The Sacred Blood

Khaleel’s voice suddenly dropped low. “Did your grandfather also tell you that Yeshua walked down this very same tunnel?”

This shocked Aaron. “Jesus?”

“That is right. As Isaiah foretold, the Savior came here, just as you have. To le a r n. To u nder s t a nd . To b e l ie ve.”

They stopped at the intimidating steel door that materialized from the shadows.

As Khaleel worked a second key into its lock, he said, “And inside this room, Jesus was given God’s most wondrous gift.”

I am a Son of Light, Cohen thought.

The earthen walls looked the same now as they had in 1974, with the exception of some steel reinforcement beams recently retrofitted along some of the crumbling ancient stone arches, and the electrical conduit that snaked between the modern overhead light fixtures.

Five meters below the surface, the subterranean passage ran a perfect line stretching two hundred meters to a secret chamber beneath Tel elYahudiyeh’s foundation. The dusty parcel situated directly above it attracted little attention, but it hosted the faint remains of a massive elliptical fortification built by the Hyksos in the seventeenth century b.c.e.; like the mound, the site was protected by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. Therefore, excavations required SCA authorization—virtually impossible to attain. The last meaningful excavation performed here had been in 1906 by Flinders Petrie (the incriminating findings were published in Hyksos and Israelite Cities)—and luckily, even though the renowned father of modern archaeology had pinpointed this as the city of Onias, he had not been granted permission to dig below the tell’s foundation.

At the tunnel’s terminus, the rabbi stopped in front of the second security door, which looked nothing like the one Khaleel had trusted to a simple lock and key. Unlike the tunnel and its improved entrance door, here Cohen had insisted upon major modifications. Regularly, new safeguards and enhancements were added to keep pace with ever-improving technology.

Cohen pressed his thumb on the lock’s scanner, then keyed in a second password. The panel flashed blue three times. The steel door’s mechanical guts came to life, multiple jamb bolts smoothly disengaging. The pressure seal released a small pop just before the door began opening along a smooth arc. Beyond, a dense matrix of iridescent green lasers snapped off.

Cohen entered the cube-shaped vault.

Stainless steel panels sheathed steel-reinforced zero-slump concrete slabs (with special additives that made their crush value ten times greater). Behind that, the two-meter-thick ancient block walls constructed by Onias’s builders had been maintained.

Cohen stared in wonderment at the supervault’s extraordinary centerpiece.

Less than a minute later seven priests in white tunics funneled through the entry and awaited instructions.

34

******

Jerusalem

Amit and Jules entered the Old City’s southern wall through the Zion Gate. They kept close to the stone sidewalls to avoid the cars negotiating the tight L-shaped bend in the tunnel.

“So exactly where are we going?” Jules asked in a loud voice. Amit had been tight-lipped as he parked the Land Rover in the tourist lot outside the gate. Contemplating a plan, she intuited.

Amit didn’t want to compete with the sounds of tire rubber squealing along the glass-smooth ancient paving stones. So he provided the answer only once they’d emerged into the Armenian Quarter along busy Shaar Tsiyon, lined with cafes and souvenir shops.

“We are going to the Jewish Quarter,” he told her.

Passing through a security checkpoint and metal detectors at the entrance to the Jewish Quarter, Amit only hoped that their sly pursuer wouldn’t be able to circumvent the metal detectors. A Mossad agent like Enoch could easily bypass security barriers. The agency’s outside contractors, however, didn’t have that luxury.

He brought Jules through the Roman Cardo, down through Hurva Square (where the only people she spotted were Hasidim), and through the narrow maze of streets that put them on Misgav Ladach. Finally, he stopped in front of a nondescript three-story building neatly edged in Jerusalem stone. A bronze placard engraved in Hebrew and English with the temple society hung above the unassuming entry, which seemed little more than a storefront.

“Here?” she asked, looking up at the sign. “What are we doing here?” “Rabbi Cohen’s office,” he flatly replied, thumbing at the door. “I figured we might ask him if the scrolls were still in Yosi’s office when he met with him yesterday. If the scrolls had been moved, he might know it.”

“That’s your plan?”

Exactly the reaction he’d expected. “Got anything better?” She put her hands on her hips and huffed. “Yikes. We are screwed.” “To be determined,” he optimistically replied. He reached out and

pulled the door open. “After you, mademoiselle.”

“Rrrr,” she growled as she walked past him.

They entered the reception foyer, whose walls were covered in Torahthemed scenes that would have impressed Michelangelo himself: Moses raising his staff to part the seas; Moses atop Sinai; Moses presenting God’s sacred commandments to the Israelites. A massive gold-plated menorah rose tall behind a reception desk. Seated directly beneath it was a middleaged woman wearing an ultraconservative navy blouse buttoned to the collar. Like that of many Hasidic women, her thick, wavy hair was a wig.

“ Shalom aleichem,” Amit greeted her.

She responded in kind, then asked, “May I help you?”

“Yes, I’ve come to speak with Rabbi Cohen,” Amit replied. This seemed to confuse her. “Sorry, but my husband is out of the country on business. Did you have an appointment with him?”

“Not exactly,” Amit said, his optimism immediately deflated.

“Perhaps I might be of assistance then?” she pried. “What is it you’d like to speak with him about?”

“Well . . . ,” he sighed. “W hen do you expect him back from . . . ? ” Amit let the words linger, hoping she’d fill in the blank. Surprisingly, she did.

“I expect him to return from Egypt this evening.”

“Cairo, was it?” Amit pressed.

That’s when Cohen’s wife realized that she’d already said too much. “If you’d like to leave your name, telephone number . . . I’ll certainly see that it gets to him.”