it on. The light revealed a narrow tu

“You have done nice work,” she told him, turning off her light. Then she took the pickax from the Janissary and handed it to the Palestinian.

“I need you to dig another two or three feet,” she demanded.

The well-paid artifact hunter readily nodded, hoping for an additional bonus while curious as to the task at hand. Taking a lantern from the Janissary, he squeezed to the rear of the tu

As Maria stood watch near the entrance, al-Khatib labored steadily, swinging the ax for nearly twenty minutes straight and carving away several more feet of soil. Breathing hard, he laid a heavy stroke into the hillside, feeling an odd lightness through the ax’s handle. Yanking back the ax, he realized he had punched a hole through to an open space behind the wall of dirt. The startled Palestinian stopped and held up the lantern. He could see only a black expanse of emptiness through the small hole but marveled at the rush of cool air that flowed through it.

With renewed energy, he furiously attacked the barrier, quickly expanding the hole to man-size. Pushing the debris aside, he barreled through the opening with the lantern, stumbling into a wide, high-ceiling cavern.

“Praise be Allah,” he gasped, tossing the pickax aside as he gazed at the far walls.

They reflected alabaster white because of the electric lantern and revealed even rows of chisel marks. Al-Khatib’s trained eye recognized the rock as limestone, showing where large blocks had been cut and removed by hand.

“A quarry, like Zedekiah’s Cave,” he blurted as Maria and the Janissary entered with another pair of lanterns.

“Yes,” Maria replied. “Only this one was lost to history when the Second Temple was destroyed.”

Beneath the walls of the Old City, less than a mile away, was another vast cave, carved by slaves who chiseled limestone for Herod the Great’s many engineering projects. Its name was acquired from the last king of Judah, Zedekiah, who reportedly used it as a hiding place to escape the armies of Nebuchadnezzar.

With the added light, the trio could see that the quarry dispersed into multiple passages, extending like fingers of a hand into the darkness. Al-Khatib eyed a large main tu

“This must extend well under the Haram ash-Sharif,” he said uneasily.

Maria nodded in reply.

“And the Dome of the Rock?” he asked, tension apparent in his voice.

“The Dome’s sacred stone is itself situated on bedrock, but the main tu

The Palestinian’s face turned pale as his initial excitement turned to trepidation.

“I do not wish to tread beneath the site of the sacred rock,” he said solemnly.

“That will not be necessary,” Maria replied. “Your work is finished.”

As she spoke, she reached into her pack and retrieved a compact Beretta pistol, which she leveled at the startled Palestinian.

Unlike her brother, Maria felt no rush or thrill at taking the life of another. In fact, she felt nothing at all. Committing murder was the emotional equivalent of changing her socks or eating a bowl of soup. They were at different ends of the sociopathic scale, products of abusive childhoods and genetic homogeneity, but they had both ended up as remorseless killers.

The pistol barked twice, sending a pair of slugs into al-Khatib’s chest as the echo of the shots reverberated loudly through the chamber. The relic hunter dropped to his knees, a momentary look of incomprehension in his eyes, before he fell over dead. Maria calmly walked over and removed the envelope of banknotes from his pocket and stuffed it in her pack. Then she glanced at her watch.

“We have less than an hour before the explosives are to be delivered,” she said to the Janissary. “Let us survey the quarry and select our sites.”

Stepping over the dead man’s body, she retrieved his lantern, then quickly scurried off into the dark.

45

It was nearing ten o’clock when Sophie pulled into a small dirt lot outside the northeast wall of the Old City and parked behind a closed dress shop. Across the road and down a short hill was the northern tip of the Muslim cemetery, which meandered south across a widening gulch as part of the Kidron Valley headlands. Shutting off the ignition, she turned to Dirk, who gazed at her from the passenger seat.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked. “Most night operations turn out to be a boring exercise in futility.”

Dirk smiled as he nodded his head. “I’m not one to waste the chance for a stroll in the moonlight with a beautiful girl.”

Sophie suppressed a laugh. “You’re the only one I know who could find something romantic in a stakeout.”

But she had to admit to similar feelings. They had enjoyed an intimate di

“It’s not like Sam to be late,” she said, checking her watch, then gazing out the window for his vehicle.