When The Oak Tree Blossoms

Winston Marshall renowned professor of Jewish Studies had so many degrees under his belt and letters behind his name colleagues often referred to him in hush tones as Dr. Alphabet. The man was relentless. Never tiring, rarely retiring he had read some where Da Vinci had only slept for forty-five minutes every eight hours and look at the legacy he'd left to the world. Forty minutes every twelve hours didn't insure a more important legacy but it did insure a larger amount of time to build one. Dr.A was three stories below ground covered in dust from head to toe. It was four a.m. and he enjoyed the solitude of working alone. His hearing and mind was uncluttered by the noise and activities of his coworkers. The unending barrage of gasp, oohs, aahs and unrelenting questions that came with every find he could do without. His mind was free to take him back into the past. The newly discovered catacombs below the southern Levant in Jerusalem was proving to be a find of astronomical importance. Jews, Muslim, Romans, Greeks, rich, poor, male and female were entombed here. There were ossuaries made of ordinary stone to gold inlaid carved ivory burial boxes. Despite their purpose some were so ornate they could be mistaken for fine furnishings. Dr. A suspected they were Christians a new sect that arose in Judea during king Herod's reign. He'd been sketching a seal etched into the side of a burial box and was now logging the find and the grid it was discovered in into his ledger when something scurried across the floor in the shadows. He wasn't a man given into fears, parts of the catacombs were sufficiently lit but the noise stuck to the shadows behind the flood lamps. It moved on four legs instead of two. Dr. A got down on all fours he looked in the direction he'd last heard the scurrying. The beam from his headlamp struck two emerald circles in the darkness, a cat he guessed. When he called out to it it darted off so he stood and went after it. He didn't want the poor thing to get lost and starve to death. He travelled for about fifty yards and tripped on a broken pave stone lost his balance and crashed head long through a false wall cracking the lens of his headlamp. Rising to one knee he could see boxes? Plenty of boxes of different sizes scattered over the floor. He returned to the original dig site and retrieved a flood lamp and set it where the light would illuminate the boxes in the hidden room. After removing enough wall to climb through he could see they weren't boxes. They were miniature buildings, replicas of the original city of King David laid out in a grid pattern. He had stumbled upon a three dimensional map of the city in antiquity. Ornate palaces, homes, fountains, mosaics, cisterns., Street by street, grid by grid. He was awe struck. He could actually be looking at a map commissioned by either of the two greatest kings in the history of Israel. His mind was reeling. The Kings Palace, the sheep gate, the temple. The temple and he froze. For ten whole minutes he never moved or blinked and eye. The temple was build during King Solomon's reign. He was shaken and begun to tremble and rightly so. What he had just realized was frightening beyond any current knowledge known to man and to some very dangerous. He exited the hold. Tried to conceal its existence as best he could. He climbed the three stories to the surface where the sun greeted him warmly and walked over to the generator and cut the power. He ask the guard to call for a taxi as he locked the gate. He was nervous and he hoped it went unnoticed. The taxi arrived just as he finished securing the area. He waved to the guard and thank him then ducked sheepishly into the backseat placing his briefcase between his feet. "The Seven Arches Hotel please" he said to the driver. The driver nodded, checked his mirrors then eased the car into gear and drove down the narrow street in the direction of the hotel. Nervously searching the street behind him for anything suspicious Dr. A saw a dark colored sedan with equally dark tinted windows slowly pull into the lane from a side street. For fifteen blocks the car never sped up or slowed down but maintained it's distance. When the hotel was in walking distance he asked the river to pull over he would walk the rest of the way. He paid the driver grabbed his briefcase and walked briskly down the sidewalk. The black sedan pulled over as well. It followed and when he engaged in conversation with hawkers of wares it stopped. Two blocks from the hotel he ducked into a deli and ran out the back. He barely escaped the owner wielding a meat cleaver in the kitchen screaming "no customers allowed" in Hebrew. Dr. A ran the rest of the way through the alley to the hotel. He calmed down and paced himself and walked nonchalantly to the entrance where the doorman surprisingly greeted him in English. He murmured a thank you to the doorman and caught a glimpse of the black sedan reflected in the hotels storefront glass panels parked at the curb. He thought he had lost them he was sure of it or had they known where he was heading all along. He walked over to the phone in the lobby. A bit of subterfuge he would act as if placing a call which would allow him time to observe if anyone got out of the dark colored sedan but when the operator picked up he was so nervous he gave him his home number. His wife answered on the second ring. The conversation went as usual. yes he was doing find, when would he be home, how was the dig, what was discovered. She had to ask him several times because his attention was on the dark colored sedan now parked at the curb. He ended the call with I love you and hung up. No one had exited the sedan. Dr. A went to the front desk and collected his messages. A few from colleagues, several from the ministry of antiquities and one in a sealed envelope with his room number scrawled across the front. He placed all of them in his briefcase, walked to the elevator pressed his floor and took another look at the sedan it was moving away from the curb into traffic. He sighed with relief as the elevator doors opened and people exited noisily wandering away in all directions. Tourist he assumed by their dress. He glance in both direction hurried into the elevator and pressed the door close button rapidly. He was alone, nervous and euphoric at the prospect of the world learning the secret knowledge only his mind held, the proof his briefcase contained. He had taken pictures of the map in the secret chamber. As the elevator rose to the seventh floor a smile crossed his lips. He thought of how his legacy would surpass Schmidt, Schliemann even the great Howard Carter. The elevator dinged upon reaching the seventh floor. The doors rolled back exposing the red carpet of the corridor. For the first time he became aware no music played. He moved to the door paused and c****d his head to one side seeing if he could detect any movement. satisfied nothing was amiss he stepped out of the elevator and stared in the direction of his room. The hall seemed darker than before the only light shown through a grated bay window at its end but the corridor was empty. Reaching in his pocket for his keys he half ran half walked to the door of his room. Tucking his briefcase under his arm he grabbed the knob and inserted his key. In just a few seconds he reasoned he would be safely in the confined of his own room. Just as the key hit the tumblers the door opposite his opened. Instead of opening the door and rushing in he turned to give a polite greeting. He heard two small pops then slid to the floor eyes wide with fear. He could make out the silhouette of a shapely woman from the muzzle flashes. The two holes in his khaki shirt wept with red tears. The woman step closer and took the briefcase. For some odd reason he smiled at how beautiful she was. He was losing consciousness fast. The world would never know his mind screamed. The Dome of the Rock doesn't sit on the original site of Solomon's temple. The Jews can rebuild.......