by Adam Palmer
Daniel smiled, remembering what Aryeh Tsedaka had told him about the Samaritan community in Holon.
‘But that view isn’t supported by serious historians,’ the woman continued. ‘There certainly isn’t any written record to suggest it.’
‘So they came… when?’ asked Goliath. ‘The time of the Muslim conquest? The seventh century AD?’
‘Oh no, they pre-date the Islamic era, but probably not by all that much. Of course, their ancestors converted to Islam many centuries ago.’
‘So when did they arrive in this area?’
‘Well, their main claim is that they’re descended from the Nabateans who built Petra.’
‘Is there any possibility that we could persuade this Talal Ibrahim to give us a tour?’ asked Goliath. ‘We’re only here for one day and—’
‘Wait a minute – are you asking about Sheikh Ibrahim?’ asked another woman behind the counter.
‘Yes.’
‘He is here today. He actually had a group booked for a tour, but their coach broke down and they had to cancel. I think he’s still here. I can page him.’
Half an hour later they were walking along the Bab as Siq – sometimes called the ‘outer siq’ – a road bordered by slopes that ran by the side of Wadi Musa between the visitor centre and the entrance to the inner siq that most tourists took to get into Petra City.
‘The inner siq,’ Ibrahim explained, literally “the shaft”, is a long, narrow passage through the red rock leading into the actual city of Petra. It was created not by man, but by nature and it stretches for two kilometres, bending and twisting this way and that along the way. It is barely three metres wide, sometimes less than that.’
Two things had struck Daniel within a few minutes of each other: the advanced age of the sheikh – it was hard to tell exactly how old he was – and the magnificent mountains and steep hills that surrounded them.
‘I thought the rock was red,’ said Daniel in his naivety.
‘That’s further in,’ said Ibrahim. ‘Out here it is white.’
The valley began to narrow.
‘What’s that?’ asked Daniel, pointing to three square towers carved into the rock.
‘In Arabic we call them sahreej, which means cistern. However, the name is misleading because they have nothing to do with channelling or storing water. Most English speakers call them djinn blocks, using the Arabic word for an evil spirit, which I believe you sometimes call a genie.’
‘Were they carved by the Nabateans?’ Daniel asked.
‘So it is believed. This is a theory that they represent the Nabatean god Dushara. They are also believed to be tombs. And these are not the only ones. More than twenty of these djinn blocks have been found in Petra.’
A little further down, Sheikh Ibrahim stopped and pointed to a small entrance cut into the rock on the other side of the road from the djinn blocks.
‘That is the entrance to the Snake Tomb.’
It was so unobtrusive that they could have gone right past it without noticing it. He walked in, followed by the others, who formed a nervous huddle just behind him.
‘There are twelve graves here,’ the sheikh began.
‘Why is it called the Snake Tomb?’ asked Daniel, thinking about Moses and the fiery snakes.
Sheikh Ibrahim switched on a torch and aimed it at the floor. He moved the torch and directed its beam on to the wall where a carved relief image of a pair of snakes attacking a dog or jackal was illuminated. Above it and to the left was a relief of a horse mounted by some indeterminate figure.
‘Not many people know about this place. It isn’t considered important, but I presumed that as you wanted someone with deeper knowledge than usual, you might like to see this. A little tomb that most tourists don’t bother with.’
They went outside and drank some water to cool off.
‘There is something I wanted to ask you,’ Goliath said to the sheikh.
Daniel tensed up, wondering if Goliath was about to show his true colours and produce the gun. It would be risky; there were other people about. And no matter how ruthless Goliath was, it would do him no good to find himself surrounded by armed guards ready to shoot to kill before he had accomplished his goal. Moreover there was no reason to assume that Sheikh Ibrahim would yield to a threat.
In the event, Goliath kept his hand in his pocket.
‘You see that man?’ He nodded at Daniel.
‘Yes,’ said the sheikh, puzzled by the question.
‘He is the world’s foremost expert on ancient Semitic languages, and he has deciphered the ancient script. He is so wise and so trusted, that the Samaritans have given him their most precious manuscript. Let me show you.’
He produced the glass sheets containing The Book of the Straight from the bag he was carrying with him.
‘Well, go on, take a look,’ said Goliath encouragingly.
The Bedul sheikh looked at the glass-encased papyrus and his eyes welled up with tears.
‘They gave you this?’
‘Only temporarily,’ said Goliath. ‘We will give it back to them, of course. But they gave it to us to show it to you, so you would see that they trust us… in the hope that you will trust us too.’
‘T… trust you?’ Ibrahim could barely trust his own voice. ‘I assume you know what that is?’
‘I think so.’
‘It is The Book of the Straight written by Joshua the Hebrew prophet. You can tell this from the ancient script in which it is written.’ With trembling hands, he gave it back to Goliath. ‘If they let you have this in your hands – even for a minute – then they must trust you like a brother.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Goliath, putting it away. ‘And that man over there…’ he pointed to Daniel, ‘has translated that scroll. He can translate your scroll too.’
‘My scroll?’
‘The scroll that is guarded by your people.’
‘What scroll?’
‘The sacred scroll that was entrusted to your people. The scroll that your ancestors have protected all these years. The scroll that was written by Moses himself. The Book of the Wars of the Lord.’
Daniel saw no fear in the sheikh’s eyes, just a hint of lingering suspicion. He wanted to warn him, but dared not.
He hoped that he would say that he didn’t know what the man was talking about, or alternatively claim that the ancient scroll was lost.
‘And if The Book of the Wars of the Lord still exists?’
‘Then…’ again Goliath pointed to Daniel, ‘that man can reveal the sacred truths that have remained hidden – even from your own ancestors – for over three thousand years.’
The sheikh leaned towards Goliath. Goliath had to move forward and crouch down to hear him. Ibrahim spoke, almost in a whisper.
‘It is not a scroll.’
‘Then what is it?’
The sheikh smiled, a bewitching smile, as if mocking the naivety of the big man. ‘Very few have set eyes upon it.’
‘And are you one of those few?’
‘Only once, when my father handed over to me the task of guarding it.’
‘Then let us see it,’ said Goliath, feigning the pleading voice of a man with good intentions. ‘And let my friend translate it.’
‘All right. I will show it to you.’
Chapter 88
‘I’m telling you – I didn’t do it!’ Sarit explained for the umpteenth time. ‘Look at his neck! You can see his throat’s been cut. Can you see any knife on me? Can you see any knife in the room?’
The two priests who had returned to find her standing there over the body, and the half dozen or so other people who had crowded into the room looked around. They could indeed see nothing resembling the type of weapon that had inflicted these wounds. But they had found her with blood on her clothes.
She knew that it was only a matter of time before the police got there, probably only a few minutes. But she saw the anger in the eyes of the younger priest, and she feared that she might
have to resort to her krav maga fighting skills to defend herself. In fact, her fears were unfounded. He did not lift a finger against her.
‘Look,’ she said quietly, ‘there is something I need to know. Did either of you see a very tall man outside?’
They shook their heads.
‘I know that your high priest was here with two people to hear a translation of an ancient manuscript. Were you here when it happened?’
The two priests exchanged a glance. Finally the older one spoke.
‘We were listening to the translation, but my young colleague found it a bit stressful so he had to go outside. I followed him to see if he was all right and we stayed outside for a while. When we came back we found you standing over the body.’
‘But you didn’t see the man and the woman leaving?’
‘No.’
‘And you didn’t see a big man with them?’
Again they exchanged a glance. The younger priest shrugged.
‘No.’
Now Sarit understood. She remembered the empty holster of the dead guard outside and that said it all. They were being taken somewhere under duress. But where? She also realized that time was of the essence. With the police on their way, the shit was about to hit the fan.
She took out her mobile phone and called a number. ‘Hallo Dovi. I’ve got a bit of a problem.’
The Samaritan priests and the others who were congregating in the tiny space heard shouting from the other end of the phone, while Sarit tried to answer calmly. Meanwhile, the university’s own security guards had entered and were trying to keep people back.
The last words those who were in close proximity heard the man at the other end of the phone say were: ‘Ahni baderech.’ Those of them who spoke Hebrew knew that this meant: I’m on my way.
It was evident when Sarit put the phone away that she was far from relieved. If anything, she looked more tense now than she did before the phone call.
She looked down at the body once again, not really knowing why. Was it a sense of regret, knowing that she hadn’t got here soon enough? Was it a sense of guilt that she hadn’t confided her suspicions to Dov as to where the person who killed Aryeh Tsedaka was likely to be going? Or was it a sense of anger at the waste of life and the obvious viciousness of the killer?
She was not supposed to let her emotions get the better of her. In her line of work one had to develop a stomach for blood and suppress one’s emotions if there was even the slightest chance that they would interfere with the job. But still she looked at the body, lying there face down in that pool of blood. She noticed the crooked finger of his extended right arm that reached beyond the pool of blood. And she noticed something else. The finger had blood on it – just the end of the finger, above the last articulation – as if he had been writing with his own blood.
She knew that she shouldn’t interfere with the body until it had been pronounced dead by the coroner and then photographed in situ by the investigating officers. She also knew that to approach the body and touch it would contaminate the crime scene, making it harder for the forensic scientists to obtain useful evidence and making it easier for any defence lawyer to undermine that evidence. But right now the immediate priority was not preserving evidence: it was preserving something infinitely more valuable.
She went up to the body, clambered over to the other side and crouched down, peering at it, as if trying to see what was underneath it. But she couldn’t see clearly and she knew now that time was of the essence. So she inserted both her hands on the underside of the body, palms upward. Then she lifted one side of the body, twisted her hands round and gave an almighty push, rolling the body over on to its back.
Some members of the crowd gasped in surprise but Sarit had no interest in their reaction, nor indeed any in the state of the body. She was only interested in what was underneath the body, and that appeared to be a very specific bloodstain on the floor – too purposeful to be random or accidental. It was an arrow drawn in blood. And the arrow pointed to four Hebrew letters.
She realized now what had happened. In his dying seconds, even as the life drained out of him, he had drawn the arrow and written the letters in the only thing he had available: his own blood. But then, in order to ensure that it wasn’t drowned out by the blood that was gushing from his throat, he covered it with his body and was, in the words of the Bible, gathered to his people.
But it was the letters that interested Sarit now. There were just four of them, and interestingly they were in Hebrew – possibly an indication of who they were intended for. They were the letters Pay, Tet, Reish and Hay. The equivalent of the consonants P-T-R-H.
There was no doubt in her mind what this man was trying to say in his final message. The arrow was an indication that someone was going somewhere. And the letters stood for the name Petra.
Chapter 89
‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ said Goliath as they clambered up the steep slopes and over craggy rocks on their long trek. ‘The Nabateans were in the sixth century BC, but the ancient Israelites were a lot older than that. I think they entered the land of Canaan in something like the twelfth century BC. So why would The Book of the Wars of the Lord be here?’
Sheikh Ibrahim smiled. ‘We’re not actually going to the city of Petra. That’s why we didn’t go through the siq. You have to understand that people lived in this area as nomads as far back as 7,000 years before Jesus. The first people to actually settle here did so around 3,200 years ago.’
‘That was just after the Amarna period,’ Gabrielle proffered. ‘Although I think this place is even mentioned in the Amarna letters.’
‘Exactly,’ said Ibrahim. ‘And this is reflected in some of the names. For example, that is Pharaoh’s Column.’
He pointed to a cylindrical column of red rock in the distance. They looked briefly, but stopping and admiring the scenery was almost as tiring as walking, not physically but psychologically, because it kept them further from their goal. So they trudged on, not fully appreciating the explosion of colour – running the entire gamut of the rainbow – that was written across the landscape in solid rock.
‘We are actually taking the old caravan route that Bedouin and other nomads used to take between Sinai, the Araba valley and Petra itself. There are many shrines and tombs in this area which may be associated with the Israelites. Stations 19 to 26 of the Exodus are in or around the area of Petra. This is also reflected in some of the names of the places here. For example, Wadi Musa means the Valley of Moses. The wind that roars through the valley is sometimes called Aaron’s Trumpet. And of course there is also Jebel Haroun, which means Mount Aaron, where the brother of Moses is believed to be buried.’
‘Is that where we’re going?’ asked Goliath.
‘No, but where we are going is on the road to Aaron’s tomb. It is called the Snake Monument.’
‘But I thought we’d already seen…’ The big man trailed off in a state of confusion.
‘No, that was the Snake Tomb. What you’re going to see soon is the Snake Monument – something very different.’
As they carried on in silence, Daniel wondered what was going on in Gabrielle’s mind. Outwardly she was calm, but he was worried about her. Their abductor had made it clear that she would be the first one to be killed if there was any show of resistance. But would he let them live if they offered no resistance? Could he afford to? He had already shown his true colours; the man was ruthless. Was doing nothing really an option?
As they gained altitude, the colours converged on a kind of pale yellow.
‘There it is!’
From the mountain ridge on which they stood, they found themselves looking across a gulch at a massive square-cut rock upon which stood the lower extremities of a stone snake.
Gabrielle wanted to ask a question, but she found herself struggling to find her voice. ‘That’s not… a natural feature?’
‘Of course not,’ said Sheikh Ibrahim. ‘The base has been cut by the
hand of man into a shape resembling a cube. The snake too was carved out of the stone.’
‘It doesn’t look much like a snake,’ said Goliath.
‘That is all that remains. It is believed that it was once a full snake, but it was worn away by the passage of time. Come this way.’
Without waiting for anyone to respond, Ibrahim began scrambling along the rock, using his hands as well as his feet to traverse the difficult terrain. Daniel followed automatically, but Gabrielle only went when Goliath gave her a shove. He followed close behind her.
They arrived at a cave which Ibrahim had already entered.
‘Come on,’ said the sheikh. ‘There’s nothing to be scared of.’
Daniel knew that in fact there was a great deal to be scared of. Once Goliath got his hands on The Book of the Wars of the Lord, then what would he do? At that point he would have no further use for any of them. Would he kill them? Would he simply destroy both documents? Or would he take them and let them live?
The more he thought about it, the more Daniel realized how perilous their situation was. He wished he had offered some resistance before now. The trouble was it was so much easier being an armchair hero than a real one.
Daniel entered, his trepidation notwithstanding. Gabrielle and Goliath followed. The cave in fact was quite small, more like an average-size living room. Relying on nothing but the light entering from outside, Ibrahim went to a wall of the cave and removed a number of stones to reveal a crevice in the rock. He reached deep inside and seconds later his arm emerged holding something the size of four bricks, two on top of the other two, wrapped in a fragile, almost decaying white linen.
‘This isn’t the only thing that was found here,’ Ibrahim said in a conspiratorial tone. ‘A few years ago, they found some old bones.’
‘Bones?’ asked Gabrielle.
‘They had been buried here but an animal had apparently dug them out – or partially dug them out.’