“They were on display when the firestorm happened?” Erin asked.
“They were,” Natasha confirmed. “My grandfather believed Ezekiel’s prophecy was about to come true and that the War of Gog and Magog would trigger the coming of the Messiah. He and Uncle Eli only disagreed about which coming that would be—the first or the second.”
“How about you?” Bennett asked. “What do you think?”
But they were interrupted by a door they hadn’t even seen opening behind them, and there stood Natasha’s grandfather, motioning them to follow.
22
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14 – 10:29 a.m. – JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
Now in his eighties, Yossi Barak still had a young man’s zeal.
He wore small a yarmulke, or kipah, atop a shock of silver hair; he had a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. His wrinkled, wizened face betrayed a lifetime of struggle in a land that had seldom known peace. Standing there in baggy trousers and a slightly frayed blue Oxford button-down shirt covered by a brown cardigan sweater, he was a bit stooped, and he steadied himself on a beautifully carved wooden cane. But it was his green eyes, shining full of passion and curiosity even behind gold-rimmed spectacles, that drew Bennett’s interest.
“Come, follow me,” Dr. Barak said in a thick, gravelly voice that suggested a pipe or cigar was rarely far from his lips.
Natasha waved them forward, and together they slipped out of the Shrine’s main exhibit hall, through the doorway, and down a dim hallway to a cluster of small offices attached to a conference room and a lab of some kind, marked with signs that read Authorized Personnel Only in English and Hebrew. A moment later, the foursome entered a wood-panled conference room, where Dr. Barak directed them all to take a seat in any of the dozen leather executive chairs that surrounded the large, rectangular mahogany table.
“Coffee anyone?” he asked, already pouring himself a mug at a drink station at the far end of the room.
Both Bennetts accepted the offer. Natasha asked for water. Barak fixed the drinks and then joined them at the table.
“It is so good to finally meet you both,” he said after taking a moment to catch his breath and wipe his forehead with a clean handkerchief he kept in his trouser pocket. “Eli spoke so much about you I feel like you’re practically my own grandchildren. I suspect, however, he told you little, if anything, about me.”
“I’m afraid not,” Bennett said, though he’d been racking his brain for the past few minutes, trying to think of any reference Mordechai may have made to him or Natasha.
“He was a man of his word,” Barak sighed. “A real class act.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Erin.
“Well, we’ve been friends for almost fifty years,” the old man explained. “We served in military intelligence together. We served in the reserves together. Our wives—God rest their souls—were close when they were alive. We even vacationed together once. But when he became—how do you say it, ‘born again’?—I’m afraid we had a falling out. We didn’t speak for several years, and when we did, when we tried to patch things up between us and get together from time to time, I asked him not to mention it to anyone.”
“Why not?” asked Bennett.
“Well, you must understand that I come from a very strict religious community, and to them, any time I spent with Eliezer Mordechai was fraternizing with the enemy. But, God bless him, he was a man of his word, even to the end. He said he wouldn’t tell anyone about our friendship, and he didn’t. I’m really going to miss him.”
Barak took a deep breath, dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief, and shifted gears, just as Natasha had a while earlier. “So, you are probably wondering,” he said, staring into his coffee, “what brought us back together.”
The Bennetts nodded, but he didn’t see them. Not that it would have mattered. It was obvious he was going to tell the story anyway.
“A treasure hunt,” Barak said softly.
“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” said Bennett.
“Well, it’s like this. After so many years of not speaking, Eli called me out of the blue one day and said he’d found a clue—a big clue—to a puzzle I’d been trying to solve for decades. And then he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: if I would talk to him again, he would help find the greatest treasure the world has ever known.”
The old man had their full attention now—Natasha’s, too, though Bennett was sure she had heard this story a thousand times before.
“Is everything ready?” Barak then asked, turning to his granddaughter.
“Whenever you are,” Natasha replied.
“Very well then,” said Barak. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
“Go where?” asked Bennett.
“Let’s go for a little ride.”
* * *
Five minutes later they were on the museum’s roof.
Boarding a helicopter. Donning headphones. Lifting off—Natasha at the controls, Barak playing copilot—and banking eastward into the sun, though Jon and Erin had no idea where. Out the left-rear window, Bennett could see the Israeli Knesset building, not far from the museum grounds. Soon they were flying over the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives, before making a slight course correction to the south.
“Dr. Barak, do you mind letting us in on our destination?” Jon asked, adjusting the volume on his headset and trying to hear over the roar of the rotors.
“What, and spoil all the fun?” asked Barak, clearly enjoying himself.
“Let me guess,” said Erin. “Qumran, where the scrolls were found.”
“Good try,” Barak replied, his eyes still fixed on the horizon ahead. “But not even close.”
“Masada?” asked Jon.
“What for?” said Barak. “Great place to visit, but irrelevant to the treasure hunt I’m taking you on.”
“Then where?” Erin pressed.
Barak mumbled something in Hebrew they couldn’t understand, and then—when he seemed confident Natasha had the flight under control—he turned back, as best he could, to address them both face-to-face.
“It will all make sense in a moment,” he insisted. “But first I must tell you a little story. Okay?”
They hardly had a choice, so they leaned back, enjoyed the flight and the view, and let the old man tell his tale.
“The year is 1947,” Barak began. “The Nazis have been defeated. Europe has been liberated. The concentration camps have been shut down. The British are preparing to pull out of Palestine. The U.N. is carving up the Holy Land between the Arabs and the Jews. We Jews are about to declare our independence, and five Arab nations are preparing to attack us and wipe us off the face of the earth.
“Meanwhile, a few miles east of Jerusalem, two shepherds—Bedouins, actually—begin tossing stones into a distant mountain cave. Suddenly, they hear something shatter, like pottery or glass. Their first thought: buried treasure! So they return at night with friends, ropes, torches, and a plan to scale the sheer rock face and enter the remote cavern. They’re electrified by the hope that what is waiting for them is gold or silver or precious jewels. To their dismay, that’s not what they find. But in time it will become clear that they have stumbled upon a treasure much greater by far: the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
Barak stopped for a moment, fished several bottles of water out of a cooler, offered two to the Bennetts, and then took a swig of his own. A moment later, he was back to his story, his voice low and mysterious.
“Over the next few years, more than eight hundred scrolls and more than 100,000 fragments were discovered,” he explained. “Whole books of the Bible—such as the Isaiah Scroll Natasha showed you—emerged from the caves of Qumran. Sections of nearly every Old Testament book were found, along with religious commentaries and detailed descriptions of the day-to-day lives of religious Jews under Roman occupation.”
He stopped abruptly and pointed out the window, off to their right. “We’re flying through the Jordan Valley,” he explain
ed. “That’s the Dead Sea down there. Can you see it?”
“Yes,” they said.
“Good—now look over there, to the west,” Barak instructed as he urged Natasha to bank a bit so Jon and Erin could get a good look.
All Bennett could see were mountains—dusty, barren, and bleak.
“Now, you see those foothills? those caves?” Barak asked.
They did.
“Well that, my friends, is Qumran. That’s where the scrolls were found, where history was made.”
“Wow,” said Erin. “You’d never suspect something important would be hidden away in something so nondescript.”
“That’s often the case with archeology,” said Barak. “Where you least expect it, expect it.”
Erin pointed at a cluster of buildings and a parking lot. “What’s that?”
“That’s the visitor center and the offices that run the excavations at Qumran.”
“They’re still digging there?”
“A bit, yes,” said Barak. “Plus there’s a little theater and museum there, a gift shop, a snack bar, some restrooms—that kind of thing.”
“And that’s where we’re headed?” asked Bennett.
“No, no,” said Barak, pointing eastward. “Qumran was a big story in its day—the biggest archeological discovery in history to that point. But believe me, Jonathan, based on the research Eli and I did, I can tell you it pales in comparison with what is coming next.”
23
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14 – NOON – JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
The prime minister’s helicopter landed on the Temple Mount.
Surrounded by their protective details and flanked by a traveling pool of reporters, producers, cameramen, and sound technicians, Doron and his distinguished guests exited the chopper and began touring the ash and charred debris. Aside from firemen and security personnel, they were actually the first to walk this historic ground since the Day of Devastation, and in so doing they were making headlines.
The battle over the future of the Temple Mount was already well under way. The president of Egypt and the king of Jordan had just launched a massive lobbying operation aimed at Washington, Brussels, and the U.N. Security Council in New York. Their clear objective was to build international pressure on Israel not to take any steps that would change the status quo—such as building the Temple—until peace talks with the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world were completed.
Just two days before, however, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—the largest and most powerful Jewish lobby in the United States—had cranked up its own operation to counter the Egyptian and Jordanian campaign. The status quo had already been changed, they argued, and not by Israel but by an act of God. What’s more, it was time once and for all for the U.S. to acknowledge Jerusalem as the “eternal and undivided capital of the Jewish State of Israel,” to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, and to allow Israeli democracy to govern the future of the Temple Mount.
As he walked across the ruins of what had long been one of the holiest sites in Islam, Ken Costello was acutely aware of the political and religious land mines that lay ahead. It was his job to listen to all sides and bring back a firsthand report to the president. And now here he was, at the vortex of the debate, in the eye of the hurricane.
It would be hard to convey to MacPherson the visceral sense of loss and devastation he had seen throughout the day, and this moment was no different. But for the soot and ash of the once-great historic landmarks that had stood here, there was absolutely no physical evidence that the Dome of the Rock or the Al-Aksa Mosque had ever existed.
Such was the power of an almighty God, Costello mused, able to create the world in six days and destroy it in one.
When they finished their tour, Salvador Lucente gathered reporters around him and held an impromptu press conference at the dead center of the Mount. He began by praising Doron and the Israeli people as well as the entire world community for banding together to provide medical care, food, and drinking water for those affected by the devastation. He thanked them for their commitment and dedication to working around the clock to bury the dead, despite the enormity of the task. Then he announced that the E.U. was willing to contribute an additional one billion euros to Israel’s emergency relief efforts, on top of the 250 million euros the E.U. had already divided among Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon over the past three months. But then Lucente caught Doron and Costello completely off guard by laying down three conditions for the distribution of such aid.
“The European Union is ready to exceed anything we have ever given before, including to the tsunami relief campaign in Asia a number of years ago,” Lucente said to the cameras now beaming the breaking news to the world. “But we also believe the time for peace and reconciliation between Israel and her neighbors has come at last, and we are determined to see a comprehensive resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict as rapidly as humanly possible. We must, therefore, be careful that such large infusions of aid not be allowed to complicate the peace process. As such, we will provide the funds only if my good friend, Prime Minister Doron, and his government commit themselves to three peacemaking steps of goodwill.”
Costello could only look on with a smile plastered on his face, acting as though he were fully prepared for what was about to happen. But he was not and expected his cell phone to ring any moment with the president or his chief of staff demanding to know what in the world was going on.
“First,” Lucente continued, “the E.U. requests that the State of Israel agree to block any and all efforts by Jews—or by Christians, for that matter—to build a Jewish Temple on this site, at least for now. This site is, of course, sacred to all three monotheistic religions who call this city home, and its future should be decided in negotiations with all the parties, not unilaterally by one side or another.”
Costello could feel his phone vibrating in his jacket pocket.
“Second,” Lucente went on, “the E.U. requests that the State of Israel allow the United Nations to assume interim control of the Temple Mount until such final peace talks are complete, so that Jews, Muslims, and Christians can rest assured that their interests in this historically volatile site can and will be handled fairly, impartially, and expeditiously.
“Third, the E.U. requests that the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, along with their Arab neighbors, commit themselves to completing and signing a final peace treaty within the next twelve months. As the Jewish Scriptures say, there is ‘a time for war and a time for peace.’ There is ‘a time to tear down and a time to build up.’ There is ‘a time to be silent and a time to speak.’ And now, I believe, is the time to speak as one world, one voice, for peace, for unity, and for working together to rebuild what was lost. I invite all civilized nations—and particularly our friends in the United States—to join us in ensuring a full and comprehensive settlement to one of the world’s most enduring conflicts.”
Costello knew he was about to be asked to comment on Lucente’s demands. The last thing the White House needed was another foreign-policy fight with Europe. But was the president prepared to join the E.U. in blocking emergency aid to Israel unless they knuckled under on an issue as sensitive as the Temple Mount? The only good news for Costello was that Doron would have to answer first, and he knew the Israeli prime minister must be just as startled by Lucente’s sucker punch.
“Mr. Prime Minister,” shouted a reporter, “how do you respond to the E.U.’s demands?”
Costello found himself impressed by Doron’s answer.
“I don’t see the foreign minister’s remarks as demands but rather a proposal, and I appreciate it a great deal,” the prime minister replied. “Israel remains as committed as always to making peace with our neighbors. We are grateful for the friendship and support of the European Union during this difficult hour, and I look forward to discussing these issues with Mr. Lucente in more detail.”
“But, Mr. Prime Minister,” shouted another reporter,
“polls show that more than seven in ten Israelis want you to move forward and build the Temple, and to do so quickly. In your mind, which is the higher priority—the aid or the Temple?”
“I have made no final decision on the future of the Temple Mount,” Doron replied calmly. “That’s why we are here today, touring the site, discussing options, listening to opinions and proposals from all sides. We will announce our decisions in due course, but let me just say this: There have been two great Jewish Temples on this site. The Hebrew prophets tell us there will be another, and I for one look forward to that day. It was a European power that destroyed the last Temple in AD 70, and Jews throughout world have been praying for almost two thousand years that such an injustice would be remedied. Today is not the day to decide such questions, but I do believe such a day is not far off.”
24
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14 – 12:17 p.m. – SOMEWHERE OVER JORDAN
They were about thirty kilometers from Amman.
But why? With the exception of its largest mosques, which had been consumed by the firestorm, the Jordanian capital had largely been spared the wholesale destruction visited upon other Arab capitals like Damascus and Tehran. What could be there to see that was worth all this effort?
Dr. Barak soon answered this question.
“In the spring of 1952, something very curious happened,” he said, his eyes twinkling with the glee of a professor with a captive and uninitiated audience. “A new scroll was found in Cave Three in the hills above Qumran, unlike any of the scrolls that had been found before. I was not part of the team that found it, but as a young research assistant, I had the extraordinary privilege of being part of the team that studied it. And believe me, no one had ever seen anything like this scroll.
“It was not written with ink on animal skins or parchments, as were the others. It was, instead, engraved on metal—on copper, to be precise. But whatever for? If the book of Isaiah—the Holy Scriptures, mind you—could be written on something so fragile as parchment, what message could the Copper Scroll possibly contain that was so precious it had to be engraved on metal to be preserved for the ages? This was the first big question we had but only one of many. Another was, how do we open the blasted thing? It was encrusted with nineteen hundred years of oxidation. It was so brittle we feared it might disintegrate in our hands. Indeed, unlike any of the other scrolls, it took us four years to figure out how to get it open.”
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