Virgin (20 page)

But whose body?
What sort of mind would go to such elaborate extremes to pull off a hoax. A
sicko mind like that would be capable of anything, even a booby trap.

Of course,
there was the possibility that these actually were the earthly remains of the
mother of Jesus Christ.

Dan wanted to
believe that. He dearly would have loved to believe that. And probably would be
fervently believing that right now if not for the fact that the scroll that had
led them here had been proven beyond a doubt to have been written two years
ago.

So if this
wasn't the Virgin Mary, who was she? And who had hidden her here?

Carrie was
standing over her now, staring down at the woman's lifeless face.

"Dan?"
she said. "Do you notice something strange about her?"

"Besides
her fingernails?"

"There's
no dust on her. There's dust layered everywhere, but not a speck of it on
her."

Dan stepped
closer and sniffed. No odor. And Carrie was right about the dust: not a speck.
He smiled. The forger had finally made a mistake.

"Doesn't
that indicate to you that she was placed here recently?"

"No. It
indicates to me that dirt--and dust is dirt--has no place on the Mother of
God."

As he watched,
Carrie sank to her knees, made the sign of the cross, and bowed her head in
prayer with the flashlight clasped between her hands.

This isn't
real, Dan thought. All we need is a ray of light from the ceiling and a hallelujah
chorus from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to make this a Cecil B. DeMille epic.
This can't be happening. Not to me. Not to Carrie. We're two sane people.

Impulsively,
gingerly, he reached out and touched the woman's cheek. The wrinkled flesh didn't
give. Not hard like stone or wood or plastic. More like wax. Cool and smooth .
. . like wax. But it wasn't wax, at least not like any wax Dan had ever seen.

He heard a sob
and snatched his hand away. . . but the sound had come from Carrie. He flashed
his beam toward her face. Tears glistened on her cheeks. He crouched beside
her.

"Carrie, what's wrong?"

"I don't
know. I feel so strange. All this time I thought I believed, and I prayed to
her, and I asked her to help me, to intercede for me, but now I get the feeling
that all that time I didn't believe. Not really. And now here she is in front
of me, not two feet away, and 1 don't know what I feel or what I think."
She looked up at him. "I don't have to believe anymore, do I, Dan? I
know.
I don't have to believe, and that feels so strange."

One thing Dan
knew was that he didn't believe this was the Virgin Mary. But it was somebody.
He played his flashlight beam over her body.

Lady, who
are you?

Another thing
he knew was that Carrie was heading for some sort of breakdown. She was
teetering on the edge now. He had to get her out of here before she went over.
But how?

"What do
we do now?" he said, straightening up.

He felt her
grip his arm as she rose to her feet beside him.

"What do
you mean?"

"I mean
we've found her . . .or someone . . .or something. Now what do we do?"

"We
protect her, Dan."

"And how
do we do that?"

Carrie's voice
was very calm, almost matter of fact. "We take her back with us."

13

Tel Aviv

"What's
the matter, baby?" Devorah said from behind him, casually raking her sharp
nails down the center of his back.

Kesev sat on
the edge of the bed in Devorah's apartment. They always wound up at Devorah's
place, never his. They both preferred it that way. Kesev because he never
allowed anyone in his apartment, and Devorah because when she was home she had
access to her . . . props.

He'd met her last year. An El Al stewardess. She could have been
Irish with her billowing red hair, pale freckled skin, and blue eyes, but she
was pure Israeli. Young-- mid-twenties--with such an innocent, girlish face,
almost childlike. But Devorah was a cruel, mischievous child who liked to play
rough. And when it came to rough she preferred to give rather than receive.
Which was fine with Kesev.

Their little
arrangement had lasted longer than any other in recent memory. Probably because
her job took her away so much, she'd yet to grow tired of his black moods and
long silences. And probably because Devorah had been unable to find a way to
really hurt him. Kesev absorbed whatever she could dish out. She considered him
a challenge, her perfect whipping boy.

So Devorah
seemed happy with him, while he was . . . what? Happy? Satisfied? Content?

Hardly. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt something
approaching any of those.

The situation was . . . tolerable. Just barely tolerable. Which
was more than he'd learned to hope for.

"You
weren't really into it tonight," she said.

"Sorry. I
. . . I'm distracted."

"You're
always distracted. Tonight you're barely here."

Probably true.
A vague uneasiness had stalked him all day, disturbing his concentration at the
Shin Bet office, stealing his appetite, and finally settling on him like a
shroud late this afternoon.

More than uneasiness now. A feeling of impending doom.

Could it have something to do with the Resting Place? He
followed the wire services meticulously and there'd been no word of a new Dead
Sea scroll or startling revelations regarding the Mother of Christ. Not even a
ripple.

But that was
hardly proof that all was well, that all was safe and secure.

"I'm
afraid I'm going to have to cancel our date for tomorrow," he said,
turning to face her.

She lay
sprawled among the sheets, her generous breasts and their pink nipples exposed.
Even her breasts were freckled. But she didn't lay still long. She levered up
and slapped him across the face.

"I don't
like broken promises!" she hissed between clenched teeth.

The blow stung
but Kesev didn't flinch. Nor was he angry. One deserved whatever one got when a
promise was betrayed.

"There is
a hierarchy of promises," he said softly. "Some promises take
precedence over others."

"And this
promise," she said. "Is this what distracts you?"

"Yes."

"Does it
involve another woman?"

"Not at
all."
At least not in the sense you mean.

"Good."
She smiled as she clicked a handcuff over his right wrist. "Come. Let
Devorah see if she can make you forget all your mysterious distractions."

The Judean Wilderness

It had taken
some heavy persuasion, but Dan managed to convince Carrie to leave the cave so
they could talk outside. . . in the light . . . in the air . . . away from that
. . . thing.

He felt
instantly better outside. It had seemed like night in there. Even though the
entire
tav
rock was in shadow now, he squinted in the relative
brightness.

And he was
still staggering from Carrie's words. He'd never thought they'd find anything
on this trip, so he'd never even dreamed that Carrie might want to ...

"Take her
back? To the U.S.? Are you serious?"

"We have
to," she said. "If we don't, other people might decipher that other
scroll you mentioned and find her. The wrong kind of people. People who'd . . .
misuse her."

"Then why
don't we just move her from here and bury her where no one will find her?"

She wheeled on
him. "This is the Mother of
God,
Dan! You don't just stick her in
the dirt!"

"All
right, all right." He could see she wasn't rational on this. "But
even if we could get her back home--and believe me, that's a big
if
--what'll
we do with her? Give her to a museum? To the Vatican?"

"Oh, no.
Oh, Lord, no," she said, vigorously shaking her head. "We've got to
keep her secret. She was hidden away for a reason. We have to respect that.
Imagine if the wrong religion got hold of her, or some sort of satanic cult.
Think how they might desecrate her. Now that we've found her, we have a very
clear duty: We have to take her back with us and hide her where no one else can
find her."

"You're
not thinking, Carrie. We'll never get her past customs."

"There's
got to be a way. Your friend Hal says people are smuggling archeological
artifacts out of the Mideast all the time. Call him. He can tell you how."

"Call Hal?
Sure. Hand me the phone."

"This is
not a joking matter, Dan."

He saw her
tight features and the look in her eyes and realized how serious she was. But
she wasn't thinking straight. Finding that strange body in there, whoever it
was, had jumbled up her rational processes. He had to get her away from here,
get her calmed down so she could get some perspective on this whole situation.
. . .

And calling Hal
might be just the excuse he needed.

"All
right. We'll call Hal and see what he says."

Her expression
relaxed. "You mean that?"

"Of
course. We'll drive back to the highway, maybe go to En Gedi . . ." He
glanced at his watch. "It's seven hours earlier in New York so we can
still catch him in his office. And we'll ask his advice."

"You
go," she said. "I'm staying here."

"No way,
Carrie," he said. "No way I'm leaving you sitting up here at night in
the middle of nowhere."

"I'll be
all right. Now that I've found her, you can't expect me to leave her."

"If she is
who you think she is, she's been fine here for two thousand years. One more
night isn't going to matter."

"I'm
staying," she said.

Dan had humored
her as far as he could. He wasn't backing down on this point.

"Here's
the deal, Carrie," he said, fighting to keep from shouting. "Either
we go down to En Gedi together or we stay up here and starve together. But
under no circumstances am I leaving you alone. So it's up to you. You decide.
And make it quick. Because when night falls, we're stuck here--I won't be able
to find my way back to the highway in the dark."

They went round
and round until she finally agreed to accompany him to En Gedi in return for a
promise to come straight back to the
tav
at first light.

The downhill
trip going was shorter by hours than the uphill trip coming, but it seemed much
longer. Carrie hardly spoke a word the whole way.

En Gedi

They lay side
by side in their double bed in the local guesthouse. Dan's arms and legs were
leaden with fatigue as he floated in a fog of exhaustion. Here they were, in
bed together in one of the world's most ancient resorts, a green oasis of
grasses, vineyards, palm trees, and even a waterfall in the midst of the barren
wastelands. A beauty spot, a lowers' rendezvous, mentioned even in the ancient
Song
of Solomon,
and all he could think of was sleep.

Not that Carrie
would have been receptive to any romantic advances anyway. She'd seemed more
than a bit aloof since they'd left the
tav.

That and the
knowledge that they'd be returning to the Wilderness tomorrow only heightened
Dan's fatigue.

Hal had been no
help. As soon as they had arrived in En Gedi, Dan called him and explained that
they needed a way to get a five-foot-high artifact out of the country.

"Quietly, if you know what I mean."

Hal had known
exactly what he meant and gave him a name and a telephone number in Tel Aviv.
He'd said he was very interested and wanted to see this artifact when it
reached the states. Dan had thanked him and hung up.

Yeah. Thanks a
lot, Hal.

Nothing was
working out the way he'd hoped. He'd expected Hal to tell him to forget it--no
way to get something that size past the inspectors. Instead of no way, it was
no problem.