The Moses Legacy (26 page)

‘You have to send me in there,' Sarit told Dovi.

‘Send you in where? You think he's hanging around waiting to be arrested? He's got whatever he came for.'

‘Let me go to Holon. I can help the police. Give them a description.'

‘They've already got descriptions.'

‘Well, at least let me work with them.'

‘They don't need you. Look, they now know what he looks like and a big man like that is going to find it very hard to hide.'

‘He's managed to stay hidden till now.'

‘The Egyptians actually had him and then they let him go when Senator Morris intervened.'

‘And now he's somehow managed to enter Israel. That makes it personal.'

‘That's what I'm worried about, Sarit: you making it personal. He's already survived an attack by you and he knows what you look like.'

‘And by the same token, I know what
he
looks like.'

‘As long as he's in Israel it's in the hands of the General Security Services.'

‘What – that bunch of clowns? If they were doing their job, they'd've arrested Goliath as soon as he crossed the border. How did he even get in?'

‘We don't know that yet.'

‘And what identity is he using?'

‘We don't know that either.'

‘So let me get this straight. Some guy who's six foot five tall, who we're looking out for specifically, enters the country undetected, gives the GSS the slip, kills a prominent Samaritan rabbi and then vanishes without leaving a trail?'

‘He's evidently a lot smarter than we thought.'

‘And what about the senator?'

‘What about him?'

‘Can't we get anything from the phone intercepts?'

‘Goliath must have a new phone and we haven't identified it yet. We're working on it.'

‘What about the senator?'

‘We can't monitor him with a US-based intercept 'cause it's against Federal law.'

‘Do we care? It hasn't been sanctioned by the PM. If we get caught, there could be a whole lot of fallout.'

‘It's a matter of life and death!'

‘We have to work within our means.'

‘So how did we monitor Morris until now?'

‘That's why we need assets like Audrey Milne. When he called Egypt, we could monitor locally from Urim. It seems like Goliath is a whole lot more resourceful than we gave him credit for.'

‘So all the more reason for me to get in on the act. At least I know what he looks like.'

‘But you're no better placed than the security services to track him down. In fact, rather less so.'

‘Look, I know this is painful,' said Daniel. ‘If you want me to stop, I will.' He understood how difficult it must be for these serious men of religion to find their sacred truths contradicted by a text more ancient than the Bible; their patriarch exposed as an incestuous adulterer and a murderer who betrayed his own daughter.

The high priest refused to succumb to the pain. ‘No… please continue.'

Daniel looked down and again struggled with the text as he continued.

‘Is that new?' asked Daniel. ‘Or more of what we already know?'

‘A mixture,' said Gabrielle cautiously.

‘But why didn't Horemheb simply tell
Akhenaten
about the murder of King Tut's mother? Why this elaborate, roundabout response?'

Gabrielle had to think about this.

‘Well, we do know that from the twelfth year of Akhenaten's reign, Egypt was in turmoil. They stopped building in Amarna and Egypt was economically strapped. Their new enemy, the Hittites, were becoming more powerful. And Akhenaten may not have had all his marbles. From what it said earlier in the papyrus, Nefertiti was ruling as co-regent. Although co-regencies were quite common in ancient Egypt at that time, it was rare for it to be with a woman. Not unprecedented, but rare. It was more likely to be with a son, in order to prepare him for leadership. If he ruled with Nefertiti as co-regent, instead of waiting for his son to get older, that could suggest that he was no longer able to rule by himself. Maybe the death of his beloved wife/sister affected his mind in some way.'

‘That's logical,' said Daniel.

He looked at the high priest to see if he wanted to add anything. The high priest nodded towards the papyrus, making it clear that all he wanted to do was get this over with. He could have told them to stop, but it was clear that he had no intention of running away from the truth. He would go wherever the truth took him. Daniel continued.

Daniel looked at Gabrielle. ‘That was at the other tomb, right? The Amarna tomb, not the one we were locked in.'

‘That's right.'

‘And
was
it erased? The Great Hymn to Aten, I mean.'

‘Parts of it were chiselled out. Let's talk about it later. Carry on.'

‘Now we're getting to things that are quite familiar,' said Daniel.

‘Very familiar,' Gabrielle agreed. ‘The counter-revolution, the abandonment of Akhetaten, the restoration of the Amun priests in Luxor. And that was only the beginning.'

‘Which bus do I need for the Hebrew University?' Goliath asked a random Israeli as he stepped out of the central bus station in Jerusalem.

‘What campus you want?' asked the Israeli in broken English. ‘Givat Ram or Mount Scopus?'

‘I don't know. The one with the library.'

‘They both have library.'

‘I mean the National Library.'

‘Ah, you want Givat Ram. It's near here. You need number nine.'

And with that, Goliath was abandoned and left to wait for the bus. When it arrived at the university it made a sweep round the car park before coming to a stop in a forecourt outside the gates and everyone poured out of the bus.

He had to pass through a cursory security check, but they were only looking for weapons and no one checked his identity. Once inside the campus, he asked the way to the National Library. He was told that it was at the end of the long row of buildings to his right. He walked in the shade, instead of on the grass to the left, and all the while he was thinking about how he was going to do this. How would they react? How good was the security? Was he going to kill them all?

‘Maybe we should wait until they come back,' said Daniel.

He sensed that the high priest was letting him continue, maintaining a stoic bearing even in the face of what must have been the most horrendous revelations in his eyes. But the fact that this old man had to face it on his own somehow made it all the worse. Here was a man who had devoted all his life to a belief system – already having confronted many who denied his people's history and their suffering.

Yet now he was having to face an attack on his ancestral history from a different perspective. Instead of the long-standing Jewish denial that his people were true Israelites, he found himself confronted by evidence that the ancestors of the Israelites were not as good a people as their self-penned history had implied.

And it was the ancestors of the Samaritans in particular who were being singled out. Not Judah, from whom the Jews claim descent, but rather Joseph and Ephraim. Moreover, whilst Joseph was being portrayed as a forerunner to the modern-day political spin doctor, Ephraim was being portrayed as a Machiavellian schemer who resorted to murder to get his way, and who was ready to sacrifice his own daughter to save his own miserable skin.

Strictly speaking, this did not impact directly on the
Samaritan
priests
, because they were a separate branch who officially descended from the tribe of Levi. But this thought gave neither the high priest nor Daniel any comfort. Indeed, what made it worse, in Daniel's eyes, was that he had become the agent of this revelation. Circumstances had caused him to be the one who was inflicting this mental anguish on this kind and gentle man who had agreed to share the innermost secrets of his ancient sect with this outsider. Daniel felt as if he was betraying a sacred trust by revealing these awful secrets.

True, he hadn't known when he set out on this venture what these ancient texts would reveal, and as a man of the ivory tower of academia, his ultimate duty was to the truth. And now he had already told the priest the painful facts, as recorded in this papyrus. He could not take it back. Perhaps if he had translated it in writing first and then had to decide whether or not to reveal it, he would have acted differently. But now it was too late.

‘I don't think either of them are ready to hear the rest just yet,' said the elder.

‘Then maybe I should just stop.'

‘No!'

The interruption was Gabrielle's. He could see the look in her eyes: the academic fervour and thirst for knowledge. To him, the ultimate duty to the truth was a painful reality that as a scholar he had to accept. To her it was a passion – a bludgeon to beat down the wishful thinker or a steamroller to drive over the sceptic.

A final glance at the priest… a final nod from the priest… told Daniel to continue.

‘That's all pretty much well documented,' said Gabrielle. ‘Apart from the actual blood relationships, which has always been a bone of contention between scholars.'

‘Holy shit!'

‘What is it?' Gabrielle said, realizing that Daniel was responding not to what she had said but to what he had just read.

‘The… the next bit—'

‘What does it
say
?' asked Gabrielle impatiently.

It was just five simple words. But they had as devastating an effect on Gabrielle and the priest as they did on Daniel. Because they echoed some of the most ominous words in the Bible:

It was a portent to the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt. They had encouraged and supported monotheism and now that it was completely rejected by the new pharaoh, they were going to pay the price in sweat and toil – as slaves to the Egyptians. They had been loyal to the pharaohs who came before Horemheb, but all of that was forgotten. They were tainted by being associated with the wrong side. Now, with a change of regime and a change of policy, they were to be perceived as the enemy.

Gabrielle looked at Daniel; Daniel and the priest looked at each other.

But before anyone could speak, the door swung open and a tall and powerful man burst into the room. Daniel recognized him immediately. It was the man from the aeroplane.

Sarit never had been one for following orders. Besides, Dov hadn't actually
ordered
her not to interfere. He simply hadn't authorized specific action. He hadn't told her
not
to go to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Indeed, there was no reason at all why she shouldn't go there. It was a public place and the National Library, subject to certain security procedures, was a public building. So she wasn't actually disobeying orders in going there.

She had driven there as soon as her conversation with Dov had ended – she didn't want to waste any time. But she didn't have a university pass, so she would have to park outside the campus and walk in. That would take a little longer.

She wasn't really sure why she was doing this. Presumably they would phone the university to warn them if they thought there was any danger of Goliath turning up. Also Dov had told her that there was an armed guard with them in the lab. But how quickly could an armed guard respond? After all, the corridors of the National Library were full of unarmed civilians. Could an armed guard with a pistol in a holster respond quickly enough to a man like Goliath, and without harming any innocent passers-by?

And what did Goliath and the New Covenant actually
want? If it was what Dov thought it was then it was not to be found at the Hebrew University. It would be somewhere in Jordan. Perhaps he thought that the manuscript would give him the precise location?

No, that doesn't make sense!

If the information he needed was in the translation of
The Book of the Straight
then Senator Morris could have already given it to him based on Carmichael's translation.

But maybe the translation was incomplete? Maybe there were gaps that needed to be filled? Maybe they were waiting for Daniel's translation to put in place the last piece that would help them find the exact location?

Or maybe Goliath was still convinced that he needed a sample of their clothes, unaware that that approach was now obsolete.