However, while Giovanni did believe that 7QB had been part of 7QA before Azid had torn it apart, the wording of 7QB actually supported Reichstad’s conclusions on the essential point. Taken together, 7QA and 7QB did seem to unequivocally support Reichstad’s opinion that Jesus was still buried somewhere, and that he did not rise from the grave on the third day. In fact, 7QB seemed to give a description of the actual place of Jesus’ tomb—a location completely different than either the Garden Tomb, or the tomb at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the two possible sites of the place of Jesus’ burial according to traditional Christian thought.
All in all, Will thought that the chances of clearing Angus MacCameron at trial from any liability for damages due to defamation or libel were now about fifty-fifty. Still, those odds were a lot better than where they had been at the beginning of the case.
As for the bizarre turn of events involving Alibahd and his band of oceangoing terrorists, and the threatening encounter with Warren Mullburn, Will now felt safer, knowing that he was under twenty-four-hour FBI protection.
Occasionally he found himself wandering over to the window to make sure the black, unmarked SUV with the agents was still outside his building. Will was checking on his security team when he received a call from Tiny Heftland.
Tiny had been able to talk with the Israeli police about the death of Harim Azid in Bethlehem. They said that the Palestinian police in Bethlehem had bungled the investigation. Further, the Israelis had seen clear, though subtle, evidence that Azid had been tortured. They noted small electrical burns around several of his body cavities. None of that information had made its way into the report filed by the Palestinian police.
Even more importantly, Tiny said the Israeli police had bent over backwards in promising cooperation when they learned that he was working for Will Chambers on the Reichstad lawsuit.
“Say, do you have some kind of pull over there in Israel?” Tiny asked.
“None whatsoever,” Will said, wondering over their eagerness to help.
“But here’s the icing on the cake,” Tiny added excitedly. “The government over there is willing to voluntarily fly to the U.S. the two Israeli police officers who were at the scene of Azid’s death, so they can appear at the trial. You simply have to agree to reimburse Israel for the transportation costs.”
Will quickly cross-checked their names against the names Tiny had given him earlier—the ones he’d listed as potential trial witnesses in his written disclosures filed at the time of their pretrial hearing. They matched. Failure to disclose them would likely have resulted in Judge Kaye barring their testimony.
“There’s one more mystery witness,” Will said to his investigator. “According to the police, there is a wandering desert Bedouin out there somewhere by the name of Muhammad el Juma, a member of the Taamireh tribe. He’s the guy MacCameron said that Hunter had mentioned. He found the original fragment in the cave near the Dead Sea. Amazingly, his family carried this thing around the desert for some fifty years. Something happened to make him decide to sell it to Azid, who was some kind of shirttail relative of his. Then he seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. I don’t know what he would have to say. But I’m sure this Bedouin could be a key witness. Up to now I thought that locating him would be impossible. However, I hear you telling me that the Israelis are anxious to help—for whatever reason—and so, well, I’m thinking about something.”
“What?” Tiny asked.
“Is your passport up to date?”
“Sure.”
“I want you to go over to Jerusalem and meet with the head of the Israeli police. Explain who we are searching for—and why. See if, between the police and any of your old contacts, you can’t locate this guy.”
“Well, there’s another possibility,” Tiny said.
“What’s that?”
“We might be too late. Maybe the bad guys got to this Bedouin. Maybe he’s sleeping the big sleep.”
“Well,” Will responded, “then we had better know that too.”
After Will hung up with Tiny he called Angus MacCameron. Fiona answered and said he was napping, but she would wake him. After a few minutes he came to the phone.
“Angus, this is Will. When was the last contact you had with Judith Hunter, Richard Hunter’s sister, over in England?”
“Just her note to me, along with 7QB.”
“How about with the British Museum?”
“Oh my,” MacCameron replied, pausing to think, “a long time ago. I contacted them after Richard’s death. And then again, after Reichstad published his findings about 7QA in his archaeology journal.”
“What did you ask them?”
“Just whether they knew about any written antiquities that Hunter might have been working on at the time of his death—and if so, where they might be.”
“What did they say?”
“They didn’t have a clue. Hunter never talked to them about it. He showed up unexpectedly in London one day, fresh from Jerusalem. Did some work in his office. Then left and flew right back to Jerusalem. According to his secretary, he said he was going back to his field office to ‘fetch one last thing.’ Of course, he never returned. As soon as he got back to Jerusalem, he was murdered. Will, I believe he was returning for 7QA, which he must have hidden back there. But as soon as he returned and located it, he was attacked. That’s why Reichstad only got his hands on 7QA. I think Hunter had already taken 7QB back to London, and planned to have his sister mail it to me if he felt threatened. Then he left it under the sofa, where it stayed until she discovered it.”
“So what did he do with the missing third piece—7QC?” Will asked.
“I think,” MacCameron said, “he took both 7QB and 7QC with him to London. He left 7QB in his sister’s flat. His sister had subleased the apartment from a friend and had it listed under her friend’s name—I believe that is why Reichstad’s people didn’t know to go there and ransack it.”
“And 7QC?”
“His message was clear—he was leaving me a clue that it was at the British Museum. The Museum carefully checked his office after his death, but found nothing. It has to be somewhere else at the Museum.”
“Why don’t you make a follow-up telephone call to the people you know the best at the British Museum. Just ask around. See if anything has jogged their memories. Ask about other places Hunter may have kept any of his papers or files.”
MacCameron said he would do it, and then he invited Will over for dinner on Sunday evening, the night before the opening of the trial. Fiona would cook. MacCameron promised to play a little “squeeze-box” music after dinner.
Will accepted immediately.
Then MacCameron added, with a little wry humor, “And we will huddle together like the Christians in the Catacombs—singing one last hymn, and steeling ourselves for the ordeal—when Reichstad and Sherman, and the Court, take us by the scruff of the neck, and throw us gloriously to the lions!”
In the background, Will could hear Fiona laughing and telling her father to stop being so sarcastic, and then saying: “Don’t forget, Da, you have the Lord. And, I might add, your own personal gladiator!”
Somewhere in a quiet spot deep inside him, Will Chambers wished he didn’t have to wait five days to join them.
58
THE NEXT FEW DAYS, WILL FOLLOWED a familiar pattern. His career as a trial lawyer had taught him to prepare meticulously before every trial. He delegated the non-fact-specific legal research to Jacki. She was to put together their proposed Jury Instructions and Jury Verdict form, as well as a Trial Brief to the court on the general legal issues of the case from the defense standpoint. Will would prepare a shorter Trial Brief on the admissibility of documents, as well as responses to anticipated objections by Sherman to the evidence they would be presenting.
Will created a master log that summarized all of the evidence from all of the witnesses, and cross-indexed forty-three separate issues and sub-issues, assigning a code number to each is
sue and sub-issue, and then giving the location in the massive file where the evidence could be found supporting it.
It took from morning until midnight of one day to assemble the dozen big black trial notebooks that contained the entirety of Will’s defense to Reichstad’s suit.
Then it took another day-and-a-half for him and Jacki to assemble the notebooks that contained the sequenced, tabbed exhibits that would be handed to the judge, opposing counsel, and the jury, on the first day of the trial. Now that he had FBI protection, Will permitted Jacki to travel down to his office to help him.
The third and fourth days Will finished the outline of cross-examination questions and direct-examination questions for each witness that he had been compiling throughout the case, and questions for prospective jurors during jury selection.
The last thing he did was to outline his opening statement, and begin a rough sketch of what he anticipated as his closing statement.
The pattern of trial preparation fit him like an old pair of sneakers. He had gone through this procedure hundreds of times before. Yet on this case—with these people—and more particularly, with these profound issues at stake, his exacting preparation didn’t seem to be enough. Will wasn’t sure what else he needed, but he knew in his gut that there was something else. What was he missing?
On Sunday evening he drove over to MacCameron’s home. Perhaps it was the stress of the upcoming trial. Or maybe the joy of an odd friendship with these super-zealous Christians who had, in a strange way, become a kind of family for him. But whatever it was, Will felt a special eagerness as he walked up and knocked at the door. When Reverend MacCameron and Fiona greeted him at the door, Will gave a good-natured laugh. MacCameron was outfitted in the full tartan of the clan Cameron. Fiona was decked out in a red tartan dress, and shoes with buckles. As she stood in the door for a moment, with her dark hair cascading down, with the blush on her cheeks, with her sparkling eyes, her beauty nearly punched the wind right out of his stomach.
“Why do I feel like I just stepped over the magic bridge into the land of Brigadoon?” Will quipped as he entered the apartment with an arrangement of flowers.
As soon as he was inside Will asked if he could see Helen MacCameron. They led him into her bedroom. He noticed that a woman who appeared to be a nurse was sitting next to her.
There was a glimmer of a smile on Helen’s pale face beneath her oxygen mask when Will stepped in and touched her hand. Helen glanced over to the nurse, and the nurse bent over to her, lifted the mask up, and put her ear close to Helen’s pale lips.
“She wants to know why you aren’t wearing your kilt.”
Will smiled, and explained that he had knobby knees. Besides, how could he possibly compete with a real Scot like Angus MacCameron, who looked so dashing in his clan outfit?
“You must be the Robbie she has been expecting,” the nurse continued.
“No, I’m Will Chambers.”
“Oh, she’s been talking about her son—Robbie. A lawyer. She was expecting him tonight.”
Will had not heard either MacCameron or Fiona mention that there was another member of the family. He turned to ask MacCameron about it, but the older man put his finger to his lips and said, “I think I’m going to leave the bedroom door open all the way. I think Helen would like to hear the sounds of friendly voices, and the music. We want her to be part of this.”
As they stepped into the kitchen MacCameron took Will aside.
“Before Fiona was born, my dear wife had a miscarriage when she was eight months pregnant. It was a terrible loss to both of us. But I think it was particularly hard on Helen. As it turned out, it was a boy. We were going to name him Robert.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Will said.
“No need. She must see something in you—something that shows her what Robbie would have been like if he had lived and grown up. She seems to be living more and more in the past now. The doctors told us that the cancer has reached her brain.”
Fiona walked into the kitchen and kissed her father on the cheek, then wrapped her arms around him and held him for a long time.
MacCameron wiped his eyes and brightened up. He said dinner was ready.
Will was informed that this was a “modified” Scottish dinner. Scottish salmon appetizers were brought out first, and homemade soda bread. There was mutton stew and beef roast (American—they couldn’t find Highlands beef in Washington, D.C.). But the blood pudding was genuine. Will took a taste—but pushed it away discreetly while Fiona and her father laughed.
After dinner they went into the parlor and MacCameron brought out his accordion. He commenced to play several old Scottish tunes. When he got to some of the livelier music, he managed to coax Fiona, despite her protestations, into doing some of the dances he had taught her as a girl. Then Fiona sang a few songs in Gaelic, in a lilting voice so sweet that it seemed, to Will, to emanate wholly from another time, and another dimension.
The last song Angus MacCameron played was a slow, haunting melody called “Dark Island.” Fiona accompanied him on a slightly out-of-tune piano in the corner.
Then Fiona offered to clean up and do the dishes while MacCameron and Will sat on the couch together and talked about the case.
“I accessed the Jerusalem Post on my computer earlier today, the minute I got home from church,” MacCameron explained. “An article mentions that a permit has just been issued for an excavation in the vicinity of the St. Stephen’s Gate entrance to the Old City, right along the wall. The permit was issued to Albert Reichstad and his team.”
“He didn’t waste any time, did he?” Will added.
“He must have filed an application with the Israeli Antiquities Authority earlier this week, as soon as he had translated the St. Stephen’s Gate reference in the 7QB fragment. Will, this is unheard of—a permit for this kind of controversial dig being approved in just a matter of days! Somehow, Reichstad must have either applied incredible pressure on the IAA, or else he has an inside connection. In any event, we have to get to that excavation site—we have to be eyewitnesses to Reichstad’s activities there.” MacCameron’s voice was rising in intensity.
“Da, please don’t get all riled up,” Fiona said, peeking around the corner from the kitchen.
“Angus,” Will said, trying to calm his client, “we have a trial starting tomorrow. That has to be our priority. Besides, Reichstad has to be there in the courtroom with us. He is not going to be over in Jerusalem. And knowing him, he won’t let his assistants start any significant work without him. He is going to want to be right there when the digging starts—so he can grab the headlines and get the credit.”
“Yes, that is a good point. But didn’t you say that the trial is only going for three days next week—Monday through Wednesday?”
“That’s right. Judge Kaye has a judicial conference on Thursday and Friday. We will be off those two days—then we reconvene the following Monday.”
“Then that is when Reichstad is going to start digging. He will leave immediately after court on Wednesday, fly out in the evening—and land in Jerusalem with at least three days to commence the excavation. I’m sure that, before he even gets there, his assistants will have done an electronic sweep of areas around that gate. As I recall it, there is a small rise just to the right of the gate entrance. They will try to get a fix on anything that looks like a burial site there.”
“How?”
“Reichstad will have all of the sophisticated hardware. They have these little portable geophysical radar systems—about the size of a large laptop computer. They can detect the presence of burial locations, walls, almost anything underneath the surface of the ground. Will, I can’t tell you how important it is that we plan on being there in Jerusalem when he starts digging. If we are not, he can come back into court the following week and say anything he wants about his excavation—he can say that he found a corpse with a name-tag on it, a name-tag that says ‘I’m Jesus, the son of Mary, and I didn’t rise from the grave,�
�� and we won’t be able to refute it!”
“I understand. But there’s another issue,” Will said, recalling his assignment to his client. “Did you call the British Museum?”
“Oh—why yes. They have no idea where Richard may have kept any other records and papers. But I did find out one other very important fact.”
“Oh?”
“They had a break-in at the Museum a few weeks ago. Sometime after we disclosed the tape of Richard’s answering-machine message to Reichstad and his lawyers.”
“So?”
“Vandals, they said, ransacked the office of one of their researchers. A night watchman showed up, but they got away. And what do you think his last name was—the researcher whose office was burglarized?”
“What?”
“Lazarus. The office belonged to Isaac Lazarus.”
Will thought for a minute. Then he cried out, “‘Lazarus come forth!’”
“Exactly! The other side must have assumed, as I did, that the ‘resurrection order’ that Hunter was leaving as a clue in his message had to do with the Lazarus story in the Gospel of John. Therefore, they broke into Dr. Lazarus’s office, thinking they could find 7QC before we did.”
“Did they take anything from the office?”
“The Museum didn’t think so. But I did get their preliminary approval for the two of us to search through Lazarus’s office in order to locate any papers belonging to Hunter. And Richard’s sister has been very kind. She was his last of kin and has already given me permission to locate and keep any of the papers or effects we find dealing with his discovery of his fragments in Jerusalem. Hunter’s last will and testament actually bequeathed to me fifty percent of the value of any of his recent discoveries, and of his writings over the last ten years of his life. Can you imagine that?”
Will smiled at MacCameron’s good fortune.
“When can we get over there?” MacCameron asked.
“To London?”
“Yes!”
“Angus, you’ve got me trotting all over the world. Let’s put in a day or two of the trial this week. Then we’ll talk.”
The Resurrection File Page 34