Of course they demanded that the Israeli’s turn back.
And of course the demand went unheeded.
When the sortie team was less than ten minutes away from their strike point, the world once again erupted in a fiery blast that sent a mushroom flame high above Mount Damavand.
The two men at the MG nest were quickly gathered by Kimball’s team and ushered to the helipad. By the time they got there the Chinook was landing, the rotors kicking up a wash of dust. As the door opened, the Quds were tossed inside.
“What are you going to do with them?” asked the pilot.
“If we leave them here, they’ll die. We’ll let them go at the border,” said Kimball.
“And the Ark?”
Kimball nodded.
Once the rest of the team boarded, Kimball signaled to the pilot to get the bird going.
The rotors quickened, and then the chopper lifted, hovering, then banked and headed north toward Turkey.
“All right, Ezra!” Kimball had to yell over the thrumming of the blades. “Light her up!”
Ezra typed his fingers furiously against the touch screen of an iPhone, the last tap having emphasis. A signal was sent through cyberspace and the charges on the fuel cells went off in synchronized succession starting from left to right, the cells bursting like dominoes and sending a fiery plume skyward, the cavern collapsing upon itself. A concussion wave then moved through the air at a rate of speed faster that the chopper could travel, tossing it violently from side to side in seesaw fashion before the pilot was able to regain control. Once the Chinook was stabilized, they then headed for Turkey.
At the moment of the explosion two things happened: First, the Israeli sortie was ordered to return to base — the precision point of attack, for whatever reason, had been terminated for reasons unknown. Secondly, the Iranian leadership could not figure out why the facility destructed prematurely when the sortie was ten minutes out. So when the Israeli’s headed back, the Iranian government saved face by puffing out their chest and sent forth a declaration remarking that the sortie retreated due to the advancement of their own intercepting forces. Therefore, the Israeli’s did not want to confront a superior power.
Israel, of course, scoffed at this.
But in the end war was averted.
When the Chinook landed on the Turkish side of the border, and as the two Quds were ushered to an unknown point within the Comm Center camp, Kimball entered the tent where Father Essex sat behind the Comm console watching high-definition monitors.
Kimball grabbed his beret and tossed it roughly against the console in disappointment. “They bugged out,” he said. “They knew they were compromised, so they set up a neat little package to draw the fly to the honey,” he said tersely. “But they were expecting Israel to make a strike, not us.”
“It would have been the catalyst necessary to justify war,” said Father Essex casually. “Israel would have made accusations regarding weapons of mass destruction. And Ahmadinejad would have denied everything. So the mission wasn’t without its merits… Even if the Ark is still missing.”
Kimball took a seat as his anger rushed through him as quickly as the beat of his own pulse, hard and fast. In his heart he knew he was within reach, perhaps by hours, only for the Ark to slip through his fingers, most likely under the cover of darkness when the satellites were at their weakest point of visual perception.
Kimball then leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and tried to relax. But he would not find the comfort necessary to pacify him until he returned to the Vatican on the following day.
CHAPTER FORTY
In the Warehouse District in southern Tehran, al-Ghazi stood alongside al-Sherrod and other personnel who milled about a stockroom the size of a football field. The massive area was vacant, the surrounding floor, for the most part, littered with debris and rubble, the building having been abandoned long ago. Pigeons alighting on the overhead beams continued to pass their droppings to the floor. And the windows, which lined the top tier just below the roofline, were oxidized, cracked or broken. In the center of the warehouse was a raised platform surrounded by lights powered by generators. On the center of that platform lay the Ark of the Covenant, its lid off and to the side, a gold aura fanning out from its shell against the cast of the reflecting light.
Al-Ghazi stood back with his hands clasped behind the small of his back and watched his team rig the Ark with a false bottom.
Before leaving the facility at Mount Damavand, Sakharov’s techs had engineered a flat box made of a composite not detectable by x-ray, and then infused it with nanobots. The flat box, approximately covering the entire floorboard of the Ark and an inch high, would be undetectable once the false bottom was set in place. Pinprick holes unseen by the naked eye would perforate the false flooring. The holes appearing like gaping chasms to the bots, since a hundred thousand could fit on the head of a pin, thereby providing numerous escape routes once the sound waves stimulated the bots into action.
They would then take flight and devour anything organic within a fifteen minute period, killing without impunity, conscience and simply by design.
Al-Ghazi watched as his engineers carefully laid the flat box containing the nanobots along the floor of the Ark, then fitted the false bottom over it so that the interior appeared uniform and untouched. In further examination they passed scopes and wands capable of detecting alien composites not existing at the time the Ark was created. This was done so as not to draw suspicion from scholars examining the Ark, and then warranting further scrutiny should they detect anomalous blends not historically existing at that time, such as the composite structure of the flat box, which was the last thing al-Ghazi wanted. X-rays were then taken from every angle, the nano container and false bottom going undetected, the bots all but invisible.
Al-Ghazi was pleased.
“Should the initial run succeed, Ahmad, then you will be cast in history as a savior.” Al-Sherrod smiled with his little, yellow teeth.
But it wasn’t about punctuating his place in history, he thought. It was about shining in the eyes of his God.
In silence they watched the tablets of the Ten Commandments returned, the lid resettled. The Ark was now ready as it sat there caught within its own nimbus of light, its glow moving, living, writhing, taking on a life of its own.
“So how will you introduce it to the infidels?” asked al-Sherrod. “Now that Umar is no longer the instrument to perform such duties.”
“I have contacted an Islamic cleric respected by all religious and political authorities,” he answered. “He is a man who believes that Islamic teachings should be taught by way of peace rather than jihad — a true pacifist. I told him that the true Ark of the Covenant was a negotiable item and will be granted as a relic for cherishment to be shared by all, should he follow certain guidelines.”
“And how will that benefit us? We agreed that Vatican City would serve as Ground Zero. Placing it within the authority of Muslim cleric will serve us no purpose.”
Al-Ghazi raised a hand and patted the air, the gesture telling al-Sherrod to ‘hold on.’ “The Ark is also symbolic to the Jews regarding their Exodus from Egypt under Pharaoh’s rule and Moses’ journey to Mount Sinai, where the commandments were created by the ‘finger’ of God. This segues into the interest of the Catholics, who use these commandments as the governing laws of their religion.”
Al-Sherrod waited.
“Should the good cleric want to lay his eyes upon the Ark,” continued al-Ghazi, “then he is bound to share the Ark in good faith with all denominations that hold a related interest and share in its opening. The Jews. The Muslims. The Catholics — everyone.”