by Jon Steele
Harper backed up to the gate, went right this time. The lane turned south like the other one. No Israeli flags this time; just a long stretch of lane filled with the detritus of a riot. A sign on the wall tagged the street as Aqabat el-Rahbat. A few feet on there was a road to the right. SA’ADIEH, a street sign said. He went that way, came very close to Jerusalem’s interior walls, then went toward a street marked IBN AL JARRAH. The street sign also had an arrow pointing the way straight on to Damascus Gate. Just now there was a platoon of Border Police marching down it, coming Harper’s way. The lockdown of the Muslim Quarter had begun. Harper ducked into a shadow, lowered his eyes, and the Israelis turned the corner down Ibn al Jarrah without seeing him. He raised his eyes just as Arabic curses and stones rained down from rooftops onto the police. The cops answered with rubber bullets. A police helicopter cruised in low overhead. It lit up the rooftops, and the rock throwers scattered. Harper backed up to Aqabat el-Rahbat and went right. Then the sound of more heavy boots over the cobblestones, from behind him this time. Harper worked the geography. The oncoming boots were from Salah Ad-Din Street. They were double-timing it.
“Bollocks.”
Harper ducked into another shadow, waited for the coppers to pass him by. His wounded leg was slowing him down. Best to be behind the cops than trying to outrun them, he thought. He stepped into the lane and followed after the police. They broke into two groups at a four-way intersection of narrow lanes, one group going left, the other going right; then the wet night exploded with violence. Screams, stones, gunshots, tear gas, an Israeli officer shouting commands through a bullhorn, Arabs shouting, “Allah akbar! Allah akbar!”
Harper limped ahead, got to the intersection, and checked the lanes running left and right. Palestinians had set up barricades of carts and garbage bins in the middle of both lanes. The Israelis were trapped. Rocks came over the barricades, Molotov cocktails and burning tires were dropped from rooftops. One of the Israeli cops caught fire. His squad threw him to the ground and beat out the flames. Another police helicopter swooped in over the rooftops. Harper saw a sniper hanging from the chopper’s side door. His weapon was not fitted for rubber-coated bullets. The pilot switched on the searchlight and lit up the rooftops; the sniper opened up.
Crack, crack, crack.
The lit-up night dripped with rain and human blood.
Harper hurried across the intersection. Another Israeli squad was charging toward him. Harper looked for cover, but there were more choppers in the sky now. They panned the scene with searchlights and obliterated the shadows. There was no place to hide. He saw a small alleyway ten feet ahead. He limped toward it, ducked in. He was navigating a warren of alleyways going this way and that way. It was the same drill as before the job at Lions’ Gate, but without Chana, Harper knew he was lost. A rock slammed into his back and he fell.
“Fuck!”
He rolled onto his back, saw a gang of Palestinian men charging at him. They had rocks and iron bars in their hands. One of them pointed at Harper and shouted, “Khalles allaih hada ameel!” Finish him, he’s a spy!
More rocks flew at him. He had no time to get the palm of his hand into their eyeline to take them down with a spell. He scrambled to his feet, caught another rock in his back, fell again. He crawled around a corner, got to his feet, ran as best he could. He ended up in a dead end.
“Shit.”
He saw a flimsy piece of plywood blocking access to an abandoned building. He kicked it down, jumped inside. The place smelled like rotting garbage and cat piss, but it was full of shadows. He slid in one, lowered his eyes. He heard the Palestinians coming down the dead end. They stopped at the opening to the abandoned building. They did not see him and left.
He stood still. Feeling the wet cold of the night, listening to the sounds of battle raging in nearby streets. Sirens, gunshots, choppers, and screams. And now the air was heavy with burning rubber and cordite. He looked up. Three hollowed-out floors, old timbers crisscrossing all the way up to keep the walls from caving in. The tin roof covering the place was peppered with holes. Threads of light seeped through the holes and hung in the dark.
Suddenly, Harper flashed the old man to whom Chana had given the reliquary box. He believes what I believe, Chana told Harper. And then she told the old man, If I do not come back, you know what to do with it. Do you understand?
The old man knows the wolves, Harper thought. Need to find him . . . but where? It was then Harper sensed he was not alone. He spun around. No one there, just the dark. Then he heard steps through the shadows.
“Hello?” he said.
A police chopper flew overhead, and spotlights blasted the tin roof. Fast-moving streams of light washed through the shadows. Harper saw garbage and rats, then three human forms in silhouette. The chopper banked away and the light quickly disappeared, taking the three human forms with it. Harper stepped back to the wall and scanned the ground for a stick or a piece of scrap iron. Then sniper rounds cracked overhead. He looked up, saw tracer rounds flying through the night. The Israelis had taken up positions on rooftops to get at the Palestinians. The chopper flew overhead again; this time its searchlight dripped into the dark and lit up the three forms head-on. They had Mohawk haircuts, hard faces, and brown eyes. They wore running shoes, blue jeans, and leather jackets over black sweaters. The one in the middle had the reliquary box hanging from his shoulder. Bloody hell. The chopper banked away and the men disappeared. Then came an Arabic-accented voice calling to him:
“Are you the man of signs and wonders, or are you just another false prophet?”
It was the same bloody question Chana Amini asked him at Qumran.
“All I know is what Chana told me,” he said.
Harper heard the steps of the three Palestinians move away. They were abandoning him to the stinking dark.
“Wait . . .”
Outside, wild automatic weapon fire opened up like jackhammers. Palestinians had brought out AK-47s, Harper thought. Then came an Israeli Army chopper, a bloody Apache; then a whoosh and a blinding explosion of light. The abandoned building shook, bits of stone and timber tumbling down. The Israelis were answering the AKs with air-to-ground rockets. For a moment the battle was quelled. Then came the cries and screams of the wounded; then fires rose over Jerusalem and a malefic glow filled the dark of the abandoned building. Harper saw the wolves standing at a low opening in a wall. A way out of this place maybe.
“Yes,” Harper said, “I’m the man of signs and wonders.”
“Right answer. Come with us.”
TWENTY-SIX
i
Bisur’a, bisur’a.” Quickly, quickly.
The wolves guided Harper through hidden alleyways connecting one narrow lane to another. They used shadows well, Harper thought. They came to a long arcade of shuttered shops.
“Here we cross into the Christian Quarter,” the one with the reliquary box said.
A street sign marked the road as Suq Khan ez-Zeit. And two more signs on corners: one marking the Sixth Station of the Cross, the other marking number Seven. They darted across the street, hurried down El-Khanqa to an Arab barber shop. The place was closed and dark, but the door was unlocked. They entered quickly with a limping Harper in tow. At the back of the shop two of the wolves pushed aside a heavy wooden cabinet. There was a low opening in the wall four feet by four feet.
“Tell me we are not going underground,” Harper said.
“Not underground, but between the walls,” the wolf with the reliquary box said. He whispered to his pack in Arabic; they nodded. He pulled a penlight, switched it on, and looked at Harper.
“Bisur’a.”
“Sure.”
The wolf ducked and entered the passageway. Harper followed, hearing the wooden cabinet being shoved back against the wall.
“Turn sideways and stand. Watch out for rats.”
Harper did. The passage was barely three feet wide and the ceiling varied in height: here ten feet overhead, then forty feet,
then into darkness. Their steps echoed in the stone-bound place. The wolf led the way, going left and right at uneven intervals. There were places where the passage tightened and they had to squeeze through. At one tight spot, the wolf stopped. He pressed his ear to the wall.
“People are talking. Electricity has gone out across Jerusalem and Israelis say terrorist cells from Da’esh are operating in the Old City now. The government has imposed a curfew everywhere. Anyone in the streets will be shot on sight.”
“You can hear people through the walls?”
“Can’t you?”
“Not a bit.”
“Pity.”
They continued down the passage and came to a round stone shaft. Harper did a slow three-sixty. It was a center point where eight passageways branched off like the cardinal and ordinal points of a compass. There was ancient script carved into the walls; Aramaic from the look of it. Without stopping for bearings, the wolf crossed the circle and continued down the third tunnel to the left.
A few minutes later he stopped at a steel door. He pulled it open carefully, silently. He slipped out, and Harper followed. It was another narrow passageway, but it was open to the sky a hundred feet up. The rain had stopped, and with electricity out, Harper saw a dense cluster of stars high overhead. The stars came and went as fire smoke drifted in the wind. The wind carried the sounds of guns and screams and cries.
The wolf made a few twists and turns, then squeezed around a set of Corinthian columns. When Harper made the same move, he found himself standing in an open courtyard of high limestone walls and well-worn stones on the ground. It felt like an ancient place. He did another three-sixty. There was a minaret beyond the walls at one end of the courtyard; a collection of mismatched windows and façades; then a massive stone edifice of Gothic arches, Corinthian columns, and stone stairways. Darkened windows and small doors were built into the walls to the left and right, and a Byzantine cross was carved into the wall above one door. But it was the two great arches, weirdly tucked in the corner of the courtyard, that held Harper’s eyes. The high walls above the arches were supported by eleven tall columns. One of the arches had been bricked closed; the other arch framed two huge wooden doors.
“What is this place?” Harper said.
The wolf turned off his penlight, put it in one pocket of his leather jacket. He pulled a very old key from another.
“This is the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.”
Harper looked at the key. “You have the key to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?”
“Muslim families have been the guardians of these doors for eight hundred years. My family now has the duty of protecting the key.”
“Muslims hold the key to the most important Christian church in the world?”
The wolf smiled. “The priests of this church are from all different sects, and they detest one another. Inside they argue over pieces of dust like children. Often it becomes violent and the Israeli police must come in to restore order. This happened today after the killings on Temple Mount. The Israeli police already had enough trouble on their hands and ordered the church cleared and closed until further notice. Truly, it is a rare night when this church is empty of all priests and pilgrims. There are always a few who stay locked in through the night to be close to their God.”
There was a blast of light in the dark sky, then a deafening crump rolled over the rooftops. The Israelis had sent another rocket into the Old City. The battle was spreading and coming this way. The wolf lowered his head.
“Nad’o khaleq kula shay’ an yahmi al-abriyaa.” We pray to the Creator of All to protect the innocents.
He looked to Harper for an amen. Harper pointed to the doors of the church instead.
“Get me inside,” he said.
The wolf hurried to the doors and worked the old key into the old lock. Harper limped after him. With the right leaf of the doors open, the wolf stepped aside and waited for Harper to cross the threshold. He went in after Harper and closed the door with a dull clacking thud that echoed away.
Klaboom, klaboom, klaboom.
Harper listened for the sounds of war through the thick stone walls. Like the distant thunder of an approaching storm it was, and it rumbled through the darkness. The air was musty, scented with incense and candle wax. Except for the eight lamps hanging above a rectangular stone slab on the floor thirty feet ahead, there was no light of any kind. The lamps glowed on the slab and blinded him for a moment. His eyes adjusted quickly, and he saw he was in an immense hall where columns upon columns held up a dizzying number of stone vaults in the ceiling. Beneath the ceiling were blue stone arches opening to a great room with a domed ceiling. There was a huge icon of a Byzantine Christ painted in the center of the dome. On the wall beneath the arches, two huge mosaics depicted the anointing and burying of Jesus. Harper lowered his eyes to the slab on the floor again. This time the hanging lamps were not as bright and he saw it better. It was reddish in color, eighteen by three feet; it was smooth and highly polished. There was something lying on it, something wrapped in old calfskin and bound by ropes.
Harper looked at the wolf. “For me, I take it?”
The wolf pulled the reliquary box from his shoulder and offered it to Harper.
“Cheers,” Harper said.
He took the box, slung it over his shoulder, and limped over the well-worn floor stones toward the slab. Coming closer, he saw the lamps were suspended by chains made of small crosses. And directly above the lamps the hollow of a tower rose at least a hundred feet. Like the lantern tower of Lausanne Cathedral, Harper thought. To the right was the ambulatory and it disappeared into the dark; to the left was a huge arch opening to a stone passageway. He stepped closer to the slab. There were tall silver and brass candle stands at the head and foot of it. He took hold of one, lowered himself to one knee, and rested the reliquary box on the floor stones. He pulled the calfskin something closer; he untied the ropes, opened it. There were three items, all wrapped in calfskin, too. He unwrapped each of them.
A vellum scroll. Two-thirds of a clay cup. Three bloodied carpenter nails.
Harper opened the reliquary box. He removed the leather-bound sextant and laid it on the slab. He lifted the false bottom from the box. He removed the two things hidden there and laid them out. Those things, like the sextant, were wrapped in old leather. And damn if the old leather did not match the calfskin protecting the scroll. Harper looked up at the mosaic of the dead, anointed Christ. Words dropped into his head from the Gospel of John: There was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein no man had ever been laid.
“Right.”
He unwrapped the sextant, the bit of pottery, the one carpenter nail. The bit of pottery completed the cup; the nail was a perfect match to the other three.
“Blimey.”
He heard a single set of steps coming from the great dark space around the corner; then came a woman in black boots, black jeans, and a black leather jacket. She was raven-haired; she had amber-colored eyes.
“Chana?” Harper whispered.
The woman stopped. “No. I am Batya.”
Harper grabbed the candle stand again, used it as a crutch to pull himself to his feet.
“Her sister. Sorry, I forgot a moment.”
Batya walked to the slab on the ground, stood opposite Harper. They watched each other through the haze of the hanging lamps. Harper ran rules and regs on apologizing for the death of a local’s twin because you were not fast enough to save her. Batya watched him thinking about it. She looked down at the slab.
“This is called the Anointing Stone. Christian pilgrims and tourists are told by the priests that it was on this stone that Yeshua ben Yosef was washed and anointed after his crucifixion. The tourists take pictures, the pilgrims fall to the ground and kiss it. They weep, they pray. They laid things on it to be blessed: rosaries and crosses, bottles of water, teddy bears. They believe in the holiness of this stone with all their hearts. The truth is the legend of
the anointing was carried to Jerusalem by the Crusaders in the thirteenth century, and this stone was only added in 1810 when the church was renovated. The truth is ben Yosef was a Jew, killed by Romans for being a unruly Jew. His followers were Jews. They probably buried him without washing or anointing his body. In that way he could stand before God and bear witness to the manner of his death.”
Everything about her was the same, Harper thought. Her appearance, the sound of her voice, her eyes reflecting the same ancient knowledge.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to stare. I just . . . Your eyes.”
He looked back at the Palestinian. He was sitting on a stone bench to the right of the doors now. One of Chana’s Palestinian wolves he was. In the faint light, his brown eyes had shifted color and Harper saw traces of amber in his irises. My family now has the duty of protecting the key. He turned to Batya, ran the meaning of her name: daughter of God. Harper rubbed the back of his neck, laughed to himself.
“‘An educated man,’” he said.
He looked at her. She had one eyebrow raised in curiosity.
“Chana said she was only telling me family stories handed down through the generations. One story was about an educated man who stumbled across the scrolls in Qumran five hundred years after it was destroyed. She didn’t identify him, and I completely missed it. You, her and her twin daughters, the wolves, that old man in the Old City she dropped the reliquary box off to . . . she called him Aamo, it means ‘uncle.’ You’re all related, descended from the Magi of Zoroaster. One of those descendants was the educated man who found the scrolls because it was his job to keep tabs on the sextant. As in who might come for it. That means he knew it had been taken to Qumran by my kind. I’m guessing that means he knew where the body of Jesus was hidden until the fall of Jerusalem, when my kind carried it out of the Holy Land. That’s where Chana’s educated man hid the seventh scroll with the other things. He knew they would never be found by strangers, because only the direct descendants of the Magi knew where the grave was. And that’s where the scroll has been until tonight, until you went to get it to bring it here with the things of Christ.”
