Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest Read Free

became entirely
dependent on their headlamps.
    "Twenty-six minutes," the Dominican
announced, leading Tim from the cave's outer chamber into an
excavated crawl space with scarcely room to slither through single
file on their stomachs, dragging tethered backpacks behind. When
the tunnel forked in ten meters, they agreed to increase their
chances of discovery by splitting up.
    "Rendezvous here in twenty minutes sharp,"
Benoit said. "If I'm not back by then, don't wait for me. And, I
can assure you, mon ami , I have no
intention of waiting for you. If you're late, you're on your
own."
    Tim crawled forward until the tunnel opened
into a tiny cavern where he could kneel but not stand. No shards
lay on the floor and no carvings adorned its hand-chiseled walls.
For a moment, he entertained the prospect of crawling back
empty-handed. But on the right wall, his headlamp captured yet
another tunnel entrance, this one barely large enough to squeeze
through on his stomach. It proved to be dustier than the first, but
shorter, debouching into a small grotto with sufficient room to
lift his head over his elbows. His fingers made immediate contact
with a familiar substance—animal skins used in ancient scrolls. He
adjusted his headlamp to examine a small piece of decomposed
parchment and noticed that the ground was strewn with hundreds
similar to it. This was exactly what he and Father Benoit had hoped
to discover! Or was it? Yes, there were plenty of words written in
the ancient form of the Aramaic script, but no complete scrolls.
Just fragments, hundreds, no perhaps thousands, several layers
thick! To his left, he discovered a small terracotta jar on its
side and another upright but uncovered and empty. Had the looters
already stolen scrolls found inside? In their quest for jewelry and
statuary easily sold to collectors, had they left these fragments
for later retrieval? Or had they simply abandoned them because they
seemed unreadable?
    Tim called to Father Benoit, knowing there
was little chance his voice would carry through the surrounding
walls. To confer with him, it was necessary to inch back through
the two tunnels with a few fragments tucked in a utility pocket. At
the original fork, the priest’s trail curved left through another
dusty conduit.
    He caught up with Benoit in a small grotto on
his knees, complaining about arthritis in his hip, but studiously
examining human skeletal remains from a limestone ossuary. Under
normal rules of excavation, a discovery would have been carefully
photographed and documented, then removed to an accredited
laboratory for X-ray and chemical analysis. Yet at the moment,
conditions were anything but normal, giving the priest license to
violate nearly every conventional rule of modern archeology. He had
simply jimmied the seal on the ossuary lid with a utility knife. No
names were inscribed on the limestone exterior, so the identity of
the deceased would probably remain unknown. Though suffering from a
hacking cough, Benoit insisted on voicing his excitement over the
remains of an early Christian, or perhaps an Essene. Tim reminded
him that with no identification on the ossuary, this would likely
remain mere speculation.
    Benoit tapped his watch to mark the time. He
seemed encouraged by the fragments Tim showed him, but refused a
request for an additional half-hour to collect more.
    "I'm going back to get what I can," Tim
announced.
    "Twelve minutes, no matter what."
    Back in the original chamber, Tim fumbled
nervously with his backpack, now racing against the clock.
Unfortunately, the plastic Ziploc bags so essential for collecting
parchment fragments were tucked near the bottom of his pack. In the
tight confinement, it was necessary to empty all his equipment on
top of ancient documents, risking damage to them. To make matters
worse, a rubber band holding together a wad of the transparent bags
popped, scattering many over the ground. At least a full minute was
lost gathering them.
    A temptation to