“Okay, if the topography has changed, old buildings long gone, then how can you hope to find anything?”
“Ah, that’s the challenge for guys like me. Finding ancient treasures is my business, and by treasures, I don’t mean just silver and gold. Archaeologists can get pretty excited about uncovering a bit of artwork on the wall of some house. The team and I believe that some, probably most, of the treasures are still out there. Will we find it all? Probably not. Maybe. I don’t know. We might just end up spending John Trent into bankruptcy. Then again …”
“I still don’t know how you hope to find anything.”
“We’re going to search where things are least likely to change: belowground. Maybe the cisterns mentioned in the scroll have long ago been filled in. Several sets of stairs are mentioned, and maybe they’ve been demolished and replaced by other structures; maybe rivers have changed course and new buildings have been placed on top of older ones, but the underground topology is not as likely to change. In this case, we’re not looking up for guidance; we’re looking down.”
The door to the room opened, and Joel Rubin poked his head in. “We got something, Dr. Chambers. You may want to grab a hard hat.”
FIFTEEN
The Agusta 109 business helicopter rose from a cordoned-off area of one of Hebrew University’s parking lots, blasting bits of dirt and sand airborne with its thudding rotor thrust. Chambers’s stomach dropped like a freight elevator, leaving him queasy and dizzy, but the sensation lasted only a moment. The chartered craft had room for six passengers. Four of the seats were taken by Chambers, Cove, Rubin, and Ben-Judah, whom Chambers had retrieved from his cluttered office. He glanced around the cabin. Everyone else seemed fine with the sudden liftoff and steep bank initiated by the pilot. Those who had seen Chambers on talk shows or read his books considered him the personification of the rugged, untroubled archaeologist. Only he knew how much things like flying in a wingless craft bothered him. That and his aversion to tight spaces. The small cabin didn’t help with the last stressor.
Still, Chambers kept his jaw tight and his expression determined. Just because he felt like tossing his breakfast didn’t mean the others needed to know.
Minutes later, Ben-Judah began rubbing his hands together and sighing every few minutes. “Why is the machine slowing?”
The comment conjured a smile from Chambers whose great-grandfather used to call cars and aircraft “machines.” A true Luddite. Ben-Judah embraced technology, but he seemed uncomfortable with some things: like abrupt-moving, loud helicopters.
“No problem, Professor,” Chambers said. “The site is on the other side of an Israeli military training range. We need permission to fly over. Wouldn’t want to get shot down.”
“That could break my camera gear,” Cove said. He had been taking shots since taking off, aiming his lens out one of the side windows.
“I have all that taken care of.” Ben-Judah crossed and then immediately uncrossed his legs.
“You know that. I know that. I’m not sure the pilot knows it.”
“He’s been told.”
Before Chambers could respond, the Agusta picked up speed.
The ground below changed from city to farmland and then to open, desolate wilderness. Familiar territory to the Essene religious community. He could imagine a line of men in rough, well-worn robes making their way on foot from Jerusalem, through the Essene Gate, which today is a buried ruin, to their compound in Qumran near the Dead Sea. The distance from Jerusalem to Qumran was not far by car, shorter by air, but by foot over uneven terrain and hills, it was a different matter. Once again, Chambers was reminded how difficult life was in the days when an iron chisel was considered high-tech, when something as simple as aspirin was beyond the imagination.
He imagined a line of men walking two abreast, snaking their way along a path the wind could remove in minutes, chatting, praying, unsheltered from the elements, beaten by the sun, skin raw from blowing sand. Yet, they would consider such a trek a service to HaShem, to God.
Chambers had never lived in a repressed society, one ruled by an occupying force of foreigners who hated the sight of him and all like him. No Roman, whether politician or soldier, wanted to be condemned to work in Judea among the Jews. Jews would rather die than obey a Roman order.
The Copper Scroll and the moving of one hundred thirty tons of precious metal and religious objects worth more to them than the gold and silver were a stinging reminder that people will suffer greatly for their faith. What was pain in light of eternity? He once thought the same way.
Once.
He blinked several times and noticed Cove and Rubin staring at him. “You okay, Doc?” Cove looked worried.
“Yeah. Sure. Great. Why?”
“You look … pained.”
“It’s genetic. You’ll get used to it.”
“Is it permissible to ask where we’re going?” Cove rested his camera on his lap.
“To an area near the Dead Sea. Not far from Qumran. That’s all I’m willing to say for now.” Chambers hoped he didn’t sound too conspiratorial.
“Okay.” Cove shrugged. “Just so long as I don’t have to walk back, I’m good with a little secrecy.”
The copter banked sharply and headed south.
“What’s he doing?” Ben-Judah’s seat faced the back of the helicopter to the other row of three seats. He turned in an attempt to look at the pilot.
“What’s wrong?” Cove seemed alarmed.
“He’s going the wrong the direction.” Ben-Judah reached for his safety belt, but Chambers, who sat opposite him, laid a hand on the old man’s knee. Then he held up a finger indicating his mentor should wait a moment. Reaching to the side, Chambers pulled a handset from its cradle and tapped the call button. He waited for a voice, then asked, “Why have we changed course?” Chambers listened, then pulled the receiver from his ear. “We’re being followed.”
“What?” Ben-Judah’s eyes widened. “How can that be?”
“Another helicopter has been on our tail since we took to the air.”
“That was quick,” Rubin said. “It’s less than a thirty-kilometer flight. They’d have to be sitting in their helicopter waiting for us.”
“They would have had time,” Chambers said. “We had to call for our ride. That would give them time. But you’re right: they’d have to plan this.”
“What do we do?” Ben-Judah looked frightened.
“The pilot said he moved off course until the matter could be resolved.”
“Resolved?” Cove grinned, apparently enjoying the excitement. “That’s the word he used?”
“Yes.”
Cove’s grin broadened. “Think he’d turn us around a little so I can snap a few shots?”
Chambers snapped up the receiver and passed on the photographer’s request. A second later the copter pivoted forty-five degrees on its axis. In the distance, Chambers saw a dark craft approaching. Cove aimed his camera at the other helo and snapped a series of shots. “It’s slowing. I think it’s a tourist flight. You know: see the Dead Sea from the air. That sort of thing. I can see lettering on the side. Gotta love a telephoto lens.”
The phone next to Chambers sounded. He answered. Listened. Then said, “Thanks.” He hung the receiver in its cradle. Ben-Judah stared at him. Chambers could see the worry in his eyes. Not for his safety, but for the security of the dig site. “The military’s air-traffic control has warned them off.”
“Then why are they still approaching?” Cove had his digital camera glued to his eye.
“I don’t understand.” Ben-Judah was growing more agitated. “All tourist flights have been restricted in this area. I received promises from the government.” His agitation was morphing into anger. Chambers had only seen Ben-Judah angry a couple of times and didn’t want to see a fresh expression of it in the confines of a charter helicopter hovering five hundred feet over the shore of the Dead Sea.
“Well,” Cove said, “someone is about to
deliver a reminder memo.”
Chambers strained to see past Cove. “Let me borrow your camera.”
“Sorry, I don’t loan my equipment out.”
“Listen pal, I’ve handled three-thousand-year-old artifacts and haven’t broken anything yet. Hand it over.”
Cove looked at the others.
“I’d hand it over,” Rubin said. “He holds the keys to the dig sites.”
Cove complied but said something under his breath that Chambers couldn’t hear. Through the lens, Chambers saw a military helicopter bearing down on the tourist craft. Within moments, the craft caught up to the trespassing aircraft and shot past it. Once beyond the other chopper, the military helicopter spun to turn its nose toward the trespasser. Chambers knew nothing about military aircraft, but he knew a big machine gun when he saw one, and he saw one protruding from the front of the army chopper.
The other craft slowed to a hover. A second later, the craft turned and headed back in the direction of Jerusalem.
“I think there will be a few sightseers demanding a refund. Seeing a heavily armed war bird looking at you must have raised a few heart rates,” Chambers said.
“I’d pay money for that experience,” Cove said and reached for his camera.
“You’re a bit of an adrenaline junkie, aren’t you?” Chambers relinquished the camera.
“Yep, it’s a requirement in my job.”
The pilot turned the craft in a wide arc over the Dead Sea and then started north again.
SIXTEEN
In the Valley of Achor, in the ruin, under the steps at the east entrance, forty long cubits: a chest of money, seventeen talents.
—The Copper Scroll, 3Q15, COLUMN 1, lines 1–4
The diploma on the wall gave a name and degree: “The Board of Directors and Regents of the University of Chicago do hereby grant on this day the degree of PhD in Archaeology to Hussein Al-Malik.”
Al-Malik had earned that piece of paper three decades before. Once he took great joy in it. After all, he had spent four years earning his bachelor’s degree, two years adding a master of science degree, then three more years finishing his dissertation and defending it before he was granted the privilege of calling himself Dr. Al-Malik. The educational journey had started off as one of joy. The opportunity to study in the United States seemed an honor. But he was a young man then, full of hopes and dreams of a world made better by science. “Through understanding the past,” his major professor had told him one day, “is the means of changing the future. Only by knowing what we were can we hope to be what we want to be.”
Like Al-Malik, the professor was an Arab living in the Jew-loving nation of the United States. How such a spiritually backward nation as America could have become so strong and so influential and built such a magnificent education system was beyond Al-Malik. At first, he could tolerate the Americans, although his fellow students were either geeky wallflowers who hid in their rooms or hard-drinking, drug-taking barbarians, intent on satisfying their insatiable hunger for sex and fun.
Not once had he associated with the infidels. He was in the country because of the knowledge he could gain and because he could study under Dr. Mazin Moufej, the famous Lebanese archaeologist. The highlight of Al-Malik’s education was returning to his Lebanon homeland to do fieldwork in Gebal, where one of the earliest alphabets was formed. He also spent several seasons working with his mentor in the archaeologically rich towns of Tyre and Baalbek, areas with history that stretched back nearly seven thousand years.
Young men, however, grow old, sometimes faster than they should. Lebanon and Israel could never be called friends, and Al-Malik grew up in the midst of hatred and invasion. It was part of life in his land. The Palestine Liberation Organization had settled in southern Lebanon, making the region a target for Israel. That was one reason Al-Malik sought his terminal degree outside his country.
He, his mentor, and a team of students were in the country when Israel invaded in what they called Operation Peace in Galilee. Peace? When it was over, 17,825 Lebanese civilians had been killed and another 30,000 wounded. Professor Moufej was numbered in the first category; Al-Malik in the latter. The bomb that killed his mentor and fellow archaeologists had shredded one of his arms and half his face. Every mirror Al-Malik passed gave him more reason to hate Israel. Yes, he knew that PLO actions led to the conflict, but the lopsided number of deaths, especially of civilians, could not be forgotten. His scars wouldn’t let him forget.
He let the sight of the diploma take him back to happier times. It was a luxury allowed for only a few moments.
He picked up the phone and dialed. At the sound of a male voice scarred by years of strong tobacco, Al-Malik spoke. “It was as I expected. They were turned back.” He listened, then, “I just received the report. No casualties, but they made no gains. The other pilot must have been warned or saw our helicopter. Whatever the reason, he veered from course and took a position over the Dead Sea. He stayed there until the AH-64D Saraf came on scene. I am sorry to say, the effort was a failure.”
He listened some more. “Yes, I understand. We shall prevail.”
He hung up and stroked the scars on the right side of his face.
A man stood in an open plain, waving his arms as the A-109 circled overhead. Chambers estimated he was a good two hundred meters from the dig site on the hill just to the southwest. As the pilot lowered the craft, Chambers recognized the young man as Simon Bartholomew, Nuri’s assistant. No doubt guiding the chopper in was just one of the unpleasant duties Nuri made the twenty-five-year-old do. As they neared the dusty, bare ground, Simon scampered away, his arm raised to protect his face and eyes from the flying dust and gravel.
The pilot set the bird down as if landing on eggs. Chambers barely felt the skids touch down. He waited with the others as the large rotors slowed, then he popped the side hatch. First he helped Ben-Judah make the long step to the ground, then he led him from the craft. Both moved with heads down until clear of the rotors, which still pounded air downward. A dozen steps later, they turned and saw Rubin and Cove jogging their way. Chambers waved, and the Agusta took to the air again. A brightly painted executive helicopter sitting on the bare ground near Qumran would be noticeable. The area was supposed to be secured, but those who took chances often succumbed to them. Extra caution was the order of the day, now and for all coming days.
A pair of four-wheel-drive Toyota FJ Cruisers sped their direction and stopped a few feet away. One of the driver doors opened, and Nuri slipped from the vehicle. He wore a broad-brimmed hat stained with perspiration. “Someone call for a cab?”
“That would be me,” Ben-Judah said.
Amber exited from the driver’s position of the other vehicle. “Your chariot awaits. These are great cars but not very big inside, so we offer you a choice. Just so you know, Nuri is having trouble finding the steering wheel.”
“Nonsense.” He walked around his black SUV and opened the passenger door. “Let’s not waste time. We have something you want to see.”
Ben-Judah moved to Nuri’s car, but Nuri stopped him. “Let the young guys crawl into the back.” He motioned for Simon, who trotted to the car and climbed in. “How about you.” He pointed at Cove. “You want to ride with a real archaeologist?”
“Sure,” Cove said. “You know where one is?”
Nuri laughed. “I see you’ve been spending too much time with David.”
Cove slipped into the back, and Chambers watched Nuri hold the door for Ben-Judah, then moved to Amber’s car. Rubin followed in his shadow. He let Rubin take the backseat.
“You’re smiling.” Chambers shut the door.
“And with good reason.” Amber started the car, turned the steering wheel, and hit the gas hard enough to make the wheels spin and fishtail the vehicle. “You’ll be smiling in just a few minutes.”
“I could use some good news. What did you find?”
Amber shook her head. “I’m not saying. You’re going to have to draw you
r own conclusions.”
“You like being coy, don’t you?”
“Yep. Makes me feel powerful, and a girl does like to feel powerful.”
“Hey, Joel, how should I respond to that?”
He huffed. “With silence. With cold, hard silence.”
“Perhaps you’re right. She can turn mean in a blink.”
Rubin sighed. “I don’t think you understand the concept of silence.”
They laughed, and Chambers suddenly realized that this was the first time he had laughed in Amber’s presence in a very long time.
Nuri’s car pulled beside Amber’s, then sped into the lead. “Boys and their toys!”
Several small shade canopies rested at the foot of a lone hill. Amber and Nuri parked beneath the largest one. The others had folding tables set up and folding chairs around them. Several workers sat at the tables talking and eating snacks.
Amber led them up a rocky path, which couldn’t be more than two feet wide. “This is the original footpath.” Amber walked slowly, pointing to places on the ground. “Of course, we had to do some clearing, but we found some broken pottery that we believe dates back to the first century. It’s too early to be dogmatic about the age, but that is our first guess. We also found a few perimeter stones marking the old path. Our first best guess is that the path used to be wider but some of it was lost to erosion and small landslides. Twenty centuries changes things, but then you know that.”
“Twenty minutes can change things,” Chambers said.
She stopped midstep and glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. I’m talking about the site, not about you.”
She didn’t move.
“Excuse me, Doctors,” Rubin said, “but would you like me to wait in the desert while you two hash this out?”
“There’s nothing to hash out, Joel. Let’s just keep moving.”
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