The station turned out to be a small windowless building located just outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. It was 7:30
P.M.
when they arrived, fifteen minutes before sunset. As David stepped out of the rental car he shielded his eyes from the sun and gazed at the spires and minarets of the Old City, which gleamed magnificently in the golden light. Then he turned around and stared at the ancient, sprawling cemetery that stretched eastward toward the Mount of Olives. Monique, meanwhile, eyed the switching station, paying particular attention to the antennas on the building’s roof.
They found the Shin Bet expert, Aryeh Goldberg, in front of the station, bent over a set of blueprints he’d spread across the hood of his car. He was a short, chunky man in his late forties or early fifties, wearing jeans and a gray polo shirt. He’d propped his glasses on top of his balding head so he could scrutinize the schematics. He was so engrossed that at first he didn’t hear Monique say, “Hello, Mr. Goldberg.” But when she repeated the greeting he stood up straight and smiled. He had a dark complexion and lively brown eyes, and he seemed unperturbed by the fact that they were making him work overtime. Lowering his glasses, he shook hands with Monique and then with David.
“Ah, the Americans!” he said in heavily accented English. “My supervisor says you’re from the FBI, yes? The G-men? And now the G-women, too?” He pointed at Monique. “I know about the G-men because I have the DVD of that gangster movie, the one with Kevin Costner in it. You know the movie I’m talking about?”
Monique smiled back at him. “Yes, I do. But right now—”
“I know, you’re in a hurry. But I have to tell you, we have a very big mess here. You won’t believe what a big mess this is.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s such a mess I can’t see what happened to your data. I know the signals from Maryland came to this station and were shunted to line number three-seventeen. That’s a dedicated fiber-optic line, installed by Bezeq last year. I know the line exists, because I went inside the station a few minutes ago and saw it on the control panel. But it’s not on the map!” He slapped the blueprints. “I have to tell you, I don’t understand it. Bezeq is supposed to update these maps every week.”
Monique narrowed her eyes. Although she wasn’t a real FBI agent, she knew a clue when she saw one. “Who ordered the installation of the line?”
“That’s another crazy thing. I checked the order and there’s no name on it. And the address is a post office box. But the person who ordered the line has been paying his bills, so at least Bezeq is happy, yes?”
“Is there any way to find out where the line goes? Maybe by talking to the crew that installed it?”
Aryeh made a face. “Ah, those guys are schmucks. I know a quicker way.” He folded the blueprints and threw them into the backseat of his car. Then he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight. “Line three-seventeen is bunched with five other lines inside a cable that runs into the Old City. So we’ll just follow that cable. We’ll see where your line branches off, yes?”
“Can you do that? Don’t the cables run underground?”
“Yes, in most places that’s true. But everything is crazy in the Old City. The archaeologists won’t let Bezeq dig there, so they string the lines wherever they can.” He locked his car and started walking toward the Old City’s wall. “Come, this way. The cable runs through the Lions’ Gate.”
Aryeh walked quickly for a small man. David and Monique followed him, heading for an archway flanked by lions carved into the stone wall. David recognized this entrance to the Old City—he’d seen the Lions’ Gate before, when he’d visited Jerusalem ten years ago, but now it shocked him anew with its simple beauty. For a historian, the Old City was truly heaven on earth. Less than a mile across, it was filled to bursting with ancient mosques and temples and churches. David looked to his left and spotted the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim shrine that dominated this part of the city. It sat on an elevated plaza that the Jews called the Temple Mount, because that was where their Holy Temple had stood before the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD. And just below the Temple Mount was the Via Dolorosa, the path Jesus had taken on his way to the Cross. It was enough to inspire even an agnostic like David, who was raised Catholic but hadn’t stepped inside a church in thirty years.
They went through the Lions’ Gate, then walked down a gently sloping alley paved with stones worn smooth by millennia of foot traffic. The alley was crowded with people headed in the opposite direction, mostly Palestinian women in white head scarves leaving the Old City with full shopping bags. A flock of elderly nuns shuffled past, followed by a pair of Israeli soldiers nervously patrolling the Muslim quarter. Both sides of the alley were lined with shops offering trinkets for the tourists—T-shirts, posters, skullcaps, hookahs, and a wide variety of garish oil paintings depicting the Crucifixion. Palestinian men sat in front of the shops, under awnings of rusted iron, drinking tea from slender glasses. They looked suspiciously at Aryeh Goldberg but said nothing as he shone his flashlight down the darkening alley. He pointed the beam at a black cable that ran just above the awnings.
After a few hundred yards they came to a stone wall where the cable passed near a round plaque. A large group of men wearing brown robes and sandals clustered around the plaque, which was inscribed with the Roman numeral I. David recognized this place, too—it was the Via Dolorosa’s starting point, the first Station of the Cross, where Pontius Pilate had condemned Jesus to death. The men in robes were Christian pilgrims who assembled at this spot every evening to reenact Christ’s suffering, ritually parading down the Via Dolorosa until they reached the famous tomb inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Several pilgrims carried big wooden crosses balanced on their shoulders. Others wore realistic-looking crowns of thorns and read aloud from their Bibles. There were so many pilgrims that they blocked the alley, slowing the foot traffic to a standstill.
Aryeh pushed through the crowd, keeping his flashlight trained on the cable. He looked over his shoulder at David and Monique. “The junction box is over there,” he said, pointing at a steel cabinet clamped to the wall a few yards away. “I need to open it to see where line three-seventeen goes. This may take a few minutes. I have to get past all the crazy goyim here.”
While Aryeh fought his way to the junction box, David glanced at Monique. She stood with her back to the wall, scanning the crowd. The pilgrims were apparently making her nervous. Many of them seemed overcome with emotion. At least a dozen knelt on the cobblestones, shouting Bible verses and weeping inconsolably. One of the cross-bearing pilgrims flung himself to the ground and almost hit Monique with the bottom end of his giant crucifix. She let out a cry and jumped to the side. “Jesus!” she yelled. “Watch where you’re going!”
The pilgrim, whose swarthy, stubbled face was streaked with tears, said nothing in response. He simply staggered to his feet and continued trudging down the alley. Monique glowered at him.
David smiled, trying to cheer her up. “I don’t think Jesus heard you.”
She didn’t think it was funny. Scowling, she kept her eyes on the crowd. “This place is insane. Look at all these wackos.”
“It’s not their fault. Most of them are probably suffering from Jerusalem Syndrome.”
“Is this another joke?”
“No, it’s a genuine mental disorder. Israeli psychiatrists have written papers about it. Every year dozens of tourists who visit Jerusalem become convinced that they’re the Messiah. The delusion usually goes away when they leave the city.”
Monique frowned. “That’s great. And we’re looking for a guy who calls himself ‘Universe, the Son of Time.’ Maybe he’s a nut job, too.”
“I don’t think Jacob Steele would have collaborated with a nut job.” David shook his head. “Remember what Bennett said? Jacob was desperate to make a significant discovery before he died. Maybe Olam ben Z’man came up with a brilliant idea, a Nobel Prize–winning idea. And maybe Jacob heard about it and started working with him to get a share of the glory.”
“Okay, maybe Olam’s a genius. But plenty of geniuses are also crazy.”
“No, I think he’s canny, not crazy. It can’t be a coincidence that his fiber-optic line got deleted from the phone company’s records. I think he took steps to cover his tracks.”
“Why? What was he afraid of?”
“I don’t know. But look what happened to Jacob. Obviously someone didn’t like what they were doing.”
One of the weeping pilgrims let out a particularly loud wail. Monique jumped at the noise. “Damn it, I can’t think! This is so fucking distracting!” A look of immense frustration contorted her face. “How the hell am I supposed to think?”
David moved a step closer and put his arm around her. She was shivering. “Hey, it’s all right. We’re gonna figure this out, okay? One way or another, we’re gonna find out what’s going on. And then we’ll get Michael and bring him home.”
She shook her head and started crying. It was a rare moment of vulnerability for Monique, who was usually so steadfast and logical. Like Michael, she’d had a chaotic childhood, growing up with a negligent mother in a bleak housing project, and from a young age she’d developed a fierce self-possession. Very few things could unnerve her like this. Sobbing quietly, she leaned her forehead against David’s shoulder. He held her close.
After a little while she began to calm down. David let go of her and she wiped her eyes. She was back to normal by the time Aryeh returned. He was out of breath from fighting the crowd of Christs.
“Line three-seventeen branches off there,” he said, pointing to a building just ahead. “Then it goes down a stairway to the Hasmonean Tunnel.”
The name sounded familiar. David had read about it somewhere. “Is that the tunnel that runs alongside the Temple Mount? Next to the Western Wall?”
“Yes, the archaeologists excavated it. The tunnel goes down to the big stone blocks at the base of the Western Wall, ten meters underground. It’s mostly for the tourists, but the
kippot srugot
like to go into the tunnel to pray.”
“Kippot srugot?”
“The religious Zionists, the settlers. They have that name because they wear knitted skullcaps,
kippot srugot
.”
“Wait,” David said. “I thought the religious Jews wear black hats.”
“No, those are the
haredim,
the ultra-Orthodox. The
kippot srugot
are religious, too, but most of them are right-wingers, very angry at the Palestinians. They’re obsessed with the Western Wall because it’s the only surviving part of the Temple. You can see the wall aboveground in the Jewish quarter, but the
kippot srugot
like to pray in the tunnel because it’s closer to where—”
“Whoa, hold on,” Monique interrupted. “Why does the fiber-optic line go into the tunnel? Are there computers down there?”
“I don’t know. But there’s a way to find out, yes? Come on.”
David and Monique followed him again, sidestepping the pilgrims until they came to the tunnel entrance. Standing by the doorway was a fat bearded man wearing a knitted yarmulke. He held a small black prayer book in his left hand and an Uzi in his right. David knew from his previous visit to Jerusalem that many Israeli citizens routinely carry Uzis because of the ever-present terrorist threat, but the sight was still a little unnerving. Aryeh approached the fat man and said something in Hebrew. The man responded in an aggressive tone, sneering. Aryeh held out his hands and said something else, obviously trying to be reasonable, but the fat man started shouting and waving his Uzi. Then Aryeh pointed a finger at the man and spoke so quietly that David couldn’t hear him. Whatever was said, the fat man got the message. He reluctantly stepped aside and let them through the doorway.
They walked into a dark room with gray stone walls. The air smelled damp and ancient. At the far end of the room a metal staircase descended into a rocky, rough-hewn shaft. As they headed down the steps, Aryeh trained his flashlight at the jagged ceiling, following the course of the black cable. He looked over his shoulder at David. “You see what I mean about the
kippot srugot
? They turn everything into an argument. That schmuck at the entrance wanted to charge us for going into the tunnel.” He shook his head. “They’re always like that, crazy and angry. But that’s not the worst part.”
“What is?” David asked.
“They’re always antagonizing the Palestinians. They stir up trouble by buying buildings in the Muslim quarter and turning them into yeshivas. And then they go marching past the mosques, carrying their Uzis and singing their prayers.”
David nodded. “I can see how that might lead to trouble.”
“I’m a little surprised, Mr. Goldberg,” Monique said. She was just behind David, her shoes thumping on the metal steps. “You work for an Israeli intelligence agency, but you seem pretty sympathetic to the other side.”
“I have no illusions about the Palestinians,” Aryeh replied. “Their terrorists are worse than the
kippot srugot
. And so are the bastards in Hamas who aim their rockets at our schools and the suicide bombers who try to blow up our buses. And the mullahs in Iran who want to throw atomic bombs at us.” He stopped for a moment, as if contemplating this catastrophe. Then he gripped the handrail and continued down the stairs. “But for some reason I get angrier at the crazy Jews.”
When they reached the bottom of the staircase, they found themselves in another dark room. Aryeh’s flashlight illuminated a vaulted ceiling, where the black cable ran parallel to the wires for the overhead lights. “The line goes this way,” he said, heading for a vertical fissure in one of the stone walls. “The path is narrow here, so we’ll have to walk single file, yes? This used to be the aqueduct that brought water to the Temple.”
It was now a tunnel designed for tourists, with handrails conveniently bolted to the limestone, but David’s chest tightened as he followed Aryeh into the fissure. He didn’t like tunnels. He’d nearly gotten killed in a tunnel two years ago, when he was on the run from the FBI, and since then he’d become a bit claustrophobic. After a couple of minutes, though, they came to a wider, better-lit corridor, and David opened his mouth in awe. Running along the left side of the corridor was the underground section of the Western Wall. Stone blocks as big as trailer homes were stacked like monstrous bricks. The edges of the blocks were rounded with age and there was no mortar or cement in the crevices between them. Their weight alone had kept them in place for centuries, even as the detritus of the Old City had slowly buried them.