by Adam Palmer
The next few lines described the civil war between Bar Giora and the other factions and how – when the Romans were closing in – they tried to escape through the tunnels under the Temple Mount taking a supply of food and using stone cutters and how they ran out of food. But then they came to the interesting part.
“So Simon made me swear that I would stay hidden with the others and flee with my mother’s gold and silver jewels to Masada with Eleazer ben Yair, while he alone, dressed in the robes of a king appeared before the Romans.”
This time it was not Ted that Daniel looked at, but Irene. For they both knew the familiar story of Masada all too well. Eleazer ben Yair led the Judeans in their last stand at Masada when they allegedly committed suicide. But according to this manuscript, however, he had been right there in the tunnels with Bar Giora and Boudicca’s daughter, before escaping to the fortress by the Dead Sea.
But Ted had picked up on something else.
“What’s this about gold and silver jewels?”
Irene shook her head.
“As far as I know, nothing like that was ever found. I mean they found coins proclaiming the Redemption of Zion, which are believed to have been minted on the authority of Bar Giora. And they found costume jewellery made with beads and they found mother-of-pearl and ivory. But no precious stones. And apart from the coins, no precious metals.”
“The reason I ask is because we know Boudicca, and the Iceni in general, did have gold and silver jewellery,” said Ted.
To Daniel, this was no mystery.
“Well presumably if she did take it with her to Masada, that would explain why it hasn’t been found in the Temple Mount salvage project. And presumably if the Romans found it at Masada, they would have looted it.”
“Unless they hid it. But that leads me right back to the same question I asked regarding the Domus Aurea Parchment. Why was this left behind at the scene? Why not take the manuscript with her?”
“Presumably because they were so desperate to get out and they couldn’t take anything that wasn’t necessary. They probably had to lie in wait after Bar Giora made his appearance through the opening the stone masons had cut and play possum until the Roman’s left. Remember, even according to Josephus, Bar Giora hid in the tunnels with others. Yet it only records Bar Giora himself being captured. They presumably had find a way of sneaking out undetected. The manuscript would have been a useless liability.”
Irene remained sceptical.
“And yet they took the jewels! And if the events were so important as to transcribe, you’d think the manuscript would be as valuable to her as the jewels – if not more valuable.”
“Maybe her husband made her swear to leave it behind,” Daniel speculated. “Also, if they were captured by Romans, the jewels could be used to bribe their way out of it. A Roman who captured them with the jewels would have received a reward. But why settle for ten or twenty percent when you can have the whole thing?”
“There is another explanation.”
This was Ted.
“Just because Josephus doesn’t record the others being captured doesn’t mean they survived. Maybe they stayed and waited till it was safe but gave out to hunger. Or possibly the stronger fitter ones escaped and the others died there. I’m not saying that happened, but you can’t assume that because they intended to get out of there, that they succeeded. The manuscript doesn’t record the outcome.”
Daniel had a thought.
“Were any bones found amidst the rubble?”
He was looking at Irene.
“Interestingly, no. But that’s a good question. But one can’t even read too much into that because although the Muslims dug twelve metres down into the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount, it’s quite likely that the subterranean tunnels extended throughout the whole site. We know that there are hidden chambers there, but it’s doubtful that the Waqf will grant you or any other Jew access.”
But Daniel was remembering something he had been told during a recent encounter in Egypt… and he realized that once again he might be able to draw on his extensive network.
Chapter 70
The soldier was walking along by the side of the road. Officially, Israeli soldiers were no longer allowed to hitchhike, under standing orders designed to prevent kidnappings by Palestinian terrorists. Certain events had made the practice dangerous, even for male soldiers. To back up the rule and stamp out the dangerous practice, Israeli military police had resorted to staging fake kidnappings of soldiers caught hitchhiking, followed by swift military trials and fines.
But despite these measures and the obvious risks, some Israeli soldiers continued to hitchhike nevertheless, unofficially and inconspicuously. The army buses would normally take them as far as bus stops at major junctions and from there, they would make their way home using buses, on which they were allowed to travel free of charge.
So when Baruch Tikva saw the soldier walking along the road near the intercity junction, he knew that he was secretly hoping for a lift. He drove past at a slow speed and stopped just in front, opening the window and leaning towards the man on the asphalt pavement with a smile.
“Are you going to Mevasseret?”
He took a chance on getting it right. Naming a specific destination – a small township outside Jerusalem – would sound less suspicious than asking where he was going. If he got it wrong he could always loop around and try again with another soldier. But there was no need. Soldiers had been warned to watch out for tricks, like Arabs wearing Jewish-style skullcaps and playing Jewish religious music on the CD player. But you can’t beat appearance. Some Arabs can look like some Jews, and vice versa, but Baruch Tikva was pale-faced and so obviously of north European or north American ancestry that there was no way this soldier could doubt him.
“Yes.”
“Need a lift?”
“Yes… Thank you.”
Baruch pressed a lever to open the boot. The soldier threw his kit bag in the back and then got in the front seat, keeping his compact assault rifle. There were no doubts in the soldier’s mind when Baruch drove off in the promised direction. But within a few yards of where they had started, Bar-Tikva had whipped out a stun-gun, camouflaged as a mobile phone and given the soldier a ten second shock the torso that had left him barely conscious.
Realizing that a young fit soldier would probably not stay unconscious for long, Bar Tikva drove on, ignoring Mevasseret and looping back towards Motsa, a somewhat larger township outside Jerusalem. But instead of driving into Motsa, he stopped by the thick leafy trees by the entrance and finished off the job with a knife.
Then he got out, went round to the passenger side, hauled out the body and dumped it amidst the trees where it could not be seen from the road.
As he drove off and took the turning to Jerusalem, it was hard not to smile at how easy it had been. He would shed no tears over the dead soldier. Although the killing had been expedient rather than ideological, the fact was that the soldier had chosen to serve the evil Zionist entity. Even if he had been a conscript, he could still have refused. And he was obviously a Chiloni – a secular Jew and not a God-fearing one, with no commitment to Hashem and not in the least bit yiras shamayim.
The important thing to Bar Tikva was that he now had what he wanted: the assault rifle.
Chapter 71
“Okay, now remember,” said the Arab. “We must be careful… and very quiet. If anyone challenges us, let me do the talking.”
When Daniel and Ted had left Irene, she was full of excitement about what they had discovered. They had agreed to publish a joint paper which would combine Irene’s scientific analysis of the parchment, and the clay urn in which it was found, with the linguistic analysis of Daniel and Ted, as well as an historical overview.
But while Irene was excited enough about the translation and the link between the Temple Mount Parchment and the other discoveries at Arbury Banks and the Domus Aurea, Daniel and Ted were still not satisfied. Neither the magnitude o
f the discoveries, nor the contents thereof could explain why people were ready to go to such great lengths to silence them – especially earlier, when they did not have anything like as much information as they did now.
So Daniel had decided to take up Irene’s de facto challenge and try to gain access to the underground tunnels. Not the Jewish controlled tunnels outside the Temple Mount, dating to the seventh century CE, when the Arabs effectively raised parts of the Old City on arches and vaults to make access easier, but rather the tunnels built before the Arabs arrived, that extended from Solomon’s Stables under the Temple Mount itself.
As Irene had said, these tunnels and underground chambers were under the control of the Waqf – the Muslim trust that had control of the Temple Mount. And there was no way that they would let a Jewish historian venture into these tunnels. As far as the Waqf was concerned, anything that brought to light details of the pre-Islamic, Jewish association with the Old City of Jerusalem was something to be suppressed.
So Daniel had drawn on an old contact from his recent Egyptian adventure – a Nubian boatman on the Nile called Walid, who had a network of contacts even larger than Daniel’s quite formidable mental rolodex. When he first made the call, it was a long shot, but a long shot to nothing. Explaining what he wanted in Arabic, but holding out very little hope, he was pleasantly surprised when Walid confirmed that he could help and then put Daniel in contact with his fourth or fifth cousin once or twice removed.
So now here he was at night, on the Temple Mount, with Ted and a man called Salim who looked like he was in his eighties but was probably only in his seventies. The Levantine sun had tendency to age the skin and could make old people look older than they actually were in this neck of the woods.
The Temple Mount itself is the elevated area in the Old City of Jerusalem that houses the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque, built in the seventh century of the common era by Muslim conquerors who had believed that the Prophet Mohamed had been here on account of a dream he had in which he ascended to heaven from the Temple Mount itself. Although purely a journey in his mind, some Muslims still insisted that the Prophet was there in person.
Jerusalem had played a fluctuating role in Islamic history. After the Jews of Medina – who had been there for five centuries – failed to accept Mohamed as a prophet of God, he turned on them and had them massacred under various pretexts of dubious probity. To signify his rejection of all things Jewish other than monotheism itself, he changed the direction Muslims faced when they prayed, from the Jewish capital of Jerusalem – with its sixteen centuries of association with the Jews – to the pagan shrine of the Kaba in Mecca. Thereafter, he concentrated his efforts on securing control of the Arabian Peninsula.
However after Mohamed’s death, his successors – the caliphs – embarked upon a campaign of imperialism in which they conquered many neighbouring territories, including Jerusalem. To strengthen their claim to the city, in the minds of the faithful, they restored Jerusalem to the pre-eminent status it held in Mohamed’s mind before he had massacred the Jews of Medina, and built sacred buildings in Jerusalem upon the already sacred Jewish shrines, thus asserting Islamic supremacy over the conquered and the vanquished.
But now one of them was helping Daniel and Ted as a favour to a relative, showing that goodness – as much as villainy – transcends the religious divide.
After using hena to darken their faces and kitting them out in Arab robes – not by any means de rigeur in east Jerusalem, but useful for allaying suspicions – he led them into the subterranean Marwani Prayer hall and through it to an almost concealed entrance at the back. This led them into a stark dank chamber with stone walls. Daniel shone his torch all around to take a look at the walls, hoping to find inscriptions. Ted tried likewise. But the walls were bare, carved into the rock beneath the Temple Mount. This was an untouched chamber that had been this way for centuries.
“Help me with this.”
Daniel and Ted turned round to see Salim struggling to prise up the edge of a stone slab with what seemed like little more than the tips of his fingers. For an old man he appeared to be remarkably strong, as the edge of the stone slowly rose a few inches from the floor in his firm grip. But it was obvious nonetheless that Salim was struggling and he would surely drop the stone back in place. So they rushed over and helped him, quickly inserting their hands and lifting in unison.
Even with all three of them combining their efforts, the weight of the block was apparent and they struggled to lift it.
“Over there,” said Salim indicating where they should move it.
The direction meant that Ted would be moving backwards and Daniel forward, while Salim himself moved sideways. But it was Daniel who nearly fell into the hole, as the stone slab obscured his view. He just about managed to avoid it, moving partly around the hole and then stepping over it as they laid the slab on the side. Then Daniel turned round to see the opening in the ground into which he had very nearly fallen. It led to a lower chamber.
It was Daniel, the youngest and fittest of the three who went first, followed be Ted whom he helped down. They looked around to see that they were at the beginning of a horizontal shaft. But as they waited for Salim to follow, they heard him saying something in tense Arabic, in a tone that spoke of surprise and fear. Ted didn’t know what the words meant, but Daniel did. They meant “Who are you? What do you want?”
In the silence that followed, Daniel strained to hear a reply. But all he heard was nothing except silence, followed by a volley of gun fire. Then when the reverberating echo subsided, the silence returned.
“Salim!” Daniel shouted. “Salim are you all right?”
The fear began to set in. Daniel moved to a position just under the entry point and reached up, trying to pull himself up. But as he did so, he noticed a man standing over him in the chamber above – a big man.
And Daniel recognized him. The beard was gone, or most of it had, but the face was unmistakeable. It was the man who tried to kill him when the police van was attacked. The man that Sarit had told him was Baruch Tikva – or simply Bar Tikva, as he liked to call himself.
And once again, the man was armed. But this time it was an assault rifle that he was pointing at Daniel.
Chapter 72
“So you’ve been blogging about Israel for how long?”
“Quite a few years now.”
Nili was enjoying this man’s company, even if he was a lot older than she. He had a warm sophisticated charm and an air of bon vivant about him, that made her feel comfortable, perhaps even somewhat aroused. He had come around after everyone had left and she was getting ready to leave herself, just finishing up. He wanted to see one of the professors about the project. He had heard that a friend of his – Daniel Klein – was helping them with the translation and he wanted to blog about it, especially if Danny had got some results.
But they had all gone home.
She suggested that he call “Danny” who was after all in Israel, but the man had explained that the call would be routed through England and Danny “really hated” getting calls like that because the mobile phone company charged him a fortune for rerouting those calls. He said never mind, he would hook up with Danny back in England.
It was at that point that Nili took pity on him. She explained that she didn’t know where Danny was staying or how to contact him but that he had got some good results on the translation and that they would be published in due course, but that she couldn’t reveal any of the details without permission.
Then the man took the initiative and asked if she was doing anything this evening. For a moment she had hesitated, feeling a bit on the defensive. But before she could say no, he had smiled at her and said “just dinner. I like to dine in fine restaurants and perhaps you could advise me on which is a good one, while I’m here in Jerusalem.
The truth of the matter was she didn’t know good restaurants from bad because most of them were out of her price range. She knew which were the exp
ensive ones, but price didn’t necessarily guarantee quality and if she was going to avail herself of this man’s generosity – or loneliness – then she didn’t want to make a fool of herself. So she agreed to let him take her to dinner and then, on a pretext of going to the bathroom, she had put in a quick mobile call to a friend.
Two minutes later, when she emerged, she suggested that they go to the Colony restaurant, which in fact was not expensive at all, but came highly recommended.
Now they sat there enjoying their main courses, he eating the grilled entrecote steak in red wine sauce, she enjoying the stuffed chicken breast – after starting with shared plates of stuffed mushrooms and sweet potato ravioli.
“So no juicy titbits,” the man said, hopefully.
“Unfortunately not,” said Nili. “But I mean if you can catch up with your friend Danny, I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you.”
“But you don’t know where he’s staying?”
“No, sorry.” Then she brightened up. “You could try calling Ted, if you know him.”
The man looked up from his food, surprised, but quickly gathered his wits.
“Oh Ted’s with him?”
“He was when they did the translation. I mean it was Ted who did the translation. Your friend Danny just transliterated the Hebrew.”
“We are talking about the same Ted, I hope. You mean Ted Hynds, yes?”
Nili inclined her head in silence for a moment.
“I think that was his name.”
“I did have his number. But it’s probably in my old address book back in England. I haven’t been in touch with him for a long time. Oh well.”
He carried on eating.
“I suppose the other thing you could do is call the office in the morning and get the contact details. Professor Peres will be there.”
“Whose he?”
