I ran forward to catch up as they headed back to the vendors’ booths and guided them into a relatively isolated corner.
Lavon’s face had turned pale, in the manner typical of a near miss survivor whose mind has finally begun to soak in a full understanding of how close they had all come to total disaster.
Before I could say anything, he grabbed Markowitz by the lapel of his robe and threw him against a stack of empty cages, holding the fabric up to his neck as if to choke him.
“Are you trying to get us all killed?”
I glanced around at the surge of worshippers and moved to separate them. Personally, I wanted to throttle the impulsive fool as well, but I could see that others were beginning to take notice. The last thing we needed was to create another scene.
“Where is the harm?” he protested. “That priest welcomed me as a brother. And don’t forget: I am one!”
Lavon threw the handful of cloth back at him in disgust, took a couple of deep breaths, and then lit into Markowitz a second time. I let him vent for a moment; then suggested that we all slip away and head back to the Antonia, while we still could.
The archaeologist shook his head. “It won’t work. Too many people heard Nicodemus tell him to buy a lamb and come back. Some of them are undoubtedly still watching. We can’t take that chance.”
“What about me?” I asked.
Lavon studied my torn tunic and thorn-shredded arms and calves.
“You never got close to the soreg, so they can’t accuse you of trying to get inside. If anyone asks, I’ll tell them you’re my servant, and that I’m sending you away. I think you’ll be OK.”
He walked over to a merchant’s table and tossed out a couple of coins. I watched him take a small scrap of what looked like parchment and write. When he came back, he handed it to me.
I studied the precise Greek lettering.
“It’s a request for the sentries to let you in to see Publius,” he said.
“I can’t read it.”
“That shouldn’t matter. Most slaves were illiterate. You have your orders, though I’d do my best not to show the note to anyone on the Temple Mount. Some fanatic might think you’re a spy.”
Wonderful. I couldn’t tell whether he was serious or not.
“What will you and Henry do?” I asked.
“Exactly what Nicodemus told us to do: sit there at the corner and wait for Ray to finish his sacrifice.”
He paused for a moment.
“Nicodemus. I can’t believe that’s who we were talking to.”
“What is so important about him?” asked Bryson.
“John 3:16,” replied Lavon, as if that explained everything.
It didn’t, of course. Not having grown up with the church, the Professor and Markowitz associated the verse only with rainbow headed freaks holding up signs behind the goal posts at football games.
“It’s one of the most well known passages in the New Testament,” said Lavon. “‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.’ That’s who Jesus was talking to when he spoke those words — Nicodemus. He’s a respected elder, a member of the Sanhedrin.”
He turned to Markowitz. “And a man who saved your butt.”
***
Considering that I also wanted to save mine, I didn’t waste any time making my way back to the fortress. I stuck the receiver in my ear as I walked out the eastern gate toward the ravine, and I could only laugh as Lavon helped Markowitz purchase his lamb and lead the animal back to the Temple itself.
It bleated softly.
“A cute little critter,” I heard Markowitz say.
“Don’t get too attached to it,” Lavon replied. “In less than an hour, you’re going to be cutting its throat.”
“Me?”
This was a surprise. I had thought the priests handled that end of the business.
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the picture forming in my mind. For all his enthusiasm for adventure sports, I doubted Markowitz had ever killed a large animal except by hitting one with his car. Hopefully he wouldn’t make too big a mess of it.
As I turned back toward the north, I tapped on my ear bud to shift frequencies and check in with Sharon.
To my relief, not much had changed on her end. After passing through the Damascus Gate, her litter had made its way south along the city wall.
She sounded subdued, though, and after she told me the story, it wasn’t hard to understand why.
Their procession had stopped two more times to rest the porters. Each time, guards had kept the swarm of mendicants following them at bay. On the last stop, though, one beggar, seeing a soldier’s attention diverted, had rushed up to the litter and thrust a cup through the curtain.
Though this man wasn’t a leper, Azariah called out to another guard, and Sharon could only watch helplessly as the soldier cudgeled the poor fellow with a strong blow to the back of the head, leaving his skull cracked open and his motionless body bleeding in the dust.
“He walked on as if he had stepped on a bug,” she said.
From his perspective, he probably had.
She explained, too, just what a close call our Temple excursion had been.
Roughly thirty years later, on what could have been the same exact spot, excitable self-appointed busybodies — the curse of every religion — had accused the apostle Paul of bringing “Greeks” into the Temple and defiling it. He barely escaped the subsequent riot in one piece and never took another step as a free man — eventually going to his death in Rome, in chains.
No wonder the archaeologist had turned so pale.
Otherwise, Sharon seemed OK, so I tapped my ear to switch back to Lavon’s frequency. Although he didn’t respond to my inquiries, I could hear him speaking calmly and concluded that Markowitz must have made it into the Temple without further incident.
Bryson, though, was a different matter. As I threaded my way back though the trash and thorn bushes of the Kidron Ravine, I listened to him speak of his latest brainstorm.
“Would he know Joseph of Arimathea?” he asked.
“What?”
“Nicodemus: would he know Joseph?”
“Certainly,” said Lavon.
“Then that may be our answer. Culloden’s right. I’m not sure I’ll be able to find the exact site of the tomb the way I had planned. Triangulating with sufficient accuracy will be harder than I thought.”
Lavon didn’t reply. By now he could guess what was coming next.
“If you go back there and ask him, perhaps he can introduce us to Joseph.”
This was lunacy.
Obviously, Lavon thought so, too.
“Let me ask you something. Say some stranger walked into your MIT lab and asked where your family’s cemetery plot was. What would you do?”
“I’d ask why they wanted to know.”
“Yes, just before you called campus security to come with a straitjacket. What answer could we possibly give? In a few years, you’ll have the most famous tomb on the planet?”
Bryson didn’t say anything for a moment.
“I suppose you’re right,” he finally replied. “Still, we should find some way to inquire of these people while we have the chance. Maybe we could report a workman got injured or something.”