Lavon had reached a similar conclusion.
“I’ll bet he got caught,” he added. “Since the moon was full, I’m sure he could find his way down the road. But once he got into the quarries, odds are that he got lost and stumbled onto the guards.”
If indeed he had — and this was the most likely scenario — we didn’t have a second to lose. Once the soldiers hauled the Professor out of the quarries and onto the open ground leading to the city gates, we’d have no chance to get him back.
“Can you take us to the tomb from this direction?” I asked Sharon.
She nodded and led us forward without saying a word. After we had gone a hundred yards or so, she held up her hand and peered around the same rocky incline I remembered from the day before.
“Do you see anyone?” Lavon whispered.
She didn’t, but she didn’t dare expose herself by venturing out farther.
Since nothing in the Gospel accounts suggested that a woman native to the area would encounter trouble, Lavon pulled Naomi close and whispered into her ear. I watched a puzzled look cross her face, but after a brief moment’s hesitation, she strode toward the tomb.
Naomi peeked inside, then turned back to us and shook her head: nothing.
Lavon then signaled for her to check out the surrounding area. She disappeared, though a minute or two later, she came back and motioned for us to come forward.
I’m no expert, but I could count at least a dozen sets of fresh prints in front of the grave site, all pointing toward the city to the east.
“Do you see the camera anywhere?” Markowitz asked.
Lavon pointed to the spot where Bryson had left it the previous evening.
“There it is,” he said.
The pyramid of stones appeared to have remained untouched, so Markowitz started heading in that direction to retrieve it.
I reached out and pulled him back. “No time,” I said.
Instead, I unsheathed my gladius and directed Lavon to do the same. The archaeologist agreed that since the guards would take the most direct route back to the city, we could probably swing around them undetected — if we got there fast enough.
“When we get into position, wait for my signal,” I ordered.
Lavon nodded.
“What if I’m wrong about the guards?” he asked, almost as an afterthought. “What if they do turn out to be Romans?”
I shook my head. In that case, our only chance of survival would be to abandon the Professor and run.
I tried to make a joke of it, but after the others had turned away, I lifted my sword and held the point to my own throat.
I stared straight into Lavon’s eyes.
“Can you do it?” I asked, “if it comes to that.”
His grim expression showed that he knew what I had in mind.
“I won’t let them be taken,” he replied.
Then he scurried off quickly behind the hill to our left, with Sharon and Naomi in tow.
***
I led Markowitz off to the right to form the other arm of our pincer movement. In a few minutes, we reached the edge of the quarry and circled back toward the center, where we crouched behind an oversized boulder lying only a few feet from a heavily traveled path.
Not long thereafter, I saw Lavon slip out from behind a ridge on the opposite side, along with the two women.
We listened carefully and to our great relief, neither of us heard the distinctive clanging of metal plates. The Temple police protected themselves with thick leather armor. Bryson’s captors were not Romans.
As the marching footsteps came closer, we eased back to avoid being spotted.
Moments later, a dozen black helmeted soldiers strode past us and up the incline that led up to the level ground surrounding Jerusalem’s main walls.
Though I couldn’t understand what they were saying, the men appeared to be engaged in an animated discussion — no doubt concerning how they would explain the events of the previous night to their superiors.
We breathed a quick a sigh of relief as they passed. For a brief moment, I worried that they might have first disposed of the Professor, before I realized that a prisoner would serve as a handy prop for whatever story they managed to invent.
The fact that their captive would be unable to contradict their tale would serve as an added bonus, assuming it came to that.
A few minutes after the first bunch had passed, we heard another set of footsteps. Lavon gestured toward Naomi, as if encouraging her to try an encore performance, but this time I shook my head.
Naomi, God bless her, ignored my instructions.
Rather than exude her natural charms, this time she took pains to disguise them. She pulled her hair back and her shawl up to cover her entire head. Then she hunched forward with her back bent at a painfully awkward angle.
If I hadn’t known better, I would have guessed that she had aged thirty years, which was the whole idea.
She shuffled her steps, favoring her left leg, as she trudged slowly up the ramp, with her downcast eyes glued to the ground only a step or two in front of her feet.
As she had intended, the two men escorting Bryson stopped, just behind where we had been hiding.
Once again, we achieved total surprise.
Before they could cry out, Lavon and I held our sword points to their throats. The two guards stared ahead in silence; their eyes reflecting silent terror.
“Don’t kill them,” said Markowitz.
I hadn’t planned to unless it proved absolutely necessary, but this intrusion irritated me.
“Be quiet, Ray,” I whispered.
“They’re Temple police, not Herod’s men. They’re Jews; my brothers. Don’t kill them.”
I sighed, though in hindsight, we couldn’t have playacted the scene any better.
The two guards had been careless, but they weren’t stupid. From the tone of our discussion, they developed a clear picture of how to save themselves and meekly submitted to our instructions.
Sharon handed over strips of cloth she had cut from her robe, and within less than a minute, we had bound and gagged each one.
We left our prisoners leaning against the side of a hill a few yards apart from each other.
I was angry enough to leave Bryson in the same condition as well, though I knew that would impede our progress. Reluctantly, I cut his bindings loose.
He immediately started to babble an explanation for his conduct, but I was in no mood to hear it; nor was anyone else.
“Shut up, Professor. Let’s get out of here.”
***
As we threaded our way back through the labyrinth heading the other direction, Lavon had the presence of mind to examine Bryson’s chip.
“Yellow,” he announced.
“Thirty minutes,” said Sharon. “Maybe even less.”
How much less, we had no way to know.
“Keep going,” I said. “It won’t be long before the main body realizes their comrades aren’t following behind.”
We had advanced to within striking distance of the western end of the quarry when Bryson suddenly jerked away.
“My camera!” he shouted.
Before any of us could react, he had already started to rush back to the tomb.
Had I been thinking clearly, I would have tackled the jackass and sent Naomi, by herself, to retrieve the infernal device. She had shed her old-woman act as quickly as she put it on, and I didn’t think the two we had trussed up would recognize her.
But I had been out of action too long to fight tunnel vision, and by the time the idea occurred to me, it was already too late.
Bryson had such a head start that we could do nothing but crouch behind the familiar hill and watch as he strode across the narrow bit of open ground to retrieve his precious camcorder.
He cautiously moved the rock pile aside, stone by stone, as if the device would crumble under the slightest impact. Once he had uncovered it, he lifted it up and brushed off the dust.