Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest Read online

  Tim called to Father Benoit, knowing there was little chance his voice would carry through the surrounding walls. To confer with him, it was necessary to inch back through the two tunnels with a few fragments tucked in a utility pocket. At the original fork, the priest’s trail curved left through another dusty conduit.

  He caught up with Benoit in a small grotto on his knees, complaining about arthritis in his hip, but studiously examining human skeletal remains from a limestone ossuary. Under normal rules of excavation, a discovery would have been carefully photographed and documented, then removed to an accredited laboratory for X-ray and chemical analysis. Yet at the moment, conditions were anything but normal, giving the priest license to violate nearly every conventional rule of modern archeology. He had simply jimmied the seal on the ossuary lid with a utility knife. No names were inscribed on the limestone exterior, so the identity of the deceased would probably remain unknown. Though suffering from a hacking cough, Benoit insisted on voicing his excitement over the remains of an early Christian, or perhaps an Essene. Tim reminded him that with no identification on the ossuary, this would likely remain mere speculation.

  Benoit tapped his watch to mark the time. He seemed encouraged by the fragments Tim showed him, but refused a request for an additional half-hour to collect more.

  "I'm going back to get what I can," Tim announced.

  "Twelve minutes, no matter what."

  Back in the original chamber, Tim fumbled nervously with his backpack, now racing against the clock. Unfortunately, the plastic Ziploc bags so essential for collecting parchment fragments were tucked near the bottom of his pack. In the tight confinement, it was necessary to empty all his equipment on top of ancient documents, risking damage to them. To make matters worse, a rubber band holding together a wad of the transparent bags popped, scattering many over the ground. At least a full minute was lost gathering them.

  A temptation to interrupt the collection and read some of the text tormented him. It was possible he had stumbled onto a great discovery, but how would he know until at least some of these fragments had been deciphered? He was sure they were of historic value, for why else would ancient people go to the trouble of storing them in this remote, nearly inaccessible place. Almost everything taken from previous Dead Sea caves had proven to be of historical significance, shedding light on the lives of recluses at the dawning of the modern age. Why not the documents in his hands? "Collect, collect," he urged himself, driving his fingers relentlessly into compliance. "Don’t read. Don't even glance at the words. Just get this stuff up!"

  It was necessary to remind himself that he was handling precious treasures, not mere scraps of paper. His plan was to place small clusters of parchment in separate Ziplocs, squeeze out the surrounding air to prevent deterioration, then seal the tops. But in fact, he was stuffing bunches of fragments into the containers with abandonment, almost as if they were carrot or celery sticks packaged for a Sunday picnic. Simultaneously, he found himself cursing Father Benoit for setting an arbitrary time limit and wondering if he had surrendered to the priest's judgment too easily. But even if he had, he lacked confidence in his own ability to escape through the mountains without the priest's experience in the desert.

  His breathing seemed to echo the metronomic clicks of the second hand on his wristwatch. If only there was more time, these fragments might be displayed beside the revered Dead Sea scrolls in Jerusalem’s Shrine of the Book. Written words in his fingers collapsed time, binding him with a distant generation. In that moment, he imagined that, through these ancient documents, he was actually conversing with his forefathers over the expanse of millennia. Yet this sensation morphed quickly into a darker vision in which the delicate thread linking the past and present shattered. When he dared glance at his watch, he was tardy by seven minutes. Had the Dominican father already made his way to the cave entrance without him?

  Tim started to squeeze backwards through the tunnel, but as his head turned, he noticed in the beam of his lamp a tab of parchment stuffed between cracks in the inner wall. This new discovery caused him to hesitate. More time would be lost retrieving it, but then he was already overdue. To snatch it, he was forced to reverse directions and crawl forward. When he inserted his fingers into the crevice, he experienced a familiar sensation of dried animal skin, but this was different from fragments on the ground. The parchment felt as if rolled into a scroll, the holy grail of Dead Sea discovery!

  In the course of millennia, the organic composition of the material had evidently expanded like mortar between bricks, making extraction nearly impossible without damaging the very thing he wanted to preserve. A prayer for dexterous fingers slipped from his lips as he attempted to pry the document free. When the scroll refused to budge, he decided to manipulate it to a new location where the groove appeared larger. At that moment, he heard Father Benoit thundering behind him, his words garbled by the echo in the confining conduits.

  "Give me another minute," he yelled back in the loudest voice he could muster, having little faith the Dominican would understand.

  The scroll seemed determined not to move. Each new degree of pressure Tim applied threatened either to collapse the precious document or damage whatever was written inside. He nevertheless applied additional force, pushing hard with his index finger and thumb. A responsible archeologist would leave the document in place and return with proper tools and adequate time for careful removal. For an instant, Tim considered choosing this path and abandoning this treasure for another scholar to retrieve. Still, a deeper, more determined voice commanded him to ignore his scruples and persevere.

  He pressured the parchment still harder, nudging it first in one direction then another until finally it eased higher. Slowly, the precious scroll moved upward some fifteen centimeters to an expanse in the crevice. In that position, extraction was possible, though it required another full minute.

  Smaller than he had originally thought, the scroll was darker than the other fragments. A quick scan told him it was not in Hebrew or the lingua-franca of the time, Aramaic, but in the Greek language of the educated aristocracy. Finding it too large for one of his Ziploc bags, he improvised by wrapping it in the cloth he had brought to clean his glasses. Far from a high-tech solution, but it would have to do.

  Crawling backward to the rendezvous junction, Tim wondered why, after being told about these fragments, Father Benoit had not wanted to assist in their collection. He asked himself if perhaps the priest had discovered artifacts still more valuable, perhaps something from the unopened ossuary? Or another scroll?

  It was sixteen minutes past the deadline when Tim arrived at the rendezvous juncture, not surprised to find himself alone. He scrambled still faster on his knees, dragging his backpack behind him on a tethered line. The umbilical cord had a tendency to tangle, forcing him to stop frequently to free it.

  When Tim finally caught up with Benoit, just shy of the cave's entrance, the Dominican father was bowed on his knees, halted by a choking cough. At first, Tim thought his lungs had succumbed to the ubiquitous dust. But a moment later, this suspicion was abandoned in favor of a more palpable cause. It was not dust that stopped Benoit. The tight air was impregnated with thick a smoke, snaking through earthen conduits from outside.

  Benoit hacked away as he spoke through a cloth protecting his nose and mouth. "I... I was afraid of something like... this."

  "What's burning?" Tim asked, now joined with him in the coughing.

  "Oil... a Bedouin trick. Why enter... a cave... when you can light a fire at the entrance and smoke us out?"

  Tim crouched alongside Benoit and breathed through his sleeve. "The treasures here will be damaged irreparably. How can civilized people do this?"

  Benoit snapped in a voice conveying his authority on the local Arab culture, "What's here is... Judeo-Christian history, not… Bedouin history. These people live only for today and tomorrow. They have no interest in their own past; why should they give a shit about ours?"


  Tim felt his lungs woefully short of air as he sputtered, "Let's signal the Israeli drone."

  "Let's not. Jews would love to crucify me on the Via Dolorosa. And humiliate the Holy Father in Rome."

  "You didn't wait for me back there," Tim said, revealing an anger that had disturbed him since finding the priest had already fled without him.

  "If you had... kept to the schedule, we would have made it," Benoit answered. "This is… your mess, not mine."

  "A few minutes wouldn't have made any difference. I've got fantastic fragments."

  Benoit's coughing increased, breaking up his words, "Time… to choose whether we want to get barbequed here... or shot outside." Tim considered Benoit's prospects, but somehow they didn't seem to cover all the alternatives. He stretched himself prone along the ground, staying as low as possible under smoke wafting overhead. Despite hacking, he managed to keep his words together. "…The Bedouin guard escaped through a hole somewhere. We... must find it."

  Benoit said nothing while hauling himself to his knees.

  Tim continued, "We didn't notice the vent before... so it must have been in one of the conduits… over to the left. Smoke will... exit through it like a chimney. Let's follow the current above us."

  Benoit seemed to agree, for he led in the direction Tim suggested. Their path weaved in a semi-circle until the tunnel forked into two channels. The men rolled on their backs to observe how smoke seemed to move equally in both directions, forcing them to split up once again. At least one might manage to get out.

  Tim discovered the vent only minutes later, but it appeared too small for the stout Dominican.

  As soon as Benoit rejoined him, he spied the small aperture chiseled in the roof of the tunnel and said, "Bedouin are... rodents. They can squeeze through fissures of any size."

  "Then we must become rodents too," Tim replied, pulling a collapsible spade from his backpack. "Empty your pockets into the packs. I'm leaving the carbine behind, but take your Uzi. Be sure to bring all the water. If we get out of here, we're going to need it. As I climb, I'll enlarge the passage for you."

  "Go without me... Timothy."

  "We came here together and we'll leave... together."

  "An ignoble end for a fat priest who loves his food," Benoit murmured. "...Before you start climbing, take a deep breath. Smoke will funnel through the aperture, making breathing impossible. Et mon reverend," he paused to catch his companion's arm, "Grace a Dieu."

  "Right," Tim said as he reached up to pull himself into the opening, "let's pray the Good Father shows compassion for His servant thieves."

  Both clerics were nauseous, dehydrated, and caked with a mix of smoke embers and dirt when they saw daylight ahead. Fearful of Bedouin warriors waiting for them, Tim cautiously hauled himself into the daylight to survey the terrain. His body remained low to the ground, his camouflage tunic blending into the surrounding rocks. He had just managed to pry Father Benoit free from the last impediment when the buzz of an Israeli drone forced him to shove the priest back into the hole. "From the frying pan into the fire," he said before covering the aperture with his camouflaged shirt. The top of Benoit's head poked into his stomach.

  The drone appeared to circle Bedouin tents in the valley below, tents Father Benoit had correctly predicted their owners would pitch to conceal their intentions. A moment of relief came when the aircraft eventually veered in a northerly direction. But their relief passed immediately. In the wake of the drone's receding engine, they now heard voices calling in desert Arabic, announcing how Bedouin warriors were scrambling among surrounding rocks.

  Without standing, it was impossible for Tim to know how close the pursuers were. He whispered their predicament to Benoit, lamenting that he had abandoned his carbine inside the cave, but then he knew it would be foolish to shoot it out with an enemy he couldn't see. Benoit warned that Bedouin eyes were superior to their noses and were keenly sensitive to movement of any kind. Even the motion of replenishing one's lungs with air and expelling it might reveal their presence.

  Tim heard a boot plow into stones no more than ten meters away, sending a stream of pebbles rolling down the hillside. More boots pounded the rocks nearby, as Bedouin seemed to be tightening a circle around them. Tim held his breath. Sooner or later, shooting was inevitable. The bullets he expected didn't come, at least not until the voices had begun to recede. Then suddenly, two rifle shots erupted, then echoed among the rocks some hundred meters below. Perhaps aimed at a jackal or rodent.

  The sun seemed to penetrate Tim's shirt and sear his flesh. Thirst racked their dry throats. But even sipping from their water bottles was risky when they were uncertain where the Bedouin were. Both men understood that it would be a long, miserable day before it was safe to move after dark.

  As the sun sank in the west, twilight lingered interminably and when they first dared to stir, their muscles ached, making standing an ordeal. Starlight was uncomfortably bright, but there was no moon. Father Benoit discouraged searching for the rappelling lines he knew the Bedouin would remove, if for no other reason than to use the valuable cord in their camp. This forced them to descend along a circuitous route into the valley, making a wide detour around the Bedouin tents, then moving west and working their way back to Tim’s Hyundai SUV, hidden under camouflage netting in the ruts of a dry wadi. If they were lucky, the Israeli operator monitoring the drone overhead would be looking in another direction or perhaps mistake their movement for a feral goat, ibex, or a rare leopard.

  By the time Tim and Benoit reached the valley floor, there was little doubt that they had been spotted. The drone not only flew in their direction, but circled above, ominously drawing smaller circles like a hawk targeting its prey. Even with the cover of night, they could not traverse enough ground to retrieve the SUV before dawn. This unwelcome development required another change of plans: ten more hours hiding during the day and moving only after dark. They were exhausted, ravaged by thirst, encrusted in dirt, and suffering from pain in their joints, but their spirits soared with achievement.

  Once back in the SUV, Tim drove Father Benoit to the Greek Orthodox Monastery of St. George near Jericho, where Benoit sometimes retreated for meditation and prayer. The Dominican priest then planned to drive Tim's vehicle to Bethlehem and hide it on property abandoned by Christian Palestinians who, six months before, had fled from sectarian violence in their neighborhood to join relatives in Northern California.

  "I'll need a computer and some heavy-duty digital equipment," Tim told Benoit while driving to the monastery. "With the right machines I can get started scanning and coding these fragments. The sooner I begin, the sooner we’ll know what we’ve found."

  "Make a list for the abbot at St George’s, Father Nicholas Afanasieff. I’ll see that everything you need is sent as soon as possible."

  "What if I must contact you?" asked Tim.

  "Don't," the Dominican answered in an uncompromising tone that precluded further discussion. "As soon as the Israelis learn a cave's been fleeced, they'll come looking for me. Hopefully, without photos from the drone that's been dogging us. Stay under the radar, mon ami. When you've got this stuff in digital format, I'll come to you."

  ***

  JERUSALEM

  Not more than a meter and a half tall, Dr. Shimshon haLevi, an army surgeon in a commando regiment before joining the police force as a forensic pathologist, stood on a 30-centimeter footstool, working over a corpse in Jerusalem's police morgue. He would have skipped the removal of skin from the skull of his cadaver had it not been for a desire to impress the border-police officer beside him, Rav-seren “Major“ Zvi Zabronski.

  "Feeling all right?" the pathologist asked without removing his eyes from the body.

  "Let's put it this way," answered Zabronski as he rocked back on his heels to combat mounting nausea in his stomach, "I wouldn't want to be eating lunch now."

  "If you feel sick, step away. Me? I got used to this sort of thing. The boys I worked on in the army were a
mess, if they were lucky enough to stay alive."

  "I'll make it," said Zabronski, his balding head shining in the Halogen spot-light as he tested his resolve by forcing himself to bend far over the corpse. "The report says that Bedouins brought this fellow to Jericho last night. When one kinsman kills another, they don't come to the police. I can tell you right now, Doctor, this guy wasn't killed by another Bedouin."

  "So why did they bring him?" the pathologist asked, while glancing to Zabronski, his enlarged owlish eyes blinking through perfectly round spectacles.

  "They think he was killed by an outsider and they want us to find out who. Notice anything unusual?"

  "Not much of his face to work with. You can see how jackals gnawed at his facial muscles where I found a bullet lodged in the jawbone. Bedouin youth, in his late teens. Exposed to the elements for two days, I'd say."