Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest (9 page)

"I don't believe this," Tim said. "I just
don't believe you'd do a thing like that."

"Your insurance company will pay. You do
carry theft insurance, don't you?"

While fighting to control his anger. Tim
refused to give Benoit the satisfaction of an answer. Silently, he
lifted the fragment from the table, noting Benoit's eyes trained on
him. The latch on the green cooler stuck. Tim jiggled it free to
expose numerous other vacuum-sealed bags. He carefully replaced the
fragment to the exact location where it had been before.

Father Benoit returned to the conversation,
sounding conciliatory, "Let's bury our disagreements until we have
everything in the computer. We can quarrel about the ownership
later. I'll be back in a few days. Timothy, just finish the
marvelous job you're doing here."

Tim waited until he heard Benoit's retreating
footsteps on the stone passageway, then immediately removed the
last fragment from the cooler and, with masking tape, attached the
transparent envelope to the small of his back. As soon as he was
satisfied this treasure was snug against his skin, he slipped back
into the scrub suit top. Now, if the priest returned to steal this
treasure after nightfall, he'd be in for a big surprise.

Father Benoit buttonholed the first monk he could
find to show him a note he had written, saying that he wanted to
see Abbot Nicholas Afanasieff. During his previous retreats in the
monastery, Benoit had delivered silent presentations on biblical
themes by showing his illustrative slides and writing commentary on
a chalkboard. However challenging this method of communication, the
brothers seemed to enjoy it. Once in Afanasieff's office, Benoit
did not expect the abbot to respond. As head of the monastery, he
preserved the right to speak when he deemed it appropriate, but to
fulfill Benoit's request, no verbal response was necessary. A nod
of understanding was sufficient.

"The Presbyterian minister is doing work for
my École," Benoit wrote on a tablet in French. "But for reasons you
can probably imagine, he must not leave the monastery. Please
instruct your brothers not to lower him over the wall on the
lift."

The abbot's lips fell open as he contemplated
a request that was inconsistent with St. George's reputation for
hospitality. At the same time, he didn't wish trouble with the
Roman Church and its influential friends in Istanbul. On his own
notepad, Father Nicholas Afanasieff wrote, "For how long?"

"A few short days," came the answer.

Abbot Nicholas granted his consent.

"I'm going to remain here with him," Benoit
scribbled. "We must conclude our business together."

Only after Benoit had withdrawn did Nicholas
consider a more perplexing question: what would his brethren do if
Dr. Matternly used force to leave? While his monks kept themselves
in reasonable physical condition, they were men of peace,
unaccustomed to violence. To see that such a situation did not
occur, he ordered his brethren to place a padlock on the lift. In
addition, he instructed them to remove the chrome crank handles
from the pulleys. Now, not only was impossible for Dr. Matternly to
leave, but anyone else—including Father Benoit.

***

Outside an impoundment yard for stolen
vehicles, two kilometers northeast of the Allenby Bridge linking
the Occupied Territory of the West Bank with the Kingdom of Jordan,
Major Zvi Zabronski eased behind the wheel of his forest-green
armored police cruiser and reached for a briefcase containing
enlarged photos provided by Colonel Bar Jehoshua. He shuffled
through four pictures quickly before stopping to study a fifth.
Flanking a dried desert wadi, a thin stand of gum trees provided
cover for a vehicle swathed with netting, the kind used by the
military to camouflage tanks and planes from aerial surveillance.
In the picture, it was impossible to discern the precise make and
model, but an army photo analyst had meticulously measured the
dimensions and matched it with a late-model Hyundai Tucson SUV.

After jotting notes on a PDA, Zabronski got
out of his car to pace back and forth impatiently. The sun was
nearly overhead, baking the desert floor. He was rolling his shirt
sleeves when Itamar drove up twenty-two minutes late, excusing his
tardiness with a complaint about traffic near Maale Adumim, an
eastern suburb of Jerusalem, caused by religious Jews demonstrating
against a government regulation curtailing the construction of
future housing. Itamar introduced Gabby as an American rabbi
working on a graduate degree in biblical studies whom he had
brought to help identify the Hyundai SUV.

Zabronski dipped his chin to take a closer
look over the top rim of his sunglasses, squinted, and cocked his
head to reveal that he had not expected a female rabbi and
certainly not one this attractive. His first English sentence
marked him as an immigrant from Brooklyn, alerting Gabby that,
while he wore a religious skullcap, he was probably unlike other
zealous American Jews who had taken up residence in the Holy City
for the sole purpose of talking directly to God. Zabronski struck
her as someone far more interested in talking with fellow Jews.

A few moments later, the major flashed his
identification card to a dark-skinned guard in a rumpled and
ill-worn police shirt who fumbled with a locking mechanism to a
five-meter high chain-link gate. The guard then pointed along rows
of sun-blistered cars and vans whose symmetry was occasionally
broken by a bus heavily caked in desert dust. After being locked
inside the compound, the trio marched down the rows of vehicles and
eventually found a baby blue Hyundai Tucson with tinted windows and
a partially open trunk hitched to the car's frame with packing
rope.

Despite his earlier inclination to dismiss
Bar Jehoshua's suspected link between the cave at Qumran and the
murdered Bedouin, Zabronski was now reconsidering. He opened the
driver's door to the SUV and knelt down to examine dirt on a rubber
floor mat, making a mental note to have it tested by his forensic
lab. "Have you seen this car before?" he asked Gabby.

The moment she set eyes on the vehicle, a
familiar tremor, commonly caused by anxiety, rippled through her
arms. In her professional life, she had learned to conceal this by
placing her hands into whatever pockets were handy. When nerves got
the better of her while speaking in public, she would plant her
palms firmly on a flat surface and press down until the tremor
passed. Fortunately, this morning she was wearing a khaki vest with
large side pockets. Her hands disappeared immediately beneath the
flaps.

The model, color, and damaged rear-end dashed
her hopes that the vehicle she had come to identify would not be
Tim's. But how could she deny it? The thought of protecting him
with a declaration that she didn't recognize this SUV flashed
through her mind. But she was too levelheaded to believe that such
a bald lie would hold up. She responded to Major Zabronski by
nodding yes, then quickly opened the driver's door to inspect the
dashboard. From that angle, the sun was blinding so she pulled the
door fully open and dropped into the front seat, her trembling
hands now clasping the steering wheel for support. Attached to the
sun visor was a paper clip Tim used for handwritten notes and
hanging from the rear-view mirror by a piece of yellow yarn, a
spent container of automobile disinfectant. An empty Ziploc bag
rested on the rubber floor mat in front of the passenger seat.

"How did it get here?" she asked Zabronski as
she hauled herself back up.

"A Palestinian tried to drive it across the
border into Jordan. Our people spotted fake registration
papers."

"Where did he steal it?"

"From a bad neighborhood in Bethlehem. The
thief claimed he got it from a third party and that he was only a
middleman. They always say that. Just wind'em up and out comes a
canned response. Now we're certain it belonged to Professor
Matternly."

"Where did the thief get a key?" asked
Gabby.

"There are more locksmiths in the West Bank
than bakers."

Gabby's nerves were beginning to calm. At
least now she understood why Tim's Hyundai wasn't parked in its
usual spot on the street outside their apartment. Without wheels,
he was probably somewhere nearby. Not in Haifa, his favorite
Israeli city, or in crowded, noisy, polluted Tel Aviv, which he
avoided whenever possible.

Itamar Arad, who had remained silent to let
Zabronski make the identification, said to Gabby, "This doesn't
look good for Tim Matternly. We know this vehicle was hidden in the
desert near Qumran at the time the looting occurred. His absence is
more suspicious than ever."

As she regained control over her initial
shock, she experienced a flush of determination to counter Arad's
summation. "I can see the direction of your thinking," she said
with a stern, uncompromising tone, but I know something about this
that you apparently don't."

"Why hold back?" Arad said.

"That whatever the apparent circumstances,
Tim Matternly stole nothing. I've known him for about twenty years
now. Rather intimately, I'm proud to state. And he wouldn't steal
anything because he's not now, nor never was, a thief."

Itamar respectfully pondered the conviction
with which Gabby spoke and decided not to argue. Instead, he
suggested that, since they had no more business in the desert where
it was becoming unbearably hot, that they return to Jerusalem and
talk more over lunch.

At Maale Adumim, en route to Jerusalem, Major
Zabronski used the siren on his police cruiser to lead Arad and
Gabby in the Antiquities Authority Toyota through a crowd of
Orthodox Jews in black frock coats and heavy fur Sabbath streimels
blocking the road. Placards deplored government restrictions on
further construction in the district, though the current building
codes in Maale Adumim were already generous by Jerusalem standards.
Outside the two vehicles, the angry demonstrators threatened with
their fists, occasionally slapping rotten eggs against the windows
to show their contempt for government officials, no matter that
neither the Border Police nor the Antiquities Authority had
anything to do with building permits. To help move through bodies
from the road, an armored police car plowed a path by gently
shoving the demonstrators aside.

An hour and a quarter later, in Café El Mundo off
Jaffa Road, Zabronski was already seated at a corner table when
Gabby and Itamar entered, a half-poured bottle of grapefruit juice
before him. After a few words in Hebrew about the unpleasant scene
on the road, the three slipped into their shared English mother
tongue. First things first: Gabby and Arad placed food orders at a
nearby counter then returned to Zabronski's table. The police
officer lowered his voice so that other diners could not overhear.
Speaking directly to Gabby, he said, "What I'm about to say will
upset you. Arad and I debated whether it was necessary, but
unfortunately there's no alternative. It's dangerous to keep you in
the dark about Professor Matternly."

Gabby paused, unfolding a paper napkin,
glanced at Arad then back to the police officer, who said, "Until
you identified that SUV, we weren't sure what Matternly was doing
out there in the desert."

"And you still don't," snapped Gabby. "A
stolen car doesn't make Tim into a cave robber."

Zabronski allowed the suggestion of a smile
to part his lips. He knew his skill at putting the right question
before a witness. "All right, Rabbi Lewyn, then perhaps you can
provide us with a plausible explanation for Matternly's presence
near Qumran at that critical moment. Maybe a special project that
he was working on?

Tim's e-mail came to her mind as she
struggled to formulate a credible reply. "His primary contribution
has been with the Dead Sea scrolls. I'm sure he would be interested
in any new discoveries. Perhaps he heard that something was brewing
there."

Zabronski appeared impatient and said, "It
seems many people learned about this before we did."

"I'm sorry, that's not my problem," Gabby
said. "I know this doesn't put Tim in a good light."

"I'm afraid it makes him a major suspect,"
Zabronski snapped in a harsher tone.

"I've already told you guys that I have no
idea where he is. He certainly hasn't returned to our
apartment."

"But he might in the future," the major said.
"There are things that a fugitive needs and can't get without
exposing himself."

"Like what?" she asked.
 "Something as
mundane as a toothbrush. If you don't have a toothbrush, you have
to buy one, and that takes money. A change of clothes, perhaps. You
can't live day in and day out in the same rags. Or how about
medications? Does Matternly take prescription drugs? They're not
easy to replace on the run."

She knew that an American cardiologist had
insisted Tim take Lipitor to lower his cholesterol. An orange
prescription bottle filled with white capsules was sitting on the
bathroom sink. Arguing to herself that this was a private matter,
which had no bearing on the cave at Qumran, she said nothing to the
policeman.

Zabronski stopped to accept a pita filled
with grilled chicken from a waiter who, in haste to serve other
tables, almost dropped it in his lap. Another pita sandwich went to
Itamar, and a plate of hummus and a small salad for Gabby, who
requested a glass of iced tea. Once the waiter left, Zabronski
followed up, "You'd be surprised what fugitives do. We don't know
how much money your friend has to purchase necessities. If he's in
Jerusalem, the easiest place to get what he needs is his
apartment."

Itamar placed a hand on Gabby's arm, saying,
"This makes you uncomfortable. We understand your desire to help
Tim, but it's imperative you understand how withholding information
will make you a conspirator. And now that you know something about
what Tim's been up to, you can't argue before a court of law that
you were an innocent bystander. If you were married to Dr.
Matternly, you'd have some built-in immunity. But not as an
unmarried woman."