While Angela had been talking, they'd reached the edge of the entrance shaft, a huge hole in the ground with sloping sides, so massive that it made the grain silo appear totally insignificant by comparison. Unlike the silo, this structure appeared never to have been completely stonelined, simply because there was no need to do so, but the remains of various supporting walls and terraces were visible all the way down to the flat bottom. The crumbling remains of an old stone staircase descended the side of the pit where the slope was gentlest, though to Bronson it still looked as if it would have been an exhausting climb up for the defenders of the city, especially if they were burdened with pitchers of water.
There was a steel safety barrier fitted on the top of a low stone wall that ran around most of the perimeter. In one section there was a break allowing access to a new staircase, made of concrete and fitted with safety rails and a succession of level platforms to break up the descent, which allowed tourists to get safely down to the bottom.
'It's still quite a climb,' Angela said, 'nearly two hundred steps, but at least we only have to go down. They've created an exit at the other end, through the wall that Ahab built three millennia ago.'
Bronson looked around them. It was now late afternoon and the last groups of tourists were beginning to make their way back to the exit.
'We're going to have to leave here and then lie low for a while,' he said. 'I'd better move the car out of the parking area, too, and hide it somewhere nearby. I don't want to advertise our presence here, and I think it's fair to say that the two men who tried to jump us in the hotel this morning are probably still out there looking for us.'
Angela looked concerned. 'I'm trying not to think about that,' she said. 'Let's just walk through the tunnel and see what the cistern looks like.'
The tunnel, when they reached it, was a surprise.
Bronson had been expecting something like Hezekiah's Tunnel, narrow and twisting with a low ceiling, but hopefully dry underfoot. But the Megiddo tunnel was arrow-straight, wide, tall – probably nine or ten feet in places – well lit and with a planked walkway that allowed visitors to stroll easily from one end to the other.
There was nobody else in the tunnel as they walked its length. At the far end, steps led down to the well itself. Bronson and Angela stood on the lowest platform and peered over the edge at the water below.
'It looks deep,' he said.
'It is,' Angela agreed. 'Most wells are.'
'And cold,' Bronson added with a sigh, knowing that it was he who was going to have to go down into it. 'The trick is going to be getting out afterwards. I'm glad I bought that rope.' He was silent for a few seconds as he thought this through. 'Right, we've seen what we needed to. Now let's go.'
72
It was mid evening and virtually dark when Bronson eased the Renault to the side of the road about a hundred yards beyond the Har Megiddo car park entrance, backed it into a patch of scrubland where it was hidden from view, and turned off the engine.
They'd left the site about four hours earlier, driven a couple of miles down the road, and found an open café where they'd had a light meal. Then Bronson had parked the car in the shade of a clump of trees on some waste ground just outside Afula, and he'd tried to sleep for a while, knowing that he'd need all his reserves of energy for what was to come that night. While he slept, Angela had gone over all her research yet again to make absolutely sure there was nothing she'd missed. When Bronson woke up, he made a final check of the equipment he'd bought in Haifa, and then they both changed into dark-coloured tracksuits and trainers.
They'd driven back to Har Megiddo into the face of the setting sun, the green fields of the Plain of Esdraelon slipping quickly into shadow as the sun started to dipbelow the peaks of the Mount Carmel ridge. Barely eighteen hundred feet at its highest point, the ridge is some thirteen miles long, and runs south-east from the Mediterranean coast near Haifa.
Bronson turned to Angela. 'Ready?' he asked.
'As ready as I'll ever be,' she replied.
Bronson lifted the rucksack out of the boot, opened it to make a swift check of its contents, then hefted it up on to his shoulders. He locked the car and they set off.
The main gate into the site would certainly be locked, but Bronson didn't think that would be a problem. A site as big as Har Megiddo was almost impossible to secure completely, and indeed parts of the site were protected only by low fences. In several places the steepness of the slope made any kind of a physical barrier pointless.
'This should do,' Bronson said, leading the way up a reasonably steep slope to the end of one of the fences. Earlier that afternoon he'd noticed a gap that he reckoned they could both squeeze through.
They reached the end of the fence. Angela went through the gap first, then Bronson passed the rucksack to her before following her through.
'Go straight to the entrance to the water tunnel,' he said, keeping his voice low, 'and watch your step on these rocks. Some of them are pretty crumbly and loose.'
He watched as she started making her way up the long and steep slope that rose to the top of the hill.
The site was deserted, and they walked quickly across to the open pit that marked the entrance to Ahab's Tunnel, and down the steps to the bottom of the shaft. The steel door was secured with a hefty padlock. Bronson put his rucksack on the ground and opened the flap at the top. Reaching inside, he pulled out a pair of collapsible boltcroppers, extended the handles and fitted the jaws around the hasp of the lock. He squeezed the handles together, grimacing with the effort, the muscles of his arms bulging with the strain. With a sudden crack, the steel parted and the ruined padlock tumbled to the ground.
'We're in,' he said. He replaced the bolt-croppers in his rucksack and opened the door.
'Creepy,' Angela whispered, as they stepped into the darkness. 'I hadn't imagined how much scarier an ancient place like this would be at night.'
'We can't turn on the lights in case they alert a guard.
We're going to have to rely on our torches.'
The two narrow beams helped. At least with the torches switched on they could see where they were going, but Angela was right – it was creepy. They were both very conscious of the weight of rock and earth above, and of the weight of history that surrounded them.
There was no point in looking for anything in the tunnel itself – the deciphered inscription had specifically mentioned a well or cistern. If the relic was still in the ruins, they'd find it in the spring itself, and nowhere else.
At the end of the tunnel there was an arrangement of steps and platforms, allowing visitors to get close to the well. They climbed down to the lowest one, just a couple of feet above the surface of the water. Bronson opened the rucksack again and pulled out a coil of rope. Swiftly, he tied one end of it around the steel handrail attached to the last section of the staircase then, as a precaution, also lashed it around the wooden balustrade that bordered the platform directly above the water. This meant that he'd be able to climb up and down the rope from the platform itself. Before he tossed the rope over the side to dangle in the waters of the spring, Bronson tied a series of knots in it, about a foot apart.
'What are they for?' Angela asked, shining the torch on Bronson's hands so he could see what he was doing.
'When I come out of the water I'll be cold – I wasn't kidding when I said it would probably be freezing in there – and my hands will be numb. The knots should give me something more to grip on when I climb up the rope.'