Adam Palmer - The Boudicca Parchments

“Incredible and major to you, but horrendous to us!”

“But why?”

“I would not expect a goy to understand! Our religion is based on the premise of matrilineal transmission or orthodox conversion according to Halacha . We cannot let it be known that forty percent of Ashkenazi Jews are the descendents of non-Jewish women.”

Now it was Daniel’s turn for confusion. He could understand the historic concern with ethnicity in the religion. But why would matter today? The wife of Moses was a convert. Ruth — the grandmother of King David — was a convert. Why should this matter in the modern era?

“But that DNA study has already been published. You can hardly conceal it now.”

“The DNA study says nothing about the identities of those women… or their religion or ethnicity. Or whether or not they converted according to Halacha.”

“Then what’s your problem?”

“The problem is the manuscripts that reveal the origins of those women.”

“Manuscripts? In the plural?”

“The one that gives it away most clearly is the original Aramaic manuscript of Josephus’s Jewish War.”

“But you’ve got that!” said Daniel. “And how come none of that material appeared in the Greek version. I mean the name Esseni appears, but nothing about their origins in Britannia.”

“Presumably, it was redacted,” said HaTzadik.

“By Josephus?”

“Hardly. If it was his own translation, he wouldn’t have made the error of calling them the Esseni. The Greco-Roman translators probably had no vested interest in proclaiming the power of the vanquished tribes of Britain or for that matter the power of women — something that was even more anathema to their way of thinking than it is to ours.”

“So if you’ve got the manuscript, what’s the problem?”

Shalom Tikva’s face took on an ugly appearance.

“The problem — my brother Daniel — is the Domus Aurea and Temple Mount manuscripts.”

“You know about what’s in them?”

“We read about them when they were found. We obviously didn’t know their exact contents, but we had some idea based upon their obvious provenance as Hebrew text in an unrecognized language. And we knew that it would only be a matter of time before they were translated.”

“Then you know there’s nothing you can do to stop it. The truth is out there.”

“Yes it is. But there’s a limit to how much credibility can be placed on it. The real killer — if you’ll excuse the pun — was a ketuba between Lanosea and Bar Giora. But we’ve got that.”

“Your man Sam Morgan,” said Daniel, bitterly.

“That’s right. And now the last piece of the puzzle is that treasure. You see that’s the key to the whole thing. That treasure can prove a link between the manuscripts and Masada… and can effectively authenticate them. So now I must ask you to put the jewels back in the bag and hand it over.”

And just to make it clear how determined he was, he waved the grenade slightly, just enough to remind them that he had it and was ready to use it. Daniel began putting the jewellery back into the jute bag, slowly.

“Hurry up!” snarled HaTzadik angrily.

Ted knelt down to help Daniel. Then Daniel rose to a stooping posture and took a few steps towards HaTzadik, noticing as he drew closer that the pin was still embedded firmly in the grenade. Realizing that he had an opportunity, Daniel practically thrust the bag into HaTzadik’s free hand, knowing that this would momentarily deprive his adversary of the opportunity to pull the pin. In that same split-second he reached over and pressed on Shalom Tikva’s thumb, in an effort to force him to drop the hand grenade. But the manoeuvre failed as HaTzadik jerked his hand back, pulled the pin with the other hand that held the bag and then tossed the grenade behind Daniel.

Daniel spun round to see the grenade land somewhere on the ground. But in this darkened chamber it was hard to tell where. When HaTzadik pulled the bag out, light entered the chamber from outside. Ted shone his torch on the ground to add to the light and help them locate the grenade. But they both knew that with a four second fuse, the chances of survival were slim.

Then the light of Ted’s torch caught the grenade and in an instant, Daniel dived onto the ground, scooped it up, threw it out through the opening and hit the deck. Almost in time with his forearms hitting the ground, there was a massive explosion. In that same split-second, a pile of dirt and an avalanche of rubble rained down upon them.

The cable car had arrived and Sarit was already walking briskly on the wooden walkway when she heard the explosion. At that point the brisk walk broke into a run. Within seconds she was through the archway at the entrance and onto the plateau.

She arrived to see people swarming around an area ahead of her and a little to the right. Some looking concerned, others crouching down. A couple of men in dark green uniforms — border guardsmen — were telling people to stand back. As she raced up to the scene, she heard a man who was crouching down saying “I’m a doctor.” The border guardsmen left him alone, but ushered the others back.

She arrived to see the self-styled doctor trying to revive a man in the black religious garb common amongst the ultra-orthodox. One of the border guardsman tried to interpose his arm and push her back. She pulled out her ID and flashed it at him. He backed off without another word.

The man on the ground was a small man and Sarit knew immediately who he was: Shalom Tikva. She felt like telling the doctor not to waste his efforts. But she had more important concerns right now. Where was Baruch Tikva? And where were Daniel and Ted? She turned to the border guardsmen.

“What happened?”

“There was an explosion. That’s all we know.”

The other guardsman had a theory.

“Probably a grenade.”

Sarit needed to know more.

“Concussion or fragmentation?”

The border guardsman shook his head. He was whistling in the dark.

The doctor leaned back from Shalom Tikva, also shaking his head. He answered Sarit’s question.

“Concussion.”

Sarit realized that he was probably a military doctor, or at least had experience of treating military casualties. But if it was a concussion grenade, who had thrown it? Neither Daniel nor Ted were likely to have had such an item in their possession, still less to have used one.

Then she surveyed the immediate environment and had a thought.

“What’s that?”

She was pointing to the large ditch. A member of staff looked where she was pointing and then at Sarit.

“It’s the sewage cistern. We’ve been doing some maintenance work on it.”

“Is there supposed to be an opening there?”

“Of course. It was accessible, but entry was prohibited.”

In that instant, Sarit realized exactly what had happened. The only thing she didn’t know was if they were still alive. Without explaining her actions, she leapt into the ditch and started clawing away at the rubble, tossing it aside in handfuls and attacking it with the ferocity of a mother trying to save her baby.

Some one made the mistake of trying to stop her. She back-elbowed them.

“There are people trapped in there!”

Some one asked “how do you know?”

“Just trust me, I do!”

Seeing the determination in her eyes, first the border guardsman and then some of the members of the public, clambered into the ditch and started digging away at the earth and rubble, bare-handed.

“Daniel… Daniel are you okay?”

Somewhere in the haze of his semi-consciousness, Daniel recognized Ted’s voice. It was that same eerie feeling of the calm after the storm that he had after the explosion in the cafe that had nearly killed Leah Yakarin… the same feeling of pain, discomfort and not quite being there that he had when he woke up in that hospital room after the fire in the house in Ashwell.