by Adam Palmer
They were the first through the entrance and the first thing they did when they got there was look around. In fact it was only Baruch Tikva, the son, who was looking. His father didn’t know what Daniel looked like… or Ted. Baruch had the advantage of height. But he saw no sign of them. They might not be here, or they might be out of sight. One couldn’t really see the whole of Masada from a single spot no matter how tall one was.
Aside from that, they might be in the bathhouse or they might have gone down to the lower terrace of the Northern Palace.
But then, as Bar-Tikva turned a full circle to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, he saw a man in his sixties climbing down into what looked like a roped off area. And the man didn’t look like a workman or a uniformed member of staff.
And the man himself had looked around furtively before disappearing from view.
Chapter 81
Daniel had led the way, stepping over the rope at its lowest point and clambering down into the large ditch. Ted had followed, but more slowly. And to Daniel’s annoyance, he had rather foolishly looked around before doing so.
Daniel, although not trained or experienced in tradecraft, knew better than to advertise his clandestine intentions by looking around like that. But it was too late to do anything about it. He just hoped that no one had noticed. There were very few people about and staff were always very thin on the ground here. Added to that it was a large site, so the prospects of being seen were minimal. In any case, this was an area that was roped off for people’s own safety. They presumed that people would not take unnecessary risks. And no one had actually called out to Ted or asked him what he was doing. So there was nothing to worry about.
Once inside the large open hole, Daniel moved what was little more than a portable grating to expose the opening that branched off. He shone his torch in to see that there was no sudden drop and then clambered in. he had to crawl on his backside for a while until it widened out. Ted followed using the same technique and apparently far more comfortably. He remembered that Ted had seemed quite comfortable in the lower viaduct in Jerusalem. And of course Ted was a very experienced archaeologist who was used to roughing it. He could compete with any survivalist if he had to.
The found themselves in a low tunnel where they could stoop, if not actually stand. Ted shone his torch too, noticing that Daniel’s was fading. In the lower aqueduct, Ted had used his more sparingly and so he had more juice left in his battery, while Daniel was paying the price for his more liberal usage.
“So this is where they hid,” said Ted.
“If Josephus’s version is to be believed.
The walls were covered in plaster, some of it from the Hasmonean period. But in other parts the plaster was no longer present and it was clear that it had been widened. There was no sudden drop, just a winding path. This was natural. If the sewage cistern was made by man then they would have found it easier to build this way than a sheer drop. The only way to make a sheer drop would have been to cut away downwards and stand on the ground they were working on.
“What was that?” Daniel blurted out.
“I didn’t say anything,” Ted replied.
“No, I don’t mean a sound. I saw something when you were waving your torch around.
Ted waved his torch again, aiming it at the same section of the wall. But this time he moved it more slowly, to give Daniel the chance to catch whatever it was he had seen before.
“That’s it! Hold it!”
Ted held the torch frozen.
“Can you move it back again… where it was a moment ago.”
“Which way?” asked Ted.
“Up and away from us… diagonally.”
Ted moved it slowly and then it became apparent to Daniel what he was looking at. Some old woven jute fabric was sticking out of a cavity in the wall. Daniel reached out for it and tugged gently. He did not want to tear or damage it. But it didn’t budge. He gripped portions of the fabric with both hands for better purchase and pulled again, gently at first, then with steadily increasing force until more of the fabric emerged.
It became clear to him at some point that what he was pulling on was a bag and that part of the reason it was jammed was because it contained solid objects and the hole in which it was embedded was not straight. Some of the objects had become stuck. He used one hand to apply pressure to the outside of the bag, moving the objects, while pulling with the other hand. Eventually the bag emerged and he placed it on the ground. He opened it carefully, in such a way that the opening was upright, even though the bag was on its side. That way he could lift items out and place them on top of the bag rather than on the ground.
Then, slowly and gingerly, he reached it and gripped an item. He was careful and delicate with his touch, because he had heard clinking sounds when he reached in and he suspected that the bag might contain ceramic materials, similar to those famous ceramic shards that had been found by Yigael Yadin’s archaeologists in the nineteen sixties – shards that bore the names of men, including Ben Yair.
But when Ted shone the light on the object he had just removed it was apparent that it was not made or clay but of silver. It was a bracelet. And not mere costume jewellery either. This was a genuine solid silver bracelet.
“Not bad for a community of ascetics,” said Daniel, with conscious irony.
“I’ll say, What else is there?”
Daniel reached in again and produced a broach. He held it up to Ted’s torch and perusal.
“Silver again?” said Daniel, seeking confirmation.
“Silver,” Ted confirmed.
Daniel put in on top of the bag. But when he produced another item from the bag, they got the shock of their lives. Because although this item too was a broach, it was a different colour from the other – a bright yellow colour.
“It’s gold!” Daniel blurted out.
Ted moved his torch close and leaned forward to make absolutely sure. There was no doubt: it was gold. At that moment, impatience got the better of Daniel. This bag did not contain delicate parchment manuscripts or fragile pottery shards. This was a treasure bag containing jewellery fashioned of precious metals. Although a manuscript would have been the greater find in his eyes, this was certainly the more unusual, and it had the added virtue of bearing out the authenticity of the deciphered contents of the Temple Mount Parchment.
Unable to contain himself any longer, Daniel seized the bottom of the jute bag, at the sides, lifted it up and emptied the contents onto the floor where he and Ted were now crouched. What fell out – no poured out – of the bag were dozens of broaches and pendants and bracelets and rings of gold and silver. When Daniel had lifted out the bag and deposited it on the ground, he had gained some sense of its weight and he estimated it to be between two and three kilograms.
Four and a half to six and a half pounds! Of jewellery! In silver and GOLD!
And in the middle of the pile was the piece that stood out from among the rest – a golden torc.
“Could that be…?”
He couldn’t even finish the sentence.
“The golden torc of Boudicca?” Ted completed.
Daniel did not have Ted’s encyclopaedic knowledge of Romano-Brittain, but he knew that torcs were a common item of Celtic jewellery and that Boudicca was said to have worn a golden torc.
Daniel picked it up and felt the weight in his hand.
“It’s solid!”
He meant solid in the sense of not hollow as opposed to solid in the sense of not plated. They didn’t do plated jewellery in the iron age, but they did do hollow torcs, especially full-sized torcs for the neck, like this one. Except that this one was not hollow. It was solid gold and that meant it was extremely valuable.
He held it up and invited Ted to shine his torch on it.
“Oh… my… God!”
Ted looked puzzled by this.
“What?”
“There’s writing on it… engraved… look.”
Ted transferred the torch to
his other hand and leaned forward and looked. There was indeed some sort of writing engraved on a cylindrical shaped block in the centre of the torc. But it was not any sort of writing that Ted could read. It was not the Roman alphabet, nor the Greek one.
But it was writing that he had learned to recognize. It was the Hebrew alphabet.
“My God.”
Now the surprise had hit him too.
“But why…”
Daniel seemed to be locked in thought. He had the same question in mind as the one Ted had stifled. Even if the torc had been brought here from Britain, why would it have Hebrew writing engraved on it.
“It must have been added later,” Daniel suggested.
“But what does it say?”
Daniel peered at it again.
“The last word is Ikeni or Icheni, which I assume was the name of her tribe.”
“Yes that’s right. The Romans called them the Ikeni, But the name they called themselves was probably Icheni, from the Proto-Brythonic word ich, meaning a horse. They were the people of the horse.”
“The Hebrew letters Kaf and Khaf are virtually the same letter, depending on the context. Like I told you, later, they added dots and other symbols for vowels.”
“Okay but what’s the problem with the first bit?”
“It’s not Hebrew. Maybe it’s like the manuscripts… Proto-Brythonic written in Hebrew.”
“Let’s see.”
Daniel lifted it closer to himself, but held it at such an angle that Ted could shine his torch on it. Daniel read the words, including Icheni. Then Ted translated again.
“That says simply… Queen of the Icheni. Just what we thought in fact… Daniel?”
Daniel was staring at the writing, very intently.”
“I think I’ve just made a discovery.”
“We’ve made several discoveries,” Ted replied, the confusion heavily invasive of his tone.
“No I mean, more than that. Look at that letter.”
He took out his pen and pointed to the second letter of the last word.
“What about it?
“It’s the Hebrew letter Kaf of Khaf… the one I told you about… the one that can be pronounced like a K or alternatively like the ch in loch.”
“Well what about it?”
“Well it’s written in the style that of the Hebrew alphabet about two thousand years ago, just like the parchments.”
“Well that makes it authentic doesn’t it?”
“Yes and that form is only marginally different from the form used today. I mean on religious documents they still use that style today. The only difference is like the difference between say Times New Roman and a more blocky sans serif typeface.”
“Okay,” said Ted, still not sure where this was going.
“Well in that form of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter Kaf is only slightly different from the letter Samech. If I can show you.”
He put down the torc and took out a pen and a scrap of paper from his pocket.
“This is a Kaf…”and this is a samech… see the similarity?”
k s
“Yes I see. But what’s your point?”
“My point is, Ted, that this kaf here on the torc – presumably by a Jewish scribe – is written in such a way that the left side is almost enclosed, so that it could very easily be mistaken for a samech.”
“You said that. But so what?”
“Well suppose some one wrote a manuscript, in Hebrew or Aramaic, referring to the Icheni or Ikeni. And then some one else came along – some one to whom Hebrew or Aramaic were not a first language – and they wanted to translate what they were reading into… say… Greek. With the Kaf written like that, then might they not a word like Icheni or Ikeni be easily mistaken for… Isseni… or allowing for the ambiguous initial vowel… Esseni?”
“Holy moly!” said Ted.
“I’m surprised it took you so long to figure it out,” came a voice from above them.
They looked up to see Shalom Tikva leaning into the entrance to the cistern… holding a hand grenade.
Chapter 82
As Masada loomed up ahead, Sarit was driving Israeli style: with little regard for the laws of the road and even less for the laws of physics. She knew how easy it was for even the best intelligence and security services to bungle things by underestimating the threat and she had no intention of letting Daniel become another casualty of such ineptitude!
They should have arrested Shalom Tikva as soon as they had evidence that he had ordered a killing. The fact that he had used ambiguous wording in his instructions to his son, would not have been a barrier to a guilty verdict in a trial by judge, the only sort of trial available in Israel. And they should not have let Baruch Tikva slip through the net. The British should have caught him there and when they failed to do so, passport control should have caught him when he re-entered Israel.
The British had been quick enough to arrest Daniel on the flimsiest of evidence and had unreasonably refused him bail on the strength of the fact that he had fled the country the last time they falsely accused him. The fact that he had been vindicated didn’t seem to matter to the judge.
And yet Baruch Tikva had been able to attack a police van and kill two policemen, yet go on to escape and even make an attempt to abduct one of Daniel’s nieces. Then two of Daniel’s nieces had been kidnapped by the henchmen of Shalom Tikva and only then did the police and Security Services go into action and start arresting them.
But by then it was too late. Because by then, Shomrei Ha’ir knew that the authorities were on to them and they scattered into the four winds.
And now they knew that these enemies of the state were making their last stand – going after Daniel Klein for reasons that had still not become clear. He had made a few discoveries about Jewish history. But what had that set them against him? How did an expert on ancient languages – and a British professor of archaeology – manage to fall afoul of a Bible-toting sect of Jewish fanatics? Was there some connection between the modern zealots of Judaism and the ancient zealots that Daniel was researching and studying?
That was surely unlikely. These ancient sects that have existed for centuries were the stuff of a whole new wave of historical thrillers, but they surely had no basis in reality? Besides, the ancient zealots were nationalistic Jews, whereas the modern ones were decidedly anti-nationalist. Indeed anti-Zionism was the hallmark of most ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects. With one or two exceptions, it was the moderates who supported Zionism.
She had spoken to Dovi a couple of times on the way and he had assured her that a Border Guard unit had been dispatched there. It was a sensitive area, so there would be Border Guardsman and soldiers nearby anyway. But it was unlikely that they would have been given pictures of who they were looking for. And what if HaTzadik had sent other people. How would they know who to look out for?
The most they could do is look out for anyone trying anything fishy. That meant they would have to be reactive rather than proactive.
Sarit was still going fast when she turned into the bus forecourt. Private vehicles were supposed to park further away, but when a security guard approached and started giving all that swaggering “I’ve got a dick and you haven’t” Israeli macho, she just flashed a badge at him and told him to back off.
The Mossad had no jurisdiction on the home front, but when in Israel they carried ID that enabled them to avoid hassle from other law enforcement officials.
Ignoring the security guard who was no doubt watching her ass and mentally undressing her, she ran towards the tourist centre and the cable cars.
Chapter 83
“What are you going to do?” asked Daniel hesitantly.
“Hand over the bag,” said HaTzadik.
“Is that what this is all about?” asked Daniel. “A few pagan baubles? Not some pious cause after all, but just the old God of mammon?”
“It’s nothing like that,” Shalom Tikva snarled. “You couldn’t even begin to understand.”
“I think I’m beginning to,” said Daniel. “You’re not greedy. But like any other terrorist gang, you need money to finance the revolution. You justify it by telling yourselves that the money is to change the world, not to live the high life.
The mockery wasn’t entirely real. He was trying to goad HaTzadik into talking. Partly this was playing for time, but partly he wanted to understand what was going on. What did Shalom Tikva mean when he said “I’m surprised it took you so long to figure it out.”
“We didn’t do it for the treasure. We weren’t even sure that it existed. Although I suspect Sam Morgan was.”
“Sam Morgan?”
Daniel remembered the name from what Sarit had told him. Sam Morgan, Sarit had determined, was the man ho had killed Martin Costa and tried to kill Daniel at the house.
“A man who is helping us – or at least was helping us.”
Did this mean that Sam Morgan was dead? Or that they had fallen out?
“But what is that we took so long to figure out? The possible confusion between the Essenes and the Ikeni?”
“It’s more than possible confusion Professor Klein. That’s really what this is all about. You see archaeology has always been divided into two camps. The people who crave knowledge and the people who want to make a quick buck.”
“And where do you stand?” asked Daniel.
“We stand apart from all that. Our only interest is in the purity of the Jewish people. But you’re right. There are people who like to steal ancient artefacts and then sell them on the black market. Yigael Yadin once implied that Moshe Dayan fell into that category.”
Yigael Yadin was a former soldier who went on to become one of Israel’s leading archaeologists. Moshe Dayan, was the legendary former soldier and Defence Minister, who was an amateur archaeologist whom Yadin implied was also a private collector with a less than ethical approach.
