The Prophet Conspiracy (2 page)

For Cameron Dorn, Jerusalem was a living woman. The thronging tourists and pilgrims in her ancient streets were her blood. Tan stone faded to nearly white was her body. And her heart… Her heart stood before him.

“This is one of the most photographed spots in Jerusalem,” he said. “Because it’s a good place to see the Western Wall, or the wailing wall, and the Dome of the Rock together in one view. And behind us, you’ll find the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Christians believe Jesus was crucified and resurrected.”

Cam was a tall man, lanky like a runner rather than bulky like a weightlifter. He moved with a natural grace that seemed almost supernatural in its smoothness. His curly dark hair was partially covered by a camouflage baseball cap. He wore a t-shirt with “The Western Wall” printed on the front and baggy tan cargo pants from the pockets of which he often pulled maps, illustrations, or scraps of scripture to read to his people about the sights of the Middle East.

Around him, the tourists he was guiding gathered into a rough half-circle. Some hung on to his every word, drinking up knowledge as if it was water and they had been in the desert all day. Others listened with only half an ear, photographing the view. Still others devoted most of their energy to finding shade, a place to sit, or both.

Last week’s group had been from an American church. This week’s group was from an American university. Most of his tour groups were American. He came from there, and it was easiest for him to figure out what they would find interesting. Each group had their own quirks and unique facets.

This week’s group was at least one notch behind last week’s in the attractive redhead department, but Cam figured it would be death to his eventual tip if he let them know that.

Waving over his shoulder toward the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock, Cameron said, “That view is the source of most of the turmoil and terrorism in the Middle East. It’s the Temple Mount — the location of the ancient Jewish temple.

“The temple is, for my people, the heart of our culture. It occupies a place in collective Jewish thought much like the Constitution does for Americans. How would you feel if the Constitution had been ripped up and replaced with some foreign symbol?”

The tourists muttered, some slightly angrily. That line was always good for a reaction.

Cam went on.

“Well, that’s what happened to us. In 70 AD, the Romans destroyed our Temple. They ripped the heart out of our country. It’s no mistake it took us nearly 2000 years to come back together as a nation afterward.

“Today, the Muslims control the Temple Mount, which they call the Noble Sanctuary. It has a golden dome in place of the heart of my people. To the world, that dome has become almost a symbol of Jerusalem. But to us, the dome makes us think about what’s missing.”

“Is it true the Jews want to destroy it?” one of the women in the tour group asked.

Cam shrugged.

“I would be dishonest with you if I didn’t admit my perspective. I’m Jewish. It means a lot to me. But I’ll do my best to give the unbiased version. This city, and especially the Temple Mount, is sacred to both cultures, Jews and Muslims. We both want to control it. And there are definitely extremist factions in Israel who dream of destroying the Dome of the Rock. But they’re a minority.

“The simple fact is any threat to the Dome of the Rock would bring total war on us from every Muslim nation in the world. And I’m not just talking about Iran and Syria. Even Indonesia would probably be in that war. We’re a peaceful people. We don’t want that.”

Cam sighed and looked away from his group of tourists. He remembered very well the last time the Shin Bet had discovered an extremist orthodox group planning to blow up the Dome of the Rock. Catching them had been a close thing and before the case had been wrapped up, there had been meetings between the Israeli Defense Force, the Mossad, and the Shin Bet, making contingency plans for the war that might break out if they failed.

That was a long time ago — a different life. It was before his friend Ibrahim took him under his wing and taught him how to be a tour guide. One thing Ibrahim had repeated over and over was nobody likes a moody tour guide.

Cameron turned back to his group and smiled at them.

“If Muslims ever felt like the Dome of the Rock was in danger, it could lead to war that engulfs the whole world. Israel doesn’t want that. This is a democracy, and democracies very rarely vote for war. The Dome is safe and so is Israel.

“Now, let’s walk down to the Western Wall. Almost everyone wants the chance to touch it and pray.”

**********

Siobhan McLane had come to Israel with a tour group organized by the church where she worked as a secretary. The tour had been an intense, educational experience as they spent a week visiting places like the Garden of Gethsemane, Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Wailing Wall, and more. Their guide — in addition to being good looking, cultured, and having a voice like a finely-tuned cello — possessed a rich depth of knowledge about Israel and a passion for sharing it.

But while the rest of the group went home two days ago, Siobhan had extended her stay. She had a plan to relive the dream of her youth. She signed up with a program that placed her as a volunteer on a real, archaeological dig.

Shockingly for a country that has the history of human civilization buried under every square meter of land, the Israeli government had no official budget for archeology. That left the academics to come up with their own funding, and that led to the birth of “Dig for a Day” programs. The professors reasoned many people believed archeology in the holy land fascinating enough, not only might they volunteer to help, but they might actually pay for the privilege. Most archeology digs in Israel were funded with the donations of Americans who wanted a chance, just like Siobhan did, to pull an ancient piece of pottery out of the earth and contribute to the study of Biblical times.

When she came to the dig, Zach Reiter had been welcoming, the second archaeologist noncommittal, and Umar mildly rude. However, that couldn’t possibly explain why Umar had snapped and pulled a gun. That was no reason to murder two people.

As she reached the end of the tunnel, her khaki pants and hiking boots thoroughly wet and her legs aching from carrying all that water weight, Siobhan spared a thought or two for what possible reason Umar might have for murdering the other academics.

Mostly, her mind was entirely focused on getting away from him.

Israel was a country that lived with the constant threat of terrorism or low-intensity warfare. Neighbors might, at any time, launch rocket attacks with no provocation. Because of that, soldiers were a common sight on the street.

That was exactly what Siobhan wanted. She couldn’t wait to find one of the small groups of two or three Israeli Defense Force enlisted men who were so common throughout Jerusalem.

She blinked as she emerged from the tunnel. A bomb of brilliant late-afternoon sun hit her with almost physical force. Her eyes, grown accustomed to straining for every bit of light, were unprepared for the change. Even while squeezing them shut to deal with the brightness, she knew she couldn’t stop moving. Behind her was a madman with a gun. Delay might kill her.

She stumbled forward, water cascading from her clothes as she came out of the wet tunnel, and passed the pool of Siloam as she left. Stepped stone walls led down to a basin that once held water fed by the very tunnel from which she had emerged. A small fence surrounded it. It was a major site from Biblical times but at that moment Siobhan didn’t care. She caught site of three IDF troops with their automatic weapons slung over their shoulders standing near the line of tourists waiting to look at the pool. Waving her hand to get their attention, she ran towards them.

Her pants were soaked through. Water sprayed from her with every running step. It seemed like the wet cotton was adding 100 pounds to her legs.

The military personnel looked a little bit different than she had seen them in the past. Their guns weren’t the same, although she didn’t know enough about firearms to tell one from another. These had a long, curving magazine in front of the pistol grip, whereas usually the IDF weapons seemed to have much straighter magazines. Also, in most of the previous groups of soldiers, there had been at least one woman. With the constant threat under which their country lived, Israeli women had no barriers to serving in combat. In the past, Siobhan had been impressed with how many women she saw in uniform and carrying guns. However, these three were only men.

The most telling difference, though, was what she saw as she came near. Always before when she’d seen them, Israeli soldiers had no problem with the tourists who wanted to take their picture. However, when one of the Americans gathered at the pool of Siloam tried to photograph the soldiers, one of them put up his hand to block the picture. That wasn’t typical at all.

Siobhan didn’t care. They were Authority, and there was a madman chasing her. There was a double murder to report. She ran straight up to them.

“Sir! Sir! You have to help me! He’s got a gun!” Siobhan grabbed the soldier’s green uniform and stared into his eyes, pleading.

Unlike previous IDF personnel she had encountered, this one’s English was not very good at all.

“You stay. No leave.”

The vise of his fingers gripped her arm, and Siobhan almost felt like she was the one who had done wrong, rather than the crazy person chasing her.

Then she saw something that chilled her to the bone.

Umar emerged from the tunnel. He rapidly tucked his pistol into his waistband when he came out into public view.

The soldier beside her spoke into his radio.

Umar picked up a radio from his own belt and responded.

The radio in the hand of the soldier gripping her elbow crackled in response.

Then she saw the soldier nod at her pursuer.

Siobhan looked from one to the other in terror. What was going on here? How could they be working together? How could the soldiers be helping a double murderer? None of it seemed possible.

The grip on her arm tightened, and the soldier began to drag her away toward a waiting white van. The tourists were all staring at her as if they had observed the arrest of a terrorist.

“You come,” he said sharply to her.

Siobhan’s rational mind told her it just wasn’t possible for soldiers to be helping the killer but whatever reason might say, a full-throated fight or flight instinct screamed in her chest to run.

She pulled her arm free of the soldier’s grip and fled into the crowd of tourists. Behind her, she heard, “Halt! Halt!” Siobhan ignored it. She raced as fast as her legs would carry her, shoving her way through the crowd.

People shouted in surprise. Myriad languages cascaded over each other into a babble that made no sense at all. Tourists in t-shirts with Israel-related sayings on them shouted and tried to get out of her way, as if she were the dangerous one.

Siobhan panted from the effort of running, the wet pants and shoes weighing her down.

As the sun drew near to the horizon, she dashed as fast as she could through the streets of the old city of Jerusalem. The crowds made it hard to keep moving, though. People surged around her like one organism. The herd of people went on about their business, making deals in the small shops that lined the narrow streets. Siobhan’s boots left wet footprints on the ancient stone streets as she elbowed and pushed her way past them.

Behind her, the shouts to “halt” were getting louder.

Siobhan risked a glance behind her and saw the three green-uniformed men shoving the shoppers and tourists out of their path. They had their rifles off their shoulders, and she nearly stumbled when it occurred to her that despite having survived her harrowing chase through the tunnel, she might still get shot today.

Siobhan fled through the Old City. Where the City of David was the original heart of Jerusalem, the Old City was the soul. It was the Jerusalem of Jesus’s time; the Jerusalem most people pictured. In the Old City, the first and second Jewish temples had once stood, and the Dome of the Rock stood there now. In the Old City, one could find a church built up and around the entire hill where Jesus was crucified.

Modern Jerusalem extended far beyond the boundaries of both the Old City and the City of David. However, with a couple of exceptions, the places Pilgrims journeyed from all over the world to see were in the Old City.

Towering stone walls surrounded it, with massive gates built into them at points around the circumference. Within those walls, street vendors, shop owners, restaurateurs, and more plied their trade. From high end antiquities dealers who sold bona fide ancient Roman coins with a museum catalog number all the way down to made-in-China crosses, one could find them in the Old City. And the crowds there could put the line at Space Mountain in Disneyland to shame.

It was the crowd that now made it hard for Siobhan to get any distance from her pursuers. Unlike the soldiers, who could wave their guns around and have a path instantly cleared, no one moved for her. Behind her, the shouts to halt were now so close she knew she would lose the race. She could identify the individual voices of the soldiers. She dared not look back because if she did she might not see a passing bread-cart vendor and, by colliding with him, encounter her final delay.

However, neither Siobhan nor the soldiers chasing her had counted on one fact. The sun was nearing the horizon. It was almost sunset.

And it was Friday.

Siobhan rounded a corner and collided with a solid wall of people in the Jewish Market. If the crowds in the Old City had intimidated her, here they caused her to skid to a stop. So many people lined the streets she couldn’t see the cobblestones beneath her feet. Vendors shouted frantically and although she couldn’t understand them, the cries had the sound of used car commercials desperate to sell. People thronged this way and that, pushing past each other to get to shops.

Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath day, and it began on sundown on Friday evening. When the disk of the sun went below the horizon, Shabbat began. For observant Jews, that meant no work would be done — at all. Trains and busses stopped where they were and would not move again until the Sabbath was over. In hotels, elevators began to stop on every floor, lest work be done by the pushing of a button.

And in the market, every vendor who sold perishable goods had until sundown to sell them or lose them. Meanwhile, observant Jews from all over Jerusalem had until that same sundown to buy everything they needed to get through their day of religious observance.

With all the vendors and shoppers concentrated into one Jewish market in the old city, trying to do all their last minute shopping in the space of a couple of hours, the clogged streets reached critical mass.

Siobhan had never seen such a crowd in her life. Not in New York City, not in Las Angeles, never. Shouting and pushing, a river of Jewish people rolled through their market district.

She had only to push forward, join the throng, and be absorbed. Within moments, she and the soldiers were lost to each other, buried under a writhing mass of humanity.

**********

Professor Wilson Kendrick swept his wide-brimmed campaign hat off of his head in a rough, exhausted motion that wasted no energy. Then he mopped his brow with a well-used towel and returned it to his pocket. The long hair of an aging hippie had gone pure white, and there wasn’t much left on the top of his scalp. What remained of his hair he tied in a ponytail behind his head. He wore wire rimmed glasses dirty with drops of sweat that had rolled off his forehead and dried on the lenses. He felt his age more than ever out here in the Negev; his skin hung loose around his neck and lower face.

He put the hat back on.

Israel’s southern desert trapped a person between heat from the sun above and reflected heat from the parched, desiccated ground underfoot. There were no trees, no shade, and no luck.

Behind him, laborers scratched into the earth with pickaxes, carefully piling the dirt in buckets to carry away. They were making a trench, looking for evidence Kendrick felt sure they would not find.

He had sacrificed his integrity for this and now he was well on his way to failure.

He walked away from the workers, past a hole dug into the ground, and back into his own trailer. A company that specialized in workforce housing had supplied indistinguishable trailers for him and all the people he had working on this dig. Inside, the small air conditioner pulled like an ox against the weight of the blazing sun outside.

On some other digs, archaeologists and laborers might stay at a nearby collective farm. However, in the middle of the desert, there were no nearby collective farms. Everyone had their own semi-permanent trailer made into a home for the duration of the dig.

The closest place of any interest was the Dead Sea, an hour’s drive away. Most of the workers went there on their weekends. Weekdays, on the other hand, left little energy for play. Long hours of manual labor in merciless heat left everyone so exhausted they usually went right to sleep at the end of the day.

Few trailers had anything in the line of creature comforts. His own was no different. He had a bed, a couple of chairs, and a desk. On the desk sat his treasure and his nemesis.

He stared at the quarter-inch thick stack of letter-sized white paper. It had his name and title on the top. It was an academic theory about the history of Islam and Jerusalem.

He picked it up and opened it as if to read it, then threw it back down. He had no need to read the words. Every last one of them was committed to memory. He used to amuse his students with his photographic memory. He would start the first class or two of a semester by describing for them things he had only seen for a few seconds.

Those were happier days, before this paper had changed his life.

It had sailed through peer review and had been accepted for publication under his name. But he hadn’t written it.

Only two human beings knew that. One of them had lost her career over it. The second was supposed to make the archaeological find of the century. But that looked less and less likely. Instead, it now appeared both of them would lose their careers over it.

In a scorched desert under an oppressive heavy sun, in this place at the crossroads of antiquity, it was easy to believe his failure was some kind of divine justice – justice for what he had done.

He remembered the moment well. A conference was coming up, and he had already submitted the paper he would present. It was about surrounding tribes adopting ancient Hebrew customs without actual conversion. It was boring, and he knew it would not be accepted by any major peer-reviewed journal for publication.

But then… the other paper came into his possession. The one he now held in his hands. It was exciting. It offered real possibilities for a dig that would get funded.

And the conference organizer – the head of the Archaeology department at his own university – had once let Kendrick see him enter his pin to the alarm system in the department offices.

His old trick with the photographic memory made everything else easy.

Kendrick snuck in, replaced his old paper with the new one, and borrowed the man’s receiving stamp. He marked the new paper with the same receipted date his first paper had.

With that moment of deception, his entire career changed course.

Now, baking in the desert sun, Kendrick threw the paper down. It had seemed worth the risk. It
was
worth the risk. The theory espoused in that paper pointed at one of the greatest finds in history. What if there really was evidence of Muhammad’s night journey? It would reshape the politics of the Middle East. It might set off a war but win or lose, it would change the world.

It would make the archaeologist who unearthed it into a hero; a successful hero whose dig proposals always received grant funding.

But for it to happen, he would have to actually make the find, not just publish the theory. And now he was digging in the wrong place.

At first, he had gone to the Israeli government about funding. Even though they didn’t have a budget for archeology, he thought maybe they would make an exception for this. It would be directly relevant to their national security, which explained why, after shuffling through several bureaucratic departments, he eventually found himself interviewing with the Israeli Security Agency. They actually did seem interested in funding his dig but some kind of internal politics had prevented it from happening.

Finally, he got funding from a non-governmental organization (NGO) with ties to the UN called the Fund for Middle East Harmony. They had accepted his grant proposal at full budget, which delighted Kendrick. In exchange, though, the NGO had insisted on this site in the Southern Negev being the first one excavated.

It didn’t seem like the most likely place to Kendrick. If the Muslims believed Muhammad had come to Jerusalem, why not look for the evidence in Jerusalem? But no one else offered him grant funding. He had gone so long in his stagnant career without a single proposal getting funded. When he finally had something worthy of attention, he still found it impossible to get funding. And when he finally met one funder – a very generous funder – he took it. Wrong place or not, every academic knew funding beat no funding. So he had accepted the proposal to dig in the Negev and decided to sort the problem out later.

Well, later had come and gone, and still Kendrick wandered the Negev digging for nothing. He was a scholar; analyzing his situation came naturally to him. He stole — plagiarized — someone else’s work. He had chosen to do something hurtful for personal gain.

The problem before him now? How to actually get the personal gain for which he sold his integrity.