Jenna Vaas had rented the same small, third-story walk-up since she’d started her doctoral studies three years ago. In that time only four people had ever knocked on her door; her father, her landlord, and two Mormon missionaries. None had called on her at 7:30 in the morning. For a moment she just stared at the door, her half-awake mind wondering if she’d just imagined it. Two heartbeats later, another knock confirmed the first.
“Hello..?.” she asked, making no move toward the door.
“Miss Vass?” a voice came from the other side. It was male, decidedly young. “Miss Vass, I’m sorry but I’ve been sent by Professor Hayes to get you. He said it was vitally important.” A brief silence, then, feebly; “I have a note…”
Jenna sighed. She had over an hour before she was to give a lecture on the Second Temple Era. If Professor Hayes was sending an undergrad to get her early, it could only mean one thing: She’d be covering the old man’s classes again this week. It boded poorly for the rest of the term.
She opened the door just as the freshman started to knock again. Had she been more awake she might actually have chuckled as the boy’s hand hit thin air on the third rap. Instead, Jenna turned and headed for the bathroom, leaving her morning messenger staring at the now-open door.
“Let me guess…” she said over her shoulder. “Hayes is taking another of his famous week-long sabbaticals?” She reached the bathroom before the boy had a chance to reply, but he tried anyway.
“There’s no classes so… no.” the boy said from the doorway. “But with everything happening I think Professor Hayes needs you there.”
Jenna heard none of this above the din of the toothbrush and running water.
“I’m gonna be a couple minutes.” she called from the bathroom. “You might as well come in and wait.”
The boy obliged, closing the door behind him. Finding a stool next to the island, he sat, waiting patiently. He could hear the sounds of various cases opening and closing in the bathroom. When her foot appeared in the doorway he briefly stood up, but relaxed when he saw it stretch out, catch the corner of the door, and push it closed. For the next few seconds he stared intently at the plastic cat figurine on the fridge as the unmistakable sound of her peeing filled the small apartment. There were other, nondescript noises; the toilet flushing, then the bathroom door burst open. The boy sat bolt upright.
Jenna had transformed from bed-head to beauty in less than ten minutes. The freshman couldn’t help but appreciate both the clothes and the form they covered. He guessed her to be about 5’6”, maybe 120 pounds. Her legs and waist were thin but proportioned. She was older, but definitely worth looking at. His guess was that she was over thirty, though her breasts still looked firm. There was no sign of gravity hav—
He realized she was watching him.
His face flushed crimson as he jumped from the stool, pulling an envelope from his back pocket. He brandished it toward her as the first, best distraction he could find.
“I was supposed to give you this right away but you were… you were busy.” he said. Jenna took the envelope, ignoring the boy’s embarrassment.
She had assumed that the early-morning communiqué would be a list of additional classes she was going to have to teach. Instead, she found that it contained a single page, scrawled in Professor Hayes’ own handwriting. No letterhead, no salutation.
The note simply read:
Jenna:
Pack a small carry-on bag of light clothing. Your passport is on file at the registrar, and I have taken the liberty of having it sent to my office. It will be with me when you arrive.
Note that I have expedited your doctorate program. As of this morning you are a fully credited Ph. D. I only wish it were under better circumstances. We leave at 10 am sharp.
~Regards, W. Hayes
She read the note twice, but it didn’t help. She could, of course, just phone the office. But that would mean having to navigate through receptionist to get to Hayes. Whatever the situation, if was not dire enough to spur her into an early morning conversation with
*****
Her morning herald walked her as far as the cab, then bowed out as graciously as he could.
As she sped toward the university, Jenna was imagining every possible explanation to fit the facts, but kept coming up short. Hayes was just not the type to send cryptic messages. He was friendly, even jovial at times, but he was also one of the most respected men in his field. The religion department received most of their grant money simply by having him tenured there. The idea of him scribbling a note for some freshman to bring to her first thing in the morning was, at best, out of character. The fact that the note promised her a Ph.D. without defending it in front of the committee was absurd. That was the word that kept coming back to her… ‘absurd’. No matter what she came up with, nothing fit the facts.
By the time the cab turned onto the verdant lane leading to Theology Hall, she had all but given up trying to figure it out. Whatever it was, she would know in mere minutes when she got to Hayes’ office. In the meantime, she sat staring at the small overnight bag she carried. It hadn’t been used for two years, since she’d broken up with Jim. Back then, it was the perfect size to carry the bare essentials for a night’s tryst; toothbrush, a change of underwear, and a clean towel. (She had had precious few lovers in her life, but had learned that if a woman wanted clean towels, she had best import them.)
It was the bag that prompted her next thought; a sudden, inescapable panic that flooded her mind: Sex. Until just this second she had assumed that whatever reason Hayes had for sending the note was professional. But what if the note had been an invitation? “Pack only a small carry-on bag of light clothing” it had said. The words suddenly jumped off the page at her, a more sinister interpretation now seeming to make sense of it all. She had done it. She was arriving (in a cab of all things) with her overnight bag in hand, ready to barter for an early Ph.D. It all fit.
“That’s $6.50,
Breathing deep, she very deliberately pulled a ten-dollar bill from her pocket, handed it to the driver, and waited for change. She might be right. Hayes might be trying something on her and, until she stepped out of this cab, she might have been falling for it. But she was not going to be cowed into running away. Despite whatever he may have in mind, she was going to be professional and disciplined.
Besides, she thought to herself, It’s been two years. The old guy might be biting off more than he can chew.
This last thought both surprised and amused her.
“I guess you guys are gonna be busy.” the cabbie said as he handed her the change. She took it and got without comment, lost as she was in her own thoughts. The cab was halfway down the lane before the driver’s words finally registered in her mind.
“Busy?” she said aloud. “When is a theology department ever ‘busy’?”
*****
Jenna was in the building and up two flights of stairs before she realized that something was definitely wrong. It wasn’t until she passed room 302 (where she was supposed to be giving a lecture in half an hour) that it occurred to her what it was. The place was deserted. At this time of day there should have been dozens of students wandering about. Instead, she was passing empty classrooms, empty hallways, and (most disturbing) an empty student lounge. She couldn’t remember a time, day or night, when the lounge hadn’t been full of students using it as an unofficial study hall, kitchen, and crash pad.
She had every intention of going to see Hayes directly, but regardless of what was happening she felt a quick stop at her own office was required. Unlocking the door, she dropped the overnight bag into the darkness. Free of it, closed the office door behind her, making her way past the chapel to the Administration Office. As she approached, she heard the first sounds of life since entering the building:
“The dean called to say that the entire endowment fund is available if you need it.”
“You know it’s big when the dean opens the purse straps.” Hayes’ voice replied.
“Be that as it may, the money is there if you need it.”
“I don’t.” Hayes said coldly. “If this all goes as planned, the admin are going to have more grant money than they know what to do with. If it doesn’t…”
“If it doesn’t, you don’t want to owe your ass to a bunch of bureaucrats.”
“I wouldn’t have put it quite that succinctly, but I think you’ve summed it up rather well.” Hayes continued.
“I try.”
“Energy.” Hayes’ voice droned.
“Just put a new pot on. Should be ready in about five minutes if you can live that long.”
“I’ll do my best.” he said.
A second too late Jenna realized that
“Seems your protégé is here.” she shouted back to Hayes. “Shall I send her in?”
“Dear God, yes.” Hayes called back “Somebody’s going to have to pour the coffee.”
*****
Entering the office Jenna was struck by two equally bizarre images.
The first was Hayes himself. Though he was in his mid-sixties, he had always carried his 6’1” frame with strength and vigor. Now, slumped in a black swivel chair, he looked like an old man in a nursing home. Dark circles had appeared under his eyes. A day’s growth of beard was coming in white and bushy beneath pursed lips. His suit jacket was strewn across the coffee table, a red double-Windsor hung loosely around a bust of Galileo.
The second thing that struck Jenna was that Hayes was not alone. There were two men seated on the sofa across from him. Both were about 30 years old, in good shape, with brown hair and eyes. They might have been dismissed as grad students were it not for the semi- automatic weapons slung over their shoulders. It was the weapons that held Jenna’s attention.
“Yes they are real. No, they are not to be worried about.” Hayes said simply.
“Now that I did not expect.” Jenna said, her attention still locked on the weapons.
“I’m afraid we have a lot to cover and very little time to do so.” Hayes said. “How much do you know of what’s happened?”
Jenna broke her stare to address Hayes. “I know that one of your students showed up at my house with a note telling me I had my Ph. D. I know I’m supposed to go somewhere with you. I also know that my classes seem to be canceled, and there are two guys with guns sitting in the admin office. So if it’s not too much trouble, I’d really like to have some of this make sense now.” She was talking faster than she intended, suddenly aware that there was more than just anger behind her words.
“Canceling classes was not my idea. The dean made the decision that a World Religions Department isn’t the safest place this week. The rest of the university is business as usual, but Theology Hall is going to remain on hiatus until things calm down.” Hayes said.
“What ‘things’…” Jenna demanded, her voice suddenly sounding more girlish than she’d ever wanted it to. “I got your message to get here as soon as possible, and I did. Why?”
With a resigned look of pain Hayes pushed himself from up the chair, his joints popping as he rose.
“Follow
*****
Five minutes later Hayes was seated in the ancient leather chair behind his desk, coffee in hand. Opposite him, on the far-less-comfortable metal chair, Jenna watched as her mentor added copious amounts of sugar to his cup.
“You need to get cable.” he said, clicking the remote control for the small television in the far corner of the office. Jenna ignored it.
“What makes you think I don’t have cable?” she asked.
“If you did, you’d have been in here hours ago and you wouldn’t be asking a very old, very tired professor to bring you up to date.”
“I hardly think...”
“Ah there it is...” Hayes said, finding the news station. “You watch. I drink coffee.”
Jenna turned her attention to the screen. A reporter was in the foreground of what looked like ruins of some sort. The mute was on, and she struggled to read the captions that flew by above the ticker.
“Oh... sorry. I usually keep the noise off. It gets damned annoying hearing the same thing over and over. Here…” Hayes said, un-muting it. Immediately the reporter’s voice filled the room with patented gravitas.
“What we know at the moment is that just after midnight our time a group called the Temple Mount Faithful brought the Cornerstone of their New Temple to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.” the reporter was saying.
“They do that every year on Tisha b'Av.” Jenna remarked to Hayes. He merely pointed her back toward the television.
The reporter continued: “We know that there have been confrontations between Jews and Muslims during these stone ceremonies before…”
“Aw geez…” Jenna said, the possible ramifications immediately obvious to her.
“Witnesses claim that a group overtook the ceremonies. The Temple Mount Faithful have decried any foreknowledge of the incident, claiming that their rabbis were just as surprised as anyone else when the throng descended.”
“They brought the stone into the
“Israeli militia units were dispatched to bring the crowd under control, but the attackers had breached the Al Aqsa Mosque before the military arrived.”
Jenna sat motionless. The Al Aqsa Mosque sits at the entrance to the Shrine of the Golden Dome, a monument to Islam’s claim over the
“Preliminary reports estimate that over two hundred have been killed or wounded.” the reporter continued.
“I understand that none of the surviving Al Aqsa guards have in fact been harmed?” the anchor’s voice said.
“No, Dan, none at all. When the insurgents overtook the Mount, the Muslims—including Imam Ali of the Al Aqsa Mosque— were released virtually unharmed.”
“They seem to be awfully nice terrorists…” Jenna muttered.
“It gets stranger, trust me.” Hayes added.
“Currently
“
As if in answer, the correspondent’s face returned. “The attackers have vowed that they are only interested in holding the Mount for one week.” the correspondent continued. “Afterwards, they claim they will surrender without incident. The League of Arab Nations is—” The word MUTE appeared in green letters across the face of the correspondent as he attempted to expound on the situation.
“They’re expecting to anoint a new king of
“Precisely.” Hayes responded.
“And they figure that news of a new messiah would solidify Israeli opposition before the week is up.” Jenna said, mulling implications.
“That’s the best guess.” Hayes said.
A light went on for Jenna. The details were still fuzzy, but she could finally begin to understand why she had been called in. Her thesis (and the focus of all her research for the last five years) had been on the restoration of the Israeli crown. She probably knew more about the line of Kings and the laws governing them than most rabbis.
“Are we to assume that they are abiding by Judaic law?” she asked.
“We have no idea who’s in charge, or what they believe. But we do know that they seem to be following the Judaic traditions to the letter.”
“Which means they are not looking for the return of a Jesus character. They’re looking for the arrival of a new Israeli king.” she said. “It’s pretty much impossible. Actually, it is impossible.”
“Why impossible?” Hayes asked, donning his mentor demeanor.
“According to the Torah, Yahweh gave the power to the prophets to find and anoint a new king. This is where we get the name messiah… it means ‘Anointed One’… the person anointed by the prophet to be the new king of
“I think we can assume that they believe they have one.” Hayes said.
“OK... Assuming they have a prophet, and assuming he found someone that he recognized as the new king, he would still have to anoint the king’s forehead with the Holy Oil of Anointing. It can’t be done. The oil was lost in the Jewish Revolt of 70AD.”
“Except…” said Hayes.
“Except what? They just happen to have a two-thousand-year-old bottle of Holy Oil of Anointing?”
“Pretty much.” Hayes said.
“Sorry, but it’s not possible.” she contended.
“You’re aware of
“Where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. I did an undergraduate paper on them, re-translating the texts.”
“I know I read it. But it’s the history, not the translation of the texts that’s important here.”
“The history is pretty straightforward. They were discovered in ‘57. Most of the texts were written by Essenic Jews, but just before the revolt the other sects sent their documents to
“And among the texts that were not Essenic was the Copper Scroll.” Hayes said.
Jenna nodded her head. “The Copper Scroll is just a laundry list of items— gold and silver mostly— things that were hidden around
“It’s a pesher.” Hayes said solemnly.
Had anyone but Hayes made such a suggestion she would have laughed out loud. As it was, she could only stare at the man in silence, waiting for him to make sense of a senseless statement. Many of the documents unearthed in
“If there’s a pesher in the Copper Scroll, it’s the best one ever.” she said finally.
The edge of Hayes’ lips threatened a smile, but he suppressed it. “It was discovered in the late 1970s.” he explained. “It’s based loosely on a thematic pesher, but far more clever. The authors were not trying to hide the information behind a storyline or a code. They were hiding a secret within the scroll itself.”
“I’ve been all through it.” Jenna said. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this, but I’d stake my reputation that there is simply no pesher there.”
“The Pharisees who wrote the Copper Scroll were trying to hide their most valuable items.” Hayes said. “
“There’s been a lot of speculation about that.” Jenna said. “Why devout Jews would have included random Greek letters on such an important document. It points to something, but I could never figure out what.”
“The Greek was only superficial; a way to hide the real information. It wasn’t until the key to the pesher was found among fragments in the
“Literally?” Jenna asked.
“Out of the hundreds of scrolls and parchments found in
“It’s always been assumed that they wanted this scroll to last.” Jenna said.
“Have you ever seen this done anywhere else? Using copper as a scroll to record a list for safekeeping?”
Jenna thought about it for a moment. She hadn’t.
“The pesher is not in the words or the Greek lettering. It’s in the copper itself.” Hayes continued. “Most peshers require an added letter or sequence of letters to be placed in the text at the appropriate place. Vermes and others working on the scrolls assumed that the Greek was merely a transliteration of a pesher key … a code that would show where the additions were supposed to go. As it turned out, the Greek letters were simply the author’s way of telling us where the hidden information was.”
“And the water and wine?” Jenna asked.
“Bitter water, bitter wine.” Hayes stressed. “That was one of the most clever aspects of this whole mystery… they made the pesher so obvious that everyone missed it. In fact, when it was posited, the professor in question was ridiculed for it.”
“That professor being…?” Jenna asked, a sudden suspicion in her voice.
“Me.” Hayes admitted.
“No offense, but you don’t seem to be the hands-on, mystery-solving type.”
“I was young and ambitious once upon a time.” Hayes explained. “Fresh out of
“That’s a rather prestigious job for someone who’d just gotten their PhD.” Jenna observed.
“Not by 1971 it wasn’t. The bulk of the find was unearthed in 1957. The scriptorium was discovered a few years later. By 1971 the vast majority of the scrolls had already been removed, and we were dealing with fragments sifted out of sand. No one was likely to make a career based on fragments.”
“But you did?”
Hayes smiled. “Seems odd to me all these years later, but I guess I did. It certainly opened doors that would never have been opened otherwise.”
“And the ‘bitter water’?”
“The literal water sitting next to where the scroll was buried; the
“A mulled wine?” Jenna guessed.
“Vinegar” Hayes corrected. “I’d worked out the basic idea back at
“A cleaning solution?” Jenna mused.
“It’s basically a mild acid wash. It turns out that mixing saltwater with vinegar creates sodium acetate and hydrogen chloride. Try it on an old penny sometime.” Hayes explained.
“You wanted to acid wash one of the oldest scrolls in existence?” Jenna choked.
“Basically, yes. But it took year and a half to get anyone to listen to me. By then, most of the initial excitement of the scrolls had died down, so there was more access to the people in charge of the project. I expounded my theory to dozens of scholars before the first of them started to consider the possibility that there might be something to it.”
“And they allowed you to use an acid wash on the Copper Scroll?” Jenna reiterated.
“Me? No. I was a peon at the time. But my theory was intriguing enough that someone along the line thought it was worth investigating. I wasn’t there when they made the initial tests, but I was told within days that they had found something using the technique. I was later informed that the pesher letters had actually been imprinted in Hebrew under the Greek, then covered in a thin alloy that was buffed to resemble copper. The acid stripped the alloy, revealing the full pesher.”
“Why haven’t I seen this?” Jenna asked.
“The resulting pesher gave the locations of the most holy artifacts in Israeli history— relics that people like the Temple Mount Faithful would be willing to go to war over.
“And you? You were never credited with the find?”
“I was given credit by those who knew of it, but there was obviously no public recognition. Instead, I was given preferential treatment in other works over the years, more than enough to make up for this one omission in my CV.”
“You said the people who attacked the Mount had the Holy Oil. I assume that they somehow have access to this information?” Jenna asked.
“They have the oil, but I don’t think they have a record of everything that was on the Copper Scroll. It’s likely that they found it by following rumors from one of the few who did know.”
Jenna thought about this. “So, they’ve taken the
“They’ve not got everything they need. It’s the power of the
“You’re talking about the Ark of the Covenant.” Jenna guessed.
“The Prime Minister is of the opinion that if these people get their hands on it and show the world that it was returned to the
“If they could have gotten the
“Yes.” Hayes said.
“Which
“Unfortunately for us, the scroll listed only one
“They’re going to attack rather than risk having them find it.” Jenna surmised.
Hayes nodded. “Which will lead to a populist uprising by Israelis against their own government. Unless a bloodbath can be averted,
“So? What are we supposed to do about any of this?”
“We’re the ones who are going to stop it.” Hayes said.
Jenna’s mouth attempted several responses, but the only one that succeeded in finding volume was “How?”
“We have about 72 hours to show the Israeli government that the
“But you just said that it was on the
“It was. But it’s not anymore.”
“And you know this because…?” Jenna asked.
“Because we stole it.” Hayes explained.
*****
Jenna sat very still while Hayes refilled his coffee cup. By the time he returned she had come to terms with most of what he’d told her, but not well.
“I was part of the team that excavated the
“So you found it?”
“Oh, we found it. In point of fact, we found it within a week of starting the project. It’s amazing how easy these archaeological digs become when you have a map that pinpoints exactly where you’re supposed to look.”
“What happened?”
Hayes laughed to himself. “Well, it wasn’t anything that Indiana Jones would be proud of, I can tell you that much. When we got to the chamber everything was exactly where it was supposed to be, including the
“So you stole it?”
“We decided to safeguard it, or so we told ourselves. We knew that revealing the find would cause all kinds of havoc internationally, but we couldn’t just leave it there for the Waqf to find, or worse, the messianics. So we moved it.”
“To where?”
“That I can’t tell even you. Not yet. In the days to come a lot of this is going to be coming to the surface, but for now I still have an oath or two I have to abide by.” he said.
“So the game plan is for you and I to go to
“I was assuming that you would kill me if I didn’t invite you.” Hayes said dryly. A smile touched the edge of his lips, a welcome bit of his normal self bleeding in through the misery. “Truth be told, though, once we’re in Israel I’d feel a lot more comfortable having someone I trust doing any translation that comes up.”
“And the Ph.D?” she asked.
“You need the credentials, and I need you. The committee signed off on you as soon as I told them where I was going and what was happening. You could even get tenure out of this if it bankrolls back the way the dean thinks it will. He’s already talking to every major Judaic grant organization in
“That leaves the issue of the armed men in the outer office.” Jenna pointed out.
“Mossad.” Hayes explained. “We will have our own private security for the next week or so. Martin will be with me. David will be your escort. Where you go, he goes.”
“The Israeli Secret Service didn’t have a trained killer that was female?” Jenna asked.
“They did.” Hayes replied “But they all seem to be busy escorting Madonna.”
Jenna couldn’t think of anything to add to that.
*****
As major upheavals go, her day went rather well. While Hayes stressed over every detail of the itinerary, Jenna had the luxury of just following orders and being where she was supposed to be at the appointed time. Her only chore was to pick up her passport from
“Wait one sec… I seem to have someone hovering over me.”
“What do you need, Jenna?”
“My passport.” Jenna reminded her.
“Oh yes… that.” she said, drawing the small booklet from the drawer in front of her. She handed it to Jenna by the corner, holding it out as one would a soiled diaper. Jenna took it wordlessly and made an attempt at a quick getaway. She was halfway to the door before
“It’s not the most flattering picture of you, is it?” she asked. “But that’s the problem with digital cameras, isn’t it? You can’t hide all your flaws behind lenses and lighting effects. Just click and all your wrinkles and the little hairs on your lip are there for the whole world to see.”
Jenna spun on her heels, quite ready to explain by comparison the difference between her idea of attractive and
“I’m sorry, dean, that was that Jenna Vaas girl again. It’s just one thing after another with her. Seems she’s leaving with Hayes, and just now decided that she’d need a passport. I had it here waiting of course.”
For a moment Jenna had a vivid mental image of grabbing the phone, but let it go. She had much bigger things to deal with today.
Her newfound shadow dutifully followed when she left the main office. She’d never had a bodyguard before and, as far as she could tell, never would again. There was a childish sense of feeling important that came with being guarded, and she decided it was worth the inconvenience of being followed constantly.
When she reached her office she turned to address the man. He was taller than she’d thought. She put him at six foot, give or take and inch. His hair was a dark brown, like her own. She guessed that he kept it shorter than the military required to keep the thick curls at bay. His skin was tanned, but not dark. Had she not known he was Mossad, she would have guessed him to be
“Hi.” she said awkwardly. “I guess you know, but I’m Jenna Vaas.”
“Yes, Professor Vaas, I’ve been assigned to escort you for the next week or so.” the man replied.
It was the first time anyone had ever addressed her as ‘Professor Vaas’. That alone would have made her day, but the way he’d rolled the ‘v’ gave it a richness that she was unaccustomed to. She had a very real suspicion that she was blushing.
“I am David Jenson. If you require anything at any time, I’ll be on hand.” he said. She couldn’t help noticing the same rolling of the consonant on the ‘q’.
Jenna smiled and reached out to shake his hand. “I’m not sure I need a bodyguard, but I’m happy to have the company.” she said. She could feel the hard metal of a wedding ring on his finger, and found herself hoping it was as fake as the name he had just given her.
Two hours later, Jenna was on a plane over the
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