A few minutes later, we saw the first real movement. The initial two guards stepped away from their posts as two others took their places.
“Shift change, by the look of it,” said Lavon.
The same relative inactivity continued as before, though, and I couldn’t help but chuckle as the others grew restless. Ordinary sentry detail remained as boring as it ever was, two millennia later. Some things truly never changed.
“When does it start getting light?” asked Sharon.
Juliet had printed out a sunrise/sunset table and read out the numbers.
“Nautical twilight begins at 4:17. Civil twilight, the time when dawn first begins to break, starts at 4:46.”
Upon hearing this, my butterflies began to leap around in a renewed burst of activity. For that matter, everyone’s did. Whatever was going to happen would do so very soon.
Though the guards remained at their posts, they suddenly perked up, and one of them noticed something to his left. He craned his head and called out to his colleagues.
Then suddenly, we saw a brilliant white flash — and then nothing at all.
***
The rest of us stared at the screen in silence as Bryson rewound, then replayed, then rewound, then replayed the last couple of minutes, over and over.
Each time the result was the same, and when he repeated the drill in slow motion, we could see no discernable difference.
To a believer, what we had just witnessed could represent the incredible surge of energy that accompanied the resurrection, or the brilliance of glowing angels, afire with God’s power.
To those taking the other side, it could be the result of an unknown quantum effect that altered the device’s memory during our return to the present. Or, perhaps, the flash could have derived from the more mundane possibility of an equipment malfunction, or even a guard moving a torch too close to the camera’s primary lens.
What
From the very beginning, it had been matter of faith.
It always would be.
Epilogue
I glanced down at the directions Lavon had emailed a few days earlier and then back over to my map, curious once more as to the reason he insisted that I drive eight hours without knowing exactly why.
In truth, though, I didn’t really mind.
I had some time on my hands, and no more financial concerns, either, courtesy of the Brysons, who had mourned the loss of their brilliant student — and who worked out a plan to get him back.
Their scheme was straightforward enough. It called for me to return to our original cave just a few minutes before we had “landed” on our earlier journey. As long as the Professor remained in Boston, he couldn’t simultaneously appear in Judea to bowl over his assistant and knock him silly.
I would therefore have a brief window to pull the kid to safety before the Romans turned him into a pincushion. As an additional bonus, I could pull Markowitz out of the cave, too.
This sounded reasonable enough, with two modifications.
First, I insisted that Juliet accompany me, ostensibly to show her a brief glimpse of the first century world — though in reality we all knew that her real purpose was to serve as a hostage to guarantee the Professor’s end of the bargain.
I didn’t think Bryson would abandon me with Lavon and Sharon remaining behind as witnesses, but I saw no need to take the chance. As a former President had once said — trust but verify.
Second, I had my own equipment list, which consisted of a bullhorn, a bag full of flash-bang grenades and my trusty Glock, just in case.
***
After a brief interval to confirm that the Brysons had indeed made the necessary
We returned in less than five minutes, with both Markowitz and the geeky kid safely in tow. Thankfully, I never had to fire the Glock, though I did have some fun with the flash-bangs and the bullhorn, which stopped the combatants in their tracks.
I could only laugh as I considered the report Publius would make when he arrived in Jerusalem later that day.
In any event, I could reassure my conscience that I had not ruined the centurion’s retirement plans. Despite the last bit of unpleasantness, I respected the man and the soldiers he commanded, and wished them no harm.
A few weeks later, I read that the Brysons lost their entire facility to a mysterious fire, though fortunately, no one suffered injuries in the blaze. According to the newspaper, the couple had then decided to return to MIT, much to the delight of their former students.
On most occasions, I consider myself an eminently reasonable person — though I can drive a hard bargain when pressed.
As for Markowitz, I saw very little of him after his rescue. Though he had complained vociferously about having his journey cut short, he seemed to calm down after we explained how his first venture had ended.
More importantly, he would recall nothing from the earlier trip, so we no longer had to worry about him devising a hare-brained attempt to free Judea from the Roman yoke, and all of the unintended consequences such a venture would entail.
***
Just as Lavon had foreseen, Sharon dumped D. Percival within days of arriving home.
She and I stayed in touch — after all, we shared a bond like none other on the planet — and not long thereafter, our relationship exploded into a passionate affair that eventually morphed into its current form — a complex
Ah, the Cause.
Given her experience at the hands of Herod, I can’t claim to be surprised.
Almost as soon as we returned, she began to use her drive and energy — along with a chunk of her old man’s fortune — to turn a dispirited collection of volunteers into one of the planet’s largest organizations devoted to the elimination of human trafficking and the exploitation of women throughout the world.
In fact, as I drove to meet Lavon, she was in the process of opening her group’s fifty-fourth crisis center. Unfortunately, I had to stay behind. In a previous life, I had spent months in that particular garden spot, and I had no inclination to return — at least not without diplomatic immunity.
For a brief moment, I almost felt sorry for the exploiters. I had watched Sharon kill two hardened soldiers, with a sword. Now she stood at the forefront of an institute backed by more than a billion dollars. God help them.
***
As for Naomi, her adjustment did not pass without complications.
For her own safety, we booked a hotel room, where we kept her for a couple of weeks as I hit up my contacts for the requisite paperwork that would permit her to stay in the country permanently.
She spent most of that time with her eyes glued to the television, while Lavon tried to explain her new world
