The Third Day Read online

  Instead, he directed my attention to a cluster of soldiers standing around a small canopy about twenty yards away.

  I strode over to the group without looking back, dodging a pile of armor as I went. One of the soldiers glanced at Publius and then instructed the others to move out of my way. As they did so, it wasn’t hard to see why.

  I wasn’t the only one having a really bad day.

  Medics attended to two seriously wounded Romans lying on stretchers in the shade. I could see immediately that the man on the left wouldn’t last long. Blunt force trauma, from a club, probably, had caved in the side of his skull just behind his left eye. I was no expert, but even in a modern hospital, I would have rated his odds of survival no better than one in five.

  I turned to Publius and shook my head before addressing the second case.

  This man also faced grave peril. As the medics removed his blood-soaked tunic, I spotted a deep gash in his abdomen, and a closer inspection confirmed the worst: a small tear in the peritoneal sac surrounding his intestines.

  I called for water as I considered what to do. The primary danger with this type of injury is infection, usually resulting from fragments of dirty clothing or intestinal material itself seeping into the abdominal cavity.

  Army field protocol for such wounds calls for a soldier to press sterile gauze into the opening and then wrap the wound snugly, followed by a quick evacuation of the patient to a field hospital where physicians can clean out any foreign matter and administer the required antibiotics.

  Today, though, I was on my own. I could only try and hope for the best.

  As a servant placed a large bowl of water on the ground beside me, I reached into my bag and removed a small package of powdered iodine, which I dumped into the bowl and stirred until the solution was an even light brown.

  The other soldiers watched curiously as I washed my hands in the iodine and then made a closer inspection of the wound. I used tweezers to pull several small fragments of the man’s tunic away from the opening before thoroughly cleaning the surrounding area with a patch of iodine soaked gauze.

  Afterward, I clamped the opening with a couple of butterfly bandages and covered the area with an antibiotic laced compress. It was all I could do. He might not live, but he’d at least have a fighting chance.

  To the extent that I could pantomime, I instructed the others to give the man only boiled water to drink and nothing to eat for at least a day, though I wasn’t sure how well I got my instructions across.

  ***

  I had to wait for the soldiers’ attention to be diverted before I could slip my ear bud in once more. I tried first to reach Lavon, but for some reason, he didn’t respond.

  A moment later, however, Sharon’s voice came through loud and clear.

  “You wouldn’t believe this place,” she said.

  She sounded as if she had entered a different world – which in fact, she had.

  She explained that her litter had entered the palace about half an hour earlier and she had been unloaded, so to speak, in a verdant, sun-lit courtyard roughly the size of three football fields.

  Deep channels crisscrossed lush, grassy lawns, carrying water to a remarkable assortment of shade trees and a stunning variety of flowering plants. An “oasis of serenity” she called it. Topping things off, hundreds of white doves flew back and forth between the trees.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “You sound like you’re writing ad copy for Donald Trump.”

  “His resorts are a pigsty compared to this,” she said.

  She didn’t add that Herod probably hadn’t filed for bankruptcy as many times, either.

  “Who else is there with you now?” I asked.

  In the background, I could hear what sounded like a dozen women frolicking in the water – teenage girls, by the pitch of their voices.

  “Azariah sent me to join the others by the pool area,” she said.

  “What about guards?”

  She spotted a few pacing back and forth atop the fifty foot crenellated wall that ringed the palace complex to keep the riff-raff in their place, but otherwise, she couldn’t see any.

  As I thought about it, this made sense. Based on her description so far, the palace didn’t sound like a place many people tried to escape.

  Besides, an army of servants tended the grounds, and punishment of slaves in the Roman world was both brutal and collective. Everyone had an incentive to watch everyone else. If she tried to slip away, she wouldn’t get far.

  I heard her sigh – a pleasurable sigh, from the sound of it. Part of me wanted to let her rest and enjoy the afternoon in the sun, but she could not afford to let her guard down. Herod’s palace might top even the most modern luxury resorts, but so did the price of admission.

  Not that she had forgotten.

  I explained to her what Lavon had told me about the bath treatments and that gave her an idea.

  “Just be careful,” I said. “I’ll keep checking in when I can.”

  Chapter 36

  I tried once more to contact Lavon but had no better luck than before. I couldn’t help but worry. Though I couldn’t see what was happening, the cascade of wounded Romans streaming back into the fort told me that all was not sweetness and bliss outside.

  Compounding my anxiety, I found myself going through my first aid supplies at an alarming rate. Once I ran out, my only real trump card would be gone.

  I gestured to a nearby officer in an attempt to back away.

  He ignored me, for at that moment, a squad of about a dozen Romans passed through the north gate, dragging five men linked together with heavy chains around their ankles, wrists and necks. For good measure, two more soldiers followed behind, prodding the captives forward with the occasional lash.

  Everyone in the courtyard, even the medics, dropped what they were doing and edged over to have their first real look at their adversaries.

  Two of these bruised and battered unfortunates were relatively young men, including one who looked as if he’d barely qualify to drive back home.

  Whatever great adventure they had embarked on earlier in the day had gone horribly awry, and from their terrified expressions, they were only now beginning to realize how horribly indeed.

  Two others appeared to be in their mid-twenties, but as if by instinct, I glanced past them to the captive at the head of the queue. This man, older by a decade and evidently their leader, displayed what I can only describe as sheer animal hatred.

  No ‘hearts and minds’ for that one, I knew.

  I looked to my left and spotted a servant leading an older man toward the now kneeling file of prisoners. The squad’s leader saluted Volusus and briefly explained what had happened, while I re-seated my ear bud as discreetly as I could manage.

  Volusus spoke to the prisoners through an interpreter. Whether he didn’t understand Aramaic or simply wanted to use the delay in translation to formulate his next question, I couldn’t tell.

  The Roman commander stepped closer to the leader and asked his name, but the prisoner didn’t even acknowledge the question. Instead, he continued to stare straight ahead, his eyes aflame with raw intensity.

  Volusus repeated his question; slowly, and in an even tone.

  “I will ask you again: what is your name?”

  Once more, the man did not respond.

  Volusus stared at the captive for a few seconds and then nodded to the closest officer. The optio drew a dagger from his scabbard; then two soldiers pressed the prisoner to the ground while the officer sliced a finger off the man’s right hand.

  He didn’t utter a peep. Despite the trauma, his eyes continued to blaze defiance.

  The soldiers lifted the prisoner to his knees, and Volusus repeated his inquiry a third time. Hearing no answer, he nodded again to the optio, but before the Roman could act, another prisoner cried out.

  It was the youngster, who had turned a ghostly pale; and that wasn’t the only sign of the kid’s terror. His knees rested in a wid
ening pool of his own urine.

  “Hold to the strength of your father, Abbas!” he babbled.

  “Your name is Abbas, then?” said Volusus.

  This had a deflating effect on the man. He cast an irritated glance at the boy and then turned to the Roman commander.

  “No, I am only his undeserving son.”

  “I see.”

  “You see nothing. You are blind to the truth, as are those vermin of our race who condemn themselves to eternal punishment by collaborating with your iniquity. They defy the ways of God.”

  The prisoner then cut loose with a stream of invective. I caught only bits and pieces as the interpreter struggled to keep up, though the parts that did come through – something about pig-eating sons of whores and their rightful place of damnation – made the gist of this fellow’s speech quite plain.

  The people of the modern Middle East had elevated swearing to an art form. It didn’t sound like things had changed very much.

  Volusus said nothing. He had heard it all before, I was sure, and perhaps experience had taught him that it was best to ignore their florid insults. Nevertheless, I could see that he was losing patience, and allowing such brazen defiance to go unpunished could give the others courage that they didn’t otherwise possess.

  He nodded to the optio again and the Romans repeated the drill, this time slicing the index finger off the same hand. They weren’t quick about it, either.

  The leader’s grimace grew more evident, though once again, he stifled a cry. How he managed to do it, I couldn’t imagine.

  Volusus watched in silence. This wasn’t getting anywhere.

  “Take them below,” he finally ordered.

  I didn’t want to think about what awaited them in the dungeons. I moved off to one side as soldiers dragged the unfortunate creatures away and two slaves rushed over with buckets of water to mop the congealed blood off the stone floor.

  A few of the words, though, turned over and over in my mind as I watched: a son who seemed to worry only that he had not killed enough Romans to do his family proud. One Son of Abbas.

  “I’ll be damned,” I muttered to myself. Son of Abbas. bar Abbas. Barabbas; arrested for – how had the Gospels put it – insurrection and murder.

  My thoughts turned to the awful scene at the gate coming in. This Barabbas, if he was truly the one, was unaware of how lucky he would prove to be, and how quickly his fortunes would turn.

  Chapter 37

  While the guards led Barabbas and his crew to their fates below, I focused my attention back to the Roman wounded.

  Suddenly, I heard a loud shout. By instinct, I jerked my head up and glanced around in all directions; though a brief moment later, I realized the sound had come from my earpiece.

  I heard the shuffling of feet, followed by what sounded like a pile of lumber crashing to the ground. I called out, but got no response. Instead, I heard Lavon’s sharp whisper.

  “Lie down on the ground. Don’t move.”

  This couldn’t be good.

  “Damn it, I said don’t move!” The voice was still a whisper, but it carried an insistent tone.

  I closed my eyes in order to concentrate. I could hear footsteps – running men by the sound of it – but I had no way of knowing what had actually happened.

  Then I heard Lavon speak again, just as quietly as before, but with even more urgency.

  “You must pretend to be dead, which you will be if you don’t do exactly as I say.”

  And that was all.

  I opened my eyes to see a couple of legionnaires looking at me with odd expressions, though the awkward moment passed quickly. Moments later, the optio who had dismembered Barabbas’s hand called out and ordered them to fall back into formation.

  Even I could see that whatever started outside the walls had now escalated into major trouble. A trumpet blew atop one of the battlements as another officer signaled for reinforcements, and I had a feeling that Barabbas wouldn’t be the only man dissected today.

  I was right about that, too.

  For the next hour or so, wounded Romans either stumbled or were carried back in through the north gate.

  I treated them to the extent I could and discovered that my reputation had spread through the ranks. Soldiers I had never seen before made a beeline to me with the most serious cases, though for some of them, I, like their colleagues, could do nothing but hope for the best.

  Shortly after the last reinforcements had gone out, the returning legionnaires began to drag in coffles of battered prisoners, whose faces and clothing were caked in dried blood.

  I had no way to know whether these men had suffered their injuries in the fighting or whether they had been beaten by vengeful soldiers after their capture. Obviously, the Romans issued no Miranda warnings, and a phone call to a lawyer was out of the question.

  Very few of the captives carried themselves with the firm bearing of hardened combatants, and none displayed the intense fury I had witnessed in Barabbas.

  I shook my head at the madness of it all. They probably never had much of a plan. Instead, full of misguided enthusiasm, these young men had gone charging forth on a grand campaign.

  It would end as anything but that.

  Having my hands full treating the injured Romans, I paid less attention to the prisoners as time went on. As the legionnaires dragged in a later batch, however, I glanced up and noticed one face that stood out, though the sight was so unexpected that it took my mind a few moments to process what my eyes had seen.

  I spat and muttered a quiet expletive.

  Bound fifth in the string, with his right eye blackened and blood dripping down behind his ear, was Markowitz. His face reflected a mixture of both confusion and raw terror.

  Just before the Romans dragged his line through the doorway leading down to the dungeons, he shouted out my name, and Publius’s – though he fell silent after a soldier slapped him hard on the face and barked at him to shut up.

  I ducked behind a column as I considered what to do next. I called out to Lavon, but received no answer. I closed my eyes in yet another effort to recall a few tiny fragments of Latin, but it was no use. Even if I could remember more than a phrase or two, that was a far cry from being able to communicate properly.

  I’d put it off as long as I could, but I knew that at some point, I’d have to make a decision: whether I had a realistic chance to save our reckless friend, or whether, by trying, I would share his fate.

  ***

  I stewed over this for a little while; then to my relief, I heard Sharon’s voice. As Lavon had predicted, Herod’s servants had taken her to the baths, which were, unsurprisingly, a luxurious contrast to the Spartan, barracks-like facility in the Antonia.

  “Can you tell me exactly where you are now?” I asked.

  “I’m upstairs on the northwestern side of the compound. It’s like a big dorm.”

  She described the chamber as being situated two floors above another caldarium. The room, about the size of a basketball court, had long cedar beams stretching across the ceiling that reminded her of her high school gym. Twin beds, spaced about four feet apart, lined the long walls. She counted sixty in all.

  Once again, Herod’s engineers had been clever. Heat from the furnace below the baths flowed upward through vents in the chamber’s floors. At the far end, mounted to the wall, a two-foot diameter wheel rotated valves that permitted the heated air to flow through the room when the weather turned cold and shunted the excess to the outside on warmer days.

  I couldn’t help but ask whether the women fought over the thermostat.

  She chuckled briefly before turning serious.

  “Have the others come back?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” I replied.

  I wasn’t about to say more. Though her mental state seemed to be holding up well, I was sure that at the back of her mind, she held to the certainty that once Lavon came back and we could speak to the Roman commander, we’d have her back in the fortress b
efore anything untoward could happen.

  How she would react once she realized she’d have to fend for herself, I had no way to know.

  ***

  I returned to my duties and had worked for another hour when the gate opened and forty horsemen charged inside.

  After the soldiers came to a halt, grooms rushed forward to claim their mounts and lead them to the stables. Like everyone else involved with the Romans, the stable-hands went about their tasks with a brisk efficiency.

  One man stood at the center of attention. After he dismounted, he remained still while attendants removed his armor. It was only when Volusus emerged from a side entrance and saluted that I realized the likely identity of the new arrival.

  I nudged a nearby soldier, pointed to the man, and shrugged.

  He understood. “The prefect,” he replied. “Pilatus.”

  Though I was too far away to hear what they were saying, from their demeanors, it appeared that the prefect and the fort’s commander were on reasonably good terms.

  Pilate asked a few questions, but mostly he just listened to the officers’ accounts. His face reflected very little emotion, one way or the other.

  I tried hard not to stare. My own mental image, derived from both the Gospels and Hollywood, depicted Pilate as a weak, vacillating figure torn between his own conscience and the demands of the howling mob. As with many of my other impressions, I began to suspect that this one, too, was wrong.

  After hearing the reports, Pilate walked over to speak to a group of wounded soldiers. He told a few jokes, from the look of it, and then directed his attention to a final group of ragged captives who knelt on the stone floor, awaiting transfer to the dungeons.

  “Who are these people?” he asked.

  A junior officer responded. “We picked them up in the disturbance today. We’re in the process of questioning them.”

  “Take them below and give them to Titus Labernius,” said Pilate. “He will know how to get the truth from them.”

  A loud, blood-curdling scream wafted through the courtyard from below.

  “Two men are there now, excellency,” said the officer.