Part 49 (1/2)

”But I found no mention of it until this entry.” Jake frowned. ”Keep going. I'll go back through the pages I've done.”

The next reference to Cave 2001 was on November 26, 1963, over a month later. Haas had been invited to join the group.

”Haas is reporting on the three skeletons from Locus 8, that's the northern palace area, and Locus 2001, that's the cave bones.” Jake's finger moved over the text. ”He says there are twenty-four to twenty-six persons and a six-month fetus. Fourteen males, six females, four children, and some unknowns.”

”We know the figures don't add up,” I said.

”Right.” Jake looked up. ”But more to the point: Where is any previous discussion of the cave and its contents?”

”Maybe we missed it,” I said.

”Maybe.”

”Let's reread everything prior to October twentieth,” I suggested.

We did.

There wasn't a single mention of the cave's exploration or excavation.

But I did learn something.

The pages were numbered. In Arabic.

I could read Arabic numbers.

I went back through the period in question.

Pages were missing from the early weeks of October.

With a growing sense of dread, we rechecked every notebook in every file.

The pages hadn't been improperly cataloged.

They were gone.

30.

”CAN MATERIALS BE CHECKED OUT?” I ASKED ASKED.

”No. And Porat a.s.sured me we have everything in the collection.”

”If the pages were removed, it had to be internal.”

We considered in silence.

”Yadin announced the discovery of the palace skeletons at a press conference in November of sixty-three,” I said. ”Clearly, he was interested in human remains.”

”h.e.l.l, yeah. How better to validate the Masada suicides?”

”So Yadin talked about the three people found up top, in the area occupied by the main group. His brave little zealot 'family.'” I hooked quotes around the word. ”But he ignored the Locus 2001 remains, the twenty-whatever people found in the cave below the cas.e.m.e.nt wall, at the southern tip of the summit. No press at all for those folks.”

”Zip-o.”

”What did did Yadin tell the media?” Yadin tell the media?”

Jake's fingertips worked his temples. The veins hummed blue through his whitewashed skin.

”I'm not sure.”

”Might he have had doubts about the age of the bones?”

”In his first season report Yadin stated that nothing from the cave pointed to anything later than the period of the first revolt. And he was right. Radiocarbon dates reported in the early nineties on bits of fabric found mixed with the bones fell between forty and 115 C.E. C.E.”

Missing pages. Stolen skeletons. A murdered dealer. A dead priest. It was like peering down a hall of tilted mirrors. What was real? What was distortion? What led to what?

I sensed one thing.

Some invisible thread tied everything back to the cave bones.

And to Max.

I noticed Jake steal a glance at his watch.

”You're going to bed,” I said, sliding notebooks into files.

”I'm fine.” His body language disagreed.

”You're eroding right in front of me.”

”I do have a b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a headache. Would you mind dropping me off and taking my car?”

I stood.

”No problem.”

Jake provided a map, directions, and the keys to the Honda. He was asleep before I left his flat.

I'm pretty good with directions. I'm pretty good with maps. I'm lousy with signs in unfamiliar symbols in foreign languages.

The trip from Beit Hanina to the American Colony should have taken twenty minutes. An hour later I was hopelessly lost. Somehow I'd gotten onto Sderot Yigal Yadin. Then I was on Sha'arei Yerushalaim without making a turn.

Checking the name of a cross street, I pulled over, spread Jake's map on the wheel, and tried to pinpoint my location.

In the rearview, I noticed a car slide to the curb ten yards behind me. My mind did an automatic data log. Sedan. Dark blue. Two occupants.