Kathy Reichs - Cross bones

So. Only three things remained. The original Kaplan print. The bone samples taken for DNA testing. The photos I’d shot at my Montreal lab.

Otherwise, Max was gone.

IT WAS NOWTHURSDAY, FOUR DAYS AFTER THE CRASH. RYAN ANDI would be returning to Montreal on the midnight flight. Before leaving Israel, we’d decided to make one last call.

I found myself again traveling the Jericho road. Ryan and I had passed Qumran, famed for its Essenes and caves and scrolls; and Ein Gedi, famed for its beaches and spas. On our left, the Dead Sea stretched cobalt-green toward Jordan. On our right, a tortured landscape of buttes and mesas.

Finally I saw it, stark red against the perfect blue sky. Herod’s citadel at the edge of the Judean desert.

Ryan made a turn. Two kilometers later we pulled into a lot and parked. Signs reassured tourists. Restaurants, shops, toilets, this way.

“Cable car or Snake Path?” I asked.

“How rough’s the climb?”

“Piece of cake.”

“Why the name?”

“The trail winds a little.” I’d been warned the trek was mean and dusty and took an hour or more. I was pumped.

“How about we cable up, then assess?”

“Wimp.” I smiled.

“It took a Roman legion seven months to reach the top.”

“They were battling an army of zealots.”

“Details, details.”

Masada is the most visited spot in Israel, but not that day.

Ryan bought tickets and we entered an empty cable car. At the top, we mounted a twisting staircase, then the ancient site sprawled before us.

I was awestruck. Romans. Zealots. Byzantines. Nazarenes? I was standing on the very same soil. Soil trod long before Europeans laid eyes on the New World.

I scanned what remained of the casement wall, shoulder high now, the old stones weathered and bleached. My eyes took in the playa within the wall’s encompass. Mojave dry, here and there a scrub vine eking out life. Purple blossoms. Amazing. Beauty in the midst of brutal desolation.

I thought of soldiers, monks, and whole families. Dedication and sacrifice. My mind wondered. How? Why?

Beside me, Ryan checked the orientation map. Above me, an Israeli flag snapped in the wind.

“The walking tour starts over there.” Ryan took my hand and led me north.

We visited the storehouses, the officers’ quarters, the northern palace in which Yadin had recovered his “family.” The Byzantine church, themikveh, the synagogue.

We passed few people. A couple speaking German. A school group protected by armed parent-guards. Fatigue-clad teens with Uzis on their backs.

Standard circuit completed, Ryan and I reversed and headed toward the southern end of the summit. No other tourist was venturing that way.

I checked the diagram in my pamphlet. The southern citadel and wall were noted. A water cistern. The great pool. Not a word about the caves.

I paused at the casement wall, awed anew by the plain of sand and rock fading into shimmering haze. By the giant, silent formations molded by eons of scouring wind.

I pointed to a square faintly visible in the moonscape below.

“See that outline?”

Ryan nodded, elbow-leaning on the railing beside me.

“That was one of the Roman camps.”

I leaned forward and craned to my left. There it was. A dark wound piercing the flesh of the cliff.

“There’s the cave.” My voice cracked.

I stared, mesmerized. Ryan knew what I was feeling. Gently tugging me back, he arm-draped my shoulders.

“Any theories on who he was?”

I raised my hands in a Who knows? gesture.

“Guesses?”

“Max was a man who died between the age of forty and sixty about two thousand years ago. He was buried with more than twenty other people in that cave down there.” I pointed over the casement wall. “A younger person’s tooth ended up in his jaw. Probably by mistake. Lucky mistake. Otherwise we might never have known of the link between the cave people and the family in Jake’s shroud tomb.”

“The one Jake believes is the Jesus family crypt.”

“Yes. So Max may very well have been a Nazarene, not a zealot.”

“Jake is damn sure that tomb belonged to the Holy Family.”

“The names match. The decorative styles of the ossuaries. The age of the shroud.” I kicked at a stone. “Jake’s convinced the James ossuary came from that tomb.”

“Are you?”

“I’m intrigued.”

“Meaning?”

I thought a moment. Whatdid I mean?

“He could be right. It’s just an overwhelming concept to grasp. Of the three great religions woven through the history of Palestine, all rely more on divine mystery and spiritual belief than on science and reason to establish their legitimacy. Historic facts have been given differing spins to make them mesh with favored orthodoxy. Inconsistent facts are denied.

“The facts Jake postulates as to the Kidron tomb could potentially undermine elements of the Christian creed. Maybe Mary didn’t remain a virgin. Maybe Jesus had siblings, even offspring. Maybe Jesus remained shrouded in his loculus after the crucifixion.”

I tipped my head at the cave below us.

“Same goes for Cave 2001 and certain elements of revered Jewish history. Maybe Masada wasn’t occupied solely by Jewish zealots during the first-century revolt. Maybe early Christians were up here, too. Who knows? What I do know is that it’s tragic DNA wasn’t obtained from the shroud bones. Especially since it’s clear that at least one of the people in the cave up here was related to the people in Jake’s tomb down there.”

Ryan considered that. Then, “So, even though DNA links a tooth from Masada to the Kidron tomb, you think the resurfacing of Max and the discovery of the shroud bones within weeks of each other was pure coincidence?”

“I do. The tooth was undoubtedly from someone in Cave 2001, and mistakenly became associated with Max. But Max may have been only the messenger, not the message, in this whole saga. Funny. I’m even more curious about whose tooth it was than I am about who Max was.”

“I’m not following.”

“This all started with Max, but Max may simply have lucked into a prime cemetery plot.”

“Still lost.”

“Because Max’s grave was at the back of the cave, his body wasn’t disturbed by animals. It’s possible he remained intact not because he was buried in a manner that differed from the others, or because his social status was more exalted than the others, but simply because he was put into the ground at a greater distance from the cave mouth. But since his was the only complete, articulated skeleton, people viewed Max as special. Someone shipped him out of Israel. Lerner stole him. Ferris and Morissonneau hid him. In the end, Max’s main contribution may be that he survived intact and led us to the odd molar.”

“Tying the Kidron tomb to Masada. Jake got any theories whose tooth it might be?”

“Lots of bodies in the cave. Jake’s thinking a nephew of Jesus, maybe a child of one of the sisters. The mitochondrial DNA shows a maternal link.”

“Not a sibling?”

“Unlikely. Inscriptions account for Jude, Joseph, James, if that ossuary’s real, the Marys, and Salome. Simon died years later.”

Again, we fell into silence. I spoke first.

“It’s funny, Max started everything. Lerner stole him from the Musée de l’Homme because he believed Joyce’s story about the scroll and his theory about Jesus living on at Masada. It turns out Joyce could have been right about Jesus, some Jesus, but wrong about Max. Max can’t be Jesus of Nazareth, who died in his early thirties, according to Scripture. His age doesn’t fit, and his mitochondrial DNA makes him an outsider to the Kidron tomb matrilineage. But Max could be a nephew of Jesus.”