The Silver Scroll

by Jeff Spence

  He had no doubt that his brother in law was, in fact, not doing anything personally, and that was what bothered him the most. Where was the communication with his agents? Thoma was a decent person, but he was no genius, and was prone to making too big a man of himself when it came to this kind of thing — especially with other people's money in his hands. The new car, purchased prior to the success of the mission, was a clear example of this. Even so, sometimes accoutrements like new vehicles and fine suits were needed to exude the proper air, to show certain partners and adversaries that they were dealing with a man of means — if they didn’t already know it. And despite some shortcomings, Thoma was by no means lazy. Other projects might have gone better with Khoury himself at the helm, but Thoma had at least shown some measure of success, even if he had done so while acting a pompous ass.

  But this was different. Khoury hadn't heard from him at all, and Khoury's agents had nothing to report. It was as if Thoma had taken the money and locked himself in a room with it, in total secrecy. But that was not like his little sister's husband. Even scans of his email and mobile communications revealed nothing.

  It fed optimistic suspicions that Thoma had upped his game, that he had stepped up his degree of sophistication. It also fed skeptical notions that, perhaps, the man had entered into waters much deeper than those to which he was accustomed. Perhaps it had been unwise for Khoury to grant Thoma the helm on this one. They had launched similar schemes together of course, but always within the borders of Jordan itself, and never for stakes as high as these. Unique stakes. Once in a lifetime, even. The risk of loss of something perhaps irreplaceable, and yet so important. Valuable…

  He placed the empty cup on his desk and frowned against the lack of pleasure it had given him. He stepped over to his desk and tapped the intercom button on the dim touch screen. It lit up and his PA answered.

  "Get me Gulam Thoma please."

  "On the phone?"

  "No, have Soma pick him up and bring him here. We need to talk."

  "Yes sir."

  He walked back to his couch and leaned back against the soft cushions, letting his head lean gently back until he stared up at the sparkling glass of the chandelier, fifteen feet above him. He closed his eyes. Against hope, he let the tension leave his shoulders and prayed for a moment's rest before his brother in law arrived and they sorted through this mess. He had been wrong to leave such an important thing to an underling, family or not. It was time Khoury himself brought his full weight to bear on this issue of a new scroll. Thoma had been right about one thing, if anyone was to have it, it should be those upon whose lands it originally rested — and that was his people. That was his Jordan.

  And he might already be too late.

  "It hasn't been cut!"

  "That is correct."

  "But I have photographs… and you have photographs! How did you read it?"

  "I call it the Weevil Scanner. I developed it myself — well, my people did, with my money. I will admit to the seminal idea being my own."

  "Tell me."

  "It works a lot like a regular scanner, so they tell me, but instead of placing the artefact into the scanner, the scanner moves through the artefact. In this case, a thin blade of flexible material slides into the gap between the layers. We placed the scroll in a special frame and rotated it until the scanner had read the surfaces, both sides, and then it rendered the features. We scanned it several times and had the computer analyse the results, taking the most consistent portions of the images and building a master file — 'stitching' I believe they call it — like a scanner on your telephone might scan a document."

  "Then you just open it up, unroll it digitally… like a simulation.”

  "As you say."

  "The results are amazing."

  "Thank you. Coming from you that is high praise indeed."

  "So Greg Bass…"

  "Mr. Bass, I fear, stole the photographs from my server. I was careless, I confess, in having them there at all. A disc would have been better, but hindsight is twenty-twenty, as they say. He is less interested in the scroll than in what it promises to reveal — assuming it is similar to the Copper Scroll in that respect.”

  "The Temple Treasure."

  "Some believe so, yes. I am not a scholar, but I was able to read enough of it to know it was something that needed protection. I have failed in that, at least initially. I am trying to right that wrong."

  "How did you get it?"

  "I bought it. It’s provenance is questionable, but so is the case of nearly every artefact of this age. In so many generations, there are bound to be a few bad apples. I didn’t ask too many questions, I confess. Vulgar, maybe, but that is how these things are procured.”

  "So you are a private collector, like Bass?"

  Kantor frowned. "I am a private collector, yes. I am quite a different breed from our Mr. Bass, however. In this case, as well, it is not for my collection that I acquired the scroll. It was in the hands of a dealer. As you know, such a circumstance often means a lack of means — a lack of the proper facilities by which to keep it preserved."

  All three of them stood in silence.

  It was Marina who broke the stillness. "So what do you want us to do?"

  "What I want," Kantor said, looking first at her and then at Ben, "Is for the professor to complete his translation, in safety, and for the treasure to which this artefact leads — if such a treasure exists in situ this long after its hiding — to be located and placed into the care of the Israel Antiquities Authority."

  "And what if it is not on Israeli soil?" Ben asked.

  "In that instance, I will leave it to the interested governments to decide."

  "You will?"

  "How could I do otherwise, even if I wished to do so?"

  Ben nodded. That was a good point. "And Greg Bass? What about him?"

  "If you accept my protection, I will do just that: protect you. Both of you.”

  Kantor was a shrewd man, and both he and Ben knew it. It wasn't just the professor who was in danger. As long as there were people Ben cared about, and as long as Bass could get to them, then the Texan billionaire had Ben in his pocket.

  "I have family in Indiana."

  "Yes, the parents of your late wife. They are fine."

  "You know this for sure?"

  "I have made certain of it myself. They are being watched over, and will be protected if need be. Twenty-four hours a day, each day of the week until they are out of danger. If it takes a year — ten years — you have my solemn word on it."

  "Why me? Why not some other scholar?"

  "Truthfully, it was Mr. Bass who made that choice. You are a good one, yes, as a specialist in the Copper Scroll, I might even have settled upon you myself. But as you say, there are others. When Mr. Bass brought you on, I could have hired someone else — a small team of scholars had I wished to — and raced you to the prize. But that was not my choice. I was angered, for one thing, when my files were stolen. I do not like to be bested, and there was a feeling of my privacy and security having been violated. Neither sits well with me. For another, I thought a better move, a more strategic move, would be to defang the serpent."

  "Defang the serpent?"

  "Yes," Marina broke in, "I understand. It's a fighting term. It means disarming an armed opponent, like ‘cut the head off the snake.’ The best way to win the fight is to take away the power of the enemy. If Bass didn't have you Ben, if he lost the groundwork he had already laid, then he would be way behind. Starting over even."

  Kantor nodded. "Just so."

  "So what now?" Ben asked.

  "So now, if you wish to go," he held his arm up toward the hallway, "you are free to do so."

  "And if we don't?" Marina asked.

  Kantor smiled.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Greg Bass was cresting the last rise before the full panorama of his Texas ranch house would come into view. It was his favourite part of his run. He ran nearly every day, forty-f
ive minutes to an hour, depending on the route he chose and the schedule for the day. After receiving the call from Ben Gela in Jerusalem, he had shouted for joy, punched his fist into the air, and laced up the shoes. He had do the full hour, a celebration of finally reeling in that eel of an academic and getting this show back on the road.

  He normally ran just after waking, the earlier the better, but this new surge of excited energy would keep him up anyway, so he might as well make up for missing his run that morning. The heat of the day had begun to dissipate, as it did so quickly in the desert evenings, but between the stars and the bare, sand-coloured ground, there would be enough light for him to do a lap of the north range before touching base with his people in Israel, arranging a well-supervised place for the professor to finish his work.

  Ben was close. Really close. He had translated all of the material he had been given at twice the pace estimated by more than one expert in the field — and that all by himself. He was a natural. It pays to do the research, he thought to himself as he crested the last upward slope and the lights of the house came back into view, his oasis in a sea of emptiness, and it always pays to use the best people, pain-in-the-ass as this particular one may be.

  His pace quickened as the land sloped away before him. He pressed himself onward, feeling the increasing burn in his lungs as he drew in oxygen, a losing battle against the build-up of lactic acid and oxygen depletion in his working muscles. Pain is the body's way of killing weakness, he repeated as he panted down the last half of the slope, and that which does not kill me — is gonna get its ass kicked!

  He burst into a sprint, grunting through breaths as he raced past the first of the straight rail fences around the horses, the restless animals trotting away from him in the deceptive light. As he reached the landscaped portion of the lawn, he drew up, slowly decreasing his speed until he was jogging slowly on the spot, checking his pulse, from habit more than a need to track it, and taking in a deep draft of water from the straw attached to the Camelback canteen he wore. It was still cool and refreshing.

  Good end to a good day. He would sleep that night, and sleep well.

  His PA slid open the heavy glass door and leaned out. "Phone call, Mr. Bass… from Israel."

  Leonard sat in his chair, silent and sipping his drink, watching intently as Ben poured over the final photographs of the scroll. Marina lounged back on the sectional like a lioness, feeling like she should feel truly safe for the first time since joining Ben at his apartment what seemed like years ago. Somehow though, she still fought with a sliver of discomfort, on the edge of her instinct, like that bit of motion she sometimes saw in her peripheral vision, but when she turned to look, there was nothing there.

  Beside the table on which the scroll had been placed, the lid now back on the box, another table had been brought in. This one was strewn with photographs, both those Ben already had from Bass — notated with circles, arrows, marginalia, traced outlines of letters — and a new set, fresh and blown up to a slightly larger size. Unnoticed by Ben, a figure entered the doorway, a kind of briefcase in his hand, and Leonard rose to meet him, his face widening into a pleased smile.

  "Ah good, you are here." He waved the man toward where Ben sat, now looking at the newcomer with interest.

  "What's this? Another scroll?" Ben smiled, knowing that on some deep level he wasn't joking. Everything else seemed so surreal, why not a third metallic scroll to keep him busy? Maybe the other treasure list mentioned in the Copper Scroll, another copy to search for clues that might finally reveal the key to his life's work. Maybe even the tin one or the gold one mentioned in the scroll. Why not? They might have been found together, after all, in the same secret cave where the silver one had lain for so long, undisturbed.

  "No," Leonard smiled as the newcomer unsnapped the buckles on the case and lifted the lid, "The same scroll."

  Ben's jaw dropped as his mind clicked through what he was looking at and realised what it was, what it must be. "Is this a replica?"

  Leonard smiled, "Yes." He ran his fingers over the bright orange material, feeling the minute textures of the surface. "The technology was developed in Sweden, for scanning corpses prior to decomposition or cremation — especially in cases of foul play. It's '3D' scanning, even reads densities below the surface of the material. It allows them to revisit data at much later dates. Fascinating. With a combination of their software, our scanner, and a three dimensional printer, we were able to scan the scroll, map the surface based on slight differences in density, and so to remove corrosion, and non- metallic deposits before printing the final product — while it was all still a string of data. The printing itself took almost five hundred hours and was just completed this afternoon. A triumph. Look, rubberised plastic. Flexible enough to roll up, but holds the shape of the letters just as if it were rigid. The did a fine bit of work here. When I contacted them about our problem here, they were skeptical, but interested. And of course, interest increased after I had arranged for a suitable contribution…"

  "It's a far cry better than having to cut it, like the Copper Scroll."

  "I agree. And the result much clearer, from a cursory look at it." He looked down at the closed case that contained the original Silver Scroll. "I am not certain I could have brought myself to cut this one," he said, "regardless of the treasures it might prove to reveal."

  He snapped out of his brief reverie and looked directly at Ben, "Not that I criticise Allegro or Baker for cutting the Copper Scroll — that's the technology they had in the fifties, and they did a fine job for the day — some other idiot might have tried to unroll them and ground the thing to powder — but I am pleased to be alive in a time when both preservation and scholarship can operate hand in hand, as it were. It so seldom happens in archaeology. It is uncommonly plagued by petty squabbles, for a discipline with such a noble pedigree."

  "This will help I think," Ben said, running his fingers over the mottled surface, "There are a couple of areas down here that still are unclear…" He leaned down to the item, tracking his fingers to the place where he had struggled to make out what was happening on the photograph. He tilted the replica to a sharp angle against the light, making the most of the harsh shadows it created.

  "Making progress though?"

  "Yes, yes. I have a few lines left to transcribe, then I can translate the final section. I can't promise it won't take all night."

  "I'll have Alsandra brew some strong coffee and bring in something to eat."

  Marina watched for a few more minutes, then began to fidget. At Kantor's invitation she spent a couple of hours alone in the swimming pool, out under the clear night sky and with a view of the city in the distance. Her muscles needed the stretch and the workout, and her heart needed the weightlessness of floating in the darkness, among the reflections of the stars. She rolled onto her back, let the warm water hold her there, staring up at the stars. She saw the tiny pin-pricked lights in the dark blanket of the sky, the same stars she had stared up at in the mountains southwest of Trebxinje as a girl. Despite the positive developments of the photographs, and the safety promised to Ben’s family, her thoughts were still plagued by heaviness and self-loathing. She had no desire to talk herself out of it, to stir herself into a better frame of mind, artificial or otherwise. Instead she looked up at the stars, felt the surge of separation between her and the tiny, distant points of light, and dove straight down, as deep into the pain and horror of her heart as she dared go… and further.

  Bratislav had not recovered from the cough or the chills. His shallow breathing grew lighter and more rapid on into the night, until at once the girl awoke to sudden silence. At first she thought she was alone in the little house, that he had somehow slipped out into the darkness. Then she saw his form, leaning back in the chair, his stubbled chin hanging slack, and too small in the dim room. He had been outlasted by the candle he had left burning on the kitchen table.

  Marina descended the attic ladder and silently crept up to him, reache
d out and wrapped her fingers through his. They were chilled by the stillness of age, but not yet with death. That would come. She sat there on the floor beside his chair, leaned her head against his thigh, and watched the gentle flicker of the candle as it slowly dripped its life into the shallow pewter cup. When it finally sputtered and popped into a tuft of black smoke, unseen in the darkness, she said a kind of prayer for the old man, something half-remembered from her parents, or grandparents, before the eternity of the war had welled up and engulfed her. Then she rose to her feet.

  She couldn't stay; they would find her. She couldn't leave him there like that either. Her mind could not accept the reality of what would happen to him, left there for days or weeks, even in the cold. Others had been left in the ditches and barren places around the town, and those images were clearly locked in her young mind. It would not happen to the one who had saved her from the initial shock and loss of the war. She walked over to the aluminium hatch that covered the root cellar, and heaved it open. She moved down the wooden steps into the darkness and found the head of Bratislav's spade, the handle burnt for warmth a month ago. There, below the ground frost of winter, she dug a hole as best she could.

  The old man's body had been surprisingly light. She had been able to drag him from the chair and into the dark hole. She had rolled him into the depression she had dug and then pushed as much soil over him as she could. Not enough, but she had thought of a way that it wouldn't matter. She pulled up as many boards as she could from the floor and walls, and pushed them into the cellar. Piled the old blankets there too. Rested a while. Tried to pray for him, but no words would come. No tears left either. An hour later she crouched at the back of the place, a burning match touched up against the thin wisps of curtain by the back door, laid out in a line, like a giant fuse, from there to the stack of scraps sticking up from the makeshift crypt.