True Raiders

by Brad Ricca

  Twenty-Three

  Natalie Maurice

  JERUSALEM, MARCH 9, 1910

  Put your slippers on, everyone!”

  The Reverend Charles H. Bohner directed his tour group over to the dragoman, who was handing out pairs of flimsy slippers. The American group, around a dozen in total, stood outside in Solomon’s Court, in the shadow of the golden arch. The sky was overcast, but the air was warm and close.

  “Agnes, your slippers! Come on!”

  Natalie Maurice took two pairs from the dragoman. She sat her friend Agnes down on the step and removed her shoes, before easing the slippers onto her feet. It was difficult work because Agnes was so excited.

  “We can’t miss this!” she said.

  Natalie adjusted the fit, then looked up and smiled at her friend. Natalie had light brown hair and gray eyes—and was equally as excited.

  “Oh, they’re very comfortable,” said Agnes. Natalie laughed.

  “Where are you from?” Natalie had asked Agnes when she saw her sitting by herself on the ship. Agnes had blond hair and a round, pleasant face.

  “Indiana,” said Agnes. Since then, they had become inseparable, industrious sightseers on their once-in-a-lifetime trip. Though Agnes was twice her age, Natalie enjoyed spending time with her and indeed could barely keep up. They had seen incredible sites such as Jericho and the Jordan, and had ridden on horseback through rain and snow.

  As Natalie helped her up, Agnes looked over to the rest of the group. Natalie had an idea what she was thinking of. It had been a hard week for all of them. The day before yesterday, an older lady who was part of their number had passed from heart disease. Agnes, and indeed all of them, had taken it hard. She hoped that this particular stop would help buoy their spirits.

  “OK, all set. Let’s go!” Natalie took Agnes’s hand and led her to the group as they filed inside.

  They were going into the Dome of the Rock.

  When Natalie walked into the enormous, octagonal chamber, it was the curling smoke of the floral incense and the almost impossible height of the place that drew her senses upward. There, suspended above her like a second sky, was the glimmering mosaic of the great dome itself. Tiny, polished cubes of red and ochre, and orange and black, fit together into an overwhelming geometric pattern that seemed too awesome to comprehend in one glance. There must have been a million pieces above them, comprising one perfect dimension.

  The honey-colored light from the high lunette window brought Natalie’s eyes back to earth, down past more mosaics, and a golden ring of characters she couldn’t read, all the way down to the square-cut floor, the burgundy rugs, and rising in front of them, a guardrail. The size of every part seemed related to every other part in some definite proportion, building together to a silent and harmonious chord.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Agnes.

  “Come on,” said Natalie, pulling her to the front of the group. There were attendants in holy clothing moving slowly through the gallery. As one such man passed by, Natalie made one last push, passing the reverend and his wife. There, she saw it for the first time: the Foundation Stone itself.

  The rock was gigantic, far bigger than Natalie had guessed. It was also quite tall, at least six feet high; she could barely see over its ridge. The color of the rock was elusive; it was clearly made of a light-colored limestone, but in the light from the high windows it became warmer, almost otherworldly. As they stepped closer, she saw a crimson silk suspended over the rock by twelve thin columns. She pulled Agnes, who was oohing and aahing, along the gilded railing.

  As they began to circle around it, Natalie saw that the rock’s surface was in some places chiseled into rectangular holes, and in others left natural.

  “Look!” she whispered. Natalie pointed to a small imprint on the stone. “That’s it! When Mohammed began his ascent to heaven, the rock began to fly up with him, until the angel Gabriel held it down.” Natalie excitedly pointed to a shallow impression. “That is his handprint!” she said.

  “And” she said, trying to remain at least somewhat quiet. “The stone is actually still floating, suspended four feet in the air!”

  Agnes looked utterly amazed.

  “It’s all covered up below.” said Natalie.

  “How do you know all of this?” asked Agnes.

  “Oh, you know. I’m a librarian.” Agnes gave her friend a great smile. It had been their running joke.

  As they made their way around the massive stone, Natalie remembered all that she had read, that the Foundation Stone was believed to be the actual place where Abraham sought to sacrifice his son Isaac, only to have his dagger stayed by the Lord’s mercy. The first Temple of Solomon had been here. After it was razed by Nebuchadnezzar, it was Herod the Great who rebuilt it into a much larger construction. Natalie couldn’t think of Herod without thinking of the story in Matthew of the massacre of the innocents, where Herod ordered all children two years of age and under to be killed, all in an effort to destroy the newborn Jesus, whom he saw as a great threat. Herod’s temple was eventually destroyed by the Romans. The Arabs later built the Dome of the Rock directly over it, on the Foundation Stone, making it a holy place for the world’s three largest religions.

  Natalie and Agnes made their way toward a small structure in the left-hand corner of the room. Nathalie took a breath. She had read about this place for what seemed like such a long time, in her library. She knew where they were going next.

  The Well of Souls.

  This was the ancient cave that lay hidden under the Foundation Stone. David and Solomon were said to have prayed in this holy place. According to the Talmud, you could still hear the roaring waters of the Flood beneath it. Others said that it was the sound of departed souls, rushing through eternity as winding ghosts, restlessly waiting for Judgment Day.

  The reverend got everyone into a line, then looked back at them. “We will go in with the guide at five o’clock,” he said. “Just a few more minutes.” Because they had tarried at the Foundation Stone, Agnes and Natalie were near the end of the line.

  Natalie looked at Agnes. She noticed that her friend had closed her eyes. As Agnes’s lips began to move, a shot of terror went through Natalie. She nudged her friend hard in the forearm.

  “Ow!”

  Natalie looked around to see if any of the Arab attendants had seen. She returned her attention to Agnes and vigorously shook her head no, putting a finger to her lips. Agnes took on a look of fear as she realized her error. The one rule for Christians in the Dome of the Rock had to be observed at all costs. No matter what, Christians were not allowed to do one thing above all others.

  They were not allowed to pray.

  Instead, Natalie took Agnes’s hands in hers and they looked at each other, in a moment of silence.

  The reverend checked his watch and nodded. They began walking down a narrow circular stair, passing a somewhat obtrusive outcropping of rock. As they made the turn, they saw a set of flat, broad steps leading into a cave with a low ceiling. Natalie peeked her head down with an excited smile, straining her ears to hear the Waters of Judgment. The dragoman was behind Natalie and Agnes; most of their group had already reached the bottom. The cave was brighter than Natalie had guessed. She could see what looked like a softly lit shrine. Natalie saw a man, an Arab, deep in prayer in the corner of the cave. She cautioned herself to be quiet.

  Someone in front of her jumped, and a loud sound boomed though the staircase. Natalie stopped. Her leg, at the thigh, felt warm, as if she had spilled her tea. But she had no tea. Did she? She looked down to see blood on her dress. She had a feeling—pain?

  The dragoman began to move past them. Natalie heard another sound—did someone drop something?—and a zing like a bee. A red line appeared—left to right—across the dragoman’s face. Agnes screamed.

  More shots called out and everyone scattered. Agnes saw the praying man emerge from the bottom of the stairs. He had a gun and was shooting at them. Natalie turned to her friend. />
  A shot thundered out, Agnes’s left eye exploded, and blood sprayed out the opposite side of her nose.

  Everyone began to scatter as the sound of more shots filled the small space. A rush of Turkish soldiers drummed down the stairs past them and through them. Agnes was bloody and screaming and Natalie realized she was, too.

  * * *

  The next day, the newspapers reported that Turkish soldiers were able to apprehend the assailant. They roughly dragged him out up the stone steps. His demeanor was very collected. He promptly acknowledged his crime and declared himself beloved of Allah. Authorities determined that he was a native of Afghanistan and had lately returned from a holy pilgrimage to Mecca. The shooter said that he was praying in the cave when a crowd came pushing their way into the room. He was not accustomed to being so disturbed in God’s house, he said. The Turkish police, the kavass, believed that since the man had been in the city for several days, there was probably some greater plot that might never be known. Another report claimed that the man was praying when he saw that there were Christians in the Temple. He had never seen the infidel in a mosque before, so he fired his gun. Another newspaper stated that the tourists were mocking the man’s praying, setting off his murderous anger. There was no trial by jury in Palestine, so the man’s fate would be determined by a judge. The authorities said that he would be tortured to induce him to expose his confederates, if he had any.

  The mayor expressed a deep detestation of the crime by the miserable fanatic who so ruthlessly shot the two American ladies. He declared his determination to do his utmost to have the severest penalty of the law dealt out to him.

  Miss Natalie Maurice, reported the papers, had a flesh wound that was not serious. She would rejoin the tourists in a week or ten days. Miss Agnes Parker-Moore, an heiress, was less fortunate. She had to be taken to the German Hospital. Her left eye was destroyed. There was hope that she might be able to go home in a few weeks’ time.

  The Dome of the Rock was closed to visitors. The long inscriptions on the inner side of the octagonal arcade—that Natalie did not know the meaning of—stood over the guards below.

  Do not exaggerate in your religion.

  The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a Messenger of God.

  There is no god, but God alone, without partner.

  Twenty-Four

  Charles Warren

  JERUSALEM, SUMMER 1869

  FORTY YEARS EARLIER

  Charles Warren sneezed so hard he put his candle out. He was quite sick. After spending the night in a wet tent, he had been overtaken with a dreadful bout of rheumatism and neuralgia affecting his left side. He took it as just another sign that it was time to leave Jerusalem. He had made plenty of discoveries for the PEF, who would be pleased. But there was one last spot he needed to see. And he was looking right at it, though he was not sure what it was exactly.

  Jerusalem had experienced some political upheaval of late, so Warren had finally been kicked out of his tunnels. He had taken the opportunity to meet with the governor-general of Syria. Warren was surprised that the governor was a brother Mason, and they had many subjects of common interest, including his digging near the quarries of King Solomon, near the Temple. The governor greatly approved of and encouraged Warren’s work in this area.

  The pasha was eventually removed from his Jerusalem post and replaced by someone who did not seem to have as fixed an eye on Warren’s digging. Warren and Sergeant Birtles took advantage of the cover and began excavating on the side of the Kidron Valley, under the Moslem cemetery outside the wall of the Haram. Warren looked out over the crumbled graveyard. The only people there were the blind men, who were paid by sad widows to come every day and mourn for them.

  Warren knew this was a dangerous undertaking, for many reasons: not only because bodily harm was possible in such a fragile place but also because if they disturbed or exposed even one grave, or scraped a single shroud, the resentment of the people would know no bounds. They would be run out of town, if not worse. Warren made sure to use special gallery frames to support the tunnels below. As he and Birtles dug underneath the cemetery, they always kept one eye on the ceiling of earth above them, looking for linen or toes.

  Near the wall, in the underground, Warren found a strange slit in the rock about eighteen inches wide and four inches high. He dropped a stone into it—it looked exactly like a London mail slot—and heard the pebble rattle away for several feet down into somewhere unknown. He called Birtles, and they chiseled for a few hours underneath the slit, finally breaking through into a passage.

  Warren tried to concentrate. He was still shivering. As he moved his candle, he realized what the slot was for. The opening was not for mail (or pebbles), but had been a means of letting light in.

  “Ingenious,” he said.

  He looked in and saw a forty-five-degree slope downward. Holding his walking stick for balance, Warren slid down about twelve feet to a flat surface. He winced in pain. As he stood up, a shadow of his head was cast onto the rock before him. It was an eerie feeling.

  “A roof,” said Warren, aloud. “I’m standing on a roof.”

  He broke through into another passage. The passage or gallery ran east and west and was two feet wide. It seemed to be almost eight feet tall at one point, but much of the old floor had been removed. Warren looked back west: there were three large circular holes carved into the rock. He knew that way would go all the way to the Birket Israel, the huge cistern outside the wall of the city. To the east—here he turned his head back—was the Temple. There was an opening there, almost four feet high. He was deep underground, but he knew exactly where he was on the map.

  Warren then spied something. On the stone wall was a mark, not that unlike the red Phoenician letters. But this was different. It was the unmistakable shape of a Christian cross of the Byzantine period. He ran his finger over it, and then started searching around furiously.

  He had missed something. He knew it.

  There, to the north of the tunnel, Warren saw a dark shadow that he had previously taken at face value. As he crept closer, he saw that it was a hidden opening, about two feet wide. He came closer and saw, to his amazement, a staircase leading upward. He took a moment to orient himself; he was standing near the Haram.

  He was looking upon things not on any map.

  Warren grabbed his walking stick and plunged it into the darkness above the stairs. As predicted, it was filled with the usual mixture of stones and dirt. Warren kept fiercely stabbing the stick again and again, but the material began to come down with such great force that it not only further blocked the entry but threatened to bury him alive.

  Warren inched back and leaned on his staff. There was no way up. He felt both angry and even further intrigued. He allowed himself the thought that, wherever the secret stair led, articles—such as the Ark—could have been concealed there at the time of the Temple’s destruction.

  Warren knew that between the cemetery, the nonexistent entryways, the deep slope, and the blocked stairs, they could not bring people down to clear the stairs. And they couldn’t sink another shaft. This way, at least, was closed to him.

  Warren made a note of it in his book, tarried a moment, then left the strange labyrinth and the mark of the cross behind.

  Twenty-Five

  Father Vincent

  JERUSALEM, SPRING 1910

  It had been one of the longest winters of Father Vincent’s life, not because of the weather, but because of the waiting. When Monty and his men—most the same, but some new, and some gone, never to be seen again—finally returned in spring 1910, there was no one happier to see them than Father Vincent. This time, the Englishmen brought new machinery with them, of a kind Father Vincent had not yet seen. The recent shootings still hung in the air, leaving everything in the region on a teetering edge. Even the stormy weather had still not entirely dissipated.

  Over the past several months, Father Vincent had been studiously planning for his reentry into the tun
nels. He knew that they were only a few weeks short of finally being able to fully explore the major conduit of the labyrinth: Hezekiah’s Tunnel itself. The gangs started right away, divided into two teams: one entered at the Virgin’s Fountain, and the other at the Pool of Siloam. They worked for eight hours without pause, hauling out buckets of stuff. When Father Vincent went down among them, he was filled with happiness. The close air and bustle of the hearty workers produced an environment that was only barely tolerable for human beings. Father Vincent reveled in it.

  As they removed debris to carve a way in, they were also digging down to the tunnel’s true depth. Finally, one of the teams reached the original floor, having pared it down to the rock itself. In doing so, the height of the tunnel was raised up nearly an entire meter. This helped things along tremendously, and within a fortnight the two teams were able to work within earshot of one another, somewhere near the middle of the tunnel. The poetic nature of this was not lost on Father Vincent. The Bible said that Hezekiah had also ordered two teams to dig from each side to meet somewhere in between. In many ways, they had reenacted the very actions of the ancients they were trying to understand.

  When they finally cleared it all the way through, the artifacts and scraps that had littered the galleries were still nowhere to be seen.

  The secret tunnel of Hezekiah was empty, scraped down to its cold floor. And they had found nothing. Father Vincent was astonished. He stared down the passageway that looked like a black rectangular door.

  When he returned outside, Captain Parker was slouched against a chair. They had accomplished a significant archaeological feat: they had diverted the spring and completely cleaned out the legendary tunnel. Warren had not even come close to doing this. Yet the Englishmen looked like they would just as soon go home. But not Father Vincent. He knew there were still secrets there. This was the tunnel where the Siloam inscription had been found. It needed the attention it deserved.