by Craig Smith
Nicodemus had sent servants to request an audience with a precious gift for the prefect's wife, a beautiful ruby pendant on a gold chain. As soon as Pilate saw it, he knew what kind of man he was dealing with and set aside his entire morning for the privilege of a meeting. Additionally, he arranged an honour guard within the great hall to greet Nicodemus and his son. Nicodemus took the assembled guard as his due but was wise enough to add to his gifts, offering with many apologies for its flaws an extraordinary cameo ring for Pilate's wife that featured a man and woman holding hands in silhouette. For Pilate he had 'four children of Solomon' waiting in the courtyard.
At Pilate's look of confusion Nicodemus explained that according to legend the ancient king of the Jews destroyed all of the horses in his kingdom, keeping only four mares, from which he intended to breed a race of horses like no other in the world - a desert animal, as tough as a camel, as quick as a gazelle and nearly as smart as the man who rode him! 'So quite naturally we call them the Children of Solomon. Would you care, Excellency, to see the four I have chosen for you?'
'They are truly magnificent!' Pilate exclaimed, as he admired the animals. Their heads were small and fine, the eyes bright and large, the tail high, the legs thin, the temperament fiery - four grey stallions, their thick manes braided with fine-spun gold laced with teardrops of pearls. 'But you must tell me what I can I do for you that is worth a gift of such magnitude?' he added after a moment of mesmerized admiration.
Nicodemus answered with a diplomat's skill: 'I ask nothing but your friendship, if such a thing is not asking too much.'
Nicodemus entertained Pilate and several other dignitaries at his farm on a number of occasions following that afternoon, sometimes letting the banquets carry on for days - Roman style. He did not cease with giving jewellery, always handed to the husband but with a polite mention of Claudia Procula's name. Along with his eldest son, Nicodemus took Pilate on long rides to show him the extent of his property. At times, he would even venture to advise Pilate as how best to govern Jerusalem, if he wished to avoid conflict.
Simple, really. Pilate, he said, needed to understand that he may have replaced the old priest of the Temple with Caiaphas, but Caiaphas had since married one of Annas's daughters, so he was now a son-in-law. 'As such, Caiaphas commands Jerusalem according to the will of his father-in-law.' The older man smiled at Pilate's consternation. 'Do not imagine,' he added, 'you can appoint another and have anything for your trouble but another marriage. The Roman prefect appoints the priest, but the priest invariably serves the Temple, which belongs to the Sadducees. Keep this thought in mind, as well. When you quarrel with the priests, you quarrel with all of Judaea. When you negotiate successfully with them, then you have negotiated with all of Judaea. Since it will cost you to defy their wishes, it should cost them when you acquiesce. They have the money. They have a great deal, in fact. It is the wise prefect who manages to get them to spend it to his advantage.'
On one of their rides, Nicodemus took Pilate to an arid tract of land and announced that he had acquired it quite recently for a good price. 'Virtually useless most of the year,' Nicodemus observed good-naturedly, 'it is adequate for pasturing goats in early spring. Of course most of them will be killed when the floods come through, but it is a beautiful piece of land otherwise, is it not?'
'Why would you buy such property, Nicodemus?' Pilate asked in astonishment, for it was beautiful, as deserts often were, but utterly useless.
Nicodemus' son answered for his father, 'It wants only water to change everything. A spur from the city's aqueduct could be run out here and this land would feed all of Jerusalem with its yield.'
'More than that. If we had water . . .' Nicodemus began wistfully.
Pilate considered the consequences in Rome of such a project. Tiberius was cruel by necessity; parsimonious by nature. Were he to discover that his prefect had diverted imperial tax money for a project such as this, Pilate would be lucky to escape with his life. He was therefore silent, seemingly a man incapable of understanding what was being asked of him.
'Paying for it,' Nicodemus added thoughtfully, as if comprehending his friend's hesitation, 'that is the real problem.'
'There's enough money in the Temple to build twenty aqueducts, Father,' Nicodemus the younger said.
'No question about that, my son,' Nicodemus answered with the same thoughtfulness, 'but getting them to release the funds is another matter entirely.'
'Perhaps I could speak to Caiaphas,' Pilate answered reluctantly. 'Land such as this - it seems a waste not to make it fertile.'
'Caiaphas will resist you unless you give him what he desires, Prefect.'
'And what is that, Nicodemus?'
Nicodemus smiled. 'What all priests desire, Excellency.'
Caiaphas hesitated when Pilate spoke to him, because, he said, he was not sure money was available. Pilate answered smoothly, having anticipated the objection. 'And there is one additional problem to consider.' The high priest waited expectantly.
'I would need to depend upon you to keep the peace in Jerusalem, as I would be forced to deploy all of my troops from the city for a year or more. In fact, I doubt I would be able to spend even a week in Jerusalem next year if we were to undertake the project. Of course I would make my soldiers available in case of emergency but otherwise, you would have to assume the entire burden of securing the city.'
Caiaphas was not so disingenuous that his eyes did not glisten at the prospect of ridding Jerusalem of the hated legions and taking credit for it in the process, but he repeated his ritualized hesitation. He must speak to the other priests about the matter. 'Have you an estimate of the necessary costs?'
Pilate presented the estimates. A few days later the gold was delivered into his treasury. That completed, Pilate ordered the majority of his troops out of Jerusalem to begin construction, and departed with the rest for Caesarea, a much wealthier man than when he had left it.
The first sign of trouble came later that spring when a protest erupted spontaneously in front of the empty palace of Herod over the matter of the aqueduct spur. Its shadow, the protestors announced, fell across a Jewish cemetery. Pilate could hardly believe it when he received Caiaphas's report of rioting. Attempting to settle feelings that had undoubtedly got out of hand, Pilate wrote to the priest to say that when the sun had changed its position following the spring equinox, the shadow would undoubtedly change as well. The next letter was more urgent. Rioters had broken into the palace, destroying a great deal of property. The aqueduct, they said, must come down or all of Jerusalem would burn.
Pilate ordered his most trusted cohort from the Fretensis Legion into the city disguised as part of the indigenous population. He likewise ordered his Syrian cavalry into the city in the costume of civilians. Finally, he summoned an honour guard under the command of Cornelius and proceeded to Jerusalem. His letter anticipated his arrival by less than forty-eight hours and promised a meeting with any of the population who wished to discuss the matter of the aqueduct with him. Arriving late in the evening, Pilate found most of the palace uninhabitable, or declared it such at any rate, and arranged to meet with those citizens who were concerned about the construction of the aqueduct in the great square before the Temple.
He sat virtually alone the following morning. His interpreter stood next to him along with two of his personal slaves to keep notes. These men were of course unarmed. Cornelius in full military uniform, supported by a dozen of the prefect's personal guard, stood back several paces from Pilate's rostrum. Pilate wore a toga bordered with a thin purple line, the mark of the equestrian class. His sword and dagger were concealed neatly in the folds. He looked into the crowd for faces of the Jews he had seen before, but he recognized no one. They blurred together into a mass of accusation and anger. Certainly, Judas was no longer a spokesman for the radical element within the city, but that was all he could determine. He thought that strange, since men like Judas did not fade quietly into oblivion, but must burn brightly fo
r their hour of glory and then perish utterly. He had hoped this would prove to be the radical Jew's last protest.
He estimated as many as five thousand, the number well above Caiaphas's initial reports. As the priest had indicated, there was no leader, no apparent plan of action. People simply wanted an otherwise forgotten cemetery protected, though it defied all reason how a shadow across a grave could offend the dead. At Pilate's request Cornelius ordered the crowd to silence and the various spokespeople were asked to come forward as a group to explain to Caesar's prefect of Judaea the nature of the problem and their proposal for a solution.
Nearly a hundred men wanted to speak, though most of these merely volunteered for the privilege of shouting abuse at a Roman. Pilate did not begrudge them the pleasure. To his thinking it rather justified what was to follow. Still, as the shouting began to overwhelm Pilate's interpreter and the crowd pressed closer in its fury, Pilate began to grow wary. It was a late spring morning, already too hot to bear. The sun beat down directly on all of them as Pilate attempted to answer the charges in a reasonable and orderly fashion.
Having spoken his defense, a second verbal assault came, this from a young firebrand not much different from Judas - though neither as handsome nor as eloquent. As he spoke his supporters shouted their approval. In their excitement, they did not notice Pilate's men, dressed as Jews and desert travelers, filtering into their midst. There were two issues involved, the firebrand declared, two solutions necessary. First, the Romans must destroy the aqueduct and build it, if it must be built, over land that was not sanctified for burial using the imperial treasury, not Temple funds. Second, Rome must return the money stolen from the Temple to build the first aqueduct.
Following a great cheer for this speech, Pilate gave his answer. Slowly, but with force, he explained to them the commercial advantages of the aqueduct. Moreover, he added, it was absurd to imagine that he would throw away half-a-year's work because of a cemetery. Tor the love of the gods,' he exclaimed, 'do you hate water so much that you would turn fertile land to desert simply because its shadow falls on some beggar's grave?'
The crowd erupted noisily as Pilate's interpreter repeated his speech. A number of people rushed forward shouting incoherently, for the Jews were very fond of their dead, it seemed. When Cornelius had ordered them to silence, the firebrand told Pilate that beggars and kings slept in the same hallowed ground. Those who do not honour the dead,' he concluded, 'defile them!'
'Jerusalem needs water,' Pilate responded with calculated zeal. 'For the sake of the living, the dead are always silent. What do the dead care if a shadow falls across their cemetery? The living must drink. They must wash. They must eat the fruits of the land! For centuries you have been living in a desert. With Roman technology you find yourselves with all the water you need. We have turned a wilderness into a garden and yet I must travel from Caesarea to Jerusalem to explain to you the reason for your wealth!'
Another man stepped forward. The wealth, he said, was Roman wealth at the cost of Jewish lives. Pilate had emptied the treasury of the Temple, he added, for the sake of his bath!
'You speak of impurity,' Pilate said, letting the phrase linger. It was the signal to his troops. 'Impurity and pollution! And yet you people care nothing for bathing! You point at Roman administrators, men who wash themselves each day, and you have the audacity to suggest we are not worthy of entering your Temple because we are not clean! I tell you this, because the truth is obvious to all but yourselves. Your desert god has made you the slave of Romans for good reason: the very smell of you sickens him!'
They began screaming even before Pilate's interpreter finished repeating his words. They shook their fists and cursed him. They called on their god to avenge them.
Only when they recognized the screams behind them as those of the battlefield did they hesitate, and that was when Cornelius rushed to Pilate's rostrum. Pilate saw his centurion's sword slash through an outstretched arm. The blood of the wound hit Pilate's toga. Cornelius's men now formed a hard shell around the prefect, but the Jews no longer cared about Pilate. Soldiers, standing in their very midst, were sweeping their swords with calculated zeal. Those closest to Pilate took the first wave of the attack, falling like wheat before the scythe.
As a second contingent of his soldiers fought through the centre, hastening to his defense, the unarmed crowd began to scatter. Finding reinforcements coming in support of the first two centuries - these in full battle dress - they broke from the plaza and raced toward the road leading into the lower city, known as the City of David.
Those who could not move quickly enough, frozen by the mass of men before them, fell to the sword at once. The rest followed in a desperate, headlong rush from the plaza, only to come upon Pilate's Syrian cavalry. As the leaders recognized the trap, they stopped and tried to turn back. Those behind them, however, still ran forward. The result was both predictable and terrible.
The Syrians, having no love of the Jews, hit them with more ferocity than the cool veterans of the Fretensis Legion, urging their horses to trample those who fell to the pavement. The Jews who managed to retreat back to the Plaza were met again by Pilate's infantry and threw their arms up in surrender, but there was no surrender. Pilate greeted them with phalanxes of disciplined Roman infantry.
Twelve minutes after it had begun, no one remained standing who was not in the service of Rome. In all, four thousand Jewish men lay dead. Of the thousand or so surviving the massacre, Pilate gathered together all who were still whole and without significant wounds, and chose one hundred of them at random to be crucified along the road leading out from the Susim Gate - the so-called Gate of Kings.
The rest he released - that they might know his mercy.
Zürich
October 10, 2006.
The bank of Goetz and Ritter occupied an entire four- storey corner building one street east of the Bahnhofstrasse. It was built of stone blocks at the beginning of the twentieth century. Following the fashion of its day, the building advertised its opulence with typical Neo-Gothic excess. The architect had been especially fond of ivy leaves, grapes, angels and doves. There were micro-balconies serving no function and medallions to cover the occasional blank spots. Along the upper storeys, pilasters in each of the classical styles framed the windows, Doric at the second story, Ionic at the third, Corinthian at the fourth. The building was fairly typical for Zürich, but Malloy took a moment to study it again. At the front door the area opened onto a small circular drive. Parking was limited to a handful of customers, but allowed them access to three different exit routes from the city within a matter of seconds.
The problem was that once in traffic the choices were limited. If the police were seriously interested in intercepting someone leaving the financial district, they could do so at a number of neatly designed bottlenecks. This made bank robbery in downtown Zürich a low percentage play. The difficulties did not end there. Three sides of the bank were exposed, allowing the police open lines of fire from a number of rooftops. What the police could access others could as well. Walking out of the bank, Malloy would be vulnerable. That dimension he had eliminated as much as possible with two off-duty police snipers and a vest that he wore discreetly under a bulky sweater and jacket.
A safe, fast route out of the city was another matter.
Malloy walked to the fourth side of the building where the Limmat flowed quietly through the city. As it happened, a small harbour located next to Goetz and Ritter sheltered twenty or thirty private boats. Some fifty yards beyond the harbour, the river passed under a low ornate bridge pouring out of Lake Zürich.
At the front of the building again, Malloy found no armed guards, only a locked door. He rang the bell and when asked to identify himself responded in English, 'Mr Thomas.' He heard the buzz and click of the lock, then watched the heavy doors swing open. He walked into a small elegantly furnished reception area. A young woman greeted him pleasantly and called upstairs. Two minutes later a Ms Berlini appeared an
d escorted him to the elevator. She told him in English that both Mr Wheeler and Dr North had arrived some minutes before.
They were seated in the director's office when Malloy and Ms Berlini entered. Hans Goetz had strategically placed himself behind a large nineteenth century desk suited to the style of the building. Nicole North and Roland Wheeler were facing him. Both Wheeler and Goetz rose when Malloy entered, introducing themselves and shaking his hand with a military snap of the wrist in the European fashion. Goetz was a small neat man with white hair and a singularly florid complexion. His smile was friendly; his manners were impeccable. Like his desk, where every paperclip faced the same direction, Goetz was a man who took care of the details. Malloy had seen his type a hundred times
over. They crowded the financial district's cafes, restaurants and bars. They were a cheerful and confident breed only so long as everything went exactly as they had arranged it. Their façade crumbled the moment anything went wrong. Such was the Swiss banker.
Roland Wheeler was in his sixties, the epitome of English self-assurance. He was tall and straight with silver hair and a dark tan that was both natural and appealing. According to the file Malloy had read, Wheeler kept a winter residence at Cannes, and a second in the south of Spain. It took Malloy only a moment to realize he possessed the urbane air of a man skilled at persuading wealthy clients to trust his judgment. For all his sophistication he was a salesman at heart. He took care of others. He gave advice. He made sacrifices over small matters that his clients might trust him all the more when it came time to purchase pieces of magnitude. Malloy thought Wheeler would be quick to understand the dynamics of a situation or the nuance of an expression, impossible to anger, unrelentingly attentive. And quite wealthy for the troubles he took.
Wheeler wore a charcoal suit, a gold tie clip, and a matching pair of gold cufflinks. Even by Zürich standards he dressed well. The most instructive piece of evidence about the art dealer was the way he included Ms Berlini in the meeting. Nicole North was a client. Hans Goetz was the director of the bank. Malloy was to be entrusted with a great fortune. They were all deserving of his attention and respect, but Ms Berlini was a functionary. Despite this, he treated her as a partner in the proceedings. Nor was it simple courtesy. She had, Malloy thought, earned Wheeler's respect. It was difficult to guess the extent of contact between them but easy to see that Wheeler had dealt with Goetz and Goetz's assistant on several occasions.
