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"Why doesn't that reassure me?" sniffed Al-Hassani.
"Fine," said Mariano. "They're journalists. They're posing as an Italian
television crew. They just rented a car. They're meeting me in Jerusalem in an
hour."
"Weapons?"
"We'll give them what we can."
"And then what?"
Mariano stalled. The truth was, he had no idea.
Technically, what Bennett had found wasn't a scroll.
Not in the classic sense of the word, anyway. It was copper, like the others.
But it was not rolled up as scrolls typically are. Thus it had no need to be
sliced into pieces with a laser or a special circular saw. It actually looked
more like a copper tablet. It was rectangular in shape about a foot long and a
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foot and a half wide and engraved with an ancient form of Hebrew lettering.
Exhausted and still in pain from her wounds, Natasha took longer on the
translation than might otherwise have been usual, but she was deter-mined to
get it right. Finally, after more than two hours, she finished typing her
notes into the laptop she had borrowed from the Galishnikovs and called the
group into the dining room, where she had been working with-out a break.
"What have you got?" asked Bennett. "Are we on the right track?
"I think so," said Natasha. "This may be the most intriguing one of all. Let
me take it section by section."
She pulled up a split-screen image with a digital photograph of the first
paragraph in the scroll on the left side and the English translation on the
right. Then she read the
English aloud.
"
All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to
do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the
LORD
swore to give to your forefathers.
You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the
wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know
what was in your heart, whether you would keep
His commandments or not.
He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not
know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand
208
that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that
proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.
"
"I ran a search," said Natasha. "That's Deuteronomy 8:1-3. Now, watch this."
"
For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of
water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills;
a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of
olive oil and honey;
a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not lack
anything.
When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the LORD your God for
the good land which He has given you."
"Thats also Deuteronomy 8," Natasha noted. "But only verses 7, 8, part of 9,
and all
'
of 10."
Bennett quickly explained to the Galishnikovs the "missing link" theory they'd
been using to crack the scroll codes, then asked Natasha what was missing this
time.
"I think the second half of verse 9 is the clue," said Natasha. She pulled up
a new screen with the full verse.
.. a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not lack
anything;
a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper."
"`Out of whose hills you can dig copper," she repeated. "That's it. That, I
think, links it conclusively to the others."
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"Go on," said Erin. "Show us the next section."
Natasha flashed a new image on the screen and read the text aloud.
"It came about in the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, as I
was sitting in my house with the elders of judah sitting before me, that the
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hand of the Lord God fell on me there. Then I looked, and behold, a likeness
as the appearance of a man;
from His loins and downward there was the appearance of fare, and from His
loins and upward the appearance of brightness, like the appearance of glowing
metal.
Then He brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold,
Shallum the son of Col-hozeh, the official of the district of Mizpah, repaired
the Fountain Gate.
He built it, covered it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars.
After him, Nehemiah son of Azbuk, official of half the district of Beth-zur,
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