I made a request. Mrs. Hanani hurried to the kitchen to fill it.
When she returned I slipped the items into my backpack, offered thanks, and assured her I’d lost nothing of value.
Climbing into Friedman’s car, I wondered if later I’d regret my separate-rooms dictum. Professionalism be damned. Lying in bed, alone in the dark, I knew I’d want Ryan beside me.
It took almost an hour to get back to the Kidron. The Jerusalem police had been tipped that a suicide bomber was headed their way from Bethlehem. Extra checkpoints had been set up, and traffic was snarled.
On the way, I asked Friedman about the permit. Patting a pocket, he assured me he’d obtained the paper. I believed him.
At Silwan, I directed Friedman to the same clearing in which Jake had parked. As he and Ryan dug tools from the trunk, I checked the valley.
Not a black hat in sight.
I led the trek downhill. Ryan and Friedman followed.
At the tomb I stood a moment, considering the entrance. The small black portal stared back blankly.
I felt a hitch in my heartbeat. Ignoring it, I turned. Both my companions were perspiring and breathing hard.
“What about the jackal?” I asked.
“I’ll announce we’ve come to call.” Friedman pulled his revolver, squatted, and fired a bullet into the tomb. “If she’s in there, she’ll take off.”
We waited. No jackal appeared.
“She’s probably miles from here,” Friedman said.
“I’ll check the lower level,” Ryan said, holding out his hand.
Friedman handed him the gun.
Ryan winged a shovel and crowbar through the opening, then wriggled down into the tomb. I heard a second shot, then the scraping of boots. Silence. More scraping, then Ryan’s face appeared in the entrance.
“Jackal-free,” he said, handing Friedman his weapon.
“I’ll take first watch.” Friedman’s mouth looked tight. I wondered if he shared my aversion to close confinement.
I strode forward, shoved my pack then my feet into darkness and dropped, hoping to fool whatever neurons were monitoring personal space. They fell for it. I was in the tomb before my brain was wise to the move.
Beside me, Ryan was working a Mag-Lite. Our faces were jack-o’-lanterns, our shadows dark cutouts in the wash of white behind us.
“Point it over there.” I indicated the northern loculus.
Ryan redirected the beam. The rock had been moved. No hint of blue leaped from the gloom.
I crawled to the loculus. Ryan followed.
The small recess was empty.
“Bloody hell!”
“They got him?” Ryan asked.
I nodded.
I wasn’t surprised.
But I was crushed to see it.
Max had been taken.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan said.
Southern manners. Reflex. I started to say, “It’s all right,” caught myself. It wasn’t all right.
The skeleton was gone.
I slumped back onto my heels, feeling the oppressive weight of the tomb. The cold rock. The stale air. The velvety silence.
Had I really had a close encounter with one of Masada’s dead?
Had I lost him for good?
Was I sitting in a burial place of the holy?
Was I being watched?
By the Hevrat Kadisha?
By the souls of those peopling the catechisms of my youth?
Who had Max been?
Who had lain in this tomb?
Who lay here still?
I felt a hand on my shoulder. My brain snapped back.
“Let’s go below,” I whispered.
Crawling to the tunnel, I used the same technique that had gotten me into the tomb.
In and down.
Ryan was beside me in seconds.
Hadn’t I dumped all the fallen rocks to the right? Some now lay to the left. Was my memory faulty? Had these rocks also been moved?
Dear God, let it still be here!
Ryan crooked the Mag-Lite at the breach I’d created in my tumble. Bright white arrowed into inky black.
And fell on russet.
As before, my eyes strained to absorb. My brain struggled to sort.
Rough texture. Lumpy contour.
Peeking from one edge, barely visible, a tiny brown cylinder knobbed at one end.
A human phalanx.
I grabbed Ryan’s arm.
“It’s there!”
No time for proper archaeological protocol. We had to get the goods out before the Hevrat Kadisha got wise.
While I held the light, Ryan wedged the crowbar into a crack outlining a rock immediately above the breach. Ryan heaved, triggering a rainfall of pebbles.
The rock wobbled, dropped back into place.
Ryan heaved harder.
The rock shifted, settled again.
I watched as Ryan made a dozen thrusts, glad Friedman was covering our flank topside. I hoped we wouldn’t need him down here.
Ryan exchanged the crowbar for the shovel. Inserting the blade, he levered backward on the handle with all his strength.
The rock popped forward and dropped with a thud.
I scrambled to the enlarged opening. It was big enough.
My heart started throwing in extra beats.
Calm. Ryan’s here. Friedman’s on guard at the entrance.
Leading with my head and shoulders, I pulled myself into the loculus, and wriggled to the far end, moving gingerly and hugging the wall. Ryan lit my way.
What I’d spotted was indeed textile. Two sections remained, each rotten and discolored. The larger was toward the opening of the loculus, the foot end. The smaller was farther in, near where I assumed the head lay.
Leaning close, I could make out a coarse checkerboard weave. The pieces were small, the edges ragged, indicating much of the original had been lost.
Some bones lay below the shroud. Others ringed it. In addition to the phalanx, I recognized fragments of ulna, femur, pelvis, and skull.
How to recover what remained without tearing the shroud? I ran through options. None was ideal.
Inserting my fingertips, I lifted a corner of the larger section.
The fabric rose with a soft crinkling, the sound of dry leaves being crushed underfoot.
