Ben-Judah nodded with each statement Chambers made. “Rabbi Berab in 1538, Rabbi Shklover in 1830, Rabbi haCohen in 1901, Rabbi Kovsker in 1940, and Rabbi Maimon in 1949.”
“The most recent attempt,” Yakov said, “was undertaken in Tishrei 5765—October 2004. They followed the suggestions outlined by Maimonides eight hundred years earlier and performed a ceremony in Tiberias, the city that saw the end of the Sanhedrin. It was controversial and did not receive full support.”
Amber looked puzzled. “Are you telling us that you plan to reconstitute the Sanhedrin?”
Ben-Judah grinned like a man with a deep, rich secret. “Not planning, my dear. We have done as you say.”
Chambers blinked several times. “What?”
Yakov answered. “It remains a secret, but the assembly exists. Dr. Abram Ben-Judah is the president. Our membership is select and includes key Israeli cabinet ministers, as well as leaders from the Orthodox Jewish religious party.”
Painful leg or not, Chambers couldn’t sit any longer. He paced the space, head down, mind a tornado of whirling thoughts. “I should have guessed this. I should’ve seen it coming.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Madness. Insanity. Jerusalem isn’t a unity; it’s a composite of Jews, Christians, Islamics, and the secular. Each claim ownership. Now, I’m sympathetic to the Jewish plight. I have always sided with Israel—”
“You have been a friend to Israel,” Ben-Judah said. “We need your friendship more than ever.”
“What you’re asking goes beyond dangerous. It’s suicidal. Not just for us, but for everyone who lives in the city. You mean it for good, but it will be seen as an act of war.”
“Let me worry about that, Dr. Chambers.” Yakov had crossed his arms in front of his chest, a defensive bit of body language. Chambers didn’t care.
“Forgive me, Mr. Prime Minister, but I am not known for subtlety—”
“I’ve heard.”
“Okay, I have that coming. Maybe I am a little reactionary of late …” He looked at Amber. “But this goes beyond that. I just lost four members of my team. Blown to bits. Their burned and fractured bodies crushed by tons of stone. A student just trying to earn a little money was murdered because of this. Maybe that’s made me a little paranoid, but all of that will seem insignificant compared to what will happen if this gets out. If we find what you’re looking for, if you set up a third temple, then half the world will descend on you. On us. How many more are you willing to let die?”
Ben-Judah’s face revealed how much the question pained him. “Such things rest in the hands of HaShem, David, not in ours. We are responsible to do only His will, not ours or our neighbors.”
“Such is the problem of religion. People do what they want and shove the responsibility off on God.”
“David!” Amber snapped her head around to see the still pacing Chambers.
“You didn’t used to think so, my friend. Once your faith was as deep as the ocean.” Ben-Judah’s words were saturated with sadness.
The old man’s tone sent an ice pick through Chambers’s heart. He loved Ben-Judah more than he loved his own father. To see his mentor wounded by his words grieved him, but the heat of anger refused to be extinguished.
“I don’t want any part in starting civil war.” He rethought the phrase. “A world war. I’m done.” He stared at Amber. “If you have a brain, you’ll quit too.”
“No. And you won’t insult me into making a decision I don’t want to make. You can bail if you want to. You’re good at it. Just leave me out of your decisions.”
“David,” Ben-Judah pleaded. “Please. The work is so important. I believe HaShem has called you to help with this great effort. It’s why I brought you into our confidence.”
“If God has called me to this, then I didn’t get the memo. You’ll have to carry on without me. I’m not ready to die yet.”
He started for the door, stopped, and turned. “I’m glad you are well, Professor. I’m sorry it all had to end this way.”
Ben-Judah turned his face away and said nothing.
Yakov stood. “Dr. Chambers, what you have heard requires the utmost secrecy. I must insist you keep these things to yourself.”
“No worries, Mr. Prime Minister. I plan to do my best to forget I was ever part of this conversation.” One last glance at Amber. She looked like a delicate crystal he had just thrown to the concrete.
David Chambers walked from the room leaving behind the only friends he had.
Amber was in a battle with her emotions. Profound sadness diluted the anger she felt over David’s outburst. Pain from hearing his snide remarks about God mingled with impatience over his childishness. Most of all she felt a part of her die when he stormed from the room. A part of her, a very secret part of her she kept hidden from the rest of her mind, held onto the spider-web-thin strand of hope that he might once again become the man she loved.
A hand touched her shoulder. Ben-Judah had moved to the sofa and sat next to her. “There is still hope, my dear. There is always hope.”
She couldn’t speak. One word would unhinge what little composure remained.
Yakov rose and walked to the door. He whispered to one of his security men, then left the room.
TWENTY-TWO
The local anesthetics began to wear off before David arrived back at the hotel. The cab ride, piloted by a cabby who leaned on the horn as much as he did the brake, didn’t help. Although his doctor and nurses warned him that leaving the hospital early was unwise, they were gracious enough to send him away with a bottle of Vicodin, and Chambers wasn’t too proud to take it. Every muscle complained about the strain of having carried Ben-Judah up the steep, narrow tunnel. The scratches and puncture wounds from flying bits of stone were not deep, but they stung as if the doctor had used salt to cleanse the wounds.
By the time he exited the cab, made his way to his room, and removed his dirt-caked clothing, he was feeling enough pain to slow his movement. He had planned to throw his belongings into his suitcase and travel bag and be out the door in fifteen minutes. An hour later, he was still emptying his closet and gathering his toiletries.
Jumbled thoughts tumbled in his brain, all of them bathed in a wash of anger and incredulity. He should never have accepted Ben-Judah’s invitation. He had been right to leave biblical archaeology. Another year wouldn’t matter, he had told himself, then he could turn his back on it all, but the lure of hidden treasure and the history-changing artifacts got the best of him. Now he regretted his decision. It all started south when he learned Nuri would be one of the lead archaeologists. Then learning that Ben-Judah had recruited Amber—well, he told himself, that’s when he should have walked away and never looked back.
He was laying another pair of well-worn jeans in the suitcase when he heard a knock on the door. He followed his first impulse and ignored the intrusion. More knocking, this time more insistent. Chambers moved to the door and peered at the security monitor.
Amber.
He sighed, leaned forward and rested his head on the door. He was tired. So tired. Tired of his past, tired of this day, tired of the pain—physical and emotional.
“I’m not going away, David.” The door muffled her voice.
“I’m not here.”
“Very funny. You’re a real comedian. Now let me in.”
“I’m not decent.”
“Yeah? Well, everyone in the world knows that. Open up.”
“Go away, Amber.”
There was a pause. He could see on the monitor that she stood, arms crossed. “Here’s the deal, David. I’m going to stay here and get louder and louder until you let me in.”
He unlatched the door and pulled it open an inch, then walked away. He’d let her open the door for herself. Which she did. He returned to his packing.
“I see you’re packing.”
“It’s insights like that, that make you such a fine scientist.”
“This is so you, David. Things change, things refuse to g
o the way you like, and you pack up and leave.”
He faced her. She still wore the dusting of the catastrophe a few hours earlier. “You know me that well, do you?”
“I know your history. I’m part of it.”
He moved to the closet, removed the last of his hanging clothes, and returned to the bed where he had set his bag and suitcase. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
“I know you better than you know yourself. You love the limelight. You like being the center of academic attention. But when things get rough, you love to leave.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“I don’t think so, David. You are a self-centered egotist who enjoys feeling lousy about life.”
“No one enjoys feeling lousy about life—”
“You do. I’ve never met anyone who was so dissatisfied with happiness. You sabotaged your relationship with your father and with me. Now you’ve blown up the bridge that linked you to the kindest, most loving man in this hemisphere.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You turned your back on the professor. It crushed him.”
“I doubt that—”
“I was there after you left. When will you learn your words have consequences? Your mother would be ashamed of the way you’ve been acting.”
“Well, she’s not, and do you know why, Amber? Because she’s dead. She died with just me by her side. My father couldn’t be bothered with her terminal illness. He was too busy digging in this forsaken land, trying to prove his faith was real. He would have done better by me if he showed the love his faith promotes.”
“Like you’re doing?”
“I gave that up. When I was a child, I thought like a child—”
“Don’t you dare misquote Scripture to suit your purposes! You don’t do that in my presence, ever.”
“I’ll be out of your presence soon enough. Besides, you don’t get to dictate to me what I can and can’t say, not when you use my dead mother to manipulate me.”
Amber moved to the other side of the bed and turned down the heat in her tone. “You know, she lied to your father.”
“Be careful, Amber; be very careful what you say. My mother was a saint.”
“I know she was. I love her for her patience and strength. Most of all, I love her for her faith.”
“You only met her a few times.”
“It was enough. And we talked on the phone several more times. My heart broke when she died. At first, I thought I was feeling bad for you, but I was grieving too.”
“Yet you stand there and tell me my mother was a liar.” He tossed his shirts into the suitcase unfolded.
“I said she lied to your father. He was here in the Holy Land in the middle of an important dig. He told her he was coming home, but she objected. In fact, she forbade it. Your mother told him she was doing better when she wasn’t. He continued to work thinking she was on the mend.”
“She was not in the habit of lying to him or to me.”
“That’s the point, David. Your father trusted her without question. If she said she was getting well, that the doctors were very positive, then he would believe her. And she did. And he did.”
The words came like a sledgehammer to the sternum. “How do you know this?”
“Unlike some people I know, I’ve talked to your father. Your father and mother loved each other. They loved the Lord. They shared a passion for truth and archaeology. Too bad their son didn’t inherit any of their more noble qualities.”
Chambers didn’t speak, couldn’t speak.
Amber raised a hand to her forehead, a hand that trembled. “You know what? I’m done. I’ve got nothing more. Do what you want. Leave. Run away. We’ll take care of the dead. You fly home. You go back to your condo and feel sad about how life has been unfair to you while we bury four people who died doing their job.”
She stomped to the door, then stopped just short of it. “I just realized something: I’m glad you’re leaving.” She opened the door and turned. “One last thing: call your father!”
Chambers heard a sob, then the sound of a closing door.
The cab ride to Tel Aviv lasted a millennium. The cabbie was a talkative Russian Jew who had an opinion about everything and didn’t seem to care that Chambers had stopped listening by the time they exited the hotel parking lot. Chambers spent the hour-long, traffic-hindered drive to Ben-Gurion International Airport fighting off the gut-twisting memories of the tunnel explosion, Ben-Judah’s heartbreaking countenance, the bizarre plan to rebuild the temple and reestablish the Sanhedrin, and Amber’s words that burned him like hot coals dropped into his stomach.
“Don’t you agree?” The cabbie said. To Chambers it sounded like the man gargled with battery acid.
“About what?”
“The Iranians. Haven’t you been listening?”
“I’m afraid I’m preoccupied.”
“You do look like you have had a rough day.”
Chambers pursed his lips. “I tell you what: you stop talking and drive, and I’ll toss an extra ten shekels on the tip.”
“Done.”
The stinging, angry bees of regret swarmed his mind again. What he wouldn’t give for a few hours in oblivion. Amber had no right to speak to him like that. Especially on a day so full of turmoil. He nearly died in that tunnel, but she seemed to have already forgotten that. Then he recalled her digging at the fallen mass of ceiling that had crushed their team. She had raced into the tunnel after him. How could he overlook that? He couldn’t. It was a memory branded on the soft tissue of his brain.
The cab pulled to the passenger unloading area, and the driver unloaded Chambers’s luggage. As promised, Chambers bumped up the tip. The Russian said thank you with a gap-toothed smile. Lugging the bags out of the room had reminded Chambers of his injuries. The thought of schlepping the luggage through the airport was too painful to consider. He motioned for a baggage man and slipped him a few shekels to carry his things to the ticket counter.
As they started forward, Chambers noticed a man wearing a beige polo-style shirt, a pair of slacks, and blue blazer. He was Chambers’s size, a little round in the torso, and wore wire-rimmed glasses. He looked like an accountant or midlevel executive. Except for his eyes. The man’s eyes lingered on David a tad too long. Something set off alarms in his mind.
Chambers returned the gaze, then followed the porter through the glass entrance and into the lobby. They moved through crowds and over highly polished floors. He was directing the porter to the El Al counter when a movement caught his attention. The man with the wire-rimmed glasses had followed them in. Why one man in the midst of scores of other people moving in the busy airport gave him a sense of dread, he didn’t know. It had to be nerves. He had, after all, barely escaped death.
It seemed like a year ago. He had expended more energy in one day than he had in the previous several months. A woman moved in front of him; a woman who looked remarkably like Amber. The resemblance brought Amber’s words, anger, sadness, and dedication to mind in a tsunami of emotion.
Why? Why should he care? She was the one who broke off the engagement.
Because you changed, moron. His inner voice never minced words. He was as brutal with himself as he was with others.
Chambers stopped at the long line of people waiting to buy tickets or check luggage. He wondered how long he’d be on standby before an empty seat became available.
“You go back to your condo and feel sad about how life has been unfair to you while we bury four people who died doing their job.” Amber’s words would not go away. He tried to focus on other things, tried to imagine how good it would feel to sleep in his own bed.
It was useless. He couldn’t exorcize Amber’s words or the way she appeared at his doorstep. How could he leave? Departing in such a hurry would look bad to the investigators. Ben-Judah would cover for him, but what right did he have to expect that? He had no right. He had made a commitment to this project and now he was wal
king away. Worse, he was leaving Amber behind to face any danger alone. Nuri would be no help. She might like him, but Chambers didn’t trust the man.
“The line has moved.”
Chambers came back to the present. “Excuse me?”
A man who looked twenty and wore his hair in dreadlocks pointed at the line. “It’s moving, man. You going to close up the gap, or what?” He sounded British. London accent.
Chambers looked at the ticket line that had moved several feet in the cue. “No. No, I’m not. Go ahead.”
Ignoring the pain, Chambers grabbed his bag and rolling suitcase and hobbled to the lobby doors. Two realizations came to him at once. First, he was not the kind of man who quit; two, he loved Amber Rodgers and he was going to prove it.
The ride back to Jerusalem took less time than going. Night had settled on the city that some considered the heart of the world. The day’s events and the trip to and back from the Tel Aviv–located airport had drained Chambers of what little strength he had left. He felt like a shipwreck. As he limped through the lobby, he saw Amber, Landau, and Nuri walking into the restaurant. He set his luggage by the front desk and asked that a bellhop take it to his room. Since the floor was secured and had no other guests, he had no doubts that his room would still be available. He then walked into the restaurant and headed to what had become “their” table. Landau was the first to notice him.
“Dr. Rodgers just told me you had left for good.”
“I did. I’m back.” He made eye contact with Amber. “Word from the site?”
Landau gazed at the table and looked like a man who wished he was anything but what he was.
“The army recovered the bodies. No word on the type of explosive device.”
It was the answer Chambers expected but didn’t want to hear.
A moment later, Amber asked, “Care to join us?”
Chambers saw Nuri roll his eyes, which was almost enough reason to say yes. Instead, he said, “No thank you. I’m going to order room service, then go to bed. Tomorrow we start working to make sure our team didn’t die in vain.”
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