While James was off foraging for the water, Jack got the ossuary back into the wall and started packing the rocks, dirt, and gravel around its sides. By the time James came back, he was ready to do the most exterior part, packing now-wet dirt on the end of the ossuary. When he was finished, it was almost impossible to see where the opening had been. As he was packing the last of the dirt, he thought about one unfortunate legacy of what he was doing hiding the ossuary. Mankind would have to forgo the Gospel of Simon. Jack felt bad about that, and although he’d never had much interest in the history of Christianity, he did now, and he would now always wonder what Simon Magus had really been like. Was he the bad boy he’d always been portrayed as, or had he been something else entirely?

As much as Rome was rainy, gray, and dreary, Israel was crystal clear, with a desert-blue sky, and dazzlingly, even luminously, bright. Jack, Laurie, and JJ came into the country on a noontime Rome-Tel Aviv flight, with Jack’s nose pressed against the glass. Once again, JJ surpassed Laurie’s best-case scenario. As soon as the plane had gotten to altitude, he’d dropped off to sleep, and he was still sleeping when the wheels touched down with a thump and squeak on arrival.

Waiting for them at the gate was a representative of a tour company called Mabat, who helped them through passport control and baggage formalities and then seamlessly handed them off to a car and driver scheduled to take them to Jerusalem. Jack had gotten the name of the tour company from a seasoned traveler, because he wanted to maximize the short time they were planning on staying in the country. The driver, for his part, took them directly to the King David Hotel, where he handed them off to an expat, Midwesterner-cum knowledgeable-tour-guide by the name of Hillel Kestler.

“I understand you want to go first to the Palestinian village called Tsur Baher,” Hillel said with a smile. “Now, I’ve gotten lots of different personal requests, but this is the first to Tsur Baher. Can I ask why? There’s not much to see there, I have to warn you about that.”

“I want to meet this woman,” Jack said, handing over the name and address that had come out of the computer uploaded with CODIS 6.0 and attached to the 3130XL genetic analyzer.

“Jamilla Mohammod,” Hillel read. “Do you know her?”

“Not yet,” Jack said. “But I’d like to ask her for a favor, a favor that I’m willing to pay for. Is this something you could help us with? Do you speak Arabic?”

“Not too terribly well,” Hillel admitted, “but probably good enough. When would you like to go?”