“What’s our plan now?” I asked after we had found a comfortable spot in the shade.
They agreed that we had a choice to make.
At that moment, we still had an opportunity to flee to the coast. But the window would close quickly, and when it did — and if the transport apparatus remained inoperative past Sunday — our odds of survival would dwindle to zero.
“It’s that simple,” said Lavon.
None of us argued; but none of us got up to make a run for it, either. The truth was: we all wanted to know, and I had become as fixated on the topic as the others. We had come too close to do anything else.
Working in our favor, Naomi still believed that the palace commanders would wait until mid-morning before sending out other guards to make inquiry.
Furthermore, these men would sally forth with the expectation of finding their comrades resting under a shade tree, sated and drunk, using the Sabbath as an excuse for their inactivity. At least initially, they would be in no hurry.
I did some mental arithmetic and felt even better.
Even if Herod’s relief party found their comrades’ bodies quickly, they would need time to get back to the palace on foot. If Lavon’s hypothesis was correct, Herod, like the Temple authorities, would then have to obtain clearance from Pilate to assemble a larger armed force.
None of this would happen immediately, and with luck, an intensive search for our whereabouts wouldn’t begin in earnest until the following day.
“Of course,” Lavon explained, “the downside is that the Romans might feel compelled to join in the hunt, if for no other reason than to save face. That will change everything.”
I had to concur. While Naomi’s tricks had worked on Herod’s men, I had no doubt that once Roman professionals set out to track us down, we’d never stand a chance.
But the question still remained: when?
“What is our window to retrieve the camera?” I asked. “I read somewhere that the Resurrection accounts all differ in their chronology.”
Lavon conceded that the Gospels varied in their particulars, such as the number of women who first ventured out to the tomb, whether they saw one angel or two, or the names of the disciples who ran back to the grave site to investigate the women’s tale.
“But the timing is consistent,” he explained. “The women showed up at the tomb with their spices at the crack of dawn, more or less. Once there, they saw that someone had rolled the stone away and that the body was missing.
“Although the Gospels differed as to the exact sequence of what happened next, they all agreed that shortly thereafter, the women hurried back into the city to inform the others.”
“How long would this take?” I asked.
Lavon glanced up at the sky and conversed briefly with Naomi.
“We don’t know exactly where in Jerusalem they were coming from,” he said, “but I’d guess it took at least half an hour to get back to their hiding place; maybe more. They would have wanted to make sure they weren’t followed, so they probably didn’t take the shortest route.”
“Once they returned, the disciples didn’t believe the story,” Sharon added.
“That’s right,” said Lavon. “Luke says they ‘considered it nonsense,’ and we all know about Thomas. I’m sure they argued a while before a few of them finally decided to check things out for themselves.”
“So we have at least another half hour, then, to retrieve the camera and make ourselves scarce before anyone comes back?” I said.
Lavon nodded. “Probably an hour; perhaps even two. Remember, the disciples feared they were still being hunted. Pilate may have decided to take the ‘strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter’ approach, but the remaining eleven didn’t know this at the time.”
“Didn’t they run; run to the tomb, I mean?” asked Sharon.
“Yes, but the Gospels don’t say exactly when they started. Running men would have drawn attention, so my own thought is that they tried to keep a low profile until they got safely outside the city walls.”
“What about the guards?” I asked.
“Matthew is the only one of the four Gospels to mention them, and he only says that they went back into the city along with the women. Unfortunately, we don’t have any more details.”
“Any idea how many there will be?”
“More than one. That’s all I can say.”
***
Now that we had a plan, we spent the rest of the day watching and waiting — which in many respects is the hardest task of all.
For his part, Bryson paced back and forth all afternoon as he rehashed a litany of potential technical disasters.
“What if the recording fails?” he muttered.
“What if the battery runs out?”
“What if I’ve set the timer wrong?”
“What if the low light compensator doesn’t work?”
“What if — ”
Though I could understand his concerns, after a little while, I had had enough.
“Calm down, Professor,” I said. “Please.”
Then I laughed. “You’re scaring the others.”
In truth, though, even I felt the butterflies; and in my famished, sleep-deprived state, I failed to grasp the implications of what Bryson had been saying.
Chapter 63
As we had the previous night, we agreed to divide guard duty into shifts; only this time, Bryson insisted on taking the last watch.
Since I wasn’t entirely convinced that he wouldn’t retrieve the camera and abandon the rest of us to our fates, I told the others I’d join the Professor on the late shift. Except for one small oversight, this would have been a fine plan.
Some time past midnight, Lavon shook me awake and announced that my turn to stand watch had arrived. Bryson and I gathered our things and then climbed up to our observation post, where we settled into reasonably comfortable spots, facing opposite directions.
After an hour had passed, the Professor volunteered to go back down to the shelter and bring up some water. At the time, I thought nothing of it, and when he handed over one of our makeshift cups, I quaffed the whole serving in one gulp.
The next thing I remember, Sharon and Lavon were shaking me awake. It took me a couple of seconds to get my bearings. Once I did, I saw the orange glow to the east and realized to my horror that I had slept though my watch. Worse, Bryson was nowhere to be found.
“I screwed up,” was all I could say.
The others were gracious, or realistic, enough not to press. Naomi and Markowitz climbed up to join us, so we gathered in a small circle to work out what to do next as the first faint sliver of the sun peeked over the horizon.
“According to the Gospels, the women are at the tomb, right now,” said Lavon.
The question was: was Bryson?
Making our situation more complicated, a long line of people and livestock had already begun to fill the road leading to the Damascus Gate.
“We don’t really need company,” I muttered.
Naomi, though, told us not to worry.
“They’re merchants,” she explained. “The first ones into the city after the Sabbath receive much higher prices for their goods. I am certain of this, because afterward, they often visited the house where I worked, and boasted of their earnings.”
That made perfect sense. More importantly, these traders would be inclined to ignore us unless we appeared to be competitors.
We paused to ensure that Sharon’s scarf completely covered her blonde hair; then we hustled to the main road and joined the growing file of travelers.
After we had proceeded nearly a mile, we veered off toward the edge and into a labyrinth of pathways that wound through the twenty-acre complex of quarries and tombs.
“Now what?” asked Markowitz.
***
I thought back to the previous day and it all started to make sense, beginning with Bryson’s worries about technical malfunctions.
“The damned fool,” I said, now certain that he had spiked my drink with sedatives from my medical kit so he could slip away and witness the events in person.