Unlit chandeliers hung from the ceiling, most of the light coming from stained-glass windows on either side of the sanctuary. The light of Heaven streaming down upon this most holy of places.
He had to force himself not to look at his watch, not to look like a man with a purpose — at least any other purpose than worship or reverence. Little more than an hour remained to accomplish his mission.
He counted forty, maybe fifty people in the sanctuary as they moved toward the mihrab beneath the dome. It was hard to tell, divided as the hall was into seven aisles by rows of marble pillars. A scant fraction of the five thousand that often packed the masjid, but enough to complicate things.
Endeavoring to look like a common worshiper, Hamid stopped to glance at a copy of the Quran on a pedestal near one of the pillars, his fingers tracing idly over the flowing script. The sacred scriptures were open to the eighth Sura, the sixty-first verse. And if they incline to peace, incline to it also, and put your trust in Allah. Surely He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.
And he passed on…
“LONGBOW to EAGLE SIX, all is clear. Sitrep in five minutes.”
A few seconds passed, then Harry’s voice came over the headset. “Copy that, LONGBOW. Sitrep in five.”
Smiling thinly, Thomas turned back to his scope. Communicating a situation report every five minutes was standard protocol, designed to guard against an agent being taken out. Not that it helped the agent much.
Back and forth. The Barrett’s muzzle slowly traversed the courtyard of al-Aqsa, swiveling on the bipod. Back and forth…
Boredom was the sniper’s greatest enemy, one of many reasons protocol called for a spotter. It was affecting him now, as much as he fought against it. Boredom, lack of sleep, the wound still paining his side. He closed his eyes for a moment.
A sound pierced his consciousness, perhaps a footstep, perhaps a murmured whisper. Something that didn’t belong. Someone was coming up the stairs of the tower, he realized a moment later.
Thomas swore under his breath, pulling a silenced Beretta 92 from his holster as he moved swiftly to the side of the tower, away from the stairs. There was no time to hide the rifle and no point in trying. The probst had assured him the exclusive use of the tower…
He dropped to one knee by a corner of the belfry, steadying the Beretta in both hands. Aimed at the stairs.
A head emerged from the stairwell, a black balaclava masking it, then shoulders. Thomas took careful aim, the sights of the Beretta aimed directly at the head of his target.
Whether some sound or simply a premonition of death warned the intruder, Thomas would never know. The head and body shifted upward just as he squeezed the trigger, and the bullet smashed into the target’s shoulder.
Crying out in pain, the intruder reeled forward, clutching his right arm. Thomas crossed the belfry in two quick steps, his left hand slashing forward to deliver an edge-of-the-hand blow to the intruder’s throat.
The man crumpled, grabbing Thomas’ arm as he went and pulling him down, the Beretta slipping from his fingers.
A knife flashed in the intruder’s hand and Thomas seized hold of his wrist, leveraging against the injured shoulder.
At that moment, a bullet burned through the air past his ear, caroming off the chiseled limestone wall. Wrenching the knife free with a final desperate effort, he rolled away from his downed man, swinging round on the new threat.
The second assailant was by the brink of the stairs, moving forward, a semiautomatic pistol in his hands. Pain shooting through his side, Thomas pivoted from his prone position, hooking his right foot behind the attacker’s leg. Caught off-balance, the man staggered back as Thomas’s left heel delivered a vicious kick to his shin. Two steps back, and then there was air beneath his feet.
A scream of fear and surprise tore through the air as the intruder toppled backward into the stairwell, disappearing from sight.
“EAGLE SIX to LONGBOW, do you copy? What is your sitrep?”
Thomas forced himself to ignore the voice in his ear, swinging around as the first assailant rose to his knees, his elbow arcing into the man’s jaw…
“EAGLE SIX to LONGBOW, I need a sitrep.” Harry closed his eyes, forcing calm. Something had gone wrong. Seven minutes now.
At that moment, his headset crackled, a voice coming on the network. “FULLBACK to EAGLE SIX, we have a package.”
Harry sprang to the surveillance screens, his heart in his throat. There, on one of the screens, he saw the three men kneeling by a doorway, their bodies almost obscuring a stainless steel canister.
“Where are you, FULLBACK?”
“A corridor just off the main hall, to the east of the Mihrab. The canister was tucked beside a bookshelf — it’s shaped like somebody’s oxygen tank. A curtain was draped nearby, shielding it from the cameras. GUNHAND, are you there? We’ve got to disarm this thing.”
“I’m here,” Tex replied, moving to the screens beside Harry. With a couple of keystrokes, he zoomed in the camera, focusing on the canister. “Stand back so I can take a look. There should be an anti-tamper device somewhere — you’ll need to disarm that first.”
“Already done,” Hamid replied. “A five-ounce packet of C-4 on the backside of the canister.”
“Make sure it’s the only one. Then turn the canister over — I’ll need to see the wiring.”
The intruder was laying across two of the rough-hewn steps about twenty feet down, his eyes staring sightlessly upward through the holes in the ski mask. The fall had broken his back. The man possessed no wallet or identification, but Thomas took a cellphone from the pocket of his jacket. A couple steps down, he picked up the dead man’s semiautomatic, a Russian-made 9mm Grach, and shoved it in his waistband, making his way back up to the belfry. He let the man lie where he fell.
“EAGLE SIX to LONGBOW. Come in, LONGBOW.”
“Yeah, EAGLE SIX, I’m here,” Thomas replied breathlessly, kneeling beside the unconscious man on the balcony.
“What’s going on, man? Your sitrep was five minutes ago.”
“I had company,” Thomas retorted. “A pair of tangos who somehow figured out my location.”
“And?”
“One unconscious, one KIA. I’ll see what I can get.”
“Keep me posted. The first package has been located — we’re in the process of disarming it.”
“Don’t let me keep you,” was Thomas’s ironic reply as he turned back to the prone form of his assailant. With a quick motion, he jerked the balaclava from the intruder’s head and a gasp of surprise escaped his lips. The fabric pulled away to reveal the smooth face of a woman…
Despite the slight chill in the October air, Hamid was sweating as he worked over the device, the voice in his ear guiding him on.
“We’re almost done, I think. This looks like a Czech set-up — there should be a black wire to the right — there.”
“Snip it?” Hamid asked, wiping his palms against his jeans. This wasn’t Hollywood — there was no digital panel ticking away the seconds, but he could feel them nonetheless. Sixty-four minutes, give or take a few.
“No,” Tex replied, his voice maddeningly calm. “You’ll need to detach it from the detonator without cutting it.”
“Suggestions?”
“Use the pliers as tweezers. It should come loose.”
Hamid took a deep breath, his fingers trembling as he inched the pliers toward the wire, metal touching against insulated wire, closing around it.