by Paul L Maier
He walked the twisting “Snake Path” back down to the base of Masada. Then he drove to the seaside spa and engaged in small talk with a lifeguard on duty there. “What’s the sea bottom like in this area?” he inquired. “Anyone do any scuba diving around here?”
“Crazy salt formations,” the guard replied. “They do a little diving, but you have to hang on extra weights or you won’t sink.”
“Right. Water’s 25 percent salt, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “I’ve seen ’em come here with regular equipment and bounce around like corks when they try to dive.”
“How come you sound like an American?”
“I grew up in the Bronx. Became an Israeli five years ago.”
“Small world!” Jon laughed. “Is there any . . . ah . . . danger to swimmers because this is so close to the frontier?”
“You mean mines? That kind of thing?”
“Right.”
“Nah, I don’t think so. Maybe down south there at the canal. But if you do dive here, don’t swim out too far. I don’t know what the Jordanians may have.”
Jon made a mental note to take along the submersible metal-detector they had used to find coins while scuba-diving at Caesarea. “Ever have any trouble along the border here, with Jordan so close?”
“Not much. We have a live-and-let-live attitude with the Arabs down here.”
“Thanks, friend. Take care.”
It was doable, Jon decided on the trip back to Jerusalem. It was also surrealistic, the most maniacal scheme he had ever concocted. What if he were losing touch with reality, as Rast had gently implied? Was Rama curdling his brain?
That night he told Shannon the first lie in their relationship. He hated doing that. But the only alternative was her lying instead about his whereabouts over the next few days, if she were questioned, and he wanted to spare her that. He told her he had to go to the publishers in Tel Aviv for the next several days to do additional work on the epitome manuscript.
Dick Cromwell, however, got only the straight truth from Jon. It was uttered in hushed tones over a bottle of sherry late that night in Dick’s room at Ramallah. Jon watched, sadly, as Dick’s face fell slowly apart. It took him a full hour to come to terms with the poisonous tidings.
“We still don’t have an ounce of proof, Dick. I could very well be making the most horrible mistake of my life,” Jon sighed. “It’s an imbecilic risk, but I have to take it. Too incredibly much is riding on this, as you well know.”
Slowly Cromwell shook his head. “I still can’t believe this, Jon. But I . . . I guess I have to go along with it. Okay, tomorrow I’ll shop for extra scuba weights at Divers Unlimited in Jerusalem and call in a reservation for myself at the Masada Youth Hostel.”
“Get a couple of waterproof pouches, while you’re at it.”
“Okay. When do I drive you to the Shrine of the Book?”
“My appointment with the director is at 3:30 PM. We should leave Ramallah no later than 2:30.”
Cromwell shook his head. “Are you sure you want to do this, Jon?”
“I have to. But reason should prevail. I calculate the odds at only one in ten that I’ll have to get wet on my way to London. I’m just covering all the bases.”
That night, Jon slept in fits and starts, fighting the sheets and thrashing about the bed. For all his surface assurance, a seismic uncertainty tingled in his very bones. “Father, if possible, let this cup pass from me!” he murmured, discovering a new sympathy for the scene in Gethsemane. Every discussion of testing at Rama had closed with the refrain: “If only we could test the writing—the ink itself.” PIXE and chemical analysis had not been enough. He must get a larger sample, now that there was a possible standard of comparison. Blast their decision to let the Israelis have custody of the Rama artifacts! If they had still been at Rama, tomorrow’s danger would have been bypassed.
“Nevertheless, not my will, but Yours be done.” How rarely he had prayed in recent years, he reflected wistfully, except in a crisis like this.
TWENTY-THREE
I still think I should go in with you, Jon,” said Cromwell as they drove up to the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in West Jerusalem. “No reason you should take the heat alone.”
“No, there’s every reason for you to stay right here. Park over to the left there, next to Kaplan Street, and be ready to head out immediately, especially if I’m running. If I don’t come out in an hour, or if the police arrive, then take off without me. In that case, call Glastonbury in London and tell him he’ll have to come here instead—maybe I can smuggle the sample to him through prison bars—and call Rast too—5:15 PM—to tell him it’s all off. Got that?”
“Right. Do you have the envelope with the false sample?”
“Yes.”
“The empty plastic vial?”
“Yes.”
“Razor blades?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got the infrared camera, I see. Okay, buddy, good luck!”
“I’ll need more than that, Dick. You’d better pray!”
Jon stepped out of the Peugeot and headed inside the Shrine of the Book, his heart throbbing a pulse he could feel down to his fingertips. A walk down the ramp brought him to the office of the director, Dov Sonnenfeld. He looked at his watch: 3:33 PM.
The secretary glanced up at him and went in to report his arrival. Did she notice anything amiss? Already he was starting to feel like a criminal.
“Hello, Professor Weber,” said Sonnenfeld. “Good of you to visit us!” The genial director, in his early forties, was a little taller than Jon, had auburn hair, and ruddy, freckled skin. He had also been a soccer star in his youth, and Jon cordially hoped he wouldn’t have to outrun him.
“Delighted to see you, Dr. Sonnenfeld. I’ve . . . ah . . . come in regard to the titulus parchment from Rama.”
“Oho! Before you say another word, please fol-low me.”
Sonnenfeld guided him out into the museum, past display windows on either side that were illuminated in yellow light—“The Bar-Kokhba letters,” he explained proudly—and into the central rotunda, where a facsimile of the Isaiah parchment was displayed, greatest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. At the far end of the chamber was a display window covered with dark cloth. Sonnenfeld turned on the inside illumination and parted the cloth. “Well, what do you think?” he asked, beaming.
Jon’s heart nearly failed him. There, under the purple glow of ultraviolet light, hung the titulus, all of its fragments placed in their original position on a sheet of transparent muslin backing, and enclosed between two plates of glass. A catastrophe, Jon thought. Sonnenfeld would hardly release the parchment after they had prepared so elaborate a display, and the alarm wires threaded along the perimeter of the locked glass doors of the display case would prevent intrusion of any kind. He would not be able to get at the titulus.
“Well, it’s . . . a remarkable display, Dr. Sonnenfeld,” he finally managed. “But I thought you’d wait until late November, when the epitome of the scholars’ congress will be released.”
“Of course we’ll wait. That’s why we have a curtain in front of it.” He drew it closed again, and turned off the lights. “And, just like the Isaiah scroll over there,” he pointed, “this is not the original, but a facsimile. Couldn’t you really tell?”
Swimming in relief, Jon shook with laughter. “A fabulous piece of work, Dr. Sonnenfeld! Your artists caught it perfectly—the diagonal crack, even the darker ink in the upper right corner. Congratulations!”
“Oh, thank you, thank you! We thought we’d use the ultraviolet to add a note of realism. But let’s go back to my office.”
Once they had returned, Sonnenfeld asked, “Now, how may we help you?”
Jon took a long breath and began, “We’re a little embarrassed, Dr. Sonnenfeld. In our photography of the titulus, we took the usual analysis photos, but somehow we overlooked infrared. Just yesterday, when I delivered the epitome manuscript to our
publishers, we noticed the omission. We have to do the photography as soon a possible, and we were wondering if you’d be kind enough to return the titulus to us for a day or two so we could accomplish that.”
“Certainly, certainly. I see no problem whatever. Excuse me a moment and I’ll fetch it.”
Thank the good Lord! This was all going to come off infinitely easier than he had projected. The sense of relief was exquisite.
Minutes later, Sonnenfeld returned, but without the large padded case in which the titulus had been delivered to the Shrine. “I discussed this with the Director of the Israel Museum next door—they have final authority here—and he insisted that we first get permission from the Israel Antiquities Authority. Do you mind if I call them?”
“Certainly not.” Exit relief, enter concern. But perhaps the director was out.
“Oh, yes, good afternoon, Gideon,” said Sonnenfeld on the phone.
Exit concern, enter anxiety.
Sonnenfeld stated Jon’s request properly and convincingly, and then waited for Gideon’s response. It would, of course, be negative, Jon decided, bracing himself for the worst.
Sonnenfeld covered the mouthpiece and confided, “He says he wouldn’t mind, but he has to get the approval of the Israel Ministry of Education. He’s calling now.”
Well, score one for fair-mindedness in Gideon, thought Jon, and shame on himself.
Four minutes passed. Sonnenfeld then came back to life on the phone. “Yes . . . yes . . . I see. All right, thanks very much, Gideon.”
He hung up and said, “The Education Minister is out today, and they can’t grant approval without him. Ben-Yaakov, therefore, can’t either. He suggests you simply bring your camera equipment here and take the photos.”
“No problem,” said Jon. He opened his briefcase and took out the camera. “I thought that might be the case, so I brought along some infrared film.”
“Oh? Splendid!”
“You do have infrared lamps in your lab here, don’t you?”
“Of course. I’ll bring several to the workroom in the archives. That’s where we keep the genuine parchment.”
The segments of the titulus, nestled between sheets of muslin, were removed from a large, humidity-controlled vault and set on a worktable. Sonnenfeld removed the covering sheet and helped Jon arrange the lamps to beam down on the parchment. Jon had eyes primarily for the darker letters in the upper right corner: the “DAEORVM” part of the Latin for “of the Jews.” Those were the letters for which he was prepared to sacrifice his professional reputation.
If, that is, Sonnenfeld would ever leave the room. Like a solicitous mother hen, the director was fondly admiring the titulus once again, adjusting the lights, and hovering over his shoulders. But Jon steeled his nerves and waited him out, checking his watch to make sure he would not exceed the hour he had promised Cromwell. Photograph followed photograph after photograph, until Sonnenfeld finally dropped the delicious words, “Well, I’ll go back to my office for a while. Call me when you’re finished.”
Almost tasting his heart, Jon quickly opened his briefcase and took out the razor blades and two plastic vials, one filled with crushed graphite—a fake decoy he would substitute if he were caught—and the other sterilized and empty, eagerly waiting to be filled. Bending down, he looked around one last time, then seized a razor blade and started scraping away the “DAEORVM” lettering, letting the blackish material build up below each letter. The stuff was coming off, thank God, not in the quantities he’d hoped, but perhaps it would be enough.
D was now obliterated, only a grayish stain remaining. A followed suit. E, for some reason, was balky, surrendering only half its substance to the scraping. Never mind. He went on to O, which suc-cumbed readily enough, as did R and V.
There were footsteps in the hall. Jon froze, hovering over the titulus so no one would see. The foot-steps continued past the door. He could have sung a Te Deum. One more letter and I’ll have brought it off, he told himself. And what a magnificent letter: one M is worth three I’s when it comes to delivering tiny quantities of possibly forged carbon. By now his hand was getting skilled at the chore and in just eight flourishing strokes he had managed to denude most of M.
Now, and without touching the dark, granular spoil, he made slight trenches in the parchment and let the scrapings slide into the empty vial. He screwed the cap on tightly. Done! He secreted it in a pouch around his neck. Done! It remained only to put the muslin sheet back over the parchment and tenderly restore it to the vault. He had watched which drawer was used. With any luck, Sonnenfeld would not check it, and he would be in London tomorrow noon.
He glanced at the titulus a final time. “DAE-ORVM” had only half an E left. The rest was merely a gray, shadowy outline of the original lettering. It was either success—or the most miserable miscalculation in the annals of archaeology. For if Rama should finally prove authentic, he had just mutilated one of the greatest documents to survive from antiquity.
But why wasn’t that E more cooperative? Perhaps another nudge would do it. He picked up the razor and scraped once again. The moment he did so, the door swung open and Sonnenfeld walked in, smiling and saying, “I just happened to think, Professor Weber, that you’d have a better—What are you doing there?” He bent over the parchment, his face tightening in shock. “What . . . what happened to the last part of that Latin line? . . . You . . . you used a razor on it? . . . You scraped it? Elohim Shebashamiam!! I don’t believe this!!”
“Let me try to explain, Dr. Sonnenfeld—”
But the director ran out of the room, screaming in Hebrew, “Guards! Guards! Come in here!”
“Really, Dr. Sonnenfeld, there’s no need to—”
“Grab that man and don’t let him leave the room!” Sonnenfeld pointed. “I must call the Antiquities Authority!”
“Let me speak to Ben-Yaakov after you’ve talked to him!” Jon called to the departing Sonnenfeld.
The shaken director returned some minutes later and told the guards, “Bring him to my office.” Their hands clasped tightly on both his upper arms, the museum police walked Jon to Sonnenfeld’s office. The director grabbed the phone and said, “We have him here now . . . What’s that? . . . Oh! Yes, of course.” He put the phone down and said, “Let’s have the ink powder you scraped off.” Slowly Jon handed him the fake vial. If they test that, it would date to AD 1990s! he thought wryly as he struggled to keep from drowning in a sea of chagrin and humiliation.
“Here, he wishes to speak with you.” Sonnenfeld handed him the phone.
“Yes, Gideon,” said Jon, ponderously. “I know what I’ve done is unprecedented, but it can be explained . . . Yes . . . yes, of course I’ll give you the explanation. But this is so incredibly sensitive that it must be for your ears only. May I please ask the others here to step out of the room? . . . Fine, I’ll give you Dr. Sonnenfeld again.” He handed him the phone.
The director listened, nodded, and handed the phone back to Jon. He then motioned to the museum police, and they all left the office. Jon now unveiled to Gideon the ominous information he had received from Dunstable and Glastonbury, as well as his plans to compare the titulus scrapings with soot from Pompeii.
“No,” he concluded, “the evidence isn’t proof, as yet, and maybe it isn’t even circumstantial, but we’ve uncovered a strong motive for the first time. This was our one and only clue, Gideon, and I simply had to seize on it.”
“I think you’re making a mountain out of a speck, Jonathan,” he replied. “Jennings had nothing more than a memory lapse, I’m sure. This is like saying that . . . that Dame Kathleen Kenyon was a prostitute!”
“But the motive, Gideon. I have to fly to London and learn more about it from Glastonbury and Paddington. We’ve also got to compare the titulus scrapings. It’s like four or five hissing fuses. They could lead to a common, explosive conclusion.”
“More like a dud . . . a fizzle! I’m afraid you need a psychiatrist, Jonathan. I hate to say this,
but I think you’ve gone over the edge. I know Rama’s been a terrible strain, but—”
“Just give me the next two or three days, Gideon. After that you can do whatever you want with me. Lock me up and throw away the key, if you like. After I get back from London, I’ll go directly to your office and tell you what happened. If I’m wrong, you can put me in handcuffs!”
“First of all, London is out, Jonathan. You don’t dare leave the country. The Education minister . . . the Prime Minister . . . would have my scalp for let-ting you go after the atrocity you just pulled. And by the way, you should know that there’s absolutely nothing personal about my decision here, though you may think so.”
“I don’t think that, Gideon,” said Jon, although he did, the image of Shannon again commanding his mind’s eye. “You’re a bigger man than that.”
“I’d have to decide this way if you were my own brother, Jonathan. Let Glastonbury fly in here with his little packet of soot, and you can test both samples at Rehovot.”
“The Weizmann is excellent, Gideon, but it doesn’t have the equipment to test something as small as what I scraped from the titulus! ”
“I’m sure it does, Jonathan.”
“It does not. We’ll have to use a tandem accelerator on this.”
“My patience is running out, Jonathan. I should be calling the police and having you arrested for malicious destruction of a national treasure—some-thing really beyond any forgiveness—yet I’m—”
“Gideon, I’m pleading with you: just give me forty-eight hours out of the country and—”
“Shut up!” Gideon roared. “I’m giving you two options. One, you have twenty-four hours to set up the tests with Landau in Rehovot. Or two, I’ll see you at the police station.”
“All right, Gideon, all right. But please . . . please keep this absolutely confidential for now. And tell Sonnenfeld and his guard to keep it confidential too.”
“Will you pledge to use Rehovot?”
“I . . . I’ll pledge, Gideon,” Jon sighed. Inwardly he continued, Sure, I pledge to bring a grain or two of the scrapings there . . . someday.
