by Roger Herst
"You may keep it as a gift," Benoit said. "I doubt whether the American will be returning. If he does, I'll tell him he broke our rules against firearms and we destroyed it."
The sheik smartly pulled back the bolt to inspect the chamber, a proper safety procedure. He shook his head, acknowledging the valued gift before returning the coveted weapon to his knees. Throughout the subsequent discussion, the gun did not leave one or the other of his hands, a sign of his pleasure.
An hour later, when it was time for Benoit to depart, he rose from the ground with difficulty, clenching his teeth to absorb pain shooting from this hip. Telfik al-Fahl steadied him on his feet as they stepped toward the tent opening.
"By the way," the priest said, his hand returning deep into the backpack. He withdrew a map and unfolded it to reveal the contour of the Negev. Telfik's eyes wandered over familiar landmarks to orient himself. "This shows a region south of here." Benoit pointed to a spot marked with a penned X. "The place was called Ein Arugot two thousand years ago, but your people must use a different name these days. In Roman times, a school was located there. Have your people discovered any artifacts nearby?"
Telfik studied the location intently, tugging on his beard. Not certain what Benoit really wanted, he said, "I'll ask at the council. A school? What kind of school?"
"Like Palestinian schools today in Jenin and Tulkarum that teach forbidden subjects. In the Ein Arugot school, I believe, they taught rebellion against the Romans in Caesarea and Jerusalem."
The Bedouin chieftain smiled with an air of omniscience. "Usually I'm telling you about ancient ruins. Suddenly, you're telling me. Why is this, brother?"
"Because now that the school's location has been discovered, you may expect archeologists and fortune-seekers. It's important for me to tell the Holy Father in Rome who is visiting. It's a barren location and shouldn't be hard for your boys to watch."
The sheik glanced down at the Uzi. "I'll shift somebody to the area."
Benoit was waiting for the right moment to provide a final bit of information he knew his friend would appreciate. "And it's only a question of time before the American archeologist who owned this Uzi will visit that location. He's too curious to stay away. When exactly, I cannot say. Within a few weeks I would think. Please, let me know when he does."
Benoit noted that Telfik al-Fahl's eyebrows had risen slightly. From his pocket, the priest pulled two photos taken when he and Tim Matternly had bathed together in the Dead Sea. In the first picture, Tim was floating on the saline saturated water with most of his body exposed, the ruddy-colored Mountains of Moab in the background. The second was a close-up with Tim smiling contentedly into the lens. Benoit placed both snapshots in the sheik's line of vision, then gently let it drop into his thin fingers. "We visited this place one Saturday afternoon during the winter. The American said the salt was good for his psoriasis."
Benoit noted the Sheik's eyes fixed upon the photo just before he ducked his head under the tent flap to greet the strong sunlight outside. A few steps away, he fished his shirt pocket for dark glasses, preparing to march back to his Subaru over the parched desert.
***
While waiting in Jericho's Café Himsha, Zvi Zabronski was nervous about presenting himself as a target for terrorists. The Palestinian waiter had told him there was nothing to worry about since local merchants paid big bucks to keep radicals from terrorizing Jericho's commercial sector. Zabronski was skeptical, having learned not to underestimate the enemy's cunning. The radicals, as the café owner delicately referred to outright terrorists, were capable of seizing any opportunity, and he was definitely a prime target. He sat at a table with his back against the rear wall, as far from the street as possible, cautiously eyeing traffic outside. Two police sergeants in an unmarked vehicle parked on the street were ready to provide fire-support in the event of an attack.
The waiter delivered a Turkish coffee, thick and sweet, flavored with cardamom, coffee Zabronski had once detested, but had acquired a taste for during lengthy discussions with Palestinians in his district. Arabs, he had come to appreciate, loved heated debates even more than Jews. While sipping the syrupy liquid, he kept his eyes moving nervously from side to side, much like a pilot surveying the skies around his aircraft. Normally, he conducted his investigations unarmed, but this morning packed a Glock semiautomatic on his waist. It wasn't going to protect him from a car bomb, but would provide him good firepower in a gunfight.
When a tiny Fiat sedan crept by on the street outside in search of a parking space, Zabronski first noticed through its window a Detroit Tigers baseball cap topping wild black hair that merged imperceptibly into an equally bushy beard. The driver, Father Alexandro Spatus Xtixmo, an Orthodox monk from the nearby Monastery of St. George, attempted unsuccessfully to back his vehicle into a tight parking spot and was forced to choose a larger space farther along the street. He eventually bounded from the driver's door onto the sidewalk, as if late for an appointment. Zabronski placed a hand on his pistol in case an assassin also emerged from the car. The cleric entered the dark café and whipped off a pair of designer sunglasses, glancing around. Zabronski stood up and greeted the priest with an outstretched hand.
"Thanks for meeting with me, Father," Zabronski said, pointing to a seat opposite him at the table, careful to return to his same chair with a full view of the street. "Normally, we don't like to intrude on your peace at the monastery."
The waiter brought two bottles of water and waited for orders. "Father?" Zabronski invited the priest to choose what he wanted. As host, he expected to pay.
"You have beer?" Father Alexandro asked. "A treat we don't stock in the monastery."
"Cain," the waiter answered affirmatively in Hebrew, then mentioned two Israeli brands, of which the priest selected the popular Maccabee brew. Zabronski pushed his cup forward, requesting another Turkish coffee.
"Sorry we couldn't invite you to our monastery," said the cleric, "but we couldn't talk there and I know you have questions. Three of us who speak eight languages in total are assigned to represent the brotherhood's needs outside the premises. Father Nicholas asked me to speak with you just when I was craving a beer. So you see God's providence works in unexpected ways. Perhaps, we should schedule these meetings whenever I have a thirst. What can I do for you, Inspector?"
"Nothing earthshaking," stated Zabronski, who was studying the priest's extraordinarily large eyes magnified by thick circular lenses. He didn't want to frighten the man whom he had assumed would be shy, but wasn't. "We're running down a stolen car, a maroon Buick sedan. Nine years old. Stolen five weeks ago. Was there a car like that at your monastery?"
To break the policeman's discomforting stare, Father Alexandro lifted the water bottle and took a healthy swig. "We have two vehicles. The Fiat you see down the street. And a very sick Peugeot with two bad pistons that seldom work when you're in need of transportation. The Fiat likes me, the Peugeot doesn't. No Buicks."
"Understood, but perhaps you had a visitor who drove one."
"Visitors come and go. And they usually arrive by car, which they park outside. Why do you think this has anything to do with St. George?"
"We confiscated the Buick from a garage in Jerusalem where thieves were modifying it for sale. They removed their fingerprints, but that's not unusual. We also found a black robe, much like the one you're wearing now, stuffed into the trunk."
"Oh, dear!" Father Alexandro exclaimed, his curiosity piqued. Suddenly, he knew why the police inspector was questioning him.
Zabronski retrieved the robe from a satchel resting beside the table and showed it to the monk. Same color and material as the one he was wearing. "The tailor in Bethlehem told us that he makes habits like this exclusively for St. George. Do all the brothers wear the same garments?"
"It's our custom. Even the abbot wears the same thing. We are a brotherhood, one and indivisible, and must all dress alike."
"Then how would a robe like this find its way into a stole
n vehicle?"
The cleric shrugged his shoulders.
"Does the monastery keep records of its visitors?"
"Of course. Each one is logged in when he enters and logged out when he leaves."
"With your rule of silence, I wouldn't think you'd have many visitors."
"On the contrary. Clerics from all denominations come to pray and meditate, not talk. One or two a month, I would estimate. Of course, they pay for their room and board, which provides us with needed income."
"And do your visitors dress in similar habits?"
"We encourage a feeling for community by having visitors dress as we do. They are given a habit when they arrive."
"And when they depart, do they leave them behind?"
"Absolutely. We're a poor brotherhood and cannot afford to issue new ones. We wash them and lend them to new visitors."
"But if one were not returned to the brotherhood, how would it find its way into a stolen vehicle?"
Again, the priest shrugged his shoulders.
"Could a visitor have taken it with him?"
"That's possible, but not probable. We have no gates, so everybody must enter and leave by means of our gondola. Those who operate the pulley system ask for the garment before a visitor leaves."
"Understood," Zabronski responded. "But suppose this visitor left in a hurry and didn't require the help of men at the gondola? Couldn't he have taken his habit with him?"
Father Alexandro curled his lips in a meditative gesture before saying, "It takes a minimum of two men to work the pulleys. No one leaves on his own."
The beer and coffee arrived. Alexandro poured his beer into a glass until a frothy head spilled over the rim, then immediately put it to his lips between thick whiskers, slurping the foam. Zabronski watched the monk wipe the excess with his sleeve and, without touching his own beverage, asked, "Has anyone recently left the monastery other than by means of the gondola?"
"No one," the father said, then paused. "No, that's not right. Sorry. We had a visitor who rappelled off the wall with a rope. A most unusual event. It never happened before at St. George, at least not in my memory."
"When was that?" "About six weeks ago, I believe."
"Can you tell me who this visitor was?"
"No, not offhand. I can look up his name on our roster when I return and e-mail it to you."
Zabronski removed a business card from his shirt pocket and handed it to the cleric. "Please. The name will be helpful. Tell me about him."
"Our brotherhood is sworn to silence so we don't communicate much with our visitors. This particular one I rarely saw. He worked alone all day and most of the night in a private room. Food was brought to him. Occasionally, I saw him walking the courtyard for exercise. Then just before he left, a Latin priest arrived. I spoke to neither of them because they were inside the monastery walls."
"Will your visitors' roster tell us how long these men stayed?"
"It should."
Zabronski's eyes suddenly looked past the priest to the street and his hand dropped over the Glock on his waist. His eyes followed two suspicious men who poked their heads into the café but did not enter. "Any idea what the first visitor was working on?"
"Not a clue. But I can tell you that he left behind for the brotherhood valuable business machines. A computer, a printer, a scanner. Devices like that."
"Expensive gifts, I would say. Sounds as though he left in a hurry."
"That's what I understand. The first visitor was with us for nearly a month before disappearing before sunrise one morning. That night, I was sleeping when I heard someone screaming. Yes, screaming aloud. That's a flagrant breach of our rules. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but it was quite a shock just to hear a voice. Later, I learned that while the first visitor rappelled off the wall, the Latin priest was yelling at him from the parapet. The episode was upsetting. We are disciplined souls and our visitor, not us, broke the rules."
"When did the Latin priest leave?"
"Well, you see, he was the one who broke the code. Father Nicholas must have expelled him immediately."
"And did he?" A wry smile crossed the cleric's lips. "It was impossible because the first man stole his car, parked outside the walls. I had to be lowered over the wall to call Jericho on my cell phone for a taxi to remove this shameless Latin. Two hours later, an Arab taxi showed up and drove him away."
"Sounds like an unpleasant business," Zabronski said, pretending to feel sympathy for monks sworn to silence. But their vows of voluntary isolation made no sense to him. At that moment, he glanced toward the street as two cars rolled to a stop, one behind the other. The situation reminded him of a car bombing he had witnessed near Ashkelon. He eased up from his chair, poised to escape, then decided it was a false alarm. "You'll e-mail me the names and dates of their visits, won't you, Father?"
"As soon as I return. And you have mine if I can be of further assistance?"
Zabronski rose, placing on the tabletop more money than on the tab. "I do," he answered. "You've been most helpful. Please stay, Father, and enjoy another beer or two. I've left some extra money for you, when you get this way next time. But be careful driving back to the monastery. If you get arrested for drunken driving, I won't know you."
"Thank you, Inspector. I think I'll just sit here awhile longer and take in the activity. It's rather quiet at the monastery, you know. Will you find your car thief?"
Zabronski smiled, knowing that the monk knew he was hunting bigger fish than a common car thief. "Why, of course. We always do."
***
Two years before, at the age of eleven, Neif banu Niiri, had undergone the rite of puberty and demonstrated ability to sustain himself with food and water in the desert. Since then, his skills in the wilderness had been further honed by shepherding fourteen sheep and twenty-two goats in remote regions, returning to the Ta'amireh encampment only when it was time to sheer or slaughter animals of his flock. There was a consensus among elders who represented individual families of the tribal qawn that none among Neif's contemporaries possessed sharper eyes. After Father Benoit had disclosed to Telfik banu al-Fahl that the killer of Neif's cousin, Mumud banu-Nazeem, would likely visit an archeological site near Ein Arugot, the tribal chief consulted with Nazeem banu Aziz, father of the slain youth. Together, they agreed to move Neif's flock from its seasonal grazing lands to the region southwest of the spring at Ein Gedi.
Nine days had elapsed since the lad's animals had begun grazing this new territory. Spring brought with it longer hours of sunshine and warmer desert winds. The sheep were easy to watch, for they instinctively flocked together; the goats were a different story. They tended to stray, particularly during the April mating season when both the males and females became aggressive. Chasing down the goats required Neif to scurry about over the rocky landscape with the agility of the desert antelopes that had begun migrating south in substantial numbers to avoid a growing population of humans in the northern desert. The elders told Neif that in the past year, few humans had visited this remote wilderness, but that he should be aware of Palestinians hiding from the Israeli army. Neif's clansmen like to make fun of these city Arabs, for they didn't know how to find water to drink or capture snakes and locust to eat. Invariably, they hid for a few days, but left soon after, thoroughly beaten not by the Israeli army, but by the inexorable desert.
More taxing than the terrorists these days were leopards that had come north to prey upon the growing numbers of antelopes. On his third day in the region, Neif identified scat of a large cat and noted its footprints in sandy soil, but had never actually seen one of these large beasts. Natu, he uttered, as was his habit, it was fated that a leopard would eventually kill one or more of his animals. Inshallah, only the will of Allah could prevent it.
The sound of a car traveling at considerable speed south along the road paralleling the Dead Sea broke the easy reverie in Neif's pastoral routine. The vehicle eventually came into view from the hilltop on which he w
as perched. It then disappeared behind a rocky outcrop and suspiciously didn't continue on the tarmac road farther south. Since Neif's flock was clustered in a shallow wadi, he felt comfortable leaving it to investigate. To do so, it was necessary to traverse a gorge then climb a rolling hillock where he observed a metallic-colored Volkswagen and a man gathering gear from the trunk. From the heavy knapsack the man hoisted to his shoulders, Neif concluded he intended to stay at least several nights.
Instinct told him to follow the newcomer but remain out of sight. He worried that some of his flock might wander into the path of this stranger, revealing his presence, but that, too, was fated. Natu.
Tim Matternly's route led along a wadi snaking down from the western hills of Walab in the direction of the Dead Sea. During rare rains, that are known by local nomads to run in absolute torrents for very short periods of time, most water evaporates before it reaches the lowest place on the planet, a kilometer and a half below the level of the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Elat. His map and compass directed him to a star he had marked in as the "best guess" location of Ein Arugot. If he could confirm that it was the spring in the Greek scroll, he was confident about locating the yeshiva nearby. A dependable supply of sweet water was the key. And the only source of such water mentioned on various maps, other than the infrequent flash floods upon which the Nabatean inhabitants of the region had depended, was at Ein Gedi, an oasis surviving into modern times with sufficient water to fill a sizable wading pool. According to Tim's calculations, Ein Arugot had to be in the mountains to the southwest, near small feeder springs.
It took more than five hours to trek over the inhospitable terrain to a series of mountain peaks, not huge by most standards, but rising some nine-hundred meters above the Dead Sea and large enough to create runoff during the infrequent rains. At the base of one such mountain, he offloaded his backpack and set up a campsite where he intended to remain until his water ran out. Tired from the long journey, he treated himself to a meal of dried fruits, biscuits, and tea brewed over a portable butane stove. Under a tarp, supported on four collapsible aluminum legs, he sat on his sleeping bag, drawing inspiration from the surrounding hills. For Tim, this kind of imaginative journey into the past had always been the most enjoyable part of an archeological expedition. In this untraveled corner of the planet, he freed his imagination to conceive of an era when his forefathers searched with fearful passion for a god to serve, and then, when they identified a suitable deity, were disappointed by their inabilities to meet His lofty demands.