Staff of Judea

by Alex Archer

  The treasure?

  It was only then that Annja noticed the freshly dug trench running along the crumbling stone wall behind the four men. A large pile of earth sat at one end and marks in the dirt along the edges of the trench revealed where something heavy had been hauled up from below.

  Annja couldn’t believe it. Someone had unearthed the treasure in the middle of the night.

  The sound of fist striking flesh drew her attention away from the hasty excavation. She turned just in time to see the prisoner spit out a mouthful of blood and broken teeth, then glare at Grimes in defiance.

  “I told you,” the man said in thickly accented English, “we had nothing to do with it.”

  Grimes hit him again.

  Annja had seen enough. “Stop!” she shouted. “No more!”

  Grimes barely glanced in her direction as he snarled, “This doesn’t concern you, Annja, so stay out of it.”

  Not a chance. With her concerns from the night before still in the forefront of her mind, there was no way she was going to sit idly by while Grimes beat the tar out of a defenseless prisoner.

  Grimes drew his fist back, preparing to strike again. Annja rushed forward and put herself between Grimes and the prisoner. “I said that’s enough!”

  Grimes was practically spitting in her face as he said, “Get out of the way, Ms. Creed, or I’m not going to be responsible for my actions. This man has information we need and I intend to get it. If I have to go through you to get it.”

  Her hand twitched as she fought the urge to call her sword.

  Without taking her gaze off Grimes’s face, she spoke over his shoulder at Connolly. “Whatever he tells you under duress isn’t going to be worth garbage and you know it. There has to be a better way.”

  Grimes took a step closer, getting right up in her face. “This man and his buddies are responsible for killing two of my men and for hijacking our find out from under our noses. I’ll be damned if I just let that go unanswered. Now get the hell out of my way or so help me—”

  “Grimes.”

  Connolly didn’t raise his voice, but his tone brought Grimes up short.

  “Sir?”

  “Perhaps there is a better way.”

  Annja turned to thank him, but he wasn’t finished.

  “Tie him up over there and leave him in the heat until he decides to tell us something.”

  “But…”

  Connolly whirled to face her. “Would you prefer that I let Grimes continue?”

  Annja shook her head, disconcerted by the savage look in Connolly’s eyes. This was a different man from the one she’d had dinner with back in Jerusalem.

  Still, she hesitated, searching her mind for an argument that might sway him, until a hand fell on her arm. She glanced over and found that Ephraim had caught up with her. There was fear in his eyes, a sense that they were perilously close to a precipice and one false step could send them plunging. He inclined his head, just the slightest nod back in the direction of the camp.

  She let Ephraim lead her away, looking back over her shoulder as the prisoner was dragged to the remains of a column and tied there in a seated position, his back to the stone.

  It wasn’t going to take very long for the temperature to rise, and when it did, it was going to turn that cool stone into a blistering furnace. As she walked off she found herself wondering if she’d done the prisoner any favor at all.

  From the look in his eyes, he was probably wondering the same thing.

  Chapter 20

  The other members of her team were waiting outside her tent when she and Ephraim got back to camp. Susan had apparently been elected spokesperson and she wasted no time in getting to the point.

  “I’m sorry, Professor, but we’ve had enough. It’s too dangerous to stay any longer.”

  “You want to leave the expedition?” Ephraim asked, glancing from one to the other.

  Several of them nodded. Susan said, “Yes. We want to return to Jerusalem. Today, if possible.” Her voice had taken on a hard edge, as if expecting Ephraim to protest their decision.

  They’re scared, Annja thought, and I don’t blame them. They’d signed on for an archeological dig, not to be hunted in the middle of the night by swordsmen disguised as some sect out of Jewish legend. She should have sent them home the minute she’d known there was going to be opposition to what they were doing.

  Ephraim smiled. “I think that’s an excellent idea.”

  Annja, however, was not smiling. It had just occurred to her that Connolly might not let them leave.

  Only one way to find out.

  “I’ll talk to Connolly,” Annja said, “see if he can spare one of the Land Cruisers to take you all back to Jerusalem.”

  To keep them occupied, Ephraim put them to work excavating a corner of one of the smaller buildings on the south side of the dig site. Annja worked along with them, enjoying the opportunity to get her hands dirty, as Ephraim liked to say. Despite their real fear, the students were eager to work a fresh site and Annja was reminded of the thrill of discovery that had gotten her into archaeology in the first place.

  About an hour after they started, Annja excused herself and went to find Connolly. He was in his tent, as she had expected, and, as usual, Grimes was with him.

  “With your permission, I’d like to send the graduate students back to the city.”

  Grimes frowned deeply as Connolly asked, “Why?”

  “We’ve inadvertently put them in danger by bringing them along and I’d like to remedy that. We don’t really need them. Ephraim and I can handle the excavation and we can use the security team to help move any heavy objects when we investigate the next site.”

  Connolly gave it some thought. “Grimes?”

  The other man didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely not.”

  Annja couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I’m sorry?”

  Grimes watched her steadily. “I said no.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because we do need them. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have brought them along in the first place.”

  Annja shook her head. “We don’t need them, not enough to put their lives in danger. Or are you forgetting that we were attacked last night?” Her annoyance was rising. This shouldn’t even require a discussion.

  “And we dealt with the attackers appropriately, or are you forgetting that?”

  Annja glared at him. “I haven’t forgotten. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t more of them out there waiting for their own opportunity.”

  “Exactly my point,” Grimes replied. “What if they are out there, watching us even now? Sending your colleagues back to Jerusalem alone could well result in their being ambushed along the way.”

  “So have one or two of the security personnel escort them back.”

  “And leave us more vulnerable than we are now? Not a chance. They’ll just have to stick it out here with the rest of us until we’re finished.”

  “I think they should be able to decide whether to take the risk or not.”

  “No,” Grimes said. “I won’t have them injured traveling back to Jerusalem on their own. I won’t have that on my conscience, Annja.”

  What conscience?

  Connolly lifted his hands palms out in a helpless gesture. “I have to listen to Martin’s recommendations, Annja. I’m sure you understand. For now, we stay together.”

  Further argument wouldn’t get her anywhere, so Annja returned to the excavation area. She pulled Ephraim aside and let him know they were all going to be here awhile. Together, they broke the news to the rest of the group. As expected, they weren’t happy.

  Unable to ease the camp tension, Annja decided to see the prisoner…although she felt useless. There was clearly nothing she could
do for him, either.

  Like Grimes, she wanted some answers, but his approach was doomed to failure. A little honey would go a lot further. To that end she brought with her one of their freeze-dried meals, already reconstituted with hot water, and a bottle of Gatorade. The prisoner had been in the sun for hours now and was no doubt in need of both.

  Beck was on guard duty when she arrived. Of all of Grimes’s security team, Annja liked him the least. He was a hard-faced, arrogant pain in the butt who considered anyone not part of the security team to be beneath him. Annja wasn’t the type to suffer such fools gladly.

  He watched her approach with a smirk. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked as his eyes traveled up and down her body.

  She gave him the same head-to-toe assessment but let her disdain for him plainly show. He flushed, and stood a little straighter.

  “I’m going to talk to the man I captured,” she said.

  Beck shook his head. “No one’s allowed to talk to the prisoner. Boss’s orders.”

  By “boss” he meant Grimes, not Connolly, and for a moment she toyed with the idea of telling him that Connolly had sent her to interrogate the prisoner personally, but Beck was a stickler for protocol. He’d most likely call Connolly to verify his orders.

  She glanced beyond Beck at the prisoner. He sat with his back to the pillar, his legs splayed out before him. He seemed to be unconscious, his head hanging limply against his chest. There was little doubt their voices would carry the short distance to where he was tied up, but he hadn’t even lifted his head to see what was going on.

  In fact, he hadn’t moved at all since she’d arrived.

  Not good.

  “When was the last time he had water?” Annja asked, a creeping suspicion forming in the back of her mind.

  Beck just stared at her.

  Annja shoved past him to the prisoner.

  He didn’t move, didn’t give any indication that he was even aware of her presence.

  She put the food and water down next to him, then used both hands to gently lift his face up off his chest so she could take a look.

  What she saw was alarming.

  He’d only been in the sun for several hours but that was apparently enough. His face was turning red and his lips were chapped and peeling. His eyes rolled in their sockets, unable to focus on her. He was barely conscious. If she hadn’t been holding his head upright he wouldn’t have been able to on his own.

  Knowing how hot it could get at a dig site, Annja always carried a small tube of sunblock in her pocket. She pulled it out, squeezed some out and spread it on the prisoner’s face and neck.

  Beck hurried over, clearly upset. “What are you doing?”

  “When was the last time he had anything to drink?” she asked again.

  This time Beck answered her. She didn’t think it had anything to do with her anger, but rather the thought of what Grimes would do to him if something happened to the prisoner on his watch. “Last night maybe?” he said.

  Cursing under her breath, Annja uncapped the Gatorade and poured a little between the man’s lips. At first it just dribbled back out, but then he seemed to come back to himself and managed to swallow it. Annja gave him a little more.

  “Easy,” she said to him in French. “Small sips.”

  He nodded slightly in understanding.

  French, it is, then, Annja thought with a small sense of satisfaction, but she didn’t let it show. Right now she was more concerned with keeping the prisoner from getting heatstroke. Clearly he wasn’t used to being in the hot desert sun like this.

  Beck sauntered back over to his guard station. He was still in earshot, but that was better than having him standing there all jumpy with a gun in hand. She didn’t need anyone having any accidents today.

  “Better?” she asked, again in French, when he had consumed almost half of the Gatorade.

  He nodded, then answered in the same language, “Yes, thank you.”

  She glanced over at Beck. His attention was elsewhere. She fed the prisoner a few bites of the food she’d brought.

  “What’s your name?”

  Rather than replying he simply shook his head. Apparently he wasn’t willing to go down that road yet.

  “Okay,” she told him, “play it your way. But I can’t do anything for you unless you cooperate and trust me. I’m far more agreeable than the rest of this bunch.”

  He still didn’t reply. She gave him a few more bites and then helped him drink. When he was done he leaned his head back against the pillar behind him and closed his eyes.

  Annja gathered her things and stood. “If you change your mind,” she said, looking down at his sunburned face, “ask for Annja.”

  No one else is going to stick their neck out for you, that’s for sure.

  Chapter 21

  It was well after dark when she climbed back up the ridge, another bottle of Gatorade and a rehydrated meal in one hand, her flashlight in the other.

  She was expecting to be stopped by whoever had sentry duty at this point, but she reached the ruins without anyone calling out to her. It was dark.

  They’re just keeping a low profile, she told herself. Don’t want to give away their position.

  But it was more than that, as she discovered moments later when she reached the place where the prisoner had been secured. No one was there.

  Had they done something to him? She paused. Maybe he’d escaped. Annja didn’t think he’d managed to get free. If he had, surely his hands would have been left on the ground. Someone had come to get him.

  Grimes.

  Annja quickly turned around and headed down the ridgeline to the camp below. She made her way through the tents until she came to the larger one. There was a guard stationed outside—Gardner, the scout from the night before—but he waved her inside without a word.

  Grimes and Connolly were bent over the camp table. A large-scale topographical map of the surrounding area was spread out before them.

  They were discussing the expedition’s next target. Several red X’s were marked on the map, presumably locations they had either selected for themselves or obtained from Ephraim.

  The prisoner wasn’t anywhere in sight.

  Connolly noticed her first. “Ah, Annja!” he said, gesturing her forward. “You’re just the person we need. We’re trying to decide where we’re headed next and—”

  “Where is he?” Annja interrupted him.

  Connolly’s head cocked to one side. “I beg your pardon. Where is who?”

  “The prisoner.”

  It was Grimes, rather than Connolly, who answered. “We turned him over to the authorities.”

  Annja looked at him. “The authorities?”

  Grimes nodded. “We reached out by radio earlier and brought them up to speed on the situation. When their two officers arrived, they took statements from us and, based on the strength of those statements, they arrested him. I doubt he’ll be troubling us for a long time,” he finished with a laugh.

  As if on cue, Connolly stepped into the conversation. “Rest assured, Ms. Creed, that I kept your name out of things as best I could. I know how little you like the spotlight outside of your duties as host of that cable show you work for.”

  “Is there some reason I wasn’t informed?”

  Grimes’s eyes narrowed. “Informed? Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “maybe for the simple reason that I’m the one he tried to kidnap?”

  He laughed, but there wasn’t anything pleasant about it. “I’m sorry, Ms. Creed, but you were hired to help translate the scroll and for your expertise in uncovering artifacts. I don’t presume to tell you how to do your job. I would appreciate it if you would refrain from telling me how to do mine.”

 
“Has the embassy been informed?” she asked, ignoring him.

  Connolly frowned. “The embassy?” He exchanged a look with his second in command.

  “Yes, the embassy. An attempt was made to kidnap a U.S. citizen on foreign soil. That’s a terrorist act and it makes sense to give the embassy a heads-up. In case they try to grab someone else.”

  Grimes waved the idea away with a flip of his hand. “You can’t be serious. If this was an international plot to harm U.S. citizens, don’t you think these so-called terrorists would have gone after Mitchell first? Or do you somehow think that being the host of a cable television show makes you a more likely target than one of the world’s richest men?”

  “Of course I don’t,” she replied, doing what she could to hold her temper, “but I don’t see—”

  “I don’t care what you see or don’t see, Annja,” Grimes cut in over her. “The decision is made and the police have already collected their man, so there seems little point in arguing about it further. Now, if there is anything else?”

  Annja recognized a dismissal when she heard one.

  Chapter 22

  Grimes had said they were going to be charging the Frenchman, if that was indeed what he was, with kidnapping. How could they do that without some kind of a statement from the person he’d actually tried to kidnap? Namely, herself. Neither Grimes nor Connolly would have been able to answer even the most basic of the investigators’ questions. After all, she’d been the only one there when the Frenchman had tried to slap that chloroform-soaked cloth over her face in the moments before the attack on the camp. The other two couldn’t even testify to seeing it.

  It just didn’t add up.

  She stopped and bent down, fiddling with the lace of her hiking boot as if it had come undone and needed to be retied. While doing so she angled her body slightly and used the position to glance back in the direction she had come, checking that no one was watching her. Satisfied that they weren’t, she set off again, but this time slipped between the tents toward the vehicles parked a short distance beyond.