“There are some big differences.” But Lina probably can’t see them, Jane thought. Almost from childhood, she had been abused and sexually exploited. “You can tear the web and get out.” She opened the bathroom door. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

Lina nodded. “I’ll pull up the text on the computer and get these papers in order.”

Lina was still frowning down at the computer when Jane came out of the bathroom. “I think I have every nuance right. I had to call the language institute in Tel Aviv.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“I’ve dealt with them before. We have a relationship.” She gestured to the chair on the other side of the table. “Sit down. I’ll pull up the translation on the computer.”

Jane dropped down in the chair. “I fully intend to read all of it, but set it up for me. Is it what we need?”

Lina nodded. “I think it may be. No, I’m almost sure that it’s what you want, providing Hadar wasn’t a liar. Why do you think that I was sitting here waiting for you to wake up?”

Because she was excited, Jane realized. Lina kept her emotions so well concealed that she hadn’t realized it until this moment. “Tell me.”

“First, it was written years after he reached Syria and had founded his religion glorifying Judas. It was a sort of a justification of all the atrocities he committed in the name of Judas. The first paragraph is just a sort of discourse on the injustices that had been inflicted on him as a boy and how Judas had come into his life and he had seen the light.”

“Not Jesus, Judas?”

“He mentions Jesus only fleetingly; it was Judas who was the center of his life. He rants and raves about the priests and the disciples who didn’t understand that Judas was only doing what God wanted in betraying Jesus. That Judas was only a divine tool to bring about the salvation of the world. That the condemnation that led to the suicide of Judas was an act against all the angels of heaven and should be revenged.” She looked up at Jane. “And the suggested methods of that revenge are pretty bloodthirsty. Crucifixion figured prominently. Boiling in oil was another. I don’t think there’s much doubt that Hadar was psychotic. He might have had a genuine affection for Judas, but it became a destructive obsession after his death.”

“He got all of that venom into one tablet?”

She nodded. “As you saw, the tablet was fourteen by ten, and the script was very tiny. I almost went blind trying to decipher it. And after those first paragraphs, it was all about why and how he fled Jerusalem.”

“The coins,” Jane prompted.

“He said that Judas tried to give them back to the high priest, but he was refused. The priest wouldn’t pick them up from the floor of the temple. Hadar offered to go back and get the pouch for Judas, but he wouldn’t let him. Judas ran away from the temple, and later Hadar heard that he had hanged himself. Hadar went crazy. He wanted to kill all the priests. He wanted to kill all the disciples. He was in a fury. He said that it was Judas who was the martyr and should be worshipped.”

“And so a cult was born.”

“At least the seeds were planted. But he got it into his head that the thirty pieces of silver were a symbol of that martyrdom. That Judas’s returning the coins to the temple had some sort of divine significance. Hadar was enraged that the priests were going to spend the money buying a field to bury strangers instead of preserving it as a holy relic.’

“So there was a Field of Blood?”

Lina nodded. “If you choose to believe Hadar. He was definitely unstable.”

“Did the priests actually buy the field?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t the field that they first intended to buy. It was some distance from the city. Hadar had evidently caused a huge scene in the temple, and the priests decided to keep a low profile among the citizens of Jerusalem. There was already too much uproar in the city about the crucifixion of Jesus. They decided to not let anyone know where the field was located.”

“But Hadar found out?”

Lina nodded. “The second day after Caiaphas purchased the field from Ezra, a potter, to the far north of the city. Hadar went there that night after the money had been exchanged.”

“And?”

Lina handed her the computer. “Read the translation for yourself. It will give you an idea what kind of man the founder of that cult really was. I pulled it up to the point where he’s approaching the hut.”

She already had an idea of Hadar’s character, Jane thought. It wasn’t pretty. She began to read the translation.

The night was dark. My master, Judas, must have interceded to make sure that no one would see me punish those greedy sinners. I stared in the window at Ezra, the potter, sitting at the table with his wife and two sons. They were laughing, joking, happy at their good fortune.

Blasphemers.

I knocked on the door and asked them to share their bread with a poor traveler. They gave me food and a blanket on the floor to rest for the night.

After they slept, I did my master’s will and slew them all. I left Ezra alive until I’d forced him to give me the pouch of coins. There were only twenty-eight. He had given two to his slave, Dominic, when he’d freed him and sent him on his way earlier in the day.

Gave those precious coins to a slave as if they were nothing? I could not bear it. I struck him in the heart with my dagger over and over until the blood ran red on the dirt floor. Then I dragged him out into the field along with his accursed family. It took several hours, but I mounted them all on crosses I’d made from tearing down the fencing. Then I lit the crosses and watched the crucifixes burn through the night.

Burn Blasphemers. Glory unto Judas.

But I could not risk returning to Jerusalem. The soldiers would be after me as soon as the potter and his family were found. I had let my anger be known by the priests. I could not even risk taking the coins in case they were found on me if I was captured. I sealed the coins along with Ezra’s copy of the writ of sale for that cursed Field of Blood in a fine alabaster bottle I had brought to hold the sacred coins. Then I fled north to leave all those hypocrites and liars behind me so that I could start a new life serving my holy master.

“He sealed the coins in a bottle?” Jane shook her head as she looked up from the laptop at Lina. “Then we’re out of luck. Too fragile. The coins wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving since that time.” She frowned. “Or maybe they would. Some vases and dishes survived in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. I remember seeing them while I was on digs when I was in college.”

“It depends on where he put the bottle.” Lina was smiling faintly. “And I think that there is a chance. Later in the document he talks of planning to go back and retrieve his holy coins. He gives exact directions to where he placed the bottle.”

Jane’s eyes widened. “Exact?”

Lina nodded. “Yes. This field he’s talking about isn’t the one where they take tourists. It’s too far north. And he buried the bottle deep in the clay in a cave on the south perimeter bordering the property. That was probably why it was forbidden for anyone to break the seal on his holy tablet. He didn’t want anyone else to know how to find the Judas coins. He never got around to going back for the pouch himself, but he wasn’t going to let any of his followers go after them and get all the glory.”

“He mentioned a writ of sale. If it specifically refers to them as the coins given to Judas, that would document the coins.” She grimaced. “But that would be expecting too much.”

“Not necessarily. Documents during that period could be very explicit. If the priests had refused the return of the Judas money, I’d think they’d be even more certain to have the writ very clear about whose money was being used for this purchase. It would be a form of self-justification. We’ll have to see.” She got to her feet. “But right now I’m going to go to bed and get some sleep. I feel so tired, I’m numb. Read the rest of the translation, and we’ll discuss it later.”