Free The Second Messiah by Glenn Meade Page A

region were stored in clay jars or urns, so I got excited. Sure enough, I’d struck it lucky. Inside the jar I found a linen wrap containing the scroll.”
    “Could you tell how old it was?”
    Jack nodded. “I’d examined other material found in the area and figured it had to be at least a couple of thousand years old. Carbon dating would have pinned it down more precisely.”
    “Our forensics people found some flakes of parchment on the floor of the professor’s tent. It’s likely they came from the scroll, seeing as it was the only one found on this dig. But we’ll have the flakes analyzed and carbon-dated.”
    “Good. Like so many of the scrolls found in this region they’re beyond monetary value, even if some dealers manage to put a price on them.”
    “Which dealers are you talking about?”
    Jack wiped his brow from the heat as they followed a track that led up an incline and toward a narrow chasm fifty yards away. “The ones who trade in stolen artifacts and parchments. There’s an entire industry that deals in plundered historical objects, even Dead Sea scrolls. I’m sure you know that.”
    “Are you including the Bedu tribes?”
    “Of course. They’re the ones who discovered many of the scrolls in this area. Some Bedu like to treasure-hunt for booty. They’d use some of the same indicators that we use to find buried artifacts.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Like burrow holes, for instance. When wild creatures tunnel into the ground, they can leave pieces of pottery and coins behind them in the soil mound, which can be a good indicator that it’s worth digging in that location. Sometimes that’s how we find our material. So the Bedu pitch their tents out in the valley and under cover of night they’d dig down into the burrow holes. Sometimes they’d get lucky and find valuable objects. Then they’d fill in the holes, dismantle their tents, move on, and no one’s the wiser.”
    Lela nodded. “I’ve heard about such practice.”
    “They sell their more important finds to dealers, rich private collectors, or church representatives. Stuff like pottery, Roman or religious artifacts and documents. You name it.”
    Jack slowed as they stepped up a rocky incline, then went on. “You might call it theft, but the Bedu would argue that they didn’t steal anything in the first place. These lands have been their stomping grounds for thousands of years, since way before Christ. They consider their finds to be rightfully theirs.”
    “Do you think that the scroll’s theft could have been a motive for killing Professor Green?”
    “Hey, you’re the cop, Lela. The professor’s dead and the scroll’s disappeared. It’s simple deduction that theft’s the motive. Why else would anyone kill him?”
    “Have you anyone in mind?”
    “No. But I can’t imagine any of the dig crew stabbing their director to death, no matter how much of a moody guy he was.”
    “What about thieves who specialize in valuable artifacts?”
    “Maybe. But how could they have learned so quickly that we’d made a valuable find?”
    Lela considered the reply, then said, “Let’s get back to the contents. You told Mosberg that Green managed to translate some of the text.”
    “The scroll seemed in remarkable condition and written mostly in Aramaic. Green didn’t unravel it entirely because of the risk of damage. But the first inked lines were legible and mentioned the name Yeshua HaMeshiah , Jesus the Messiah, Jesus Christ.”
    “What exactly did the text say?”
    Jack halted, removed his notebook, and flipped it open.
    “This story concerns the man known as Jesus the Messiah. Having traveled from Caesarea to Dora, where his name had become well-known, he failed miserably to cure the blind and the sick, despite his promises to do so. Soon after, he was arrested in Dora by the Romans, tried and found guilty, and sentenced to be executed.”
    Jack looked up. “Green thought the text bizarre and so did I. There’s