Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest (11 page)

Near 0400 hours, he could just make out the
silhouette of the lift in the moonlight, now partially obscured by
cumulous clouds. Two monks were seated beside the pulley mechanism,
their hands buried in their cloaks, their heads hooded against the
mountain cold. He felt confident that, when the bell tolled for
morning prayers, they would abandon their post quickly. But when it
sounded on the half-hour they didn't move, forcing him to await new
developments. In the meantime, he crept forward until he reached
the rack with car keys. During the long evening's wait, he planned
to take with him all sets to prevent anyone from following on the
single-lane dirt track from the monastery. With the choice of three
vehicles, he was certain to find one operating sufficiently well to
take him as far as Jericho. Three sets of keys made an unnerving
jangle in his pocket.

Thirty minutes later, he was further
frustrated to see that, while the existing guards prepared to leave
for morning song, a fresh team arrived to relieve them. One was
short and stout, the other a foot taller, walking with an athletic
bounce in his step. The pair assumed their posts with a series of
arm signals, dashing Tim's hope to gain unimpeded access to the
pulley lines. This required still another change of plans. He
briefly considered aborting his escape, with an appeal to Father
Benoit's sense of honor and reason. But upon reflection, he was
sure he had not misread the Dominican's intentions.

He paused to gather his resolve then, no
longer worried about being seen, sprinted across the courtyard,
swinging the garden hoe above his head like a medieval sword. The
guards turned toward him in alarm, but, faithful to their vows of
silence, did not cry out for help. For defense, they had nothing
but their arms. The athletic one angled his muscular shoulder to
receive the first blow. It struck harder than Tim intended and
caught the undefended man off balance, sending him to his knees,
his hands raised above his head for a shield. The steel hoe began a
second descent for what was likely to be an injurious wound to the
head. But at the last minute, Tim pulled back, allowing the
instrument to swish harmlessly through the air.

The fat monk stood paralyzed, his eyes
staring through thick glasses, his hands still buried in his
pockets. A mixture of disbelief and anguish twisted his
features.

"Français? Ivrit? Español? English?" Tim
broke the silence to demand what language the monks understood.

Still on his knees, the downed monk could
barely manage a response in a low whisper, "
Ivrit."

Tim said, "
B'seder. Akshav,
takshivu li
, Okay, now listen carefully to me. I don't
expect you to break your vows and answer. Just listen to what I'm
telling you."

When neither monk shook his head in
disagreement, Tim addressed the plump one. "I'm sure you don't know
why Abbot Nicholas sent you to stop me from leaving. I'll tell you
simply that I need your help. If you refuse, I'll bash the head of
your colleague with this hoe." Tim circled his weapon over the
kneeling monk, dropping it close to his shoulder, simulating a
sinister blow, then lifting it high in preparation for
striking.

The bewilderment on the stout monk's face
morphed into abject fear.

"You know I have been working here for five
weeks. I've been sorting fragments from scrolls discovered at
Qumran. One is so important to the Church it must be removed
immediately. Otherwise, there will be fighting over its ownership
and it may be lost or destroyed forever. I intend to deliver it to
the Antiquities Authority for safekeeping. We can all study copies
once the original is in responsible hands. Now, help me with the
lift."

The monk on the ground pointed to the padlock
securing the gondola and shook his head to indicate that neither he
nor his companion possessed the key.

"All right, then," Tim immediately resorted
to his original plan. He withdrew the knife he had brought from the
workroom and handed it to the standing monk. With his index finger
he pointed to a spot on the pulley line. "Cut here."

The monk hesitated until Tim swung his hoe
over his partner's head. Reluctantly, he began slicing into the
hemp. The line was thicker than Tim had anticipated and the short
blade less than ideal for the task. The possibility of more guards
arriving threatened to end this laborious process, but Tim
convinced himself that the monk was doing his best, at least until
he was forced to rest hands that were unaccustomed to such labor.
Tim immediately commanded his partner to switch places and, when he
hesitated, his cooperation was ensured by a mild blow to the
shoulder of his cohort.

The larger, athletic monk brought more
strength to the cutting process. While the hemp line resisted until
the last strands, it finally succumbed. Tim quickly gathered and
coiled approximately forty meters, sufficient to lower himself to
the ground outside.

"Tie this end to the frame," he commanded the
standing monk, taking the knife into his own hand. But the man had
clumsy fingers unaccustomed to such work and could not fashion a
knot capable of holding Tim's weight. Tim had no alternative but to
relinquish altogether the hoe while he relieved the monk and tied a
common cinch knot himself. The monks could have seized the moment
to attack him, but being thoroughly cowed, they remained
passive.

After testing the knot for strength, Tim
abandoned the hoe completely. Before climbing to the parapet, he
evaluated his adversaries. Would they strike while he climbed the
ladder? Or sabotage the line as he rappelled off the wall? More
likely, he decided, they would run to the chapel for help. With a
little luck, that would give him enough time to reach the ground.
After a moment's hesitation, he tossed the knife over the wall like
a baseball player tossing a ball into the outfield.

Nothing was said as he climbed the ladder,
the coiled line on one shoulder. Once on the parapet, he uncoiled
what was left and dropped it over the stone wall. Then, placing the
secured end behind his back and taking hold with both hands, he
prepared to leap into the darkness, estimating that it would take
less than two minutes to reach the bottom. His weight shifted
backward, his knees bent, he took a deep breath for reassurance,
and pushed off, planting one foot below the other. With the line
held taut by one hand behind his back and the other feeding it out,
he began his descent.

He was several meters from the ground when
someone flipped the main electrical switch, illuminating the
monastery with lights blazing from many windows. Above him, Tim
could hear movement on the parapet. No voices, but the bell now
rang without stopping to signal a general alarm. Above him, the
shadows of hooded monks appeared. Their lanterns cut wide swaths
into the darkness. A searchlight suddenly shot a long shaft of
light into the morning sky, but could not be maneuvered to focus on
the monastery's outer wall.

Tim's right foot touched the ground and in
another instant was met by his left. Abandoning the rappelling
line, he took his first step to freedom, looking for the path he
knew would descend the hillside to the parking area and the dirt
track leading to Jericho.

"Timothy!" The familiar voice of Father
Benoit howled from atop the parapet, shattering the inviolate rule
of silence. "I know what you have taken. You won't get away with
it." The priest's shriek revealed a visceral, almost animal,
hostility.

Tim could hear monks pounding flat spaces on
the wall with the palms of their hands to condemn this violation of
their sacred silence. Tim called back, "I've left you all the rest,
Benoit. Do what you want with it. Enjoy your days in an Israeli
prison."

"You know what I'm talking about," Benoit
howled in unconcealed rage. "You have no right to it. I'm speaking
now in the name of the Holy Father!"

Tim responded for generations of fellow
Protestants in their five-hundred-year dispute with the papacy,
"What Holy Father? Yours perhaps, but not mine!"

"The Pope speaks for all Christians."

Tim wanted to move quickly from the monastery
and felt little compunction to debate. But he also wanted the last
word. "
Your
holy Church, Father Benoit,
not mine. My Savior is not the Christ your Church invented for its
selfish purposes. Jesus is the Christ of history who lived and died
near this place. He was flesh and he was blood. I can prove it now.
Let your Holy Father speak for you, but not for me."

"You're a thief, Reverend Matternly."

"And so are you, Father Benoit. We'll share
equally the fate of thieves."

Tim found the cars by the side of the single lane
dirt track. Having taken all the keys, he could have selected any
vehicle for his getaway. But the sound of Benoit's shrill voice
triggered a transforming thought. Father Benoit had facilitated the
theft of his Hyundai SUV without his permission. Now it seemed
proper to reciprocate by disposing of the Dominican's beloved
Buick. After turning over the sedan's ignition and watching its
headlights illuminate the track, he climbed out and stepped over to
a Fiat and Peugeot belonging to the monastery. There, he tossed two
sets of ignition keys to the ground, thinking that by the time the
monks found them after sunrise, he would be either in, or at least
near, Jerusalem.

Once on the floor of the Jordan Valley, Tim
stopped the Buick to shed his clerical robe. He considered
abandoning this monastic garb on the roadside, but thought better
of it. Instead, he bundled the frock and stuffed it into the
trunk.

Dawn was breaking as he looked for the
Damascus Gate, leading into the Arab Quarter inside Jerusalem's Old
City. Palestinian merchants crowded the plaza, weaving pushcarts
heavily laden with winter melons and slaughtered sheep through the
narrow medieval portal. Traffic congestion slowed Tim's progress as
he circled the square looking for a place to abandon Father
Benoit's car. A legitimate space, where the police might do no more
than issue a parking ticket, would not do. Rather, he wanted
somewhere overlooked until nightfall when drug dealers,
black-marketers, and pimps replaced the stall merchants and shop
owners. It took more than twenty minutes to find what he had in
mind, a spot two blocks from the plaza, beside a bedraggled hotel
with bars on the windows dating from the Ottoman presence in
Palestine. Tim parked the Buick, deliberately leaving the keys in
the ignition. Sometime after dark, a car thief was bound to notice
this windfall and drive it away. A little work in a local garage,
perhaps a new paint job, and Benoit's beloved Buick would be ready
to join his Hyundai somewhere in perpetual exile.

***

Itamar normally avoided asking favors from
his colleagues because they would invariably seek a payback, some
privilege which ultimately compromised the Antiquities Authority.
This was particularly true when a government official petitioned
the Agency to keep a particular archeological treasure—that had,
under shady circumstances, found a home in their private
collection—from appearing on a list of protected artifacts. Since
the IDF and the border police had designated Cave XII at Qumran
off-limits to all visitors, Itamar made an exception and sought
special permission for Gabby, thinking that she represented his
best chance of finding, and perhaps arresting, Tim Matternly before
the treasures from Qumran slipped out of the country.

On the day scheduled for their visit to the
new cave, Itamar insisted on an early start from Jerusalem and
drove Gabby into the desert at breakneck speed in an all-terrain
vehicle, the front doors painted with the official seal of the
Antiquities Authority. Nine kilometers shy of the Allenby Bridge
fording the Jordan River, they left the bitumen road to travel
south on a dirt track, forcing Itamar to slow down. Desert poppies
and buttercups painted the wilderness with pinks and yellows,
spotted with an occasional flash of paintbrush scarlet. At Nabal
Qalya, he removed an M-16 rifle from the backseat and locked it
into a gun-rack attached to the dashboard.

"Anticipating trouble?" Gabby asked.

"It happens when you least expect it," Itamar
said. "Terrorists wait until they catch you off-guard, then strike.
We have military patrols in this region, but I'm now responsible
for an important visitor from America."

The sight of seven black tents on the valley
floor below the Qumran caves surprised Itamar. "Bedouin," he
announced. "My team reported that they were here weeks ago but
eventually left. I've never known nomadic peoples to return to an
area they grazed only weeks before."

This struck Gabby as coincidental. "Could
they be here in connection with Cave XII?" she asked.

He remained silent until she repeated her
question.

"Perhaps," he mumbled.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

He glanced at her for an instant before
returning his eyes to the dirt track. "Major Zabronski told you
that a murdered shepherd boy was found in a wadi nearby. His
kinsmen brought the body to the police for help finding his killer.
The police think the unfortunate boy was shot in the cave."

"Could his tribesmen be here to honor their
dead son?"

"Perhaps," said Itamar before changing the
subject. "I'm taking your word that you know how to use rappelling
lines."

"I can play a pretty neat game of tennis,
compete in a mini-triathlon, and sing in the choir. That should
qualify me for rappelling, right?"

They left the dirt road to follow tire tracks
left by military vehicles. After another kilometer, they parked
their 4-wheeler, then stuffed backpacks with halogen headlamps, a
first-aid kit, lunch, and six bottles of water. On foot, they hiked
through rugged terrain marked by large boulders and deep wadis.
Three Israeli soldiers encamped above Cave XII to discourage
amateur archeologists welcomed them with assault weapons with
long-range sniper scopes at the ready. A scruffy-looking corporal
in need of a bath, who was obviously unhappy with his assignment,
read Itamar's permits issued by the border police along with
confirming permission from the sector's military commander. As soon
as he was confident Itamar and Gabby were authorized to be there,
he drew their attention to the Bedouin tents while handing Itamar
rubber-coated military binoculars for a closer look.