97

10 MINUTES BEFORE AIR FORCE ONE LANDS IN ISRAEL

The Israeli ambulance had been Hamdi Yaşar’s idea.

And it was a stroke of genius.

Not a single nonemergency vehicle was on the streets of Jerusalem, and as al-Qassab worked the radio in Hebrew, they were waved through every checkpoint until they pulled up to the Damascus Gate and screeched to a halt.

In his Magen David Adom uniform, al-Qassab jumped out of the ambulance with one of the Kairos paramedics. Grabbing cases of medical equipment, they ran down the steps to the gate, approached the IDF soldiers manning the checkpoint, showed their fake IDs, and cursed in Hebrew that they had a heart attack patient they had to get to. The young soldiers quickly stepped aside, and al-Qassab and his colleague sprinted into the Muslim Quarter. They raced down a labyrinth of empty alleyways until they reached the Old City branch of their man’s dental practice.

Bursting through the front door, al-Qassab drew the silenced Glock and signaled for his colleague to wait by the front door. He worked his way down the main hallway, checking each examining room one by one. Finally he found the dentist and his assistants all laughing and talking and sipping tea in a back office.

They looked up in shock to see al-Qassab, but their shock didn’t last long. The Syrian raised his weapon and double-tapped each one to the forehead. Checking to make certain they were all dead, and satisfied that they were, al-Qassab called for the paramedic waiting by the front door to come to the back office and help him. The moment he arrived, the Syrian double-tapped him, as well. Then he took the man’s radio and held down the Talk button.

“Patient stabilized,” he told the ambulance driver in Hebrew. “But we’re going to be longer than expected. Return to base, and I’ll get back to you.”

“Affirmative,” the driver radioed back.

Al-Qassab returned to the front desk. He pulled a piece of paper out of the printer and rifled through the desk drawers until he found a Sharpie. He wrote, CLOSED UNTIL AFTER THE SUMMIT in Arabic, taped the sign to the front window, locked the door, and pulled down the shades. When he was done, he stashed the cases of medical equipment in one of the examining rooms, stopping only to withdraw his collection of mobile and satellite phones and ammunition. These he stuffed in a backpack along with a spare set of clothes, then found the staircase and headed up to the two-level private apartment above the clinic.

The dentist was in his midthirties and married with a couple of kids. That much al-Qassab had learned from Hamdi Yaşar as they’d planned this mission. The family had been sent away. That was ideal, as it gave him the privacy he’d now need, along with a well-stocked refrigerator, running water, and a television on which he could watch the arrival of the president and king, which al-Qassab suddenly realized was happening right then.