David Epperson - The Third Day

“What if the low light compensator doesn’t work?”

“What if — ”

Though I could understand his concerns, after a little while, I had had enough.

“Calm down, Professor,” I said. “Please.”

Then I laughed. “You’re scaring the others.”

In truth, though, even I felt the butterflies; and in my famished, sleep-deprived state, I failed to grasp the implications of what Bryson had been saying.

As we had the previous night, we agreed to divide guard duty into shifts; only this time, Bryson insisted on taking the last watch.

Since I wasn’t entirely convinced that he wouldn’t retrieve the camera and abandon the rest of us to our fates, I told the others I’d join the Professor on the late shift. Except for one small oversight, this would have been a fine plan.

Some time past midnight, Lavon shook me awake and announced that my turn to stand watch had arrived. Bryson and I gathered our things and then climbed up to our observation post, where we settled into reasonably comfortable spots, facing opposite directions.

After an hour had passed, the Professor volunteered to go back down to the shelter and bring up some water. At the time, I thought nothing of it, and when he handed over one of our makeshift cups, I quaffed the whole serving in one gulp.

The next thing I remember, Sharon and Lavon were shaking me awake. It took me a couple of seconds to get my bearings. Once I did, I saw the orange glow to the east and realized to my horror that I had slept though my watch. Worse, Bryson was nowhere to be found.

“I screwed up,” was all I could say.

The others were gracious, or realistic, enough not to press. Naomi and Markowitz climbed up to join us, so we gathered in a small circle to work out what to do next as the first faint sliver of the sun peeked over the horizon.

“According to the Gospels, the women are at the tomb, right now,” said Lavon.

The question was: was Bryson?

Making our situation more complicated, a long line of people and livestock had already begun to fill the road leading to the Damascus Gate.

“We don’t really need company,” I muttered.

Naomi, though, told us not to worry.

“They’re merchants,” she explained. “The first ones into the city after the Sabbath receive much higher prices for their goods. I am certain of this, because afterward, they often visited the house where I worked, and boasted of their earnings.”

That made perfect sense. More importantly, these traders would be inclined to ignore us unless we appeared to be competitors.

We paused to ensure that Sharon’s scarf completely covered her blonde hair; then we hustled to the main road and joined the growing file of travelers.

After we had proceeded nearly a mile, we veered off toward the edge and into a labyrinth of pathways that wound through the twenty-acre complex of quarries and tombs.

“Now what?” asked Markowitz.

***

I thought back to the previous day and it all started to make sense, beginning with Bryson’s worries about technical malfunctions.

“The damned fool,” I said, now certain that he had spiked my drink with sedatives from my medical kit so he could slip away and witness the events in person.

Lavon had reached a similar conclusion.

“I’ll bet he got caught,” he added. “Since the moon was full, I’m sure he could find his way down the road. But once he got into the quarries, odds are that he got lost and stumbled onto the guards.”

If indeed he had — and this was the most likely scenario — we didn’t have a second to lose. Once the soldiers hauled the Professor out of the quarries and onto the open ground leading to the city gates, we’d have no chance to get him back.

“Can you take us to the tomb from this direction?” I asked Sharon.

She nodded and led us forward without saying a word. After we had gone a hundred yards or so, she held up her hand and peered around the same rocky incline I remembered from the day before.

“Do you see anyone?” Lavon whispered.

She didn’t, but she didn’t dare expose herself by venturing out farther.

Since nothing in the Gospel accounts suggested that a woman native to the area would encounter trouble, Lavon pulled Naomi close and whispered into her ear. I watched a puzzled look cross her face, but after a brief moment’s hesitation, she strode toward the tomb.

Naomi peeked inside, then turned back to us and shook her head: nothing.

Lavon then signaled for her to check out the surrounding area. She disappeared, though a minute or two later, she came back and motioned for us to come forward.

I’m no expert, but I could count at least a dozen sets of fresh prints in front of the grave site, all pointing toward the city to the east.

“Do you see the camera anywhere?” Markowitz asked.

Lavon pointed to the spot where Bryson had left it the previous evening.

“There it is,” he said.

The pyramid of stones appeared to have remained untouched, so Markowitz started heading in that direction to retrieve it.

I reached out and pulled him back. “No time,” I said.

Instead, I unsheathed my gladius and directed Lavon to do the same. The archaeologist agreed that since the guards would take the most direct route back to the city, we could probably swing around them undetected — if we got there fast enough.

“When we get into position, wait for my signal,” I ordered.

Lavon nodded.

“What if I’m wrong about the guards?” he asked, almost as an afterthought. “What if they do turn out to be Romans?”

I shook my head. In that case, our only chance of survival would be to abandon the Professor and run.

I tried to make a joke of it, but after the others had turned away, I lifted my sword and held the point to my own throat.

I stared straight into Lavon’s eyes.

“Can you do it?” I asked, “if it comes to that.”

His grim expression showed that he knew what I had in mind.

“I won’t let them be taken,” he replied.

Then he scurried off quickly behind the hill to our left, with Sharon and Naomi in tow.

***

I led Markowitz off to the right to form the other arm of our pincer movement. In a few minutes, we reached the edge of the quarry and circled back toward the center, where we crouched behind an oversized boulder lying only a few feet from a heavily traveled path.

Not long thereafter, I saw Lavon slip out from behind a ridge on the opposite side, along with the two women.

We listened carefully and to our great relief, neither of us heard the distinctive clanging of metal plates. The Temple police protected themselves with thick leather armor. Bryson’s captors were not Romans.

As the marching footsteps came closer, we eased back to avoid being spotted.

Moments later, a dozen black helmeted soldiers strode past us and up the incline that led up to the level ground surrounding Jerusalem’s main walls.

Though I couldn’t understand what they were saying, the men appeared to be engaged in an animated discussion — no doubt concerning how they would explain the events of the previous night to their superiors.

We breathed a quick a sigh of relief as they passed. For a brief moment, I worried that they might have first disposed of the Professor, before I realized that a prisoner would serve as a handy prop for whatever story they managed to invent.

The fact that their captive would be unable to contradict their tale would serve as an added bonus, assuming it came to that.

A few minutes after the first bunch had passed, we heard another set of footsteps. Lavon gestured toward Naomi, as if encouraging her to try an encore performance, but this time I shook my head.