Slowly he drew back his hands and dropped his face into the crook of his left sleeve to rub the sweat out of his eyes.
“It’s a guide in the small cave beneath the Rock,” he said in an uneven voice, and cleared his throat. “They pound on the floor like that to demonstrate the hollow sound.”
“Bloody hell.” My own voice was none too steady. “Are they going to do it again?”
“Not until the next tour.” He took a deep breath, wiped his eyes again, and extended himself once more over the two and a half hundredweight of dynamite. His hands went still for a moment as he focussed, then he picked up the wire and cut it. As simple as that.
I began to breathe again. Holmes snipped and folded wires back, carefully removed the two detonators that, under the impetus of the clock’s alarm hand, would have set off the explosion, and carried them down the tunnel. He came back and lowered himself onto the floor, resting his head back against the wall.
“I’m getting too old for this,” he said after a while.
“When I take off this turban, my hair will be white,” I said in agreement.
“I’ve lost track of the time,” he said, a considerable admission.
I took out the old silver pocket-watch I always carried. “It’s twelve-fourteen.”
“Can we reach Mahmoud in sixteen minutes?”
“We can try.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said, half mockingly.
While Holmes swept the tools into his bag, I retrieved the lamp and then, feeling a little self-conscious, held it up so as to illuminate all the corners of the small enclosure, just in case. But there was no sign of the Ark of the Covenant, hidden deep below the sacred Rock, no indication in fact that anyone had ever been here other than Karim Bey or his accomplices. I followed my partner as fast as we could go down the slippery stones, across the moribund aqueduct and on down the tunnel to the hole in the roof that led into the Cotton Bazaar. The door set into the access hole was neither locked nor actually a door, merely a square of blackened wood, which Holmes lifted easily from below and inched gently across the floor of the house above us.
Holmes prepared to boost me up, then he paused and handed me the revolver. “They may have left a guard in the house. Be as silent as you can.”
I tucked the gun into my belt, put my booted toe into his joined hands, and was heaved up and effortlessly through the hole. I rolled instantly to one side; there was no response from the room. Taking the faltering torch from the inner pocket of my abayya, I looked around the filth of centuries that occupied the cellar, and spotted a ladder. I lowered it for Holmes, and once he was inside we brought it back up and put the covering back into place.
The house appeared empty. We picked our way up the worn stone steps, thick with the dribblings of the soil from the tunnel, and up above ground for the first time that day, into blessed daylight—though not much of it, given the architecture.
The actual door of the house was boarded over, but the windows, directly under which lay the oft-replenished piles of rubble I and the others had worked to clear, were neither glazed nor shuttered. The souk was empty of diggers today, as the soldiers took up more urgent duties elsewhere.
“Two of us in our current condition would be remarkable in the streets,” commented Holmes. “Do you wish to go for Mahmoud, or shall I?”
“I’ll go.”
I delayed my departure for thirty seconds to beat some of the encrusted mud from my robe and turn my abayya right side to, while Holmes searched for a marginally cleaner fold of the turban to pull over the rest. I went through the window, nearly bringing the rotten frame down with me, and into the pile of earth. Trailing clods of soil, I trotted away, and at the appointed corner found both Ali and Mahmoud, looking very tense. I slowed to a stroll, and as I allowed them to goggle at my condition I felt a grin grow, out of control and cracking the dirt across my face. “Amir!” exclaimed Ali. “What in the name of—”
“Are you injured?” interrupted Mahmoud. “Where is Holmes?”
“We are both fine,” I replied, and when I came up to them I added quietly in English, “The bomb is defused. You may tell General Allenby he should proceed.”
“By Allah, you cut that close,” said Ali. “Where will you be?”
“Down the Souk el-Qattanin,” I answered, and he turned and sprinted off into the bazaar.
TWENTY-SEVEN
و
And they schemed, and Allah schemed, but Allah is the master schemer.
—
THE QUR’AN
,
iii:54
The question is,” said Holmes, “knowing what we do of Karim Bey, will he remain in the vicinity to witness his handiwork, or will he be well clear of it? Russell?”
“Why does this feel like an examination question rather than a call for an opinion?” I wondered aloud. “Of course he’s going to be where he can see the results. He’ll probably even have arranged to have a good view.”
“Would you agree?” he asked our two companions.
“Oh, yes,” said Mahmoud.
“Certainly,” said Ali. “Karim Bey would not miss a moment of suffering.”
Holmes plucked out his map and folded it to the city portion. “Allenby and the rest plan to come into the Haram by the Moor Gate. They will visit El Aqsa Mosque, come by the Cup, cross to the Golden Gate, go back up and into the Dome for a few minutes before standing together on these steps,” he tapped the map, “for speeches and photographs. Yes?”
“These things are planned carefully,” Mahmoud noted. “It is the only way to be certain not to offend anyone.”
“And Allenby being who he is, it will run to time.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Do they still expect to be in the Dome at one-thirty-five?”
“Yes.”
“The bomb timer was set for one-forty. Bey will allow perhaps ten minutes before he is certain that something has gone awry. There are a limited number of buildings from which the western side of the Dome can be seen. Therefore we ought to be able to see him as well. If, that is, you can get us four pairs of field glasses, a quantity of dark cloth, a handful of push-pins or small nails, and permission to take over these two small buildings here.” He touched the map.
Mahmoud said, “I will ask for permission. Ali will make the necessary purchases.”
Ali nodded and the two men stood up, but Holmes put out a hand.
“Oh, and Ali? While you’re in the bazaar, some food, tobacco, and another torch. Ours is finished.” Ali scowled at this menial assignment, but he left, with Mahmoud close behind him, through the window into the souk.
A hasty search of what remained of the house turned up nothing more than half a dozen worn baskets caked with soil and the few remains of meals that had not been carried away by rats. The only source of interior water was a puddle in the cellar where the rain from the street had drained—dirty, but still cleaner than our faces and hands. We wet and rinsed our handkerchiefs and scrubbed at our skin, and when that was as clean as we could make it we beat and rubbed our clothing and re-tied our head coverings. When we were through we looked like the poorest of fellahin, but at least we would not frighten the children or, more important, get ourselves evicted from the Haram.
Ali returned, with hot food, a flask of tepid coffee, four army field glasses, and a fresh torch. Holmes smoked a pipe, Ali a cigarette. Holmes cleaned the revolver again. I felt like sleeping for a week. It was 12:50.
Then Mahmoud’s head appeared in the rotting window and we were back into action.