“Because he was securing a safe haven for Moses and the Israelites,” Jack said quietly.
“You’ve got it,” Rebecca said, putting away her phone. “And this is where they came, to a natural cave just outside the walls of Bronze Age Jerusalem, a place where they could establish their first primitive altar and store their sacred artifacts. A place that was rapidly superseded once their new religion swept through the population of Jerusalem and they built the first temple atop this site, all those cubits above us, the memory of the cave lasting long enough for the foreman of that excavation team a couple of hundred years later to know its significance, but was then sealed up and lost to history until a British officer broke his way into it more than twenty-five hundred years later.”
Jack gazed around, breathing in the dust of ages, savoring the history. Moses had been here. He put his hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. “Congratulations. This is a phenomenal discovery. A game changer. And you’ve really put your heart and soul into this one.”
She stared at him, her eyes passionate. “This isn’t about clues, Dad. You’ve already got what you need for the next stage of your quest. This is about the point of it all. After finding this, after sitting here beside that altar, I began to understand what drove men like Wilson and Gordon to keep coming back to Jerusalem and to seek Akhenaten in the desert. I thought back two years ago to your extraordinary discovery of the birthplace of the gods beside the Black Sea, of the first stone temples erected at the dawn of civilization. Then, the shamanism and superstitions of the hunter-gatherers were discarded, and people looked to a new spirituality. But in time that optimism was clouded by the power games of priests and priest-kings, and then one pharaoh had the courage to do away with it all and try to start afresh. I don’t think the revelation of the one god came to Akhenaten out of the blue. I think he was yearning for it. It allowed him to be human again, to discard the sham of deified kings and priests. This place, the vision it represents, the presence of the prophet who would perpetuate their shared revelation, would have represented a sea change in his world. And now three thousand years later we are again at a turning point. That’s why I wanted you to see this, Dad. Just like those Victorian soldiers fighting the Mahdi, you’re about to go into a pit of darkness where religion has again been enlisted to justify bestiality and war. Bringing you here was to remind you that there can be hope, that another spiritual awakening is possible, another cleansing. That’s what I believe Wilson and Gordon and the others caught up in their war felt too, and what they so desperately hoped to find.”
Her eyes were red rimmed, and she looked away and wiped them. Jack felt an unexpected upwelling of emotion. Hiebermeyer was not the only one whose guard had been eroded by the events of the past weeks and months, and Jack realized that he had been on edge for too long, that his body and mind craved the resolution that now lay ahead of him one way or another in the coming days. He thought of Rebecca’s mother, of the passion of her convictions that had attracted so many to her, and for a split second he seemed to see Elizabeth standing in the shadows behind Rebecca, the same fervor in her eyes, egging her daughter on. He blinked, and the image was gone, and Jack felt a sudden yawning emptiness that he had not allowed himself to feel in the years since her death. He swallowed hard, and nearly said something to Rebecca, but chose not to. There would be a better time. He glanced at his watch and put his hand back on her shoulder. “Time for me to go.”
Jeremy aimed his headlamp beyond the inscription, toward the blocked-up entrance where the tunnel continued under Temple Mount. “Any thoughts about what lies beyond there?”
Rebecca wiped her eyes again and gazed along his beam. “Danny and I think it’s blocked up. I mean seriously blocked up, not just rubble and plaster but actual shaped masonry, huge slabs of stone barring the way. To get through it would require pneumatic drills and explosives, and that would rock the foundations of the mosque. A very big no-no.”
“Must be something pretty significant for it to have been blocked up like that.”
“Danny’s done some basic geometry and reckons is leads directly under the central part of the temple site.”
“Where you might expect there to be a repository,” Jack said.
“A treasure chamber,” Jeremy added.
Jack looked at Rebecca. “This one’s all yours. For the future.”
Rebecca gave him a wry look. “I’m not really sure about being an archaeologist. Too much dust and dead old stuff.”
Jack raised his eyes and grinned at Jeremy. “Right.”
Rebecca suddenly looked serious, and held Jack’s arm. “Aysha sent me a text yesterday about the Egyptian girl, Sahirah. Jeremy and I took her around when she came to England last year to study with Maria.” She pulled out her phone and showed Jack a photo taken in front of the lions in Trafalgar Square, with Rebecca on the left and beside her an attractive, well-dressed girl with a computer bag slung over her shoulder. Jack had never met Sahirah, and this was the first time he had seen a picture of her. He stared at the dark eyes and Egyptian features, imprinting them in his memory. It was like looking at the exquisitely lifelike portraits that Hiebermeyer had found painted on mummy coffins from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, images that gave sudden humanity to the distant past. Sahirah’s face was like a beacon of light in the darkness that was enveloping Egypt, a darkness that Jack knew would soon be streaked with fire and running with blood.
Rebecca put away the phone. “You will get her out, won’t you, Dad?”
Jack looked at her, silent for a moment. He thought of Sahirah’s parents, of her father, of the anguish they must be going through, seeing their daughter trapped in a tide of history that must seem to them unstoppable. He gave Rebecca a steely look. “That’s really why I’m going back to Egypt. And Aysha is doing everything she can.”
He gave her a quick embrace and shook hands with Jeremy. “My advice is that you photograph every square inch of this place and leave as soon as you can. If I don’t see Danny on the way out, give him my warmest regards and an invitation to IMU to discuss the future of your find. He’ll know that if word of this discovery under the mosque leaks out, the extremists of both sides will be at each other’s throats. It sounds as if he’ll be able to wrap things up for you here. David’s men will be waiting outside the Western Wall to take you away to a safe house, and after that you’ll be put on a flight out of Tel Aviv back to London. Under no circumstances should you make contact with Abdullah the antiquities dealer or his men, who will also be somewhere outside waiting to induce you back into his lair. As far as they know, we’ve just been visiting the Israeli excavation.”
“Don’t worry, Dad. I’m on it.” Rebecca took out her DSLR camera, set the controls, and began photographing. Meanwhile Jeremy knelt down and began sketching the inscription. Jack started to make his way out through the tunnel, but then thought for a moment and turned back. “And Rebecca.”
She glanced back at him, camera poised over the altar. “What is it?”