Dead Sea Rising, Page 2

  “Is she comfortable?”

  The doctor grinned. “We should all be as comfortable.”

  “How long do you expect this to take?”

  “Assuming no surprises, figure an hour of prep and two hours of surgery, max.”

  “You still have to prep her?”

  He nodded. “Most of that we can do only once we’re in the operating room.”

  “And what kind of surprises are you talking about?”

  “Well, the x-ray and scan show a straightforward fracture and no muscle tear, though I suspect soft-tissue trauma. And you never know how complex things are until you get in there.” Dr. Thorn’s phone chirped and he peeked at it. “Room’s ready. Try not to worry. I do a lot of these.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Shinar, Mesopotamia

  2000 BC

  “Terah!”

  At the shout from the throne, King Nimrod’s chief officer came running—not easy for a man of seventy. He panted and bowed low. “King Amraphel,” he managed, using the name the ruler had bestowed upon himself.

  “How wonderful to see that at long last Belessunu is great with child! Send word to me with haste when she brings forth your firstborn so that I may rejoice with you.”

  “I will, oh King,” Terah said. “But may I speak forthrightly?”

  “Of course!”

  “Why did you forbid me concubines when for decades Belessunu was unable to bear me children? Even she fretted over her failure and was willing …”

  The king looked away. “It was convenient. For me and for you. It freed you to do so much more for me. You must share my pride in how the realm has grown.”

  “I do! But my legacy, my name—”

  “Will forever be linked with mine and the glory of Mesopotamia, the Land of Nimrod. Even if Belessunu does not bear a son.”

  “I pray the gods will grant me a lad.”

  “Naturally,” the king said. “I will also pray that Utu will favor you with a manchild. And may he live a thousand years.”

  “I am deeply grateful,” Terah said.

  That royal blessing was not beyond reason, for Terah’s first child would be the tenth generation since Noah, still alive and nearly 900 years old. And Noah’s grandfather had been Methuselah, who had perished in the great flood at 969.

  The king was himself a grandson of Noah’s son Ham. Noah had cursed Ham’s offspring in the wake of Ham having mocked his father for passing out drunk and naked. So Nimrod bore no royal blood. In fact, because of Noah’s curse of Ham, by rights Terah was the more likely king and Nimrod the servant.

  But Nimrod had made himself kingly by growing up mighty and strong, a cunning hunter and leader of men. He built legions of admirers—including Terah, who early on had turned his back on his and his wife’s God-fearing heritage and became Nimrod’s chief assistant. As his kingdom grew, Nimrod soon declared himself a deity, called himself Amraphel, and worshipped and prayed to a plethora of divinities—primarily the sun god Utu.

  When Terah left the throne room, Ikuppi, whom he had hired years before as a member of the king’s guard, beckoned him from the shadows. “Tread carefully with the king,” the guard said.

  “Did you not hear him, Ikuppi?” Terah said. “He’s praying we’ll have a son and wants me—”

  “To bring him word, yes. I long to be mistaken, Terah, but he has been consulting with his stargazers.”

  “What are they saying? Will we have a son?”

  “The king’s meetings with them leave him sour.”

  “You heard them talking about me, about our child?”

  Ikuppi looked down.

  “Tell me, my friend!” Terah said. “Else I must take him at his word. I have served him faithfully for many years, so he has no reason to—”

  “Bring him only news, then, Terah,” Ikuppi said. “Do not bring him the child.”

  “If he asks, I must!”

  “Terah, please …”

  “Ikuppi, your countenance gives you away. If you know more, tell me.”

  “I owe you my role in the realm, Terah, and I know whereof I speak only because of access you have given me. But if I speak ill of the king, you hold my life in your hands.”

  “Rest assured I will not betray your confidence. But I fear you are suspicious without cause.”

  “I am not.”

  “Then visit me tonight and pray tell me of any danger to my child.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Manhattan

  Nicole hadn’t thought she could eat, but knowing her mother wouldn’t even be moved to the Recovery room for three hours—let alone a regular room until midnight or later—made her suddenly ravenous. She left her cell number at Reception, said she’d be back within two hours, called for delivery from the Chinese place near her building for an hour later, and grabbed a cab.

  Thirty minutes later her doorman said, “Was worried about ya, Doc. Didn’t think you were out of town.”

  She told him why she’d be spending the night at the hospital.

  “Sorry to hear that, ma’am. Let me know when you’re coming back down and I’ll have a ride waiting for ya. And give Ginny my best, hear?”

  “Didn’t know you knew her that well, Freddie.”

  He cocked his head. “Always nice to me when she visits. Classy.”

  Nicole grabbed her mail from her slot in the lobby and riffled through it on the elevator.

  And there it was.

  A regular business-sized envelope from Saudi Arabia. Could this be it—what she’d dreamed of for so long? No. It couldn’t. Had it been, they would have informed her via email it was coming. And it would be bigger, thicker.

  Nicole was not even tempted to open it. Not now. Business letters carried bad news, not good—rejections, not licenses to dig. She shook her head. A less-than-an-ounce response to her two-hundred-page application! Had she tried too hard to counter all the reasons they wouldn’t find her qualified to finally become lead archaeologist on a dig?

  This was the worst possible time for news—good or bad. She didn’t need one more thing on her mind. Good news would be spoiled by her mother’s ordeal, and bad news … well, she had expected that. But Nicole couldn’t endure another blow, not right now. She tossed the mail and her keys onto the table just inside her door.

  She rushed to shower and change and pack a bag before the Chinese food arrived. She loved that the restaurant owners were as precise as she was. They delivered when she asked, not a minute before or after. That’s the way things ought to work. If only the hospital were run by the Chinese. Nicole was setting her bag near the door when the bell rang.

  She sat to ladle the steaming, pungent selections onto her plate, and fatigue washed over her. Shoulders sagging, emotion welled in her throat. She bowed her head. “Blessed are You, El Shaddai, Lord God Almighty, King of the universe, Who gave us the way of salvation through the Messiah Yeshua. Blessed be He Who provides vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth. In the name of the Anointed One, amen.”

  How comforting the prayers her parents taught her as a child. She hadn’t learned until she was old enough to understand that her Gentile mother had led her father to faith in the Messiah. And as she ate, Nicole still glowed from what Freddie had said about Mom. It was just like her to insist that strangers call her Ginny. It spoke volumes that others obviously felt connected enough to be so familiar.

  She had long known her mother had wanted more children—at least one. And at times Nicole had wished for a sibling. But she also enjoyed her parents’ attention. Now she couldn’t shake the surgeon’s reference to senior mortality rates connected to hip fractures. If anything happened to her mother … She envied those who had a brother or a sister to summon—to share the worry, the affection.

  Her mother had seen her through everything, including sixteen grueling years of post-high school education. Mom always said just enough and not too much when Nicole suffered from an ice queen image and roller-coaste
r loves and losses. Sometimes her support proved as concise as “Good riddance, he didn’t deserve you anyway.” And only last week she had told Nicole, “You just have yet to meet the man who deserves to be as happy as you could make him.”

  Bone weary from the stress alone, Nicole seemed to chew in slow motion. Still, she relished the savory combinations on her tongue. But she couldn’t quit watching the clock and soon stored the boxes of leftovers in the fridge and called downstairs. “On my way, Freddie,” she said.

  On her way out, Nicole considered taking the Saudi envelope and the rest of her mail. She would likely face hours of tedium and could easily work through it. But no. If landing another Saudi Arabian archaeological ID—this time to become the first woman under forty to lead a dig—meant so much to her mother that she bragged about it before it happened, it was sure to be the first thing she’d ask about as soon as she was conscious. Better for Nicole to be able to say she didn’t know yet than to have to tell the truth—especially if the news was as she feared.

  Her father had warned her that, despite her résumé and her two doctorates, she was unlikely to be approved by the Saudis.

  “But I was co-director on a site there at thirty-six.”

  “A technicality, hon,” he said, “and you know it.”

  She couldn’t argue that. After having been a volunteer at the Dead Sea and surrounding sites with her dad from her early teens, during grad school Nicole was appointed as a square (or trench) supervisor on her next several digs. Though supervised in each instance by a licensed archaeologist, she was still too young to become a site co-director. But every lead archaeologist sixty or older is required to have a younger co-director, in case the lead dies before the excavation is finished or the reports are published. It happened that the archaeologist she served under at Mada’in Saleh in Saudi Arabia had been killed in a plane crash on his way home, and the co-director moved into the lead role to compose the site reports. He frequently consulted Nicole as he wrote and cited her in the documents as co-director, adding an impressive credit to her curriculum vitae.

  More importantly, while working in Mada’in, Nicole had become obsessed with that site and was determined to dig there again. She had uncovered a find so rare that she believed it could change Middle Eastern history. If she could only find a fragment corresponding to the one she’d listed among those catalogued from the dig—and Nicole believed with her whole being that it was there somewhere—it actually had ramifications for the centuries-long Mideast conflict. Her dream was to uncover that the very divide between the three major religions of the world was based on myth, not history.

  What she was determined to find made it mandatory that she be the lead archaeologist. It had led her to leave her associate professorship at Harvard to accept a fellowship with her father’s foundation so she could undertake the exhaustive application process. Nicole’s colleagues at Harvard would have howled at her hubris and her conviction that she could uncover what she believed she would.

  Even her father was skeptical, and he was the only one in whom she had confided besides the dig leader and co-leader. “More power to you, Nic,” he had said. “You deserve this and could do it, but I can’t imagine the Saudis licensing a young woman who’s never led, or really even co-led, a dig.”

  “Then you apply for it, Dad, and make me co-leader for real.”

  He waved her off. “My lead days are long gone, along with these knees.”

  She pleaded with him, reminding him that his exposing her to the caves at Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls had been found was the reason a little girl had made archaeology her life. “You show me the greatest find in history and you won’t dig with me to find the next?”

  He smiled. “How about I promise to come visit if you do get your ID?”

  Nicole had spent her first six months as a fellow at The Berman Foundation formulating the application. Her father coached her through it, reminding her—too often—that she should not get her hopes up. Nicole documented for Saudi authorities her experience properly recording data, that she had developed contacts where she could safely store the finds, and that she would produce detailed and timely annual reports, longer major reports every three years (which she hoped would form the basis for renewal of the permit as needed), and eventually a final report.

  “They’ll want to know you have the funding,” her dad said.

  “And do I?”

  “We need to talk about that.”

  “So let’s talk,” she said.

  It was the same cat-and-mouse game with him every time, and it had started years before when Nicole’s elementary school friends started referring to her as the rich kid. She had asked her mother if it was true. “Are we rich?”

  For some reason that made her mother laugh. “That’s a question for your dad, honey.”

  He did not laugh. First he wanted to know why she asked. Nicole started to tell him what her girlfriends were saying, but she grew impatient. “Just are we or not?”

  “Well,” he said, pressing his lips together, “I am. You’re not.” She realized that was why he expected her to contribute at least half the cost when she wanted anything he considered a luxury. “Having skin in the game is what’s going to make you a success—not getting whatever you want just because I can afford it.”

  As she grew older, Nicole became aware of the truth. Rich wasn’t the half of it. Her father had inherited the generations-old Berman Foundation from his parents, but as a rebellious teen he had tried to refuse it. The Berman ancestors had amassed the family fortune through shrewd European real estate investments between the world wars before immigrating to the US. Benzion, the first Berman born in America, had been raised in understated privilege. His parents eschewed shows of extravagance, though Benz, as his mother called him, had a nanny, attended private schools, and spent summers at exclusive camps.

  When Nicole went through her own minor rebellious phase as a teenager, her father finally revealed his own story. “I had a reason for rebelling,” he told her. “You don’t.”

  “I just want to be treated like an adult,” she said.

  “I wanted to be treated like I existed,” he said.

  “I thought Grandma and Grandpa gave you everything.”

  Her father shrugged. “Everything but themselves.” Desperate for their attention, he said his excelling in school made them even more complacent about him. “So I resorted to bad behavior—anything to get them to focus on me.”

  “What kind of bad behavior?”

  He hesitated. “Not sure I want to tell you.”

  “I’m not looking for permission, Dad. I just want to know.”

  “Why?”

  She snorted. “You tell me you wanted your parents’ attention and wonder why I want to know you?”

  Her father sat back and interlaced his fingers behind his head. “You’d sure be easier if you weren’t so smart.” He had a way of slipping in compliments.

  “Genetics,” she said, parrying with her own.

  “Ever wonder why you’re in public school when we could afford prep school?”

  Nicole shrugged. “Sometimes, I guess. But I’m glad. I’m no preppy.”

  “It’s a risk,” he said. “We want you to go to any university you want, and you just about have to be valedictorian in public school to have a prayer of getting into the Ivy League. I don’t want you letting things slide now.”

  “Nice move, Dad.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Changing the subject.”

  “The subject is rebellion, Nic. Like I said, I had a reason.”

  “I’m not rebelling, and I’m not letting anything slide. I’m just growing up.”

  The love in his eyes pierced her. “It’s so easy to make mistakes you’ll regret,” he said. “I almost did.”

  “Like what?”

  He sighed and told her of bouncing around northeastern prep schools, booted from one and then another for drinking, smoking dope, skipping class. “The o
nly reason new schools kept accepting me was because my dad would write a big check and wind up on their boards—much as they had to hate having a Jew involved, let alone enrolled. Dad and Mom both said I’d meet a higher class of people there, but I never got called kike or Jewboy more than there.”

  “That’s awful. But somehow you graduated.”

  “No somehow about it. I had no interest in college and didn’t mind embarrassing Dad and Mom, but I wasn’t about to be a dropout.”

  “I always wondered why it took you so long to start college,” Nicole said.

  “Figured I’d run into the same so-called higher class there. I did, but I’d grown up a lot by then. I owe that to your mother. And the Lord, of course.”

  “And Vietnam?”

  He got that faraway look and shook his head.

  “This time a night ya gotta go in through Emergency,” the cabbie told Nicole.

  She was stunned to find Kayla sitting just inside the sliding doors—no longer in her dress suit. “No worries, Dr. Berman,” the young woman said, rising.

  “Don’t lie to me, Kayla. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, really. Your mother’s case manager just asked me to come in and keep you informed. Let me take you to where you can spend the night. It’s called Eleven West, and it’s where your mother will—”

  Kayla had started toward the elevators, but Nicole wasn’t moving. She set her bag down. “Not till you tell me what this is about.”

  “Your mother’s not in danger, but she is still in surgery and could be for another hour.”

  “Why?”

  “That I don’t know. You’re aware they got started late …”

  “I am.”

  “Room prep may have been part of it. Your mother had to be anesthetized a second time … And the surgeon may have found more than he expected.”

  “Surely you know.”

  Kayla shook her head. “I’d tell you. I would.”

  “Kayla, have you ever been assigned to do grief counseling?”