Kathy Reichs - Cross bones

Crisis? Like the execution of a dissident and the suppression of his movement, forcing his family and followers underground? Jake’s meaning was clear.

Ryan looked as if he might have something to say, but kept it to himself.

I got up and retrieved the article containing the foot-bone photos. Crossing back to the table, I noticed the header at the top of each page.

N. Haas. Department of Anatomy, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School.

My mind jumped on it. Think about Max. Masada. Anything but the heel bone and its disturbing lesion.

“Is this the same Haas that worked at Masada?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I skimmed the article. Age. Sex. Cranial metrics. Trauma and pathology. Diagrams. Tables.

“This is quite detailed.”

“Flawed, but detailed,” Jake agreed.

“Yet Haas never wrote a thing on the Cave 2001 skeletons.”

“Not a word.”

The Masada skeleton was never reported, spirited out of Israel, stolen from a museum, smuggled to Canada. According to Kaplan, Ferris claimed it was that of a person of historic importance, discovered at Masada. Jake had admitted to hearing rumors of such a skeleton. A volunteer excavator had confirmed the discovery of such a skeleton. Kaplan’s photo had sent Jake flying to Montreal, then Paris. Because of Max, I’d been persuaded to come to Israel.

Lerner thought the skeleton was that of Jesus. He was wrong. The age at death didn’t work. Jake was suggesting the real thing lay on the counter behind me.

So why the decades of intrigue over the Masada skeleton? Who was this man we were calling Max?

I pictured Max, stolen and probably lost forever.

I pictured my wild ride in Jake’s truck.

I pictured my ransacked room.

Anger flared.

Good. Use it. Focus on Max. Avoid the impossible coincidentally found in a Kidron tomb. The impossible lying in Tupperware on a kitchen counter.

“The Masada skeleton’s gone for good, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Not if I can help it.” Something crossed Jake’s face. I couldn’t say what. “I’ll talk to Blotnik today.”

“Blotnik has juice with the Hevrat Kadisha?” Ryan asked.

Jake didn’t answer. Outside, a goat bleated.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

Jake frowned.

“What?” I pressed.

“There’s something bigger at stake.” Jake rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

I opened my mouth. Ryan snagged my gaze, gave an almost imperceptible head shake. I closed it.

Jake dropped his hands, and his forearms slapped the tabletop.

“This is more than the usual reburial bullshit. The Hevrat Kadisha had to have received a heads-up. They followed us to the Kidron because of the Masada bones.” One long finger began worrying crumbs. “I think Yadin knew something about that skeleton that scared the crap out of him.”

“What sort of something?”

“I’m not sure. But sending an emissary all the way from Israel to Canada? Trashing a hotel room? Maybe even killing a guy? That’s more than Hevrat Kadisha.”

I watched Jake convert a small hill of crumbs into a long, thin line. I thought of Yossi Lerner, Avram Ferris, and Sylvain Morissonneau.

I thought of Jamal Hasan Abu-Jarur and Muhammed Hazman Shalaideh, the Palestinians parked outside l’Abbaye Sainte-Marie-des-Neiges.

I didn’t know the players. I didn’t know the field. But my instincts told me Jake was right. The game was deadly, the goal was Max, and the opposition was determined to win.

Always the same question. Who was Max?

“Jake, listen.”

Throwing out his feet, Jake slumped back, crossed his arms, and looked first at Ryan, then at me.

“You’ll get your DNA results. You’ll get your textile analysis. That’s the tomb. That’s important. But for now, let’s focus on Masada.”

At that moment Ryan’s cell phone sounded. He checked the screen, and strode from the room.

I turned back to Jake.

“Haas never reported on the cave skeletons, right?”

“Right.”

“What about field notes?”

Jake shook his head. “Some excavators kept diaries, but notes as you and I think of them weren’t protocol at Masada.”

I must have looked shocked.

“Yadin met with his senior staff each evening to discuss the day’s developments. The sessions were taped and later transcribed.”

“Where are those transcripts?”

“The Institute of Archaeology at Hebrew University.”

“Are they accessible?”

“I can make a few calls.”

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Tip-top.”

“How about we swing by the big U and poke through old files.”

“How about we take the shroud to Esther Getz then hit the big U.”

“Where’s Getz’s lab?”

“At the Rockefeller Museum.”

“Isn’t the IAA housed there?”

“Yes.” Dramatic sigh.

“Perfect.” I said. “It’s time I introduced myself to Tovya Blotnik.”

“You’re not going to like him.”

While I cleared the table, Jake placed his calls. I was screwing the lid on the pickles when Ryan reappeared. His face suggested he hadn’t received the best of all possible news.

“Kaplan’s changed his story,” he said.

I waited.

“Claims someone hired him to cap Ferris.”

IBLINKED, SET DOWN THE JAR, RECOVERED ENOUGH TO ASK Aquestion.

“Kaplan was paid to kill Ferris?”

Tight nod.

“By whom?”

“He’s yet to share that little detail.”

“He’s been claiming he’s innocent as Little Bo Peep. Why talk now?”

“Who knows?”

“Friedman believes him?”

“He’s listening.”

“Sounds like a plot straight out ofThe Sopranos. ”

“You could say that.” Ryan glanced at his watch. “I’ve gotta get back there.”

Ryan was gone five minutes when Jake surfaced. Good news. We could access the Masada transcripts. And Getz would see us. He’d told her about the shroud, but not about the bones. While I questioned the wisdom of concealment, this was Israel, his turf, not mine. And Jake assured me he was only buying a few days.

And a few purloined bone samples, I suspected.

As Jake downed two aspirin and I repackaged the shroud, we discussed what to do with the bones. The Hevrat Kadisha were obviously unaware of the bones’ existence, or they’d have been screaming that we hand them over. And since the HK already had Max, they’d no longer have a reason to keep me under surveillance, or tail me. We decided Jake’s flat was safe.

Locking the bones in the ossuary cabinet, we secured the doors, then the outer gate, and set off. Though the tension in his jaw suggested a headache in progress, Jake insisted on taking the wheel of his rented Honda.

Crossing back through the Nablus Road checkpoint, Jake wormed through traffic to Sultan Suleiman Street in East Jerusalem. Across from the northeast corner of the Old City wall, opposite the Flower Gate, he pulled into a driveway that led uphill to a pair of metal doors. A battered sign identified the Rockefeller Museum in English and Hebrew.

Jake got out and spoke into a rusted intercom. Minutes later the doors opened and we circled to a beautifully landscaped front lawn.

Backtracking on foot to a side entrance, I noticed an inscription on the building’s exterior: GOVERNMENT OF PALESTINE. DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES.

Times change.

“When was this building constructed?” I asked.

“Place opened in 1938. Mainly houses antiquities unearthed during the time of the British Mandate.”

“Nineteen nineteen to 1948.” I’d read that in Winston’s book. “It’s beautiful.”

It was. White limestone, all turrets, and gardens, and arches.

“There’s some prehistoric material here as well. And some kick-ass ossuaries.”