All three men were standing in water up to their thighs, their shorts and the lower parts of their shirts soaked. So far they'd found nothing at all.
'I keep telling you that I don't know,' Baverstock said, his voice angry. 'This was my best guess, based on the mention of a cistern in the clay tablets. Hezekiah's Tunnel was the most important water source the people of Jerusalem had, so logically it was certainly somewhere we had to check. And it's close enough to the Temple Mount to match the 'end of days' reference as well.'
'The trouble is that this is just a tunnel hacked out of the rock,' Dexter said. 'There are virtually no hiding places anywhere in it, as far as I can see.'
'Well, we certainly won't find anything if we just stand here talking,' Baverstock growled. 'Keep moving, and keep looking. I only want to do this once.'
* * *
Bronson and Angela had been walking for perhaps twenty-five minutes when their torches picked out an almost pagoda-shaped and fairly low section of the roof, the rock in the centre forming a graceful downward curve while the edges extended slightly upwards. That section of the tunnel was fairly wide.
'This is the meeting point,' Angela said. 'This is where the two tunnelling crews met back in 701 BC.'
'That's amazing,' Bronson said, 'especially when you think how easily they could have missed each other. Look at the technology they had to use in the Channel Tunnel to make sure both teams arrived at the same place at the same time.'
They moved on, and a few moments later Bronson stopped again.
'There's another really short tunnel here,' he said. 'It's only a few feet long.'
'There are two of these,' Angela told him. 'It looks as if they were started by the workmen who were digging towards the spring, but then they must have realized they were heading in the wrong direction and abandoned them.'
They checked every inch of the false tunnel, above and below the water level, then carried on to the second one, where they repeated the process.
'The walls and roof are pretty rough in places, but I've not noticed anything that could be a hiding place for a box of matches, far less a two-foot-long scroll,' Bronson said.
'And I assume what we're looking for would be at least that sort of size?'
'Probably, maybe even bigger than that.' Angela sounded fed up. 'I still think this was the most likely place for them to have hidden it, but maybe I misread the clues.
Anyway, we're here now, so let's keep looking.'
A few minutes later, as they approached the Pool of Siloam and the ceiling height rose considerably, Bronson spotted a dark oval in the wall high above them.
'That's worth a look,' he said, moving his torch around to try to illuminate the opening better. 'I think that's a cavity.'
Angela peered up as well. 'You could be right,' she said, sounding more hopeful.
Bronson found a small ledge and carefully placed his torch on that to provide some light. 'I reckon it's about ten feet up,' he said. 'If you stand on my shoulders you should be able to reach inside it.'
Angela switched off her own torch and tucked it inside the pocket of her shorts.
Bronson cupped his hands together. Angela put her foot in the stirrup he'd formed, rested her back against the wall of the tunnel and lifted herself up. As she placed her feet on his shoulders, Bronson moved slightly forward and braced his arms against both sides of the narrow tunnel.
'Can you reach it?' he asked.
'Yes. I'm just about to feel inside.' There was a pause, and then Angela's voice, high and breathy with excitement, announced: 'There's something here!'
63
'Can you hear voices in front of us?' Dexter asked.
Baverstock was dismissive. 'Yes, but don't worry about it. A lot of tourists come here to do this walk.
They think it gets them closer to God. Just keep looking.'
'I won't be sorry to get out of here,' Hoxton muttered.
'This place gives me the creeps.'
Bronson could feel Angela's feet moving slightly on his shoulders as she stretched up to reach into the cavity.
'What is it?' he asked.
'I don't know. Something round and solid. Hang on. I'll try to pull it out.'
She reached up again and tugged at the object her fingers had found. There was a scraping sound, and then she lost her grip on it. Something tumbled down, clattering against the rock wall, and fell with a splash into the water.
'Oh, damn it.'
* * *
Less than twenty yards behind them, Tony Baverstock stopped dead and stood in absolute silence, listening. Then he turned to Hoxton.
'I recognize that voice,' he whispered. 'That's Angela Lewis, which means the man with her is probably her exhusband.
These are the two I told you about. That means she's following the same trail we are. She's been looking at the same clues as I have, and she must have come to the same conclusion.'
'But has she found the Silver Scroll?' Hoxton asked.
'That's all that matters.'
'I don't know,' Baverstock said, 'but we'd better get up there and find out.'
Without a word, Hoxton and Dexter moved forward, heading down the tunnel towards the sound of the two voices, Hoxton pulling a small semi-automatic pistol from his pocket as he did so.
'Was that it, Angela?' Bronson asked.
'It was definitely something. Hang on – let me just check and see if there's anything else in the hole.' She paused, then added: 'No, and it isn't really a cavity, more like a small ledge.'
Quickly, she climbed down off Bronson's shoulders and back onto the floor of the tunnel.
'It landed just about there,' Bronson said, shining his torch at the water.
'Good,' a new voice said, and two torches snapped into life, their beams instantly dazzling Bronson and Angela.
'Who the hell are you?' Angela demanded.
Nobody responded immediately, but Bronson heard the unmistakable snicking sound as the slide of an automatic pistol was pulled back to chamber a round.
'Get behind me, Angela,' he said.
'Very noble,' the voice mocked. 'But if you don't get the hell out of here right now, you'll both be dead. You've got five seconds.'
'We—' Angela said, then stopped talking as Bronson grabbed her arm and began pulling her down the tunnel.
'Come on, Angela,' Bronson said. 'We're out of here.'
Hoxton waited until the splashing sounds had diminished almost to nothing as Bronson and Angela scrambled away down the tunnel, heading towards the Pool of Siloam.
'Right,' he said, turning to Dexter and putting away his pistol. He aimed the beam of his torch at the dark surface of the water. 'That's where they said it fell, so why don't you find out what it was?'
'Me?' Dexter asked.
'There's nobody else here, is there? I'll stand guard, make sure those two don't come back.'
Dexter muttered something under his breath, then handed his torch to Hoxton, took a deep breath and reached down. His head went below the surface as his hands searched the floor of the tunnel, and a few seconds later he popped up again, holding a round object.
