Jake left no gap for comment.
"These valleys were the location of the tombs of the wealthy."
"Like Joseph of Aramathea."
"You got it." Jake pointed flat-handed to our left and rear, then swept his arm in a clockwise arc. "Silwan"s the village behind us. Abu Tor"s across the way." Jake closed his circle on the hill to our right. "The Mount of Olives is to the north."
I sited off his fingers. Jerusalem crawled the summit westward from the Mount, its domes facing off across the Kidron with the minarets of Silwan.
"These hills are honeycombed with ancient tombs." Jake yanked out a bandanna and wiped sweat from his head. "I"m taking you to one unearthed by Palestinian roadwork a few years back."
"How far down the valley?" I asked.
"Way down."
Jake backhanded the bandanna into a jeans pocket, grabbed a bush, and hopped off the ledge. I watched him scrabble downhill, bald head shining like a copper pot.
Using the same bush, I squatted, kicked out my legs, and bellied over the edge. When my feet made contact, I let go, turned, and began picking my way downhill, sliding on loose rocks and grabbing vegetation.
The sun was climbing a brilliant blue sky. Inside my Windbreaker, I began to sweat.
Again and again I thought of the pair outside l"Abbaye Sainte-Marie-des-Neiges. My eyes kept moving from the ground at my feet to the village at my back. The slope was at least sixty degrees where Jake had chosen to descend. If anyone wanted to pick us off, we were easy targets.
On one backward glance I spotted a man walking a path on the valley rim.
My heart gunned into overdrive.
An a.s.sa.s.sin? A man walking a path on the valley rim?
I looked downhill. Jake was drawing farther and farther ahead.
I goosed the tempo.
Five yards down, I slipped and cracked my shin. Tears shot from wherever they"d been waiting on call. I blinked them back.
Screw it. If someone wanted to kill us we"d be dead by now.
I dropped back to my tenderfoot crawl.
Jake was spot-on. The tomb wasn"t at the bottom, but it was way down the valley, in a gra.s.sy stretch strewn with rocks and boulders.
When I arrived he was squatting by an outcrop squinting into a rectangle the size of my microwave. I watched him roll a paper, light one end, and thrust the makeshift torch into the opening.
Oh, G.o.d.
Closing my eyes, I talked myself down.
Feel.
Wind on my face.
Smell.
Sun-heated gra.s.s. Garbage. Coal smoke.
Taste.
Dust on my teeth and tongue.
Listen.
The buzzing of an insect. Gears grinding way off up the valley.
I took a deep breath. A second. A third.
I opened my eyes.
Small red flowers bloomed at my feet.
I took another breath. Counted.
Six flowers. Seven. Ten.
I looked up to see Jake eyeing me oddly.
"I"m a bit claustrophobic." I offered the understatement of the decade.
"We don"t have to go in," Jake said.
"We"re here," I said.
Jake looked skeptical.
"I"m fine." The overstatement of the decade.
"The air"s okay," Jake said.
"What more could one ask?" I said.
"I"ll go first," Jake said.
He slid down the incline and disappeared, feet-first.
"Hand me the bones." His voice came out m.u.f.fled and hollow.
My heartbeat revved as I maneuvered the bag. I breathed it back to normal.
"Come on down." Quiz-show dramatic.
Deep breath.
Turning, I thrust my feet into darkness. Jake grabbed my ankles. I inched backward until I felt hands on my waist. I dropped.
Murky dimness. One skewed rectangle of light squeezing in from outside.
"You okay?" Jake asked.
"Dandy."
Jake"s flashlight clicked on.
The s.p.a.ce was approximately eight feet square, with a ceiling so low we had to crouch. Food wrappers, cans, and broken gla.s.s littered the floor, graffiti marred the walls. The air smelled like a mix of mud and ammonia.
"Bad news, Jake. Some have come before." I pointed at a used condom.
"These tombs are popular with drifters and kids."
Jake"s beam darted here and there. It looked yellow and wavery, and not rea.s.suring.
As my eyes adjusted, I picked out details.
The tomb"s entrance was to the east, facing the Old City. The northern, western, and southern walls were cut by a series of oblong recesses, each approximately two feet wide. Stones blocked the entrances to a few of the recesses, but most were wide-open. In the amber beam I could see their interiors were packed with fill.
"The little chambers are called loculi," Jake said. "Kochim in Hebrew. During the first century, the dead were shrouded and left in loculi until decomposed. Then the bones were collected and permanently stored in ossuaries." in Hebrew. During the first century, the dead were shrouded and left in loculi until decomposed. Then the bones were collected and permanently stored in ossuaries."
I felt a tingle on one hand. I looked down. Jake noticed and shot the beam my way.
A daddy longlegs was high-stepping it up my sleeve. Gently pinching one leg, I displaced the arachnid. I freak in tight s.p.a.ces, but I"m cool with spiders.
"This tomb has a lower level."
Jake duck-walked to the southwest corner. I followed.
Jake pointed his light at what I"d a.s.sumed to be a loculus. It disappeared into total darkness.
"You game for the cellar if I"m there to catch you?"
"Go," I said, not granting my amygdala time to react.
Jake rolled to his stomach, inserted his legs, and wiggled downward. Closing my eyes I did the same.
I felt hands.
I felt terra firma.
I stuck the landing.
I opened my eyes.
There wasn"t a pixel of light. Jake was so close our shoulders were touching.
I became intensely interested in the flashlight.
"Light?"
A yellow shaft cut the darkness.
"Those batteries new?" I asked.
"Relatively."
The ammonia smell was stronger at this level. I recognized what it was. Urine. I made a note to keep my hands off the floor.
Jake played his beam over the wall we were facing, and then over the one to our left.
The lower chamber was smaller, but appeared to be laid out like the one above. That would mean two loculi to the north. Two to the south. Three in back.
"You say there are thousands of these tombs?" My voice sounded dead in the underground s.p.a.ce.
"Most were robbed long ago. I stumbled onto this one while hiking with students in the fall of 2000. Kid spotted the opening, saw artifacts scattered outside. It was obvious looters had just hit, so we called the IAA."
"You did a full excavation?"
"Hardly. The IAA archaeologist couldn"t have been less impressed. Said there was nothing left that was worth protecting, and left us to our own devices. We salvaged what we could."
"Why the disinterest?"
"In his opinion, the site wasn"t anything special. I don"t know if the guy had a hot date that night, or what. He couldn"t get out of here fast enough."
"You disagree with his a.s.sessment?"
"Less than two years after we found this tomb, Oded Golan, the antiquities collector I told you about, revealed the existence of the James ossuary to a French epigrapher named Andre Lemaire."
"You think the ossuary was stolen from here?"
"It makes sense. The ossuary is rumored to have come from somewhere near Silwan. Within two years of the looting of this tomb the ossuary was presented to the world."
"If the James ossuary came from this tomb, that would suggest this is the place Jesus" brother was buried."
"Yes."
"Making this the Jesus family tomb."
"Awesome, eh?"
I didn"t know what to say, so I said nothing.
"We found twelve boxes, all smashed, the remains tossed aside."