The Silver Scroll

by Jeff Spence

  Bass swore and the driver pressed hard on the brakes, but it was too late. Bass's seatbelt locked him in position and he couldn't even duck out of view. The big sedan pulled up close behind the bikes as they made the hard right turn that began the snaking route along the West Bank.

  Bass hoped — almost prayed in his way — but just when he thought he had gotten away with it, one of the helmeted heads turned and there was no mistaking the change in the female rider's posture.

  He had been spotted.

  Marina waved at Ben and pointed to the car behind them. Ben took only a moment to mentally register the passenger as Marina’s right wrist dropped, revving the bike's engine and hurtling her forward. Ben did the same, the front tire of his bike lifting slightly from the hot pavement with the force of acceleration.

  "Hit it, they can't go anywhere but Qumran or Masada from here! We don't have to beat them there, but don't let them get too far ahead of us!"

  The sedan roared, the tires squealed through the turn, and Bass watched as the speedometer rose to thirty, forty, fifty, sixty… then down as they rounded a curve, then up again it would climb. They went on like this, the sparkling surface of the water ignored off to their left, the rugged hills and irrigated fields to their right.

  Bass picked up his phone and dialled a number.

  "Igal here."

  "It's Bass. They're headed your way, down 90."

  "ETA?"

  “Not sure, we've just started down along the water. Moving pretty fast."

  "Understood. We'll be ready."

  “Keep back if you can. Let them look around, but don’t let them get up there without eyes on them. If they spot you, hold them until I get there."

  "Understood."

  "Use the girl to control Gela, but don't harm him."

  "Understood."

  Ben hung up the phone.

  Soon they passed Qumran, the ruins that had once housed the group called the Yahad, the community of sectarian Jews who probably wrote and collected most of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Bass looked carefully as they passed, making sure that his quarry hadn't stopped there. A look far ahead assured him that they they had not. The two bikes could be seen weaving their way along the road in the distance, dipping deeply into once curve, then back the other way around the next. The sedan roared onward, the land rising sharply on the right and falling away to the left into a sloping pattern of irrigated fields — and then the heavy, salt-laden water of the Dead Sea.

  Bass had always loved that drive. It should have been beautiful this day as well, but he could not relax. Could not take it in, despite his powerlessness at doing anything but sitting there. Waiting. Holding on through the stomach-lurching ride.

  Marina worked the bike hard. It wasn't a new machine, but had been kept in decent condition, except a tendency to skip a cylinder now and then during aggressive acceleration. She kept an eye on Ben in her side mirrors, making sure she didn't get too far ahead of him, but challenging him to push himself as he rode, willing a mental towrope between her bike and his. They could outrun the big car, but only if they made the most of the curves; on a straightaway, she doubted the bikes had the power to pull away.

  In a pinch, the two could head over the shoulder and onto the rough goat trails and ragged cliffs above her, but that could only be a last resort. Marina was pretty confident in her ability to keep the jarring and pulling of the bike in check, but Ben was a novice. Chances were, once they hit any kind of rugged terrain, that the bike would go out from under him, or worse, that he would cling to it as it flew over into some kind of ravine or over a cliff face. Besides, even if they made it up there, the car could keep an eye on them and race to wherever they tried to rejoin the road. It would only work if there were a way up over the mountains, which she doubted from the look of things, or if they were close enough to Masada to duck away in the ravines and get out of sight of the road. They might not be able to get to Masada to find the treasure, but at least thy could keep out of Bass’s hands, even if it was on foot. But the risks were too high. She wished she had had a good look at a map before setting out on the ride. She had never thought Bass would suddenly appear out of nowhere.

  She ducked her head down against the wind and cranked the throttle out of the curve, feeling the front shocks expand and the tire lose some of its grip, understeering as she accelerated out onto the straight stretch, a quick gear change and a popped clutch and the rubber of her front tyre lifted from the pavement, the machine hurtling her forward and away from the men in the car behind them.

  "C'mon, Ben," she murmured, "Let's lose these assholes!"

  Ben was riding an adrenaline high that made him almost understand — almost — Marina's proclivity for extreme sports. The land flew by, the wind whistled around his helmeted face, and the water, the air, the light itself seemed more vibrant from the seat of a speeding motorcycle.

  He felt the tension on the grip of the tires as he leaned into the corners, the lift on the handlebars as he accelerated out of the turns. He loved hearing the whine of the engine as it wound up, then dropped sharply as he hit a new gear. The only thing that lessened the thrill was the knowledge that he was holding Marina back, her bike always out in front of his own. That, and the understanding that losing control, even for a fraction of a second, might mean hurtling himself down into the rocks on either side of the road, smashing his bones, crippling his body, tearing away muscle and flesh… he tried not to think about those things.

  She was an animal on that bike. She wound it out at first, dipping low into the corners and coming out of them with the front tire skidding along the ground, or even lifting up altogether as she moved into the straights. Her body slid from one low-slung side to the other as she played gravity and friction to their best results, her knee only a couple of inches from the pavement, speeding past below. She was two hundred yards ahead of him when she eased up a bit, allowing the novice to gain ground on the straightaways and limiting her gains through the curving sections. When she did so, though, the car also gained.

  At least it was easy to know where to go. The route to Masada from the north was a single, long road with very little of note coming off of it. Nothing on the east side of the mountains led anywhere, really. To the right there were a few dirt tracks that dead-ended in the crags, and to the left the small national park, the few fields, and the low coastal plain ended in heavy salt water by the lowest point of dry land on the surface of the earth: the edge of the Dead Sea, fed by the River Jordan and feeding nothing itself but the hot air above it. The vapour rose from it, leaving its salt content behind, ever increasing in the still body of water. Even up on the road they were already well below sea level. The thought of it thrilled Ben as he rode. Everything about the situation was surreal, as if he were watching some other man racing along the side of the sparkling water, in pursuit of the beautiful woman with whom he fled.

  His attention was snapped back into focus as they banked into another set of curves in the road. The needs of the moment drove all other cares and fears from his mind. Donna. David. Mimi. His financial strain and the mess he had gotten himself into over the scroll. All gone.

  At last he understood fully what drove Marina to ride the edge again and again. And he let the feeling take him.

  "That's it Ben," Marina said to herself, "Now you're getting the hang of that thing."

  THIRTY-THREE

  "Here they come."

  Ariel Igal pointed at the two motorcycles coming up the winding lane toward the top of the ridge. His three companions nodded and all four of them jumped into a silver minivan, cocking pistols as they did so.

  The vehicle revved up and popped out onto the road a little ahead of the Americans. Igal increased his speed until he was going just a little slower than the newcomers. They pulled out and around him, but he and the other three occupants paid them no heed. Instead Igal pressed down a little harder on the accelerator and the little van pulled into the parking lot just a moment after Ben and Marina.<
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  They watched the Americans dismount and drop their helmets by the bikes. The men waited until the couple stepped onto the narrow walkway that would take them up the Snake Trail to the ruins themselves, then they stepped out of the van and followed at a discreet distance, guns tucked into belts at their backs, and shorts pulled out over them. They would follow the couple until an opportune time, then quietly detain them until the arrival of their employer.

  On the other side of the ruins, nearing the top of the Roman Ramp Trail, Leonard Kantor and three other men huffed and puffed as they navigated the steep incline. At least it was late in the year; a few months earlier and it might be over a hundred degrees. The eighty-one degree heat of this particular day was cool by comparison.

  "You remember what they look like?" Kantor asked, between heavy breaths.

  His companions nodded.

  "Alright then. Spread out and find them. Keep an eye on them, but don't interfere. If you see anyone else tailing them… take them out. Not dead if you can help it — we don't need the extra hassle — but I don't want them interfering either. Understood?"

  "Yes," they answered in unison.

  From the bottom of the Roman Ramp Trail, a heavy-set, short man with a moustache just a little wider than what would bring Adolf Hitler to mind, struggled his way up the first rises of the path. With him were half a dozen men, each of them discreetly armed and in peak physical condition.

  "Dr. Ahud," one of the senior men asked, a genuine look of concern on his face, "Would you like us to meet you at the top, have a look around for this American fellow first."

  The short man scowled at him, his nostrils flaring out almost to the edges of the moustache. "No I do not, thank you… I will be just fine. Let us get going!"

  He redoubled his efforts and the chastised soldier trudged along beside him, doing his best to keep an eye on the unidentifiable people moving around at the top of the distant rise. At least the sun was at his back as the day wore on; anyone looking down from the top would have a hard time distinguishing the features of anyone coming up from this side. If they needed the element of surprise, they might still have it.

  Marina spotted the men in pursuit this time. She had turned to get a look at the Dead Sea in the distance, to experience the great panorama that likely drew Herod to build here in the first place. As she did so, she saw four men. Israelis, she decided. Three of them were nondescript, though they did not look particularly like tourists. Employees maybe, or a few of the many military pilgrims that visited the sight for inspiration and as a sign of respect for the Sacarii, the dagger-wielding ancestors who made their last heroic stand atop the sun-baked crags, choosing a glorious death at their own hands rather than ignominy on the blades of their Roman oppressors.

  Those thousand people killing themselves at once. Only two women and five children surviving the self-slaughter. The story drew all kinds of people to the place. These men might be on that kind of pilgrimage.

  But one of them met Marina’s eyes, just for a moment. That in itself would not have been strange were it not for the startled speed with which he then dropped them to the path at his feet. There was a look of self-chastisement in his face, a sideways glare from the man beside him. Again, a fleeting expression, but enough to trigger something in Marina’s chest, setting her heartbeat to a racing pace. This was not the reaction of a shy man caught looking at a beautiful woman. She recalled the words Bratislav had spoken to her, an age and a world away, when she was just a girl. Trust your instincts. They will keep you alive.

  "Go!" she hissed in Ben’s ear as the two of them broke out into what made-do as a run on the steep slope. It was more like a series of lunging steps and felt like speed-walking up the wrong escalator.

  The men behind them cursed aloud and did the same, their pace not matching Marina's, but slowly eating away at the space between their footfalls and Ben's. The top of the ridge still seemed far away to the weakening professor, but he pressed on. He pushed himself for Marina's sake, for David and Mimi’s sakes, and somehow also for Donna's — but he also pressed on for his own sake. He had given much to this scroll, to the people who were fighting over it and tearing him to shreds in their teeth and claws as they did so. He was tired of it. He was done ducking and dodging. Now there was just one thing left to do: power through to the end, one way or another.

  Marina reached the top of the ridge and began throwing stones down, over Ben's head, at the men pursuing him. For a moment, Ben thought of the battle that had raged there, so long ago. Was that what it had felt like?

  That's when the guns came out.

  The two lead men levelled their weapons at Marina and she dropped the stones from her hands and stepped back from the edge.

  "Ben, they've got guns!"

  Now I know this is what it felt like, he thought to himself as he lunged the last few steps and crested the top, Marina grasping his wrist and pulling him up over the rim.

  But the gunmen did not fire.

  The Americans ran across the flat surface of the plateau, the main ruins off to their right. Marina ran directly into the light of the sinking sun, nearly blind, in the hopes that their attackers would likewise be hampered by the severe light and would not, if they chose to shoot, hit either her or Ben.

  But they knew there was nowhere to run.

  As they passed the halfway point on the flat, open ground, they heard shouts from behind them to stop. Marina turned to look and, as she did so, ran hard into something that seemed immovable.

  It was a man. Tall and muscled and holding a weapon of his own.

  He pulled her up, spinning her around by the arm to face back the way she had come, then holding her still, the gun pointed at her neck. She could feel the sharp edge of an object pressed between her back and his chest. Something strapped on then, probably another weapon — something bigger. The pistol pressed against her jugular. There was little hope of breaking free uninjured, unless something drastically changed the focus of the situation.

  Ben, likewise, met an inert mass of muscle and was hauled up, with only his toes touching the ground.

  "Professor Gela," Kantor's smooth voice emerged from the glare of the sun, behind the wall of hired thugs, "How interesting to see you here in Israel again. Did the flight to Indiana not go as planned?"

  "Hey!" the shout came from back behind Ben and he instinctively tried to squirm and writhe his way from the henchman's grip. He failed.

  Bass's men had spread out to the sides and now their guns were trained on Kantor's men. Kantor's men, in turn, levelled their weapons at the newcomers — except for the one who held Marina. He had been instructed: She was expendable in a pinch, and was a means of controlling the professor. So he kept his gun against her neck and his grip firm. But they had all been told that Gela was not to be injured under any circumstances — at least nothing that might be lethal or that might impair his ability to move and to think. The man was needed.

  The ten of them stood, in a scattered circle like an over-complex Mexican Standoff, each one aiming to kill while acutely aware that they, too, were easy targets if a firefight broke out. All went very still. The squeaks and shouts of a couple of early-morning tourists went ignored as they fled from the top of the mesa-like plateau.

  "You are with Greg Bass, I presume?" Kantor asked the one to whom the others seemed to look for guidance.

  "None of your concern."

  "Oh but it is. Your employer stole from me. I do not react to that well."

  "None of my concern."

  "I think you may want to reconsider that." Kantor smiled. "I am sure that we can come to some kind of agreeable arrangement. I am a businessman… are you not the same? I can see no beneficial outcome here, things as they are. Might you not consider a shift in employment? There is a great deal of remuneration available for a man in your position."

  "You're right, Kantor, there is," Greg Bass called out as he topped the hill, sweat pouring from his body as he quickly recovered from the ru
n up the trail behind his men, "But I doubt you can outbid me."

  Kantor's face lost its polite smile for a moment, then he shrugged and smiled once again. "Now this is a complex situation, Mr. Bass… 'sticky' I think you Americans would call it."

  "We would. But I think stickier for you than for me. You are outgunned, and two of your people would be trying to aim while holding struggling hostages. I don't like your chances, Lenny."

  "Maybe so, Mr. Bass, but then your men would be shooting through the good professor here, and that isn't good for business either, is it? And then there's the woman. How much cooperation will you get if you injure or kill her, do you think? Look, even the mention of it and the good man's eyes nearly burn from his head. Something must be done, my friend, to diffuse the situation."

  Bass's face became hard. "I'm not your friend, Kantor. And I'm not here to deal."

  THIRTY-FOUR

  As the men on the plateau argued and postured, half a dozen shadows passed silently through the shaded passages of the ruins, coming to rest as obscure lumps on the sills of ancient window openings and at the corners of crumbling doorways. They remained still a moment, their leader listening in to the exchange on the open ground, assessing the situation and how best to fulfil his mandate.

  Bass's face became hard. "I'm not your friend, Kantor. And I'm not here to deal."

  "Then we have a problem."

  "Yes, we do," Bass replied as he pulled his own handgun from the back of his belt. "I think yours is worse than mine."

  A sharp pop was heard from a doorway in the ruins and was quickly followed by several more from various positions. Out in the open arcade, two men dropped immediately, one grunting in pain, the other hitting the ground only to lie still and silent, a dark pool widening from beneath his fallen form.