Jake slid the second item from under the map.

Old black-and-white print. Human bones. Boot-scuffed dirt.

Kessler déjà vu.

But not quite.

In this photo the bones of many people were scattered and jumbled. Also, this shot had an official north arrow/scale marker, and, in the upper right corner, an arm and knee could be seen as an excavator brushed something lying in the dirt.

“Yadin’s team found skeletal remains in one of the southern summit caves,” I guessed, not taking my eyes from the print. “This shot was taken during excavation.”

“Yes.” Jake indicated a spot on the Masada diagram. “The locus was designated Cave 2001. Yadin mentions it in his preliminary report on the Masada project, and includes a brief description by Yoram Tsafrir, the supervising excavator of the locus.”

“Minimum number of individuals in the cave?” I asked, counting at least five skul s.

“Depends on how you read Yadin.”

I looked up, surprised. “MNI shouldn’t be that tough to determine. Did a physical anthropologist examine the bones?”

“Dr. Nicu Haas of Hebrew University. Based on Haas’s evaluation, in his first field season report, Yadin gave a total of twenty-five individuals: fourteen males, six females, four children, and one fetus. But, if you read his wording careful y, he treated one very old male as separate from the other males.”

“Bringing his actual total to twenty-six.”

“Exactly. In his popular book—”

“The one that came out in sixty-six?”

“Right.Masada: Herod’s Fortress and the Zealots’ Last Stand. In that publication, Yadin does basical y the same thing, saying Haas found fourteen males aged twenty-two to sixty, one male over seventy, six females, four kids, and a fetus.”

“So it’s unclear whether the total count was twenty-five or twenty-six?”

“You’re quick.”

“Blistering. Could be an honest error.”

“It could be.” Jake’s voice suggested he didn’t believe it.

“Ages of the women and children?”

“The kids were eight to twelve years. The women were al young, fifteen to twenty-two.” Sudden insight. “You think our fel ow here is the septuagenarian?” I tapped Kessler’s photo.

“I’l get to him in a minute. For now, let me focus on the cave. In their reports, neither Tsafrir nor Yadin indicated when Cave 2001 was discovered or when it was cleared.”

“Could be just sloppy—”

He cut me off.

“The find was never announced to the media.”

“Perhaps that was done out of respect for the dead.”

“Yadin cal ed a press conference when the three palace skeletons were found.” Jake shook his hands, fingers splayed like E.T. “Big excitement. We’ve got remains of the Jewish defenders of Masada. This was late November of sixty-three. Cave 2001 was discovered and cleared in October of sixty-three, one monthbefore that press conference.”

Jake’s index finger augured into the photo.

“Yadin knew about the cave bones and never brought them up.”

“If the dates weren’t made public, how doyou know when the cave was discovered or excavated?”