Chapter 28
Chapter 28
W e climbed several flights of stairs, exiting onto the top of the ancient city wall surrounding the north end of Jerusalem. The lights of the city flickered warm amid the cold air. Ariel walked to the edge, leaning against a stone once guarded by Crusaders and Moors and many others. After a minute, he pointed across the street. “Some say that is your Golgotha.” He paused, gesturing to the line of city buses. “Today it is the busiest bus station in all of Jerusalem.” The air smelled of diesel, burnt trash, and hot asphalt. He looked at me. “Does that offend you?”
I shook my head. “I tend to find it rather fitting.”
He studied the wall. The Mount of Olives and Garden of Gethsemane to the east. City of David to the south. Temple Mount between.
I waved my hand across the stony earth before us. “Lot of war here.”
He nodded, not feeling the need to speak.
“Why live here? Wouldn’t you be safer somewhere else?”
“Safety is an illusion.” He stared out across the ancient mountain, finally shaking his head. “I am a watchman on the wall.”
When I spoke, I did so with intention. “A repairer of the breach?”
He raised an eyebrow, surprised I knew the context. “Given my history, the world is not safe for me. So we live here.”
He pointed again. To quiet lights on a stone wall just beyond the building to the left of the bus station. “Your garden tomb. ”
I knew the place. I’d been there. I turned. Made eye contact. “Is it mine... or ours?”
He nodded and smiled. “One day soon, we will know.”
I shook his hand and was certain I’d not seen the last of Ariel Underwood. “Until then.”
“Until then.”
Camp, Clay, and I returned through the Old City. After a few minutes, I paused to window-shop. Camp idled up alongside me. “You see him?”
“Yep.”
“Ariel’s men?”
“Doubtful.” I dialed Ariel. He answered on the first ring. I heard his son in the background. He spoke first. “No, they are not mine. If I wanted to follow you, you wouldn’t know it.”
“I believe you. You able to detect any communication from them?”
“No, but when we do, I’ll let you know.”
“My thanks to you.”
“Oh, and, Murph?”
“Yeah.”
“There are two of them.”
The second I had not seen. “Check.”
I hung up and Camp, Clay, and I continued to meander. Taking our time. We bought shawarma, then a coffee, then Camp slipped into a store and appeared to shop before slipping out the back, leaving Clay and I as bait. A few moments later, I heard a crack followed by a muffled scream followed by another crack and a not-so-muffled scream.
Clay and I rounded a corner and turned into an alley. Camp was standing over two men dressed in black. Both disarmed and staring in disbelief at the unnatural bend in their knees. “I don’t suppose these dummies know anything either.”
Camp shook his head. “We can try to massage it out of them, but they’re no different than Steve. Just a two-man cell with a for-hire sign that answered a call an hour ago and then took some fast money to follow us.”
I knelt, took pictures of the guys’ faces, and scanned their prints with my phone. “Just two guys minding their own business.” I was growing tired of idiots for hire with no moral compass. The man closest to me was hardened. Box chin. Curved nose. Seen his share of fights and, judging by the muffled obscenities coming out his mouth, not used to losing. I didn’t have time to get the information I needed. Nor would we get very far in the streets of Jerusalem. But I knew someone who could.
Ariel answered on the first ring. I could tell he was smiling when he spoke. “I’d like to hire Camp as well. He’s good.”
“If I leave these guys, can your men sweep them off the street and ask them a few questions?”
“What do you want to know?”
“I want to know how they were contacted. Where they hung their mercenary-for-hire sign.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard.”
“My thanks.”