The Copper Scroll

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  “Thanks. I’ll give you an update as soon as I can.”

  “Thanks, sweetheart, I’d like that,” she said. “Oh, just one more question.”

  “Sure, what’s that?”

  “Is it true?” she asked. “What they’re saying on TV? Did you really find the Ark of the Covenant?”

  “Actually, it was Erin,” he confessed. “But I saw it, Mom. I saw it with my own eyes. It was absolutely incredible. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.”

  “I can’t wait either,” she said. “What are they going to do with it?”

  “Good question. Everything’s been moving so fast. I haven’t heard.”

  “Is there anything you need? anything I can do for you before I go?”

  “Actually, there is,” he said, wondering why the idea hadn’t occurred to him sooner. “Any chance you could drop everything and come over here?”

  “What? To Israel?” she asked. “Right now?”

  Bennett looked over at Erin, who smiled, nodding her approval, knowing how much it would mean to his mom to be needed at a moment like this.

  “We’re going to be here a little while,” Bennett explained. “And there’s also a friend of ours—she’s actually still in surgery right now—but when she gets out, she could really use your help and your prayers.”

  “Is that Natasha?” she asked.

  “Yeah, how did you know?”

  “I told you, it’s all over the news—the whole crazy thing.”

  He laughed and quickly filled her in on Natasha and Yossi Barak and how much they had both come to mean to them in the few short days since they’d met.

  “For you, I’d do anything, sweetheart,” his mother said. “I just want you to know, I love you very much, and I couldn’t be prouder.”

  “Thanks, Mom, I love you, too,” he said. “I’ll have an e-ticket waiting for you at the Continental desk for the one o’clock Orlando flight to Tel Aviv. It routes through Newark. And I’ll have a car waiting to pick you up when you land.”

  * * *

  Erin watched her husband hang up the room phone.

  Only to have his BlackBerry begin ringing. It was Ken Costello in Washington, and Erin listened as Jon took the call.

  “Hey, Ken, good to hear from you,” Jon said, walking to the windows and staring out over the Old City. “No, no, we’re fine. . . . Minor, but the doctors say she’ll be up and around in no time. . . . Yeah, it was pretty close, but we got ’em, Ken, we got ’em. . . . No, Zadok hasn’t stopped by yet. . . . His office just called—he’s supposed to be by around five—Doron is going to call us around then as well.”

  Then Erin watched as her husband stopped cold.

  “What? . . . What are you talking about? . . . Say that again.”

  “What is it?” Erin whispered, but Bennett wouldn’t say.

  “How long ago?” he asked. “But what about her husband? . . . Doesn’t he . . . you’ve got to be kidding me. . . . I just . . . I don’t know. . . . I can’t believe that.”

  “What?” Erin pressed. “What’s going on?”

  “All right, Ken, call me back as soon as you know. Thanks.”

  “Jon, what in the world was that all about?” Erin asked.

  “It’s Indira,” he said.

  “What about her? Is she okay? Jon, tell me she’s okay.”

  “They don’t know. She’s missing.”

  “What do you mean missing?”

  “I mean gone, missing, disappeared. Nobody knows where she is.”

  “Have they talked to Peter? He’s got to know where—”

  “I’m just telling you what Ken told me. She’s gone. And there’s more.”

  “What?”

  “Scott Harris at FBI just told the president he believes Indira was the mole.”

  “What?” Erin gasped. “Indira is the mole? You’ve got to be kidding! That’s impossible.”

  “Maybe not,” he said. “The FBI has found phone logs linking her to Viggo Mariano. He’s the guy who tried to kill us in the tunnels. Apparently he was leading the whole operation. They found a bank account she opened two months ago in the Cayman Islands. Harris believes she may have copied top-secret files and smuggled them out of the country. And Ken said she was supposed to take a lie-detector test over the weekend, along with a group of CIA and NSA officials who were suspected of being linked to Mordechai’s murder.”

  “And?”

  “And she never showed.”

  “What?”

  “That’s when she disappeared.”

  “Maybe she’s hurt. Maybe she’s . . . ”

  For a moment, Erin’s voice trailed off; then she added, “It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve known her for . . . I recruited her. . . . I . . . ” Again her voice trailed off.

  “Ken says the evidence is overwhelming, and it’s mounting rapidly,” said Bennett. “There was never a mole inside Doron’s office, he said. It was Rajiv. She knew about Doron’s Temple project. She knew about Mordechai’s involvement, almost from the beginning. She knew about George Murray, Jaspers, the Baraks—all of them. She knew where we were in Israel, every step of the way.”

  “Of course she did,” said Erin, still in denial. “Because I told her. I told her we were on Mount Ebal, and I told her we were heading for Hezekiah’s Tunnel.”

  “Exactly,” said Bennett, taking her hand to comfort her. “How could Mariano and his men have found us so quickly unless she was working with them?”

  71

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 23 – 10:00 a.m. – JERUSALEM, ISRAEL

  A day passed, and then another.

  There was still no sign of Rajiv, but Natasha was asking for them. She had been through three surgeries and was still in the ICU. But the doctors now felt confident she was going to make a full recovery and agreed to let her have ten minutes with the Bennetts.

  “Hey there,” said Erin as Jon guided her through the door in a wheelchair.

  Natasha smiled for the first time in days, though they could tell she was still in great pain.

  “That bad, huh?” asked Bennett.

  Natasha nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Have you been watching all the coverage?”

  “No,” she said. “Maybe later.”

  “Don’t worry,” Bennett offered. “I asked the embassy to tape it all for you. You can watch it when you get out of here.”

  For some reason, the notion of watching all they had been through on TV made her laugh, which only triggered more pain. They both apologized but Natasha waved it off. They sat for a little while without saying a word. They only had a few more minutes together, but something about the lack of activity—and the silence that went with it—felt good to all three of them.

  “I have a question,” Natasha whispered at last.

  Bennett didn’t think she should speak. He didn’t want her to be in any more pain.

  “If it’s about the Ark,” he said, “the Sanhedrin and the chief rabbis still aren’t sure how to move it. They asked Doron for a detachment of special forces to protect it and the Temple treasures, and he ordered an entire battalion to secure the tunnels and the surrounding area. Meanwhile, the rabbis and the museum are arguing over who is going to catalog everything down there. But they all seem to agree it will all be stored in the Temple, when it’s done. Last night Doron and the cabinet approved plans to get started. They break ground on the Third Temple on May 14, Independence Day.”

  Natasha smiled, but there was clearly something else on her mind.

  “You weren’t indicted, if that’s what you’re wondering,” said Erin. “Neither were we. But we’re still not sure who this Viggo Mariano was working for. Farouk is dead. Al-Hassani’s people are denying they had anything to do with it, which means this thing still may not be over. But—”

  “No,” Natasha said with great difficulty, “that’s not it.”

  The head nurse popped her head in the door. “Five minutes,” she said.

  Bennett thanked her
, then turned back to Natasha.

  She looked at them both and finally just blurted it out. “I want to know God like you do.”

  Bennett was stunned. So was Erin.

  “You heard me,” said Natasha. “I want what you have. I just don’t know how to get it. I wondered if you’d help me.”

  “What do you think we have?” Erin asked.

  “Buried treasure,” said Natasha, without emotion. “I want to know what Uncle Eli told you, Jon, at that restaurant on Gibraltar a few years ago. The night you became a believer.”

  Bennett wasn’t trying to be coy, much less evasive. He was just totally surprised. “How did you know about that?”

  “I told you,” Natasha said. “He talked about you guys all the time. And when he got back from that trip, he told me how proud he was of me for following in my grandfather’s footsteps, for becoming an archeologist. But then he took me aside and he warned me—gently, but firmly—that there was more to life than hunting for ancient artifacts like my grandfather or for oil like Dmitri and Miriam. He said he’d just had the same conversation with you, about finding real buried treasure, and that it had totally changed you. But he never said how.”

  Bennett sat down in a chair. He could suddenly picture himself back on Gibraltar, having dinner with Mordechai and Erin and Dmitri and the conversation they’d had burning in his ears and heart.

  “Well,” he said, “I remember Mordechai saying how moved he had been by reading the prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures about who the Messiah would be. That Micah said He would be born in Bethlehem. That Isaiah said He would be born of a virgin and live in Galilee. I remember him saying how Daniel said after the Messiah was ‘cut off,’ Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple would be destroyed by an occupying power. And he talked about how David had written in the Psalms about how a band of ‘evil men’ would curse the Messiah, and mock Him, and gamble for His clothing, and then kill Him. And he said how moved he was reading Isaiah 53, that the Messiah would be ‘pierced for our transgressions’ and ‘crushed for our iniquities’ and that ‘the punishment that brought us peace’—peace with God, our salvation—‘was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.’ And I distinctly remember Mordechai saying, ‘Look, I’m no rocket scientist. I just looked at the picture the prophets were painting and I said, who does that look like?’”

  “Jesus,” Natasha said.

  “Exactly.”

  “And the part about buried treasure?”

  Bennett sighed. He could feel the emotions of that night forcing their way back to the surface, and he had to discipline himself to hold them back, at least for now.

  “Right, well, he said he was reading the New Testament one day—Matthew 12 or 13, I think—and he was reading a parable that Jesus told His disciples. Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again and then in his joy went and sold everything he had and bought that field. Mordechai said it struck him that he was that man. He had finally discovered the truth that Jesus really is the Messiah. He had found buried treasure. The question, he said, was what was he going to do about it? Walk away? Forget about it? Act like it didn’t matter? Or was he going to choose to follow Jesus Christ whatever the cost?”

  Bennett got up, walked over to the window, and looked back out over the Old City, imagining the Temple where it would soon be standing.

  “I remember going to bed that night thinking, that’s me, too. I’d been brought up a skeptic, the son of two atheists, but now, somehow, I had no doubt that Jesus was who He said He was. And right in front of me, in Mordechai and Erin, I had two amazing examples of how God can totally transform the lives of people who choose to believe. They obviously had found buried treasure. They had a joy and a peace and a quiet confidence about the future that I didn’t have. I wanted that. I knew Mordechai was right, and I knew it was time for me to choose.”

  “So what did you do?” Natasha asked.

  “Mordechai made it pretty clear. Romans 10 says ‘if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.’ So that night, I got down on my knees next to my bed and did it.”

  “That’s it? That’s all?”

  “The Bible says salvation is a free gift,” Bennett explained. “We don’t deserve it. We can’t earn it. We can’t buy it. We just have to accept it. The hard part isn’t what you say. The hard part is getting to the point where you’re ready to say it.”

  “So what did you say, Jon?” asked Natasha.

  “Well, it wasn’t anything fancy,” Jon conceded. “I think I just basically said, ‘God, I really want what Erin and Eli have. I know I haven’t lived a perfect life. I know I really need to clean up my act. But I’m ready to cut a deal, God.’”

  “A deal?” asked Natasha. “You really said that?”

  “Hey, it was new to me. I was doing the best I could.”

  Natasha laughed. “Is that all you said?”

  “No, there was a little more.”

  “What was it?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “I really do.”

  “Then I’d be honored to tell you. I just said, ‘God, I’ve got so much to learn. But I do believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins. I do believe that you raised Him from the dead. And I do believe that He is the only way to get to You. I’m ready to follow you with everything I have. I just want to know two things, God—first, that I’m going to be forgiven for every stupid thing I’ve ever said or done, and second, that I’m going to be in heaven with you if I never live to see another day. Amen.’”

  “What happened?” asked Natasha.

  “I wish I could say there were flashes of lightning or angels singing or some sort of supernatural sign that let me know I was really in, that I was really born again into God’s family,” Bennett confided. “But the truth is I knew that I had just done what the Bible told me to do. And that was that. In my heart, I knew the deal was done. I had my buried treasure. I was the luckiest guy on the planet. I just cried myself to sleep, thanking God for having mercy on someone as stupid and selfish as me.”

  Bennett looked over at Erin and took her hand. She had tears in her eyes, and when he looked back at Natasha, there were tears in her eyes, too.

  “Is that something you’re ready to do?” he asked softly.

  Natasha nodded.

  They all closed their eyes and bowed their heads, and when they were done, Natasha looked up and said softly, “Now I’ve got my buried treasure too.”

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  It had taken longer than expected.

  Two weeks, in fact, what with all the news out of Israel. But Indira Rajiv was finally about to get the face-to-face meeting she had been demanding, in the safe house owned by the late Viggo Mariano on the outskirts of Rome. In less than two minutes, she’d be sitting alone with the man who had recruited her to betray her husband, her friends, and her country, and she could barely contain her excitement.

  She was prepared to build and run the world-class intelligence operation he would need to see his vision through, and she was fully prepared to hand over files that would effectively cripple the national security of the United States.

  But two million dollars a year was not going to be enough. Not for the services she could provide. Not with all the wealth her benefactor had at his fingertips. She could never go back, after all. She was being hunted not just by the CIA and FBI but by Interpol and the Mossad.

  She didn’t really need the money. Money was never what this was about. It was about respect. Money was just the tangible expression of the respect he was willing to afford her. And she wanted more.

  Rajiv sat with her back to the door, staring out over the beautiful Italian capital. Her hands were perspiring. But she was determined to maintain a poker face at all costs. Any whiff of weakness and he could seize the upper hand.

  Then the door opened
and in walked Khalid Tariq, Al-Hassani’s right-hand man. Rajiv stood and greeted him with the traditional Arab kiss on both cheeks. She would get to the issue of money in due time, she decided. First she needed to show she was in this for the long haul.

  “So, what does His Excellency want next?” she asked.

  The answer seemed to suck all the oxygen from the room.

  “He wants you to kill MacPherson.”

  IS IT TRUE?

  * * *

  To learn more about the research used for this book—and to track the latest political, economic, military, and archeological developments in Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and other countries described in The Copper Scroll—please visit www.joelrosenberg.com.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  I have found few projects as fascinating as researching the Third Temple, the prospects of it being built in our lifetime, and the possibilities of finding the lost Temple treasures and perhaps even the Ark itself. For those interested in pursuing these and related subjects, I highly recommend the following nonfiction books and articles, each of which I found helpful in my own quest:

  The Treasure of the Copper Scroll by John Marco Allegro

  The Copper Scroll: Overview, Text and Translation by Al Wolters

  “The Mysterious Copper Scroll: Clues to Hidden Temple Treasure?” by P. Kyle McCarter Jr., in Bible Review, August 1992

  The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English by Geza Vermes

  Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls by Hershel Shanks

  Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Randall Price

  The Temple and Bible Prophecy by Randall Price

  Envisioning the Temple by Adolfo Roitman, head of the Shrine of the Book and curator of the Dead Sea Scrolls (published by the Israel Museum, Jerusalem)