The 13th Enumeration

by William Struse

  Zane had not realized it until he left home for the first time, but there was a spirit of peace in his parents’ home. There was no undercurrent of tension or conflict. They simply enjoyed each other’s company, enjoyed what they did, and enjoyed their interaction with their customers. To be sure there were days with challenges, but they were solved with grace, dignity, and a spirit of love. Zane was beginning to understand just how rare true peace and contentment were in the world.

  He arrived at the dig site late in the evening. As soon as he drove into the parking lot, he could tell the dig was winding down. Only half a dozen tents remained, and there were no volunteer tents in sight. The dig site itself had no one working it, and only a small pile of debris remained to be sifted. Next to the sifting tables, a small mountain of dirt and rocks waited to be hauled up the hill to the dump site.

  After parking his car, he headed down to the staff camp area. It was empty of people as far as he could see. Walking toward Rachael’s tent, he helloed. No one answered. From the main common tent he heard several voices, so he headed that way. In the dimming light, he walked up to the door of the tent and looked in. Around a small table sat Efran, William Flinders, Rachael, and several other members of the dig team.

  Looking up, Rachael was the first to smile and say, “Hello, Mr. Harrison! You have been sorely missed.” The rest of the team welcomed him as well. Even Efran acted as though he was glad to see the young man. Rachael continued, “Your girl-barrow has been lonely since you have been gone.”

  Laughing, Zane replied, “By the size of the piles you have left, I can tell!” Everyone around the table laughed. By now, the entire team except Efran called the full-sized wheelbarrow the girl-barrow. It had become the dig mascot of sorts.

  “So did I miss anything exciting?” Zane asked. He could tell by the disappointed faces around the table that nothing new had been discovered. The disappointment on Efran’s face was especially obvious.

  “Nothing new since the Levi stone,” Rachael replied. “We were just discussing what still needs to be done to wrap up this dig. As you can see out there, we have a couple weeks of hauling left. We’d like to completely wrap this up by mid-August. The rest of the staff will be leaving in the next couple of days, and I have volunteered to stay behind and finish hauling the loads.” Indicating her associates at the table, she continued in mock scorn, “My teammates here all seem to have excuses as to why they cannot stay and help me finish moving the debris. I hope I can count on your help?”

  “Actually, Miss Neumann, that is what I stopped by to tell you.” Zane paused with an apologetic look on his face. “ You see, I, well . . .” He hesitated as if embarrassed to speak.

  “You’re not staying?” Rachael tried to hide her disappointment, but it didn’t work well. She had been looking forward to Zane’s company for the past couple of months. It wasn’t until he left that she realized how much she had enjoyed having him around.

  Zane was surprised to see the disappointment in Rachael’s eyes, so he thought he’d better end his joke prematurely. “As I was saying, Miss Neumann, I am reporting for girl-barrow duty. I will be ready first thing in the morning.”

  Now, with a warm light returning to her eyes—the sort of light men since the beginning of time had moved mountains for—Rachael smiled. “Glad to know I can count on you, Mr. Harrison.”

  Zane found his old camping spot. After a few minutes of cleaning and leveling, he had a place for his tent.

  Setting up his tent and getting everything organized took only a few minutes. Satisfied, he climbed out, sat on his favorite little perch, and watched the final glimmer of light fade in the west. He was glad to be back. There was something he felt here that he didn’t feel anywhere else. He didn’t know if it was physical, spiritual, or mental. Maybe it was a combination of all three. After an hour just sitting, he turned in for the evening. He knew he would need his strength for tomorrow.

  * * *

  The next morning, with renewed enthusiasm Zane walked down to the sifting tables and piles of debris. Rachael was by herself working over one of the tables.

  “Good morning,” she called as he approached. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Very well, thank you,” he replied with a smile. “You weren’t kidding about your help. This place looks deserted.”

  “Yes, you and I will be the only ones left working after today. Tomorrow Efran and the rest of the team will be leaving.”

  Zane looked over at the large pile of debris. “Well, I guess I’d better get started. That mountain isn’t going to move itself.”

  Rachael, a mischievous light in her eyes, replied, “O ye of little faith.” She indicated the wheelbarrow over by the pile. “I finally mastered your wheelbarrow trick last week. I can drive it with one hand for a few paces. With more practice I’ll be able to go farther. I found it takes just the right combination of strength and balance.”

  Zane laughed. “You’ve been working on it since you wrote me?”

  “No, since before you left. I started trying the first night after you turned my joke back on me.”

  With a thoughtful look of respect, Zane walked over to the one-wheeled chariot. Taking a shovel, he filled the girl-barrow and started off with his first load. By the time he made it up the hill, he knew he was in for some real work. It was now substantially hotter than when he had been here in the spring, and he was sweating profusely. He decided he’d better carry some water so he could stay hydrated.

  The ravine they had been dumping in was almost filled. Again, the only boot tracks he saw were Rachael’s. This young woman was an enigma. To all outward appearances she was an attractive, serious, yet pleasant young woman. She didn’t try to act tough in a way that undermined her femininity. Yet she obviously could outwork any man he knew. If someone had pointed Rachael Neumann out on the street and said she had hauled one hundred tons of dirt up a hill in a wheelbarrow, he would have told them they were crazy. Yet, that was exactly what his eyes told him she had done in the past several months. Shaking his head, he turned back down the trail.

  At the pile, he once more wandered over to Rachael’s table. She looked up with a smile on her face and said, “How are you and the girl-barrow getting along?”

  “Fine,” he replied. “We’re getting to know each other again. It sure is a lot hotter than when I was here in the spring.”

  “About twenty degrees hotter, on average. Make sure you drink plenty of water.” Indicating several bottles of water on one of the empty screening tables, she said, “I drink several of those a day at this time of year. Feel free to take some. I refill them each evening from the camp water supply.”

  “I noticed some familiar boot tracks up the trail. Did you haul all of that debris up there by yourself since I’ve been gone?”

  Blushing, she replied, “No, not all of it . . . I did have some help.”

  “Not much, if your boot tracks are any indication.”

  With just a touch of defensiveness in her voice she replied, “What if I did haul it all up there? What difference would it make?”

  “It wouldn’t make any difference at all to me. It’s just an impressive accomplishment. Not many people would have the guts to see that kind of work through, that’s all.”

  “You mean not many women would have the guts to see it through.”

  “No,” Zane replied, looking directly at her, “I mean not many people. What you’ve done up there takes more than just physical strength. It takes an indomitable spirit, and that has nothing to do with one’s sex.” Walking off, he grabbed a couple of water bottles and once again filled his girl-barrow and headed up the hill.

  Thoughtfully, Rachael watched him go. She knew she had just been given a great compliment. Zane Harrison sure didn’t act his age. Most young men would be intimidated by what she had done and as a consequence would try to hide it by teasing her about her strength or accomplishment. But instead of teasing, he had paid her respect—not just for the physical accompli
shment, but for something deeper. Zane Harrison had kept her off balance since she had met him. The problem, she decided, was not with him but with her. She expected him to act like other young men.

  Right then, Rachael decided to take Zane Harrison at face value and let her guard down. She would not try to hide what she could do or who she was. If he was the man he appeared to be, he would not be intimidated by her just being herself. After all, she was her mother’s daughter.

  Chapter 62

  Tel Aviv, Israel

  At six fifty-five a.m., David was waiting outside the entrance to his hotel. His room was modest and clean. He had slept fairly well and felt ready to go. It was a warm morning in August, and David leaned against a pillar which supported the entrance to the hotel lobby. At precisely seven o’clock, Ms. Ulatowski pulled into the hotel parking lot. David waited, unmoving, as she drove up. He let a small frown show around his lips as he opened the door to the small compact car. Clearly, Ms. Ulatowski was not satisfied that she had punished him enough. He wondered what she would do if he opened the door and tore out the front seat. At least then he would be able to sit in the back and stretch his feet without feeling like a small dead fish in a can of oil.

  Climbing into the front seat, David again folded himself into as small a package as he could. “Glad to see you brought your sardine can on wheels,” he said.

  With a faint smile she replied, “Good morning, Mr. Johnson. Glad to see you in such a fine humor today.” Pulling out of the parking lot, she turned north and headed to Mossad headquarters.

  After going through the various checkpoints and security checks, they once again entered the building. This time, Ms. Ulatowski headed to a bank of elevators off the main lobby and pressed the button for basement level one. Once the elevator doors opened, she turned left and led them down a long corridor. At an unmarked door, she swiped her security card and entered another small office. Behind a desk to one side sat a middle-aged secretary. Straight ahead was a set of double doors guarded by a muscular soldier with an alert, piercing gaze. The soldier asked to see their identification. Once he was satisfied, he pushed a hidden button allowing them entrance.

  On the other side of the doors was a large room filled with desks and monitors. The people in the room went about their business with a seriousness which matched the importance of their work. He could almost feel the life-and-death struggle in which they were involved. At one end of the room was a wall of monitors playing live video feeds from various locations.

  Ulatowski directed David to the conference room just to the right of the wall of monitors, where several people were already gathering. He was shown a seat. For several minutes people filtered into the room until, with a rush just at the end, it filled and Marcus Nayat entered. Marcus gave the morning briefing. Indicating David, he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a guest here with us this morning from the FBI. Please show Mr. Johnson the proper courtesy. He will be with us for a few days at the request of the chief.”

  David sat through the briefing taking mental notes. Director Hughes had given him specific instructions to learn what he could. The Mossad were the best at what they did, and this was a rare opportunity to see how they worked.

  After the morning briefing, an aide to Marcus filled David in on the details of their investigation. He explained the sewer-system communication network and their surveillance of it. They had finished their own magnetic snare just two days ago, and it had trapped one of the leaden flash drives already. A tech was on-site 24/7 to open the flash drives and insert tracking devices. This first time, they had successfully inserted the tracking device in the flash drive and had it back in the sewer line in just under forty-five minutes.

  The aide directed David over to a large map visible on a wall monitor. Small red circles marked different locations on the board.

  “The red circles represent the locations where the sewer capsules have originated. The yellow circles represent the locations of the computers you provided us with. As you can see, several of the addresses match with locations we have under surveillance.”

  Pointing to a blue dot on the electronic map, he said, “This is the location where the leaden capsules are trapped by an electromagnet. The building houses a bakery, and its proprietor is the facilitator who transfers the electronic flash drives to a courier.” Pointing to a red dot on the map, he continued, “This is a public restroom where several messages have originated.” Pointing to one red dot after another he said, “The suspect here is a low-level official in the Israeli Defense forces. Here is a professor of Islamic studies. Here a cleric in a local mosque. Here an official with the Antiquities Authority. Right now, we have teams going through the background of each of the contacts you gave us. As we speak, we are setting up surveillance on contacts who have been identified by our mutual information. Make yourself at home, but you are not to leave this operations center without an escort.”

  Nodding, David thanked him. To be given access to an operations command center without someone looking over his shoulder was an incredibly rare opportunity which he intended to make the most of.

  As he walked around, few people made eye contact. Those who did greeted him with a nod or other professional acknowledgment. Of the seventeen people in the room, not a single one was idle. Impressive, David said to himself. He spent the morning and most of the afternoon just watching, so engrossed he did not even notice the passage of time. At four p.m., Ms. Ulatowski arrived to take him back to his hotel.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Ulatowski. I didn’t even realize it was so late. Do you think you could ask your boss if I could stay for the night shift? I really find your operations engrossing.”

  She hesitated. She had been given a job to do, and his request was not on the itinerary. Walking over to a phone, she pushed a button, and after two rings a voice answered. “Sir, Mr. Johnson would like to stay for the night shift. What are your orders? Yes, sir . . . yes, sir, I will tell him.” Turning to David she said, “You can stay, but you may not leave this operations center. There is a vending machine in the lobby over there, and I am sure you have found the restrooms by now. I am to pick you up at seven a.m. tomorrow and take you back to your hotel whether you like it or not.”

  When she left, David settled back into a comfortable chair and just watched the team work. The massive electronic status board was continually updated as new information was developed. The board was divided into columns from top to bottom. At the head of each column was the name and address of a current suspect, along with a picture if they had one. There were only five pictures when he entered the room this morning, and now there were nine. Each new piece of relevant information was added to a bullet under the picture. Each workstation could access the same information as on the board, but when they clicked on the bullet, a whole new level of detailed information would open.

  One of the reasons David wanted to stay for the night shift was that he wanted to see one of those sewer capsules get caught in the magnetic snare. The ingenious system had been explained to him, but he wanted to see it for himself. He could always sleep when he got back to the States. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he wasn’t going to waste one second of it.

  Chapter 63

  Capernaum, Israel

  Zane worked the morning away hauling loads of debris. At lunch break, he ate a meager meal of beef jerky, an apple, and some crackers, all washed down with a fair amount of water. After lunch was over, he again took up his wheelbarrow and started hauling loads up the hill. Every fourth load, he exchanged the bottle he carried in the wheelbarrow for a full one. The work would have been almost unbearable if he had not been used to the temperature. Tucson, Arizona, was about the same latitude as Galilee. Having lived in a desert environment most of his life, Zane knew he could become dehydrated very quickly.

  It was late afternoon, and Zane was on his way back from his eleventh trip. He had just dumped his load and was enjoying the easy walk back down the trail when he heard an u
nusual bird call out of the bushes. Looking to see, he tripped and fell on the trail. His water bottle was the only thing in the wheelbarrow at the time, but it went flying. With an exasperated groan, he watched the water bottle roll down the trail into a dense tangle of thornbushes and wild olive trees. Walking around the bushes, he looked for a painless way into the thorn tangle. He thought for a second about just leaving it, but no, he’d never been one to leave trash behind and he did not intend to start now.

  On the back side of the tangle of bushes and thorns, away from the trail, he found a narrow path and made his way into the dense growth. He found his water bottle just as it was emptying its final precious contents onto the ground. When he reached down to grab it, he noticed the water was not puddling on the ground but instead was just disappearing. Desert sand always sucked up water fast, but this was even more extreme than usual.

  As he knelt closer to investigate, he heard a muffled sound as if water were splashing onto a hard surface deep under the ground. Was there some underground cavity here?

  With his hands, Zane brushed the dirt where his water had disappeared. Under a shallow covering of dirt and sand, he found a hard rock surface. Brushing further, he found the straight edge of a large stone. More interested now, he followed the edge of the stone, brushing the dirt away as he went. After about twelve inches he found a square corner. It too led to another straight edge and ended in a corner.

  Both corners of this stone were almost perfect ninety-degree angles. With serious interest and growing excitement, Zane uncovered two more sides and found an almost perfect square stone twenty-four inches on each side. Zane was not a trained archeologist, but he knew perfectly square stones were not a common occurrence in nature. This stone had been cut by the hand of man. Beneath it was some sort of hollow cavity or void.