The Second Messiah

Green appeared embarrassed. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that most of the guys working on this site are a bunch of skirt-chasers. Me included. Not that I’d be inclined to count you among them, Jack. I’ve known you too long a time to suggest that.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I have my moments.”

Green smiled weakly. “Haven’t we all where women are concerned? But I don’t want Yasmin being taken advantage of in any way. You understand?”

“Yasmin’s what... twenty-five, professor? I’d have thought she was old enough to make up her own mind about whatever it is she wants.”

“Well, sure, but—”

Jack put down his glass, too tired to take it any further. “Why don’t you cork that bottle until another day and get some rest, professor? Me, I think I’ll take a walk to clear my head before I turn in.”

Green sounded a little drunk as he slapped a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Okay, but I wanted to say well done, Jack. I know your parents would have been proud. It’s just a pity they’re not here to witness this moment. It’s hard to believe it’s twenty years since they’ve gone. I still miss them.”

“We both do.”

Green’s hand fell away. “Good night, Jack.”

“Good night, sir.” Jack pulled back the tent flap but Green’s voice stopped him.

“By the way, I guess you’ve been too busy to hear the news?”

Jack looked back. “What news?”

Green drained his glass. “The American priest who worked at Qumran at the time your folks died.”

Jack nodded. “John Becket. What about him?”

“He’s got himself elected pope.”

10

In the beginning, there was only darkness and then God created light.

As the sun’s blush peeked above the horizon, Jack climbed up a rocky slope, his solitary figure silhouetted against the dawn’s orange glow. He was thinking of those ancient words, how they seemed so appropriate to the moment.

But since he was feeling a buzz after drinking Wild Turkey, those other words of a stand-up comic he’d once heard in New York also came to mind: In the beginning there was nothing, and then God created light. There was still nothing but you could see it a lot better.

That always made him crack a smile. When he reached the top of the slope, he paused to stare at the view of the Judean desert toward Jordan and get his breath. His chest pounded, not from exertion but the exhilaration that sped through his veins.

The rising sun was lost behind the mountains of Edom. Jack shivered. The desert air was still cold after the night and he looked out at rust-colored rock and parched stony mountains, Bedouin camps in the distance, dotted with camel and goatherds. Past a palm-fringed wadi, he saw that a ring of massive rocks that formed a boundary with the surrounding desert were stained by the sunrise.

I love this land. Love its mystery, its coppery light, its incredible history.

He sat cross-legged on a huge boulder, breathing slowly. At dawn, the Dead Sea valley, at more than thirteen hundred feet below sea level, was tranquil. A desolate landscape, but strangely it was where Jack felt closest to God. Not that he was deeply religious. More spiritual.

As his father used to put it, sometimes religion is for those who are afraid to go to hell, but spirituality is for those who have been there.

Except here in the Holy Land, it seemed easier to understand belief. History was like a scent in the air. You breathed it every time you sucked in a lungful. Here was the land of Abraham and Jacob, and where Christ was born, the sky he slept under, the soil he was crucified upon. To the north lay Jericho. And twenty miles behind him, to the west, Jerusalem’s gilded temple.

Jack heard a clatter of stones and turned, seeing Yasmin Green’s figure moving up the slope from down in the camp, her long blond hair tinted by the amber rays. He was pretty sure every man on the dig had been having the same fantasies about Yasmin Green since she had joined the excavation two months ago. She saw him, waved, and called out, “Hi, Jack!”

He waved back, his heart beating a little faster, and waited for her to join him.

She reached the top and sat next to him on the boulder, curling her bronzed legs. She carried two cans of Heineken and handed Jack one. “The last two. I thought you might like to join me in one final nightcap?”

“I guess I may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.”

She giggled. “I know I told Uncle Donald to rest but I couldn’t get to sleep. You?”

Jack took a swig of the chilled Heineken. “I’m still on a high since our discovery. I wanted to take a little exercise to help me unwind.”

“Me too. You seem miles away. What are you thinking about, Jack?”

“Honest?” He looked out at the view. “Twenty years ago when I was nineteen my father worked on a dig not far from here, and I sometimes sat on a hill much like this, with a pretty girl by my side. Her name was Lela Raul.” Jack nodded toward the horizon. “She used to live in an Israeli settlement, over there. Her father was a local police sergeant.”