P. Deutermann - The Last Man

Would she come? Or would she call the cops? There hadn’t been a crucifixion in Palestine for a good many years, but he could imagine that they might work one up if she called the right people in. Maybe a mistake to have called her. Maybe he should drive back to Jerusalem and hold a little press conference.

The lonely road bore straight south into a landscape of glazed white evaporation ponds dotted with motionless yellow bulldozers. The gaunt shrubbery that littered the seashore up by the mountain was all gone now, the land so saturated with salt that nothing would ever grow there. He checked his rearview mirror; no lights. All the traffic from the site would be northbound, back up to Jerusalem. Then he realized that if he kept going, he was bound to run into an army patrol, and that might be awkward. He slowed and made a U-turn, lowering his own lights to parking lights. He loitered on the way back, going no more than ten miles an hour, killing time to full darkness. He planned to stay down on the seashore to wait for Judith. He’d grabbed one of the last sandwiches out of the cold case and three bottles of water before they shut the place down, so he had the makings of dinner. He was almost too excited to eat.

Would she come? What would he do if she did not?

He finally reached the geothermal complex, which had some security lights blazing on the high chain-link fence surrounding it. He turned off the coast highway and drove down the dirt track toward the salt lake, praying that the place wasn’t manned, and parked between two security floodlight poles. Their amber cones of halogen light created a deep shadow right alongside the fence between them. He shut the Land Rover down, doused the parking lights, and sat back to see what would happen. Behind him, just visible in the side mirrors, the tall steel tank tower rumbled quietly in the darkness, as if something were boiling in there. From this angle he could see a large, six-inch-diameter pipe that came out of the low windowless building and ran a few feet above the ground toward the back right corner of the fenced enclosure. Just before the fence it dipped down into the ground and disappeared to the northwest. He wondered if this was a desalinization plant for the tourist site at Masada. That would account for the boiling noises. The sulfurous stench of concentrated bromine salts infiltrated the Land Rover, even though he had the windows almost fully closed against nighttime mosquitoes. Out on the highway nothing moved. The mountain and the hostelry were hidden behind the shoulder of the high mesa that projected out toward the sea like some ancient headland. He waited.

She picked up the phone again. It was Ellerstein.

“Judith, shalom. Forgive me for intruding on your Shabbat.”

“That’s quite all right,” she said, suddenly in a quandary. She’d forgotten it was Shabbat. Should she tell him about David? Yossi probably had connections to the security people. He would know exactly what to do.

“I wasn’t able to find out anything about Mr. Hall,” he was saying. “His things are all still there in his hotel room, although they haven’t seen him and his bed has not been slept in.”

“Indeed,” she said. Tell him, her conscience urged. Tell him now .

“Yes, well, I realize this must be a bit awkward for you. He says he will call, then he does not. The housekeeping people don’t think he has been ill, either. I don’t know what to say.”

“Did they say his diving equipment was there?”

“What? Diving equipment? They didn’t mention that. You think he has gone diving somewhere?”

“I called the dive shop where we went. They said he still had some of their tanks. I think that must be it.” Tell him, the voice in her head was saying. Shouting. “So I must suppose he is on tour somewhere, then, perhaps getting his nerve back after Caesarea,” she continued, aware of the tension in her own voice. “Or he has had a better offer.”

He laughed. “I can’t imagine a better offer than your company, Yehudit. Still, this David Hall: He has done stupid things before, yes?”

You have no idea, she thought. Which is when she realized she wasn’t going to tell him. She was going to go down there. Relics from the Second Temple! He had used the correct words to describe scroll holders. Hall knew what he had been looking at. My God! Right under their feet the whole time.

“He certainly has, Yossi,” she said, “but look, this was just — how shall I say it? An interlude. We did not fall in love or anything. He was nice, we had a nice day together, a nice evening. He made no false moves, and, really, no promises other than to call. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Nice, nice, nice,” he grumbled. “He got your hopes up and then dropped you without a word. Not so nice, I think.”

“Well, what can I say?” Her voice caught in her throat and she cleared it.

“You’re all right, then, Yehudit?” he asked.

“Yes, fine, Yossi. Enjoy a quiet evening. That’s what I plan to do.”

“Indeed. Very well. I will probably see you next week. At the Scrolls conference. The ownership debate again. You will attend, yes?”

“Now that I am back among the earnest academics? Yes, I will attend.”

“Very good. Until next week, then. Shalom.”

“Shalom,” she intoned, suddenly anxious to put the phone down. Her heart was beating faster. She was going to do this crazy thing? She began to think of how she would justify it, if they were caught. Nothing plausible came to mind. So call him back, she thought. Call him back and tell him. Then the siren song intruded: Second Temple artifacts. At Masada. The last stand. The Copper Scroll had described several treasure hoards taken down into the Judaean desert when Jerusalem fell. People had been looking for years. Allegro himself had searched and found nothing. Had that been disinformation? To keep anyone from looking at Masada? What more logical place than Masada for Temple artifacts? Hall’s lady friend had been right all along. It would be the discovery of the millennium.

Diving gear. Bring your diving gear, he’d said. She shivered. Diving alone into an unexplored cistern inside the mountain? What an incredibly stupid, foolhardy thing for him to have done. There would necessarily be no light, no landmarks, and no rescue if anything at all went wrong, and yet he had obviously done just that — and was now asking her to do it.

She sat there in the comfort of her living room, almost paralyzed, wondering if she’d lost her mind. Then, with a start, she realized she would have to hurry. She shivered again and then got up to get her equipment.

Ellerstein sat at his desk, looking down at the telephone, replaying Judith’s answers in his mind. The strain in her voice. The rush to put him off. Was he imagining these things? Was it just female embarrassment, or something else? Was somebody there with her, and she couldn’t talk? Hall, perhaps? He swiveled around in his oak desk chair. The lights of Yafo spread before him. Beyond lay the darkened Mediterranean.

He thought hard. The American had gone with Yehudit to Masada, and had been caught by an army patrol walking around the base of the mountain at night. He had admitted to going up there at night, the stones-and-bones business. Yehudit had been embarrassed professionally by the whole incident. She should have been furious with the American, and yet they had made up and spent a day together. Two evenings as well. Then he drops her and just disappears? Hall was an attractive, wealthy man, and Yehudit was a beautiful woman, on the cusp of coming back out into the world of the living. No man in his right mind would dump her like that. Unless — what?