The two agents arrived half an hour later and were asked to retrace Ollie's movements in Jerusalem step by step. The two agents took a moment to refresh their memories and sketched out Ollie and Lena's route through the Old City. There appeared to be nothing unusual in their visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock mosque. One of the agents mentioned that while Lena appeared to be moved emotionally by being at these holy sites Ollie looked less interested in the details inside the church, for example, and was more concerned with the surrounding area and seemed to be studying the security arrangements at the sites and around them. For example, he only glanced at the Wailing Wall itself but looked all around at the police and soldiers in charge of the protection and security. The same attitude was observed when they entered the large open space on Temple Mount and saw the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques. The agent also noted that Ollie appeared to inspect the narrow streets leading to these places as if he was making an estimation of the size of vehicles that could travel through them. The other agent concurred, but said that he didn't think this was unusual as many tourists were kind of disappointed by the historic sites and more interested in the current life in the Old City. However, in David's mind alarm bells were ringing loudly. According to the reports from the ISA agents that had followed him, this was the only time that Ollie had left the group and wandered around on his own. David thanked the two agents and asked "The Fish" to remain for a few more moments.
When they were left alone David told "The Fish" that his gut feeling was that the real target had to be in the Old City of Jerusalem and not, as he had assumed earlier, in Tel-Aviv or at the Prime Minister's office. "The Fish" agreed that Ollie's irregular and uncharacteristic behavior was indeed suspicious and that security should be increased. Fortunately, he said, there was relatively little traffic of large vehicles inside the Old City and even those could enter the heart of the old city only through seven quite narrow gates. The most direct routes to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Temple Mount were through the Lions Gate or Damascus Gate and to the Wailing Wall through the Dung Gate or Zion Gate. "The Fish" said that he would make sure that security at these bottlenecks would be doubled starting the next afternoon. David called Shimony who had already returned home and gone to bed and updated him.
The improvised nuclear device had been transferred from the pick-up truck to the black Savana van that was "borrowed" from the Israeli settlement of Barkan, just a few kilometers from the Balata refugee camp in Nablus. The experienced car thieves had no trouble breaking quietly into the owner's house and stealing the original car keys that were hanging from a hook just inside the door. They did use a spray containing a strong tranquilizer to make sure that the owner and his family would not wake up and confront them — a messy situation that they were anxious to avoid. The people in the house would wake up in mid-morning with a strong headache and it would take them a while to figure out what had happened and report the theft. The van was designed to hold 15 passengers but Ollie and his host removed most of the seats, leaving only the front seat. Ollie made sure the device was covered with the tarpaulin and the space in front and behind the device was filled to the van's roof with cheap merchandize that was supposedly being transported to the market in Netanya — a popular beach resort in Israel.
The van was driven by Nasser, Ollie's guide from Umm al-Fahm who had an Israeli identification card and driver's license. Ollie had discarded his Arab garments and was dressed in the uniform of an Israeli reservist soldier supplied by his hosts in Nablus. They planned to cross the border early in the morning before the van was reported as stolen. The plan was that Ollie would pretend to be asleep if they were stopped — quite a common sight for reservists who were often on duty most of the night. This would help hide Ollie's inability to speak Hebrew. The fallback plan, in case the police or soldiers manning the border checkpoint wanted to speak to him, was that he would say in bad Hebrew that he was a new immigrant who had just been enlisted for Miluim (reservist army duty). As they approached the roadblock Nasser drove straight to the lane reserved for Israelis who lived in the Samaria settlements and not to the lane that served the local Palestinians who wanted to cross into Israel for work, medical treatment, school or for any other reason. Misha, the Border Patrol police sergeant manning the post took one look at the black Savana van and saw the license plates and the sleeping reservist soldier and waved them through without even asking for the driver's papers.
Nasser nudged Ollie smiling broadly and asked him where he wanted to go. Ollie asked to be taken to Jerusalem, with a stop somewhere quiet and out of the way so he could check the device once again. Nasser explained that he had relatives in Tira, a large Arab township in Israel in which the police did not enter frequently. Ollie asked him to call Sheik Khalil and have his bag and passport sent to the family in Tira but did not tell Nasser that this was in preparation for leaving the country after planting the device in Jerusalem.
After a short drive they arrived at the house belonging to Nasser's relatives. The house did not have a closed garage, but like many houses in Arab towns it was surrounded by a corrugated iron fence that was two meters high. Several families all related to one another and to Nasser, lived in the large house that was more like a complex than a single residential building. Nasser quietly told Ollie that some of them were also supporters of Hamas or ISIS but most of the family members were neutral or even loyal Israeli citizens that enjoyed the benefits of social security and excellent medical insurance plans. He assured Ollie that none of them would unveil Ollie's presence as long as he kept to himself. Nasser suggested that they wait until the evening before working on the device and meanwhile he would get a new set of license plates in case the stolen van had been reported as stolen. Ollie agreed since he preferred to take the van to Jerusalem after dark. On second thought Ollie asked Nasser to park the black Savana close to the corrugated iron fence and cover it with a sheet of textile that was stacked in the back of the van.
Meanwhile along the border between Israel and the Palestinian Authority the orders from the ISA and police to reinforce the checkpoints were implemented. The soldiers and police officers manning these posts were instructed to search all vehicles that were larger than private cars, regardless of the identity of their drivers. This was expected to cause some vociferous protests from the Jewish settlers who were used to driving through these checkpoints as if they were above the law that in their opinion applied only to Arabs. In addition, a list of all sizable vehicles that were stolen in the Israeli sectors close to the border was distributed throughout all the checkpoints. The list included several pick-up trucks that were very popular in those areas, a couple of full size trucks and a handful of other vehicles like passenger minivans and cargo transporters. Misha, the soldier that had been manning the checkpoint through which Nasser and Ollie had entered Israel a few hours earlier, saw that a black Savana was mentioned as one of the vehicles that had been stolen the previous night. He recalled that it had Israeli license plates and that it used the lane reserved for settlers and for that reason was not inspected closely. Misha also remembered that besides the driver a man dressed in IDF army uniform was asleep in the passenger's seat and since Misha did not want to wake him up he had decided not to delay the vehicle. This information was passed on to "The Fish" at ISA headquarters and he alerted David that this could be the vehicle they had been looking for.