All the way down she had been arguing with herself. Her official responsibility was clear: Notify the authorities at the institute and let them take it from there. The damned American was loose again, and this time, he needed to be picked up. I can tell you right where to find him. He’s been digging for treasure at Masada — that would do it. The ministry police would have been all over him. Then what, though? Would he tell them what he had found? Or would he simply say, sorry, don’t know what you’re talking about, and leave the country? If he didn’t tell them, she would have to. There was the rub: She wasn’t sure she would tell them. She would much rather come back on her own, or with a proper expedition, and make the great discovery herself. Which presented a further rub: Who would believe such a story, that she found something like this on her own? Did she really want to tell it and then get shoved aside by the luminaries of Israeli archaeology in their rush to the site?
At the end of the day, she told herself, it’s better to rationalize. First, check it out. If the story was true, then she would tell the official world. Right. This isn’t rationalization at all, she thought, as she got out of her car. This is madness, and you’re going to pay for it. As he came around the back and she saw the big grin on his face, she fought back the urge to slap him.
“What have you done?” she hissed. “Tell me why I should not call the authorities.”
“You can and should,” he answered, his tall frame silhouetted in the glare of the security lights, “but not until you’ve seen it. After that, we do it any way you want.”
She turned her back on him, staring angrily into the darkness. “I can’t believe you went in there, alone like that. I can’t believe you even came back down here, after all the trouble you caused the last time. Do you have any—”
“If I had told you my theory about an undiscovered cistern, would you have even listened?” he interrupted. He came around to stand in front of her, shielding his eyes now against the lights. “Would anyone in the Israeli archaeology establishment have given me the time of day? You know they wouldn’t.”
“You lied to me, to everyone, about what you were doing here,” she said. “You pretended to know a cursory history of Metsadá, and yet you name the scroll holders in Greek. Everything you’ve done here has been a lie.”
“Not everything, Judith,” he said. He didn’t come any closer, but his tone of voice had changed, softened. She tossed her head in exasperation.
“Look,” he said, “we’re wasting time. Get your stuff and come with me in my Land Rover. If we get stopped by a patrol, we are lovers who lost track of time. Leave your car right here — I checked the locks on the gate to this place. No one’s been here in weeks.”
“How in the world did you get up there with diving equipment?” she asked.
“The hard way. By way of the Roman ramp. There’s an old military road that leads up to Silva’s main camp. There’s a place to hide the Land Rover up there. The entrance to the cistern is in a cave above the Serpent Path, about a hundred feet down from the east gate. I already have air tanks up there. We go in, make the dive, you see what’s there, and then we back out. After that, it’s your show.”
“My show, indeed. They’ll kill you, and then me, probably.”
“No they won’t. The results are going to overwhelm any archaeological crimes I’ve committed. Think of what it will mean to Israel to recover Temple artifacts.”
She was silent for a moment. “What do you mean, my show?”
“You can claim the whole damned thing, if you want to. I don’t care. I’ve seen what I came to see. Adrian was right. They may have committed mass suicide to defeat the Romans one last time, but they also did it to protect what’s in that cave.”
“You have no idea of the uproar this will cause,” she said softly. “Assuming they’re genuine.”
“They’re real, all right. You only have to see them. Now we have to move. The patrols will be coming out pretty soon.”
“You have put me in a terrible position,” she said finally. “I will be ruined professionally for doing this, for helping you.”
“No,” he said. “You are doing the responsible thing. You are going to verify that I have discovered what I say I have, and then you are going to take charge and safeguard the discovery, before the dumb American goes out and raises a horde of treasure hunters.”
“How do I know you will do what you say?” she asked, her voice carrying above the noise of the machinery inside. “How do I know you aren’t using me again, yes? Using me to confirm that the artifacts are authentic and then claiming the whole thing for yourself? How do I know this? Tell me, Mr. American — and before you answer this time, the truth for a change would be very nice.”
He looked away, and she wondered if she’d gone too far. Or guessed what he was really up to.
“Because,” he said slowly, “I didn’t have to call you. I could always have done the American thing — gone to the media. Brought a crowd of journalists down here and staged a media spectacle of the discovery. Maybe let some private treasure hunters come with me into the cistern to verify what was where and then haul it out of there into the television lights. Hell, the very existence of the cistern, the cave, and the writing on the walls would be good enough for a great show. Israel has satellite TV, right? I could have a production team from CNN down here tonight with one phone call. Is that what you want?”
“No!”
“Okay. So instead, I called you.”
She stood there with her eyes averted again. She had seen the circus that could erupt with a big enough news story. She felt his hand on her forearm.
“Look, Judith, I know I’ve deceived you. I wanted to tell you. I really wanted to tell you. I didn’t do this for private gain, though. I did it because I believed Adrian was right and the rest of the world was wrong. This stuff is up there. Come see it. You know you want to — and you know you’ll never get another chance like this.”
“Because I will be in jail,” she muttered, but she knew he’d won. She was going to do it. A sudden and noisy release of stinking steam from the plant startled both of them. The smell made them cover their noses.
“God, what is this place?” she asked.
“I’ve walked around it a couple of times. I still think it’s a desalinization operation. They’re making freshwater out of Dead Sea brine, probably for the Masada tourist complex. They use the geothermal heat to boil off the brine and then condense the water vapor. See that big pipe — it heads toward the mountain.”
She looked through the fence. The pipe he was pointing to was just barely visible in the reflected lights. The gurgling and boiling sounds from the plant confirmed his hypothesis.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s get this over with. We will take both vehicles, and if we’re stopped, I’m going to tell the guards everything, agreed? I’m not going to play any more games.”
He sighed. “Your call, Professor,” he said. “Let’s go.”
26
An hour and a half later they were in the cave, suited up and ready to go. She had brought down a wet suit, a weight belt, and her breathing rig and mask. They had not been intercepted on their way up to the Roman camp, and her car was small enough that he didn’t think it would be spotted. He’d carried her equipment up the ramp in a bag, and she’d brought some water bottles. They had changed into their diving suits by flashlight while standing back to back. He reviewed the dive plan with her at the edge of the slab hole.