Early Sunday morning, Gabby walked to the plaza outside the Jaffa Gate leading into the Old City and selected a metallic gray Mercedes taxi with green license plates marked with a large P permitting the driver to transport passengers through military barriers to the West Bank. "Can you take me to Bethlehem?" she asked the Palestinian driver, a blue-eyed, blond man in his early thirties, uncommonly clean-shaven except for an almost transparent moustache.
The driver lifted his chin to study her through glasses for his astigmatism, as if to ask, “Why would a woman like you go to Bethlehem?" Obviously, the white headscarf and a demure black cloak with flat leather shoes she wore had failed to convince him that she was a Christian Arab.
"I must attend mass at the Church of the Nativity."
"Depends on the roadblocks," the driver casually responded. "If they're in a bad mood, the soldiers can ruin my day. No guarantees they'll let us enter the city. It's open one moment, closed the next. I could get stuck there. So you pay for the delays, Lady, which could be a long time. If I can't leave, you pay for a full day. I can make more money by staying here in Jerusalem."
"Sounds fair to me," she said, and climbed into the back seat.
Despite the driver's misgivings, the barriers presented few obstacles, perhaps because it was Sunday. When a young bearded Israeli guard in a scruffy olive uniform—backed up by a teenage female recruit, who carelessly pointed her automatic weapon at the taxi driver—asked Gabby where she was headed, she told him she was going to church, which wasn't a lie.
Once in the biblical city, she directed the taxi past Father Benoit's École Biblique, knowing it to be closed for the Christian Sabbath, and instead followed a hunch based on what Tim had told her about its director. On several occasions, he had spoken of Father Benoit as a "fish out of water," an ardent student of history who fit more comfortably into the first century, than the twenty-first. When this priest spoke of Jesus, it was less about the august son of God than a contemporary friend who once trod ancient Galilean pathways. To think and feel like people in the days when Jesus preached, he had lived for two years with a Bedouin tribe, speaking their regional Arabic and emulating their nomadic existence. Though a citizen of France and a loyal servant of the Roman Church, he considered himself primarily a son of the desert. Why, Gabby reasoned, would this devout priest from Bethlehem attend Sabbath mass in any lesser sanctuary than the oldest church in Christendom, built by Constantine's mother, Helena, over the historic manger and birthplace of Jesus?
The taxi driver dropped Gabby off on Manger Square fronting the Nativity Church. She entered this imposing limestone house of God administered in the name of Christianity by Orthodox, Armenians, and Franciscan clerics, through a low medieval portal purposely constructed in the fourteenth century to prevent arrogant Templar Knights from entering the holy of holies on horseback. In a peripheral courtyard named for St. Jerome—where Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic clergy in black, brown, and white robes were bustling about in preparation for a series of simultaneous masses—she spotted a black frock with flowing folds belonging to the Dominican order. A series of quick steps brought her alongside where she tugged at the wearer's woolen sleeve.
The churchman slowed to turn his head, then stopped when she introduced herself as a Bible student from Chicago. His silky white skin glistened like polished porcelain; his cheeks enlarged in a friendly, almost toothless smile as he heard mention of the Windy City. "Oh yes," he said, "I have a cousin who immigrated to Illinois. That's near Chicago, yes?"
After gently correcting the cleric's geography, she asked, "Do you know Father Benoit Matteau, from the École Biblique?"
"Of course. Everybody in Bethlehem knows him. When he's not excavating in the desert, he attends mass here and gives lectures on biblical history. His collection of archeology slides makes you feel you're right there, centuries ago. We always invite him for lunch but he seldom accepts."
"Is he here this morning?"
"Don't know. You can't miss him because he wears an Arab djellaba at mass. He tells us if we want to think and feel like our Savior, we should dress like him, not like modern clergy. Look for a short man in a gray djellaba."
Gabby thanked the priest, adjusted the scarf far over her forehead to conceal errant strands of hair, then marched from the Orthodox and Armenian sanctuaries through a darkened corridor to the adjacent Franciscan church of St. Catherine and, once there, stepped into the nave to find a pew among rows of worshipers, as far forward as possible. It struck her that, while the young choirboys were bareheaded, the clerics lined in rows behind them were hooded, their heavy winter robes concealing all but their noses and mouths.
The choral music was Gregorian; the pervading aroma, that of Greek spices. As the mass began, she observed the Franciscan and Dominican brothers leave the altar through a side door to descend fourteen steps to a subterranean grotto marking the manger and birthplace of Jesus. With smoldering incense vesicles in hand, they returned to their previous places in the Franciscan church. From the distance, she could only guess which, if any, might be Father Benoit, either in a black robe or a gray djellaba.
As soon as the liturgy concluded, she rushed forward to the low-lying, narrow passageway leading out to Manger Square. People clustered ahead, waiting patiently to file under the low lentil. Among those nearest the low aperture, she caught a glimpse of what looked to be the gray cloth of a djellaba, and a white and black Palestinian kafia that the wearer had released from his head to rest on his shoulders. She thought about calling over the worshippers waiting patiently to leave, but hesitated because the man was already near the passageway. Instead, she concentrated on not losing sight of him, noticing how he rudely elbowed his way forward through a cluster of children impatient to seek sunlight beyond the darkness of the church. A moment later, the man ducked his head under the threshold and disappeared.
It happened so fast Gabby found herself muscling forward through the pack of bodies. Determined steps brought her forward where she used her shoulders to edge past those waiting patiently to leave. Her head dipped under the lintel and a moment later, she plunged into Manger Square, showered by warm morning sunshine. Father Benoit was nowhere in sight. Clerics were traversing the wide plaza headed in different directions. In the middle of the square, an enormous Orthodox monk with an untamed beard, his head crowned with a blood-red skullcap, was straddling a Vespa motor scooter, scanning passersby as though a police officer searching for a criminal. The little scooter appeared ready to collapse under his massive weight. Bodies moving in different directions confused Gabby. In a snap decision, she stopped looking for a djellaba and instead sought a short, heavyset cleric. With only a moment before those currently on the square were likely to disperse, she selected the shortest churchman and dashed in his direction, catching him on a cobblestone walkway leading to a street lined with souvenir shops. Bright sunlight had misled her because, as she raced forward, the brown habit she was chasing turned out to be gray.
She accelerated until she caught up and addressed the priest from behind, "Father Benoit?"
He barely slowed his pace, twisting his torso to observe who was talking. The moment he jogged his chin upward, she knew she had made the right choice.
"I'm Rabbi Lewyn, Tim Matternly's friend," she said. "I met you with him at Fink's Bar in Jerusalem."
Benoit came to an abrupt halt and turned fully toward her. "Mais oui, why of course." He spoke with the uplifting pitch of his French mother tongue.
"I don't wish to intrude, but I've come to talk with you about Tim."
"I'm afraid I have a pressing appointment. Perhaps you could return in a few days. Et oui, have lunch with me?"
"I have questions that can't wait. Tim has disappeared and I have no idea where."
Benoit's dark eyes studied Gabby's face before nodding his head negatively from side to side. His eyes were distracted over her shoulder, toward the center of the square where the Orthodox monk was now standing alongside his scooter like a piece of public statuary. She noticed the priest's eyes narrow and his lips purse. It looked as if his attention returned to her only under duress. After an awkward moment, he asked, "No contact with Timothy? A note? E-mail? A phone call perhaps?" "Nothing. Is there another woman in his life?" she pursued, seeing how the priest had other things on his mind. "I wouldn't like that, but then I also don't like that I can't find him. If it's bad news, I need to know now, not months from now."
"I would doubt that," Matteau said in a tone of dismissal, as if to say that domestic matters were not his field.
"Is he all right?"
"Is there any reason to think otherwise? Timothy and I see each other only when we have a matter of scholarly interest. At such times, we're inseparable, but for the present, matters that concern us are quiet. It's been more than four months I would think."
She knew too much from Itamar Arad to believe that a preeminent scholar with numerous contacts in the region would characterize the present state of archeological affairs as quiescent. "Please," she said, testing Benoit with a question whose answer she partially knew. "Have there been any recent archeological discoveries that might affect Tim?"
She thought she saw his eyebrows rise slightly as he said, "There are always rumors. Most are spurious, of course. Nothing I can confirm at this moment."
"Thank you, Father," she replied, uncertain how to interpret his response.
"Do come and have lunch with me, Rabbi," he said, turning on artificial charm. "As I recall, you're working on prophecy. I'm eager to learn what you've come up with."
"I've made considerable progress since we met."
"Well, then you absolutely must come. Contact my secretary, Simi, at the École. Salam alekum." A mottled, fleshy hand shot out from his djellaba to seize hers.
He was away in an instant. She was about to move into a side street and hail a taxi when struck by the image of Benoit's eyes riveted over her shoulder. She pivoted toward the center of the square where the Orthodox monk was now vigorously pumping the starter peddle on his Vespa, maximizing his entire weight and strength. No matter how hard he attacked the kick-starter, the engine stubbornly refused to turn over. As Father Benoit disappeared from the public square toward a narrow row of shops, the monk threw his arms over his head as if cursing the heavens.
***
Orthodox Friar Hilarion, whom Gabby had noticed at Manger Square, had driven a Vespa belonging to the Monastery of St. George through three Israeli checkpoints from Jericho to Bethlehem to deliver a message from Tim. Sworn to the silence of his ecclesiastical order, he refused to answer when Father Benoit took possession of an envelope and released a torrent of foul curses, blaming the messenger, not Tim, for unnecessarily compromising their pact of secrecy. The fact that the monk had made a public spectacle of himself by parking dead center in the middle of Manger Square compounded Benoit's rage.
When he cooled down, the Dominican priest offered the unfortunate man fruit juice, then dismissed him with instructions not to return immediately to Jericho. A cleric of his size driving a motor scooter was certain to attract unwanted attention. Instead, Benoit proposed that he visit the Church of the Holy Sepulture in Jerusalem then, as his guest, have a leisurely lunch at a restaurant in the Abyssinian Quarter of the Old City. He should return to the monastery only after sundown.
The envelope contained a handwritten message from Tim Matternly.
COME IMMEDIATELY. URGENT!
Benoit struggled to read between the lines. Why was it important for him to leave Bethlehem for Jericho, forging a trail that might later be followed? In the thirty-one day interval since a scanner, computer, and server, along with other office equipment, had been delivered to the monastery, it was impossible for Tim to have completed the task of sorting, scanning, and coding the fragments from Qumran. And it was equally impossible for him to have compiled them into a decipherable form. The only plausible explanation for this impatience was that something important had been discovered. Benoit could have used his mobile phone to contact a representative of St. George in Jericho, but that would have established an undesirable phone trail, particularly since he had long suspected how Israeli officials were eavesdropping on his calls. And there was now an additional danger that the police might be listening to conversations originating from the monastery.
Normally, a Palestinian chauffeur drove Benoit around Bethlehem in the École's vintage maroon Buick. For security reasons, this afternoon he drove himself north to the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem, then veered to the northeast in the direction of Jericho where he stopped on a promontory to survey the Judean wilderness through binoculars. The sun, dropping in the western sky, cast the desert in ochre and rust, punctuated by patches of yellow and white wildflowers sprouting in the wake of the winter's extraordinary rains. The desert's beauty stirred in him a familiar sense that this was not just any desert, but the holiest of lands, sanctified by having given birth to humankind's spiritual history. Beneath his sandaled feet, Benoit could almost feel legions of Christian believers preceding him. Their ghosts still lived in the soil of this precious geography and their spirits were still carried by the desert winds.
Benoit had toiled in the garden of biblical archeology his entire career, primarily editing books and articles written by his colleagues, adding his expertise to the compendium of knowledge about life in the time of Jesus. When an archeological site bequeathed artifacts from the past, he had tirelessly labored to place them in an historical context. But there were many fallow years in which nothing of significance was unearthed. During these long droughts, he kept himself occupied by compiling and reexamining past assumptions.
Despite the scholarly acclaim he had achieved, he was left with a dim view of his life's work. Though commentator and editor of countless scholarly papers and author of five complete books, he had never discovered a single original artifact, leaving him to feel that his professional life had been squandered looking over the shoulders of others while they, not him, pioneered in building major bridges to the past. His sponsors in Rome knew nothing of his frustration. Even less did his colleagues in the Holy Land sense how he envied their achievements. As the years of his scholarly career neared an end, he prayed fervently for a personal discovery, some tiny artifact of history to secure his place between generations of the faithful. Yet come each new year, his prayers remained unanswered.
On this afternoon, Father Benoit interrupted his ruminations to concentrate on more mundane matters, searching for Israeli patrol vehicles along the border between Israel and Jordan. A white lorry emblazoned with large black letters marking it as a United Nations vehicle was heading eastward toward the Jordanian frontier. A stream of taxis and small trucks moved at what appeared breakneck speed to and from the Allenby Bridge fording the Jordan River. Figuring that no one on the highway would take special notice of his car, he adjusted his position behind the wheel and maneuvered the gearshift from Park to Drive.
Before actually entering the ancient city of Jericho, he veered from the bituminous highway onto an unmarked dirt track, swerving westward from the desert floor into the Judean foothills. Two cars and an all-too-familiar Vespa belonging to the Monastery of St. George were parked where this potholed track ended five kilometers later. He eased his Buick behind the second car and cut the ignition, then removed a leather bag from the backseat before starting on foot along a rocky path that sometimes offered crude stairs cleaved from the limestone outcropping. A banister rope provided support for the steepest portions. He paused on three occasions to rest, thinking that in his younger days he could have made this climb without stopping to catch his breath.
The Orthodox Monastery of St. George had been carved from the mountain's limestone in the fourteenth century and offered a distant view of where the Jordan River now snaked through fertile green farmlands. High on this bluff, a gentle breeze ruffled Benoit's thinning silver hair as he tugged at a cord attached to a bell situated on the parapet above.
The architects responsible for designing this mountain retreat seven hundred years before had deliberately ensured privacy by omitting to build a gate. To enter, monks and their occasional visitors were obliged to be hand-hauled over the wall in an unstable gondola dubbed by friars who operated its archaic pulleys "the lift." While waiting for the gondola, Benoit anticipated the ride would trigger acrophobia he had suffered since childhood. And after enduring this unpleasant ordeal, he would still have to descend into the monastery on a series of rickety wooden ladders, a second trial certain to aggravate his arthritic hip.
His nerves unsteady and his head dizzy, he eventually arrived in the monastery courtyard where two monks greeted their Dominican visitor with animated hand signals rather than break their order's strict rule against speaking. They pointed to a rack for storing keys to the vehicles parked outside the walls. Dutifully, Benoit surrendered the Buick's to a vacant hook, then followed his hosts through a maze of dank stone corridors. A monk seized his arm when he wobbled, a delayed reaction to the unusual means of moving over rather than through the monastery wall. They passed living quarters and meditation cells lit by small electric bulbs hanging naked from the ceiling. Dark cloaked monks were coming and going, but none offered a welcome. Only the clip-clop of footsteps on the cobblestones broke the pervading silence. Once he arrived at his destination, Benoit nodded good-bye to his guides and watched them disappear somewhere in the dim light of the corridor.
He seized a candle from a table, lit it, and opened a small wooden door, then bowed his head and stepped into a chamber large enough for a single person. Once seated on the chamber's only stool, he extinguished the candle and carefully peeled back a black felt curtain over a small window to peer down upon an interior room. Late-model office machines—a computer, a scanner, a server, and a copier—rested on three broad oaken refectory tables. On the floor, Benoit noticed several picnic coolers in various colors.
Warm air radiating from the office machines, rose to the aperture. Tim Matternly suddenly appeared from a corner of the room to approach a vacuum-sealing machine normally used for preserving household food. He moved quickly, following a practiced routine. Benoit observed him matriculate through a full cycle in which a Ziploc bag from Qumran was emptied on a clean surface where single and double letters were separated from full words. Fragments that clung together, even by so much as a thread of decomposing parchment, Tim handled as a unit. Each cluster was then placed on a glass slide for digital scanning. Next, every scan received an identifying code. From time to time, Tim transferred the results to a DVD disk and then to a backup server.
With this process completed, he would carefully place each fragment in a new plastic bag for vacuum-sealing, a label with the assigned code attached to the outside. The finished product found a temporary home in one or another of the picnic coolers. Help from the monks would have expedited this laborious process, but Benoit was pleased to see that, for the sake of secrecy, Tim had honored their agreement not to seek assistance.
When satisfied that the processing was proceeding according to their original plan, Benoit left the viewing chamber and descended a flight of narrow stairs to the workroom. A gentle knock on the sealed door announced his presence.
Tim cautiously cracked it open. "Glad you're here, brother," he exclaimed upon recognizing Benoit in the shadows. Normally, a warm hug would have been in order, but for cleanliness, Tim wore a sanitized white scrub suit used by technicians in high-containment biological labs. On his hands were sterile surgical gloves, both of which were raised to ward off physical contact.
"I'm furious you sent Friar Hilarion to the École," Benoit barked, making no attempt to mask his irritation. "And I'm unhappy about having to sneak back to Bethlehem tonight." He withdrew from his satchel a stainless-steel thermos. "Here's some coffee. I know they prohibit caffeine here. Don't let others know I did this."
"An angel from heaven," Tim responded, stripping off his gloves. He readily accepted the coffee Benoit poured into a plastic top that served as a cup.
As Tim sipped, Benoit growled, "You wouldn’t have contacted me if it wasn’t important. I hope that proves true."
"It is," Tim said. "I'm exhausted. You get into a routine repeating the same procedure from early morning to late at night. To speed up this process I made a rule not to read anything because it would only distract me. I was working yesterday, my mind in some other world, my hands doing the work, but something I cannot describe stirred me. I looked down on the scanner, and despite my resolve not to read what was there, I read it anyway. You must believe me, Father, that my eyes read by themselves, against my will. Before me was a fragment, much like the others. I had already assigned it a code number. My eyes eventually sent a message to my brain and what I was seeing was clearly impossible. My consciousness told me I could not be reading what was there. It just couldn't be, because it was the most unexpected thing on this planet."
Tim eyed his cohort, suddenly seeing in him a suspicious and calculating expression that had eluded him in their previous collaborations. He wasn't sure what this meant, but he had gone too far to retreat from his pledge to share everything. "We've hit the jackpot," he said with new force, "maybe the most revealing artifact in the ancient world, rivaling the Rosetta Stone. No, no, I believe more significant than the Rosetta."
Benoit's eyebrows rose with curiosity.
Tim opened a green cooler, carefully lifting a vacuum-sealed envelope from the left side. Half-dozen steps brought him to a refectory table used for sorting fragments. Benoit helped make room by removing tweezers and a circular magnifying glass, then stepped alongside Tim's right shoulder. An explosive pulse of pain shot from his arthritic hip down into the thigh. He stiffened for an instant to let the sting pass before bending over farther.
To read, the priest needed to hook rimless glasses behind his ears. When he looked down, an impulse urged him to scream. What? No document! No scroll! Only three words on a scrap of decomposed parchment! Why had Matternly endangered their enterprise by summoning him to Jericho for a few lousy words? He immediately recognized the ancient Hebrew script similar but not identical to the familiar modern Hebrew letters used everywhere in Israel. His lips silently spoke what he read before asking, "Any idea of the context?"
"Not yet. We'll learn more when we assemble the other fragments."
Benoit lips curled in a skeptical gesture while his eyes scrutinized Tim for signs of how much he was withholding. Surely, with such a discovery, he wouldn't stop there.
"I have three or four more days of work here," Tim said, deliberately exaggerating because, by his calculation, he was two days from finishing. "Now that we have the material digitalized, we must contact Itamar Arad and transfer the originals to the Antiquities Authority."
By placing his hand on the sleeve of Tim's scrub suit Benoit allowed bacteria from his fingers to transfer onto the sterile garment. "I'm afraid we can't do that." His voice took on the uncompromising managerial tone he employed with staff at the École.
Tim pulled free. "Now hold on. We agreed to turn over all the artifacts as soon as we had them coded, scanned, and prepared for study. I've worked like a dog for weeks with this in mind. My back's killing me. And my feet are so sore I can hardly hobble back to my cell each evening. If we delay returning this stuff to the legal owner, we'll look like looters, not scholars."
"Legal owner?" Benoit exclaimed. "You say 'legal owner.' Who might this be, Timothy? I hope you're not suggesting the Israel government just because it's currently the authority in this region. Running the Zionist state doesn't make Jews into the rightful owners of Christian treasures. These fragments are two thousand years old. Where was the Jewish government when they were written? Rome ruled then, but Rome is long since gone and can howl its claim of ownership only from the pages of history books. The people who wrote these scrolls had no idea that two thousand years later there would be a Jewish commonwealth here. Had we discovered these texts before 1948, would we have handed them to the British Mandatory Government? Or the League of Nations? Or the United Nations? How about consigning them to the local Arabs? Come on now, Reverend Matternly. Don't be naive. You can be damn certain we wouldn't."
"You never made this argument before we entered the cave, Father. I agreed to help at Qumran only to obtain documents for our study, not our possession. I nearly got shot. At Qumran, we both agreed that the Israeli government was the legal owner. Israelis have hardly abused their Dead Sea documents. On the contrary, they put them on permanent display for the world to see in the Shrine of the Book. Today, anybody can read them on the Internet."
Benoit's irritation showed in a fierce scowl. "These documents will be displayed under the Star of David over my dead body. This is undeniably Christian record, Tim, not Jewish artifact."
"It's historic documentation that evolved from the reaction of Jews to the Roman world."
"I beg your pardon. It's the spiritual record of our relationship to the Father. I demand that you recognize new realities. The landscape has changed since we were in Qumran. Perhaps I was naïve. But that doesn't make me a damn fool. Christians are the rightful owners. It is literature written by Christians for Christians."
"And exactly which Christians have you in mind?" Tim asked, sensing his Dominican cohort had a deeper agenda.
"Exactly whom?" Benoit barked, as if it were not obvious.
"Christianity is a fractured mosaic," Tim said before Benoit could answer his question. "Place the stewardship of this document with one faction and the others will object. The most practical proprietor is a neutral people like Jews. And let's not forget that Christ was a Jew from the day he was born to the day he died."
Benoit growled, "It was I who discovered that the cave was being looted. You wouldn't have known about it, and you would never have found these fragments without me. This is my operation, Timothy, and I'm telling you now, we're not giving any of this to the Antiquities Authority. And even if we wanted to, it's now impossible."
"Nothing's impossible. We just take them a few miles to Jerusalem. It's not like breaching the Atlantic Wall."
Benoit's delivery slowed for emphasis. "I don't think you heard me when I said we can't turn anything over, even if we wanted to. Remember the Bedouin at the cave entrance. We found blood on the ground."
"He returned to his people."
"He died. I have it on good authority that his body was found in a wadi nearby with a bullet in his jaw."
"By what authority?" Tim demanded.
"It doesn't matter. All that matter's is that I'm telling you an indisputable fact. Hand over these fragments and the police will throw us in jail. And not for a parking violation or looting artifacts, but for murdering a Bedouin. They're probably looking for you as we speak."
"Why me and not you?"
"If they know that loose fragments were discovered, wouldn't they want to talk to someone who has written the definitive work on compiling them?"
"The Bedouin shot first. You fired in self-defense. The police will take our word for it," Tim said, a tremor of uncertainty in his voice.
"Why should they? They'll argue that if we knew the cave was being looted, we should have come forward immediately. Even if no one was hurt, we're still looters. And if we go to them now, they'll want to know why we waited so long. And if we knew a Bedouin guard had been shot, why didn't we seek immediate help? We might have been able to save that poor bastard's life."
"They'll take the word of respected scholars."
"This is bigger than local archeology, mon ami. Don't expect largess when religious sensibilities are involved. Besides, Itamar Arad and I have been at each other’s throats for years. If my friends in the Vatican hadn't protected me, he'd have shipped me out of Israel long ago. He lets me pad around in Bethlehem where he can keep an eye on me because it's like being under house arrest."
Tim considered that for a moment before saying, "If we hadn't gone to the cave, everything would have been lost to looters. We've performed an invaluable service." He turned back toward the scanner where he had left a two-word phrase on the glass surface, but at the last moment, whirled about to face Father Benoit once again. "Had I known you would change your mind…"
"It wouldn't have made a smidgeon of difference," the Catholic priest finished the sentence for him. "You would never have let an opportunity like this slip through your fingers. This is no time to throw yourself on the mercy of the Israelis. Finish the scanning. Leave here when you're ready to begin deciphering. The important thing is to keep a low profile."
"That wasn't our agreement."
"The original understanding is dead and you know it."
"I'll agree only to finish my work here. I'm making no more pledges. As soon as I'm finished, I'll need to take a few days off to think."
"Of course you will. After what you've just shown me, I will, too."
"I'll get a lift to Bethlehem and pick up my Hyundai."
Benoit paused in an uncertain moment before narrowing his eyes. "That's another thing I need to talk with you about," he said, clearing his throat. "I'm afraid your car is gone. You can take my Buick for a holiday."
"What do you mean gone?" Tim snapped. "You promised to drive it back to Bethlehem and park it there for me."
"Well, I drove it to Bethlehem, but it isn't there anymore. I couldn't take the chance it had been photographed by the drone. So I parked it with the keys in the ignition where car thieves operate. And lo and behold it just disappeared. Wooof. Gone, gone like a dream. Thieves always make physical alterations to a stolen vehicle before sending it to market. For all we know, your SUV is now in Jordan, Syria, or Iraq. And that's exactly where we want it to be."
"I don't believe this," Tim said. "I just don't believe you'd do a thing like that."
"Your insurance company will pay. You do carry theft insurance, don't you?"
While fighting to control his anger. Tim refused to give Benoit the satisfaction of an answer. Silently, he lifted the fragment from the table, noting Benoit's eyes trained on him. The latch on the green cooler stuck. Tim jiggled it free to expose numerous other vacuum-sealed bags. He carefully replaced the fragment to the exact location where it had been before.
Father Benoit returned to the conversation, sounding conciliatory, "Let's bury our disagreements until we have everything in the computer. We can quarrel about the ownership later. I'll be back in a few days. Timothy, just finish the marvelous job you're doing here."
Tim waited until he heard Benoit's retreating footsteps on the stone passageway, then immediately removed the last fragment from the cooler and, with masking tape, attached the transparent envelope to the small of his back. As soon as he was satisfied this treasure was snug against his skin, he slipped back into the scrub suit top. Now, if the priest returned to steal this treasure after nightfall, he'd be in for a big surprise.
Father Benoit buttonholed the first monk he could find to show him a note he had written, saying that he wanted to see Abbot Nicholas Afanasieff. During his previous retreats in the monastery, Benoit had delivered silent presentations on biblical themes by showing his illustrative slides and writing commentary on a chalkboard. However challenging this method of communication, the brothers seemed to enjoy it. Once in Afanasieff's office, Benoit did not expect the abbot to respond. As head of the monastery, he preserved the right to speak when he deemed it appropriate, but to fulfill Benoit's request, no verbal response was necessary. A nod of understanding was sufficient.
"The Presbyterian minister is doing work for my École," Benoit wrote on a tablet in French. "But for reasons you can probably imagine, he must not leave the monastery. Please instruct your brothers not to lower him over the wall on the lift."
The abbot's lips fell open as he contemplated a request that was inconsistent with St. George's reputation for hospitality. At the same time, he didn't wish trouble with the Roman Church and its influential friends in Istanbul. On his own notepad, Father Nicholas Afanasieff wrote, "For how long?"
"A few short days," came the answer.
Abbot Nicholas granted his consent.
"I'm going to remain here with him," Benoit scribbled. "We must conclude our business together."
Only after Benoit had withdrawn did Nicholas consider a more perplexing question: what would his brethren do if Dr. Matternly used force to leave? While his monks kept themselves in reasonable physical condition, they were men of peace, unaccustomed to violence. To see that such a situation did not occur, he ordered his brethren to place a padlock on the lift. In addition, he instructed them to remove the chrome crank handles from the pulleys. Now, not only was impossible for Dr. Matternly to leave, but anyone else—including Father Benoit.
***
Outside an impoundment yard for stolen vehicles, two kilometers northeast of the Allenby Bridge linking the Occupied Territory of the West Bank with the Kingdom of Jordan, Major Zvi Zabronski eased behind the wheel of his forest-green armored police cruiser and reached for a briefcase containing enlarged photos provided by Colonel Bar Jehoshua. He shuffled through four pictures quickly before stopping to study a fifth. Flanking a dried desert wadi, a thin stand of gum trees provided cover for a vehicle swathed with netting, the kind used by the military to camouflage tanks and planes from aerial surveillance. In the picture, it was impossible to discern the precise make and model, but an army photo analyst had meticulously measured the dimensions and matched it with a late-model Hyundai Tucson SUV.
After jotting notes on a PDA, Zabronski got out of his car to pace back and forth impatiently. The sun was nearly overhead, baking the desert floor. He was rolling his shirt sleeves when Itamar drove up twenty-two minutes late, excusing his tardiness with a complaint about traffic near Maale Adumim, an eastern suburb of Jerusalem, caused by religious Jews demonstrating against a government regulation curtailing the construction of future housing. Itamar introduced Gabby as an American rabbi working on a graduate degree in biblical studies whom he had brought to help identify the Hyundai SUV.
Zabronski dipped his chin to take a closer look over the top rim of his sunglasses, squinted, and cocked his head to reveal that he had not expected a female rabbi and certainly not one this attractive. His first English sentence marked him as an immigrant from Brooklyn, alerting Gabby that, while he wore a religious skullcap, he was probably unlike other zealous American Jews who had taken up residence in the Holy City for the sole purpose of talking directly to God. Zabronski struck her as someone far more interested in talking with fellow Jews.
A few moments later, the major flashed his identification card to a dark-skinned guard in a rumpled and ill-worn police shirt who fumbled with a locking mechanism to a five-meter high chain-link gate. The guard then pointed along rows of sun-blistered cars and vans whose symmetry was occasionally broken by a bus heavily caked in desert dust. After being locked inside the compound, the trio marched down the rows of vehicles and eventually found a baby blue Hyundai Tucson with tinted windows and a partially open trunk hitched to the car's frame with packing rope.
Despite his earlier inclination to dismiss Bar Jehoshua's suspected link between the cave at Qumran and the murdered Bedouin, Zabronski was now reconsidering. He opened the driver's door to the SUV and knelt down to examine dirt on a rubber floor mat, making a mental note to have it tested by his forensic lab. "Have you seen this car before?" he asked Gabby.
The moment she set eyes on the vehicle, a familiar tremor, commonly caused by anxiety, rippled through her arms. In her professional life, she had learned to conceal this by placing her hands into whatever pockets were handy. When nerves got the better of her while speaking in public, she would plant her palms firmly on a flat surface and press down until the tremor passed. Fortunately, this morning she was wearing a khaki vest with large side pockets. Her hands disappeared immediately beneath the flaps.
The model, color, and damaged rear-end dashed her hopes that the vehicle she had come to identify would not be Tim's. But how could she deny it? The thought of protecting him with a declaration that she didn't recognize this SUV flashed through her mind. But she was too levelheaded to believe that such a bald lie would hold up. She responded to Major Zabronski by nodding yes, then quickly opened the driver's door to inspect the dashboard. From that angle, the sun was blinding so she pulled the door fully open and dropped into the front seat, her trembling hands now clasping the steering wheel for support. Attached to the sun visor was a paper clip Tim used for handwritten notes and hanging from the rear-view mirror by a piece of yellow yarn, a spent container of automobile disinfectant. An empty Ziploc bag rested on the rubber floor mat in front of the passenger seat.
"How did it get here?" she asked Zabronski as she hauled herself back up.
"A Palestinian tried to drive it across the border into Jordan. Our people spotted fake registration papers."
"Where did he steal it?"
"From a bad neighborhood in Bethlehem. The thief claimed he got it from a third party and that he was only a middleman. They always say that. Just wind'em up and out comes a canned response. Now we're certain it belonged to Professor Matternly."
"Where did the thief get a key?" asked Gabby.
"There are more locksmiths in the West Bank than bakers."
Gabby's nerves were beginning to calm. At least now she understood why Tim's Hyundai wasn't parked in its usual spot on the street outside their apartment. Without wheels, he was probably somewhere nearby. Not in Haifa, his favorite Israeli city, or in crowded, noisy, polluted Tel Aviv, which he avoided whenever possible.
Itamar Arad, who had remained silent to let Zabronski make the identification, said to Gabby, "This doesn't look good for Tim Matternly. We know this vehicle was hidden in the desert near Qumran at the time the looting occurred. His absence is more suspicious than ever."
As she regained control over her initial shock, she experienced a flush of determination to counter Arad's summation. "I can see the direction of your thinking," she said with a stern, uncompromising tone, but I know something about this that you apparently don't."
"Why hold back?" Arad said.
"That whatever the apparent circumstances, Tim Matternly stole nothing. I've known him for about twenty years now. Rather intimately, I'm proud to state. And he wouldn't steal anything because he's not now, nor never was, a thief."
Itamar respectfully pondered the conviction with which Gabby spoke and decided not to argue. Instead, he suggested that, since they had no more business in the desert where it was becoming unbearably hot, that they return to Jerusalem and talk more over lunch.
At Maale Adumim, en route to Jerusalem, Major Zabronski used the siren on his police cruiser to lead Arad and Gabby in the Antiquities Authority Toyota through a crowd of Orthodox Jews in black frock coats and heavy fur Sabbath streimels blocking the road. Placards deplored government restrictions on further construction in the district, though the current building codes in Maale Adumim were already generous by Jerusalem standards. Outside the two vehicles, the angry demonstrators threatened with their fists, occasionally slapping rotten eggs against the windows to show their contempt for government officials, no matter that neither the Border Police nor the Antiquities Authority had anything to do with building permits. To help move through bodies from the road, an armored police car plowed a path by gently shoving the demonstrators aside.
An hour and a quarter later, in Café El Mundo off Jaffa Road, Zabronski was already seated at a corner table when Gabby and Itamar entered, a half-poured bottle of grapefruit juice before him. After a few words in Hebrew about the unpleasant scene on the road, the three slipped into their shared English mother tongue. First things first: Gabby and Arad placed food orders at a nearby counter then returned to Zabronski's table. The police officer lowered his voice so that other diners could not overhear. Speaking directly to Gabby, he said, "What I'm about to say will upset you. Arad and I debated whether it was necessary, but unfortunately there's no alternative. It's dangerous to keep you in the dark about Professor Matternly."
Gabby paused, unfolding a paper napkin, glanced at Arad then back to the police officer, who said, "Until you identified that SUV, we weren't sure what Matternly was doing out there in the desert."
"And you still don't," snapped Gabby. "A stolen car doesn't make Tim into a cave robber."
Zabronski allowed the suggestion of a smile to part his lips. He knew his skill at putting the right question before a witness. "All right, Rabbi Lewyn, then perhaps you can provide us with a plausible explanation for Matternly's presence near Qumran at that critical moment. Maybe a special project that he was working on?
Tim's e-mail came to her mind as she struggled to formulate a credible reply. "His primary contribution has been with the Dead Sea scrolls. I'm sure he would be interested in any new discoveries. Perhaps he heard that something was brewing there."
Zabronski appeared impatient and said, "It seems many people learned about this before we did."
"I'm sorry, that's not my problem," Gabby said. "I know this doesn't put Tim in a good light."
"I'm afraid it makes him a major suspect," Zabronski snapped in a harsher tone.
"I've already told you guys that I have no idea where he is. He certainly hasn't returned to our apartment."
"But he might in the future," the major said. "There are things that a fugitive needs and can't get without exposing himself."
"Like what?" she asked. "Something as mundane as a toothbrush. If you don't have a toothbrush, you have to buy one, and that takes money. A change of clothes, perhaps. You can't live day in and day out in the same rags. Or how about medications? Does Matternly take prescription drugs? They're not easy to replace on the run."
She knew that an American cardiologist had insisted Tim take Lipitor to lower his cholesterol. An orange prescription bottle filled with white capsules was sitting on the bathroom sink. Arguing to herself that this was a private matter, which had no bearing on the cave at Qumran, she said nothing to the policeman.
Zabronski stopped to accept a pita filled with grilled chicken from a waiter who, in haste to serve other tables, almost dropped it in his lap. Another pita sandwich went to Itamar, and a plate of hummus and a small salad for Gabby, who requested a glass of iced tea. Once the waiter left, Zabronski followed up, "You'd be surprised what fugitives do. We don't know how much money your friend has to purchase necessities. If he's in Jerusalem, the easiest place to get what he needs is his apartment."
Itamar placed a hand on Gabby's arm, saying, "This makes you uncomfortable. We understand your desire to help Tim, but it's imperative you understand how withholding information will make you a conspirator. And now that you know something about what Tim's been up to, you can't argue before a court of law that you were an innocent bystander. If you were married to Dr. Matternly, you'd have some built-in immunity. But not as an unmarried woman."
Gabby dropped her eyes over her hummus. Of course, she had been thinking about this, but now it was out in the open.
Itamar said, "That Matternly is obviously hiding doesn't say much for his innocence. I must give you an official warning. Since we have his car spotted at the scene of a crime, he's now a fugitive. We know you would like to help him. Don't. It will only get you into big trouble. "
The amicable feeling Gabby felt for Itamar and Zabronski was replaced by a sense of mistrust. She was about to question the soundness of their position when Zabronski added, "Which brings up another issue. I've had the unpleasant job of delivering to his tribesmen the remains of a Bedouin youth murdered near Qumran, just about the time the cave was looted. The murder of a Bedouin invariably triggers tribal vengeance. An eye for an eye. The government has attempted to intervene in such matters, but we never succeed. The Bedouin say to us 'Mind your own damn business and we'll mind ours.' No matter how much we threaten them, they do what they want. When I went to their encampment to speak with Sheik Telfik banu al-Fahl, I delivered the warning he expected. I drank a half-dozen cups of coffee and ate unmentionable parts of a sheep. The elders don't like Jews, but, when in their company, they're officiously hospitable. We all know they won't heed my warning. The tragedy is that they're not terribly sophisticated. Half the time they don't get the guilty party, though that doesn't seem to matter much. For them, it's enough just to spill blood when blood has been spilt."
"So what you're saying, major, is that they'll find someone to murder in place of the youth?"
"One way or the other. The only thing that works in Matternly's favor is that Bedouin are a timeless people. They'll move slowly before striking."
"What exactly are you implying?" Gabby asked.
"That if Professor Matternly is involved in the death of the Bedouin youth, he's a target. He'll have a better chance staying alive if we find him before the Bedouin do."
This alarming state she hadn't considered. "I presume he's only exposed to that danger in the desert."
"That's the way it used to be. But these days, Bedouin kids go to schools in the city. A few study at the university. Revenge can have a long reach. And it gets worse. If Matternly's working with stolen antiquities, he ventured into the domain of organized criminals."
"Dr. Arad here isn't certain the mafia's involved,” she interrupted. “Do you feel the same way?" "As a policeman I'm trained to be suspicious. We know that the cave was looted. That's the kind of work these people do."
"So Tim's now a target of both the Bedouin and the mafia?" Gabby declared as though asking a question. "Is that correct?"
"Afraid so," Zabronski said. "That's why we need to tell you. We don't want you hurt through association."
"Thanks. I'll take a stiletto wherever I go," she almost growled.
Itamar said, "Don't be a martyr. Professor Matternly may have started as a humble academician interested in scholarship, but he's now involved in a very dangerous venture. I've seen many an honest scholar corrupted by Mammon or glory. You shouldn't suffer because of it."
Later, walking Gabby along King David Street in the direction of the archeological library of the Hebrew Union College, Itamar allowed his shoulder to touch hers in a gesture of protection. She recoiled and failed to conceal her exasperation.
"Where are you going with all this?" she asked as they were about to part on the library steps.
"I intend to find Tim for his welfare as well as yours."
"Got any new leads?"
"Trade secrets, I'm afraid."
"Lot's of ifs," she said, suddenly wanting to retreat into the silence of the library where she could think. She wondered if Tim were aware of the dangers. But just as important, she sensed how he had boxed her into an impossible situation. From now on, anything she did on his behalf would make her complicit with him. Itamar and Zabronski seemed genuinely concerned for her welfare. But for how long could she count on their sympathy?
"I'd love to see the cave at Qumran," she said.
There's nothing there to see. Looters got nearly everything. My people removed what little they left behind." "My thesis deals with prophecy in ancient times and I devote two chapters to the Roman era." She paused before doing what did not come naturally—bargaining like an Arab shopkeeper in the bazaar. "Take me to the cave, then I'll do my best to help you find Tim."
"It's out of bounds, secured by the army."
"And you're the director of the Antiquities Authority. How can the army keep you out?"
"I can't promise. Before taking anyone there, I would have to get permission from the IDF. And to see anything, we'd need trekking outfits and rappelling lines. Equipment like halogen lamps and water—a lot of water. Entering a cave like this is dark, dusty, and, I can’t overemphasize, claustrophobic. There's barely enough space to breathe. Would you be prepared to crawl in thick—and I mean thick—dust?"
"To visit a Dead Sea cave? Are you kidding?"