The Moses Legacy (25 page)

‘I'm looking for some friends of mine,' said Goliath, holding up the pictures of Daniel and Gabrielle that he had downloaded from the Internet and printed out.

He was in Holon, randomly accosting people, especially but not exclusively those wearing traditional Samaritan costume. He saw a group of them coming towards him.

‘Excuse me, I wonder if you can help me. I'm looking for a couple of friends of mine – a man and a woman. I know they were here yesterday and I am very anxious to find them.'

He held out the pictures. The group looked at them but showed no sign of recognition. Then one of them said, ‘I think I saw them. Ask Rabbi Tsedaka.' The young Samaritan pointed. ‘He should be in the synagogue.'

Goliath thanked him and walked on. The Samaritan synagogue was in fact just down the road.

‘Excuse me,' he said to a man, ‘I am looking for Rabbi Tsedaka.'

‘He's in the office,' said the man, pointing the way.

Goliath made his way to the office and knocked on the door.

‘Come in,' said a voice from inside.

Goliath opened the door and entered. Aryeh Tsedaka was sitting at the desk, writing, his face creased in great thought.

‘Sorry, I'll be with you in a moment. I'm just working on my sermon.'

But Goliath was not prepared to wait. ‘I'm looking for some friends of mine,' he said, pushing the photo towards Tsedaka.

The look of recognition in the rabbi's eyes was immediate. Which made his answer all the more surprising.

‘I'm afraid I don't recognize them.'

Had they told him about the attempt to kill them?

However much or little this man knew, it was obvious that he was protecting them and had no intention of co-operating.

‘Could you take another look?' Goliath requested, with an eager look in his eyes.

The rabbi leaned forward as if going through the motions of considering the question again. It was all that Goliath needed. He reached out and grabbed Tsedaka's head and smashed it into the desk. It made a muffled thud, but the cry that followed was loud enough to be heard, and Goliath feared that he would attract attention. He lifted Tsedaka's head with one hand and clamped a hand over his mouth with the other, making it hard for Tsedaka to breathe let alone speak. He could see the terror in the rabbi's eyes.

‘I am going to ask you one more time and if you do not tell me the truth I will inflict great pain upon you and then I will go after your family. Do you understand?'

Although barely able to move his head, the rabbi managed what amounted to a nod. Goliath moved his hand away from Tsedaka's mouth. Tsedaka coughed and sputtered, trying to regain his breath. Then in a low, gravelly voice he said, ‘They've gone to the Hebrew University… National Library… Conservation Department…'

‘What for?'

‘To look at the scroll.'

‘
Which
scroll?' demanded Goliath.

‘The Book of the Straight.'

Daniel looked up from the papyrus at Gabrielle, expectantly. ‘It fits what we know about Yuya. He was vizier to two pharaohs.'

The high priest nodded approvingly. They were overjoyed to learn that Joseph – their patriarch – had tried to influence the pharaoh in the direction of monotheism.

Daniel smiled, pleased that his translation was fulfilling everyone's expectations. On the outside he was calm, but on the inside he was in awe of the fact that in his hands was a document that was both changing and reinforcing history. He put his head down and carried on reading.

He broke off and looked at Gabrielle.

‘Does that fit the record?' he asked.

Gabrielle looked stunned and was almost gasping for breath as she replied. ‘Well, we know from DNA evidence that Tutankhamen's parents were brother and sister. There was a tomb in the Valley of the Kings called KV35, which as well as having the mummy of King Tut's grandfather also contained the mummies of two women, known as the Elder Lady and the Younger Lady respectively. The DNA tests established that the Elder Lady was Tutankhamen's grandmother and the Younger Lady was his mother.'

‘But this business about the changing of the names – Nebetah and Beketaten?'

‘It's been speculated about in the past. Nebetah was never mentioned
after
the Amarna reforms and Beketaten was never mentioned
before
them. So it makes perfect sense.'

But Daniel was confused about something else. ‘And why does it say the son was called Tutan
khaten
, not Tutan
khamen
?'

‘Tutan
khaten
was his original name. He changed it later to Tutan
khamen
when he reversed the Amarna reforms and got rid of Aten and restored the cult of Amun… What?'

‘The next bit. If I've read it correctly…'

‘What does it say?'

He translated.

He turned to Gabrielle, ignoring the tension and shock on the faces of the priests. ‘Is
that
in the history books? Ay killing Tutankhamen's mother?'

Gabrielle also looked tense, but not unhappy as she drew in her breath before answering.

‘Recent CAT scans on the mummy of Tutankhamen's mother showed signs of an unhealed wound from a severe blow to the side of her face. The wound was covered by the embalming process, which means that it occurred before she died. And the latest medical opinion is that
the blow was lethal
. In other words, yes, she was killed by a blow to the head.'

Daniel looked around in response to the intake of breath from the priests. That a queen of Egypt had been killed by a blow to the head didn't bother them, just as it didn't surprise Gabrielle. However, that it was inflicted by the Samaritan patriarch Ephraim in order to maintain his
influence over the pharaoh most certainly did. So when Daniel looked down and translated the next sentence in his mind, he was supremely reluctant to say it out loud. But he realized that he had no choice.

‘I don't have to listen to this!' the youngest of the priests interrupted – and it was clear that he couldn't take any more as he stormed out.

‘Wait,' said another, following him out.

‘I'm sorry,' said Daniel, to the high priest who remained. ‘I can only read what is written.'

‘Are you sure your translation is correct?'

‘I'm sure of the words. I cannot vouch for their truthfulness.'

They both turned to Gabrielle, inquisitively. She shrugged.

‘There's nothing in any other written record to support it,' she said tentatively.

‘But?' Daniel replied, picking up on the hangnail in her tone.

‘It would explain an aberration that was found in the DNA tests. There were two mummified foetuses in Tutankhamen's tomb. But the DNA tests show that they can't both be the children of both Tutankhamen and his wife… unless his wife had different parentage to the one the official record shows.'

‘So this
is
consistent with the DNA?' Daniel wanted to be sure.

‘Yes, but the chronology of the narrative is all wrong. Tutankhamen's wife was born a few years
before
Tutankhamen himself. Yet in this papyrus it is described
afterwards
.'

‘The order is irrelevant,' said the priest, his brows furrowing with the weight of the troubles in his heart. ‘Ancient narratives often jump around in their order. It is the words themselves that are painful.'

‘Why did we let them get hold of the manuscript?' asked Sarit.

She and Dov Shamir were in the Mossad's headquarters in Herzliya. She was supposed to be going to Eilat for some R&R, but she had asked for permission to stay and keep working on this assignment. She didn't like leaving a job unfinished.

‘We couldn't really stop them. They're both prestigious academics and they had the Antiquities Authority behind them.'

‘Couldn't we have said it was a matter of national security?'

‘The PM
knows
about the security angle. But a three-thousand-year-old manuscript isn't going to threaten national security in itself. Besides, we know that Harrison Carmichael had a copy—'

‘Which Goliath destroyed in that fire.'

‘The point is he already translated it.'

‘Yes, but the New Covenant managed to suppress publication.'

‘
Delay
publication,' Dov corrected.

‘Well, with Carmichael dead and Professor Tomlinson so well connected, he'll probably be able to block publication.'

‘So Daniel Klein'll get the credit when he publishes
his
translation. The point is, Sarit, that we can't stop it.
And there's no reason why we should. The threat to national security is not in the contents, but in what people
do
with the information. And let's face it,
The Book of the Straight
doesn't really tell us the exact location. All we know is that it's somewhere on the other side of the Jordan River. If they knew where to look, they wouldn't have been wasting time trying to get samples of infected clothes.'

‘But the infection is still out there. Look at what happened to that curator in England. He had all the symptoms: the fever, the snake-like lesions…'

‘It doesn't appear to have spread.'

‘And what about the Egyptians?'

‘They seem to have contained it too.'

‘So it's not all that virulent.'

‘Not the Egyptian strain certainly. If Carmichael's translation is right, then it mutated into a more virulent strain in the Jordan area.'

‘How can we be so sure of that? I mean it's not like Carmichael was an epidemiologist.'

‘No, but it's a case of reading between the lines. We got hold of a copy of Carmichael's paper and gave it to our own epidemiologists for an assessment.'

‘And how badly should we be worrying?'

‘Well, as long as it's in stasis, there should be no problem.'

She was about to say something more when Dov's phone went. She watched as his face went from sombre to grave.

‘Has General Security been notified?… Okay, keep me posted.'

When he put the phone down, his face drained of blood and Sarit looked at him expectantly.

‘That Samaritan rabbi they spoke to, Aryeh Tsedaka… he's been found dead in the synagogue in Holon. There were signs of a struggle and his neck was broken.'

‘Shall I wait for them?' Daniel asked Gabrielle when she returned.

She had been outside to find out what was going on. The priest who had stormed out was not merely angry; he was crying at what Daniel had just revealed from the text. The other was trying to comfort him. But Gabrielle did not want to reply until the high priest had spoken.

‘It is not our custom to let an outsider read from our scrolls unless at least two priests are present.'

‘I don't think they're going to be back anytime soon,' said Gabrielle.

The high priest seemed to be wrestling with his conscience before replying. Daniel knew that this must be hard for him. Ephraim was not just
one of
the patriarchs of the tribes of Israel. He was the patriarch of one of the two tribes from which the Samaritans specifically claim their descent. And this ancient scroll cast him as a cunning schemer, an incestuous adulterer and a murderer.

‘Please continue,' the priest said finally through his pain.

Daniel had to break off when he heard Gabrielle's sharp intake of breath. ‘Do you know about this?'

‘There is a record of such an incident. It's called the Zananza Incident. In the early part of the twentieth century, archaeologists found a huge collection of some 10,000 clay tablets written in cuneiform, at the site of the ancient Hittite capital. And some of the tablets are letters referring to this incident.'

Daniel continued reading.

Daniel looked up at Gabrielle, waiting for her inevitable comment.

‘That's how history records it,' she said. ‘But it doesn't tell us what happened to—'

‘The next bit does.' He lowered his eyes and continued.

When Daniel looked up this time, Gabrielle seemed more shocked than the high priest.