Cross Bones (20 page)

“So James and the others might have been later children of Mary.”

“Matthew’s gospel plainly states that, after Jesus was born, Josephknew Mary.” Jake came down hard on the word “knew.” “And Matthew wasn’t talking handshakes and cookies. He used the word in the biblical sense.

“Though Joseph isn’t the only candidate for Daddy of Jesus’ siblings. Once Jesus grows up, Joseph total y disappears. You never hear about the guy.”

“So Mary might have remarried?”

“If Joseph died or left, it would have been expected.”

I understood the dilemma for the Catholic Church.

“Whether by Joseph or by some other man, the implication is that Mary gave birth to other children. And one of them was James. So if the James ossuary is real, it throws into question the whole concept of perpetual virginity, and perhaps, by association, the concept of virgin birth.”

Another Jake snort.

“Saint Jerome and his cronies cooked that one up in the fourth century. Jesus’ pal Mary Magdalene became a prostitute. Jesus’ mother became a virgin.

Good women don’t have sex. Bad women do. The idea appealed to the misogynist male ego. The concept became dogma, and the Vatican’s been championing it ever since.”

“So if the James ossuary is real, and the box actual y belonged to Jesus’ brother, the Vatican has some explaining to do.”

“You bet. The idea of Mary as a mama is a mega-problem for the Vatican. Hel , even if the box means only that Joseph had other kids, that’s stil a problem. It suggests that Joseph impregnated his wives. And, again, the Vatican’s credibility is screwed.”

The blackbird had been joined by others. For a few moments I watched them squabble over carrion rights.

Okay. The James ossuary blew the lid on Mary’s virginity. I could see how the Vatican would be concerned about that. I could see how Christian or Muslim radicals might want to get their hands on the box. Same argument Morissonneau had presented. Save the faith. Wreck the faith. But how did the ossuary link to the Masada skeleton? Or did it? Had the two finds coincidental y surfaced at the same time?

“What does the James ossuary have to do with Morissonneau’s skeleton?”

Jake hesitated. “I’m not sure. Yet. But here’s an interesting sidebar. Oded Golan worked as a volunteer at Masada.”

“For Yigael Yadin?” I asked.

Jake nodded, again checked his surroundings. I wanted to probe the connection between Max and the James ossuary, but Jake gave me no chance.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Where?” I asked.

“The Jesus family tomb.”

20

BEFOREICOULD REACT , JAKE CLIMBED FROM THE TRUCK. THEblackbirds cawed in protest and flapped skyward.

Reaching behind the seat, Jake transferred items from his pack to the zipper compartment of my hockey bag. Then he shouldered the bag’s strap, scanned the area, locked the driver’s-side door, and set off.

I trailed behind, a cascade of questions whirling in my brain.

The Jesus family tomb? If authenticated, such a find would be huge. CNN, BBC, around the globe mammoth.

What proof did Jake have?

Why had he waited until now to tel me?

How did this tomb relate to the bones I’d carried from l’Abbaye Sainte-Marie-des-Neiges? To the James ossuary?

I felt fearful.

I felt awestruck.

I felt total y jazzed.

Ten yards downslope, Jake stopped on a ledge.

“We’re standing on the edge of the Kidron Val ey.” Jake indicated the gorge at our feet. “The Kidron meets the Hinnom just south of here, then veers west.”

I must have looked lost.

“The Hinnom Val ey runs south from the Jaffa Gate on the west side of the Old City, then eastward along the south side of Mount Zion until it meets the Kidron. The Kidron separates the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives on the east side of the city.” Jake pointed. “Over there. Know much about the Hinnom?”

“Not real y.”

“The place has quite a colorful history. In the pre-Christian era, babies are supposed to have been sacrificed to the gods Moloch and Baal in the Hinnom.

The Jews turned the val ey into a city dump—garbage, anything deemed unclean, including the bodies of executed criminals, were burned there. In later Jewish literature the val ey was cal ed Ge-Hinnom, and in the Greek of the New Testament, Gehenna. Because of the trash fires, the Hinnom provided imagery for a fiery hel in the Books of Isaiah and the New Testament. Gehenna is the source of the English word ‘hel .’”

Jake stuck a thumb at an ancient tree at my back.

“Judas is supposed to have hanged himself there. According to tradition, his body fel from that tree and was disemboweled.”

“You don’t believe that’s the actual tree—”

A smal bird darted between us, moving so fast I couldn’t make out its color. Jake threw up an arm, and a boot slipped. Pebbles shot downward.

My adrenals opened fire.

Regaining his footing, Jake continued with a question.

“According to the Bible, where did Christ go after his crucifixion?”

“Into a tomb.”

“He descended into hel , and on the third day rose again. Right?”

I nodded.

“At the time that was written the Hinnom was constantly burning and had taken on the popular image as the place ‘down there’ where the wicked would be cast into the flames of destruction. Hel . Hel Val ey. The biblical reference is to burial in a location in or near the Hinnom.”

Jake left no gap for comment.

“These val eys were the location of the tombs of the wealthy.”

“Like Joseph of Aramathea.”

“You got it.” Jake pointed flat-handed to our left and rear, then swept his arm in a clockwise arc. “Silwan’s the vil age behind us. Abu Tor’s across the way.” Jake closed his circle on the hil to our right. “The Mount of Olives is to the north.”

I sited off his fingers. Jerusalem crawled the summit westward from the Mount, its domes facing off across the Kidron with the minarets of Silwan.

“These hil s are honeycombed with ancient tombs.” Jake yanked out a bandanna and wiped sweat from his head. “I’m taking you to one unearthed by Palestinian roadwork a few years back.”

“How far down the val ey?” I asked.

“Way down.”

Jake backhanded the bandanna into a jeans pocket, grabbed a bush, and hopped off the ledge. I watched him scrabble downhil , bald head shining like a copper pot.

Using the same bush, I squatted, kicked out my legs, and bel ied over the edge. When my feet made contact, I let go, turned, and began picking my way downhil , sliding on loose rocks and grabbing vegetation.

The sun was climbing a bril iant blue sky. Inside my Windbreaker, I began to sweat.

Again and again I thought of the pair outside l’Abbaye Sainte-Marie-des-Neiges. My eyes kept moving from the ground at my feet to the vil age at my back. The slope was at least sixty degrees where Jake had chosen to descend. If anyone wanted to pick us off, we were easy targets.

On one backward glance I spotted a man walking a path on the val ey rim.

My heart gunned into overdrive.

An assassin? A man walking a path on the val ey rim?

I looked downhil . Jake was drawing farther and farther ahead.

I goosed the tempo.

Five yards down, I slipped and cracked my shin. Tears shot from wherever they’d been waiting on cal . I blinked them back.

Screw it. If someone wanted to kil us we’d be dead by now.

I dropped back to my tenderfoot crawl.

Jake was spot-on. The tomb wasn’t at the bottom, but it was way down the val ey, in a grassy stretch strewn with rocks and boulders.

When I arrived he was squatting by an outcrop squinting into a rectangle the size of my microwave. I watched him rol a paper, light one end, and thrust the makeshift torch into the opening.

Oh, God.

Closing my eyes, I talked myself down.

Feel.

Wind on my face.

Smel .

Sun-heated grass. Garbage. Coal smoke.

Taste.

Dust on my teeth and tongue.

Listen.

The buzzing of an insect. Gears grinding way off up the val ey.

I took a deep breath. A second. A third.

I opened my eyes.

Smal red flowers bloomed at my feet.

I took another breath. Counted.

Six flowers. Seven. Ten.

I looked up to see Jake eyeing me oddly.

“I’m a bit claustrophobic.” I offered the understatement of the decade.

“We don’t have to go in,” Jake said.

“We’re here,” I said.

Jake looked skeptical.

“I’m fine.” The overstatement of the decade.

“The air’s okay,” Jake said.

“What more could one ask?” I said.

“I’l go first,” Jake said.

He slid down the incline and disappeared, feet-first.

“Hand me the bones.” His voice came out muffled and hol ow.

My heartbeat revved as I maneuvered the bag. I breathed it back to normal.

“Come on down.” Quiz-show dramatic.

Deep breath.

Turning, I thrust my feet into darkness. Jake grabbed my ankles. I inched backward until I felt hands on my waist. I dropped.

Murky dimness. One skewed rectangle of light squeezing in from outside.

“You okay?” Jake asked.

“Dandy.”

Jake’s flashlight clicked on.

The space was approximately eight feet square, with a ceiling so low we had to crouch. Food wrappers, cans, and broken glass littered the floor, graffiti marred the wal s. The air smel ed like a mix of mud and ammonia.

“Bad news, Jake. Some have come before.” I pointed at a used condom.

“These tombs are popular with drifters and kids.”

Jake’s beam darted here and there. It looked yel ow and wavery, and not reassuring.

As my eyes adjusted, I picked out details.

The tomb’s entrance was to the east, facing the Old City. The northern, western, and southern wal s were cut by a series of oblong recesses, each approximately two feet wide. Stones blocked the entrances to a few of the recesses, but most were wide-open. In the amber beam I could see their interiors were packed with fil .

“The little chambers are cal ed loculi,” Jake said. “Kochimin Hebrew. During the first century, the dead were shrouded and left in loculi until decomposed.

Then the bones were col ected and permanently stored in ossuaries.”

I felt a tingle on one hand. I looked down. Jake noticed and shot the beam my way.

A daddy longlegs was high-stepping it up my sleeve. Gently pinching one leg, I displaced the arachnid. I freak in tight spaces, but I’m cool with spiders.

“This tomb has a lower level.”

Jake duck-walked to the southwest corner. I fol owed.

Jake pointed his light at what I’d assumed to be a loculus. It disappeared into total darkness.

“You game for the cel ar if I’m there to catch you?”

“Go,” I said, not granting my amygdala time to react.

Jake rol ed to his stomach, inserted his legs, and wiggled downward. Closing my eyes I did the same.

I felt hands.

I felt terra firma.

I stuck the landing.

I opened my eyes.

There wasn’t a pixel of light. Jake was so close our shoulders were touching.

I became intensely interested in the flashlight.

“Light?”

A yel ow shaft cut the darkness.

“Those batteries new?” I asked.

“Relatively.”

The ammonia smel was stronger at this level. I recognized what it was. Urine. I made a note to keep my hands off the floor.

Jake played his beam over the wal we were facing, and then over the one to our left.

The lower chamber was smal er, but appeared to be laid out like the one above. That would mean two loculi to the north. Two to the south. Three in back.

“You say there are thousands of these tombs?” My voice sounded dead in the underground space.

“Most were robbed long ago. I stumbled onto this one while hiking with students in the fal of 2000. Kid spotted the opening, saw artifacts scattered outside. It was obvious looters had just hit, so we cal ed the IAA.”

“You did a ful excavation?”

“Hardly. The IAA archaeologist couldn’t have been less impressed. Said there was nothing left that was worth protecting, and left us to our own devices.

We salvaged what we could.”

“Why the disinterest?”

“In his opinion, the site wasn’t anything special. I don’t know if the guy had a hot date that night, or what. He couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”

“You disagree with his assessment?”

“Less than two years after we found this tomb, Oded Golan, the antiquities col ector I told you about, revealed the existence of the James ossuary to a French epigrapher named André Lemaire.”

“You think the ossuary was stolen from here?”

“It makes sense. The ossuary is rumored to have come from somewhere near Silwan. Within two years of the looting of this tomb the ossuary was presented to the world.”

“If the James ossuary came from this tomb, that would suggest this is the place Jesus’ brother was buried.”

“Yes.”

“Making this the Jesus family tomb.”

“Awesome, eh?”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

“We found twelve boxes, al smashed, the remains tossed aside.”

“Remains?”

“Bones.”

Jake dropped one knee and raised the other. His movement sent shadows dancing the wal s.

“But that’s not the best of it. Golan’s James ossuary has elaborate detailing, and the motif’s a dead ringer for the boxes we found here. What’s more—”

Jake’s head shot up.

“What?”

His fingers wrapped my arm.

“What?” I hissed.

Jake clicked off the light and touched a finger to my lips.

Ice flooded my veins.

I remembered the man on the val ey rim. Had we been fol owed?

How easy it would be to block the entrance! How easy it would be to shoot down the tunnel!

Beside me I felt Jake go total y stil . I did the same.

Heart hammering, I strained for the faintest sound.

Nothing.

“False alarm,” Jake whispered when an eon had passed. “But we left the bones topside. I’m going to grab them.”