PARADOX - Chapter 66

Chapter 66

May 7, 27 CE – Caesarea Martima – Judaea Province





Pontius Pilate lifted the small set of forceps the man handed to him and inspected them with curiosity. His was a very patrician face, strong jaw, long regal nose, thick dark and curly hair graying at the temples, and piercing brown and green speckled eyes. He was tall for the average Roman, close to six feet, and his light Tuscany skin betrayed a hint of Germanic blood.

“Where did this come from?” Pilate held the forceps up.

Dorbec’s Latin was better than Chester’s and it wasn’t proper in Roman society a woman to speak for them.

“We traded for it in the east,’ Dorbec answered, glancing nervously at the Roman soldiers. Carney stood by his side with a guilty look on his face.

Pilate pointed to the bag Carney was holding. “Show me what is in the bag!” he demanded, glancing back at the Decurion who was standing slightly behind him and to his left. The Decurion placed his hand on his gladius and the soldiers became more alert.

The man wearing the senatorial toga walked over and snatched the bag from Carney’s hands. He opened it and started removing items, items that did not exist in ancient Rome and could not have existed anywhere in the Roman Empire.

Pilate turned to the Decurion. “Arrest them,” he ordered.

The Decurion barked an order to his soldiers and quickly pulled his gladius from its sheath. As soon as the swishing sound made by the gladius reached the ears of Khan’s men, one of them pulled his Heckler and Koch MP7 and charged the small group. From twenty feet away he opened fire on full automatic. Pilate, the two wealthy Romans, the Decurion and several soldiers were immediately cut to pieces. Another of Khan’s men joined in and they slaughtered the remaining Roman soldiers.

The soldiers standing guard in front of the Prefect’s headquarters, seeing their leader and a security detail killed by wizards, immediately sounded the alarm. Doctor Dubenchiek and Cencio rushed from the building. Dubenchiek’s eyes were wide with anger and fear. He halted half way down the steps and shouted something at Khan, but his shout faded as one of the guards ran him through with his pilum. Khan shot the guard, barely missing Cencio, who was sitting on the stairs beside the body of Doctor Dubenchiek.

Scores of soldiers started pouring from the headquarters building and from further down the street. Khan was acting like a maniac, firing his pistol in one hand and an HK MP7 in the other, a satisfied grin on his face.

Chester signaled for his men to scatter. “Main gate!” he yelled, grabbing Ariana by the hand. They made it into a small crowd of people before Khan could turn and open fire on them. Khan ordered his men to cover him and rushed to catch Chester’s team as they scattered among the excited bystanders.

Cencio quietly melted into the crowd. He looked enough like a normal civilian that little attention was drawn to him. He watched as Khan’s mercenaries butchered scores of Roman soldiers. They were evil men, laughing and pointing as they fired round after round. Their laughter quickly faded when one of them was impaled by a Roman pilum, the ancient weapon going all the way through his body and making sparks on the cement behind him as he clutched his chest in agony.

Before the four remaining mercenaries could react, they were showered by a storm of pilums. Each was struck more than half a dozen times, the weight of the heavy spears dragging them down onto the cobblestone square.

“Idiots,” Cencio muttered, as a Centurion rushed up and quickly beheaded each of them. The Officer scanned the crowds for further danger then ordered his men to form a square around the body of Ponitus Pilate. Cencio picked up the small chest of gold and melted among the people who were beginning to leave the scene. They knew from experience that when Roman anger was raised, innocent people could be killed, and the Roman Prefect had just been murdered.

Instead of running through the streets like thieves trying to escape and draw unwanted attention, Chester and his team slowed to a fast pace. If they could manage to make it to the main gate before word was received of the death of the Prefect; they could escape into the thick woods on Mount Carmel. As it was, it would be difficult to identify them since all eyewitnesses were probably dead, but they could not afford to take the chance.

As they approached the main gate, Dorbec spotted his men standing on the outside waiting for them. He signaled for them to continue into the outskirts and deeper into the mud and skin huts that made up much of the outlying city. The area around the gates would be the first place the soldiers would search and secure.

He heard a noise behind him and turned to see a horseman making his way through the excited crowd. He nodded to Chester and Ariana to pick up their pace. The cavalryman was obviously sent to warn the sentries manning the walls.

They made it through the gate just before the rider arrived. Dorbec looked back over his shoulder to see the massive doors being closed. He thought he spotted the face of Khan among the crowd inside the walls, but could not be certain.

They met the rest of the Team well into the outskirts of the city. Carney’s face was a pasty white, either from fear, exhaustion or perhaps guilt.

“Romans are very efficient.” Dorbec pointed to the wooded slopes of Mount Carmel. “There will be patrols searching the suburbs and spreading into the hills very soon. We must get into those mountains as fast as we can.”

“They just killed Pontius Pilate,” Oddball blurted, his eyes wide with fear. “We’ve changed history. Without Pilate Jesus will not be crucified.”

Chester patted him on the shoulder. “I think history will be fine. It doesn’t have to be Pilate, another Roman Prefect will be appointed and his name will go down in history instead of Pilate’s.”

“I think I spotted Khan just before the gates were closed.” Dorbec glanced at Chester. “Did anyone see what happened to Cencio?”

“That man’s too evil to die!” Carney spat. “You can bet he survived.”

“The Brotherhood goons were just stupid enough to get themselves slaughtered,” The Geek remarked. “Where do we go from here, Colonel?”

Chester thought about his question for a few moments. The object of the mission was the assassination of Jesus. Jesus had no reason to be in or near Caesarea. If anything, he was spreading his teachings along the Jordan River. He might also be in Jerusalem where he often preached, especially near the mikvaot, or ritual baths, used by Jewish pilgrims.

“I don’t suppose you have another means to contact the time ships?” he asked Ariana, aware that Doctor Dubenchiek had confiscated her communications device earlier and given it to Cencio.

Ariana nodded. “The mission was to last ten days. If, at the end of ten days, no one made contact with the ships, they were to use their sensors to locate my DNA and investigate. We still have seven more days until they initiate that action.”

“What would Cencio do?” Chester turned to Dorbec.

“He will attempt to complete the mission,” Dorbec replied. “If Khan survived, and there’s no reason to believe that he did not, Cencio will find him then organize a small caravan and try to find the location of Jesus. I am assuming he still has the gold and gold can buy protection and pay off greedy soldiers.”

“Our best bet is to head for Galilee,” Chester stated.  “The Bible records that Galilee is where Jesus’ first miracles took place, so Cencio will most likely head there. If Cencio and Khan had been killed we could have simply hidden in the hills until the ships came looking for us. Despite the risk to our families, I think we should still make an attempt to stop Cencio from the assassination attempt.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

As soon as they cleared the Mount Carmel mountain range, the first village of any size they found was Jokneam, a small but important town along the major road towards Meggido, the Jezreel Valley, and on to Nazareth. The same road eventually connected with the populated cities along the Sea of Galilee, such as Tiberias and Hippos and the Via Maris

It was early in the morning when they reached the town and they would not have stopped except they were exhausted and the meager rations that were designed to last them for two days were long gone.

Ariana had kept some of the coins in her bag so they bartered with an innkeeper for food and shelter. Their purchase got them more cold mutton, several loaves of hard dark bread, and a bed in the stables.

The inn keeper told them that several Roman Cavalry patrols had passed during the night and word was spreading that the Roman Prefect had been assassinated by a band of Eastern Magicians. A generous reward was being offered by the old Prefect, Valerius Gratus, the man that Pontius Pilate had replaced, for information on the assassins.

The way the man looked at them made Chester suspicious. Their accents unusually clean clothing, and mannerisms betrayed the fact that they were foreigners. Before bedding down for a few hours of desperately needed sleep, he asked the man for the directions to Gedora, a town well to the north and far from the direction they were going to go. He gave the innkeeper a story that they were heading home far to the north.

As soon as he met the others in the stables he warned them of the innkeepers suspicions. Despite their exhaustion, they decided to move on down the road for several miles and make camp. They found an outcropping of rocks several hundred yards off the road and made a camp without fire. Dorbec posted two guards in the direction facing the road and the rest were asleep before they even hit the sand.

The next day they made it to the town of Nazareth just before noon. Nazareth is thought to be the home of Joseph and Mary and the site of the Annunciation (when the Angel Gabriel told Mary that she would have Jesus as her son). Nazareth is also allegedly where Jesus grew up from some point in his childhood.

Historians have speculated the size of Nazareth to be anywhere from 2,000 inhabitants to 480, and as little more than an insignificant hamlet.

The town they found was situated in a small valley next to a steep hill. The number of dwellings indicated a population no larger than several hundred and the amount of tilled ground could not have supported a much larger population.

Despite their fear, they had to risk purchasing food from a local innkeeper. The man also told them that numerous Roman patrols had been through the town searching for assassins. To their good fortune, the man was extremely antiRoman, and probably a member of the underground resistance.

“We have little money.” Ariana spoke for them, as she was the only one left who spoke Aramaic. “But we do have some trade goods.”

“πολύ καλός,” The man replied in amazingly clear Greek. The Geek, a Greek scholar, understand what the man said and started a conversation with him.

“His Greek may be thousands of years old, but we understand each other very well,” The Geek stated. “His name is Andros Panagakos, and he is originally from a village near Athens. He hates the Romans with a passion and is willing to help us in any way he can.”

“Let’s start with food,” Carney growled, rubbing his empty stomach.

For the next hour or so, Andros plied them with food, which they did not know existed in the ancient world. He started with a fine delicate butt of beef marinated with wine, a goose roasted with pomegranate juice, soft bread, beans, lentils, and steaming vegetables. The final plate was of tender lamb on dill leaves served with a sauce that was outlandishly delicious. There were also honey cakes with sweet dates and wine.

“This is for you man.” Oddball handed his Special Forces coin to Andros, who looked at it with curiously. His face lit up with a wide grin and he said something in rapid Greek.

“He says he knows we are magicians now,” The Geek translated. “He also knows we were not the ones who assassinated the Prefect. According to the Roman soldiers, they were all killed.”

“Tell him not to show that coin around,” Chester stated, his glance giving Oddball a rebuke. “I doubt any one can reproduce the quality of that coin in this era and whoever sees it will know that it had to come from magicians.”

“Ask if he has heard of a man named Jesua the Prophet?” Dorbec asked.

Andros spoke for a while then launched into a lengthy tirade that had The Geek’s eyebrows raised.

“He said that a man called Jesua the Baptizer was in Cana last fall,” The Geek stated. “It was said that he was also known as a magician since he turned water into wine.”

Dorbec sucked air into his lungs. “It was there that Jesus performed his first miracle. It took place during a wedding feast. In the midst of the celebrations, the host ran out of wine. When Jesus heard of the situation, he went to the household servants and instructed them to fill six water pots to the brim with water. He then told them to take a cup of this water to the headwaiter for him to taste. When the headwaiter tasted it, not realizing its source, he proclaimed it to be the best wine served during the entire celebration.”

“Wasn’t that also the place where Jesus performed his second miracle?” Carney asked. “Something to do with an official.”

“It was about a year after the wedding,” Dorbec replied. “Some Royal Official, whose son was sick at Capernaum heard about Jesus’ healing miracles and traveled sixteen miles by foot to ask Jesus to heal his son. The Royal Official asked Jesus to “come down before my child dies,’ but Jesus said to him, "Go your way; your son lives." The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and when he got back home, he discovered that his son was healed.”

“The wedding was almost a year ago,” Chester stated. “That means that Jesus must be in or around Cana right now.”

They looked at each other. Where Jesus was, Cencio was bound to show up.

Andros started speaking again in rapid Greek. He looked upset and worried.

“He says we must hide here for a time because it is far too dangerous for us to be on the roads,” The Geek interpreted. “He says that in about four weeks or so, the patrols will stop and then it will be safe to go on to Cana.”

“This will give our time ships an opportunity to contact me also,” Ariana added.

“Tell Andros that we will repay his generosity a hundred fold.” Chester motioned to The Geek.