The Boudicca Parchments

Chapter 80

“Masada,” the bus driver called out.

Shalom and Baruch Tikva looked nervously at each other as they stood up and got off the bus. There were only a handful of others getting off. Some of the bus passengers had got off earlier at the Dead Sea resorts of Ein Fashkha and Ein Gedi. Others were going on to the beach hotels at Ein Bokek. But about half a dozen were getting off here at Masada, so they would not be completely alone. They had just managed to get the eight O’clock bus and it was now 9:40, still relatively early.

“Do you think they are here yet?” asked Bar-Tikva.

“If so we will see them. And if not we will be waiting for them.”

Bar-Tikva smiled at his father’s reassuring wisdom.

In the heat of the sun, it was a long, tiring walk from the forecourt where the bus had stopped to the area they had to get to. Although they were taking the cable car from the tourist centre on the ground, they had to walk up a steep, paved slope and up some stairs, to get there.

When they got to the ticket office, they thought that it was rather expensive — especially for the cable car both ways. Shalom was even ready to walk. But his son realized that although he could climb the Snake Path, it would be a problem for his father. The Ramp Path on the side of the town of Arad would have been easier, but it was too late for that now. Without private transport, there was no way that they could get to it.

So they paid up, grumbling the whole time, and then waited until there were enough people for the operators to justify the use of the cable car. Some ten minutes later, they were atop the mountain fortress where pious Jews had made their last stand against the strangers who had sought to impose alien values and false Gods upon them.

They were the first through the entrance and the first thing they did when they got there was look around. In fact it was only Baruch Tikva, the son, who was looking. His father didn’t know what Daniel looked like… or Ted. Baruch had the advantage of height. But he saw no sign of them. They might not be here, or they might be out of sight. One couldn’t really see the whole of Masada from a single spot no matter how tall one was.

Aside from that, they might be in the bathhouse or they might have gone down to the lower terrace of the Northern Palace.

But then, as Bar-Tikva turned a full circle to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, he saw a man in his sixties climbing down into what looked like a roped off area. And the man didn’t look like a workman or a uniformed member of staff.

And the man himself had looked around furtively before disappearing from view.