The Boudicca Parchments

Chapter 73

Daniel leapt aside just as Bar Tikva fired off a volley of rounds at him. But he knew it wasn’t over yet, when Bar Tikva crouched down and stuck the rifle through the hole of the floor that he and Ted had dropped though less than a minute before.

“Move!” he shouted at Ted, who was frozen with momentary panic. Ted moved just in time to give Daniel the space he needed to avoid the shots. Because of the angle at which the man had been able to insert the gun, there was no danger of the shots being fired along the entire stretch. Instead the last rounds of the volley embedded themselves in the plastered walls while Daniel and Ted raced along the underground cavern.

When Ted felt he had got far enough from the volley, he stopped. He was mildly out of breath, but his regular health regimen meant that he had the stamina to run a lot more if he had to. Daniel stopped behind him.

“I think he’s out of ammo. But he might have another magazine.”

But Ted was not listening. The danger held less interest for Ted than curiosity. He was looking around, shining his torch at the plastered walls of the subterranean chamber.

“What is this?” asked.

Daniel took a moment to catch his breath.

“If my calculations are correct, Ted, we’re in something called the Lower Aqueduct. It supplied the Old City and the temple from springs outside the city.”

They heard sounds at the entry point of the chamber from whence they had run.

“Is he coming after as?” asked Ted.

“If he does, we’d better run,” Daniel whispered, shining his torch back in the direction that the sound had come from. But there was no sign of Bar Tikva — just more sharp, staccato, clanking sound. Daniel realized what was happening. Bar Tikva was putting the stone slab back, trapping them in the tunnel.

Ted looked at Daniel with a concerned expression in his face.

“Can we get out?”

Daniel nodded in the direction away from their starting point.

“That way. But it won’t be quick.”

“Why how long is it?”

“That depends on how far we need to go in order to get out. But I can tell you this tunnel runs all the way to Solomon’s Pools in Bethlehem.”

“Bethlehem?”

“Yes. And that’s over thirteen miles from here.”

“And because it had to work under gravity, I assume that it’s all uphill.”

There was resignation in Ted’s tone.

“Yes, but the good news is that it’s not such a steep gradient. Solomon’s Pools are at elevation of seven hundred and sixty five metres. The Temple Mount is seven hundred and thirty metres above see level. So that’s a drop of thirty metres in thirteen miles… I think that’s about twenty one and a half kilometres. So it’s a very small drop.”

“I’ll say. And presumably this was built by Herod the Great.”

“Actually no. It’s been dated back to the Hasmonean period — way before Herod.”

“Good God. And I thought only the Romans had that sort of engineering experience.”

“Well Herod brought his Romanized education later. But the ancient Jews had quite a lot of engineering experience.”

“Never mind that now. What about Salim?”

Daniel’s mind was brought back down to reality. Salim had been helping them and now he lay dead — murdered by the same madman who had been pursuing him since he had been arrested in London. The same madman who had tried to kidnap his niece. And probably the same madman who had killed Martin Costa and set fire to the derelict house in Ashwell. It all seemed so long ago and far away now.

But what did he really know about the lunatic? In London he had appeared as a religious Jew with a long beard. The beard was gone now and Daniel couldn’t think of why. Sarit had told him that the people who were after him were from Shomrei Ha’ir. But why had they targeted him? And why Martin Costa? It must have something to do with what Costa had found… but what? The ketuba? Perhaps. It showed that a Jewish leader had married out of the religion. But then again Bar Giora was himself a convert or a son of a convert.

Why would any of that matter? Shomrei Ha’ir might not approve of marrying out of the faith, but it happened long ago. And Bar Giora was hardly the most famous or most important of Jewish leaders through the ages. In the long line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Daniel, Ezra, Jeremiah and Elijah, he was nothing. Even among the military leaders, like Joshua, Judah the Macabee and Bar Kochba, he was small fry. So what was the big deal? It was just another interesting footnote in the rich history of the Jewish people. Nothing to get hot under the collar about… hardly a reason to kill people.

And now Martin Costa was dead, the two criminals who had helped Bar Tikva when he attacked the police van were also dead and Salim was dead. Perhaps no one would shed any tears over Martin I Costa — and the two criminals that Chienmer Lefou had supplied him with would certainly not be missed. But Salim was another matter. Salim was a good man who was helping him because his distant relative Walid had called him all the way from Egypt and asked him to.

And now he would have to explain to Walid and to Salim’s family why their relative had died. And although they would hold the gunman responsible and not Daniel himself, it was hard for Daniel not to feel at least partially responsible. He had brought Salim into this, even if he could not have known of the specific danger that they faced.

And when he did explain and they came down to retrieve the body, there would be an almighty incident about the fact that a Jew had killed a Muslim on the site of Haram ash Sharif, as the Muslims called the Temple Mount.

“Daniel?”

“The voice was Ted’s, gently snapping Daniel out of his daydream.”

“Sorry. I was just thinking about Salim.”

“I know,” said Ted, sympathetically. “But we need to get out of here.”

Ted led the way down a tunnel from the chamber but then suddenly stopped as if he had been struck by lightening. For he now found himself standing in a humongous cavern, larger in area than the one where they had just been and with a much higher ceiling.

“What the…”

His voice trailed off into silence as he swung his torch around and the light bounced off the stone walls. The reflected light was feint, indicating the distance between his torch and the yellow-plastered walls, as well as the divergence of the beam. Daniel joined him and used his torch to view the opposite side to the one where Ted was aiming his.

“It’s the Great Sea,” said Daniel.

“The what?”

“The Great Sea. This is one of the biggest reservoirs under the Temple Mount, if not the biggest. It was discovered by two explorers in the nineteenth century: Conrad Schick and Charles Warren. Warren was the man who discovered an ancient gate to the temple mount that now bears his name. Anyway Warren and Schick discovered that there were many ancient underground reservoirs or cisterns under the Temple Mount. The biggest one that they discovered was this one, which they called the Great Sea. They even brought an artist with them, called William Simpson, a Scotsman who had documented the Crimean War with water colours.”

“But there’s no light down here? Did they have oil lanterns?”

“They did. But he painted it by the light of a burning magnesium wire. Anyway, we need to go that way.”

He pointed to a tunnel and set off in the direction he had pointed, leaving Ted to follow.”

“I presume we’re still under the Temple Mount.”

“Yes, but we won’t be for much longer.”

“Where does this lead?”

“If my memory serves me right, it leads to somewhere called Wilson’s Arch.”

“I assume that’s named after another nineteenth century explorer,” said Ted.

“Of course. I mean obviously he didn’t build it — it existed in the time of Jesus and even earlier — but Charles William Wilson discovered it. It’s located at one end of the Western Wall and once supported a road bridge that was level with the Temple Mount and that led to a gate called the Gate of the Chain.”

“So it predates the Muslims?”

“Not exactly. The arch was we now see it, was rebuilt by the Muslims after they conquered the city in the seventh century. But it rests on the remnant of an older bridge that was built by Herod the Great. During the first Great Revolt of sixty six to seventy, the original bridge was destroyed either by the Romans, or more likely by Jewish freedom fighters to make it harder for the Romans to attack the Temple Mount.”

They continued on their way, alternating in the use of their torches so as not waste battery power unnecessarily.

“I think we’re now somewhere under the Jewish Quarter,” said Daniel.

“How do you know?”

He shone his torch to show an opening in the wall above the tunnel.

“During the Byzantine period, between three fifty and six fifty, the city experienced a period of tremendous growth because of the stability brought by the eastern Roman empire. In order to provide water for the growing population, the Byzantines built a second channel above the first.”

“The Upper Aqueduct?” asked Ted.

“What?”

“I assume that if this is the Lower Aqueduct, then the one that the Byzantines built above it was the upper aqueduct.”

“Actually no. There is something called the Upper Aqueduct, but it follows a completely different route, This is more of a later development to the Lower Aqueduct that runs between this point under the Jewish Quarter and the Hill of Evil Counsel.”

“The Hill of Evil Counsel?”

“Where the UN building is located.”

Ted smiled.

“Very apropos.”

Ted, Daniel remembered, was a Daily Mail reader.

“It’s not really a different channel,” Daniel explained. “Part of the way it’s a separate parallel channel running slightly higher than the original. But in other parts, the Byzantine engineers simply expanded the existing channel.”

“But why would Byzantium expand the water channel to the Temple Mount?” asked Ted. “They were Christians. Surely they wouldn’t have any interest in the Temple Mount.”

“They didn’t. The Temple mount was abandoned by then. I mean it wasn’t in use. In fact they let it degenerate into a rubbish heap — something that shocked the early Muslims when the Caliph Omar invaded after Mohamed’s death. But the Byzantines didn’t just widen the aqueduct, they also diverted the waters… probably to the Nea Church. The Muslims then diverted it back to the Temple Mount and later the Mamluks made further improvements.”

“How come it’s so dry now?”

“Well the Ottoman Turks rebuilt it in 1500 using an enclosed ceramic pipe. That was still bringing in water to the Old City up until 1967.”

“Good God.”

“Fortunately for us, the old channel is still navigable. But we may have to crawl in parts.”

“Anyway, if we want to make any progress, we have a choice. We can either climb up into the upper channel and stand, or stay down here and stoop or even crawl part of the way.”

“I’m not sure if I can get up there,” said Ted.

“I can make a hand stirrup.”

“And then how will you get up?”

“I can run and jump and you can pull me.”

Ted weighed up the options.

“Can we stand all the way up there?”

“No, at some point we’re still going to have to crawl.”

“Then lets just stay down here… follow the original tunnel.”

Daniel switched on his torch and led the way, stooping rather than actually crawling.

“We’re now following the Western Hill,” Daniel grunted as he struggled along awkwardly.

“What’s that?”

“It’s what Josephus referred to as the Upper City. At some point soon we’ll be crossing under the Old City wall, just west of the Dung Gate.”

“The Dung Gate?”

“That’s what it’s called. And it did exactly what it says on the tin.”

“Hopefully we won’t smell it down here.”

“I said did. It hasn’t been used for that purpose for ages. And it’s possible that the original Dung Gate was in a different location.”

“And where does it lead from there?”

“Around the slopes of Mount Zion, it crosses the Hinnom Valley, then past the Sultan’s Pool and goes under Mishkenot She’ananim.”

“The Sultan’s Pool?”

“A water basin dating back to the time of Herod, or possibly even the Hasmoneans. It was expanded into a reservoir by the Ottomans — hence the name.”

“But if it was used as a reservoir…”

“Yes it was fed by the lower aqueduct. And yes we may be able to get out there! But I think the exit is blocked and we’ll have to go via the old route that bypasses it to the North.”

“Then how are we going to get out?”

“We’ll have to go all the way to East Talpiot… that’s the neighbourhood by the Hill of Evil Counsel.”

“And that means…”

“A long walk.