The Third Day (23 page)

Lavon bowed to the old man.  “We thank you for your kindness.  I will return shortly with the lamb.” 

“He should select it himself;” said Nicodemus.  “It is his sacrifice after all.” 

I ran forward to catch up as they headed back to the vendors’ booths and guided them into a relatively isolated corner. 

Lavon’s face had turned pale, in the manner typical of a near miss survivor whose mind has finally begun to soak in a full understanding of how close they had all come to total disaster. 

Before I could say anything, he grabbed Markowitz by the lapel of his robe and threw him against a stack of empty cages, holding the fabric up to his neck as if to choke him. 

“Are you
trying
to get us all killed?” 

I glanced around at the surge of worshippers and moved to separate them.  Personally, I wanted to throttle the impulsive fool as well, but I could see that others were beginning to take notice.  The last thing we needed was to create another scene. 

“Where is the harm?” he protested.  “That priest welcomed me as a brother.  And don’t forget:  I
am
one!” 

Lavon threw the handful of cloth back at him in disgust, took a couple of deep breaths, and then lit into Markowitz a second time.  I let him vent for a moment; then suggested that we all slip away and head back to the Antonia, while we still could. 

The archaeologist shook his head.  “It won’t work.  Too many people heard Nicodemus tell him to buy a lamb and come back.  Some of them are undoubtedly still watching.  We can’t take that chance.” 

“What about me?” I asked. 

Lavon studied my torn tunic and thorn-shredded arms and calves. 

“You never got close to the
soreg
, so they can’t accuse you of trying to get inside.  If anyone asks, I’ll tell them you’re my servant, and that I’m sending you away.  I think you’ll be OK.” 

He walked over to a merchant’s table and tossed out a couple of coins.  I watched him take a small scrap of what looked like parchment and write.  When he came back, he handed it to me. 

I studied the precise Greek lettering.  

“It’s a request for the sentries to let you in to see Publius,” he said. 

“I can’t read it.” 

“That shouldn’t matter.  Most slaves were illiterate.  You have your orders, though I’d do my best not to show the note to anyone on the Temple Mount.  Some fanatic might think you’re a spy.” 

Wonderful
.  I couldn’t tell whether he was serious or not. 

“What will you and Henry do?” I asked. 

“Exactly what Nicodemus told us to do:  sit there at the corner and wait for Ray to finish his sacrifice.” 

He paused for a moment. 

“
Nicodemus
.  I can’t believe that’s who we were talking to.” 

“What is so important about him?” asked Bryson. 

“John 3:16,” replied Lavon, as if that explained everything. 

It didn’t, of course.  Not having grown up with the church, the Professor and Markowitz associated the verse only with rainbow headed freaks holding up signs behind the goal posts at football games. 

“It’s one of the most well known passages in the New Testament,” said Lavon.  “‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.’  That’s who Jesus was talking to when he spoke those words – Nicodemus.  He’s a respected elder, a member of the Sanhedrin.” 

He turned to Markowitz.  “And a man who saved your butt.”  

***

Considering that I also wanted to save mine, I didn’t waste any time making my way back to the fortress.  I stuck the receiver in my ear as I walked out the eastern gate toward the ravine, and I could only laugh as Lavon helped Markowitz purchase his lamb and lead the animal back to the Temple itself. 

It bleated softly. 

“A cute little critter,” I heard Markowitz say. 

“Don’t get too attached to it,” Lavon replied.  “In less than an hour, you’re going to be cutting its throat.” 

“Me?”  

This was a surprise.  I had thought the priests handled that end of the business. 

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the picture forming in my mind.  For all his enthusiasm for adventure sports, I doubted Markowitz had ever killed a large animal except by hitting one with his car.  Hopefully he wouldn’t make too big a mess of it. 

As I turned back toward the north, I tapped on my ear bud to shift frequencies and check in with Sharon. 

To my relief, not much had changed on her end.  After passing through the Damascus Gate, her litter had made its way south along the city wall.  

She sounded subdued, though, and after she told me the story, it wasn’t hard to understand why. 

Their procession had stopped two more times to rest the porters.  Each time, guards had kept the swarm of mendicants following them at bay.  On the last stop, though, one beggar, seeing a soldier’s attention diverted, had rushed up to the litter and thrust a cup through the curtain. 

Though this man wasn’t a leper, Azariah called out to another guard, and Sharon could only watch helplessly as the soldier cudgeled the poor fellow with a strong blow to the back of the head, leaving his skull cracked open and his motionless body bleeding in the dust. 

“He walked on as if he had stepped on a bug,” she said. 

From his perspective, he probably had. 

She explained, too, just what a close call our Temple excursion had been. 

Roughly thirty years later, on what could have been the same exact spot, excitable self-appointed busybodies – the curse of every religion – had accused the apostle Paul of bringing “Greeks” into the Temple and defiling it.  He barely escaped the subsequent riot in one piece and never took another step as a free man – eventually going to his death in Rome, in chains. 

No wonder the archaeologist had turned so pale. 

Otherwise, Sharon seemed OK, so I tapped my ear to switch back to Lavon’s frequency.  Although he didn’t respond to my inquiries, I could hear him speaking calmly and concluded that Markowitz must have made it into the Temple without further incident.  

Bryson, though, was a different matter.  As I threaded my way back though the trash and thorn bushes of the Kidron Ravine, I listened to him speak of his latest brainstorm. 

“Would he know Joseph of Arimathea?” he asked. 

“What?” 

“Nicodemus:  would he know Joseph?” 

“Certainly,” said Lavon. 

“Then that may be our answer.  Culloden’s right.  I’m not sure I’ll be able to find the exact site of the tomb the way I had planned.  Triangulating with sufficient accuracy will be harder than I thought.” 

Lavon didn’t reply.  By now he could guess what was coming next. 

“If you go back there and ask him, perhaps he can introduce us to Joseph.”  

This was lunacy. 

Obviously, Lavon thought so, too. 

“Let me ask you something.  Say some stranger walked into your MIT lab and asked where your family’s cemetery plot was.  What would you do?” 

“I’d ask why they wanted to know.” 

“Yes, just before you called campus security to come with a straitjacket.  What answer could we possibly give? 
In a few years, you’ll have the most famous tomb on the planet?
” 

Bryson didn’t say anything for a moment. 

“I suppose you’re right,” he finally replied.  “Still, we should find some way to inquire of these people while we have the chance.  Maybe we could report a workman got injured or something.” 

I couldn’t listen to any more of this nonsense.  Besides my ear was starting to itch, so I popped the device out as I climbed up the steep incline toward the Reptile Garden.  Though I had learned the facility’s true purpose, I couldn’t help calling it that. 

Once there, I located my benefactor and dropped the handful of the coins Lavon had given me onto a table.  I’m good for my debts as a matter of principle, and given the way things had transpired so far, I didn’t think it would hurt to have a few more friends, just in case. 

The priest gestured as if he wanted me to stay, but I showed him Lavon’s missive and motioned that I needed to be moving on.  

I had only a short jog to the Antonia.  Lavon’s note worked as expected, and a few minutes later, I found myself escorted into the presence of Publius, who was conducting a final equipment inspection before he sent two squads out on patrol. 

He eyeballed my bedraggled appearance with a look of surprise.  Since my earpiece wasn’t in, I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, though the gist wasn’t too hard to figure out. 

“
Lestes
,” I replied.  It was the only Greek word I knew. 

I suppose a story that I had been attacked by bandits was plausible enough.  Fortunately he didn’t press the issue, since the last thing I wanted to mention was Markowitz’s venture into the Temple. 

Instead, he directed my attention to a cluster of soldiers standing around a small canopy about twenty yards away. 

I strode over to the group without looking back, dodging a pile of armor as I went.  One of the soldiers glanced at Publius and then instructed the others to move out of my way.  As they did so, it wasn’t hard to see why.  

I wasn’t the only one having a really bad day. 

Medics attended to two seriously wounded Romans lying on stretchers in the shade.  I could see immediately that the man on the left wouldn’t last long.  Blunt force trauma, from a club, probably, had caved in the side of his skull just behind his left eye.  I was no expert, but even in a modern hospital, I would have rated his odds of survival no better than one in five. 

I turned to Publius and shook my head before addressing the second case. 

This man also faced grave peril.  As the medics removed his blood-soaked tunic, I spotted a deep gash in his abdomen, and a closer inspection confirmed the worst: a small tear in the peritoneal sac surrounding his intestines. 

I called for water as I considered what to do.  The primary danger with this type of injury is infection, usually resulting from fragments of dirty clothing or intestinal material itself seeping into the abdominal cavity. 

Army field protocol for such wounds calls for a soldier to press sterile gauze into the opening and then wrap the wound snugly, followed by a quick evacuation of the patient to a field hospital where physicians can clean out any foreign matter and administer the required antibiotics. 

Today, though, I was on my own.  I could only try and hope for the best. 

As a servant placed a large bowl of water on the ground beside me, I reached into my bag and removed a small package of powdered iodine, which I dumped into the bowl and stirred until the solution was an even light brown. 

The other soldiers watched curiously as I washed my hands in the iodine and then made a closer inspection of the wound.  I used tweezers to pull several small fragments of the man’s tunic away from the opening before thoroughly cleaning the surrounding area with a patch of iodine soaked gauze. 

Afterward, I clamped the opening with a couple of butterfly bandages and covered the area with an antibiotic laced compress.  It was all I could do.  He might not live, but he’d at least have a fighting chance.  

To the extent that I could pantomime, I instructed the others to give the man only boiled water to drink and nothing to eat for at least a day, though I wasn’t sure how well I got my instructions across. 

***

I had to wait for the soldiers’ attention to be diverted before I could slip my ear bud in once more.  I tried first to reach Lavon, but for some reason, he didn’t respond. 

A moment later, however, Sharon’s voice came through loud and clear. 

“You wouldn’t believe this place,” she said. 

She sounded as if she had entered a different world – which in fact, she had. 

She explained that her litter had entered the palace about half an hour earlier and she had been unloaded, so to speak, in a verdant, sun-lit courtyard roughly the size of three football fields. 

Deep channels crisscrossed lush, grassy lawns, carrying water to a remarkable assortment of shade trees and a stunning variety of flowering plants.  An “oasis of serenity” she called it.  Topping things off, hundreds of white doves flew back and forth between the trees. 

I couldn’t help but laugh.  “You sound like you’re writing ad copy for Donald Trump.” 

“His resorts are a pigsty compared to this,” she said. 

She didn’t add that Herod probably hadn’t filed for bankruptcy as many times, either. 

“Who else is there with you now?” I asked. 

In the background, I could hear what sounded like a dozen women frolicking in the water – teenage girls, by the pitch of their voices. 

“Azariah sent me to join the others by the pool area,” she said.