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Marcus walked to the door of the dome and stood to its right.

Tomer took up his post to the left of the door.

This gave them a 180-degree view of everything in front of the entrance, including the risers and the cameras. Everything behind the dome was being covered by snipers and other agents.

“Carl, restart the live video feed,” Marcus said into his wrist-mounted radio.

Ten seconds later, Roseboro radioed back to say it had been done. “Smile, Marcus,” he said. “You’re being broadcast to the entire world.”

Marcus did not smile. Through his Ray-Ban sunglasses, he tensed, waiting for Mashrawi to emerge, even as the White House press secretary stepped up to the bulletproof podium positioned in front of the magnificent gold dome and spoke into the bank of microphones.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States, Andrew Clarke, and his esteemed partners for peace, the prime minister of the State of Israel, Reuven Eitan, and His Majesty, King Faisal Mohammed Al Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

The several dozen staffers who had not, in the end, been ordered to evacuate applauded loudly from somewhere off to Marcus’s left, near the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

“They are joined by His Excellency, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Azzam; the U.S. secretary of state, Margaret Whitney; and the senior United States senator from the state of Iowa, Robert Dayton.”

“Start the music,” the director of the White House advance team said over the radio.

A moment later, a band and honor guard comprised of U.S., Israeli, and Saudi military musicians entered the plaza and began to play the Saudi national anthem.

From his right, Marcus could now see the six principals emerging from their holding room, strolling down the colonnade and smiling and waving to their staff and to the cameras as they approached their positions. Marcus, however, ignored them all. He was certain Mashrawi was coming. But when? And from which direction?

“Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem, was the next to play, followed by “The Star-Spangled Banner.” As the anthems played, each leader took his or her assigned spot behind the podium. Their bodyguards stepped aside, three to the right and three to the left, out of the view of the cameras and careful not to obscure Marcus’s or Tomer’s views.

President Clarke strode to the podium, cleared his throat, and spoke first. His remarks were brief. Two minutes, if that. He heralded the historic nature of the day, thanked the Israelis for hosting the peace summit and the Saudi king for his “courageous decision” to come and “break ancient taboos” and pursue a “new birth of peace and freedom” for Arabs and Jews and “all the people of the Middle East.”

Prime Minister Eitan was next. Given the extremely sensitive nature of an Israeli Jewish prime minister speaking on the Temple Mount at all, much less in front of one of the most revered sites in all of Islam, he wisely kept his remarks even more brief. He simply thanked the president and the king for their “bold pursuit of peace” and welcomed both to “the Holy City,” noting that “nowhere on earth are religious freedom and tolerance more revered or enjoyed than here in Jerusalem, beloved to followers of our three great monotheistic faiths.”

King Faisal Mohammed spoke last. He stooped as he stood before the podium and with tears in his eyes spoke the longest. He thanked “Allah, the beneficent, for granting me this dream of my entire life, to come to al-Quds and stand where Muhammad —peace be upon him —and Jesus and so many of the great prophets once stood.” He described how much he looked forward to praying in the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque. He thanked the president and the prime minister for their gracious hospitality.

And then Hussam Mashrawi stepped onto the plaza.