SANCTION: A Thriller Read online

  SANCTION

  By

  S. M. Harkness

  SANCTION

  Copyright © 2015 by S. M. Harkness. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  1

  June 12th, 2016

  Rameh, Israel

  Day 1

  Saleem pulled a pack of Turkish cigarettes from his shirt pocket and opened the flip top with the edge of his thumb. He glanced around the cab of the cramped SUV, wishing that he had more smokes. His long bronze fingers reached in and plucked one from the bunch. He placed it between two dry lips and made another loop around the truck with his eyes. They all watched him closely, each hoping his generosity had not run its course. Sighing too softly for anyone to hear, the young Palestinian set the pack in the open palm of the man closest to him. The other passengers snatched the treats up with their bony hands as Saleem’s cigarettes made the customary round. Soon the truck was full of a dense bluish white smoke and the pack was empty.

  Traffic was light as the driver barreled down the dusty streets of Rameh–a small town east of the Arab city of Shaghur. The roads were barren along with the residential lots and small commercial buildings that littered Rameh. What trees and shrubs did exist were small and useless; unable to bear fruit in the arid soil. The dead earth spread before them like a plague, devouring life and inspiration as it went.

  Saleem knew that further up the road as you neared the Jewish settlements, the muted and tedious desert tones yielded to the lush greens of Israel’s vibrant agricultural program. Their process of drip irrigation had caused the desert to bloom.

  For Saleem, this was just another reason to hate them. In his mind, every scientific breakthrough that they had, came from the West. For seven decades America had been spoon-feeding them with wealth and prosperity while Palestine wallowed in humiliating poverty.

  Saleem took a long drag from his cigarette and laid his head against the worn headrest. In the seat next to him was Aziz Basri. Saleem had recruited Aziz a few months earlier during an excursion to the dome of the rock. The fellow Palestinian had been void of purpose and drive. His life had amounted to little in its short breadth. But the idleness of Aziz’s mind had been like clay in Saleem’s hands. Within weeks of their first encounter, he had led Aziz to believe that he not only wanted to be part of something bigger than himself but that the something he wanted to be a part of was Jihad. Of course, his parents had recognized their son’s naiveté as well as Saleem’s self-serving bloodlust and had refused to let him go. Aziz eventually left without his family’s blessing, comforting himself with the thought of how proud they would be when he achieved martyrdom. Saleem knew it was a delusion. If Aziz’s parents didn’t want him to go, they certainly weren’t going to warm to the idea when he got himself killed. But Aziz’s simple mindedness proved to be an aid to Saleem and he let him believe the nonsense.

  Saleem was contemplating this when he spotted a district police car coasting past on the opposite side of the street. On instinct his fingers tightened around the grip of a Russian AK-47 that was concealed between his legs. His stomach whirled in quick revolutions and his heart began pounding harder in his chest. He eyed the driver behind the wheel of the squad car as a knot developed in his throat. The officer stared unwittingly at the road in front of him. Saleem and the SUV cruised by unnoticed.

  They drove on for another half an hour merging with what was becoming the afternoon rush hour. The sun beat hard on the blacktop, heating it to a crisp one hundred and thirty degrees. Wide strips of vapor rose from the road ahead of them, creating a shimmering curtain in the distance.

  The driver of the Isuzu gripped the wheel with wrenched hands that displayed dark clusters of blue veins between his knuckles. Tarif Boustani had been one of the least likely recruits. As a thirty-three year old investment banker from Bangladesh, he didn’t fit the profile of a zealot. He had a family, a good job, an above average income, a nice home; he had no reason to be despondent. He was a nightmare for Western intelligence agencies. They had no problem making the connection between an impoverished orphan from the crime infested streets of Palestine and their violent transition into terrorism. But the ones that came from a solid upbringing, complete with a first class education and all the trappings of wealth, skewed their profile analysis. People like Boustani were ghosts. You never got a hint of their trail until you were shoveling a city out of black rubble.

  Tarif’s brother had been killed at a military checkpoint in Iraq in 2004 when the car he was traveling in failed to stop a safe distance from the guard shack. The car’s brake master cylinder had been failing, leaking copious amounts of slick fluid from its seals each time the brakes were applied. The vehicles owner had been getting away with topping off the reservoir at the beginning of every day. On that particular day however, he had been in a hurry and had neglected the periodic ritual. Perhaps if there had been a line of cars at the checkpoint, it would have resulted in a fender bender and things might have gone differently. But it was a slow day and the checkpoint had been light all morning. The driver had tried to stop. He’d slammed the brake pedal to the floor as he rose in his seat to bear his full weight on the rubberized plate. They managed to weave between the first two staggered jersey walls without hitting anything but the Marines at the checkpoint reacted with textbook efficiency and Tarif’s brother and the driver were cut down in a torrent of bullets.

  Public outrage had prevailed until the NATO commander, General Rodriguez, gave a press conference apologizing to the families of the two young boys. The apology had meant nothing to Tarif. He would now accept only an apology of his own design and measure.

  The other men in the car had been recruited by someone else in the organization and Saleem did not know their individual stories. He guessed that most of them were Palestinians like him, though he suspected one of them was a Saudi.

  The truck dropped an inch off of the pavement onto a dirt shoulder with a thump. Its springs protested with a loud squeak that reverberated through the rear wall of the cab. The truck engine roared beneath the hood as Tarif punched the accelerator and a plume of brown dust spewed from the rear tires. He pointed the nose of the vehicle toward an excavation site that lay a mile ahead.

  The site was cluttered with Land Rovers that bore the University of Jerusalem’s crest on the doors and hoods. Several multi colored tents had been arranged in a half circle in front of a small three foot wide square hole in the ground. A few of the students were milling about having conversations and drinking tea and coffee from Styrofoam cups
.

  Inside the truck, Saleem took in the moment. He savored it, the last seconds before the battle. Around him he heard the metal clanging of charging handles and bolts slamming forward as bullets found a home in the chambers of their rifles.

  Saleem closed his eyes. The fear that welled in his chest was a secret he kept from everyone, even his brother Raza. Some things were not meant to be shared. He quietly uttered a portion of his daily Rakat. “Decree for me what is good, whatever it may be, and make me satisfied with it.”

  The smell of tires, dirt, tobacco, gun oil and body odor permeated the cab; something he would not soon forget. He opened his eyes and glanced around the truck one last time. He saw the men as they were; young and inexperienced, afraid and timid, fierce and angry. Steeling themselves for war.

  2

  Zefat, Israel

  Nicholas Rhinefeld looked nothing like the archaeologist or tenured professor that he was. A youthful swath of blond waves topped a tanned and freckled face that was framed with sharp, rugged features. His square shoulders bulged slightly beneath his button down shirt and his cargo pants smacked of military dress. Despite the tough exterior though, there was inviting warmth behind his pale blue eyes along with a spark that came from being comfortable in his own skin. He was tall, just under six-two, with the lean build of a runner or swimmer. He had never looked the part of an academic and, for the most part, he didn’t behave like one.

  “Well that was perfect,” the reporter said, giving a nod of approval to her cameraman who had already begun packing the equipment. The man pulled on an extension cord and the bank of halogen bulbs that had been bathing the room with a band of hot light went dark. Only the dim glow of the drop lights remained.

  Rhinefeld chuckled beneath his breath as he got off of the stool. He thought the interview had been terrible. In truth, he hadn’t had any hopes that it would be otherwise. The whole idea of inviting the press had been the Dean’s. He turned to look at his students. They were scattered about the cavernous chamber. Even with the lackluster lights the rooms’ opulence was impossible to miss. Five massive pillars spanned its length, each covered in a collage of colorful mosaic tiles that depicted narratives from the Jewish Torah. An ornate arrangement of carvings decorated the vaulted ceiling. Along one wall, hundreds of scrolls lay in a heap on the floor. The ancient acacia shelves that once held them had long since collapsed. A thick layer of dust covered everything and attested to the ancient library’s place in time.

  There was no doubt in Rhinefeld’s mind that it had been constructed during the reign of Solomon. Many of the pieces were obviously from early 970 BC. The grandiose scale and design of the building attributed to an enormous wealth, uncommon among the Kings of Israel. Additionally, one wall was covered in a mural that pictured a vast navy of ships sailing toward an island covered in gold ore; like the ships that Solomon built, at Tarshish, for just such a purpose.

  Rhinefeld also knew however, that it would be foolish to announce such a claim to the world without the empirical evidence that came from thousands of hours cataloging and artifact dating.

  Katherine Boyd had been unwilling to wait for such evidence and had included the assumptions in her interview. Now Rhinefeld wondered if refusing the Dean’s wishes for the press would have been better for his career. The potential damage over rejecting his boss was likely less than what was bound to come from the reckless words of one reporter who was hungry for “prime time”.

  “You did fine professor,” someone said from within the throng of students.

  Matt Ward emerged from behind one of the pillars, his face a collection of shadows against the struggling glow of the drop lights.

  In contrast to his famed professor, Matt was on the gangling side. His hair, normally a mass of wild brown curls, was cropped close to the scalp and tapered at the top in a high and tight. His face was slender with high cheek bones and a nose that he had never quite grown into. He was also tall, but lacked the athletic stature of the older man. His voice, a deep bass, was the only anomaly to his otherwise unimpressive presence.

  Matt had come to the University of Jerusalem in the fall of 2013. He had changed his major mid-semester of his first year as a graduate student, from Anthropology to Archaeology. In the two years since he had become like a son to Rhinefeld, who had taken him on as his assistant.

  “So do you think Larry King has anything to worry about?” Rhinefeld asked while he laughed at his own question.

  “I’m sure there is plenty of competition for Larry King to worry about, but it won’t be coming from your classroom,” Matt said as he circled around the pillar and stood in front of the professor.

  Matt was the younger of two sons by Frank and Beatrice Ward. The Ward family had made a fortune in the cattle industry in Rifle, Colorado at the turn of the twentieth century. At the peak of their endeavors, the family had owned the second largest chunk of private land in the state, some 200,000 acres. Ranching had been in their family for four generations and like his father before him, Frank was good at it.

  But in one of the quickest losses of wealth in American history, Frank had begun dabbling in the production of motion pictures, a lifelong dream, but something he knew nothing about. His foolishness ended only after a long string of failed attempts and box office flops had liquidated all but a few hundred acres and the family home back in Colorado. Frank Ward lived the rest of his days in isolation, soured over the humiliating business defeat, until he passed away in 2002.

  Despite the imprudent behavior of their father, both of the Ward boys were gifted and intelligent. They exhibited the rare and extraordinary ability to master subjects of inexhaustible range and theory. If they had inherited anything from Frank Ward, it was the cautious and sober minded approaches to life that they had accrued by watching him trash their family’s legacy.

  Rhinefeld laughed at the comment as he gazed past his students to stare at the magnificent backdrop of the library. The farthest wall was studded with a brilliant array of rare gems. Rubies, emeralds, sapphires and onyx stones were arranged in concentric circles along its length. Inside each was a single Hebrew letter painted in black script. Rhinefeld read the wall to himself for the umpteenth time. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”

  The library itself had been discovered as part of a larger excavation of the ancient town of Halam when an earthquake uncovered its subterranean entrance. The shaft that led to the library had been built into the base of a low-lying hill behind a large private home in Halam. When the earthquake moved a stone from the back of the home, it revealed a secret world of unimaginable beauty and wealth. It was still unclear to Rhinefeld, as well as everyone else who knew of the site’s existence, why the library had been intentionally hidden during its construction. Like all archaeologists, Rhinefeld hoped it would one day become apparent, but he knew all too well that history did not always lend itself to clarity.

  Kathrine Boyd stepped closer to the professor; a sheepish grin draped across the lower half of her face. He knew that this was a veiled apology. He also knew that it was not genuine. Had it been, she would not have pursued him on tape the way that she had. She would not have sought to further her career under the guise of ‘free press’ by sensationalizing the ‘off the record’ conversation that they had had before the interview.

  “Professor Rhinefeld, I hope I didn’t upset you. I only meant to get to the bottom of things.” she said. “Allow me to make it up to you. Let me buy you dinner in Zefat.”

  If Rhinefeld hadn’t been interested before, he certainly wasn’t now. Though Katherine was beautiful, it was apparent to him, as well as everyone else in the room, that the reporter thought a great deal more about herself than she ought to.

  She reached around to the back of her head and pulled her shoulder length black hair into a tight pony tail. Her lips, perfectly set into an oval face, were dark brown.

  Rhinefeld guessed the color of her lipstick to be named something like Cinnamon Tranc
e or Umber Rose–something pretentious. He wondered if this little act was the equivalent of batting her eyes. He also wondered if anything about Ms. Boyd was authentic. Thankfully, she had left him with an out.

  “That won’t be necessary Ms. Boyd I wasn’t offended, although I do think you were off base. I made it clear in our previous conversation that there’s no evidence as to the origins of this place,” he said as he looked into her sharp hazel eyes. He hovered an entire head above her.

  “It was misleading,” he added softly.

  The professor in him endeavored to tell the truth with tact and kindness, but above all, to tell it.

  “I see,” she said, her remorseful countenance melting into a tight smirk. She moved her attention from Rhinefeld to the line of students that was forming at the base of the shaft. One by one, they each began ascending the makeshift rope ladder for the long forty foot climb to the top.

  Rhinefeld studied her profile as she turned toward the exit and focused on the group in front of them. She seemed embarrassed, maybe even hurt, probably the most sincere response he had solicited from her since they had met three hours earlier. It didn’t mean they were going to dinner, but he did consider softening the blow somehow.

  The two of them stepped forward as the line moved. Granules of sand rubbed between the soles of their shoes and the stone floor of the library creating a soft grinding noise. Rhinefeld stuffed his hands into his pockets awkwardly. He opened his mouth to speak as she stared at him through her peripheral vision. His words, though carefully chosen, were never uttered.

  A piercing crack echoed down to them through the shaft and shattered the relative peace of the chamber. In quick succession, several thunderous claps exploded at the site of the old city of Halam, above the library. Out of reflex, Rhinefeld ducked. The air around them seemed to tear and howl under the volley of rattling bursts. Katherine Boyd stood still, shock numbing her mind, while the students screamed and ran for cover. Rhinefeld struggled to get his bearing as the entire library erupted in a flash of chaos. His heart was pounding and his breathing became labored; fear was beginning to cloud his senses. A few agonizing seconds later he realized he was listening to the deafening sound of a machine gun.