O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [135]
“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