47

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16 – 6:46 a.m. – TIBERIAS, ISRAEL

Erin had no idea where she was.

She stared up at a ceiling fan for almost five minutes before she noticed it wasn’t spinning. Slowly, painfully, she turned her head to the right. All she found was wallpaper she didn’t recognize. When she finally turned all the way to the left, she found a small night table, a lamp that was off, and a digital alarm clock that told her it was morning, though of what day she hadn’t the foggiest idea.

A few minutes later, she noticed the electric blankets wrapped around her and the needle stuck in her arm, attached by a tube to a bag of fluid hanging from the bedpost. She noticed that her feet were wrapped in thick bandages. Slowly she began to remember flashes of the cave, the water, Jon’s face, Jon and Natasha pulling her out of the tunnel and putting her in the back of the SUV. But no sooner did it all register than she once again drifted away into a long and dreamless sleep.

Bennett stepped out of another long, hot shower.

As he dressed, he tried to clear his head and think about the next steps, but it was still almost impossible to believe that they had all made it this far. He checked in on Erin. Her pulse and temperature were both back to normal. Breathing a sigh of relief, he kissed her on the cheek and went down to the kitchen to make some coffee.

It was going to be a long day.

Downstairs, Bennett found Natasha hard at work at the kitchen table, tools and brushes and bottles of solvent spread everywhere.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Slow,” said Natasha. “I’ve been up all night with it.”

“Well, not to put any pressure on you or anything, but you are aware that the entire Israeli police force is hunting us down, right?”

Natasha was not amused. She set down the small toothbrush she was using to clean the outside of the scroll and looked Bennett in the eye. “We only get one shot at this, you know? One wrong move and this thing will turn to chalk dust faster than you can blink. Okay?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just worried about Erin, for starters.”

“Me too,” said Natasha, accepting his apology. “I’m going as fast as I can.”

“I know,” he said, rifling through the cabinets to find something to eat.

“Third door on your right,” Natasha said as she focused again on her work.

Bennett opened the cupboard door and found a box of granola. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. But there’s no milk.”

“No milk?”

“No. Well, there was, but it had gone bad. I poured it out.”

His stomach growled.

“There are some eggs in the fridge,” Natasha added.

“Any bacon?” he asked, pulling the refrigerator door open.

“Very funny,” said Natasha. “You’re in Israel, remember? Not a big market for bacon here, you know?”

“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. He couldn’t let the stress eat him alive. There was too much at stake. “How about if I make us some fried eggs and toast?”

Natasha looked up. “That’d be nice. Thanks.”

“No problem,” he said, pulling out pans and firing up the stove. “So how much more time do you think you’ll need?”

“You’d better pray that I’m faster than Baker was,” Natasha replied.

“Who?”

“Dr. H. Wright Baker.”

“Who’s that?”

“He was a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in England. He was the one who finally came up with the solution to opening the Copper Scroll without destroying it.”

“Oh, right,” said Bennett, remembering Dr. Barak’s words in the Jordan Archaeological Museum. “It took three years or something.”

“Four.”

Bennett turned and looked back at Natasha. “You’re right. I do hope you’re faster than Baker. Why did it take so long to open the Copper Scroll anyway?”

“It didn’t,” she explained, still hard at work. “What took so long was figuring out how to open it. When they actually got around to doing it, it didn’t take long at all. Once they had a plan, Baker and his team cleaned away as much of the external oxidation as they could. Then they X-rayed the scroll to see where the letters were positioned inside. After that, they built a high-speed circular saw, like something a jeweler would use to cut diamonds, and they sliced the scroll into twenty-three segments.”

Bennett remembered the copper segments in the flimsy display cases in the museum.

“And they did this all the while attempting to cut only between the various columns of text so as to avoid destroying any of the letters,” Natasha said.

A few minutes later, Bennett walked over to the table and set down two plates of food. “How long would it take to build a saw like that?” he asked.

“We already did it,” she replied.

“What are you talking about?”

“We already built one,” Natasha said again. “It’s in my grandfather’s office in Jerusalem. Don’t forget, he was absolutely sure we were going to find the Key Scroll. So he had the engineers at the museum make one for him. There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?” asked Bennett.

“We can’t go back to his office without getting caught.”

“Good point,” he said, wondering again if any of this had been worth it. “So now what do we do?”

“I have an idea.” She smiled. “You’ll see.”