The Project 02 - The Lance

where, or how. He moved fast, yelling into his microphone. He leapt onto the stage as agents began to converge on the President. Rice stopped mid sentence, his eyes narrowing as he took in the sudden flurry of frantic activity around him. Behind him, the Prime Minister rose from his chair, a look of confusion on his face. Ascher's personal bodyguard moved toward him.
    Carter stood rooted to the spot, not sure what to do next. Two agents grabbed Rice by the arms, lifted him up off his feet and ran with him toward the end of the stage.
    Rice and the Secret Service had reached the edge when the ground shook and rumbled. A geyser of yellow earth and rock and black smoke erupted with an ear-shattering roar and shot into the morning air. The stage rose upward, hurling chairs, people and debris in every direction. Nick was thrown backward into the group of guests sitting before the platform.
    The seven-arched porch on the al-Aqsa mosque swayed and fell in on itself in a crazed jumble of moving stone. The walls of the Mosque rippled in kaleidoscopic motion like falling dominoes, collapsing backward from the façade to the dome, sinking into a gaping maw opening in the ground. Two of the ancient minarets leaned sideways and fell. Huge blocks of stone caromed off the Mount and down into the packed crowds.
    I n the Stables of Solomon, excavations for the el-Marwani Mosque had weakened the southeastern corner of the Mount. The explosion blew through the shoring erected to stabilize the area and the corner collapsed in an avalanche of dirt and stone. Tons of earth and rock cascaded onto the streets and buildings at the foot of the Mount.
    The rumbling died away. A third minaret toppled in a grinding mass of stone. The huge stones tumbled together like giant dice, down onto the helpless, screaming crowd below.
    Carter stumbled to his feet. Thick clouds of dust hung over the square. A broad, deep pit had opened over Solomon's Stables. The President, Calloway and the others were somewhere in that pit. Nick ran to the edge and peered over.
    Rice lay half buried in dirt thirty feet down. One of his agents lay next to him, head twisted in an unnatural position. Calloway was nowhere in sight. Someone's arm extended from under a mound of rock. The edge of the Mount had disappeared and the fabled Stables were now open to the sky. Dirt and stone sloped down like a ramp to the President. Nick jumped into the pit and slid down, feet first.
    He placed his hand on the President's neck and felt a strong pulse. There was a long gash on Rice's forehead. Rice's eyes fluttered. Nick began pulling rocks and dirt away from him, all the time looking around. Where were the others? Why was he the only one here with Rice?
    He pulled the President free. Rice was coming to.
    " Mr. President. Are you all right? Can you hear me?"
    Rice opened his eyes. Suddenly they cleared.
    "Carter. What happened?"
    " A bomb. We'll get you out of here, sir."
    Up above, on what was left of the surface, there were shouts and screams, cries, confusion, the beat of helicopter blades coming close. Someone pointed a camera over the edge of the pit. Another figure appeared. It was one of the Muslim honor guards. His beret was gone, his uniform torn and streaked with dust. His eyes were wild. Tears ran down his face. He had a gun in his hand. He was screaming.
    " Allah hu Akbar! Allah hu Akbar!"
    The last time Carter had heard that cry was in Afghanistan, right before his unit was almost overrun by two hundred Taliban. He'd never wanted to hear it again.
    The man started shooting at them, sending chips of rock flying. Carter threw his body over Rice, drew his pistol and fired. The first two rounds took the shooter in the abdomen. He tumbled over the edge. Nick kept firing as he rolled down the slope. More faces appeared at the rim, this time, Israeli soldiers.
    In a few minutes they were surrounded by a cordon of soldiers and enough firepower to hold off an average army. The soldiers got them out of the pit.
    The square in front of the Mosque was strewn with fragments of stone, the remains of the stage and broken chairs. Dead and injured lay scattered across the bloody carpets. The surface of the Temple Mount had collapsed all the way to the southeastern corner, fallen away into the open chambers of the Stables and the streets below.
    The al-Aqsa Mosque was in ruins.
    T he roof was gone. The walls were broken down all the way back to the dome. The dome was reduced to a gray,