Virgin (22 page)

Dan seemed to
have had a change of heart overnight. Last
night
he'd been dead set against her plan to bring the Virgin back to New York, yet
this morning he seemed all for it. But not because he'd suddenly become a
believer in the authenticity of their discovery. He was still locked into his
Doubting Thomas role.

The Virgin's
unnatural lightness and rigidity, plus Dan's continuing doubts, only fanned her
desire to move the Virgin to a safer hiding place. Even if she fell into the
hands of people with the best intentions, they'd want to examine her, test her
to verify her authenticity. They'd scan her, take samples of her hair, skin
scrapings, biopsy her, maybe even--God forbid--autopsy her.

No way, Carrie
thought as she folded the blankets over the Virgin, wrapping her rigid form in
multiple flannel layers.
No way.

Dan helped her
tie the blankets in place with the heavy twine they'd bought in En Gedi. They
tied her around the shoulders, waist, thighs, and knees. With Carrie leading
the way, slipping through the little tunnel first and guiding their precious
bundle after her, they moved the Virgin into the front chamber, then through
the opening at the top of the cave mouth onto the rock pile.

Squinting in the brightness of the midmorning sun, they carried
her to the far edge of the mini-plateau atop the
tav.

"I didn't
realize she was this light," Dan said, "and that gives me an idea on
how we can increase our safety factor here."

"Who's
safety?"

"Our
prize's."

Carrie couldn't
get over the change in Dan's attitude.

"I'm all
ears," she said.

Dan's voice
echoed down from atop the
tav
rock.

"Ready?"

Carrie shielded
her eyes with her hand and looked up. Dan was a silhouette against the bright
blue of the sky, standing on the
tav's
overhang thousands of feet
directly above, waving to her. She answered with a broad wave of her own.

"Go
ahead!"

As Carrie saw
the snugly tied-and-wrapped bundle slip over the edge of the lip and start its
slow descent toward her, she became unaccountably afraid. Everything was set--
she'd moved the Explorer under the lip just as Dan had suggested, and here she
was, ready to guide the Virgin into the vehicle when she was lowered to within
reach--but she could not escape the feeling that something was about to go
wrong.

She should have
stayed up top with Dan. Two sets of hands up there were better than one.
He'd tied the heavier rope to the cords around the
Virgin while she'd made her way to the bottom. What if he hadn't tied the knots
securely enough? What if the rope slipped out of his hands as he was lowering
her?

What if he
dropped her on purpose, hoping she'd smash into a thousand pieces to prove that
he'd been right all along?

Carrie reigned
in her stampeding thoughts. How could she even think such a thing? She was sure
it hadn't crossed Dan's mind.

Then why had it
crossed hers?

Maybe she was
losing perspective. It was the heat, the distance from home, the isolation of
the desert ... it was the epiphany of standing before the Mother of God and
then cradling her remains in her arms.

So much had
happened in the past twenty-four hours and the cumulative effect was . . .
overwhelming.

She shook
herself and concentrated on the blue of the descending bundle, twisting and
swaying on its slowly lengthening tether. Dan was out of sight beyond the lip.
She lifted her arms, waiting. Soon it was just above her, and then she had a
grip on two of the binding cords. As it continued its descent she swung it
around and guided it feet first toward the open rear door of the Explorer.

And then it was done. The Virgin was off the
tav
and
safely at rest in the back of their car.

Dan must have noticed the sudden slack. His voice drifted down
from overhead.

"Everything
okay down there?"

She waved without looking up. Her eyes were fixed on the
blanket-wrapped bundle lying before her. She still didn't know what she'd do
with the Virgin once she got her to New York; she simply knew she had to keep
her near.

She spoke
softly. "Perfect."

"Heads
up!" Dan called from above.

She glanced up
and saw the remaining length of the rope stretched out in the air, coiling like
a collapsing spring as it fell to earth.

"I'm on my
way," he said.

Fifteen minutes
later he arrived, lugging the lamp and the flashlights. He quickly unloaded
them into the back of the Explorer.

Carrie said,
"What about the rope?"

"We'll
leave it. Can't fly it back to the States anyway."

"How about
that other cave? Didn't you say you wanted to take a look in it before we
leave?"

He stared
across the canyon a moment, then shook his head.

"Maybe
some other time."

"Other
time? When will there be another time?"

"Probably
never. But I think I've had enough of this place for now. I'd like to be out of
here."

Carrie nodded.
She had the same feeling. She didn't know why, but she had an urge to put this
place behind them as quickly as possible.

As Kesev
cruised down Route 90 he saw a black, truck-like vehicle pull onto the highway
about half a mile ahead and accelerate toward him in the northbound lane. No
roads around here, at least nothing paved. Whoever was driving must have been
roaming the hills and desert. Nothing unusual about that. Off-road exploring
was popular with tourists these days, which was why the rental companies in the
Central and South districts did such a brisk business in four-wheel-drive
vehicles. But what bothered Kesev was
where
the truck had come onto the
highway.

Right where
Kesev always turned off.

He gave it a
good going over as it passed: black Ford Explorer, dust caked, man driving,
woman in the rear seat, Eldan Rent-A-Car sticker on the back bumper. He made a
mental note of the license plate.

When he made
his usual turnoff and saw the still settling dust trailing west toward the
hills, he stopped his Jeep and jotted the license plate number in the notepad
he always carried.

Just in case.

Then he gunned
the Jeep toward the uplands.

He had a bad
feeling about this.

That bad
feeling worsened as he spotted patches of rutted earth and tire tracks here and
there along the path toward the Resting Place. Never, in all the times he'd
been back and forth, had he encountered a single tire track this far into the
Wilderness. Not even his own from previous trips.
Sharav,
the incessant
desert wind, saw to that, scouring the land clean of all traces of human
passage, usually overnight.

Which meant
these were fresh tracks. But who'd made them? The couple in that Explorer? Or
somebody else-- somebody who even now might be desecrating the Resting Place.

Despite the
Jeep's efficient air-conditioning, Kesev began to sweat. He upped his speed
past the safety limit into the reckless zone. He didn't care. Something was
wrong here.

He ground his
teeth and cursed himself for not leaving last night.

Finally the
tav
rock hove into view. No other vehicle in sight, but that brought no
relief--he was following a double set of tire tracks. Two vehicles? Or a single
vehicle arriving and departing?

He swung around
the front of the
tav
and let out a low moan as he spotted the lengthy
coil of rope tangled under the overhang.

"Lord in
Heaven," he whispered, "don't let this be!
Please
don't let
this be!"

Fear knotted
around his heart as he gunned the Jeep into the canyon and slowed to a halt at
the base of the path to the
top. Without
bothering to turn off the engine, he leapt out and scampered up the ledge as
fast as he dared, muttering and crying out as he climbed.

"Never
should have left here!" . . .
Please, God! Let her still be there! . .
.
"What was I thinking?" . . .
Dear Lord, if she is still
there I swear I will never leave this place again. Not even for food! . . .
"Should
have moved back after the scroll was stolen, should have foreseen this!" .
. .
Please hear me, Lord, and have mercy on a fool!

The instant
Kesev's head cleared the top of the plateau, his eyes darted to the mouth of
the Resting Place. At first glance the barricade of rocks appeared undisturbed
and he slumped forward onto the ledge, gasping, nearly sobbing in relief. But
as he rose to his feet to send up a fervent prayer of thanks, he spotted the
dark crescent atop the barricade--an opening into the Resting Place. The sight
of it drove a blade of panic into his throat. "No!"

He broke into a
dead run, clambered up the rocks, and all but dived headfirst into the opening.
Enough light streamed through the opening to guide his way to the tunnel. He
scrambled through to the second chamber. Stygian darkness here. Kesev's heart
was a mailed fist pounding against the inner wall of his ribs as he felt his
way across the chamber to the niche where the Mother's bier had been set. His
fingers found the edge, then hesitated of their own accord, as if afraid to
proceed any further, afraid to find the niche empty.

He forced them
forward--

Empty!

"No!"

Sobbing, he
dropped to his knees and crawled around on the stone floor, running his hands
over every inch of its craggy surface, choking in the clouds of dust he raised,
all in the futile hope that she might still be here.

But she was
not. The Mother was gone. The Resting Place had been vandalized and the Mother
stolen.

Tearing at his
beard, Kesev staggered to his feet and
screamed
as the blackness surrounding him seeped into his despairing soul.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"

For an eternal
moment he stood there, impotent, utterly lost, devoid of the most tenuous hope,
frozen, incapable of thought . . .

And then he
remembered the car he'd seen turning onto Route 90 earlier . . . the black
Explorer.

Maybe it wasn't
too late. Maybe there was still a chance. He had no honor to salvage, and no
hope of redemption, but if he could retrieve the Mother and return her to the
Resting Place, he could continue his task as her guardian.

Hope . . . like
a cold spring bubbling up in the heart of a desert . . . but he dared do little
more than wet his lips.

All the way
back to the highway, Kesev fixed the image of the Explorer in his mind, trying
to remember whatever details he could about the driver and passenger. They'd
been shadows, identifiable as male and female and little more. When he
screeched onto Route 90 again, he floored the accelerator, pushing the Jeep to
150 kilometers an hour in the open stretches, ready to flash his Shin Bet ID at
any highway cop who tried to slow him down.

He found a
public phone on the outskirts of Jerusalem and learned from information that
Eldan had a car rental office in the Jerusalem Hilton.

Hoped edged a
trifle higher.

He located the
Eldan desk in the spacious lobby of the tower portion of the Hilton. The pert
brunette there wore a name tag that said
chaya
in English. Kesev made sure she was properly impressed by his Shin Bet
ID, then he handed her the sheet from his notepad with the number of the
Explorer's license plate.

"Did you
rent a Ford Explorer with this plate out of here?"

"Explorer,
you say?" She tapped a few instructions into the terminal before her. A
few beeps later, Chaya smiled. "Yes, sir. To an American. Carolyn Ferris.
Out of New York."

What luck!
Found them on the first try. Then again, if you were going to explore the area
around the Dead Sea, Jerusalem was the ideal base.

"Have they returned the car yet?"

She shook her
head. "Not yet."