Adam Palmer - The Boudicca Parchments

“Help me with this.”

Daniel and Ted turned round to see Salim struggling to prise up the edge of a stone slab with what seemed like little more than the tips of his fingers. For an old man he appeared to be remarkably strong, as the edge of the stone slowly rose a few inches from the floor in his firm grip. But it was obvious nonetheless that Salim was struggling and he would surely drop the stone back in place. So they rushed over and helped him, quickly inserting their hands and lifting in unison.

Even with all three of them combining their efforts, the weight of the block was apparent and they struggled to lift it.

“Over there,” said Salim indicating where they should move it.

The direction meant that Ted would be moving backwards and Daniel forward, while Salim himself moved sideways. But it was Daniel who nearly fell into the hole, as the stone slab obscured his view. He just about managed to avoid it, moving partly around the hole and then stepping over it as they laid the slab on the side. Then Daniel turned round to see the opening in the ground into which he had very nearly fallen. It led to a lower chamber.

It was Daniel, the youngest and fittest of the three who went first, followed be Ted whom he helped down. They looked around to see that they were at the beginning of a horizontal shaft. But as they waited for Salim to follow, they heard him saying something in tense Arabic, in a tone that spoke of surprise and fear. Ted didn’t know what the words meant, but Daniel did. They meant “Who are you? What do you want?”

In the silence that followed, Daniel strained to hear a reply. But all he heard was nothing except silence, followed by a volley of gun fire. Then when the reverberating echo subsided, the silence returned.

“Salim!” Daniel shouted. “Salim are you all right?”

The fear began to set in. Daniel moved to a position just under the entry point and reached up, trying to pull himself up. But as he did so, he noticed a man standing over him in the chamber above — a big man.

And Daniel recognized him. The beard was gone, or most of it had, but the face was unmistakeable. It was the man who tried to kill him when the police van was attacked. The man that Sarit had told him was Baruch Tikva — or simply Bar Tikva, as he liked to call himself.

And once again, the man was armed. But this time it was an assault rifle that he was pointing at Daniel.

“So you’ve been blogging about Israel for how long?”

“Quite a few years now.”

Nili was enjoying this man’s company, even if he was a lot older than she. He had a warm sophisticated charm and an air of bon vivant about him, that made her feel comfortable, perhaps even somewhat aroused. He had come around after everyone had left and she was getting ready to leave herself, just finishing up. He wanted to see one of the professors about the project. He had heard that a friend of his — Daniel Klein — was helping them with the translation and he wanted to blog about it, especially if Danny had got some results.

But they had all gone home.

She suggested that he call “Danny” who was after all in Israel, but the man had explained that the call would be routed through England and Danny “really hated” getting calls like that because the mobile phone company charged him a fortune for rerouting those calls. He said never mind, he would hook up with Danny back in England.

It was at that point that Nili took pity on him. She explained that she didn’t know where Danny was staying or how to contact him but that he had got some good results on the translation and that they would be published in due course, but that she couldn’t reveal any of the details without permission.

Then the man took the initiative and asked if she was doing anything this evening. For a moment she had hesitated, feeling a bit on the defensive. But before she could say no, he had smiled at her and said “just dinner. I like to dine in fine restaurants and perhaps you could advise me on which is a good one, while I’m here in Jerusalem.

The truth of the matter was she didn’t know good restaurants from bad because most of them were out of her price range. She knew which were the expensive ones, but price didn’t necessarily guarantee quality and if she was going to avail herself of this man’s generosity — or loneliness — then she didn’t want to make a fool of herself. So she agreed to let him take her to dinner and then, on a pretext of going to the bathroom, she had put in a quick mobile call to a friend.

Two minutes later, when she emerged, she suggested that they go to the Colony restaurant, which in fact was not expensive at all, but came highly recommended.

Now they sat there enjoying their main courses, he eating the grilled entrecote steak in red wine sauce, she enjoying the stuffed chicken breast — after starting with shared plates of stuffed mushrooms and sweet potato ravioli.

“So no juicy titbits,” the man said, hopefully.

“Unfortunately not,” said Nili. “But I mean if you can catch up with your friend Danny, I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you.”

“But you don’t know where he’s staying?”

“No, sorry.” Then she brightened up. “You could try calling Ted, if you know him.”

The man looked up from his food, surprised, but quickly gathered his wits.

“Oh Ted’s with him?”

“He was when they did the translation. I mean it was Ted who did the translation. Your friend Danny just transliterated the Hebrew.”

“We are talking about the same Ted, I hope. You mean Ted Hynds, yes?”

Nili inclined her head in silence for a moment.

“I think that was his name.”

“I did have his number. But it’s probably in my old address book back in England. I haven’t been in touch with him for a long time. Oh well.”

He carried on eating.

“I suppose the other thing you could do is call the office in the morning and get the contact details. Professor Peres will be there.”

“Whose he?”

“She. Irene Peres. She’s a scientist who did the tests on the manuscript and prepared the digital copy that Danny and Ted used for their translation. She’s related to him apparently — to your friend Danny I mean.”

“Okay I’ll do that. I just hope I don’t end up missing him. You’re sure he said he’s staying in Jerusalem aren’t you. It would be a pity if he jumps on a plane to another destination like the USA or Greece or somewhere and I end up missing him again. It’s happened before you know.”

“Oh I don’t think there’s any chance of that. They’ve still got more work to do on the translation and writing the paper.”

“Yes but knowing Danny they’ll probably end up working long distance via the Internet. He’s very peripatetic is our Danny.”

“Perri…”

“He travels a lot.”

“Well he won’t be leaving the country tomorrow, because I think he’s got plans to visit Masada before he leaves.”

“Masada?”

Nili blushed. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to have mentioned that. It had been the Temple Mount Parchment that had drawn his attention to Masada. She realized that she had effectively given away something that she should probably have kept silent about.

“Oh well,” the man continued. “I’ll call tomorrow and ask this Professor…?”

“Peres.”

“ Peres … whether she can give me his local contact details. Maybe you can tell her to expect my call.”

“Sure.”

Nili looked a little uncomfortable.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

She blushed again.

“I’m sorry… only I’ve forgotten your name.”

She squirmed. But the man just smiled.