AS THEIR MERCEDES CONTINUED FORWARD, rocks started bouncing off its hood. “Oh no, and I just had a new paint job from the last set of dents,” Nathan moaned.
Nathan slowed the car and tried to navigate it through the mob, but several men hopped onto the hood and started banging on the windows with their fists. Nathan did a quick zig-zag with the steering wheel, and the men on the hood slid off. Suddenly Will heard a loud crack near his head. He looked at the window next to him and saw a small chip in the glass. Then there was the crackling sound of gunfire off to his left, as Will spotted several Palestinians with handguns firing—and the approaching Israeli soldiers firing back.
As the soldiers converged on the Mercedes and surrounded it, the mob dispersed.
Will pointed to the chip in the glass next to his head.
“Bulletproof glass. Great stuff, huh?” Nathan responded, looking in his rearview mirror.
The soldiers walked alongside the car as it took one more curve in the road, and then Will could see the little alley that was their destination.
The small, short street that led up to Stephen’s Gate cut through a hill. On top of both sides were tall, temporary metal barricades that acted as shields. Nathan stopped the car, got out, and chatted with the armed guards at the entrance of the street. Then he returned and told Will and Nony that they had to walk the rest of the way, about seventy-five yards, up to the Gate. Nathan explained that he now had to drive back to the airport to pick up someone else arriving from America.
“Nathan, one thing you haven’t explained,” Will commented. “You haven’t told me how you knew I was coming. And why I’m getting this personal escort. Why the VIP treatment?”
“Well,” Nathan explained in his deep voice, “here in Israel we survive on good information. Both to warn us of our enemies—and to help us welcome our friends.”
Then Nathan shook Will’s hand and said, “Whether you know it or not, you are one of the friends.”
Will and Nony, dressed in their flak jackets and helmets, quickly exited the car and walked up the street that led directly to the Jerusalem wall. As they did, they were flanked by young Israeli soldiers who lined both sides of the narrow road, weapons slung over their shoulders. Will was squinting in the bright sunlight.
As Will shielded his eyes with his hands, he could see straight ahead, to the end of the row of soldiers. In the ancient wall that rose up about forty feet, there was a gateway made of yellow stone, which surrounded and towered above an arched entrance that led into crowded alleyways of the Old City within. To the right was a huge white inflated tent of some kind that reached almost to the top of the wall. Trucks, backhoes, and other pieces of digging equipment were parked around the outside. Dozens of people were milling around the entrance.
One man with rolled-up shirtsleeves and a clipboard walked briskly up to Will and Nony. He nodded to Nony, and then introduced himself to Will.
“I’m Saul Rosencrantz. I’m the official designee of the IAA at this project. Nony here is my boss. So I have to be on my good behavior. You fellows can take off the military gear. You’re safe here.”
As Will was led to the entrance of the tent, he looked over to his left, through the arched opening of Stephen’s Gate, inside to the narrow street surrounded by shops and buildings.
“What’s that, on the other side of Stephen’s Gate?” Will asked, looking at the ancient arched gate.
“Oh, you would know that as the ‘Via Dolorosa.’ The street where they say Jesus was led to his crucifixion.”
Saul ducked to enter the tent. But then he realized that Will was not with him, and turned around.
Will was still standing motionless at the same spot, slack-jawed, staring intensely at the winding Via Dolorosa through the archway.
“First time here?” Saul asked.
Will nodded. Saul smiled and put his hand on his shoulder, and said, “Time is short. A lot is going on inside. Come on.”
Inside the tent Nony had scurried off somewhere, while Saul quickly, in a hushed tone, began describing to Will the group of dignitaries that were jammed inside. As Will looked around at the bazaar of men in head pieces, beards, and multicolored robes, he felt as if he had walked into an international religious convention.
“That’s Cardinal Guido Veronni from the Vatican, and Fr. Anthony Barronette, Personal Emissary of the Pontiff. Over there is a representative of the Coptic Church of Ethiopia, and there, the designate of the Greek Orthodox Church. Some of the American Protestant groups are very upset that we didn’t give them a chance to be here. But the problem was that this thing was thrown together so quickly there simply wasn’t enough time. Not to be glib about this, but this is not an ‘orthodox’ type of burial excavation. Not by any means. I think you realize, Mr. Chambers, that, with all due respect, the U.S. State Department put incredible pressure on us to get this set up in record time.”
Will heard some arguing to one side. He turned and saw an elderly man in a long gray beard, wearing a black fedora on his head, and a black coat and a shawl over his shoulders. He was flanked by a younger man in blue jeans and a yarmulke, whose long brown locks curled down the side of his head and who had a rifle slung over his shoulder. Those two were arguing with two others, apparently Muslim clerics—one with a short beard, black robe, and square white hat, and the other in a white robe that was wrapped, in one piece, around and over his head.
“That’s Rabbi Micah Karinsky. He’s arguing with the Islamic Mufti of Jerusalem and Sheik Ahammen Yessar. Those two are both with the Waqf, the Muslim trust that controls the Temple Mount. The Muslims are upset with the fact that the Rabbi insisted on bringing his own personal bodyguard into the tent.”
Saul took Will to the midpoint of the tent, where a group of scientists and researchers had gathered around a large foldup table. The table was covered with computers, cables, and several video screens.
Beyond the table by a few feet was another adjoining compartment of the tent, but it was closed with a flap and a sign was posted that said, “No Entrance—Excavation in Progress.”
Most of the researchers were crowded around one large monitor. The black-and-white image on the screen showed what looked like the interior of a rocky cave.
“Adam, this is Mr. Chambers from the United States,” Saul said to the man at the controls of the video screen, who was wearing a headset and microphone. “Why don’t you give us both a rundown of the status thus far?”
“Well,” Adam explained, “we have a square closing stone to this tomb. Characteristic of first-century Herodian. The tomb itself has decorative features in keeping with some of the tombs we have found from the same time period—20 to 60 C.E. Time of Jesus, we are all convinced. Hard limestone, precise angles on the entrance, good aesthetic finish. Ornamentation. The owner of this tomb had some pocket change to spend. From what we can see from this position, it shows what I think is the standard first-century arrangement. Two, maybe three interior compartments. But we can’t be sure until Reichstad gets inside with his camera guy. They say they are going to need another thirty or forty minutes before they are ready to go deep inside the tomb.”
The researchers were all looking at their watches and milling around, making conversation that, though apparently largely in English, sounded like a foreign language to Will. Saul excused himself for a few minutes and disappeared.
Will found a folding chair to sit down on. As he did he patted his coat pocket and felt the outline of the plastic bag. Adam came over with a Styrofoam cup of coffee, and offered it to Will.
“It may be strong. We like it that way over here.”
Will thanked him. “You’re the lawyer?” Adam asked.
“Yes. And feeling a little out of my league here. I’m no religious expert. And I’m not an archaeologist.”
“No, but you’re a lawyer,” Adam replied as he headed back to his video monitor. “That means you ought to feel right at home in this place. The Christian Gospels say that Jesus had some of his best arguments with lawyers, don’t they?”
After finishing his coffee, Will leaned back and relaxed. He listened to the sound of the tent billowing in and out with the breeze. He hoped that Angus MacCameron was faring better. And he wondered what Fiona was doing right then.
While he gazed at the video screen, Will wondered where Jesus of Nazareth was in all of this. Here in a small, ancient corner of Jerusalem that had been turned into a war zone. Amid the high-tech equipment, and computers, and scientific knowledge of this bevy of experts—and in the middle of all of the disputing religious leaders and the government bureaucrats. Was Jesus going to be ultimately found—or lost—in such a place?
After more than an hour, Will was aware that everyone—scientists, religious representatives, Nony, and Saul—was gathering around the table with the video screen. Adam was talking on the headset. Reichstad and his camera assistant were about to enter the tomb.
There were several moments of silence while the crowd stood, shoulder-to-shoulder under the large white canopy.
Someone tapped Will on the arm. He turned and saw the familiar face of Dr. Mary Margaret Giovanni next to him. She was carrying a small metal suitcase. She adjusted her glasses and shook Will’s hand, but said nothing at first.
Saul stepped over, and asked “What is your name?”
“This is Dr. Giovanni,” Will answered. “She is my expert.”
One of the younger scientists reached his hand over to Dr. Giovanni, and said in a hushed voice, “Are you the Dr. Giovanni who worked with the legendary Geza Vermes? And also at the École Biblique at one time?”
“Yes,” Dr. Giovanni said. “That was a while ago.”
“I’m honored to meet you,” the young scientist said.
“I’m glad I got here in time,” she said to Will. “A good-looking man at the airport escorted me personally. You must have some real connections. You know, it’s scary out there. Rioting. Shooting. Where is 7QC?”
Will pulled the plastic bag out of his pocket and discreetly passed it over to her.
While the crowd was riveted to the video screen, she walked over to a corner, bent down to the ground, and snapped open her metal briefcase. She put on surgical gloves and pulled the fragment out with tweezers. Then she placed it between two glass plates, put plastic clamps at the edges, and locked the clamps.
Then she took out a small handheld microscope that looked like a tiny telescope, and stared through it for several minutes at the fragment under the glass. After that, Dr. Giovanni seemed to stare out into space, blankly. She then took a small pad of paper and rapidly scribbled some notes down on it. After looking through the microscope again, she placed it and the glass plates with the 7QC fragment into her briefcase and locked it.
Will was about to ask her what the 7QC fragment said, but Adam started talking into his headset.
“We are ready for entry into the tomb, ladies and gentlemen. The next voice you hear will be Dr. Reichstad’s.”
On the video screen, Will saw Reichstad in a white protective suit with a helmet that looked like it belonged on an astronaut. The cameraman was following right behind him. The floodlight mounted on the handheld video camera illuminated the area. The two men ducked into the opening, and Reichstad began to speak.
“The outer chamber here…is…as you see very typical…This is the ‘loculi,’ the outer chamber…and…the interior chamber…with arched shelves…over there…Against the wall is the ‘ossuary,’ the bone box…very typical of the time of Jesus…Now we are turning right into the interior chamber…”
For a moment Reichstad’s body blocked the view of the camera. The crowd around the video monitor broke into intense chatter. Then suddenly all conversation stopped as Reichstad started speaking again.
“I am looking right at it…Here it is!…Oh—it’s a perfect specimen… The corpse is covered with grave linens…Oh, this is fantastic! A corpse…It looks like a male judging by the proportion of the hips and shoulders… about five feet seven inches in height…incredibly well-preserved…Ladies and gentlemen…I give you…the body of Jesus of Nazareth!”
Reichstad moved out of the way and the camera zoomed in on the outline of the corpse.
“There is something on the ground next to the corpse, in the form of a circle of some kind…very fragile vegetation…I will speculate here…I will have to take very careful samples of this…I’m sure our botanists can confirm this…but I am guessing that what we have here is the ‘crown of thorns’ that must…must have been buried with the body of Jesus…”
The crowd of religious representatives exploded into an angry, dumbfounded, and confused cacophony of complaint and disputation.
“I can’t hear Dr. Reichstad! I can’t hear him with all this noise—” Adam shouted out. But the noise from the crowd subsided only slightly.
The only person who was stone quiet, and calm, was Dr. Giovanni. She moved through the crowd, elbowing her way to the screen.
“I want a close-up on the ossuary box,” she ordered Adam.
“What?”
“A close-up on the bone box there in the corner.”
“We would like a close-up of the ossuary box…yes…a close-up…” Adam said into his microphone.
The camera moved and focused on the stone-lidded box in the corner.
“Closer,” Giovanni said.
The camera zoomed in.
“Closer and to the right a little, I want the full front and center…”
Once again the camera zoomed in.
Then Giovanni quickly scratched down some notes on her notepad.
“Thank you, that’s all I needed,” she said, and started walking away from the crowd at the video screen. She picked up her metal briefcase and nodded for Will to follow her.
“This process is now going to take some time…They are going to X-ray the corpse before doing anything else. My guess is that Reichstad will not be able to actually do much to this corpse until after our trial next week. It is all going to be a long and drawn-out process.”
“Are you just going to leave? Now?” Will asked incredulously.
“We’ve got a plane to catch if we are going to be in court by Monday morning for your trial. You know, I am really jet-lagged,” she said. “I really hustled to get over here.”
Will was thunderstruck by her laissez-faire attitude.
“What about that?” Will asked, motioning over to the video screen.
“That?” Giovanni said. “No. Take it from me. No—that’s not the corpse of Jesus of Nazareth.”
And then she smiled, and started walking toward the entrance.