He hadn’t thought of this. “How so?”
“Well, whatever was here, maybe upstairs in the other chamber, must have been moved to Egypt.”
Amit blanched. “My God, Jules. That actually makes sense,” he muttered.
“Good thing you brought me here.” She patted his solid shoulder. “Question is, what was in the chamber upstairs?”
“Maybe the scrolls have something to say about it,” he surmised, stroking his goatee. That’s when he heard the first faint sounds coming from above, trickling down the steps.
“But if these symbols—”
“Shhh,” he cut her off, grabbing her wrist. “Hear that?” he whispered.
“What?”
“Shhhhhh.”
Then Jules did hear it. Subtle scraping sounds. Feet scuffing along stone? “Are you expecting someone?” she whispered.
He shook his head. A program started running in the back of his brain—a hardwired protocol from his IDF days, activated only during the silent infiltrations of radical Islamic safe houses in Gaza. “Let’s get up top,” he suggested, pulling her to the steps. Then, as an afterthought, he quickly unzipped the rucksack and pulled out a tiny device.
“What are you doing?”
“Keep moving. I’m right behind you.”
20
******
In the front corner of the upper chamber, empty polyethylene toolboxes and storage bins were stacked three high. The clunky radar unit was parked in front of it all, next to a small generator. Behind the organized clutter, a sizable gap ensured there would be no contact with the chamber walls. But now, contact had been made—not by the gear, but by Jules and Amit as they squeezed in tight to shield themselves. Since the stack was barely a meter in height, Jules was practically flat against the cool stone floor. Amit could only fit sideways, lying on his left side.
Amit’s head peeked out the side just enough to monitor the shadows playing across the floor in front of the passage opening. Thus far, it sounded like only one set of footsteps. A looter, he guessed. His fingers wrapped tighter around the handle of a hefty pickax he’d grabbed from a tool rack. It would only be a matter of time before . . .
The scuffing sounds grew louder as the dark silhouette stretched in front of the passage.
The intruder was coming.
Amit craned his head back at Jules and signaled for her to stay low. Keeping his head out of view, his ears fixed on the footsteps to monitor the movement.
Pause.
The intruder was now in the chamber. Amit hoped his decoy would divert any search behind the boxes.
Then he could hear the quiet footsteps easing down the steps toward the loud voice spouting academic jargon in the lower chamber.
Waiting till he counted seven footfalls, Amit quietly got up on his haunches and crawled over to the steps, careful not to let the pickax scrape along the stone. It wouldn’t take long for the looter to realize that the lower chamber was empty and that a small digital recorder was playing back Amit’s dictation at high volume from the bottom of the bathing pit.
The intruder figured it out sooner than expected. Amit heard a gruff male voice curse in Hebrew, then footsteps rushing back to the steps. He dropped the pickax and scrambled for the stone slab set just beside the hole. With all his might he began pushing the slab over the opening.
The first muffled spitting sound confused Amit as something ricocheted off the edge of the slab, taking a chunk of the stone with it. It took a split second for it to sink in: the man was shooting at him! The gun was equipped with a silencer—not what he’d expect from a run-of-the-mill grave robber. “Jules! Get out of here! He’s got a gun!” he yelled.
The feet were rushing up the steps. No time to think. Amit gave another huge push and the stone fell into place.
Another obscenity came from below.
The archaeologist’s eyes darted around for something to pull over the top of the slab. Nothing heavy enough to keep the man trapped for long.
The slab suddenly fractured in the middle. Once. Twice. Each time with a
The guy was shooting it to pieces. Amit didn’t bother with the pickax, but grabbed his flashlight and doused the lights.
Jules was already in the outer chamber as Amit began scurrying through the passage on all fours. “Don’t wait! Go!” he screamed to her.
With flashlight in hand, Jules dashed into the tunnel.
Amit killed the lights in the front chamber too, then flicked on his flashlight. From the other side of the passage, he could hear the large pieces of slab tumbling onto the floor. He raced down the tunnel.
