Authors: David Epperson
None of this would happen immediately, and with luck, an intensive search for our whereabouts wouldn’t begin in earnest until the following day.
“Of course,” Lavon explained, “the downside is that the Romans might feel compelled to join in the hunt, if for no other reason than to save face. That will change everything.”
I had to concur. While Naomi’s tricks had worked on Herod’s men, I had no doubt that once Roman professionals set out to track us down, we’d never stand a chance.
But the question still remained: when?
“What is our window to retrieve the camera?” I asked. “I read somewhere that the Resurrection accounts all differ in their chronology.”
Lavon conceded that the Gospels varied in their particulars, such as the number of women who first ventured out to the tomb, whether they saw one angel or two, or the names of the disciples who ran back to the grave site to investigate the women’s tale.
“But the timing is consistent,” he explained. “The women showed up at the tomb with their spices at the crack of dawn, more or less. Once there, they saw that someone had rolled the stone away and that the body was missing.
“Although the Gospels differed as to the exact sequence of what happened next, they all agreed that shortly thereafter, the women hurried back into the city to inform the others.”
“How long would this take?” I asked.
Lavon glanced up at the sky and conversed briefly with Naomi.
“We don’t know exactly where in Jerusalem they were coming from,” he said, “but I’d guess it took at least half an hour to get back to their hiding place; maybe more. They would have wanted to make sure they weren’t followed, so they probably didn’t take the shortest route.”
“Once they returned, the disciples didn’t believe the story,” Sharon added.
“That’s right,” said Lavon. “Luke says they ‘considered it nonsense,’ and we all know about Thomas. I’m sure they argued a while before a few of them finally decided to check things out for themselves.”
“So we have at least another half hour, then, to retrieve the camera and make ourselves scarce before anyone comes back?” I said.
Lavon nodded. “Probably an hour; perhaps even two. Remember, the disciples feared they were still being hunted. Pilate may have decided to take the ‘strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter’ approach, but the remaining eleven didn’t know this at the time.”
“Didn’t they run; run to the tomb, I mean?” asked Sharon.
“Yes, but the Gospels don’t say exactly when they started. Running men would have drawn attention, so my own thought is that they tried to keep a low profile until they got safely outside the city walls.”
“What about the guards?” I asked.
“Matthew is the only one of the four Gospels to mention them, and he only says that they went back into the city along with the women. Unfortunately, we don’t have any more details.”
“Any idea how many there will be?”
“More than one. That’s all I can say.”
***
Now that we had a plan, we spent the rest of the day watching and waiting – which in many respects is the hardest task of all.
For his part, Bryson paced back and forth all afternoon as he rehashed a litany of potential technical disasters.
“What if the recording fails?” he muttered.
“What if the battery runs out?”
“What if I’ve set the timer wrong?”
“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.
Naomi, God bless her, ignored my instructions.
Rather than exude her natural charms, this time she took pains to disguise them. She pulled her hair back and her shawl up to cover her entire head. Then she hunched forward with her back bent at a painfully awkward angle.
If I hadn’t known better, I would have guessed that she had aged thirty years, which was the whole idea.
She shuffled her steps, favoring her left leg, as she trudged slowly up the ramp, with her downcast eyes glued to the ground only a step or two in front of her feet.
As she had intended, the two men escorting Bryson stopped, just behind where we had been hiding.
Once again, we achieved total surprise.
Before they could cry out, Lavon and I held our sword points to their throats. The two guards stared ahead in silence; their eyes reflecting silent terror.
“Don’t kill them,” said Markowitz.
I hadn’t planned to unless it proved absolutely necessary, but this intrusion irritated me.
“Be quiet, Ray,” I whispered.
“They’re Temple police, not Herod’s men. They’re Jews; my brothers. Don’t kill them.”
I sighed, though in hindsight, we couldn’t have playacted the scene any better.
The two guards had been careless, but they weren’t stupid. From the tone of our discussion, they developed a clear picture of how to save themselves and meekly submitted to our instructions.
Sharon handed over strips of cloth she had cut from her robe, and within less than a minute, we had bound and gagged each one.
We left our prisoners leaning against the side of a hill a few yards apart from each other.