“It certainly does. But the interesting part is that the last four pages of the text were purposely cut out so that the story ended with the crucifixion.”
“So I take it someone didn’t like the ending?”
He nodded. “The conspiracy builds. Another great example of how editing can rewrite history. And if you choose to believe the rumors, this same editor also didn’t like what was inside this ossuary.” Jules still looked incredulous as she put it all together.
“So somewhere out there are four pages of the oldest Gospel and the physical remains of Jesus?” she clarified.
“That’s the rumor.”
“Any way to get in touch with this Barton fellow you mentioned earlier?” she suggested. “Maybe he can help us.”
Amit quickly dismissed the idea. Not only had the English archaeologist gone through his own tribulations, he explained, but there was a high probability that Barton was still being closely surveilled by Israeli intelligence, even though he’d long since returned to his home in London.
A boisterous American tour group suddenly poured into the gallery.
“Let’s go,” Amit suggested.
They wove through the tourists, back toward Tower Hall. But halfway through the South Octagon, Amit spotted Joshua’s wheelchair parked near the front entrance.
Amit grabbed Jules’s arm and yanked her behind Seti’s stele.
“What are you—”
“Quiet!” he demanded in a hushed tone. He peeked out to confirm that Cohen’s son was talking to a man of medium height with an awfully familiar face. Amit panicked when he saw the fresh laceration just below the man’s hairline, then the fresh white cast wound round his right forearm.
“My father told me to call you if anyone came asking about Yosi,” Joshua reported.
“You said someone was in his office?” the tall man said. The kid’s voice message to him hadn’t been very clear.
“Two people actually. Amit Mizrachi. And he was with a very pretty—”
“Are they still here?” the man broke in, looking like he’d just touched a live wire.
“I ...I think so.” Joshua backed the chair up a bit, because the man looked like he was going to explode. Then his wild eyes began scanning the hall. “They might still be in the South Gallery—”
But before he could finish, the man broke into a full sprint, practically bowling over the American tour group assembling in the hall.
29
******
Egypt
Exiting Inshas Airport, the driver turned the dusty Peugeot south onto highway 41.
Rabbi Aaron Cohen checked his watch: 12:32.
His private jet had covered the four hundred kilometers from Ben Gurion International in less than forty minutes. He’d instructed the pilot to expect to have the jet on the tarmac for a return trip later that afternoon. They’d need to work quickly before Egyptian authorities could start asking questions, he’d reminded everyone. But he took great comfort in knowing that the VIP charter flights coming in and out of Inshas enjoyed far more liberties than El-Al flights heading to Cairo International.
“You called ahead to let the others know we’ve arrived?”
“I did,” the driver replied.
Cohen settled into his seat.
The road paralleled the glistening Ismailiya Canal, where a magnificent sailboat was lazily motoring its way south, its mainsail down, an Egyptian flag flapping gently atop its mast. On the spacious aft deck, Cohen spotted a lithe woman with obviously surgically enhanced breasts and hair like raven’s wings, sunning herself in a bikini. The shirtless, beerdrinking helmsman—also Egyptian—was much older than the woman and looked very, very proud. In a country full of Muslim fundamentalists who aspired to be the next great hope for an Islamic state, it flew in the face of Sharia, Islamic law, and exemplified how wealth came with great exception.
He diverted his gaze out the right window to the flat swaths of sugarcane and rice fields.
They were heading to Heliopolis. Not the modern suburb on the outsk ir ts of Ca iro t hat loc a ls referred to a s Misr el- Gadida— or “New Ca iro”— but its ancient namesake about twenty kilometers north.
With Amit Mizrachi still alive, Cohen wasn’t taking any chances; the archaeologist or the French Egyptologist who’d accompanied him to Qumran might have somehow deciphered the hidden meaning of the hieroglyph. Centuries of planning could potentially be undone. Besides, with the prophecy already set into motion, the timing for this visit couldn’t have been better.
The driver turned west, following signs for Kafr Hamra.
Minutes later, they passed a tiny Coptic church with a mosaic on its belfry depicting Joseph guiding a donkey burdened with Mary. The Holy Mother was tightly cradling the baby Jesus. Laid out in colorful tiles, the narrative placed them along the palm-treed Nile, three distant pyramids rising up on the opposing riverbank. The imagery always made Cohen smile.
Churches like this could be found throughout the Nile Delta—Tel Basta, Farama, Wadi al-Natrun, Bilbeis, Mostorod, even Cairo. Each venerated its own ancient folklore built around the Holy Family’s refuge in Egypt after
