The Resurrection File (58 page)

Perhaps the little 7QC fragment that Will carried in his pocket would end up providing the answer. Each time Will reflected on that, he found himself patting his pocket just to make sure that the plastic bag was still safely there.

From time to time his mind would wander back to Angus MacCameron, and the agony in his face as he had desperately grasped his chest. And then he thought about Angus at the hospital. “I'm ready for the Lord,” he had said. When Will had heard that, his heart had seemed to burn within him. And it was strangely similar to what he had been reading on the plane about Stephen's death. His sources quoted the book of Acts: While Stephen was dying, he was still able to utter, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

Will could only wonder, in awe, at such peace of soul in the face of impending death.

As he thought about Fiona rushing to her father's side, he also recalled how he wished he could have been with his own father in his final moments of life. Will's dad, by all accounts, had died in the early morning hours there in his newspaper office, completely alone. There had been no goodbyes. No final words, nor any closing of all that personal business of life between father and son. Only the absence. The loss. The missed opportunities.

Turning to the window that was next to him, Will clumsily tried to mutter a short prayer for Angus. Afterward, the only thing he was sure that he had said was the “Amen” at the end.

When the sun came up over the horizon, Will looked out of the jet and had his first glimpse of Israel. It appeared as a long brown strip of desert along the blue Mediterranean. As the plane approached the Tel Aviv airport, which was ringed with date trees and palms, he considered what a strange pilgrimage it was that had brought him there. What powerful force was it that had led him all the way to this ancient land?

The jet jolted as it touched down on the runway, and then it taxied to a halt on the tarmac. As he unbuckled himself, Will couldn't help but feel, despite whatever message there might be for the entire world from within that ancient burial site along the Jerusalem wall, that he was about to receive some profoundly personal message there also. Perhaps he was about to find out something about himself. Maybe even something about the very face of God—the inscrutable One—the “Ancient of Days.”

69

A
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W
ILL ENTERED THE AIRPORT LOBBY IN
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EL
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, he heard his name spoken from somewhere near.

Calling out his name was a man with thinning hair and a huge grin, and large navigator-type glasses.

“Mr. Chambers, we have been expecting you,” he said, as he reached out and shook Will's hand with gusto. “Amnon Solomon. But you can call me ‘Nony.' I'm the Assistant Director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority. How was your flight? You look tired. You need to get something to eat? We'll pick up something for you on the way to Jerusalem. Is this your first visit to Israel?”

Will was not expecting anyone to meet him, and was more than a little surprised.

Then, as they walked through the airport, Nony was joined by a tall, broad-shouldered man in a tailored leather jacket, with curly, jet-black hair and darkly-tanned, chiseled good looks.

“I'm Nathan Abrams,” the other man said with a casual smile, “and it is wonderful to meet you, Will. I'm here to be a kind of guide for you. A driver. Show you around. Get you into places.”

As they approached a black Mercedes parked in front of the airport, Will said, “I certainly appreciate your offer—but I don't expect to do much sightseeing while I'm here.”

When he said that, Nony laughed a little, and Nathan gave Will a knowing look. “No, I don't expect you will,” Nathan replied in his deep baritone voice. “But the Israeli government wants you to be comfortable, and well tended-to, while you do your very important business here. And, above all, they want you to be safe.”

At that, Nathan and Nony glanced at each other in a way that told Will that there was more to Nathan's helpful assistance than met the eye.

Inside the car, and speeding toward Jerusalem, they asked Will about his law practice back in the States. And about American politics. Nony talked a little about his family. Nathan, who was doing the driving, was warm and friendly, but shared nothing about himself.

After a while Nathan began asking a few questions about Will's involvement in the Reichstad case. They were quickly followed up by a series of questions about Reichstad's research center in Maryland—and the need for its super security system—and what Will knew about any other projects that Reichstad and his staff might be working on.

Remembering what Tiny Heftland had said about the assistance he was getting from the Israeli government, Will told the two men everything he felt he could reveal.

After a thirty-minute drive, Nathan pointed to the hill they were climbing and said, “It's just over the horizon. Jerusalem.”

He pulled the car over to the side of the road, reached into the glove compartment, and pulled out two identification tags. He handed one to Nony and one to Will.

“Where's yours?” Will asked.

Nony chuckled. “Oh, Nathan has his own ID. Besides, he does business with everybody. They all know him.”

Nathan went to the back of the car and pulled something out. He reached through the window and handed them each a black flak jacket and a helmet.

“Put them on,” Nathan said nonchalantly.

As he got in the car he reached under the seat, produced an Uzi machine gun, and laid it on the seat next to him.

It was at that point that Will began to understand that Nathan was more than a tour guide.

As they topped the hill, in the distance Will saw the crowded mass of stone buildings of Jerusalem and the burnished Dome of the Rock, all of it reflecting the bright sun like a city of gold.

“Look down there,” Nathan said, pointing straight ahead in the distance. “The hill off to the left, that is the Mount of Olives. To the right, across from it, is the Old City section of Jerusalem. And down there closest to the northeastern corner of the wall of the Old City, that's Stephen's Gate—that's where we are headed.”

Will squinted in the intense sunlight as he gazed out toward the city.

“Do you mean down there,” Will said, pointing to the spot where Nathan had indicated, “down there where the smoke is rising up?”

Turning around with a grin and a little side nod of his head, Nony said, “Probably tear gas. It should be cleared out by the time we get there.”

As they turned off of HaShalom and onto Sultan Suleiman Road so they could circle around the north end of the Old City, they ran into a tangle of traffic, beeping horns and hands waving out of cars, buses, and taxis. Up ahead they could see a military checkpoint had been created in the middle of the street, flanked by Israeli soldiers.

Nathan reached onto the floor of the car, pulled out a portable flashing police light, turned it on, and put it on the dashboard. Then he wheeled the Mercedes into the wrong side of traffic, dodging cars as he went, until he roared up to the checkpoint.

Two soldiers who could not have been older than nineteen or twenty ran up to the car, holding onto the machine guns that were strapped over their shoulders.

“Let me talk to your commanding officer,” Nathan shouted out.

In a few seconds an older-looking man approached the car, bent down to the driver's side, and stared at Nathan.

As Nathan reached into his jacket pocket he announced, “I am reaching for identification…”

But the officer smiled, and waved it off, and said, “Nathan, how have you been?”

“Not bad. Business has been pretty good. New shop. Plenty of customers.”

“It's pretty rough going up there,” the officer said, looking beyond the checkpoint. “Do you want an escort?”

“No, thank you very much. I don't want to be a bigger target than I already am.”

The soldiers opened the barricade to permit the Mercedes through, and the line of cars left behind them redoubled their horn-blasting. Nathan turned the car from Sultan Suleiman onto the road that ran parallel to the high, ancient Jerusalem wall to their right. Above, over the walled city, Will could see the golden Dome, rising up in the middle of the Temple Mount.

As they drove, Nony explained that the Stephen's Gate area was in a particularly volatile spot for an archaeological dig. Not only was it not very far from the Islam-controlled Mount, as well as right next to a Muslim cemetery, but it also butted up against a wall of the Old City in Jerusalem—considered the sacred property of Judaism.

“This is unusual—all of this violence and rioting. You know,” Nony pointed out, “Israel is safer than New York City, or where you come from—Washington, D.C.”

“Actually, Virginia,” Will said, “but that's close enough.”

“The conflict thus far near the Gate has been mostly between Jewish soldiers and the Palestinians,” Nony commented. “We haven't seen any violence from the apocalyptic zealots—the ones that believe they can bring on Armageddon by armed conflict. But we have to be ready for anything.”

As they wound along the road in a shallow valley, a garden area off to the left and the Old City wall on the right, they hit a bend in the road. Suddenly the valley and hills around them opened into what looked like the chaos of a battlefield.

A canister of tear gas was being lobbed by a soldier toward a group of fifty or sixty young male Palestinians who were running headlong toward the Mercedes. The frantic mob rushed toward them and began screaming, trying to get their faces near the windows.

“Fasten seatbelts,” Nathan said casually. He pronounced the words with the calm of an airline pilot—one who knew more about the turbulence ahead than he wanted to share with the passengers.

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, rocks started bouncing off its hood. “Oh no, and I just had a new paint job from the last set of dents,” Nathan moaned.

Nathan slowed the car and tried to navigate it through the mob, but several men hopped onto the hood and started banging on the windows with their fists. Nathan did a quick zig-zag with the steering wheel, and the men on the hood slid off. Suddenly Will heard a loud crack near his head. He looked at the window next to him and saw a small chip in the glass. Then there was the crackling sound of gunfire off to his left, as Will spotted several Palestinians with handguns firing—and the approaching Israeli soldiers firing back.

As the soldiers converged on the Mercedes and surrounded it, the mob dispersed.

Will pointed to the chip in the glass next to his head.

“Bulletproof glass. Great stuff, huh?” Nathan responded, looking in his rearview mirror.

The soldiers walked alongside the car as it took one more curve in the road, and then Will could see the little alley that was their destination.

The small, short street that led up to Stephen's Gate cut through a hill. On top of both sides were tall, temporary metal barricades that acted as shields. Nathan stopped the car, got out, and chatted with the armed guards at the entrance of the street. Then he returned and told Will and Nony that they had to walk the rest of the way, about seventy-five yards, up to the Gate. Nathan explained that he now had to drive back to the airport to pick up someone else arriving from America.

“Nathan, one thing you haven't explained,” Will commented. “You haven't told me how you knew I was coming. And why I'm getting this personal escort. Why the VIP treatment?”

“Well,” Nathan explained in his deep voice, “here in Israel we survive on good information. Both to warn us of our enemies—and to help us welcome our friends.”

Then Nathan shook Will's hand and said, “Whether you know it or not, you are one of the friends.”

Will and Nony, dressed in their flak jackets and helmets, quickly exited the car and walked up the street that led directly to the Jerusalem wall. As they did, they were flanked by young Israeli soldiers who lined both sides of the narrow road, weapons slung over their shoulders. Will was squinting in the bright sunlight.

As Will shielded his eyes with his hands, he could see straight ahead, to the end of the row of soldiers. In the ancient wall that rose up about forty feet, there was a gateway made of yellow stone, which surrounded and towered above an arched entrance that led into crowded alleyways of the Old City within. To the right was a huge white inflated tent of some kind that reached almost to the top of the wall. Trucks, backhoes, and other pieces of digging equipment were parked around the outside. Dozens of people were milling around the entrance.

One man with rolled-up shirtsleeves and a clipboard walked briskly up to Will and Nony. He nodded to Nony, and then introduced himself to Will.

“I'm Saul Rosencrantz. I'm the official designee of the IAA at this project. Nony here is my boss. So I have to be on my good behavior. You fellows can take off the military gear. You're safe here.”

As Will was led to the entrance of the tent, he looked over to his left, through the arched opening of Stephen's Gate, inside to the narrow street surrounded by shops and buildings.