Free The Prophet Conspiracy by Bowen Greenwood

themselves differently. Shin Bet is an acronym; Shin and Bet are two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. For English speakers, we would say Israel Security Agency.”
    Siobhan nodded, let the silence grow again for a moment, and then asked, “So how did you get to be a tour guide?”
    Cam shrugged and looked away from her again.
    “I had a…”
    He paused, obviously searching for words.
    “Well, I had a disagreement with a superior officer. I was part of the Division for Countering Terrorism. We had what I considered a unique opportunity. There was a terrorist; he rose up fast in the Al Qassam Brigade, the military wing of Hamas. His name was Toma, Haaris Toma, and we had developed some intelligence that he wanted to expand their tunneling program.”
    Siobhan nodded. She had heard about the tunnels on the news and during her earlier tour. They were efforts by Hamas to dig tunnels under the Israeli border so they could sneak terrorists in and kidnap people.
    “Well, Toma wanted to take the same technique and apply it in Jerusalem itself. He wanted to dig out from the Arab quarter — from the temple mount, where the Dome of the Rock is located — into Jerusalem itself. He wasn’t satisfied with kidnapping Israeli citizens; he wanted to start kidnapping tourists.
    “The more intel we turned up on him, the more I cared about catching him and bringing him in. He’s a very violent man. In America, you’d call him a serial killer. Here, we call him a terrorist.”
    Cam paused and looked out the window at the Jerusalem skyline. Then he said, “I remember you asked about Professor Kendrick when you were with your tour group.”
    Siobhan fought back all the old feelings and looked out the same window Cam had just been looking out of. She didn’t say anything.
    When the silence grew awkward, Cam said, “Well, anyway, Kendrick came to the government here looking for funding for a dig. Normally, that just doesn’t happen. The government doesn’t fund archeology. But in this case, he said it had national security implications for Israel, so the Prime Minister’s office at least heard him out. They sent the question over to us, whether Kendrick’s research might really affect security.
    “I was a big proponent of funding Kendrick’s dig. I didn’t know so much about whether he could really find evidence of Muhammad’s night journey. I just knew some of the locations he proposed for his dig would give us a direct approach to the places I expected to find Toma’s Jerusalem tunnel. If Kendrick’s dig happened, I thought we could use it to catch Toma in the act.”
    Cameron paused for a long time. When he continued, it was in an emotionless monotone.
    “My boss was a woman named Maya Godwin. She overruled me. No dig funding. Not from Shin Bet and not from the Knesset — our parliament. We were at a meeting with the Knesset’s Foreign and Security Committee when she announced we had determined there was no security reason to fund Kendrick. I argued with her. She wouldn’t budge. I got a little heated. She still wouldn’t budge. I lost my temper. She fired me.”
    There was a moment when he could have been done speaking. He could have left the explanation there, and it would have been enough. But then he went on.
    “I grew up in the states, obviously. It’s not a surprise to anyone who hears me speak. There’s an organization called Birthright. They give Jewish young people a free trip to Israel to see the country that… well, to see the country that’s their birthright. I jumped at the chance right after college. I was bullied a lot when I was a kid for being a Jew in a Catholic school. After a bunch of punks punch you in the back shouting about being Jewish and crap like that, being a Jew becomes kind of important to you. I paid a high price for my ancestry. That makes it valuable to me.
    “Anyway, Birthright got me over here, and I fell in love. I started asking about how to emigrate, and it seemed like I was