P. Deutermann - The Last Man

“My show, indeed. They’ll kill you, and then me, probably.”

“No they won’t. The results are going to overwhelm any archaeological crimes I’ve committed. Think of what it will mean to Israel to recover Temple artifacts.”

She was silent for a moment. “What do you mean, my show?”

“You can claim the whole damned thing, if you want to. I don’t care. I’ve seen what I came to see. Adrian was right. They may have committed mass suicide to defeat the Romans one last time, but they also did it to protect what’s in that cave.”

“You have no idea of the uproar this will cause,” she said softly. “Assuming they’re genuine.”

“They’re real, all right. You only have to see them. Now we have to move. The patrols will be coming out pretty soon.”

“You have put me in a terrible position,” she said finally. “I will be ruined professionally for doing this, for helping you.”

“No,” he said. “You are doing the responsible thing. You are going to verify that I have discovered what I say I have, and then you are going to take charge and safeguard the discovery, before the dumb American goes out and raises a horde of treasure hunters.”

“How do I know you will do what you say?” she asked, her voice carrying above the noise of the machinery inside. “How do I know you aren’t using me again, yes? Using me to confirm that the artifacts are authentic and then claiming the whole thing for yourself? How do I know this? Tell me, Mr. American — and before you answer this time, the truth for a change would be very nice.”

He looked away, and she wondered if she’d gone too far. Or guessed what he was really up to.

“Because,” he said slowly, “I didn’t have to call you. I could always have done the American thing — gone to the media. Brought a crowd of journalists down here and staged a media spectacle of the discovery. Maybe let some private treasure hunters come with me into the cistern to verify what was where and then haul it out of there into the television lights. Hell, the very existence of the cistern, the cave, and the writing on the walls would be good enough for a great show. Israel has satellite TV, right? I could have a production team from CNN down here tonight with one phone call. Is that what you want?”

“No!”

“Okay. So instead, I called you.”

She stood there with her eyes averted again. She had seen the circus that could erupt with a big enough news story. She felt his hand on her forearm.

“Look, Judith, I know I’ve deceived you. I wanted to tell you. I really wanted to tell you. I didn’t do this for private gain, though. I did it because I believed Adrian was right and the rest of the world was wrong. This stuff is up there. Come see it. You know you want to — and you know you’ll never get another chance like this.”

“Because I will be in jail,” she muttered, but she knew he’d won. She was going to do it. A sudden and noisy release of stinking steam from the plant startled both of them. The smell made them cover their noses.

“God, what is this place?” she asked.

“I’ve walked around it a couple of times. I still think it’s a desalinization operation. They’re making freshwater out of Dead Sea brine, probably for the Masada tourist complex. They use the geothermal heat to boil off the brine and then condense the water vapor. See that big pipe — it heads toward the mountain.”

She looked through the fence. The pipe he was pointing to was just barely visible in the reflected lights. The gurgling and boiling sounds from the plant confirmed his hypothesis.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s get this over with. We will take both vehicles, and if we’re stopped, I’m going to tell the guards everything, agreed? I’m not going to play any more games.”

He sighed. “Your call, Professor,” he said. “Let’s go.”

An hour and a half later they were in the cave, suited up and ready to go. She had brought down a wet suit, a weight belt, and her breathing rig and mask. They had not been intercepted on their way up to the Roman camp, and her car was small enough that he didn’t think it would be spotted. He’d carried her equipment up the ramp in a bag, and she’d brought some water bottles. They had changed into their diving suits by flashlight while standing back to back. He reviewed the dive plan with her at the edge of the slab hole.

“The cave depth is at about thirty-five feet,” he said. “So we have plenty of bottom time. The water is not too cold, but there’s air in the cave. I chose to stay on the tank rather than breathe two-thousand-year-old air.”

“Yes, I understand,” she said, stuffing her hair into her diving hood. “This water stinks; I would have expected freshwater.”

“Me, too, but it’s not. It is very, very salty. The BCD vest was useless. You’ll need to stuff it with weights.”

She reached out a fingertip and then tasted the water. “This is like Dead Sea water,” she said. “How can that be, way up here?”

“I have no damned idea, unless it’s some geologic phenomenon that’s forcing Dead Sea water up into this cavern. The bottom is around a hundred ten feet, say thirty-three meters. I’ve already been down to the bottom; nothing there but clouds of silt and what looks like brickwork, but I didn’t have much bottom time at that depth, either.”

“So, we find the cave, go in, take a look, confirm the artifacts, and then come back out, yes?”

“Right, although you might want to translate some of the writing. I think it’s Aramaic.”

She cocked her head at him. “You can recognize Aramaic?”

“Recognize it, yes. I think, anyway. Adrian said she could actually read it.”

She just shook her head. Amateurs indeed.

“If we get separated, climb to the roof of the cavern and look for this light, which I’m hanging down into the slab hole. Surface here and I’ll come back for you. There’s a glow-stick at the cave mouth. Problem signal is three taps on your air tank with your knife. You have to go inverted to make it through the final neck of the cave into the air chamber. You okay with that?”

She took a deep breath. “I suppose we will find that out.”

“Okay. If you get jammed in the cave entrance, rotate until you can move forward. If I could make it, you can make it, no sweat.”

He reviewed the route to the cave entrance, noting that there was a second cave near the one they wanted, checked her diving rig, and asked her to check his. When they were both ready, they switched on their headlamps and masks, slipped into the water, and submerged. She signaled that she was breathing okay, and then he led her to the cave entrance, going across the cavern ceiling on a compass bearing until he thought he had the right spot and then swimming down to thirty-five feet.

Once again he found the wrong cave, but now the green glow-stick was just visible. He signaled for her to follow him, and her light kept up with him as he crabbed across the face of the west wall until he found the cave. He started in, but this time rolled inverted while there was still plenty of room. On his back now, he could see her headlamp behind him, and he gave her the sign to roll over onto her back. She was struggling with something, but then she came on. The extreme salinity of the water would probably plaster her to the roof of the cave, but that was okay because she could then hand-over-hand along the cave until they hit the air-water interface.

He pressed forward, going slower when the cave necked down. Then suddenly his face was out of the water and he was in. He dragged himself across the sand and then turned to help her come through the final, narrow opening. She instinctively reached for her mask, but he shook his hand in front of her face: Leave it on, remember? She nodded, sat up, and took a look around.