The Silver Scroll

by Jeff Spence

  "There. In the memory, safe and sound. You can take the paper copy young man, if you like. I've been slowly getting all of my old notes into this thing, you know. Wonderful tool. Wish I'd had one sixty years ago, might have made something of myself!" He grinned at them and pressed his hands together without sound, as if at some great joke, then handed the paper to Ben and closed the lid. "Please," he said, "Have another sandwich. My mother always said, 'make too many sandwiches, always too many,” he looked over his glasses at Marina, “…because there can never be too many.'"

  Both of his visitors smiled and thought the same thing: They would have liked Eli Bannerman's mother.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Ben didn't need more that a few minutes with both his own notes and Eli's to have a pretty good idea of where their next destination was in their search for the scroll treasure. He wrote his notes on a fresh sheet of paper, referring to Eli's notes to fill in the ends of the broken lines. He made some translational choices, filled in a damaged letter or two along the fracture line, and the tail end of the manuscript was complete. For Eli's benefit, he read the text from the beginning and, as they completed it, the hairs on the back of Ben's neck bristled to attention.

  Be silent before the LORD, and prostrate yourself in the dust at his feet. His mystery has brought the kittim to the doorstep of our enemies, to the wicked and unclean. His favour has brought to us the foreknowledge of calamity, the wisdom of preparedness. War is coming, and the righteous must gird themselves for battle. — From the Temple the wealth of his favour rests in the hands of those with the zeal to guard it in secrecy. From the people of his remnant, gold and silver flow. From the wicked, treasure falls like blood into the hands of the righteous. — In caves of earth we hide wisdom, under stones we hide our wealth. The enemy brings his might against it; with his might the enemy defeats himself. With his eyes the wicked seeks the wisdom of the LORD, but with his hands he covers over righteousness and salvation.

  On tin we scribed our silver, on copper our gold, on silver the very wisdom of the LORD. The gold remains pure, no image mars its surface. In the day of the seventh battle, when the Sons of Darkness face the Sons of Light, the Sons of Light shall raise the untainted gold on banners of gopher wood wound with myrtle, the aroma of the LORD shall pass between the armies and the wicked shall fall, the pure breath of the LORD shall linger and the righteous shall stand amidst it.

  When the victory is final and the deeds of the righteous inscribed upon the golden sheets by the finger of the anointed one of God, the tin shall be burned and the stones cracked. The copper read and the riches amassed at the feet of the Righteous One, and the silver held aloft to open the eyes of all. We, the Sons of Light, have witnessed this. I, the scribe of silver, submit to this word and make record of this covenant.

  We laid it here, beneath the mountain of the last day of the final battle, and here we shall stand fast over it. The enemy has done with great effort what we could not have achieved. The LORD has decreed it, God has made it thus, and there shall it lay until the gold is held aloft.

  "Beneath the mountain of the last day of the final battle," Eli repeated, his face aglow with joy. "The text is obviously Qumran sectarian, so… Masada?"

  "Masada." Ben nodded.

  "What is Masada?" Marina asked.

  Eli's face grew serious. His eyes engaged her and it seemed almost as if the light in the room dimmed as he began… or perhaps a cloud had drifted momentarily over the sun outside.

  "It is the place of the last stand of the Jewish freedom fighters, in the first century. They had defied the Romans, taken back their land and held it, for a time, while the Romans were busy settling other disputes. But the yoke of Rome was not easily thrown off. The Roman forces came and took back the land, destroying Qumran in sixty-seven CE, and sacking Jerusalem in seventy… and then they chased the last remaining holdouts south, along the Dead Sea, along the West Bank. There is a fortress there, built by Herod as a fortified palace overlooking the sea. It is beautiful even now, as a ruin; one can only imagine what a wonder it was to those eyes, two thousand years ago.

  "The Jewish forces held up there… for a time. Zealots. A few remnant Essenes. The Sicarii. The Romans were hampered, you see, by a deep crevice — a canyon, really — that ran around the outside of the promontory on which the fortress stands. The Roman forces bridged it. It was unthinkable just a few weeks before, but there it was. The end was foreseen, by those in the fort. It was inevitable." He fell silent.

  "So what happened?" Marina asked, "Did the Roman's kill them all?"

  Eli stared at the coffee table, lost in thought.

  Ben picked up where he had left off.

  "The Jewish soldiers trapped inside, not wanting to give their enemy the honour of spilling their blood, made a pact. They gathered in certain rooms — all but a couple of the women and a few children who hid away — and before the rampart was complete, they took their own lives. Every last one of them. Almost a thousand of them, one mass suicide."

  "That's terrible."

  "Yes. It is a powerful place, even today. The Israeli special forces spend a night there as part of the completion ceremonies of their training. That's what I've heard, anyway. It's a symbol of the deep emotion behind the Jewish rebellion, and of their hatred of those who ruled over them."

  "And that was it, then? The end of the war?"

  "That was it for the rebels," Eli continued, suddenly present in the conversation again. "Many Jewish people survived, of course, in Jerusalem and in many other places throughout the diaspora. The Temple had been destroyed, and was never rebuilt, which changed the face of Judaism forever, as it evolved into something other than a Temple-based religion. The Jewish people adapted. They had to. But the rebellion ended there, by the hands of the rebels themselves."

  "So 'beneath the mountain of the last day of the final battle' could be Masada. Could it be anywhere else?"

  Ben smiled, "It could be on the plains of Armageddon."

  "Pardon me?"

  "It might be metaphorical," Eli clarified. "The sectarians at Qumran seem to have been very metaphorically inclined. They also seem to have believed in a great final battle, the one mentioned in the writing we just heard, between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness. If it refers to that battle, to the last of the seven battles, then it could be some mountain around Megiddo, a plain that in Greek is called Armageddon."

  Ben shook his head, "Then we're right where we are with the Copper Scroll… stumbling around blindly."

  “No,” Eli said, his voice quiet, “You’re not.”

  Ben and Marina glanced at each other and waited for him to continue. He seemed to be gathering in memories from a long time ago.

  “I was given this thing by my father — I think I told you that — and that happened just after his return from work in Israel. He didn’t find it himself. He told me the story of it though. The war was starting, one of the many, and a young man offered it to my father, to sell it to him. The man said he’d found it in the lower rooms… of Masada.”

  “Beneath the mountain…” Ben whispered, quoting from his notes.

  "I wonder, young man, might I keep a copy of your portion of the writing?"

  "Yes, of course. Here." Ben handed him the copy he had written out, the one combining both portions of the text. Eli scanned it and handed it back. As he did so, he continued speaking.

  "Might I also ask, where is the other portion? Is it a public piece? I doubt it, or I would have heard. Is it something of which I might see photographs?"

  "I'm sorry," Ben said, "It's a private collection, at least for now. Getting to see it has turned into more trouble than its worth. If there comes a point when it’s available, I will definitely send you copies though. It’s the least I could do after your help here. Until then though, I think it’s safer if you don’t have them.”

  “And if I were to choose to take that burden on of my own free will?”

  “My conscience wouldn’t
rest.” Ben shrugged. Eli nodded.

  "Disappointing. But still, a wonderful day for me. Wonderful indeed."

  "So what now?” Marina asked, a smile creeping over her face.

  Eli grinned back at her, a hint of incredulity in his expression. "My dear, my dear! If there is any hope left untried or any lead left unexplored, it must be examined. But then, I see by the glint in your eye that you never doubted your own intentions. Most of the questions we ask, are those to which we already have the answers.”

  Ben smiled. The old man was right again. Probably something his mother had told him.

  "If only with I were a few decades younger — I'd go with you!"

  THIRTY

  The bus from Gloucester Green in Oxford to London had been a flurry of quiet conversation, the two of them with their heads together, going over what had transpired over the last couple of days at first, then letting the conversation drift to other things. Marina shared a little about her first couple of years in the States, recounting times of confusion, insecurity, and cultural mistakes using humour and self-deprecation, dealing with the most difficult matters in a light style, the way people in all cultures tend to revisit negative or trying memories. Ben listened, and laughed, but saw through to the heart of it. He could only imagine what that had been like. Even so, she hadn’t shared anything about the times prior to her arrival in Indiana, and that, too, told him a little about what her early years had been like.

  For his part, he told her a little bit about his life with Donna, and a little more about the ongoing relationships he had maintained with both David and Mimi, how they had become like parents to him, now that his own were gone and they had lost their daughter. “Funny, how these things work out,” he had said, “people entering your life before you even know you need them.”

  He hadn’t meant the statement to carry so much import, but it was soon after that that the two of them settled into silent companionship, not quite uncomfortable, but too intense to allow for continued conversation or small talk. They simply sat, shoulder pressed to shoulder, relaxing in the knowledge that they had gained a solid lead on the men who had thrust so much fear and tension into their lives.

  When the bus from London reached the UK side of the Channel Tunnel, Marina began leaning her face against the window to see what was ahead. Both of them smiled, wide-eyed, as the bus swerved slowly to the right, then back to the left and onto one of the train cars. Inches, only, separated the side of the coach from the inner wall of the train compartments. They drove onward, passing from the interior of one car to the next, until they’d reached the parked rear end of the van in front of them and they could go no further. Those following behind them pulled up and stopped as well, the long line of bumper-to-bumper vehicles sitting, incongruously, upon a long line of train carriages. hard plastic partitions were drawn across the fronts and backs of the train sections, and locked down. Side doors were closed and locked. Brakes engaged. Then they waited.

  Ten minutes later, the checks and lists all complete, the engines revved up and the long chain of cars rolled ahead, increasing in speed as they sloped down into an engineered ravine, and then underground. Soon, their subterranean path would pass out beyond the coast, and under the unfathomable weight of the English Channel.

  Marina didn't like the feeling of being in the tunnel, so far beneath the rock with millions of gallons of water over them, pressing down on them, waiting for one fraction of an inch to open a chink in the armour of the engineering marvel that is the Channel Tunnel. She should have felt secure; she had spent enough time searching for caves as a girl, finding tremendous comfort in the relative security of the clefts in the solid rock. Here she felt trapped though: no way out, no weapon.

  Ben was smiling, looking up at the roof of the train. "You know, the layer of water that's above us now, the weight of it includes the entire top layer of the oceans, give or take. Massive pressure — truly difficult to comprehend." He looked at Marina's face. He stopped talking.

  It was still early. The snack they had eaten in the station was no longer keeping hunger at bay, but a little time spent chatting about what kind of food they wanted for breakfast, and what they had enjoyed from the King David hotel room service, and they were already two thirds of the way across. In another fifteen minutes they would be in France. Marina had wanted to fly back from Heathrow, but Ben was too concerned about the men who had been following them in Oxford. He still didn't know how they had found them, but the only thing he could think of was that their handler, whether it was Kantor, Bass or — God forbid — a third interested party, had been able to get private information from the airline, or banking information from his credit card. Either way, it made him uneasy. Rather than take any unnecessary risks, he made the decision to buy them bus tickets to Paris on a one-day tour. Cash. They had purchased them last-minute in London and would be in Paris in just a few short hours.

  Marina leaned her head against Ben's shoulder, but he could tell she wasn't asleep. Unlike the drive toward the crossing, she was tense now. Maybe the tunnel, maybe the threat of pursuit. Probably all of it stacked up together. With some luck, their trip to Masada would put it to rest… hopefully without putting both of them to rest as well.

  Once in Paris, they booked tickets from Charles De Gaulle airport back to Tel Aviv, cutting it as close as they dared. Anyone trying to find them would have to monitor every flight into Israel from almost any European airport in order to track them — though he had to admit that Paris would be high on the list. Ben thought it unlikely, but not impossible that either of these men might try. He would know by the time they left Tel Aviv. Not before.

  They found their seats on the plane and Marina settled back into hers, tucking her temple into the stiff headrest and closing her eyes. She felt sleep coming over her almost immediately. She should be nervous. She should be terrified, really, and deeply excited over the possibility of finding the site of lost treasure. But instead she was just tired. Tired of the miles and tired of the danger and, most of all, bloody tired of being pushed around.

  Ben leaned back beside her, placed an arm on the rest so that it touched her lower back, and stared at the baggage compartments overhead. As the plane taxied out onto the runway, his semi-lucid thoughts traced their way around a realisation. Something that Kantor had said. Something that Bass had said. Something that, he realised, neither one had been able to demonstrate.

  He closed his eyes then, and slept soundly for the duration of the flight.

  Marina pondered their situation as well. She was tired of being made to feel like rabbits running from wolves. She had not been a rabbit for a long time, and the feeling did not sit well with her. She made a decision, in the moment of clarity offered by the edge of sleep and the deep whine of the plane engines as they accelerated down the tarmac: She would not run anymore. Not from anything. From that point on, her goal was to reach the treasure or the dead end that would mean safety for her, for Ben, and for the people Ben cared about. When they reached Tel Aviv, she had find a way to get a weapon, to even the odds against these gun-toting thugs. She and Ben had done well enough, even unarmed, and despite being outnumbered. Once she had a decent firearm, it wouldn't matter who came at them, she would make sure it wasn't an easy day for anyone who meant them harm.

  That determination set firmly in her mind, she reached over and laced her fingers into Ben's. He returned the pressure. She settled her face into the tiny airline pillow and closed her eyes. Sleep came almost at once.

  In his soft leather seat on the upper deck of the same flight, and with his presence as unknown to his fellow travellers as theirs was to him, Greg Bass reclined in his chair and watched a documentary on the Turin Shroud. He wondered what it would cost to get something like that. Chuckled to himself. The shroud was a fake, he decided. Not a fake artefact — no, he knew it was something special — but it wasn't a burial shroud. Something medieval maybe. It hadn't been wrapped around Jesus' body in the carved-out tomb. The lin
es were wrong. Too… frontal. If it were wrapped around a human form, the features on the face would have been elongated width-wise. Distorted. If it were the earliest known photograph, as some others claimed, then the photographer took a picture, simultaneously, of the upside-down back-view of the same subject, directly above the first. None of the theories made sense. Some kind of banner? Yes. Method of manufacture unknown, but definitely a piece of art of some kind. Not a miracle. Still valuable though — he wouldn't turn it down if it became available, even if nobody really knew what it was.

  He turned the program off and closed his eyes, listening to the thrum of the engines. He would be in Jerusalem soon, so close to the treasures he was sure were there, just waiting for him. He wondered where the professor and the girl had gone. Very strange. The damaged door was the key to what had happened. The mystery of who had done it, though, still remained. Either Kantor had gotten to them, someone else did, or else the conniving little weasels pulled a fast one again and took off. Probably the former. The only reason they wouldn’t need Bass any more, was if they had the rest of the photographs… and Bass knew of only one other person who had that.

  None of these scenarios pleased him. Not to worry though; he had taken care of it. There were men searching for Gela and Saalik in Israel, the UK, and even Indiana. Others were preparing to hide and care for any treasure they found. Still others were waiting to do anything Bass asked of them. Anything. They were armed. They were experienced. They were ready.

  Kantor might try to stop him, but the Texan had his own resources with which to combat the Jew. And the problem with the professor? Once he heard about his in-laws' little 'accident,' Ben Gela would come around. He would be pissed off, beyond any doubt, but not beyond reason. Men like Gela always listened to reason in the end.

  And if he doesn't, thought Bass, I'll beat the girl until he does.