by Chuck Dixon
This was his nineteenth year in the ranks. Fifteen with the Eighth and the last four with this pack of dogs in the Tenth. They were condemned to service in Palestine as a punishment for various offenses from gambling to sloth to minor theft. Aelius was here also, despite coming from a good, well, a decent family. His offense was his brutal efficiency. He was a tough and able commander and seen by his masters as the best choice to whip these scum into fighting condition. It was his penultimate year in service, and so he kept his thoughts to himself.
Aelius buckled the strap beneath his chin and walked the walls. His century, eighty men representative of the worst the legions had to offer, stood in place sweltering in their armor, their pila in their fists, shields on their arms, and swords on their belts. They wore the lighter steer-hide kit, and that was a mercy. Still, armor was armor, and it hung from their shoulders, heavy with sweat. The centurion allowed for regular water breaks. They could not have the rabble seeing any man of the Tenth faint in the ranks. It would not do. The projected power of Caesar Tiberius must appear indomitable. Fear of that power was all that kept these Jews in line.
And the Jews were becoming more troublesome all the time. Their own king could not control them. Their priests could not calm them. The filthy mob bridled under a Roman harness, and no amount of the lash would calm them. They took umbrage at everything Roman. Every perceived slight was an excuse for riots. The day the eagles were raised over the newly constructed fortress, a crowd gathered at the gates throwing stones and shouting. They were driven away at spear point and scores were taken away to be scourged. The next morning two soldiers were found murdered; probably caught drunk on their way back from whoring. Twenty Judeans were put on crosses the next day. Ten for each Roman dead. Things had settled down a bit since then. There were sullen looks and occasional squabbles and little else through the winter. Any fool could see it was a fragile peace, an illusion.
Now the city was crowded with pilgrims to the temple to celebrate the Jews’ holiday of Passover. They were celebrating their emancipation from the Egyptians long ago. The yoke of servitude placed upon them by Rome was bitterly felt in these days of remembrance.
The tension was strained for all to feel. And today would be a high water mark.
“I am not one to question a prefect’s wishes,” Aelius said to a pimply optio whose name had slipped his mind. “But he might have held off on executions until this damned festival is over.”
“What is this festival of theirs, sir?” the optio said. His voice was reedy from a parched throat.
“They celebrate leaving Egypt for this place, Optio,” Aelius said.
“Why did they leave Egypt, sir?”
“I’ll be damned and gone to hell if I know. I’ve been to Egypt, and it looks much the same as this to me.”
“Centurion!”
Aelius turned to see that the tribune had stepped back onto the ramparts from his quarters. The man was half Aelius’s age but from a better family, though not exalted enough to keep him from duty in this pesthole. He wore immaculate armor that was more decorative than anything else. It shone with silver bosses and trim to mark his rank. It would also mark him for slings and bows were they in battle. His head was bare, and Aelius envied him that.
“Have they nailed the bastards up yet?” The tribune stepped to the battlements and shielded his eyes to scan the hill at Calvariæ Locus.
“Not as yet, Tribune,” Aelius replied. He suspected that the tribune’s eyesight was not so keen. A shifting crowd was clearly visible on the flanks of the hillock, but no crosses had been raised. Soldiers stood in a ring encircling the crest of the hill. As miserable as it was atop these walls, it would be pure hell standing down in the dust and suffering the invective of the mob.
“These Jews are mad,” the tribune spat. “Only one god and they are afraid to even say his name. They build a temple without one statue to worship. What does their god even look like?”
“I hear that they believe he looks like a Jew,” Aelius offered.
The tribune snorted at that.
“They’re very wrought up over something, Tribune,” Aelius said.
“This Jew they’re nailing up today. He’s something of a hero to them. He spoke against the raising of the eagles and incites the Jews to riot with his words.” The tribune dipped a cupped hand in an urn of tepid water and dribbled it over his face.
“Should the prefect not have held off this execution, Tribune? At least until the pilgrims have departed the city.”
“Pilate keeps his own counsel. The rebel dies today, along with a pair of thieves.”
A collective moan rose from the crowd about the hill as the first cross was raised. The sound broke up into shouts of anger. The words were not decipherable from here, but then they would have been in that damned dog’s bark of a language in any case. Still, the tone was plain, and Aelius could see the ranks of the soldiers close up, their shields forming a seamless wall. A second and third cross were hauled upright. A naked male body hung from each, suspended from nails through wrists and ankles and supported by a rope about the torso to keep them upright and prolong the punishment.
The men would be hours dying. Tormented by thirst, scalded by the sun, in agony from long spikes driven through their wrists and ankles. Ropes were tied about their arms and beneath their ribs or else their own burden would tear them from the nails. Many in the crowd would be family or followers. Others stood in the glare to watch from morbid curiosity men slowly die. These last would drift away once the three men lost consciousness.
The man suspended on the center cross shouted in words indecipherable to the men on the walls. Was he pleading for mercy to his god or cursing the fate that brought him here? Perhaps he called out to loved ones or proclaimed his innocence to his tormentors. His face was turned to the sun and he howled upward, muscles straining against the fire in his limbs.
“What is the name of the rebel condemned today, Tribune?” Aelius asked.
“Yeshwah bar Abba,” the tribune said. “The mob calls him Barabbas.”
2
Paris Canal, St-Martin
“These are in extraordinary condition,” the dealer said, squinting through a jeweler’s loupe at the pair of coins in clear plastic cases.
“You say that like it’s a problem,” Lee Hammond said and gestured to the waiter for a refill. They sat on an open-air veranda enjoying the cool night air a story above the street. They had a postcard view of the lights of the city and the cars and buses buzzing by. What made traffic so picturesque in Rome, London and Paris and such a pain in the ass everywhere else?
“Over two thousand years old. Stamped with a clear profile of Hamilcar Barca, the Carthaginian emperor. And uncirculated,” the dealer said and removed the lens from his eye.
“Les mêmes à nouveau. Deux doigts,” Hammond said when the waiter reached him. Lee was holding two fingers clamped together to indicate the depth of Maker’s Mark he desired. The waiter nodded and departed.
“They are heavily tarnished, of course. Exposed to water or dampness for a long period. You were wise not to clean them.”
“Yeah. I watch Pawn Stars.”
The dealer squinted and pursed his lips.
“TV show in the states. So what are they worth?”
“These are heavy coins. Surprisingly heavy. They were struck for a special purpose; perhaps as part of ransom or some other large transfer of funds.”
“Uh huh.”
“It is highly unusual to find coinage of this weight and quality. While a thinner coin might be kept as a keepsake or token, currency like this was most often melted down for its metal worth. To have two such examples survive...”
“Yeah, yeah. How much?”
“By weight alone, they are worth a touch over two thousand euros.”
“So about three kay American. What’s their collectible worth?” Hammond said, accepting the tumbler from the waiter. Liquid gold with a single ice cube sliding on the bottom.
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“Two times their going troy ounce value. Perhaps three times that at auction.”
“No auctions. This has to stay private. Very private. Secret even.”
“Ah. Well, I know some collectors, of course. But I would have to remove one of the coins from its case and examine it more thoroughly. Strictly so that I might offer them my assurances.”
“Sure. Take them both. Do whatever tests you need,” Hammond said.
“You have more?” the dealer said with an arched eyebrow.
“A shitload.”
The dealer squinted again and tilted his head.
“I have beaucoup. Mucho beaucoup,” Hammond said, murdering two languages at one pass.
The dealer nodded with a pleased smile and slipped the plastic cases into a pocket of his jacket.
“I go then. Will you be departing? Perhaps we might share a taxi?”
“No,” Hammond said, smiling and swirling the cube in the crystal tumbler. “I don’t have a single place in the whole goddamned world I have to be.”
3
Somewhere Sunny
“You don’t want to know?” Dwayne Roenbach said.
“I don’t,” Caroline Tauber said with an easy smile. They lay in the shade of a cabana on a sugar sand beach. Dwayne was propped on an elbow and running the palm of his hand gently over Caroline’s swollen belly. She wore a maternity swimsuit they bought in Majorca that had a panel open to leave her, to Dwayne, beautiful belly exposed.
“Boy or girl. Doesn’t matter?” he asked.
“I didn’t say that.” She laughed.
“But you didn’t ask. You were right there, and you didn’t say, ‘Hey, am I having a girl or a boy?’”
“We’ll know soon enough.”
“I should have been there,” Dwayne said.
“To check for a wee-wee?” she asked.
“No son of mine will have a wee-wee, Mama.” She laughed.
“Seriously, I should have been with you,” he said and lay back on the chaise they shared.
“It was just an ultrasound. You had to be with the guys. You saw where the treasure was buried,” Caroline said and used both hands to smooth out the sunblock Dwayne had been applying to her tummy.
He made a hmmph noise. But it was true. Dwayne had a vantage point on the day, two thousand years plus prior when the crew of a Phoenician bireme pulled an iron-bound chest ashore on an islet in the Aegean. Caroline witnessed them actually burying it at the foot of an escarpment, but Dwayne would not allow her to travel; especially on an extralegal trip to uncover a hidden fortune in gold coins. Especially since it was far from a hospital.
Dwayne marked the spot on the charts she indicated. The Ocean Raj, the modified container ship they were leasing through a shell corporation, remained moored in the sea near Nisos Anaxos in the chain of tiny atolls on the diamond sea. This was the island where Dwayne and Caroline witnessed the arrival of the Lion of Ba’al, the pirate boat that dropped off the trove of coins two millennia before.
The treasure was buried in a pit on a beach that was now covered by twenty feet of water as ocean levels rose and land masses sank over time. It would be simple enough to retrieve it from the relative shallows. The difficulty came with doing so in secrecy. Many had hunted for the legendary gold coins over the centuries. The first to uncover them was entitled, legally, to bragging rights only. The Greek government would grab the goodies, so the salvage work would have to be done on the down low.
The former SEAL, known to them only as Boats, devised a plan to literally suck the treasure out from under the world’s nose. A suction device was ordered from Fukuwara, a Japanese firm specializing in undersea exploration gear. It was purchased through the same shell corporation that Lee Hammond formed to lease the Raj. The manufacturer in Kyoto questioned the need for an extra nine hundred meters of reinforced tubing, but payment in cash quelled their objections as well as their curiosity. The Raj made for the port at Alexandria and picked up what Chaz Raleigh called “the world’s biggest Hoover” in Alexandria. Boats and his Ethiopian crew fit it at sea while they returned to Nisos Anaxos.
They moored a quarter mile off the west coast of a collection of rocky atolls spiraling north of the coast of the main island. After several dives, they set up the steel framework needed to position and weight the business end of the hose on the sea bottom. Over several nights they hauled sand and debris through the hose and aboard the Raj where anything larger than a dime was sifted from the silt.
On the second night, the coins began to appear on the sifting screens. They came up in rust-colored sand, the oxidized remains of the iron-banded chest. The coins numbered in the thousands and looked like dirty gray discs. Jimbo Smalls struck the edge of one with the blade of a knife, and the exposed metal gleamed with a rich yellow hue. When Boats was satisfied that they’d sucked up all they could they reeled in the hose and set course for anywhere but the scene of the crime.
Lee Hammond called the day before from Paris to let Dwayne and Caroline in their luxury hideaway know that the prize was going to add millions to their collective kitty.
“Well, I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere,” Dwayne said, pressing her hand in his. He settled back on the chaise to listen to the gentle surf rolling in.
A shadow blotted out the sun, and Dwayne opened his eyes to find a waiter from the hotel standing over him.
“Yes?” Caroline said.
“I am here to remind you of your luncheon reservations at Chiro’s, sir and madame.” The waiter smiled professionally.
“Reservations?” Dwayne asked.
“In thirty minutes. Party of three.” The waiter bowed once and departed.
“Party of three?” Dwayne said.
They had enough time to go to their suite and change from swimsuits into clothes more appropriate for the hotel’s main restaurant. The dining hall was mostly empty as it was mid-afternoon and well past lunch serving hours. The maître d’ led them to a table at the rear of the room and partly sheltered by potted palms.
Seated at the table was a dark-haired man with eyes of the most unusual tarnished green. He half stood to greet them.
“Hello, Samuel,” Dwayne said, pulling a chair out for Caroline.
4
Galilee
“This is not my idea of a vacation,” Hammond said and slapped a mosquito, leaving a smear of blood down his arm.
“I thought you said you like adventure,” Bat called back from a turn in the trail.
“That doesn’t sound like me.”
“Then what’s your idea of a vacation?”
“Anywhere you are, sugar.” He trotted to catch up with her, but she moved fast through the trees ahead of him.
Bathsheba Jaffe laughed as she hiked on, the backpack swaying in counterpoint to her magnificent behind.
It was her idea to show Lee her country.
The Ranger pictured lazy days on the beach at Dado Zamir and nights barhopping around Tel Aviv. Instead, she picked a week on the Israel National Trail.
It all started as an easy walk along the beach at Netanya, but they turned inland until they were in the forested high country. The mosquitos grew thick, and the stinging nettles grew thicker. Often the trail vanished into the dense trackless brush. Bat just dove in, and Lee had no choice but to follow her, drawn by the vision of those incredible legs fully visible beneath her cutoffs and whipped on by male pride. Here he was a hard-charging former US Army Ranger, and a damned skinny girl was kicking his ass.
She took the lead early and kept it. And each time they emerged from some fresh patch of spiny hell, he looked like he’d been dragged behind a truck for ten miles of bad road. She looked like she was ready to pose for an L.L. Bean catalog shoot.
The forest they moved through was a mad mix of maples, oak, cypress, poplar, and cedar. Bat explained that this forest was planted by the Trees for Israel program started in the 1950s. Jewish school kids from all over the world collected money and saved their pennies
to buy saplings to replant the Promised Land. She told him that the north of the country was once carpeted with thick cedar woodlands. But they had been clear cut thousands of years ago to build ships for the Romans. So Jews from all over the world gave their lunch money so that the forests could return and the Galilee could be green once more. Those kids must have knocked on a crap-load of doors, Lee thought, because we’ve been hiking through this for two days with no end in sight.
The woods gave way to a banana plantation; neat rows of the broad-leafed plants ran over gentle hills under a deep blue sky. Another surprise for Lee. It was a country smaller than New Jersey and thinner across in spots than most counties in America, but there was a tremendous variety of terrain and vegetation.
By late afternoon they reached a bluff where they could look back at grids of segmented farmland sloping gently down to the Mediterranean. The sea was visible only as a hazy greenish bar on the horizon. They decided to pitch camp right there to take advantage of a prevailing wind rising up the face of the bluff that cooled the air as the day closed.
They shared a cold meal of tinned salmon and naan bread with butter. Lee insisted on making a small fire to use some of their water to make two mugs of his nasty coffee.
“How do you drink this stuff?” she said, making a yucky face.
“It’s cowboy coffee,” he said. “Because they used it to kill Indians?”
“Funny.”
They were snuggled in the pop tent. The glow of the dying fire cast shadows over them through the translucent tent fabric. The air was chilling as night fell and Bat wiggled closer.
“What’s your story, cowboy?” she said.
“Well, I’m not a cowboy. I just like their coffee.”
“Well, you’re not a venture capitalist, a web millionaire, or a real estate speculator like you’ve told me the other times I asked about you.”