The Solomon Scroll (The Project Book 10) by Alex Lukeman

Author:Alex Lukeman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2015-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 30

Major Dov Yosef brushed a speck of dirt from his uniform and cursed the faulty air-conditioning that had turned his office into a sauna. He contemplated a plaque on the wall with the motto and winged sword of the Israeli Duvdevan.

כִּי בְתַחְבֻּלוֹת, תַּעֲשֶׂה-לְּךָ מִלְחָמָה

"For by wise counsel thou shalt make war."

The quotation was from Proverbs. Once it had been the official motto of The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, better known as Mossad. That had been changed to a different proverb reflecting the idea that many counselors were needed. Dov thought it suited the officious bureaucracy of Mossad perfectly. He was of the opinion that the fewer counselors the better, particularly when it was time to mount a mission. As often as not Dov's orders came from Mossad's headquarters in Tel Aviv. Sometimes too many cooks had been stirring the operational soup.

Duvdevan wasn't the official designation of Dov's unit. The word meant cherry, a nickname that reflected the unit's unique position within the Israeli Defense Force. The cherry was the fruit at the top of the tree, just as the Duvdevan was at the top of its particular tree, the most elite of a very tough army's special forces.

Alone within the IDF, the Duvdevan operated independently of other Israeli units. Unit operatives spoke fluent Arabic and often dressed in Arab civilian clothes, blending in with Arab populations. Many of Dov's men spent a lot of time in Gaza. The Duvdevan operated throughout the Arab countries surrounding Israel as well as within its borders. It was a difficult and dangerous job. If an operative was caught, he was a dead man.

Dov's unit had no specific mission except relentless defense and counter attack against the enemies of Israel. Because it was under the Judea and Samaria division of the IDF it could move anywhere within the country without answering to the normal army chain of command. It was the unit of choice for secretive and dangerous counterterrorism missions in the Middle East. Other field units in Israeli intelligence, like the lethal Kidon, fanned out across the world to carry out their operations. The Duvdevan stayed close to home.

The heat wasn't the only thing on Dov's mind. He'd just finished reading a report on two ancient scrolls that spelled trouble. He thought of them in his mind as the French scroll and the English one. X-ray pictures of the French scroll and translations of both were part of the report. The primitive code that pointed to the probable location of the tomb of Solomon had been easily broken by Israeli intelligence.

The report speculated that the destruction of the night train to Rome and the explosion in Grenoble were connected to the scroll examined in France. It ended with a promise of further investigation.

Dov had seen reports like that before. Further investigation could mean anything, reveal nothing. In the meantime Dov had been told to plan a mission to find out whether or not the tomb of Solomon and the Temple treasure still existed.

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