Serpent of Moses (20 page)

He watched the unfolding of life in the city, his vantage point giving him the metaphorical historian’s view, as if he could see its past and its future along with the present. That was one of the chief reasons he spent so much time in this part of the world, from northern Africa to the Middle East and on through some of the ancient places in Europe. It was to feel a connection to a history that eluded him, even as he uncovered many of its secrets. Looking out on a city like Medenine, he couldn’t help but wonder that civilization had run through its paces in this spot for thousands of years. When Christ walked the earth, the city below him was thriving.

Reminding himself of that helped put things in perspective. It allowed him to think about the treasures he found, the artifacts he discovered as they would have been in the times that saw them created or used. Thinking of the Nehushtan not as a mystical staff hidden in a north African cave but as an icon of hope for a beleaguered people was sobering. He could imagine the hasty crafting of it, and he admired the beauty of it more because of the attention to detail that went into it—despite the urgency of its need. And he could picture the scene of its only other biblical reference: its destruction at the hands of a king intent on appeasing God, who had turned his back on the nation.

Jack frowned, remembering that that part wasn’t true. The Nehushtan hadn’t been destroyed; he had proof of that in the house behind him. And that made for a tricky question. As a believer, he’d come to accept that large portions of the Bible he had once thought of as fables were in fact the accurate account of historical events. His own experience was sufficient to make that case. However, he didn’t know where he came down on the question of the Bible’s complete accuracy. He’d read enough of it to have his doubts about what Espy had called inerrancy, which Jack thought was just a religious label that meant the whole thing had been thoroughly fact-checked by the king of all editors.

From what little Jack had ascertained in researching the matter, he’d come to the conclusion that most theologians supported inerrancy for the principal reason that a failure to do so raised a number of difficult questions. Chief among them was that if the Bible wasn’t accurate in every detail, how could the reader be tasked with identifying what was true and what was not? It was a question well beyond Jack’s ability to answer.

To Jack, it seemed that truth was in how one looked at something—that perhaps approaching something in the Bible from a different point of view provided one with something that was true in one sense, yet perhaps not entirely accurate from a more rigid interpretation.

He had pondered all of this while city life progressed below him, and he had just decided to head back up to the house when something that had been nagging at his mind for a while suddenly swam up to the surface. When he latched onto it, he broke into as much of a run as his sore knee would allow.

Reaching the house, he burst through the door and found the Nehushtan in the main living area, once again leaning against a corner, as seemed to be its lot since Jack had liberated it from the cave. As he had used the original cloths to wrap a broomstick, he removed the bed sheet that now protected the artifact. He held it up to the light, turning it around so that the eyes faced away, so he could see the back of the serpent.

When he saw what he was looking for, he broke into a grin.

“It’s all a matter of one’s perspective,” he said to himself.

Releasing a tired but happy sigh, he set the staff back in its corner and went to gather up his belongings.

Jack could have made the call from Marwen’s home, but his presence had already put the man in enough danger, regardless of the Tunisian’s protests to the contrary. So he’d borrowed a car and driven to Sfax, into a city center of clean-lined white buildings and stone streets that made much of the city look like an angled chessboard.

As he drove, Jack had the feeling of being in any coastal city on the other side of the Mediterranean, with the palm trees, open layout, and the lights that came on outside the restaurants, clubs, and shops that made up the city’s nightlife. It didn’t take him long to find a place that looked as good as any in which to pull over.

One of the benefits of making a call like the one he was about to attempt while in a populated area was that if it didn’t go as well as he hoped, he had some time to find a place to hide. Too, he assumed that the people whose work he witnessed in the decimated village just two scant days ago would be less inclined to conduct the same sort of operation in a thriving metropolis.

With the car parked, Jack exited and indulged in a long stretch before pulling Templeton’s phone from his pocket. Neither his nor the Englishman’s phones had been switched on since the moment Templeton determined that the Israelis were tracking them, and he knew that pressing the power button was a gamble now.

He looked at the phone for a few seconds as people walked by, singles and groups of various ages and ethnicities. Then he shrugged and turned the thing on. He went to the menu and, while there was no way to tie a listed number to Templeton’s former employers, he guessed that the number called most over the last several weeks would be the one.

It rang twice before it was picked up.

“This must be Dr. Hawthorne,” a voice on the other end said.

Jack was surprised at that but then supposed he shouldn’t have been. The Israelis might well have known that the pair was no longer traveling together and that Jack had taken the man’s phone.

“And you are?”

“Someone who wants what you found in the cave” was the answer. Jack didn’t know an Israeli accent from a Jordanian one, but he guessed the former.

“And yet you’ve not once asked nicely,” Jack said. “It’s all angry Egyptian giants and covert teams.”

There was a pause from the other end.

“We acknowledge that things have gotten a bit out of hand,” the Israeli said. “But the quickest way to end all this unpleasantness is to bring us the staff.”

“You’ll forgive me for not being as assured by that as I might be,” Jack said.

He was enjoying himself, despite the fact that he was ticking off someone who worked for a government that had shown no qualms about killing those that got in their way. But when the Israeli responded, his voice didn’t harbor any animosity.

“You must understand, Dr. Hawthorne, that when we send our people in to retrieve something important to us, it can be exceptionally dangerous. We have lost a number of men and women.”

That might have been the one thing he could have said that would make Jack feel anything other than cool resolve.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“And so when we send in other people to do something we are not able to do, and when the ones we send appear to betray us, there can be a heavy-handed response.”

Jack wasn’t sure he bought that, but in the end he didn’t suppose it mattered. “I want to make a deal.”

“What sort of deal?”

“A trade. The Nehushtan for my life and the lives of my friends.”

Jack was sure that this representative of the Israeli government, or at least a faction within that government, had been expecting such an offer, which made the long pause before his replying seem contrived.

“Agreed. Tell me where you are and I will send someone to you.”

Jack was smiling before the man finished. “Do you read the Torah?”

“Of course.”

“Then you know that Hezekiah was to have destroyed the Nehushtan.”

“Obviously that did not happen.”

As Jack talked, the sea of people passing in front of him had increased.

“I’m telling you that it did happen,” he said. “Just not in the way we’re made to think when we read the story. We have this vision of him destroying it completely—burning the staff, melting down the serpent. But what if the word
destroy
meant something else?”

“What are you getting at, Dr. Hawthorne?”

“The Nehushtan is in two pieces. I have one of those pieces.” He could hear the man’s breathing through the phone—the sound of exasperation.

“Why should I believe you?”

Jack had been expecting that question. “Give me a minute.” Pulling the phone away from his ear, he opened the car door and removed just enough of the bed sheet to see the tail. He snapped a photo and sent the image along. “You’ll be getting a picture soon. I want you to notice the tail.”

He waited for what seemed a long while for the Israeli to speak.

“I see it,” the man said.

“Good. Then you’ll notice the very end—the way it looks like there’s something missing?”

After several seconds, his adversary said, “I will send you a team. They will support you as you search for the missing piece.”

“That’s not how this is going to work,” Jack said. “Instead, I’m going to the airport tomorrow, where there will be a voucher waiting for me and an exemption to transport antiquities. I’ll use that voucher to fly wherever I want. I’ll find the missing piece and then I’ll turn both pieces over to you. After which we’ll part ways and never see each other again.”

He understood that he didn’t hold many cards. If the Israelis really wanted the staff, and if they were unwilling to trust him, they could come for him, claim the artifact, and then expend whatever resources were necessary in order to find the missing piece. After all, Jack was confident he could find it if given the time and resources. He had to think a well-funded government research unit could do the same.

“And if we refuse?”

“Then I destroy it,” Jack said.

“You would not do that,” the Israeli replied, but Jack heard the question in the statement.

“If it’s a choice between a biblical artifact and the lives of my friends, I wouldn’t think twice about it.”

He ended the call without waiting for a response. Then, for good measure, he powered the phone down.

He stood on the busy street, pondering what he’d just done. He was taking a huge chance, but most end games were not without risk. The real risk would come if he did find the second piece, and if he failed to turn the pieces over to the Israelis. They had killed people just to add something to their collection. As far as he was concerned, that made them unworthy to have it. Making the deal bought him a ticket out of the country. More important, it got him someplace in the Western world, where he stood a chance of finding a way out of the mess he was in—and perhaps keeping the artifact in the process.

With that in mind, he got back into the car, relocating so that if they had tracked Templeton’s phone, he wouldn’t be there when they arrived. After that, he had another call to make, a call he’d wanted to make for days.

“Hello?” said the most beautiful voice he’d ever heard in his life, with an understandably hesitant inflection.

“Have you missed me?” Jack asked.

Perhaps two seconds passed before it clicked for Esperanza, and Jack had to pull the phone away from his ear to survive the scream.

“It’s nice to talk to you too,” he said.

And then Espy had the floor, talking in that rapid-fire way that only she could do, regardless of the language. Jack couldn’t follow all of it but understood a number of the key words, as well as the general sentiment.

“Wait a minute,” he said when she took a breath. “One question at a time.”

Jack spent the next couple of minutes sharing the events of the last week in broad strokes with Espy, and while Jack’s story required more than a little suspension of disbelief, the benefit of the things they’d been through over the years was that there were few things that could happen to either of them that the other wouldn’t in the end believe.

When he’d finished, Espy chuckled. For Jack, hearing her laughter through the phone was the best thing to happen to him in a long time. And as he extended that thought, he realized that this also included the discovery of the staff. It was a revelation that surprised and pleased him at the same time.

“Do you think things like this happen to normal couples?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said with a laugh that mirrored hers.

“So where are you now?”

“Sfax. A coastal city on the other side of the Mediterranean.”

“And you have the Nehushtan.”

He knew how Espy would view that. Once again he’d put his life in danger to procure something he thought was valuable. Inadvertently he’d also put the lives of her and her brother in danger, though he didn’t expect her to know that. What he wasn’t prepared for, though, was the somber tone in her voice.

“There’s a lot going on that you don’t know about,” she said, and then she proceeded to share with him everything that had been done on his behalf. When she’d finished, Jack was dumbfounded.

“You got Duckey to go to Libya?” was all he could think to say.

“Jack, he’s in trouble.”

Jack ran a hand through his hair, considering all that Espy had told him.

“Have you called his wife?” he asked.

Espy admitted that she hadn’t.

“As soon as I get off the phone with you, I’ll call her and see if he’s checked in.” He shook his head and added, “Duckey knows what he’s doing. He’ll get himself out of whatever he’s gotten himself into.”

He said it because he had to, and Espy understood that, but Jack couldn’t help but feel tremendous guilt that, once again, his actions had caused harm to people he cared about. And in light of what Espy had just shared with him, the staff had lost some of its draw.

He was about to offer additional encouragement when Espy, a note of panic in her voice, spoke first.

“Jack, he said my phone was compromised.”

“He what?”

“I’m sorry, Jack. With all the excitement I forgot. They’ve probably heard everything.”

“Who has?”

“I don’t know.”

Jack blew out a breath. “Okay, I’m going to hang up and call Stephanie. Then I’ll find a way to call your brother’s phone. It’ll be from a different number.”

Seconds later, the phone was off and Jack was left wondering how a single phone call could turn a man’s world on its head.

It took three tries before he remembered Romero’s number, and the Venezuelan answered on the first ring.

“You’ve alternately upset my sister and made her extremely happy, so I am undecided regarding whether I should injure you or hug you when I see you next,” Romero said.

“I’ve had a few of your hugs,” Jack said, “and I think you could go either way and it wouldn’t matter too much.”

He knew that if he was in Romero’s presence at that moment, the man would have wrapped him in an embrace that would have squeezed the air from his lungs.

“It’s good to hear from you, my friend,” Romero said.

“Same here,” Jack said.

He paused as someone passed behind him. Jack had convinced the lobby desk clerk of a hotel he wasn’t staying at to let him use the desk phone. He’d told the man that he couldn’t get a dial tone on the phone in his room, and while he felt bad about the lie—which he hoped indicated spiritual growth of some kind—he reasoned that it was for the greater good.