by Adam Palmer
Daniel and Sarit ran over, with Ted only a fraction of a second behind them. Sarit took the initiative.
“Which way did they go?”
“To the cable car… I think.”
The mother was going to say more, but the sound of a gunshot in the distance struck terror into her. She screamed.
But there was no time to comfort her. Sarit took off first, with Daniel second. Ted was going to follow, but one of the border police stopped him. They had seen Sarit’s ID and that she clearly knew the man who had gone off after her. But they weren’t sure about this man, even though he too had been trapped in the rubble.
Unable to pass Sarit on the narrow wooden walkway Daniel arrived at the cable car just behind her. The cable car operator was lying there bleeding from the torso. He was clutching the wound, but was clearly in pain. Sarit half turned.
“Call the doctor!”
Then she went to work on the cable car mechanism, trying to figure it out. Daniel saw one of the border guardsman on the walkway. Switching to Hebrew, to make himself understood, Daniel called out to him.
“Send the doctor quickly! The cable car operator’s been shot.”
By the time the words were out of his mouth, he heard a whirring sound and looked round to see that the cable car had come to a halt halfway down. Sarit stood up to see a look of concern on Daniel’s face.
“He might harm the child.”
“He’ll try to bargain first. They always do.”
Daniel looked down at the wounded man and started taking off his belt. But it was Sarit whom he addressed.
“Can you do first aid?”
“I’m trained. But the doctor’s coming.”
“Try and stop the bleeding.”
“You can’t put a tourniquet on the torso…”
But Sarit realized that she had misunderstood Daniel’s meaning. He stood up on a metal railing, threw the thick belt over the cables and leapt, sliding down the cables, holding onto both ends of the belt for dear life.
Chapter 88
After watching Daniel land on the top of the cable car, Sarit crouched down and applied pressure to try and stem the bleeding. She was still concerned with Daniel’s safety, but she knew that he could take care of himself. And this man who lay before her on the ground was dying. However, she knew that he needed proper medical help and she stepped back the second the doctor arrived.
While the doctor went to work on the cable car operator, Sarit looked down to see Daniel standing on the roof of the cable car. He was opening one of the trap doors in the roof of the cabin and then trying to clamber down.
Suddenly Baruch Tikva reached up and tried to grab Daniel’s legs. He had the size and strength. But Daniel had the speed and agility to keep one foot free. As Bar Tikva made a second attempt to pull him down and make him land badly, Daniel kicked him away with his free foot.
In response, Bar Tikva dragged the boy – who was aged no more than six – to the side door, forced the side door open manually and threatened to throw him out. The boy screamed in terror at what the big man was threatening. He looked to Daniel with appealing eyes, as if begging Daniel to save him.
But Daniel was now driven to anger by the memory of what Bar Tikva had done already. He had targeted Daniel’s nieces and now he was threatening another innocent child, this one selected purely at random. Realizing that Bar Tikva was probably bluffing, but unwilling to provoke him with a direct challenge, Daniel resorted to psychology.
He grabbed the treasure bag that Bar Tikva had left unattended when he tried to grab Daniel’s legs and smiled at Bar Tikva.
“That boy is worth nothing to me. But this is worth plenty to you. If I have it, I can use to validate the manuscripts and expose the truths that you wish to conceal.”
Bar Tikva looked angry. Then Daniel held out an olive branch.
“Let’s trade.”
Bar Tikva contemplated for a moment and then smiled.
“Okay.”
Bar Tikva dragged the boy over to the middle of the cabin, leaving the door, which now remained open. Daniel met him there and handed over the bag in such a way that Bar Tikva was forced to let go of the boy in order to take possession of the treasure bag. As soon as this was accomplished, Daniel lifted the boy and deposited him in a far corner.
Then Daniel turned his attention back to Bar Tikva. In a fraction of a second, Bar-Tikva was on to him, pinning him against the side of the cable car, his powerful hands around Daniel’s throat. But Daniel knew how do deal with this. Putting his hands together in front of him he swept up and outward, breaking Bar Tikva’s stranglehold. He followed up by grabbing the back of Bar Tikva’s head and pulling it forward, whilst lowering his own head and leaning forward to deliver a powerful head butt.
Bar Tikva emitted a grunt and fell back. But he still wasn’t down for the count. Clutching his nose, he lurched at Daniel yet again. Only this time he didn’t try to pin him down in a grappling hold. Instead he swung wildly at him with clenched fists. There was no particular skill to the blows, and Daniel was able to block or parry them, protecting his head and his torso.
But the sheer strength and intensity of the blows raining down on his forearms was painful and relentless, making it hard for him to rally his reserves and deliver any sort of counter attack.
With the doctor now trying desperately to save the life of the wounded cable car operator, Sarit decided that she had to make helping Daniel her main priority. Her first action was to scoop up the walkie-talkie that the cable car operator had dropped when he was shot. Her intention was to tell the operator of the other cable car to bring this one down and let Bar Tikva get away as long as didn’t take the boy. They had other armed guards down there and if it came to a stand off, then they could grant Bar Tikva safe passage but minus the child.
Her reasoning was that it was better that Bar Tikva escape than that anyone else be killed. But she quickly realized that this approach was impractical. Bar Tikva would demand the child, until he got clear. His organization had already shown how ruthless they could be. And Bar Tikva was no less ruthless than the organization that he served.
He had to be stopped. And Daniel needed help. But how?
Suddenly another plan of action flashed into her mind. She turned to Ted.
“Quick! Give me your belt!”
“What?”
Ted was confused.
“Your belt! I needed it now!”
Ted whipped off the belt and handed it to her.”
“I hope it’ll support your weight.”
They both knew what she was planning. But Ted’s belt was narrower than Daniel’s. On the other hand, Sarit was much lighter than Daniel, so that might just even the odds. As Daniel had done a moment ago, she threw the buckled end of the belt over the cables, grabbed it when it came over on the other side and took the same leap of faith into the void and slid down the cables, ignoring the abyss below.
Landing on the roof of the cable car, she saw that the trap door on the roof of the cabin was still open, so she lowered herself in feet first and dropped to the ground. So involved were Daniel and Bar Tikva in their fight, that they didn’t notice her. Only the little boy did. through his tears. She went over to him and gave him a hug and whispered in his ear.
“Don’t worry. I’ll stop the bad man.”
Then she spun round and delivered a vicious kick to the back of Bar Tikva’s head. But because of his rapid flurry of punches delivered to Daniel, his position changed just as it connected and it thus had less than the intended lethal effect.
It did however momentarily stun the big man, forcing a temporary abatement to his action. He spun round and was indignant to see that it was a woman who had struck him and that the little boy was smiling at what he had just witnessed, even through his tears. Fuming with rage Bar Tikva half turned to face her. Daniel grabbed the treasure bag and swung it at the big man. But Bar Tikva merely grabbed the bag with both hands and wrenched it away from Daniel, who had t
o release it in order to keep his balance.
At that point, Sarit got another idea. Smiling at Bar Tikva and almost taunting with her face and a wiggle of her hips, she positioned herself between him and the open door. Putting on an exaggerated form of her Irish accent, she smiled again and said: “Beaten by a woman eh? And a Shiksa at that? I guess that spells the end of the Jewish people.”
She knew from the look on his face that she had pressed the right button. Here was a man who was obsessed not only with the primacy of his father’s interpretation of the Bible and the sanctity of the Talmud but also the ethnic purity of the membership of the religion. But she wondered now, in this final split-second, if she had the speed and the agility to pull it off. Yes or no, however, it was too late to go back now. Incandescent with rage, he charged at her, still holding the treasure bag. Just as he was almost upon her, she twisted her hips and dropped to the ground sideways, planting her legs in front of his path.
But he avoided her by the adept expedient of taking a long stride and leaping over her. Then to avoid going through the open door, he rolled into a ball and landed in the corner of the cable car. They came to their feet simultaneously, but now – with the element of surprise lost – it was bar Tikva who had the advantage. He hooked an arm round Sarit and got her in a head lock, dragging her to the open side door. But Daniel – whose senses were still reeling from the avalanche of Bar Tikva’s blows, was not going to let the big man succeed.
He launched himself at Bar Tikva and delivered his own flurry of blows to the head, like a boxer working out with a punch bag. Bar Tikva released his grip in pain stepped back, intending to rally his reserves and come back at Daniel. But Daniel never gave him the chance. He lowered his head, lurched at Bar Tikva and with an almighty body charge sent the big man sailing out of the cabin and into the abyss, dropping the treasure bag in midair as he fell.
However, by giving it his all, the forward momentum proved too much and he found himself hanging out of the cabin head first, with only Sarit on his legs, preventing him from falling. Somehow he managed to find the upper body strength to raise his torso, reach back and grab on to one of the doors with his fingers. He felt as if the digits would snap as he applied pressure and slowly pulled himself back into the cabin.
Chapter 89
Sarit was cradling the little boy in her arms when they returned to the top of the plateau. She had used the walkie-talkie to get the cable car operator at the base station to send them back up to the top. Returning the child to the parents was the first priority. But as she looked over at the doctor, she realized that the news about the man who had been shot was not good.
More soldiers and border guardsman were arriving at the base and Sarit had notified Dovi Shamir, who was now liaising with SHaBaK. The arriving cable car brought border guardsman and some ambulance crews to deal with the formalities at the top, although both Shalom Tikva and the cable car operator would almost certainly be pronounced dead at the scene.
The people on the plateau were told they would have to wait until the bodies were removed before they would be allowed to leave. This was deemed preferable to having them effectively walk past the body by the cable car. But some of the ambulance staff checked over the older people of the plateau to make sure they were all right and more help and first aid would be waiting when they went down to the tourist centre below.
In the meantime, their details were being taken as they may be needed to give witness statements as this was now a criminal investigation. Sarit was allowed to go down already because of her Mossad ID and she was able to take Daniel and Ted with her, on her guarantee.
When they got to the bottom, they were allowed to go, unimpeded, to the place where Bar Tikva had fallen, although not to approach the body, which was being examined in situ by a pathologist from the coroner’s office. Instead, they looked around for the treasure bag, which he had been holding in his hands when he sailed out of the doorway of the cable car. But, interestingly, it was nowhere to be found.
They started looking round, widening their search in ever increasing circles, but to no avail.
“Where the devil could it be?” asked Daniel, frustrated by this turn of events. Ted looked at him chidingly, putting him on the defensive. “Look I don’t care about the treasure per se, Ted. It wasn’t ours anyway. But the inscription… the fact that the treasure was here.”
“We can still back up our case with the parchments and the translations.”
Daniel knew that Ted was right. Even though the ketuba was lost forever and preserved only as a digital image, without the original parchment – and even without Boudicca’s treasure – they still had the Temple Mount Parchment and the Domus Aurea Parchment. The Vatican would cooperate with them on that. It wasn’t some deep, dark secret that threatened the Roman Catholic faith. And contra to HaTzadik’s paranoid fears, it didn’t threaten the Jewish religion either. Rather, it would add to the sum of human knowledge and spread further light on the history of Judeo-Christian monotheism throughout the west.
Yet it was frustrating. The ketuba and the Boudicca treasure would have completed the picture. But instead, they had been thwarted by the skulduggery of Bar Tikva.
Sensing his mood, Sarit approached Daniel and put a comforting hand on him.
“It isn’t necessarily lost for good. When we do a proper search with metal detectors and gravitometers, it’ll probably show up under a few inches of wind-swept sand. It fell from quite a height don’t forget. It could easily have got embedded below the surface.”
Daniel smiled weakly. He would have preferred to search the area personally until he found the treasure. But that wouldn’t be very practical. Within a short time, a helicopter had landed and Dovi Shamir had turned up at the scene. He gathered Sarit, Daniel and Ted around him and told him that they had to go with him to a secret location to make their formal statements.
Chapter 90
“The El Al desk is over there,” said Daniel, pointing.
“You didn’t really have to accompany me,” Ted replied. “Not if you have to stay here.”
“I didn’t really have to stay here at all. I go back to England now and then fly back in a week. But I could do with a rest after all this excitement. My nephew’s swearing in is in a week’s time and I could use the break to catch my breath. I’m thinking of spending the whole week by the Dead Sea.”
“I’d’ve thought you’d be sick of that place.”
“Oh not Masada. I was thinking more of a hotel in Ein Bokek. Floating in the salty water or doing the mud treatment.”
“Enjoy it,” Ted replied with a smile.
“It’s either that or Eilat. I’ll see what Julia’s doing. She’s also staying on for another week. So I thought we might make a family occasion of it. And my brother-in-law Nat is flying in today. In fact after I’ve seen you safely through, I’ll probably go to arrivals and meet him.”
“When does he land?”
Daniel looked at his watch.
“He’s already landed. But with border control and baggage, I reckon he’ll be airside for the next hour at least.”
“Are you two travelling together,” said a pretty woman from flight security.
This was the pre-check-in security check that they use as the first line of defence against terrorists.
“Oh er no,” said Daniel. “I’m not flying today. My friend here is. I’m just here to see him off safely.”
The pretty girl smiled and went through the routine security questions. They sounded banal and some people wondered why asking these questions would catch a real terrorist who was planning something. But these staff were highly trained and they knew exactly what to look out for. They even asked a few questions about Daniel and he answered himself, explaining his own family residential connections to Israel as well as his academic vocation.
A minute later, Ted was putting his suitcase on the X-ray scanner and three minutes later he was checking in at the desk for pre-booked checkins. They w
ent through to the section where the groundside fast food and shops were located. Daniel, who knew Ben-Gurion Airport’s Terminal 3 quite well, was acting as a guide.
“You can get some fast food over there, but it’s not exactly cordon bleu.”
“Fast food never is.”
“Believe me this is worse than fast-food in England. The steak houses here are great, but when they take out franchises with the Big Three, they get it wrong. There’s better food airside.”
“Okay, well I guess this is goodbye for now, or what is it you say in Hebrew?”
“Lehitra’ot.”
“Lehitra’ot. I’ll see you back in England. We have a paper to work on.”
They shook hands and Ted went off through the second security check, the one that would involve metal detectors and ex-ray inspection of hand baggage.
Daniel was quite looking forward to working with Ted on the paper. In the meantime, he walked back, intending to go upstairs to arrivals where he expected to have to wait an hour for his brother-in-law.
However, as he emerged back into the checkin area, he noticed a man who looked terribly familiar walking into the men’s toilet, carrying a rucksack.
It can’t be!
And yet he had just seen it with his own eyes. If he hadn’t, he would never have believed it, But there was no mistaking what he saw. He strode briskly towards the toilet that the man had entered, but by the time he got there, there was no sign of the man. Then he realized why. The man had gone in to a cubicle. So Daniel waited calmly until the man emerged and then he stepped into his path.
Daniel didn’t know this, but the man whom he was confronting had been calling himself Sam Morgan when he had his dealings with Shalom Tikva and Shomrei Ha’ir. But that wasn’t his real name. And that wasn’t the name by which Daniel addressed him now.
“Hallo Costa.”
