He waved her away.
Charlotte rotated it. The metal looked similar to the coins. Was it bronze? “Okay. Here goes.” She held the cylinder over an empty section of the tray. Clenching her teeth, she took hold of the cap sealing one end, applied equal pressure in the opposite direction and twisted. At first it didn’t budge. But an instant later, a muffled cracking sound indicated the wax seal had broken.
The cap came free.
Fellow conspirators, the two scientists gazed at one another. Tilting the cylinder closer to the light, she glimpsed something rolled up inside.
“What do you see?” Bersei’s voice was hoarse with tension.
“It looks like a scroll.”
He balled his hand into a fist, pressing it against his chin. “Handle that extremely carefully.” His voice was loud. “It’s probably very brittle.” First the coins, now this, he thought. It was getting to be overwhelming.
Gently tapping the unopened end of the cylinder, Charlotte coaxed the scroll from the tube. Sticking at first, it slid out suddenly, landing on the tray with a small thump. They both froze. “Shit! I didn’t think that would happen so easily.”
Bersei reached out and gingerly rolled it back and forth with his index finger, assessing the damage. “No harm done.” He exhaled heavily. “Looks like it’s in excellent condition.”
“Is that parchment?”
Bersei studied it. “Most likely calfskin.”
“Have you ever handled ancient documents?”
“Personally, no,” he admitted.
“We can’t just unfurl it, can we?”
“We’d have to research that. It looks remarkably well preserved, but of course it will be frail. There will be strict procedures. We can’t risk any damage.” He was trying to imagine what it might reveal. “Don’t you think there’s just too much evidence here?” His expression hardened.
“Perhaps. But I’ve got some really interesting news for you.” Charlotte had his complete attention.
“The radiocarbon dating results?”
She nodded. “That bone sample I submitted to Ciardini.” He studied her face intently. “What did he find?”
“Ready for this? The sample was so good that it’s 98.7% certain the bones date from between 5 and 71 AD.”
Uncertainty was growing in Bersei’s eyes again. That narrow time range was almost incredible. With his left hand, he massaged a cramp that was setting into the base of his neck. Stress. “This is compelling news.”
“And the wood splinter—which, by the way, is from a type of walnut tree indigenous to a region in Israel. There’s an 89.6% degree of certainty it dates from between 18 and 34 AD.”
Bersei’s eyes jumped over to the skeleton as if it had suddenly come to life. “When do you think you’ll have the results of the genetic analysis?”
“We might have it tomorrow.”
He stared down at the rolled calfskin. “Good. Let’s go ahead and document all this,” he suggested.
Charlotte got the digital camera, turned it on and started snapping shots of the ossuary’s interior.
Locked in thought, Bersei knew that something about all this felt very wrong. No wonder Father Donovan had wanted to call in leading scientific expertise. The priest had to know more than he was letting on. After Charlotte captured an image of the rolled scroll, Bersei carefully returned it to its metal housing, and sealed the cap.
35
******
Erez Crossing, Israel
An hour southwest of Jerusalem, the lush farmlands of Israel’s transformed desert began to fade back into arid landscape as Razak drove down Highway 4 toward the Gaza border.
“Have you ever been on that side of the fence?” Barton motioned with his eyes through the distant tall posts and steel wiring of the separation fence that ran along the Gaza Strip’s fifty-one kilometer border, cutting away the tiny sliver of land from Israel’s southern coast.
“Only once,” Razak replied in a dreary tone. He did not elaborate.
A sour taste came into the back of Barton’s throat. Seeing as he’d be only one of a handful of Europeans in the tiny place inhabited by almost 1.3 million Palestinians, he would have preferred a more reassuring response from Razak—especially since Westerners were prime targets for abduction by Islamic militants, like the El-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.
Up ahead, the roadway was snarled for almost three kilometers with idling vehicles—taxis, cars, and vans awaiting clearance through the Erez Crossing. Pulled off to the side of the road, many had already overheated. With no cover in sight, the scorching sun beat down unforgivingly on the stranded motorists.
Even with the windows up, the sounds of crying children and the choking stench of exhaust fumes permeated the Mercedes’s airconditioned interior.
“Who exactly is this contact we’re meeting?” Barton asked. “An old school friend of mine. A man who shares many of my concerns for the future of the Middle East,” Razak explained. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to request that you let me do all the talking.”
“Agreed.”
It took almost two hours until they reached the expansive metal canopy resembling a doorless hangar that shielded the IDF border patrol guards from the sun. Cement barricades and barbed wire lined the road. Tanks and armored vehicles were positioned on both sides of the gate.
