by Jon Steele
“In the time of Herod the Great.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds very much like the legend of the three wise men and Yeshua ben Yosef,” the soldier said. “That would have been between 6 and 3 BC.”
“It does at that.”
The soldier waved her left hand over the sextant, the pottery fragment, and the nail. “Then all these things, together, could be things belonging to Yeshua ben Yosef.”
Harper thought about it.
“That is what the man from Montségur told me. But he called them the things of Christ.”
“That is not all he told you. You saw him in Lausanne just before you traveled to the Middle East. He told you you might need them again,” the soldier said.
Harper stared at her. She did not blink. “You are very good at your job,” he said.
“Toda.”
“Seeing as you know so much about me, perhaps I could lower my hands from my head,” Harper said.
“False prophets are very tricky. If I am to believe you are not one of those, then you must first perform a sign or a wonder that will keep me from killing you where you stand.”
“Is that what you do? You kill false prophets?”
“If they come to harm this land, yes.”
Harper nodded. “Right. Well, do you have any particular sign or wonder in mind?”
“How about raising someone from the dead?”
Harper flashed slicing open the palms of his own hands, draining the blood onto a dead man’s eyes.
“I tried that once.”
“Where?”
“In Paris. In the cavern where I found the sextant. A man, an innocent man, was killed.”
“How did it work out? Raising him from the dead?”
“Not well.”
“Then perhaps we should try something less difficult.”
Harper ran the odds in taking her down. They came up slim to none.
“Like what?”
The soldier reached in the pocket of her satin jacket with her left hand; her right hand kept the death end of the assault rifle targeted at Harper’s chest. Her left hand reappeared rolled in a fist. She held it out, offering something to him.
“Take this. And remember, my foot is on a detonator.”
Harper lowered his arms. He stepped forward and held out his hand. The soldier opened her fist and a small rectangular box dropped into Harper’s gloved palm. It was dark purple with silver lettering. It was a bloody matchbox from LP’s Bar in Lausanne.
“Now, Jay Harper, step back to where you were and tell me what is inside the matchbox.”
Harper stepped back, looked at the matchbox. He shook it. Something small and solid slid back and forth. “Am I supposed to guess?”
“You are supposed to open it, look at it, and tell me what it is.”
Harper opened the matchbox. Inside was a Swiss five-franc coin; it was dented along the edge. Images flashed through his eyes and vertigo hammered him hard. He stumbled back into the wall. Time is motion, motion is time; no shit. Harper found his balance, looked at the soldier.
“How?”
He couldn’t find the rest of the words.
“It was taken from you without your knowledge, and all memory of it was wiped from something called a timeline. Seeing it now, you are supposed to reconnect to the events regarding the coin. That would be proof of your identity. Or so I was told.”
“By whom?”
“A Swiss Guard who came this way two days ago on a recon mission. He was trying to escape across the Jordan River when I caught him. He told me a story. It took most of the night for him to tell it. The highlight was that the man of signs and wonders would soon return to the Holy Land. If you have my job, something like that grabs your attention.”
“Sergeant Gauer.”
The soldier nodded. “One thing led to another. A deal was made.”
“What sort of deal?”
“One you will never know about if you cannot tell me about the coin. So, stranger, are you the man of signs and wonders or are you just another false prophet?”
Harper looked at the coin. He touched the dented edge.
“I did a job at the Lausanne Cathedral a few years ago. There was a lad who spent his nights in the belfry; le guet de Lausanne. He called the hour from the belfry through the night. There were bad guys who wanted him dead. They wanted a lot of people dead. The lad had found a key in a titanium box. He called it lunch box. He was funny that way. He would say things; brilliant things. He found the box in an old well under the altar square of the cathedral. He took me down to show me. We found an opening to a shaft at the bottom of the well. There was a ladder built into the side wall that went down, but it went deep and it was dark. I had the coin in my pocket. It wasn’t dented then. I was about to drop it down to see how deep the shaft was. The lad stopped me, asked me if I had anything smaller.”
Harper stopped talking. He saw the lad’s face by the light of his lantern, with an expression of disbelief that Harper would toss away five francs.
“What was your answer?” the soldier said.
“Sorry?”
“What did you say to him when he asked you if you had anything smaller and what happened then?”
Harper stared at her. “I said nope and I dropped the coin. It fell a very long way. We went down the ladder. The lad found it at the bottom of the shaft. It was sorely dented. He wanted to give it back to me.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I think I’ve said enough to verify my identity, thank you.”
“You told Marc Rochat to keep it for good luck. By the next sundown he was slaughtered as the bells of the Christian Sabbath rang out over Lausanne. He was slaughtered saving the cathedral, a pregnant woman named Katherine Taylor, and you, a creature some men would call an angel, who may or may not be the man of signs and wonders. Is that what happened, Jay Harper?”
Harper stared at the soldier.
“Sod off.”
Ten seconds.
“Right answer,” she said.
The soldier made her weapon safe and double-tapped the detonator on the floor to deactivate it. She rose from the stool. She was five feet six, special-ops fit; she moved with the poise of a cat. Harper ran her name: Chana. A Hebrew name meaning grace.
“I am with a special unit of Israeli Military Intelligence.”
“Israeli MI has a unit for angels and ancient stuff?”
“We have a unit for everything. Empty your pockets of the ChemLights, leave them on the table. Then we will go to Jerusalem.”
“And do what?”
“That you will find out.”
“How do we get there?”
“I have a jeep. We will take the scenic route.”
“Would the scenic route include checkpoints?”
“Of course. This is Israel.”
“It’s only I’m afraid I don’t have a proper entry stamp in my passport.”
Chana tapped her shoulder tag. “No problem. And I was told you can keep the coin.”
Harper looked at it a second, closed the matchbox, and almost dropped it in the bottomless pocket of his trench coat. He slipped it in the pen pocket of his sports coat instead.
“Cheers,” he said.
Chana headed for the ladder, got two rungs up, and looked down at Harper.
“Is it true what that Swiss Guard said? About what you found under the cathedral? A burning bush?”
“Yes, actually.”
“And you call it the first fire of creation?”
“Yes.”
“Sababa.”
She slung her rifle over her shoulder and climbed out of the cave.
ii
Chana drove west through open desert. She drove without headlamps, but the moon cast enough light to see the way. She knew the terrain well and made sharp, fast moves. She came to a dirt track running north, turned onto it, and picked up speed. Harper had the sensation of rising higher. A few dips and turns later,
the jeep passed a large sandstone building with white domes along the roof. There was a minaret at one corner.
“Al-Nabi Musa,” Chana said.
“What?”
“The place you are looking at. It is a place of Muslim pilgrimage dating back to the fourteenth century. From there they could look across the Dead Sea to where Moses was buried on Mount Nebo.”
Clearing the building, Harper got the view of the far mountain and the expanse of dark water beneath it. Impressive, he thought. One minute you’re somewhere in the real world, then wham, you’ve crossed into the Holy Land.
“Right.”
Chana cut left, drove down into a small valley, and joined a military-only track. It wound around and connected to a four-lane highway. The road was empty. She turned on the jeep’s headlamps, hit the gas, and sped into the lanes heading up the mountain.
“This is the same road Yeshua ben Yosef would have taken in his final days. He would have done it on foot. A two-day journey at least. He would have slept in this desert.”
Harper gave the scene a quick scan, then he looked at the dashboard. It was a rather stripped-down vehicle for a spook, the sort of thing a nobody in the Israeli Army would drive while safely tucked inside a military base. Harper looked at Chana. A bit like invisible ink herself, he thought.
She felt his eyes but kept her own on the road. “You wish to ask something?” she said.
“Would I get a direct answer?”
“Depends on the question.”
“Did you believe what Sergeant Gauer told you?”
“About what?”
“Signs. Wonders. Me.”
She did not answer. But he sensed she was thinking about it, winding her way up the Jericho-Jerusalem road. At one bend a sign was mounted in the side of a hill.
SEA LEVEL
Now and again they passed Bedouin camps in small valleys. The people lived in tents, their goats hobbled nearby. Climbing higher, the hills were spotted with scrub, wild grasses, and acacia trees. Then the road met an interchange with cloverleaf exits, and there was traffic coming and going. To the left were long rows of identical apartment buildings. There were tree-lined streets and playgrounds. The buildings stretched over two hilltops, and there was new construction on a third hill.
“The Alamo.”
“Sorry?”
“Ma’ale Adumim. It is a settlement of more than forty thousand Israelis. It is either an illegal occupation of Palestinian land by Jews or a Jewish birthright from God Himself. It depends on who is doing the talking.”
“No room for maneuver between the two?”
“There was, but those days are gone from us. These days in the Holy Land the blind lead the blind.”
To the right were stacks of razor wire set between the road and a cluster of rough-looking buildings on a hillside. There were no tree-lined streets or playgrounds to be seen; flats were crammed together.
“That is a Palestinian town called Al Za’im,” Chana said.
There were similar buildings dotting the hills left of the road now. Then Harper saw a massive concrete wall snaking from the north along a high ridge. It stopped at the Jerusalem-Jericho road but began again on the south side. It cut through the landscape, sometimes through the middle of Palestinian towns.
“And that scar on the land is either the Israeli Security Fence or the Wall of Jewish Apartheid.”
“Depending on who is doing the talking?”
“Ken.”
“Which is it to you?”
“Both. That is the tragedy of it.”
Chana eased off the gas. They were approaching a checkpoint of bright lights, Israeli flags, and individual lanes like tollbooths. Israeli Border Police in green uniforms, green flak jackets, and green berets stood battle-ready with M16 assault rifles in their hands. They waved through cars with Israeli license plates after a quick check of the passengers. Cars with yellow Palestinian plates carrying passengers of darker complexions were pulled over for inspection. Chana stopped at the checkpoint, rolled down her window. She had a speedy conversation in with policeman.
“Shalom.”
“Shalom, Rav Seren,” the policeman said.
One: They knew each other, Harper thought. Two: Chana was a major in Israeli MI. The conversation continued after the policeman gave Harper a visual once-over.
Who is your passenger?
A security consultant for the International Olympic Committee. I am giving him a tour to convince him Jerusalem will be safe enough to host the 3052 Summer Games. So far it is a tight race between us and Mogadishu.
Good luck with that, ma’am.
We live in hope, no? Is my escort here?
Other side of the security fence. Near the roundabout on Al-Hardub Street.
Thanks. A quiet night to you.
You, too, the policeman said. I will hold traffic for you.
Thanks.
Chana passed through the checkpoint, turned on her headlamps, and cut across oncoming lanes onto a small road. The road got her inside the wall. She pulled onto Al-Hardub Street and stepped on it. Harper saw the roundabout ahead and the Israeli jeep parked there. The jeep’s headlamps came on and it took the point down the dark road. Chana followed. Soon the convoy was driving through Arab neighborhoods. There were old men in dishdasha and kaffiyeh drinking Arabic coffee outside their homes; there were teenage Palestinian boys in sweatshirts and blue jeans playing football in the street; there was a donkey tied to a telephone pole. Small grocers, mosques, falafel joints, Arabic pop music. The place was full of life. The lead jeep made rights and lefts and passed through poorer Arab neighborhoods.
After one more left the jeeps slowed.
They passed a high chain-link fence topped with razor wire and security cameras. Behind the fence was a new four-floored building with an Israeli flag flying above the roof. Three civilian guards out front. Kippah on their heads, tzitzit tassels hanging from their waists. They were armed with M16s and sidearms. None of them looked pleased to see the jeeps. One of the guards spit at the lead jeep as it crept by. The lead jeep hit the gas; Chana followed.
“An odd greeting, considering,” Harper said.
“Considering?”
“Those were Jews spitting at Israeli soldiers, even as they are surrounded by Palestinians. Not to mention you slowed down to receive the compliment.”
“The Jews living on this street are members of the Third Temple Movement. They believe God gave Jews all land from the Mediterranean to Mount Nebo and all the Jordan Valley in between, from the Golan Heights to Sinai. Full stop. And they want the land cleansed of Arabs, living and dead. Jews only, even the graves. Then they will destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount to make room for their Third Temple. Then comes the Mashiach, then comes the end of the world. That is their peace plan. We just like them to know we are watching them.”
Harper looked around the neighborhood. “At the moment they would appear to be surrounded by Palestinians.”
“Ken. And many of those Palestinians, like millions of Muslims surrounding Israel, think all Jews should be drowned in the sea.” She glanced at Harper. “I said I would take you by the scenic route.”
Harper looked around. The hills seemed to fall away; there was a dark and strangely glowing sky.
“Where are we?” Harper said.
“The Mount of Olives. Welcome to Jerusalem, Jay Harper.”
The jeep rounded a wide turn, just skirting the edge of a cliff above the Kidron Valley. Buildings and trees disappeared and the entire descending slope of the mountain was covered with thousands of Jewish graves. Then he saw it: Across the narrow valley, high atop Mount Moriah, almost floating in the night, was the gleaming Old City of Jerusalem. It was dominated by the glimmering Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount. A Muslim shrine sitting on the holiest place in Judaism. At first glance it was a beautiful sight, then the incongruity of it took hold; then it looked like a mountain of never-ending trouble. Beyond the gold dome were
the low roofs of stone houses and church steeples and minarets, the lot of it packed together by high stone walls. There was a world beyond the Old City, a world of skyscrapers and modern suburbs west and south, but Harper’s eyes stripped them from his vision. He imagined beforetimes, when an ancient traveler would have walked up the Jericho–Jerusalem road and come to this place in the midday light. The trip would have taken days, and the traveler would have been tired. From here he would have seen the Second Temple sparkling in the sun like some beatific vision. Then he would see the Court of the Women; the Nicanor Gate leading to the Western Court; the twelve steps leading to the entrance of the Holy of Holies. The scent of burned offerings would rise from the Altar of Sacrifice and drift across the Kidron Valley to meet the weary traveler. A line ripped through Harper’s head: Isaiah 2:3. A line about people coming to the mountain of the Lord, to the House of God so that He could teach them His ways and they could walk in His path.
“Lo and behold,” Harper said.
“You got that right.”
iii
Chana cut a sharp right, but the lead jeep continued straight on. Harper got a glimpse of a small blue sign on a stone wall: MA’ALE HO-KOHANIM STREET. By the time he read it, Chana had turned left down a narrow lane with high stone walls on either side. She stopped near an iron gate, shut down the jeep’s motor, and turned off the lights. Harper looked through the gate. There were olive trees and gardens and neat stone walkways. He looked at the soldier.
“Mind if I smoke?” he said.
“Go ahead. It is going to be a long night.”
He searched through the pockets of his trench coat, found his electronic fag. Switch on. Blue light. Inhale. Bloody hell.
“What happened to your escort?” he said.
“They did what they needed to do.”
“Guide us through the scenic route, yeah?”
Ten seconds.
“You asked if I believed what the Swiss Guard said. About signs, wonders, you.”
Harper nodded.
“Let me tell you what I believe. I believe this land is holy. I believe it was holy before the Canaanites came, and the Jews and the Caliphate, and the Crusaders and the Ottomans and the British and the Arabs. I believe it is holy because it is a place of sacred light. I believe through the ages the sons of darkness have risen up again and again, taking form as king or conqueror or false prophet, and they have reduced this city to dust in an attempt to crush all the light left to us. I believe the final battle is upon us and if we fail then the sons of darkness will rule the world.”
