No one was answering. He cursed himself. Why hadn't he insisted she get an answering machine after his dad died? Why hadn't he simply bought one for her?
The bathroom door clicked open.
McCoy didn't want to interrupt Bennett's conversation. But she did want to catch the president's address. She poked her head in and looked around the room. The television was on. Tim Russert was just finishing his analysis from NBC's Washington bureau and the image now switched to the Oval Office.
The president began to explain the events of the last few hours, adding that he was asking the Israelis not to get involved.
But Ziegler's room was quiet. Where was Bennett? Had he gone to the main control room to watch the speech? Had he gone back to Sa'id and Galishnikov's room? He couldn't be missing this, could he? The president had just taken his advice, against the counsel of his own National Security Advisor and CIA director.
In sweats and a T-shirt, a towel wrapped around her head, McCoy turned off the light and fan in the bathroom, and tiptoed through the walk-in closet, around the bunk beds, to the couch by the TV. She found Bennett there sleeping like a baby, still holding the satellite phone in his right hand. He looked so quiet, so peaceful. She didn't have the heart to wake him, even for this. She pulled a wool blanket over him, sat down beside him and watched the rest of the president's remarks. Then she gently brushed some strands of hair from Bennett's eyes, leaned down and gave him a little kiss on the cheek.
"Good night, Point Man," she whispered. "Sleep well."
EIGHTEEN
No one in the White House had ever heard of Akiva Ben David.
Born in Brooklyn in 1958, he'd been a straight A student, graduated with honors from Yeshiva University, and spent summers studying the Torah in Jerusalem from the time he was fifteen. He'd never served in the U.S. military. He'd only briefly held an American driver's license.
The CIA had no file on him. Neither did the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security. He had never popped up on any American or international terrorist watch list. He had no outstanding warrants in the United States or on the Interpol system. To the analysts at Langley who prepared the daily "threat matrix" for the director of Central Intelligence and the president of the United States, he would hardly be classified as a low-level risk. He simply didn't exist.
Nor did he seem to exist in his adopted country of Israel. He'd emigrated there in June of 1980 and obtained dual citizenship at the tender young age of twenty-two. But for most of his adult life, he'd largely kept to himself, politically speaking. The Mossad had no file on him. His name popped up in a Shin Bet report or two for joining the mailing lists of several far right, ultra-Orthodox organizations of some concern. But he'd never done anything more than subscribe to their literature.
He hadn't shown up at, much less organized or led, any political demonstrations, so far as the authorities could tell. He wasn't particularly vocal. He hadn't signed any provocative petitions or staged sit-ins at the Knesset or sent angry or threatening letters to the prime minister or any of his Cabinet officials. Thus, he simply wasn't perceived as a threat of any kind, which is exactly the way he wanted it. He was a nonentity, free to fly under the radar, as it were, where it was quiet and comfortable and safe. And up until now, that had suited him just fine. But soon, all that would change.
Akiva Ben David was no longer a young man. But he was in excellent physical condition, especially for a graying, middle-aged rabbi from Bed-Stuy. For the past six years he'd been working with a physical trainer, burning fat and bulking up. He was a disciplined man, of that there could be no doubt, Not to his wife, at least. He was up every morning at four, and headed straight to the gym on the settlement where he and his family now lived, nestled along the Jordan River. By six-thirty every morning, he was home, showered, dressed, and hidden away in his private study, reading the Torah and saying his morning prayers. By eight, he was having breakfast with his wife and four children, one son and three daughters, all under the ages of thirteen. By nine he was in his home office where he served as the founder and executive director of an obscure little nonprofit group known as the Temple Mount Battalion. Except that it wasn't so little anymore.
Officially, the Temple Mount Battalion existed to promote a better un derstanding of the importance of building the Third Temple on the ancient, holy site of the first two, in the heart of Jerusalem. Ben David and his group of volunteers (no employees, just his wife, Dalia, who did the bookkeeping) had no land, no schools, no factories or fancy offices. They had no logo, no letterhead, no whifF of creativity or originality at all. They simply ran a nondescript little Web site explaining the importance of the Temple in Jewish history and religious teachings, its history and origins, its dimensions and specifications as laid out in the Hebrew Scriptures, and its role in the end times
It wasn't a flashy Web site — no music, no pictures, no graphics of any kind. The site didn't take much time or effort to maintain, which was good because Ben David had absolutely no training, formal or otherwise, in Web site design, construction, or maintenance. Nor did the site require much money to run, which was also good because when he'd launched the site it averaged only a few dozen hits a week.
By contrast, the Web site run by the Temple Institute in the Jewish Quar ter of Jerusalem's Old City was far better funded and more impressive. In large measure, this was because the Temple Institute was not simply an ed ucational organization. It was more like an architectural firm, general con tractor, and interior decorating shop all rolled into one. Its leaders weren't just talking about a future Temple. They were already in the process of building it.
Since 1987, they'd been actually re-creating authentic sacred vessels and musical instruments and priestly garments for use in the coming Temple, using the precise materials and following the precise specifications laid out in the Bible. When Exodus Chapter Twenty-seven said that one type of Temple altar should be made of "acacia wood, five cubits long, and five cubits wide," that it should be "square, and its height should be three cubits," and that "you shall overlay it with bronze," that's exactly how these modern-day artisans were building it. When Exodus Chapter Thirty said another type of Temple altar — the Altar of Incense — should be made of acacia wood but "you shall overlay it with pure gold," and "you shall make a gold molding all around it," that is precisely how it was being done.
These Temple implements weren't models. They were the real thing, and they were being handcrafted by the hundreds. When the time was right, the Jews would be ready to erect and furnish a rudimenary version of the Third Temple with less than twenty-four hours' notice. And that, a Yiddish Martha Stewart might say, was a good thing.
But to Akiva Ben David, it wasn't good enough. Something had been stirring inside him for nearly a decade. He wanted to go beyond just educating Jews about the Temple, or merely preparing the vessels and implements for a future Temple, as noble and useful as those roles were. The Temple Institute was doing an excellent job at that, as was another well-funded Jerusalem-based organization known as The Temple Mount Faithful. This group had already crafted a four-ton cornerstone for the Third Temple that was ready to be laid in place on a moment's notice. In the quarries in the Negev Desert and elsewhere, kindred spirits like these were patiently, steadfastly carving and stockpiling tens of thousands of stones to be used to reconstruct the Temple. Plans were already completed to build massive parking lots in Jerusalem for all the pilgrims and tourists who would come to see the Holy Temple.