The Boudicca Parchments

Chapter 71

“Okay, now remember,” said the Arab. “We must be careful… and very quiet. If anyone challenges us, let me do the talking.”

When Daniel and Ted had left Irene, she was full of excitement about what they had discovered. They had agreed to publish a joint paper which would combine Irene’s scientific analysis of the parchment, and the clay urn in which it was found, with the linguistic analysis of Daniel and Ted, as well as an historical overview.

But while Irene was excited enough about the translation and the link between the Temple Mount Parchment and the other discoveries at Arbury Banks and the Domus Aurea, Daniel and Ted were still not satisfied. Neither the magnitude of the discoveries, nor the contents thereof could explain why people were ready to go to such great lengths to silence them — especially earlier, when they did not have anything like as much information as they did now.

So Daniel had decided to take up Irene’s de facto challenge and try to gain access to the underground tunnels. Not the Jewish controlled tunnels outside the Temple Mount, dating to the seventh century CE, when the Arabs effectively raised parts of the Old City on arches and vaults to make access easier, but rather the tunnels built before the Arabs arrived, that extended from Solomon’s Stables under the Temple Mount itself.

As Irene had said, these tunnels and underground chambers were under the control of the Waqf — the Muslim trust that had control of the Temple Mount. And there was no way that they would let a Jewish historian venture into these tunnels. As far as the Waqf was concerned, anything that brought to light details of the pre-Islamic, Jewish association with the Old City of Jerusalem was something to be suppressed.

So Daniel had drawn on an old contact from his recent Egyptian adventure — a Nubian boatman on the Nile called Walid, who had a network of contacts even larger than Daniel’s quite formidable mental rolodex. When he first made the call, it was a long shot, but a long shot to nothing. Explaining what he wanted in Arabic, but holding out very little hope, he was pleasantly surprised when Walid confirmed that he could help and then put Daniel in contact with his fourth or fifth cousin once or twice removed.

So now here he was at night, on the Temple Mount, with Ted and a man called Salim who looked like he was in his eighties but was probably only in his seventies. The Levantine sun had tendency to age the skin and could make old people look older than they actually were in this neck of the woods.

The Temple Mount itself is the elevated area in the Old City of Jerusalem that houses the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque, built in the seventh century of the common era by Muslim conquerors who had believed that the Prophet Mohamed had been here on account of a dream he had in which he ascended to heaven from the Temple Mount itself. Although purely a journey in his mind, some Muslims still insisted that the Prophet was there in person.

Jerusalem had played a fluctuating role in Islamic history. After the Jews of Medina — who had been there for five centuries — failed to accept Mohamed as a prophet of God, he turned on them and had them massacred under various pretexts of dubious probity. To signify his rejection of all things Jewish other than monotheism itself, he changed the direction Muslims faced when they prayed, from the Jewish capital of Jerusalem — with its sixteen centuries of association with the Jews — to the pagan shrine of the Kaba in Mecca. Thereafter, he concentrated his efforts on securing control of the Arabian Peninsula.

However after Mohamed’s death, his successors — the caliphs — embarked upon a campaign of imperialism in which they conquered many neighbouring territories, including Jerusalem. To strengthen their claim to the city, in the minds of the faithful, they restored Jerusalem to the pre-eminent status it held in Mohamed’s mind before he had massacred the Jews of Medina, and built sacred buildings in Jerusalem upon the already sacred Jewish shrines, thus asserting Islamic supremacy over the conquered and the vanquished.

But now one of them was helping Daniel and Ted as a favour to a relative, showing that goodness — as much as villainy — transcends the religious divide.

After using hena to darken their faces and kitting them out in Arab robes — not by any means de rigeur in east Jerusalem, but useful for allaying suspicions — he led them into the subterranean Marwani Prayer hall and through it to an almost concealed entrance at the back. This led them into a stark dank chamber with stone walls. Daniel shone his torch all around to take a look at the walls, hoping to find inscriptions. Ted tried likewise. But the walls were bare, carved into the rock beneath the Temple Mount. This was an untouched chamber that had been this way for centuries.

“Help me with this.”

Daniel and Ted turned round to see Salim struggling to prise up the edge of a stone slab with what seemed like little more than the tips of his fingers. For an old man he appeared to be remarkably strong, as the edge of the stone slowly rose a few inches from the floor in his firm grip. But it was obvious nonetheless that Salim was struggling and he would surely drop the stone back in place. So they rushed over and helped him, quickly inserting their hands and lifting in unison.

Even with all three of them combining their efforts, the weight of the block was apparent and they struggled to lift it.

“Over there,” said Salim indicating where they should move it.

The direction meant that Ted would be moving backwards and Daniel forward, while Salim himself moved sideways. But it was Daniel who nearly fell into the hole, as the stone slab obscured his view. He just about managed to avoid it, moving partly around the hole and then stepping over it as they laid the slab on the side. Then Daniel turned round to see the opening in the ground into which he had very nearly fallen. It led to a lower chamber.

It was Daniel, the youngest and fittest of the three who went first, followed be Ted whom he helped down. They looked around to see that they were at the beginning of a horizontal shaft. But as they waited for Salim to follow, they heard him saying something in tense Arabic, in a tone that spoke of surprise and fear. Ted didn’t know what the words meant, but Daniel did. They meant “Who are you? What do you want?”

In the silence that followed, Daniel strained to hear a reply. But all he heard was nothing except silence, followed by a volley of gun fire. Then when the reverberating echo subsided, the silence returned.

“Salim!” Daniel shouted. “Salim are you all right?”

The fear began to set in. Daniel moved to a position just under the entry point and reached up, trying to pull himself up. But as he did so, he noticed a man standing over him in the chamber above — a big man.

And Daniel recognized him. The beard was gone, or most of it had, but the face was unmistakeable. It was the man who tried to kill him when the police van was attacked. The man that Sarit had told him was Baruch Tikva — or simply Bar Tikva, as he liked to call himself.

And once again, the man was armed. But this time it was an assault rifle that he was pointing at Daniel.