The Second Messiah

Hassan Malik waited until his younger brother came over and then he kissed him fondly on both cheeks. “Well?”

Nidal said, “Cane has left Qumran and is headed toward the gravesite. Our pilot has arranged permission from Israeli air traffic control to overfly Jerusalem.”

“Good.” Hassan Malik strode after his brother to the helicopter, climbed in behind him, and slammed shut the door. The pilot raised the aircraft into the hot blue sky. Hassan consulted his watch: 5 P.M.

Fifteen more minutes and I will face my ghosts.

What was it his father used to say? We can never escape our past.

Hassan Malik didn’t want to. He wanted to remember his past because it felt like a stiletto in his heart—a wound that screamed out for vengeance.

And he knew exactly how to avenge that wound.

First, I’m going to use Jack Cane.

Then I’m going to kill him.

The powerful GE engines thrust the helicopter forward and sped its passengers in the direction of Jerusalem’s golden dome.

5

Jack Cane sat on a boulder facing the gravestone. He placed the flowers in a parched, sponge-filled oasis within the neat stone border, filled with gravel chips. Opening the water bottle, he drenched the oasis until it was soaking wet. He lay the empty plastic bottle by his side and his gaze swept over the chiseled granite marker that inscribed his pain.

In memory of Robert and Margaret Cane,

who died tragically at this spot.

Rest in peace.

Miss you always, love you forever.

Your son, Jack.

He still missed them, always would. Their passing had left such a deep sorrow, a terrible ache. He removed a worn leather wallet from his pocket and flipped it open. He kept the tattered, twenty-year-old photocopy of the newspaper clipping in a cracked plastic sheath and he unfolded the page. He knew the words by heart as he stared down at the page:

JERUSALEM POST

RENOWNED AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGIST

AND HIS WIFE KILLED IN TRAGIC ACCIDENT

Five people were killed yesterday afternoon and another two badly injured on a remote stretch of road near Qumran.

Jerusalem police report that two men and one woman suffered fatal injuries when their pickup collided with an Israel Defense Forces truck and crashed into a ravine. The three were respected New York archaeologist Robert Cane, 69, and his wife Margaret, 58, along with local Bedu digger Basim Malik. Two teenage passengers traveling in the back of the pickup—Lela Raul and Jack Cane, both age nineteen—are being treated for injuries.

Police also confirm that the two deceased occupants of the military truck, which exploded carrying a munitions cargo, have not yet been named.

It is believed that Mr. Robert Cane was working on an international dig at Qumran. He and his Bedu helper had only that morning discovered several fragments of an ancient scroll and were traveling to Jerusalem to show their find to the Israeli Antiquities Department when the fatal accident occurred. Police fear that the ancient parchment may have been destroyed by fire.

Father Franz Kubel, the Vatican-appointed coordinator of the Qumran dig and a colleague of Mr. Cane’s, was reported to be shocked by the deaths. “This is dreadful news. Robert Cane was a wonderful man and a highly respected archaeologist. He will be sadly missed.”

Local driver Basim Malik leaves behind a wife and three children.

Jack folded the cutting and shut his eyes. The dream often came to him when he visited the grave and it came to him now.

He was seventeen again, standing in a camp at Qumran, a warm spring day, watching his parents sweating as they dug on a hill above the ancient ruins. In his dream, he ran up the hill to join his parents. They saw him, waved, and opened their arms to greet him. But the closer Jack got, the more the image of his parents faded. He blinked, felt his eyes moisten.

He knew why the dream came. He had loved his parents deeply. His father was a patient, good-humored man with sharp blue eyes and an infectious laugh, always ready to share his enthusiasm for archaeology. His mother had blond hair and a beautiful face with high cheekbones. Jack remembered a cheerful woman with a warmth that could lift the gloom of any day.

A college buddy once told him, “All families are screwed up and dysfunctional. But some are even more dysfunctional than others.”

That had never been Jack’s experience. His childhood had been incredibly happy. As he accompanied his parents on digs to South America, Egypt, Rome, and Israel, by his sixteenth birthday he had traveled half the world with two people who never ceased to both love and fascinate him.

He closed his eyes once more and he was nineteen again and the past washed over him...

6

He could never forget the day. It was seared into his mind as if with a branding iron.