by Jeff Spence
Now he was working in a little university in Bolt, Indiana, barely making it on his salary, carrying the burden of massive student loans without the corresponding Wall-Street income. Not that he minded much; he was doing what he loved and, between the salary and the publishing, he was getting by. Just.
The obligatory twenty minutes came and went and Ben moved, with the evening’s entourage in tow, to "The Far Side," the campus lounge just down the hall from the auditorium. He didn't notice the quiet figure of a man in a golf shirt and thousand-dollar shoes sidling along behind them.
A few of the more conservative attendees stopped at the lounge entrance, and three of those remaining each hurried off to buy him a drink, which suited him fine, and the atmosphere slowly shed any vestiges of the formal. A couple of his students were in the room, and several others in after some sporting event or other. A good mix. A few free drinks. A good end to a decent evening.
As Ben seated himself at a table, three questioners sliding in beside him, a beautiful woman walked by, wafting the subtle scent of flowery soap, or perfume. Had she given him a look? Yes, maybe she had. Maybe not yet the end of the evening, he thought, and maybe more than just decent…
Marina walked toward the stage. Midway across the dance floor she was firmly taken by the hand, and led behind her date. Barry was a good enough guy, but the possessiveness was getting old. Insecurity was never an attractive trait. She pulled her arm back, breaking his grip, and he turned on her.
"Seriously, Barry, what's your problem?"
"My problem? You're kidding me, right?"
"No. I'm not. What is it with you?"
"You can't see every guy in here ogling you?"
"Why is that my problem? They can look if they want, Barry, I'm here with you." She tried to sound encouraging, soothing even.
"Yeah, well how many of them have you been here with before?"
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me." He took her hand again.
"Not enough of them, asshole, not enough." She yanked her arm out of his grip, turned, and stormed off, leaving him scowling after her. She made a beeline for the bar.
She had been with that kind of guy before, the kind who couldn't handle being with a woman that other men wanted. Enough. No more. It wasn't her fault that men liked the way she looked. Since when was pretty a crime? Things had been on the line with Barry for a while, but this was the last straw. She was a strong woman, she reminded herself, confident and independent. She could do what she wanted, and she deserved a man with his own confidence, not some overgrown boy with an inferiority complex.
The man in the golf shirt and expensive shoes stepped aside as the woman reached the bar. He let her pass, taking a generous look as he did so, and walked back toward Ben's table. He hadn't wanted to be out late, but the purpose of the evening was a few quiet words with the professor. That wasn't going to happen for a while yet, so he bought a double of the best Scotch the place had, which was not saying much, and made his way to the table. He had play it aloof, let the eager beavers annoy the man a bit, then settle in for a good, educated discussion.
He had come a long way for this, to see if Ben Gela was the kind of man he was looking for. He shuddered as the sound system squealed and a trio of shaggy-looking twenty-somethings took to the stage. Considering what he was putting up with, he certainly hoped Ben was the one. An hour later, he was still sitting there, nursing the same scotch, watching the young professor gyrate around the dance floor with a woman ten years his junior.
Ben was having a great time. The woman who had walked past him earlier, the one who smelled so nice, was giving him the bedroom eyes and writhing her torso closer and closer to him. He had never been great with women, it had always been a matter of alcohol and luck. Tonight seemed to have both. He leaned in, moving to the throb of the band, and she did it. She just grabbed his head on either side and planted a long, sensuous kiss on his lips, bringing her body in to meet his in a kind of bewildered embrace.
That was when the fight broke out.
Barry took three long strides onto the dance floor, his bubbling rage bursting through what control he had left, and he shoved Marina away from Ben. His first swing missed entirely as Ben staggered out of range, his second met Ben's shoulder as the professor attempted a dodge to the side, his shock preventing any type of purposeful dodge.
Barry cocked his arm back for a third when a big man in khakis and a dark blue sport jacket grasped his wrist with one arm and gave him a sharp punch to the kidney. He then grabbed Barry around the chest and lifted him, gasping and stunned, until his feet left the ground. A second sport-jacket helped Ben to his feet and ushered him quickly through the side door, opened a moment before by the clanging impact of Barry's forehead.
Behind them both came the expensive shoes, gratefully leaving the untouched scotch behind. The exit door shut with a third sport jacket remaining just inside the establishment, halting the progress of any amateur muscle the lounge might employ. No such muscle followed.
In the alley, Ben was aware of a few quick blows, delivered against the man who had just assaulted him, and then the sound of a vehicle pulling up with a short squeal of tires. In a moment he was placed, firmly but without violence, into the softest leather seat he had ever felt. A back seat. The man in the golf shirt stepped in from the other side and sat beside him.
The vehicle lurched away from the curb, leaving the sport jackets behind with their doubled-over charge.
THREE
Gulam Thoma turned off the screen on his phone and leaned back in his chair. He picked up his tiny coffee cup and tipped the thick liquid through, under his full moustache. He thrummed his fingers on the cracked leather couch and looked around the room, as if the answer lay somewhere among those possessions he had had for so many years, and with which he had become so familiar.
Adesh Dhawan had worked for him for a little more than a year. Book-keeping, at first. Some software systems and upgrades for the office. But most of all, the young Indian immigrant kept an eye on the world of black market antiquities. It had started out as an hour here or there, after work, scanning the Deep Web for items of interest for sale. The young man had a gift: he was genius with a computer. Soon it was the majority of what he did for Thoma, and the textile manufacturer had hired a second man to do the general accounting.
Thoma’s passion was not for cloth, but for artefacts, the ancient items handled by the great merchant-lords of ages past. The wealth didn’t interest him, not primarily, anyway, but rather the connection of his fingers touching the very surfaces that theirs had, so long ago. As a businessman himself, he felt a brotherhood with those others. Had he been born in a different time, he was sure, he would have stood among them, shared their lavish meals and imparted his own wisdom into the polite commercial conversations, the informal cabal that ruled the world behind the facade of every throne. But he was here, and he was now, and so few around him understood the deep value of what he did. It was more than making cloth and selling it on at a profit. It was more than simple two plus two equals four, and a nicer car, and a bigger home. It was history. It was being a part of history.
There were many items of interest on the Black Markets of the Middle East, and more than a few of them were priceless Muslim artefacts pillaged by the Americans and their allies in the bloody battles around Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State was taking ground though, and perhaps soon there would be peace again.
The Caliphate was an idea that appealed to Gulam Thoma. He believed in the supremacy of Islam and the rightful place of Allah, and his prophet Mohammed. Peacefully, if possible, but by force if necessary. The Americans were certainly making the peaceful solution difficult. He saw the new jihadists as a potential solution. A hard face to set itself against the hard face of the western invaders. Perhaps this Islamic State business could bring Islamic ideals into reality. He would welcome the group, if they could do such things. Support them even.
After all, he was not without
influence.
His eyes followed the flat surface of one wall, noting the beautiful items that broke up its emptiness. A fragment of Arabic writing was framed and mounted, the beautiful calligraphy over four hundred years old, the poetry it recorded even older. There was an ancient decorative tile from somewhere near the Dome of the Rock, the great Islamic Mosque on the Temple Mount, where the stone lies from which, it is said, Mohammed ascended to heaven upon the back of a winged horse. There was a sword, long and curved, that was said to have shed blood in the great battles led by Saladin in the times of the Infidel Crusades, when murderous Christians came in waves to take Jerusalem in the name of their Jewish Christ.
Both religions disgusted him, the death-cult of those who worshiped Jesus as a god, wearing an instrument of execution around their necks like it was a thing of beauty, rather than a tool of shame and death. Most of them didn't even realise it. And the Jews… he had no adequate words for the Jews. He did not feel any guilt at his disgust; he knew most of them hated him back. The centuries of conflict made such sentiments unnecessary anyway. They were well known by all. It didn’t matter to him when it had started, of even by whom. It was as it was in his lifetime. How it was in the lifetimes of others was of little concern and even less help.
On his eyes went, to the other two walls within his field of view, soaking in with pleasure the history and religious meaning each of these items had for him. Jewelled broaches and brittle sandals, pieces of armour and frames around faded maps.
Even, placed away from main attention in the corners, ivory carvings of the Dome of the Rock and of the Hajj at Mecca, the closest Thoma came to allowing obvious graven images in his home. It was art. It was ancient. It was, perhaps, worthy of some small exception in the name of glorifying Islam and the places where Mohammed entered life and was lifted up from the earth.
These things were his heritage, and his pride.
In times of stress, they brought comfort.
The call from Adesh Dhawan had troubled him. A cyber-theft from the likes of Leonard Kantor? Some kind of ancient document. "Palestine" noted in the file name. It seemed that something big was in the works in the world of black market antiquities, and that the very biggest players were already in the ring. He did not like that he had not been informed before, that he had no invitation or indication that something might be available. The Christians or the Jews, then, he thought to himself, Squabbling over something they think I don't want… or that they think I have no right to.
He poured himself another cup of strong, Turkish coffee, dropping two cubes of sugar into the tiny cup. Well, it might be nothing to me, his mind went on. But he wanted to decide so for himself.
He poured the coffee into his mouth in one, fluid movement, then sat up straight, placing his hands on his knees. He would pray — it was almost his usual time — and then he would buy a nice bouquet of flowers for his wife. Perhaps a golden bracelet. He might find that he needed some extra financing again soon. It did not hurt to be in the good books with his wife. A good woman.
A woman who held the heart and ear of her very rich elder brother.
FOUR
Marina made a move to follow the men through the doorway, but stopped herself when she saw the wall of muscle step in front of it and turn to face inward. No way through without a fight then. Well, she had had to fight grown men before, and she might be be able to take him, depending on his training and experience, but there might be an easier way. Bratislav had always taught her to find the easiest way to do difficult things. Save energy and resources for later needs. Unexpected challenges.
She turned and exited into the main hallway, back toward the lecture hall, and then cut through a side passage and out a fire escape. A quick detour around the outer perimeter of the lounge, ten yards down the road to a gap in the hedge between the parking lot and the alley, and she was there.
But she was alone.
The man in the expensive shoes leaned forward and offered Ben his hand, "Greg Bass. You can call me Bass, good to meet you."
Ben hesitated a moment, the fog from his few drinks clearing a bit with the shock of the fight and the fresh air.
"Uh, hello, I'm Ben Gela."
"Yes I know, I was at the lecture earlier. That was good stuff."
"Thank you — I mean for helping me out at the lounge. That was you. That helped me out?"
"Yes, with a couple of friends to help me."
"Friends?"
"Sure, kind of." There was a short, discomfiting pause. "Employees. Look Ben… may I call you Ben? Good. You see Ben, I have a special interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls, some more than others. I also understand that you're an expert in one of the more enigmatic documents…"
"The Copper Scroll?"
"Yes, that's the one. What can you tell me about it?"
Ben took a steadying breath and paused a moment. The transition from combat to casual academic conversation was a bit rockier for him than it apparently was for the man sitting calmly beside him in the car. He was safe now though; the fight was over. He could muster up the strength needed to speak, to thank this interested stranger for helping him out of what would otherwise have been a sound beating, at the least; Barry was a big guy.
"I suppose I could tell you a lot of things," he began, "It would be easier though, if I knew what you know first, so I know where to start."
"Alright. I know it's technically called Scroll 3Q15, and that it's a list of clues, or directions, and a list of treasure. I know that some think it is a kind of map that leads to the lost treasures of the Jerusalem temple. I've read it of course, in English, and a few articles about it, including yours."
Ben nodded. He had met these men before: treasure hunters, thinking that a few bucks and a few days would break the code and bring them to a vast treasure hoard. These same men tended not to consider that the country in question wouldn’t simply let them load up the gold and silver and fly out of the place, to pile it up in their own living rooms ad roll in it, or whatever these guys did with their money. Ben didn’t mind the fantasies, he had even had a few of his own in the early years, but it was something that had grown dull with repetition, at conference after conference. He had need to bring this guy, gently, back down to earth if he could.
"Then you also know that no one knows the location of where the clues start, for the most part, and that it is believed that the treasure, if it ever existed, was found and taken a long time ago… that none of it has ever been found in modern times?"
Bass smiled. "Yes, I know that."
"So your interest?"
"Well, to be clear, my interest is not so much in the Copper Scroll itself." Ben waited. "My interest is more in this…"
Bass reached out and pulled a photograph from a leather folder tucked into the seat-back pocket in front of him. Ben looked at it. It took a moment for him to realise that what he was looking at was not the Copper Scroll itself, but something very much like it, a different colour maybe, but very much like it.
"Silver," Bass said to the unasked question. "The twenty black market scrolls you mentioned in your speech — it's actually twenty-four, to my count. This is one of the four that haven't been talked about… not much, anyway. Much nicer than the more public items. Much harder to see."
"And you have this? Is it authentic?" Ben took the photo from Bass’s hand and held it up close to his face, in the glow of the dome light, trying to read the faint hints of letters, hammered into the silver sheet, the backward impressions only just visible on the outer surface of the rolled up metal.
"Yes, it is authentic, or seems so to the notable experts I had look at it, at the university."
"The university?"
"Columbia. I work with them a little, some philanthropy here and there and they let me hang around the antiquities department, get in on some museum events, that kind of thing. You know, pretend I'm one of them a bit. One of you, I should say. If I acquire something of note, I let them in on it, lend it to the museum so it
gets enjoyed and appreciated by as many people as possible." He smiled, shrugging off this personal indulgence in philanthropy as if it was the normal thing to do.
Ben was skeptical. He knew of similar billionaire antiquities collectors who were less than moral in their handling of items, smuggling stolen artefacts into the States for museums of the Bible, buying and publishing items for tax write-offs, and other means by which they signalled virtue to the unknowing public, all the while pillaging priceless archeological sites and destroying the academic value of irreplaceable treasures.
"Have there been any efforts to open it up? The Copper Scroll caused some problems. The metal was so brittle."
Bass nodded. He knew the story. In the end the Copper Scroll had been cut several times, divided into sections, like toilet paper tubes cut in half lengthwise. Once opened, the scholars deciphered its ancient text and eventually made public the document's amazing claims: its treasure-troves and the clues by which to find them.
"It's been cut, like the other."
Ben frowned a little. "The photos don't look cut. They look flat."
"Computers," Bass smiled, shrugging his shoulders as if the machines were a total mystery to him, "They did something to the photo scans."
"The Copper Scroll was thought to be the only scroll of its kind. The only one hammered into metal, I mean, aside from an inscribed pendant or two. If this thing is real, it's a huge find. Who do you have working on the text itself?"
"No one."
"No one?!"
"No one, but I do have an expert in mind. I was hoping, actually, that you…"
Ben took a moment before his mind could take in what was being offered him. His eyes intent on the Cadillac emblem embroidered in the seat back in front of him, while the rest of his mind was busy trying to take in the drastic changes through which this evening had taken him thus far.
