Gold of Kings

by Davis Bunn

  “There’s so much I don’t know. And even more I can’t figure out.”

  “Rule one in the treasure business. You’ll never have all the answers. Comes a point, you lay your money on the table. If there was a sure-fire answer, somebody else would have already found it.”

  “What’s rule two?”

  “Leave with the loot in your pocket and the skin still on your back.”

  “I like that one better.”

  “I’d like to hear you actually say what it is we’re after.”

  Storm took a breath. “Treasures from Herod’s Second Temple in Jerusalem. Treasures that didn’t show up on the triumphant arch of Titus in Rome, but are on the Copper Scroll. The evidence suggests that they were secreted away on Cyprus.”

  “Okay, good. So here’s what we do. From now on, we assume we’re right. We lay out the trail the best we can. And set aside the doubt. It just makes us stumble.”

  She gave that a moment. “I can do that.”

  Harry leaned back, crossed his arms, stretched out his legs. “So tell.”

  “Okay. I’ve been checking out the two men Professor Morgenthal mentioned in Washington. The first was Titus Flavius Josephus. He was born a Pharisee, a scribe. This made him ideal as a historian, which is what he became for the Romans. Before that happened, he was a general in the first Jewish rebellion.”

  She fished through her shoulder bag and pulled out a sheaf of folded notes. She flattened them in her lap. But Harry had the impression they were there more for reassurance than because she needed to check her facts. “In the year AD 39, the Emperor Caligula declared himself a god. He ordered his statues to be erected in every temple throughout the Roman empire. All sacrifices were to be made in his name. From that point, it was only a matter of time. The first Jewish revolt finally erupted in AD 66 in Caesarea and spread like wildfire. But the Jews were far from unified. In his history, Josephus mentions a number of sects or divisions. But only three are important to us. The Zealots, the Temple priests, and the Pharisees.”

  Across the calm Aegean waters, a farmer plowed a field on the Turkish headland. Gulls squawked and fought in the dust clouds that drifted in the windless morning. The sound of a guitar and Moroccan drums floated up from the stern. Harry tasted a clove cigarette’s pungent odor through the diesel and the salt.

  “The Zealots were determined to go down fighting, but others wanted to surrender. While the Romans began laying siege to Jerusalem, civil war broke out inside the city. The Zealots came out in complete control. The die was cast. The city would fight to the last man.

  “At least initially, Josephus must have sided with the Zealots. After all, they made him a general of the Jewish forces in Galilee. But there’s no hard evidence that he ever became one, or if he did, that he stayed one. In his history, written years later, he introduces himself as the son of Matthias, an ethnic Hebrew, a priest and Pharisee from Jerusalem. Nothing about being a Zealot. In AD 68 he surrendered to the Romans, and in AD 69 he was granted an audience with Vespasian. Something happened, because in AD 71, as the siege of Jerusalem began, Josephus was a close confidant of the Roman general. Vespasian actually sent Josephus into the city as his personal emissary, to negotiate a surrender. The Zealots responded by burning the city’s remaining food supply. They intended for the city to fight until every able-bodied Jew was killed. I think Josephus saw this coming and was absolutely against it. I think he tried to save the city and as many of his people as he could.”

  “But he failed,” Harry said.

  “He failed and the Romans destroyed the city. Which brings us to the other man Professor Morgenthal mentioned, Yochanan Ben Zakai. He was known as a tannaim, a sage of the Torah, the first five books of the Jewish Bible.” Storm stopped and looked at him. “At this point it becomes only a tiny bit of fact inside a whole world of speculation.”

  “You’re on a roll,” Harry said. “Go for it.”

  “In the years leading up to the revolt, a real battle raged between the Pharisees, who saw themselves as guardians of Jewish law, and the Sadduccees, the priests who dominated the temple council, which was called the Sanhedrin. The Pharisees accused these other temple priests of living inside the pocket of their Roman masters. They accused the temple’s high priests of bribing Rome for their appointments with money from the temple coffers. I’m guessing these Sadduccees were on the side of those wanting to surrender. Whether the Zealots killed the priests is anybody’s guess. But we know this. The Roman accounts do not mention any priests being there when they torched the temple. And we know something else. In the middle of this siege, Yochanan Ben Zakai got out.”

  Storm waited.

  Harry caught it then. “He escaped from Jerusalem?”

  “The only man on record to do so. Supposedly his students smuggled him out as a corpse. But there were thousands of bodies rotting in the streets. Josephus writes of this. It gets even weirder. Not long after his escape, Ben Zakai has an audience with General Vespasian. In this audience, he predicts that Vespasian will be named emperor of Rome. Vespasian is so taken with this that he lets Ben Zakai establish a new center of Jewish law in Yavneh. After the temple was destroyed, Ben Zakai set up a council that replaced temple sacrifices with prayer, the study of the Torah, and observance of the mitzvot, or commandments. He saw this as the means by which the Jewish people could maintain their unity wherever they were exiled, even without the temple.”

  “Hang on a second. How did he get to meet the Roman general?”

  Storm nodded with her entire upper body, a slow rocking in confirmation. “I haven’t found an explanation for that anywhere.”

  “Josephus set it up.”

  “I think so.”

  “It had to be. They were both, what did you call them?”

  “Pharisees.”

  “Okay, so Josephus offers to enter the city and negotiate for his new friend, Vespasian. Supposedly he fails. Next thing we know, this other guy shows up and has an interview with Caesar.”

  “He doesn’t become emperor until later, but the rest is on target.”

  Inside Harry’s brain, the energy hummed a constant rush, like a waterfall, quiet and easy until it went over the edge and careened into space and fell in a blistering roar that caused the air to tremble. Harry had worried that he’d lost that rush for good. He released his breath and the words one at a time. “Josephus did a deal on the side while he was in the city, not to get out this other guy, but to rescue the temple treasures. The guy smuggled the temple treasures out with him. He took the ones he could get his hands on and skipped town.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “Cyprus would be the perfect place to stash the goods. They’d be looking for a place that was close at hand, but safe.”

  “And it was a different Roman province. One totally at peace. Thousands of Jews who survived the rebellion fled there.” Storm continued her rocking motion, like she was feeding off Harry’s tension, releasing it the only way that didn’t interrupt the flow. “But there’s more, Harry. Remember what I said. To the Pharisees, the Torah, the law, was most important. The last thing they’d want is for a new high priest to use these treasures to restart a temple sect.”

  Harry started rocking as well, just keeping time. “So they were hidden from Jews as well.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. It explains why the Copper Scroll was found in an Essene village, an outcast sect, a group that had already rebelled against the problems in Jerusalem.”

  “But they didn’t want to risk putting the treasures there as well. Too close to the battle.”

  “The Romans forced almost all the Jews who didn’t die in the battle to leave Israel.”

  “So where do we head in Cyprus? This is vital, Storm. The island’s been cut in half for over thirty years. The south is Greek and is entering the European Union. The north is a rogue state. North Cyprus is recognized only by Turkey. Fifty thousand Turkish troops are stationed there. We need to know which side to
hunt.”

  “I’ve been working on that. One possibility stands out. At the end of the first century, a lot of Christian believers were Jewish, some authorities say as many as two-thirds. But these Jews were being excluded from local Jewish communities. They were seen as another outlaw sect. They created conflict just when the Jewish nation was under dire threat. They threatened to dissolve the bonds of Jewish blood, because Christians were specifically instructed to treat all believers in Jesus as brethren. Twenty years later those Jewish Christians were officially excommunicated from all synagogues throughout the Roman empire. But in the period we’re talking about, a number of these Jewish Christians were also Pharisees. Paul of Tarsus, author of over half the New Testament, was one himself.”

  Harry chewed it over while Storm rocked and waited. He said, “Christian Jews on Cyprus.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “I like it.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, Storm. I like it a lot. So where do we go?”

  “North,” she replied. “The first Christian settlements were all in the north.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  ENTERING RHODES HARBOR WAS LIKE joining a carnival built around a movie set. The village was a glimmering white jewel nestled in flowering scrub and mountains and the Aegean Sea. Houses were sculpted from whitewashed stone. The port was filled with brightly painted fishing boats. The rocky beaches to either side of the harbor were packed. The long road fronting the quayside was a riot of noise and color and people.

  Even so, the first face Harry latched onto was Emma’s.

  “There she is!” But it was doubtful Storm heard him, as the noise on the ship had risen to match that from the shoreline. Storm smiled at him, a lovely sight, especially as the plum-shaded rims to her eyes were hidden behind her Ray-Bans. She mouthed to him, “Go.”

  Harry was first down the gangplank. But when he made it through the crowd to where Emma stood, he turned uncertain. First-date nerves. At thirty-nine. “You look great, lady.”

  She wore khaki shorts revealing legs as fine as the rest of her. “Where’s our girl?”

  “Taking her time.”

  Emma’s hands seemed to have a life all their own. They fumbled with the strap to her purse, then scrambled up her neck and started to touch the air between them. Harry stepped across the chasm, suddenly at ease. Just swept her up and filled the space inside her arms. He felt the strength in her embrace, the soft cheek that met his own, the warmth to her breath as she whispered in his ear, “Harry, Harry. What are we doing?”

  THEY LET THE IMPATIENT, LAUGHING, jostling tide carry them along the port. They took a taxi to the airport, a single north-south strip fronted by a pair of whitewashed buildings. As soon as Emma rose from the taxi, a twin-engined Beechcraft started its engines. Harry followed the two ladies up the stairs, nodded to the pilot, settled into his seat, watched the pilot heft up the stairs, lock the door, then return to his seat. As they rolled toward the runway, Harry said, “I’m liking this guy Hakim more and more.”

  The Beechcraft was an international workhorse, known throughout the world for its range, ease of handling, steady ride, and payload. The twin turbos pushed them across the miles. The pilot promised they would be landing in Larnaca in less than three hours. Harry checked his watch and smiled. They just might make it.

  Emma said, “You’ve got something in mind.”

  Harry was seated next to Emma, close enough to feel the lady’s heat. And tension. During the ride to the airport, she had remained tight within herself. As the plane had taxied and taken off, Harry had caught her shooting him coplike stares, intended to peel back the superficial and reveal the hidden core. Which was no real surprise. The lady was caught up in a situation that probably hadn’t been covered in the Treasury Department rule book. She had every reason to be on edge.

  Harry said, “I’ve got some things to tell you. And Storm’s got more. But before we start, you need to give me your word that nothing we say will go any further. There comes a point when you commit to the hunt. And that point is now.”

  Emma’s tension radiated out in full force. “What have we been doing so far?”

  “Researching. Fitting the pieces together. We’ve known there’s something worth finding. Old Sean didn’t attract this sort of attention because he was a gnarly soul.”

  “Our evidence suggests Sean Syrrell’s murder was attached to something far larger than one possible find.”

  “I’m not disputing that. But right here, right now, we are talking treasure. Storm has some leads. We’re going to chase them down. And my gut tells me we’ve got a chance to grab the gold ring. So now we’re working according to salvage rules. And the first of these is, secrecy is everything.”

  Emma said, “Hakim can help us.”

  “He might. Then again, he might turn us in.” Harry raised his hand to both ladies’ protest. “All we can say for certain is, Hakim is not here.”

  Emma said to Storm, “Hakim needs to speak with you. Today.”

  “Tomorrow,” Harry corrected. “We’re going to be kinda busy from the minute we set down.”

  Storm said to Harry, “I know. Nothing about where we are.”

  “You can tell him we’re on Cyprus. Seeing as how this is his plane, I think he’s already got that square covered.”

  Emma said, “He’s helping us because this work is related to a case with potentially vital consequences.”

  Storm said, “Nobody is forgetting about the case or the murders, Emma. Not for an instant.”

  Emma turned to the window. Storm started to say something more, but Harry shook his head. Outside Emma’s window a cloud drifted between them and the blue-blue sea. Harry said, “I need your word that everything we say, everything we do, everywhere we go, stays among us three.”

  Emma turned back and said, “If it gets to a point where I can’t live with that, I’ll tell you.”

  Harry said to Storm, “Works for me.”

  Harry gave Emma a running account of what Storm had related so far. He took his time, finding genuine pleasure as Emma became absorbed in his tale. Toward the end, Storm settled back in her seat and listened as well. Harry waited for her to come in with corrections. He knew he was leaving some things out and not getting all the words right. But Storm just sat across from him and listened, a smile flickering in and out, sunlight playing between the clouds that had gathered over the past few days.

  When he was done, Storm said, “You make it sound real.”

  “I’m just giving her what you gave me.”

  “I don’t mean that. The way you say it…”

  Emma finished, “You’re a pro talking about a find waiting at the other end of the trail.”

  Storm said, “Okay. Time for round two.” She gathered her pages, forming them like a line of paper soldiers on the table between them. “Back at Georgetown, the professor said none of the items on the Titus arch were on the Copper Scroll. So what I’ve been doing is making a list of all the things that appear on this second arch, the one from the fore-edged book. All of them appear either in the Copper Scroll or the Second Temple treasures listed by Josephus.”

  Harry’s gut started its tight quivers again. “Every one?”

  “Yes. Nineteen treasures in all.”

  Emma asked, “Excuse me for asking. But what exactly is the Copper Scroll?”

  Storm had a page of notes at the ready. “It was discovered by Lancaster Hardy, an archeologist from Cambridge, working at Qumran in the late forties. The text was stamped or carved on thin sheets of copper that were then joined together into two scrolls. At least, only two have been found so far. The scrolls were heavily oxidized and could not be unrolled, so the archeologists worked for five years, sawing the scrolls into twenty-three strips that could be flattened and read. There was some trouble deciphering the text, because almost all Hebrew from the biblical era comes from religious texts, and the Copper Scroll deals with treasure. There was also some Hebrew
from a later era, what is now called the pre-Mishnaic or pre-Rabbinical Hebrew, and mixed into this were also some letters and words in Greek. None of the Greek has been translated, but experts believe it came from a lost dialect, possibly an island tongue.”

  Harry muttered, “Island Greek.”

  “Josephus’s description of temple treasures appears in his multivolume history and nowhere else. His list has been disputed for two thousand years. None of the items he describes were either on the Titus arch or listed in the annals of Roman treasures from Judea. The same arguments have raged over the items listed on the Copper Scroll since its discovery.”

  Storm took a long breath. “Okay, the items from the Copper Scroll first. A chest of silver that weighs seventeen talents. Golden vessels of offering. A golden urn that contains a golden scroll. Golden vessels for aloe and incense. I’d say the chalice I left with you in Washington is one of those. Then there are temple trumpets, three of them. Two incense shovels. All gold.”

  Emma’s hand slipped across the hand rest and took hold of Harry’s. He jerked slightly at the unexpected touch. He checked her from the corner of his eye, and decided she wasn’t really aware of what she’d just done. But he knew.

  Storm finished, “And lastly there is a menorah, possibly more than one.”

  Harry protested, “The menorah forms a central point on the Titus arch.”

  Emma asked, “Menorah?”

  Storm replied to Harry, “I’ve checked on that.” Then to Emma, “A menorah is a candlestick formed like a tree with curved branches. The menorah on the Titus arch looks to be the size of the soldier carrying it.”

  Emma asked weakly, “Gold?”

  “Solid.” Maybe it was the fact she had spent days working through this. Or maybe it was just the professional edge. But Storm seemed unaffected by what she was saying. “In Solomon’s Temple, the menorah stood at the south wall of the Holy of Holies. This was tended daily by the High Priest, so that the chamber was always filled with light. Josephus does not give the number of menorahs in the Second Temple, but he uses the plural. More than one.”