Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

TWELVE

Tel Aviv

“What’s the matter, baby?” Devorah said from behind him, casually raking her sharp nails down the center of his back.

Kesev sat on the edge of the bed in her apartment. They always wound up at Devorah’s place, never his. They both preferred it that way. Kesev because he never allowed anyone in his apartment, and Devorah because when she was home she had access to her...props.

He’d met her last year. An El Al stewardess. She could have been Irish with her billowing red hair, pale freckled skin, and blue eyes, but she was pure Israeli. Young—mid-twenties—with such an innocent, girlish face, almost child-like. But Devorah was a cruel, mischievous child who liked to play rough. And when it came to rough she preferred to give rather than receive. Which was fine with Kesev.

Their little arrangement had lasted longer than any other in recent memory. Probably because her job took her away so much, she’d yet to grow tired of his black moods and long silences. And probably because Devorah had been unable to find a way to really hurt him. Kesev absorbed whatever she could dish out. She considered him a challenge, her perfect whipping boy.

So Devorah seemed happy with him, while he was...what? Happy? Satisfied? Content?

Hardly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt something approaching any of those.

The situation was...tolerable. Just barely tolerable. Which was more than he’d learned to hope for.

“You weren’t really into it tonight,” she said.

“Sorry. I...I’m distracted.”

“You’re always distracted. Tonight you’re barely here.”

Probably true. A vague uneasiness had stalked him all day, disturbing his concentration at the Shin Bet office, stealing his appetite, and finally settling on him like a shroud late this afternoon.

More than uneasiness now. A feeling of impending doom.

Could it have something to do with the Resting Place? He followed the wire services meticulously and there’d been no word of a new Dead Sea scroll or startling revelations regarding the mother of Christ. Not even a ripple.

But that was hardly proof that all was well, that all was safe and secure.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel our date for tomorrow,” he said, turning to face her.

She lay sprawled among the sheets, her generous breasts and their pink nipples exposed. Even her breasts were freckled. But she didn’t lay still long. She levered up and slapped him across the face.

“I don’t like broken promises!” she hissed between clenched teeth.

The blow stung but Kesev didn’t flinch. Nor was he angry. One deserved whatever one got when a promise was betrayed.

“There is a hierarchy of promises,” he said softly. “Some promises take precedence over others.”

“And this promise. Is this what distracts you?”

“Yes.”

“Does it involve another woman?”

“Not at all.” At least not in the sense she meant.

“Good.” She smiled as she clicked a handcuff over his right wrist. “Come. Let Devorah see if she can make you forget all your mysterious distractions.”

‡

The Judean Wilderness

It had taken some heavy persuasion, but Dan managed to convince Carrie to leave the cave so they could talk outside...in the light...in the air...away from that...thing.

He felt instantly better outside. It had seemed like night in there. Even though the entire tav rock was in shadow now, he squinted in the relative brightness.

And he was still staggering from Carrie’s words. He’d never thought they’d find anything on this trip, so he’d never even dreamed that Carrie might want to...

“Take her back? To the US? Are you serious?”

“We have to,” she said. “If we don’t, other people might decipher that other scroll you mentioned and find her. The wrong kind of people. People who’d...misuse her.”

“Then why don’t we just move her from here and bury her where no one will find her?”

She wheeled on him. “This is the mother of God, Dan! You don’t just stick her in the dirt!”

“All right, all right.” He could see she wasn’t rational on this. “But even if we could get her back home—and believe me, that’s a big if—what’ll we do with her? Give her to a museum? To the Vatican?”

“Oh, no. Oh, Lord, no,” she said, vigorously shaking her head. “We’ve got to keep her secret. She was hidden away for a reason. We have to respect that. Imagine if some crazy Muslims got hold of her, or some sort of satanic cult. Think how they might desecrate her. Now that we’ve found her, we have a very clear duty: We have to take her back with us and hide her where no one else can find her.”

“You’re not thinking, Carrie. We’ll never get her past customs.”

“There’s got to be a way. Your friend Hal says people are smuggling archeological artifacts out of the Mid East all the time. Call him. He can tell you how.”

“Call Hal? Sure. Hand me the phone.”

“This is not a joking matter, Dan.”

He saw her tight features and the look in her eyes and realized how serious she was. But she wasn’t thinking straight. Finding that strange body in there, whoever it was, had jumbled up her rational processes. He had to get her away from here, get her calmed down so she could get some perspective on this whole situation...

And calling Hal might be just the excuse he needed.

“All right. We’ll call Hal and see what he says.”

Her expression relaxed. “You mean that?”

“Of course. We’ll drive back to the highway, maybe go to En Gedi...” He glanced at his watch. “It’s seven hours earlier in New York so we can still catch him in his office. And we’ll ask his advice.”

“You go. I’m staying here.”

“No way, Carrie. No way I’m leaving you sitting up here at night in the middle of nowhere.”

“I’ll be all right. Now that I’ve found her, you can’t expect me to leave her.”

“If she is who you think she is, she’s been fine here for two thousand years. One more night isn’t going to matter.”

“I’m staying.”

Dan had humored her as far as he could. He wasn’t backing down on this point.

“Here’s the deal, Carrie,” he said, fighting to keep from shouting. “Either we go down to En Gedi together or we stay up here and starve together. But under no circumstances am I leaving you alone. So it’s up to you. You decide. And make it quick. Because when night falls, we’re stuck here—I won’t be able to find my way back to the highway in the dark.”

They went round and round until she finally agreed to accompany him to En Gedi in return for a promise to come straight back to the tav at first light.

The downhill trip going was shorter by hours than the uphill trip coming, but it seemed much longer. Carrie hardly spoke a word the whole way.

‡

En Gedi

They lay side by side in their double bed in the local guest house. Dan’s arms and legs were leaden with fatigue as he floated in a fog of exhaustion. Here they were, in bed together in one of the world’s most ancient resorts, a green oasis of grasses, vineyards, palm trees, and even a waterfall in the midst of the barren wastelands. A beauty spot, a lovers’ rendezvous, mentioned even in the ancient Song of Solomon, and all he could think of was sleep.

Not that Carrie would have been receptive to any romantic advances anyway. She’d seemed more than a bit aloof since they’d left the tav.

That and the knowledge that they’d be returning to the Wilderness tomorrow only heightened Dan’s fatigue.

Hal had been no help. As soon as they had arrived in En Gedi, Dan called him and explained that they needed a way to get a five-foot-long artifact out of the country.

“Quietly, if you know what I mean.”

Hal had known exactly what he meant and gave him a name and a telephone number in Tel Aviv. He’d said he was very interested and wanted to see this artifact when it reached the states. Dan had thanked him and hung up.

Yeah. Thanks a lot, Hal.

Nothing was working out the way he’d hoped. He’d expected Hal to tell him to forget it—no way to get something that size past the inspectors. Instead of no way, it was no problem.

Damn!

Carrie had remained in a sort of semi-dream state. What little conversation she’d initiated had been whispers of “Can you believe it? Can you believe we’ve actually found her?” as they stocked up on twine, blankets, work gloves, a pry bar, a lantern, and hundreds of feet of rope.

And now, beside him in bed, after a long silence...

“I’ve been thinking...”

“Great.” Dan dragged himself back from the borderlands of sleep. “Does that mean you’re giving up this ca-ca idea of bringing that corpse home?”

“Please don’t refer to her so coarsely. Please?”

“Okay. Just for your sake. Not because I believe it.”

“Thank you. Now tell me: Who do you think wrote the scroll?”

“A clever, phony bastard.”

“All right,” she said with exaggerated patience. “Let’s humor Sister Carrie and assume that the scroll is genuine. Who wrote it?”

“We’ve been over this already. A Pharisee. An educated man.”

“But what of that passage where he says ‘I do not fear killing. I have killed before, slipping through the crowds in Jerusalem, stabbing with my knife. And I fear not damnation. Indeed, I am already thrice-damned.’ That doesn’t sound like a Pharisee.”

“What’d you do, memorize that translation?”

“No. But I’ve read it a few times.”

More than a few, Dan bet.

He said, “Some of the upper-class Israelites, a few Pharisees among them, got involved with the anti-Roman rebels, some with the zealots. These were a rough bunch of guys, sort of the Israelite equivalent of the IRA. They mounted guerrilla attacks, they murdered collaborators and informants and generally did whatever they could to incite revolt. These were the guys who gathered at Masada after the fall of Jerusalem. They held out for three years, then all 950 of them chose to die rather than surrender to the Roman siege. This scroll writer is patterned after that sort of zealot.”

“He was a pretty tough cookie then.”

“Extremely. Not the kind you’d want to cross.”

“I wonder what happened to him?”

“He’s probably hanging around, laughing up his three-striped sleeve, waiting for someone to chase the wild goose he created.”

He regretted the words immediately, but he was tired, dammit.

Carrie yanked the sheet angrily and turned onto her side, her back to him.

“Good night, Dan. Get some sleep. We’re out of here at dawn.”

“Good night, Carrie.”

But exhausted as he was, thoughts of the forger kept sleep at bay. And the more Dan thought about how this slimy bastard had sucked Carrie in, making her believe all this nonsense, the more he wanted to get back at him.

And removing that corpse or whatever it was from its cave was the perfect way.

Then it wouldn’t matter who came searching for the secret atop the tav rock—the New York Times, the Star, or even a mission from Vatican itself—all they’d find was an empty cave. The tomb is empty! There’d be no turmoil, no orthodox confusion, no Catechismal chaos. And the forger would be left scratching his head, wondering where his clever little prop had disappeared to.

Dan smiled into the darkness. Two can play this game, Mr. Forger.

Tomorrow Carrie would have enthusiastic help in her efforts to smuggle the forger’s prop out of Israel.

After that, Dan would have plenty of time to coax her back to her senses. If he could. He was more than a little worried about Carrie’s mental state. She seemed to be drifting into some religious fantasy realm. He sensed some strange chemistry between her and that body that he could not begin to comprehend. A switch had been thrown inside her, but what circuits had been activated?

Maybe it all went back to her childhood. Maybe it was all tied up in the abuse by her father. Little Carrie had been a virgin and no one had protected her; now here she was with what she believed to be the Virgin Mary and the grown-up Carrie was going to become the protector.

More parlor psychoanalysis. But perhaps it gave some clue as to why this artifact was so important to her.

Too important, perhaps.

And that frightened him. How would she react when it finally became clear—as it must eventually—that the body she thought belonged to the Blessed Virgin was a hoax? What if she cracked?

Whatever happened, he’d be there for her.

But what if he couldn’t bring her back?

He stared into the darkness and wished Hal had brought him another sort of gift from the Holy Land. Anything but that damned scroll.

‡

Tel Aviv

Kesev watched the morning news on TV while he sipped his coffee and considered the journey ahead of him. Oppressed by some nameless sense of urgency, he’d left Devorah’s in the early morning hours, fighting the urge to jump into his car and drive into the Wilderness.

Instead he’d driven home and attempted to sleep. Wasted hours. He’d had not a minute of slumber. He should have driven to the Resting Place. He’d have been there by now and all these vague fears would be allayed.

He’d called into Shin Bet with an excuse about a family emergency that would keep him from the office all day, but he wondered if this trip were even necessary. He’d be on the road all day, probably for nothing. Only 80 air miles, but three times that by car. And for what? To satisfy a nameless uneasiness?

Idly, he wondered if he could get a helicopter and do a quick fly-by, but immediately discarded the idea. He’d made a spectacle of himself back there in ‘91 during the Gulf War when he’d refused to leave the SCUD impact site until all the investigations had been completed. He’d actually camped out there until the last missile fragment had been removed and the final investigator had returned home. There’d been too many questions about his undue interest in that particular piece of nowhere. If he requested a copter now...

He sighed and finished his coffee. Better get moving. He had a long drive ahead of him, and he’d know no peace until he’d reassured himself.

Absence...guilt twisted inside of him. He wasn’t supposed to be away from the Resting Place. Ever. He’d promised to stay there and guard it.

He shook off the guilt. How long could you sit around guarding a place that no one even knew existed?

The Resting Place was as safe as it ever was, protected by the greatest, most steadfast guardian of all—the Midbar Yehuda.

‡

The Judean Wilderness

Carrie held her breath going through the little passage to the second chamber. But then the beam flashed against the Blessed Mother and she let it out.

“She’s still here! Oh, thank God, Dan! She’s still here!”

“What did you expect?” Dan muttered as he crawled in behind her with the electric lantern. “Not as if we left her on a subway.”

She knew Dan was tired and irritable. Anyone seeing him stumbling around the guest house this morning would have thought he’d been drinking all night. Her own back ached and her eyes burned, but true to her word, Carrie had awakened him at first light this morning and had them on the road by the time the sun peeked over the Jordanian highlands on the far side of the Dead Sea. It had glowed deep red in the rearview mirror as it crept up the flawless sky, stretching the Explorer’s shadow far before them as they bounced and rolled into the hills.

And now as she stood in the chamber, staring down once more at the woman she knew—knew—was the Mother of God, she felt as if her heart would burst inside her. She loved this woman—for all her quiet courage, for all the pain she must have suffered in silence. But the Virgin didn’t look quite like what she’d expected. In her mind’s eye she’d imagined finding a rosy-cheeked teenager, or at the very least a tall, beautiful woman in her early twenties, because that was the way Carrie had always seen her pictured. But when she thought about it, the Virgin probably had been average height for a Palestinian woman of two thousand years ago, and must have been pushing seventy when she died.

Dizziness swept over Carrie as she was struck again by the full impact of what—who—she had found. God had touched this woman as He had touched no other human being. She’d carried the incarnation of His Son. And now she lay here, not two feet in front of Carrie.

This is really her. This is the Mother of God.

Until yesterday, the Blessed Virgin had been a statue, a painting, words in books. Now, looking at her aged face, her glossy, uncorrupted flesh, Carrie appreciated her as a woman. A human being. All those years, all those countless Hail Marys, and never once had Carrie realized that this Mary she’d prayed to as an intercessor had once been a flesh-and-blood human being. That made all the suffering in Mary’s life so much more real.

And rising with the love came a fierce protective urge, almost frightening in its intensity.

No one must touch her. No one must desecrate or defile her in any way. No one must use her for anything. Anything! The Church itself couldn’t be trusted. Who knew what even the Vatican might do? She’d dreamed during the night of the Blessed Mother’s remains on display in St. Peter’s in Rome and it had sickened her.

Mary had given enough already, and Carrie knew it was up to her to see to it that no one demanded any more of her.

Dear Mother, whoever was left to guard you is long since dead and gone. I’ll take care of you. I’ll be your protector from now on.

She unfolded the dark blue flannel blankets she had brought. Dan set the lantern down and helped her spread them out on the floor. The bright light cast their distorted shadows against the wall where the Virgin lay in her stony niche.

“All right,” she said when the blankets were right. “Help me move her out.”

She didn’t want anyone else touching the Virgin, not even Dan, but she couldn’t risk lifting her out of that niche on her own. God forbid she slipped from her grasp and tumbled to the floor.

As Dan approached the Virgin’s upper torso, Carrie waved him back.

“I’ll take this end. You take her feet.”

Her hands shook as she approached the Virgin. What was this going to be like, touching her? She hesitated a moment, then wriggled her fingers under the Virgin’s cloak and cowl, slipping her hands under her neck and the small of her back. The fabric felt so clean, so new...how could this be two thousand years old?

Unsettled, she glanced to her right. What did Dan think? But Dan stood there with his hands under the Virgin’s knees and ankles, expressionless, waiting for her signal.

She suddenly realized that things had changed since yesterday afternoon. Until then, Dan had been in charge. Sure, this trip had been her idea, but Dan had made all the flight arrangements, decided where to stay, what car to rent, while she’d done all the research. But here, in this chamber, in the presence of the Virgin, she was in charge.

“All right,” she said. “Lift.”

And as she lifted, a knifepoint of doubt pierced Carrie for an instant: So light! Almost as if she were hollow. And so stiff.

She brushed the misgivings away. The Virgin was small, and God had preserved her flesh. That was why she was so light and stiff.

Carefully they backed up, cradling the Virgin in their arms, then knelt and gently placed her on the blankets.

“Stiff as a board,” Dan said. “You know, Carrie, I really think—”

Carrie knew what he was going to say and she didn’t want to hear it.

“Please, Dan. Let’s just wrap her up and move her out as we agreed.”

He stared at her a moment, then shrugged. “Okay.”

Dan seemed to have had a change of heart overnight. Last night he’d been dead set against her plan to bring the Virgin back to New York, yet this morning he seemed all for it. But not because he’d suddenly become a believer in the authenticity of their discovery. He was still locked into his Doubting Thomas role.

The Virgin’s unnatural lightness and rigidity, plus Dan’s continuing doubts, only fanned her desire to move the Virgin to a safer hiding place. Even if she fell into the hands of people with the best intentions, they’d want to examine her, test her to verify her authenticity. They’d scan her, take samples of her hair, skin scrapings, biopsy her, maybe even—God forbid—autopsy her.

No way, Carrie thought as she folded the blankets over the Virgin, wrapping her rigid form in multiple flannel layers. No way.

Dan helped her tie the blankets in place with the heavy twine they’d bought in En Gedi. They tied her around the shoulders, waist, thighs, and knees. With Carrie leading the way, slipping through the little tunnel first and guiding their precious bundle after her, they moved the Virgin into the front chamber, then through the opening at the top of the cave mouth onto the rock pile.

Squinting in the brightness of the mid-morning sun, they carried her to the far edge of the mini-plateau atop the tav.

“I didn’t realize she was this light,” Dan said, “and that gives me an idea on how we can increase our safety factor here.”

“Who’s safety?”

“Our prize’s.”

Carrie couldn’t get over the change in Dan’s attitude.

“I’m all ears.”

‡

Dan’s voice echoed down from atop the tav rock.

“Ready?”

Carrie shielded her eyes with her hand and looked up. Dan was a silhouette against the bright blue of the sky, standing on the tav’s overhang directly above, waving to her. She answered with a broad wave of her own.

“Go ahead!”

As Carrie saw the snugly tied-and-wrapped bundle slip over the edge of the lip and start its slow descent toward her, she became unaccountably afraid. Everything was set—she’d moved the Explorer under the lip just as Dan had suggested, and here she was, ready to guide the Virgin into the vehicle when she was lowered to within reach—but she could not escape the felling that something was about to go wrong.

She should have stayed with Dan. Two sets of hands up there were better than one. He’d tied the heavier rope to the cords around the Virgin while she’d made her way to the bottom. What if he hadn’t tied the knots securely enough? What if the rope slipped out of his hands as he was lowering her?

What if he dropped her on purpose, hoping she’d smash into a thousand pieces to prove that he’d been right all along?

Carrie reigned in her stampeding thoughts. How could she even think such a thing? She was sure it hadn’t crossed Dan’s mind.

Then why had it crossed hers?

Maybe she was losing perspective. It was the heat, the distance from home, the isolation of the desert...it was the epiphany of standing before the Mother of God and then cradling her remains in her arms.

So much had happened in the past 24 hours and the cumulative effect was...overwhelming.

She shook herself and concentrated on the blue of the descending bundle, twisting and swaying on its slowly lengthening tether. Dan was out of sight beyond the lip. She lifted her arms, waiting. Soon it was just above her, and then she had a grip on two of the binding cords. As it continued its descent she swung it around and guided it feet first toward the open rear door of the Explorer.

And then it was done. The Virgin was off the tav and safely at rest in the back of their car.

Dan must have noticed the sudden slack. His voice drifted down from overhead.

“Everything okay down there?”

She waved without looking up. Her eyes were fixed on the blanket-wrapped bundle lying before her. She still didn’t know what she’d do with the Virgin once she got her to New York; she simply knew she had to keep her near.

She spoke softly. “Perfect.”

“Heads up!” Dan called from above.

She glanced up and saw the remaining length of the rope stretched out in the air, coiling like a collapsing spring as it fell to earth.

“I’m on my way,” he said.

Fifteen minutes later he arrived, lugging the lamp and the flashlights. He quickly loaded them into the back of the Explorer.

Carrie said, “What about the rope?”

“We’ll leave it. Can’t fly it back to the States anyway.”

“How about that other cave? Didn’t you say you wanted to take a look in it before we leave?”

He stared across the canyon a moment, then shook his head.

“Maybe some other time.”

“Other time? When will there be another time?’

“Probably never. But I think I’ve had enough of this place for now. I’d like to be out of here.”

Carrie nodded. She had the same feeling. She didn’t know why, but she had an urge to put this place behind them as quickly as possible.

‡

As Kesev cruised down Route 90 he saw a black, truck-like vehicle pull onto the highway about half a mile ahead and accelerate toward him in the northbound lane. No roads around here, at least nothing paved. Whoever was driving must have been roaming the hills and desert. Nothing unusual about that. Off-road exploring was popular with tourists these days, which was why the rental companies in the Central and South districts did such a brisk business in four-wheel drive vehicles. But what bothered Kesev was where the truck had come onto the highway.

Right where Kesev always turned off.

He gave it a good going over as it passed: black Ford Explorer, dust caked, man driving, woman in the rear seat, Eldan Rent-A-Car sticker on the back bumper. He made a mental note of the license plate.

When he made his usual turn off and saw the still settling dust trailing west toward the hills, he stopped his Jeep and jotted the license plate number in the notepad he always carried.

Just in case.

They he gunned the Jeep toward the uplands.

He had a bad feeling about this.

That bad feeling worsened as he spotted patches of rutted earth and tire tracks here and there along the path toward the Resting Place. Never, in all the times he’d been back and forth, had he encountered a single tire track this far into the Wilderness. Not even his own from previous trips. Sharav, the incessant desert wind, saw to that, scouring the land clean of all traces of human passage, usually overnight.

Which meant these were fresh tracks. But who’d made them? The couple in that Explorer? Or somebody else—somebody who even now might be desecrating the Resting Place.

Despite the Jeep’s efficient air-conditioning, Kesev began to sweat. He upped his speed past the safety limit into the reckless zone. He didn’t care. Something was wrong here.

He ground his teeth and cursed himself for not leaving last night.

Finally the tav rock hove into view. No other vehicles in sight, but that brought no relief—he was following a double set of tire tracks. Two vehicles? Or a single vehicle arriving and departing?

He swung around the front of the tav and let out a low moan as he spotted the lengthy coil of rope tangled under the overhang.

“Lord in Heaven,” he whispered, “don’t let this be! Please don’t let this be!”

Fear knotted around his heart as he gunned the jeep into the canyon and slewed to a halt at the base of the path to the top. Without bothering to turn off the engine, he leaped out and scampered up the ledge as fast as he dared, muttering and crying out as he climbed.

“Never should have left here”...Please, God! Let her still be there!...”What was I thinking?”...Dear Lord, if she is still there I swear I will never leave this place again. Not even for food!...”Should have moved back after the scroll was stolen, should have foreseen this!”...Please hear me, Lord, and have mercy on a fool!

The instant Kesev’s head cleared the top of the plateau, his eyes darted to the mouth of the Resting Place. At first glance the barricade of rocks appeared undisturbed and he slumped forward onto the ledge, gasping, nearly sobbing in relief. But as he rose to his feet to send up a fervent prayer of thanks, he spotted the dark crescent atop the barricade—an opening into the Resting Place. The sight of it drove a blade of panic into his throat.

“No!”

He broke into a dead run, clambered up the rocks and all but dove head first into the opening. Enough light streamed through the opening to guide his way to the tunnel. He scrambled through to the second chamber. Stygian darkness here. Kesev’s heart was a mailed fist pounding against the inner wall of his ribs as he felt his way across the chamber to the niche where the Mother’s bier had been set. His fingers found the edge, then hesitated of their own accord, as if afraid to proceed any further, afraid to find the niche empty.

He forced them forward—

Empty!

“No!”

Sobbing, he dropped to his knees and crawled around on the stone floor, running his hands over every inch of its craggy surface, choking in the clouds of dust he raised, all in the futile hope that she might still be here.

But she was not. The Mother was gone. The Resting Place had been vandalized and the Mother stolen.

Tearing at his beard, Kesev staggered to his feet and screamed as the blackness surrounding him seeped into his despairing soul.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”

For an eternal moment he stood there, impotent, lost, devoid of the most tenuous hope, frozen, incapable of thought...

And then he remembered the car he’d seen turning onto Route 90 earlier...the black Explorer.

Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe he still had a chance. He had no honor to salvage, and no hope of redemption, but if he could retrieve the Mother and return her to the Resting Place, he could continue his task as her guardian.

Hope bubbled up like a cold spring in the heart of a desert...but he dared do little more than wet his lips.

All the way back to the highway, Kesev fixed the image of the Explorer in his mind, trying to remember whatever details he could about the driver and passenger. They’d been shadows, identifiable as male and female and little more. When he screeched onto Route 90 again, he floored the accelerator, pushing the Jeep to 150 kilometers an hour in the open stretches, ready to flash his Shin Bet ID at any highway cop who tried to slow him down.

He called information and learned that Eldan had a car rental office in the Jerusalem Hilton.

Hope edged a trifle higher.

‡

He located the Eldan desk in the spacious lobby of the tower portion of the Hilton. The pert brunette there wore a name tag that said “Chaya” in English. Kesev made sure she was properly impressed by his Shin Bet ID, then he handed her the sheet from his notepad with the number of the Explorer’s license plate.

“Did you rent a Ford Explorer with this plate out of here?”

“Explorer, you say?” She tapped a few instructions into the terminal before her. A few beeps later, Chaya smiled. “Yes, sir. To an American. Carolyn Ferris. Out of New York.”

What luck! Found them on the first try. Then again, if you were going to explore the area around the Dead Sea, Jerusalem was the ideal base.

“Have they returned the car yet?”

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“When’s it due back?”

“Today, I would assume. They took it on a two-day special—unlimited mileage. But there’s nothing to say they won’t keep it till tomorrow. They have an option for extra days.”

Tomorrow—he prayed they wouldn’t keep it till then. Especially since he wasn’t even sure this Ferris couple were the ones he wanted. The tire tracks around the Resting Place might not be theirs.

But they were the only lead he had.

If only there were some way to involve Shin Bet in this. He could have the tire tracks identified as to their size and brand and from that get a list of what vehicles used them as standard equipment. If a Ford Explorer was on the list, he’d issue an all-points alert for the Ferrises and their vehicle.

But Shin Bet would want to know what crime they’d committed or were suspected of committing. Theft? What did they steal?

Kesev could not answer those basic questions, so Shin Bet had to stay out of it.

He was on his own.

He wrote down his cell number and handed it to the Eldan clerk.

“I will be close by and will be checking in with you frequently. But if I am not about, call this number immediately should you hear from the Ferrises. Make sure you fill in whoever relieves you.”

“Are they dangerous?” Chaya said, a note of anxiety creeping into her voice.

He smiled to reassure her. It wasn’t easy. He wanted to grab the front of her blouse and pull her half across the counter and shout that they may have stolen a relic that God Himself had designated as untouchable and only God Himself knew what might happen to Kesev—to the entire world—if it was not returned immediately to its designated Resting Place.

Instead he kept his tone low and even.

“Absolutely not. They are just a couple of tourists who may have witnessed something and we need to question them. The problem is that they don’t know we’re looking for them and we don’t know where to find them. Not yet. But with your help we can clear up this matter swiftly and everyone can go about their business.”

Meanwhile, he didn’t have to sit idle.

He went to one of the Hilton’s house phones and asked the operator to connect him with the Ferris room. He slammed his fist on the counter when she informed him that there was no Ferris registered at the hotel, then glanced around to see if he’d startled anyone. He did not want to attract attention. He forced himself to return the receiver gently to its cradle.

Then he pulled out his phone and called all the major and some of the minor hotels in Jerusalem, asking to be connected to the Ferris room.

No luck. They weren’t registered in Jerusalem. One could almost believe they’d driven to the north end of Route 90, and instead of turning left toward Jerusalem, turned right toward Jordan. Or worse yet, were hijacked by some Hezbollah crazies...

The thought staggered Kesev, weakening his knees.

The Mother...in the hands of that rabble

No. Such a thing was unthinkable, so why torture himself with it?

Kesev found himself a seat in the lobby where he had an unobstructed view of the Eldan desk. He calmed himself with the thought that he had done all that one man could do at the moment. All that was left was the waiting. So he sat and waited. He was good at waiting. An expert.

Sooner or later the Ferris couple would show up to return their car. When they did he would confront them. He’d know if they were hiding something. And if they were, he’d get it out of them. First by intimidating them with his Shin Bet credentials. If that didn’t work, there were other ways.

Kesev slipped his left hand into his pocket and gripped the handle of the long folding knife he always carried.

Yes, he thought grimly. He knew other ways, and he was quite ready to use whatever means were necessary to return the Mother to the Resting Place.