by Adam Palmer
‘And what were they? Animal bones?’
‘No… human.’
‘What, like… recent? I mean… new bones?’
‘No… they said they were old. Very old.’
‘And what happened to them?’ asked Goliath.
‘They were taken to the University of Jordan to do some tests on them.’
‘And?’ asked Gabrielle.
‘That was the funny thing. I asked the professor from the university afterwards and he didn’t want to talk about it. He told me not to ask about it ever again. I think he was afraid of something.’
‘Who was he?’ asked Gabrielle.
‘The professor? His name was Fikri – Hakim Fikri.’
He put the linen-wrapped package on the floor of the cave and carefully unwrapped it, putting the linen to one side, to reveal a set of tablets made from the red clay of Petra.
‘I think I’ll take that,’ said Goliath, reaching out and grabbing the linen shroud in which the tablets had been wrapped.
‘What are you doing?’ Ibrahim demanded indignantly.
‘I’m going to make the evil usurpers drink the water of death!’
‘You cannot!’ said the Bedouin.
Daniel didn’t understand what Goliath was doing. He had left the tablets and grabbed a torn and ragged piece of cloth. It made no sense. But it made even less sense that Ibrahim was challenging a man nearly twice his size to stop him. He tried to warn the sheikh not to resist, but before he could get more than the first syllable out of his mouth, Goliath had produced the semi-automatic and shot the sheikh, once, twice, three times, a vicious smile on his face, as if he took pleasure in the excess of force.
I should have acted before, Daniel’s mind screamed, cursing himself for his previous indecisiveness. There was no reasoning with this man. He was mentally deranged beyond all logic. But regrets served no purpose. If Daniel was to redeem himself, the time to act was now when his and Gabrielle’s life hung in the balance.
He hurled himself at Goliath, clamping his left arm around him in a headlock and hooking his left leg around Goliath’s right in an effort to wrestle him to the ground. He lacked the strength to bring down the bigger man, but as they twisted this way and that, Goliath’s mobile phone fell from his pocket with a sharp, staccato thud.
Goliath swung the semi-automatic towards Daniel and Daniel intercepted it with his right hand, clamping his fingers across the top and his thumb at the base of the slider that reloads the chamber. The gun discharged a round that ricocheted off the walls of the cave producing a moment of panic before the bullet found a resting place somewhere in the sand outside. But the vice-like grip of Daniel’s hand and the desperate pressure of his thumb prevented the slider from coming back to discharge the empty cartridge and reload the chamber.
With a violent twisting motion, Goliath managed to wrench the gun free from Daniel’s grip; but when he swung it back, aimed at Daniel’s head and squeezed the trigger again, he was greeted by a soft click as the firing pin landed not on a live round but on the empty cartridge of the previous round.
Daniel and Gabrielle were not safe yet. Their deranged enemy could still pull the slider back manually with his right hand. But Goliath wasn’t thinking rationally and he assumed that the gun had jammed or malfunctioned in some way. Besides, he was ultimately reliant on superior strength and brute force to prevail. To this end, he dropped the gun and delivered a vicious punch to Daniel’s face, sending him reeling to the ground, landing next to Gabrielle.
However, before Daniel could think which way to roll or jump, Gabrielle had scooped up a large rock and smashed it into Goliath’s face. A cry of pain rang out from the big man’s throat as he reached out to grab Gabrielle’s wrist. But she pulled back as quickly as she had closed in, retaining possession of the rock. He lunged at her trying to grab the improvised weapon, but Daniel stuck his leg out tripping Goliath so that he landed on the rock floor of the cave with a terrific thud.
Without a trace of hesitation, Gabrielle rolled clear. Goliath, for his part, pushed himself up on to his hands and then stood up, turning around in the process.
For a second, Daniel and Goliath eyeballed each other and Daniel wondered if he was dead. Then Goliath smiled at him, turned abruptly and left the cave, still holding the linen shroud.
Daniel watched with puzzlement as the giant disappeared from view. Meanwhile, Gabrielle rolled back into a seated posture gasping for breath.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. I thought he wanted the Book of the Wars of the Lord, not some stupid piece of cloth.’
He looked round at the supine form of the Bedul sheikh, but there was no trace of movement or even breathing.
‘We need to get out of here,’ said Gabrielle, helping Daniel to his feet.
‘What are you talking about? We need to report this.’
‘And we will, only not now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We don’t know how the authorities will react. Two people from Israel and a dead Bedouin sheikh. What do you think they’ll make of it?’
‘But we can’t just run – not again.’
‘We don’t have any choice. Look, at least let’s get out of here for now. That’ll give us time to think. We have to get back to the visitor centre anyway, and the only way back is on foot. It’s too late for him. Let’s get back there and then decide.’
Daniel nodded reluctantly. As they were about to leave the cave, he noticed that Gabrielle had gone over to where Sheikh Ibrahim had put the red clay tablets.
He saw immediately the writing on the first tablet. It was Proto-Sinaitic.
‘The Book of the Wars of the Lord,’ said Daniel.
Gabrielle nodded and carefully put them into Goliath’s carrier bag.
‘This is what we came for,’ she said.
‘I’m not sure if that’s the most important thing right now,’ said Daniel.
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Gabrielle.
‘That man killed your uncle and several other people and tried to kill us for something. If it wasn’t for those tablets or the Book of the Straight, then what on earth was it for?’
Chapter 90
‘What the hell do you think you were playing at?’
Dov Shamir had flown in from Herzliya by helicopter and asked Sarit to join him there so that he could talk with her in private. It wasn’t every day that someone was murdered in the National Library or that a helicopter landed in the grounds of the Hebrew University, so the whole scene had already attracted a certain amount of attention.
When he had first arrived in the lab, he had found Sarit looking remarkably calm considering what she had just been through. She had been about to throw her arms around him, but he gave her a look that warned her off; he didn’t want their romance becoming any more public than it was already. There was a certain amount of whispering about it in Mossad – that was in the nature of things where female officers were concerned and even non-existent romances assumed the aura of reality in the tight-knit world of intelligence – but he wanted to keep a lid on it as far as possible.
‘I’d like to speak to her alone,’ Dov had said to the senior police officer at the scene, flashing his ID in time with the request.
‘Of course.’ The officer signalled the other police there to let them leave unhindered. Only once they were inside the helicopter, where they had complete privacy, did Dov give vent to the full force of his anger… and his concern.
‘After you told me about Aryeh Tsedaka, I figured he’d come here.’
‘Who, Sarit? Figured who’d come here?’
‘Whoever killed Tsedaka.’
‘And I told you that was the business of the General Security Services, not Mossad.’
‘Not any more it isn’t. They’ve gone to Petra.’
‘What are you talking about?’
She explained about the body and the message that the high priest had left for
them, written in his own blood.
‘That still doesn’t explain why you came here in the first place.’
‘I was worried that we were going to lose them. I guess I feel bad because I cocked up in Egypt. I wanted to make up for it.’
‘And it didn’t occur to you that stepping on the toes of GSS out here might cock it up even more?’
‘If I’d seen any sign of GSS I’d’ve backed off, but I didn’t. Look, it seems to me that GSS aren’t exactly on top of the situation.’
He didn’t like the way she had turned the tables on him like that. But what she had said was true.
‘The fact is, now that we’ve got ourselves involved, it gives them leverage for blaming us.’
‘Is that what this is about, Dovi? Inter-service fucking rivalry?’
‘It’s politics, Sarit. Something you have the luxury of not having to deal with!’
‘All right. Look, I’m sorry I jumped the gun and didn’t tell you what I was doing. But the fact is it’s a whole different ball game now. He’s gone to Petra and he’s got two hostages with him.’
‘I know that. I’ll get on to our contacts in Amman.’
‘Why don’t you send me out there? To work with them?’
‘Look, Sarit, I’m not going to send you to Jordan, okay? That’s final! We’ve got a liaison office out there to deal with that. I can’t send unauthorized officers without clearance from the Jordanian government – not after some of the other cock-ups we’ve had in that area.’
‘So get authorization. Tell them it’s an emergency – for them as well as us.’
‘I can’t do that, Sarit,’ he said, his tone almost apologetic.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re suspended.’
‘Suspended?’
‘Yes, suspended. I don’t even want to see you in the office! God knows how I’m going to clear up this mess.’
He looked at her, wondering what her reaction was going to be.
‘So what am I supposed to do? Just sit around doing nothing?’
‘You’re due for some leave anyway. Why don’t you spend some time at that kibbutz in the Galilee? The one where they have that great fish restaurant you’re always going on about?’
‘I can’t just sit around. I need some excitement.’
‘I’d’ve thought you’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.’
‘I guess it’s like what we call the hair of the dog. The only cure for too much excitement is more excitement.’
‘Then have an adventure holiday. Do some paragliding in Tel Aviv.’
‘It’s too humid on the Med.’
‘Well, stay in Jerusalem.’
‘I just said I wanted some excitement and you want me to sit out my vacation in the most boring city in Israel?’
He looked at her with a brotherly smile. ‘Are you trying to be difficult?’
‘Not really. I’m just trying to say I feel like doing some scuba diving in Eilat.’
‘Well, at least we’ve found something to occupy your time,’ he said with a sense of relief.
‘Not to mention all the excitement of driving through Palestinian territory and army checkpoints.’
Something in the way she said this alerted Dov.
‘You know… I’m not sure if I can trust you.’
‘What – to go to Eilat? You can if you fly me there in that chopper.’
‘I think I might just do that.’
An hour and a quarter later, the helicopter landed in Eilat at the north end of the airport. Dov saw Sarit into a waiting taxi which would take her to the hotels that were all grouped around the lagoon and the beach. Then he had the helicopter refuelled and took off for Herzliya.
From inside the taxi, Sarit watched the helicopter vanish into the distance before jumping out, apologizing to the taxi driver and dashing to the main building to hire a car with four-wheel drive.
Then she drove to the Yitzhak Rabin terminal on the Israeli side of the border, presented her Irish passport and passed through the Wadi Araba, crossing into Jordan as Siobhan Stewart.
From there, she proceeded north to Petra.
Chapter 91
‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ said Daniel, still in a daze from what had happened as he sat in the driver’s seat of the car outside the visitor centre.
‘Doing what?’
‘Running away. If they find Sheikh Ibrahim’s body back in that cave—’
‘They won’t find it. At least not for a long time.’
‘We can’t just leave him there. His family has a right to know… to give him a decent burial—’
‘Okay, but we need to buy some time.’
‘For what? At the moment we’re just wasting time.’
His heart was still pounding, after both the events at the cave and the long trek back.
‘Well, I for one would like to know what’s in The Book of the Wars of the Lord.’
And with that she took the tablets out of the carrier bag and put them on the space between the seats.
‘We can hardly go through it here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, how long is it?’
‘There are five tablets.’
She picked up the first of them.
‘What’s the hurry?’ he asked irritably. ‘Why don’t we just take it back to Israel?’
‘And what if we’re searched and they catch us trying to smuggle historical artefacts out of Jordan? I don’t know how this is going to pan out, but if we’re arrested now, there’s a chance that we may never see these tablets again. Now I don’t know about you, but if these tablets were written by the hand of the biblical Moses, then I want to see them translated.’
‘Then maybe we should just turn it in to the authorities here.’
‘And never see it again? Remember what Ibrahim said about those bones. They took them to the university and wouldn’t talk about them after that.’
Daniel realized she was right. This was a piece of ancient history they held in their hands. And there was no guarantee that they would get another chance like this.
‘Okay.’
Gabrielle breathed a sigh of relief as Daniel put a large, illustrated guidebook on his lap and then placed the first of the tablets on it. He raised one knee to tilt the tablet slightly to catch the light better and then studied the script.
‘Can you read it?’ she asked.
‘Barely.’
I was fed milk from the breast of an Israeli woman and her son was like a brother to me, more than my brother Sethi, the son of Mernepteh, my King, my Lord whom I served with loyalty despite his wickedness to Israel.
‘Wait a minute,’ he said, breaking off. ‘Can you work out from that who the author might have been?’
Gabrielle gave this a few moments’ thought.
‘Let’s see. He refers to Sethi as his brother. Now there were a number of people called Sethi,’ she said ponderously. ‘But he also calls him the son of Mernepteh! That’s the one who wrote the famous Mernepteh stele that we saw at the museum back in Cairo. So that would make his son Sethi the Second. And that means that this was written by someone called Amenmesse who may or may not have been Sethi the Second’s brother but who was certainly involved in a power struggle with Sethi the Second.’
‘Is there any evidence that this Amenmesse had a Jewish wet nurse?’
‘There’s no record of it. But then again, not much is known about him at all. It certainly wouldn’t have been impossible by any means.’
‘I was just thinking about the story of Moses,’ said Daniel. ‘After his mother hid him in the bulrushes and he was found by Pharaoh’s daughter, his real mother came forward and offered to be his wet nurse.’
‘Then this reference to her other son being more like a brother than Sethi…’ She trailed off.
‘Could be a reference to Moses’ brother Aaron.’
‘Go on,’ she prompted.
The wife of Mernepteh bore a son without
the spirit of life and he asked the priests of Amun what sin he had committed that he be punished in this way and they told him that it was not his sin but that of Shifra the woman who brought the baby out of its mother for she was an Israelite woman and she worshipped false gods. And he had her put to death and he decreed that for one year all the male children of Israel shall be put to death.
They looked at each other, astonished.
‘The slaying of the firstborn son,’ she said. ‘Just like on that papyrus that was found at the same site as the Mernepteh stele.’
‘Not quite,’ said Daniel. ‘The slaying of the firstborn Egyptian son was the last of the ten plagues. However, this refers to Pharaoh’s decree that all the male Israelite babies be put to death – hence the incident with Moses being hidden in the bulrushes. But of course there is an approximate symmetry between the two events and also, I guess, a certain poetic irony.’
‘So it could be that this one event was the source material for both those biblical legends?’
‘I suppose. But does this fit the Egyptian record?’
‘Only that papyrus Mansoor showed us, which was written in Proto-Sinaitic. There’s nothing specific in the annals to confirm it, but that doesn’t rule it out. If you take the line in the Mernepteh stele about “Israel is laid waste, nought of seed” and combine it with the papyrus and now this, then I suppose it counts as a record. How does it continue?’
Daniel read aloud.
An Israelite man had been adopted into the household of the chief of works in the Place of Truth and he was brought before the judge for punishment and the judge decreed that he shall be beaten. And so he begged to put his plea to me. And I heard his plea and I remembered the pain that my brother had inflicted upon his people. So I spared him and I dismissed the judge.
‘Papyrus Salt 124!’ Gabrielle blurted out, letting the excitement get the better of her academic reserve.
‘What’s that?’
‘Remember what we talked about when you were released on bail after my visit to the British Museum? The Place of Truth is the village where the artisans and craftsmen who worked in the necropolis lived.’
