Solomon's Gold

by Alex Lukeman

  "What's the big deal about Abraham's well?" Lamont asked.

  "For one thing, we're in the middle of a desert and water means life. According to tradition, Abraham came here after he left Egypt," Selena said. "He knew how to dig a well and he's supposed to have dug this one."

  "Okay, so what?"

  "Abraham is one of the patriarchs, and that makes everything he did important. The story of the well is in Genesis. The king of the region back then was named Abimelech. He gave Abraham grazing rights for his animals, but then the king's servants seized the well. Abraham is supposed to have brought seven lambs to the king to settle the dispute. That's where the name Beersheba comes from. It means 'the oath of seven.'"

  "This the same Abraham that was going to sacrifice his kid?" Ronnie asked.

  "That's him," Selena said.

  "Man, everywhere you go in this country, it's like walking through the Bible," Lamont said.

  "That's why they call it the Holy Land," Selena said.

  "My grandma would've loved this. She was big on the Bible."

  The visitor center was located near the gates of the old city of Beersheba, on the banks of the Beer-Sheva River. The river was a parched, sandy wadi. Occasional flash floods in the winter sent water rushing down the dry bed. Except for those rare occasions, there was nothing to see in the river except sand and rock. Deep beneath the dry bed, water flowed. It was this hidden stream that fed the well.

  They parked the vehicles. Dichter stayed with the cars while the others went into the center. The well was in a courtyard, surrounded by an iron railing. Tourists milled about, some leaning over the railing and looking down.

  Friedman looked at the well and said, "This can't be right."

  "What do you mean?" Nick said.

  "This couldn't possibly be the well that Abraham is supposed to have made. It's clearly from a much later date. I would guess Ottoman, probably around the thirteenth or fourteenth century."

  "Very good, Doctor," Rivka said. "You are correct."

  "If you knew that, why did you bring us here?"

  "Consider it a small test of your expertise. I wanted you to see what most people think of as Abraham's well. The Ministry of Tourism has invested a great deal in this center. It's one of the major attractions for visitors to our country and provides important information about the patriarch."

  "Where is the real well located?" He sounded peeved.

  "It's on Tel-Ba'er Sheva, a few kilometers from here," Rivka said. "It's an archaeological site, partially open to the public. That's where the original biblical town of Beersheba was located."

  "You're sure about that?" Selena asked.

  "You'll see for yourself. You can even see the tamarisk tree Abraham planted by the well. It's mentioned in Genesis."

  "I'm glad to hear this isn't the real deal," Nick said. "Everything here is new. If this had been the well mentioned in the scroll, there would be nothing to give us a hint of where to go next."

  "It won't take us long to drive there," Rivka said.

  They went back to the vehicles, got in and drove off to Tel-Ba'er Sheva. As the vehicles turned a corner and disappeared, a man took out his phone. He looked around him to make sure no one was nearby to overhear and punched in a number.

  "Yes."

  "They've moved on, probably to the Tel."

  "Follow them."

  The man put the phone back in his pocket and walked over to a dusty motorcycle leaning against a wall. He started the bike and rode off.

  CHAPTER 15

  Tel Ba'er Sheba was a large hill located a few miles away from the Arab town of Tel-es-Saba. The biblical city covered about fifty acres and dated back to the rule of King David. Centuries of sand had buried it, but now it was reemerging. Excavations had revealed an extensive network of streets and buildings, laid out in a grid. The town had once been fortified by a high wall, parts of which still stood. The lower part of the wall was composed of large rocks, the upper section of sand colored bricks.

  Abraham's well was right outside the city gate.

  They parked nearby and walked to the well. It was surrounded by large stones laid in a circular pattern. Two wooden posts held up a shed roof of sticks that provided minimal shade. A few tourists stood nearby, talking.

  Nick peered over the edge of the stones encircling the well. "How deep is it?"

  "About two hundred feet," Rivka said.

  "Must've been fun digging this baby," Lamont said.

  "How do they know this one is Abraham's?" Selena asked. "There are lots of wells here and in Beersheba."

  "It's in the right place," Rivka said.

  She pointed at the remains of a tamarisk tree about twenty feet away. The tree was in poor shape. It was still alive, but most of what had once been a thick, branched trunk had been removed. It looked as though it had been there a long time.

  "You see that tree? According to Genesis, Abraham planted that by his well. It's as good a reason as any to say this is the well that he dug."

  "We have to start somewhere," Nick said. "Let's assume we're in the right place. The first marker is somewhere nearby."

  "The scroll said to look where the water gathers," Friedman said. "Do you think it means inside the well?"

  Miriam had been quiet since her question about terrorists. Now she said, "If it is, how are we going to find it? I don't think anyone is going to let us climb down in there."

  "I wouldn't put something down inside the well," Selena said. "If I were leaving a clue, I'd put it where it could be seen by someone who knew to look for it."

  "That makes sense," Ronnie said.

  "There's a large cistern here," Rivka said. "Perhaps that's what was meant. A place where the water gathers."

  "That has to be it," Nick said. "Where is it?"

  "I can show you," Rivka said. "There's a stairway leading down to it. Part of it is closed off."

  She turned to Gideon. "Gideon, you stay here with the vehicles and the weapons. I don't want to leave them unguarded."

  "No problem. I've been here before. It's not like I'm missing anything."

  Rivka led them to a booth near the cistern. They paid a fee and were issued hardhats, required for everyone who wanted to explore the ancient waterworks. Then they approached the steps. The stairway down to the cistern was steep and uneven. A wooden railing had been installed along the outside of the stairs. The steps and walls were made of fitted stone.

  They descended with care, keeping a hand on the railing. Selena felt her calves straining as they went down and felt thankful she was still in shape. She wondered if they were going to have to climb back up, or if there was another way out.

  At the bottom of the steps, a tunnel led into the cistern itself. They ducked under the low entrance and came out inside a cavernous space carved from solid bedrock. Strategically placed lights illuminated the cistern.

  "This is something," Ronnie said. "A lot of work went into this."

  "I wonder how much water this thing held?" Nick said.

  "A lot," Lamont said.

  Friedman examined the walls of the cistern, looking for anything that might constitute the clue they were looking for.

  "I don't see anything," he said. "If there was something here, it's been covered over. The plaster that's left on the walls has been repaired."

  "It would've been too easy to find it right off," Nick said. "Besides, we might not be in the right place."

  "Where else would it be?"

  "How does the water feed into this?"

  "There's an aqueduct. It channels rainwater in."

  "Let's go look at that," Nick said.

  "The exit is over there," Selena said. "I'm glad we don't have to climb up those steps."

  They mounted a series of low, wooden platforms that led to a door set in the side of the rock. They opened the door and emerged into the sunlight. Nick squinted in the sudden glare and put on his sunglasses.

  Rivka led them to where an aqueduct had once funneled
winter rains into the cistern. The opening was blocked with a heavy iron grill. The ground was covered with loose rock and rubble. It sloped down sharply to the opening.

  "I'm going down there," Nick said.

  "Watch your step," Ronnie said.

  "Yeah."

  Nick half walked, half slid, down to the grill blocking the way in. Large rocks encircled the opening. He took out a pocket flashlight and shone it through the grill. The light reflected off rough walls that tunneled down into the cistern. The lower part of the walls were worn smooth from the passage of water over the centuries, but the upper section was much as it had been when it was first dug, three thousand years before.

  "I see something carved high up on the rock," Nick called. "It looks like an eye."

  "An eye? Describe it," Friedman said.

  "Like I said, it looks like an eye. An eye shape with a dot in the middle."

  "That could be ancient Hebrew."

  "The letter ghah," Selena said.

  "Exactly," Friedman said.

  "What does it mean?" Ronnie asked.

  "If it's the letter ghah, it means to watch or to know."

  "Figures," Lamont said. "It's an eye."

  "Can you see anything else, Nick?" Friedman said.

  "Nope." He moved his light around. "That's all there is."

  He put the light away and scrambled back up on all fours. He stood and dusted off his pants.

  "It was carved in the rock, up high, above the waterline."

  "It doesn't help us much," Friedman said.

  "I'm not so sure about that," Selena said. "It's from the right timeframe. The scroll was written in ancient Hebrew, so it's consistent with that."

  "So how does it help?"

  "If this is the first marker, it could be telling us to watch for something."

  "Yeah, but what?" Nick asked.

  "The second marker? I guess we'll have to follow the rest of the instructions to find out," Selena said.

  Back at the vehicles, Nick pointed at a dirt streaked motorcycle parked near the well.

  "I haven't seen one of those in years," he said. "It's an old English bike. A Triumph."

  "I didn't know you liked old motorcycles," Selena said.

  Nick laughed. "There's a lot you don't know. I had a bike when I was at school, before I got into the Marines. That one was a Norton. It was faster than hell, bigger than this one."

  As they drove away, the man who had been following them took out his cell phone.

  CHAPTER 16

  Back at the vehicles, they considered the next move.

  Friedman scratched his chin. "The scroll said the next marker is twenty-two parasas to the south."

  "What's a parasa in modern measurements?" Ronnie asked.

  "In biblical times, they measured distance by parts of the human body," Friedman said. "An arm, a leg, the width of the palm, the length of a finger and so on. You combined those measurements into larger and larger amounts until you got to a parasa, or parsa'ot in old Hebrew. Because they used measurements that varied according to the size of the body, it's not an exact distance. Roughly, a parasa is four point eight kilometers."

  "So, twenty-two parasas would be somewhere around a hundred plus kilometers?"

  "That's correct."

  Nick looked at a map. "That would put us right in the middle of the Wilderness of Zin."

  "I see a problem with this," Gideon said.

  "What's that?"

  "You're saying that the next marker could be a hundred kilometers or more from here. That's a lot of territory. Plus we don't have any idea what route Moses actually followed. It's not like he had roads, he was walking in the desert. You see where I'm going?"

  "A wild duck chase," Rivka said.

  "Goose, not duck," Nick said. "A wild goose chase."

  "It's a good point, Gideon," Selena said. "But when Solomon wrote the scroll he would have known that. There has to be something to indicate where that second marker is located, something more than a rough distance."

  "Let's think about this for a minute," Nick said. "The instructions say to follow in the steps of Moses, right?"

  Gideon nodded. "Right."

  "So where did Moses go?"

  "Wandering in the desert, for forty years," Ronnie said.

  "Sure, but where did he go? Where are the important stops?"

  "Mount Sinai," Rivka said. "But that's in Egypt."

  "Not necessarily," Friedman said.

  "What do you mean?" Lamont asked. "In Sunday school they told us it was in Egypt."

  "You went to Sunday school?" Ronnie asked.

  "Every week. My grandma made sure I went. Besides, I liked the stories. And we got cookies."

  "That explains it," Ronnie said

  Friedman cleared his throat. "If I can go on?"

  "Sorry, Doc," Ronnie said.

  "There are several mountains that could be Mount Sinai. One of them is in the Wilderness of Zin, Mount Karkom. That's almost exactly twenty-two parasas from here."

  "You think the second marker is on Mount Karkom?"

  "It could be," Friedman said. "There are reputable archaeologists who think Mount Karkom is the Mount Sinai of Genesis. It's a theory. No one's sure where it is."

  Nick said, "Gideon's right. Heading into the desert and hoping for the best isn't going to work. Mount Karkom could be right. It fits with everything else in the scroll."

  "Guess we'll be camping in the desert tonight," Lamont said.

  "Oh, that won't be necessary," Rivka said. "It would be dark by the time we reached Mount Karkom. We wouldn't be able to see much of anything. On the way there, we pass a development called Mitzpe Ramon. There's a good hotel, the Beresheet. We can leave in the morning."

  "I like this idea," Selena said. "I don't mind sleeping out, but I'd prefer a nice, comfortable bed."

  "How's the food there?" Lamont asked.

  "They have an excellent restaurant," Rivka said. "You could try some of our Israeli specialties."

  Gideon said, "I know the place. It's expensive, but it's a nice hotel and it's not that far from where we're going."

  "That settles it," Nick said. "Mitzpe it is."

  They got into the vehicles and headed south on Highway 40. It was late afternoon when they checked into the hotel.

  Lamont looked around as they walked in.

  "Man, this is the kind of camping I really like."

  "You're getting soft in your old age," Ronnie said.

  "Careful who you're calling old," Lamont said.

  The lobby floor was marble, inlaid with a pattern that suggested an abstract Star of David. A bowl-like fountain was set in the center of the floor. The colors of the hotel matched the colors of the desert outside, rich browns and warm tans, with cream accents. It was elegant and understated.

  They got their keys.

  "Let's meet in the restaurant at six," Nick said.

  "Can't be too soon for me," Lamont said.

  "You ever think about anything except food?" Ronnie asked.

  "Unlike some people I know, I appreciate good food."

  "Yeah, right, I've seen you dig into those MREs like a real gourmet."

  "Hey, food's food. I like MREs."

  The hotel was built on the northern edge of Ramon Crater, a geological oddity twenty-five miles long and fifteen hundred feet deep. The entire area was a national park. Selena and Nick had a room that looked out over the crater and the desert beyond. The view extended as far as they could see.

  "It's beautiful, but barren as the moon," Nick said. "Can you imagine walking around in that for forty years?"

  "No, I can't," Selena said. "It's probably not literal history. Forty years is a generic term for a long time."

  "Forty days or forty years, it's still too long as far as I'm concerned. Places like this make me nervous. There's nothing out there except what you bring with you. It reminds me some of Afghanistan."

  "At least here no one is shooting at you," Selena said.
<
br />   "That's a definite plus," Nick said. "Not to mention that nice comfortable bed. You know, we still have more than an hour before we eat."

  Selena put her hands on Nick's shoulders and looked into his gray eyes.

  "Do you think that will be long enough?" she said.

  CHAPTER 17

  Hamid Kazemi leaned out the window of an idling van, talking to the guard at the Red Hook Marine terminal in Brooklyn. He handed over paperwork that showed he was taking delivery of a pallet of air compressors consigned to a wholesale auto-parts distributor in Queens.

  The guard checked the numbers against the screen on his computer and scrawled something across the top page. He picked up a phone and spoke into it, handed the papers back, and pointed.

  "Pull into that area over there. Someone will bring the pallet to you. Give him the paperwork and he'll load it into your van. Should take about fifteen minutes."

  "Thanks," Hamid said.

  The guard threw a switch and the gate swung open. Hamid pulled forward to where the guard had pointed and parked.

  "Is it really this easy? Look at this." Amin gestured at the terminal. "Their security is laughable. How fast do you think that fat man in the guard shack can run?"

  "Perhaps he eats too many donuts," Hamid said. "I have heard that all American policeman love donuts."

  Amin nodded. "I don't think he's a real policeman. He is what the Americans call a 'Rent a Cop.'"

  "There are real policeman here somewhere. For us, it's not a problem. We have all the right papers. With the right papers, one can do anything in this country."

  "It is such a rich country," Amin said. "They have grown fat and lazy. Their refusal to recognize Allah will destroy them. It will be their undoing."

  "It will be what they deserve. One day, all the world will be Muslim."

  "God willing," Amin said.

  He pointed at a forklift approaching. "I think that's our shipment."

  Hamid got out of the van and opened the cargo doors in the back. The forklift operator maneuvered into position.

  "Got the papers?"

  Hamid gave them to him. The operator looked for the guard's signature, took a copy, and handed the papers back. He deposited the pallet into the back of the van. The forklift beeped loudly as it backed away. Hamid closed the doors, climbed back into the driver's seat, and started the van. They waited until the gate opened and drove away. Hamid waved at the guard as they drove through.