"The place tourists call the Mosque of Omar. The site of
Solomon's Temple—the Rock of Abraham—the threshing-floor of
Araunah the Jebusite. Next after the shrine at Mecca it's the
most sacred spot in the whole Mahommedan world."
"Good lord!" I said. "Are the Zionists so reckless?".
"No, the Arabs are. Remember what old Scharnhoff said the other day about the new fanaticism?"
"Is Scharnhoff mixed up in it?"
"He's being watched. If the Arabs pull it off, they'll accuse the Jews of doing it, and set to work to butcher every Jew in the Near East. That will oblige the British to protect the Jews. That in turn will set every Mohammedan in the world—'specially Indians, but Egyptians, too—against the British. Jihad—green banner—holy war—all the East and Northern Africa alight while the French snaffle Syria. Sound good to you?"
"Sir Louis knows this?"
"He, is paid to know things."
"And he lets you play cat and mouse with it?"
"Got to be careful. Suppose we draw the net too soon, what then? Most of the conspirators escape. The story leaks out. The Jews get the blame for the attempt, and sooner or later the massacre begins anyhow. What we've got to do is bag every last mother's son of them, and suppress the whole story—return the TNT to store, and swear it was never missing."
"The Administrator has his nerve," I said.