'Look, it'll be easier if I can show you on a picture.'
She pulled up a plan of the Temple Mount and began pointing out the salient features.
'The Mount is constructed from four walls that surround a natural hill and form a pretty big flat-topped structure. The walls to the east and south are visible, but the one supporting the northern side is completely hidden behind later houses and other buildings. The northern end of the Western Wall is also hidden by later construction, and a large section of it is actually under the ground.
There's a further flat platform built on the top of the Mount, and this section also includes the bedrock of the original hill itself. The Dome of the Rock – that's the spectacular structure topped with a gold dome – is the holiest Muslim site in Jerusalem, and it's built on this platform.
'The bedrock – the Foundation Stone – forms the centrepiece of the building, because that was where Muslims believe that Mohammed started his journey to heaven. Below the Foundation Stone is a small cave known as the Well of Souls, where Muslims believe that the spirits of the dead will assemble for judgement by God when the world comes to an end.'
'Right,' Bronson said. 'I'm with you so far.'
'Good,' Angela grinned, and Bronson had to stop himself from leaning forward to kiss her.
'Now, all that's on the upper platform, but it's the lower platform that covers the majority of the surface of the Temple Mount. At one end is the al-Aqsa Mosque – that's the building with the grey dome. There are gardens on the eastern and northern sides and an Islamic school right at the northern tip. There's a fountain known as al- Kas on the platform that originally obtained its water from what were known as Solomon's Pools up at Bethlehem, fed by another aqueduct. Today, it's connected to Jerusalem's main water supply.'
Angela indicated a spot on the edge of the plan of the Mount.
'There are several gates in the walls, and probably the best known is the Golden Gate. According to tradition, that's the one the Jewish Messiah will use when he finally enters Jerusalem, but he'd better remember to bring a hammer and chisel with him, because that entrance is completely blocked with masonry at the moment. In fact, all the gates are sealed up. Others include the two Huldah Gates, known as the triple and double gates because one has three arches and the other two. These were the original entrance and exit to the Mount from the oldest part of Jerusalem, known as Ophel. Then there's Barclay's Gate – nothing to do with the bank, obviously – and Warren's Gate. That was named after Charles Warren. I've mentioned him a couple of times already, but
'Me? Why?'
'Ever heard of Jack the Ripper?'
'That Charles Warren? The Commissioner of Scotland Yard? What the hell was he doing in Jerusalem?'
Angela smiled again. 'Before he failed to catch the most notorious mass-murderer in British history, he was an officer – a lieutenant – in the Royal Engineers. In 1867 he was tasked with exploring the Temple Mount in an expedition financed by the Palestine Exploration Fund. The investigation revealed several tunnels that ran underneath both Jerusalem itself and the Temple Mount, including some that passed directly under the old headquarters of the Knights Templar. Other tunnels ended in various cisterns, and so presumably were disused aqueducts.
'As well as these tunnels, he also explored inside the various blocked gates. The Golden Gate, Warren's Gate and Barclay's Gate opened onto passages and staircases that originally led up to the surface of the Temple Mount. Behind the Huldah Gates were tunnels that went some distance under the Mount before sets of stairs led to the surface north of the al-Aqsa Mosque.
'The interesting bit is that to the east of the passage leading from the triple gate is a large vaulted chamber, usually referred to as King Solomon's Stables, though there's definitely no connection with Solomon. That chamber was built by Herod when he was carrying out his extensive works, and there is evidence that the area was used as a stable, probably by the Crusaders. Warren established that one function of this section was to support the corner of the Temple Mount itself.
'Warren also discovered that there were numerous tunnels running underneath the triple gate passage, and below the base level of the Mount. They led in different directions, but he had no idea about their function or purpose. And, of course, since Warren's nineteenthcentury investigation, nobody else has been allowed inside the Mount to check them out.'
'And we can't get inside the gates or the tunnels?'
'No,' Angela replied. 'Back in 1910 there was a case of an Englishman named Montague Parker who bribed the Muslim guards on the Temple Mount and started digging at night near Warren's Shaft. There was a huge outcry when he was discovered, riots even, and he was lucky to escape with his life. It was a complicated story, involving a Finnish mystic who claimed that he'd found clues encoded in the Hebrew Bible – in Ezekial, in fact – that indicated the hiding place of the Ark of the Covenant. Here,' she added, 'I'll show you on the internet.'
She input a search string into Google, selected one of the hits and double-clicked on the link. The page opened, and she scrolled partway down.
'That's Montague Parker,' she said, pointing to a photograph of a man, his features indistinct, who was wearing what appeared to be a Royal Navy officer's cap and standing on the terrace of a hotel, its name partially visible behind him.
She reached for the touchpad again, but Bronson stopped her with a gesture. 'Did you read that?' he said, pointing at the text below the photograph.
'No,' Angela said, looking more closely. After a couple of minutes she sat back. 'Bugger! I wish I'd seen this website before we went to Gihon Spring. I didn't know they'd done that.'
The text they were looking at explained in some detail how Montague Parker's expedition had spent almost three years digging and widening in Hezekiah's Tunnel in a desperate search to find the Ark of the Covenant.
'That's really irritating,' Angela said, her features clouded with annoyance. 'I should have done more research. Not only was it a waste of time, but we nearly got killed in the process.'
'What about these other cisterns?' Bronson asked, tactfully changing the subject.
'Oh, yes. Right, mostly they're of very varied design and construction, presumably because they were built by several different groups of people over the centuries. Some of them are just chambers roughly cut out of the rock, while others were constructed with more care and attention. A couple of them – the ones normally known as cisterns one and five – might possibly have had some kind of religious function connected with the Second Temple altar, because of their location on the Mount. Cistern five also contains a doorway blocked with earth, so there could well be a further chamber or chambers beyond what's known to exist now.'
'How big are these cisterns? Do they just hold a few gallons of water, or are they really big?'
'Some of them are huge. Cistern eight can hold several hundred thousand gallons, and number eleven has the potential to store nearly a million gallons. Most of the others are smaller, but they were all designed as proper cisterns, with reasonably high capacities. Don't forget, in antiquity water conservation was absolutely essential, and these cisterns were intended to hold every drop of rainwater that fell.'
'But from what you've said, they can't be accurately dated, so we have no idea which of them were already in existence when the Sicarii were looking for a hiding place for their relics?'
'Exactly.'
'Let me have another look at the translation we did, please,' Bronson asked.
Angela opened her handbag and pulled out half a dozen folded sheets of paper. Bronson riffled through them.
'I thought so,' he said. 'The text specifically states 'the cistern', and that's followed by two words we haven't cracked, then 'place of', another blank and then 'end of days'. Our interpretation of that was 'the cistern at the place of the end of days'. If there was more than one cistern in the place where the Sicarii hid the relic, wouldn't it make sense for them to have written 'the cistern at the northern edge of the Mount' or something like that? I think what they wrote implies that there was only a single cistern in the place they chose, and that it would be a cistern everybody would be aware of.'
'That's why I thought Hezekiah's Tunnel was the right location. It was certainly in existence at the time, and it was the biggest and most famous of all the cisterns near Jerusalem. But this information destroys that theory.'
'Then there's only really one conclusion we can draw,' Bronson said.
'Which is what?'
