Pandora's grave

Seconds passed, and nothing. Then minutes, and still no sign of Hamid or his prisoner. Impatiently, Harry activated his radio. “EAGLE SIX to FULLBACK, do you copy?”

Dead silence. “I repeat, come in, FULLBACK.”

There was no answer. Something had gone terribly wrong. Harry looked over at Abdul Ali, a determined look coming into his eyes. “Make sure you have a man guarding the major and come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

Harry reached for his jacket and the H amp;K UMP-45 submachine gun lying beside it. “I’m going to find my friend.”

They found the two of them lying beneath the staircase, just below where the stairs turned at a forty-five degree angle, continuing downward. A drop of six or seven feet.

At first it appeared that both men were unconscious, but as they turned Shirazi’s nephew over, pulling him from on top of Hamid, they found the knife buried deep between his ribs. There had been no accident here.

Harry knelt over his friend, his fingers pressed against Hamid’s neck, feeling for a pulse. “He’s alive,” Harry announced, relief flooding into his voice.

As if hearing the words, Hamid’s eyes fluttered open, a moan escaping his lips. “What happened?”

“That’s what I was going to ask you,” Harry replied, performing a visual assessment of Hamid’s injuries. His shirt was ripped, a long, shallow furrow slicing across his sternum and upper chest. Blood oozed from a nasty gash to his temple, but most of the blood soaking his clothes seemed to have come from his antagonist. “Harun is dead.”

Hamid closed his eyes, murmuring a curse.

“He said he was going to cooperate,” he whispered ruefully. “Said the bacteria was already in place inside the mosque. He turned on me as we were coming down the stairs. Hadn’t had time to check him for weapons-he pulled a knife. That’s about the last thing I remember.”

“Can you stand?”

Chapter Nineteen

10:03 A.M. Local Time

Jerusalem

It was a beautiful day for the world to end. Two hours now. It felt like the end of a marathon, the last panting strides to the finish line.

To fulfill one’s destiny. At such moments, it was hard to avoid becoming overconfident, but the Hezbollah commander forced himself to remain focused on the job at hand. And the problem that was now presenting itself.

Almost two hours had passed since he had sent Shirazi’s nephew into the compound to conduct a reconnaissance. Nothing since.

When his cellphone rang, he glanced at the screen, half-expecting to see Harun’s number displayed there. It wasn’t, but another equally recognizable. “Hello.”

“We have been betrayed,” BEHDIN’s voice announced flatly.

“What?”

“Shirazi’s nephew. He told the Americans that the bacteria was already in place.”

Farouk swore, barely able to contain his frustration. He had told the Iranian president that his nephew could not be entrusted…None of that mattered now. All that mattered was containing the problem. “Kill him.”

“He’s already dead. You need to be here-to make sure no other members of the team have been similarly compromised. We may even need to move up the time of the attack.”

“I will make that decision when it is necessary,” Farouk responded, bridling his anger at the sleeper’s attempt to take command of the operation. “The first step is to contact ISRAFIL.”

“Don’t waste the time-they’re no longer taking orders from the top. I warned you of that possibility.”

“Is there anything else I should know about?”

“They have a sniper with a high-powered rifle in the bell tower of the Church of the Redeemer. He will need to be taken out before we commit to any overt hostilities in the haram.”

“I see. Hold tight and keep me informed. Don’t take action until I give you further instructions.”

“That may not be possible,” BEHDIN replied, his voice cold as an arctic wind. “One cannot delay the will of Allah.”

There was an abrupt click as the sleeper hung up, leaving Farouk cursing at a black screen. After a moment, he rose from his seat, tucking the cellphone into his shirt pocket.

A few short steps took him through the door and out onto the balcony of the al-Fakhriyya minaret, looking down upon the silver-colored dome of the Masjid al-Aqsa below him, upon the entire southwestern corner of the Haram al-Sharif. He had anticipated the need to be here…

10:13 A.M.

The Haram al-Sharif

“There’s thirty-five dead zones,” Abdul Ali explained, spreading the chart out on a table. “About half of them are down here, in the area commonly known as Solomon’s Stables. The rest are scattered around the premises of the masjid.”

Harry leaned over the table, studying the chart intently. As might be expected, the work was imprecise, but it gave them a rough sense of the situation. “If you were to initiate an aerosol attack,” he asked the Jordanian, “where would you do it?”