'What is it?' Baverstock demanded eagerly as he walked up to join his two companions.
Hoxton focused the beam of his torch on the object, then muttered in disappointment. Dexter was holding nothing more than a round rock, about four inches in diameter.
'Is that it?'
'It's all I could find down there on the floor,' Dexter said, 'but I'll take another look.'
He handed the stone to Hoxton and submerged again.
'There's nothing else down there,' Dexter said a few seconds later, standing upright and shaking the water out of his hair.
Hoxton shone his torch up and around them, then focused on the same ledge Bronson had spotted. 'It had to have come from up there,' he said, his voice sharp with bitterness. 'Christ – what a let-down. I really thought that was it. I guess it's been sitting on that ledge for the last few million years. Right, let's move on.'
Bronson and Angela stepped out of the dark archway and emerged blinking into bright sunlight at the Pool of Siloam. Their transit through Hezekiah's Tunnel had taken them well over an hour, but they'd covered the last section as quickly as they could, not knowing who the armed men behind them were, or what they wanted. And they were still empty-handed, apart from the small waterproof bag holding their torch batteries.
The Pool was at the bottom of an oblong space between some of Jerusalem's old stone buildings. Almost opposite the archway, a flight of concrete steps, the open side protected by a steel banister, led up to the street above.
About half a dozen young children wearing tattered shorts played in the water, splashing about, laughing and calling to each other, their gaiety in stark contrast to Bronson's mood.
'Well, that was a complete waste of time,' he grumbled, as he and Angela climbed the steps out of the Pool. They were both dripping wet and still cold, though the heat of the sun was already starting to dry their light clothes.
'Not the most pleasant experience of my life,' Angela agreed.
'But we're out and safe, that's the main thing. Are you sure that what you dislodged from that ledge was just a stone, not a cylinder or anything like that?'
'No, definitely not. It was round and heavy. To me, it felt just like a rock, and that's what it sounded like when it hit the wall of the tunnel. Now, who the hell were those two men?'
'I don't know, but I do know that we're in serious danger. This is the second time in two days that we've been threatened by a man with a gun. Both times we've been really lucky to get away, and I have no idea how long our luck's going to hold. I don't know who those two men were – they sounded too English to be part of Yacoub's gang – but they're obviously looking for the same thing as us. Look, why don't we call it a day? No ancient relic is worth dying for, surely?'
'I'm sorry, Chris, but if our deduction is right, many people have already died over the centuries, either looking for it or trying to protect it. I'm not about to give up, not when I think we're so close to finding it. I'm determined to see this through to the end, whatever the cost.'
64
Bronson and Angela decided to spend the night in Jerusalem. Their choice of accommodation in Tel Aviv had proved too dangerous – or too easy for somebody dangerous to identify – so Bronson was determined to avoid the bigger places.
He drove around the outskirts of the city and finally selected a small hotel in the north-western suburb of Giv'at Sha'ul. The district was set on mainly sloping ground up in the Judean Hills, and dominated by a huge cemetery. The hotel was down a narrow, steep and flagstoned side-street, barely wide enough for a small car to negotiate. Bronson didn't even bother trying, just parked the hire car round the corner, walked back to the building and took two rooms on the third floor.
Giv'at Sha'ul was a strange mix of building styles. In stark contrast to the ancient heart of Jerusalem, where you could actually touch stone walls that had been in place for millennia, most of the buildings in the suburb were small, single-storey houses, many of them in poor condition, despite being well under half a century old. Interspersed with these were a number of featureless concrete apartment blocks, most of them low-rise, though a few boasted a dozen or more floors, and the occasional detached building that hinted at long-gone days of elegance and sophistication. A handful of hotels, cafes and restaurants completed the picture.
The predominantly square-edged concrete and stone architecture was relieved in just a few spots by tree- shaded open areas, but Giv'at Sha'ul had no pretensions – it was a district where people lived and worked and prayed. It was functional and basic, and Bronson hoped they could just vanish from sight there. His only worry was that the hotel receptionist had insisted on copying their passports, because Israeli hotels had to charge VAT to all non-tourists, and Bronson's offer to pay both the tax and the hotel bill in cash had been dismissed. The law, the receptionist explained somewhat stiffly in fractured English, was the law.
Once they'd checked in, Bronson and Angela walked out of the building. They were both starving, having eaten nothing since their very early breakfast, but the hotel's small dining room didn't open for another hour. They walked towards the centre of Giv'at Sha'ul and quickly found a cafe that was already serving dinner. They took a table right at the back, allowing Bronson a clear view of the door, and ate their meals quickly and with a minimum of conversation.
When they stepped outside, the daylight was fading and another spectacular sunset decorated the western sky.
'Beautiful, isn't it?' Angela murmured, stopping on the cracked pavement for a few seconds to stare at the irregular bands and swirls of colour that marked the position of the setting sun.
'Yes, it is,' Bronson agreed simply, taking her hand as he stood beside her. Again he wished they were just tourists, two people taking a holiday, instead of being embroiled in a search that seemed to him to be getting more dangerous with every hour that passed.
'Right, let's get back to the hotel. We've got a lot to do.'
Bronson smiled wryly as he turned to follow Angela.
Five seconds to enjoy a sunset, then back to work. The search for the relics had really got to her.
There were no mini-bars in their rooms at the hotel so, as Angela headed up the stairs, Bronson picked up a couple of gins and a bottle of tonic from the bar as a nightcap.
When they were settled in her room, their drinks on the tiny round table in front of them, Bronson asked the obvious question.
'Well, Hezekiah's Tunnel was a complete wash-out, so what do we do now?'
'What I would expect any competent police officer to do,' Angela said, looking across at him impatiently. 'We look at the evidence. We reread the Aramaic text and assess it again.'
She leant back in her chair.
'As I see it, there are only three possibilities. First, and most obviously, we
'Could that be the case, though? Are we chasing something that isn't there any more?'
'It's possible, but I don't think it's likely. Something unique and robust like the Silver Scroll would almost certainly have survived intact. Anybody finding it would probably guess that the value of the metal itself was far outweighed by the historical importance of the inscription.
And if it had been found, I think there'd be something in the historical record about it.
'The second possibility is that the relic is still hidden somewhere in the vicinity of the Temple Mount, but not in Hezekiah's Tunnel. If that is the case, we've got problems.
There are a lot of tunnels known to exist under the Mount, but access to them is impossible because the entrances have been bricked up or are blocked by tons of rubble. And then there are the forty-odd cisterns on the Mount itself, on what's known as the Lower Platform, and some of those are huge.
'You have to remember that the Temple Mount is one of the oldest building sites in history; over the centuries dozens of architects and builders have left their mark on it.' She paused, then reached for her laptop bag.
