The Second Messiah by Glenn Meade Read Free Book Online Page B

massive rocks that formed a boundary with the surrounding desert were stained by the sunrise.
    I love this land. Love its mystery, its coppery light, its incredible history .
    He sat cross-legged on a huge boulder, breathing slowly. At dawn, the Dead Sea valley, at more than thirteen hundred feet below sea level, was tranquil. A desolate landscape, but strangely it was where Jack felt closest to God. Not that he was deeply religious. More spiritual.
    As his father used to put it, sometimes religion is for those who are afraid to go to hell, but spirituality is for those who have been there.
    Except here in the Holy Land, it seemed easier to understand belief. History was like a scent in the air. You breathed it every time you sucked in a lungful. Here was the land of Abraham and Jacob, and where Christ was born, the sky he slept under, the soil he was crucified upon. To the north lay Jericho. And twenty miles behind him, to the west, Jerusalem’s gilded temple.
    Jack heard a clatter of stones and turned, seeing Yasmin Green’s figure moving up the slope from down in the camp, her long blond hair tinted by the amber rays. He was pretty sure every man on the dig had been having the same fantasies about Yasmin Green since she had joined the excavation two months ago. She saw him, waved, and called out, “Hi, Jack!”
    He waved back, his heart beating a little faster, and waited for her to join him.
    She reached the top and sat next to him on the boulder, curling her bronzed legs. She carried two cans of Heineken and handed Jack one. “The last two. I thought you might like to join me in one final nightcap?”
    “I guess I may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.”
    She giggled. “I know I told Uncle Donald to rest but I couldn’t get to sleep. You?”
    Jack took a swig of the chilled Heineken. “I’m still on a high since our discovery. I wanted to take a little exercise to help me unwind.”
    “Me too. You seem miles away. What are you thinking about, Jack?”
    “Honest?” He looked out at the view. “Twenty years ago when I was nineteen my father worked on a dig not far from here, and I sometimes sat on a hill much like this, with a pretty girl by my side. Her name was Lela Raul.” Jack nodded toward the horizon. “She used to live in an Israeli settlement, over there. Her father was a local police sergeant.”
    “Do you know what became of her?”
    “It was a long time ago, Yasmin. But the last I heard she was a cop, like her father, though they’re long gone from the settlement.”
    “I heard you went to visit the place where your parents died. Is that what got you thinking about the past?”
    “Probably.”
    Yasmin put down her beer, touched his arm a moment. “Your friend Buddy’s always spoken very highly of your parents. And my uncle Donald does too. You must miss them?”
    “There were only the three of us. I guess we were extremely close.”
    Yasmin bit her lip and her lipstick glistened. “I saw you come up here and thought I’d join you. I hope you don’t mind. Or maybe I’m intruding on your thoughts?”
    Mind? The sight of her only added to Jack’s elation. He could smell her subtle perfume. He glanced at her exquisite skin, golden in the dawn light. She was one of the few women on the dig who bothered with her appearance. Two of the females on the excavation were Orthodox Jews and wore long, modest dresses while digging.
    The other women, students and college grads of various nationalities, none of them afraid of wielding a shovel, forgot about makeup and wore loose clothes and scruffy old work boots. But somehow Yasmin always managed to look good even after they had spent the day cave-crawling and scooping dirt out with gufas , homemade rubber buckets made out of half tires. She was a magnet for men’s attention.
    Jack said, “To tell the truth, I’m glad to have the company.”
    “Has Donald finally gone to bed?”
    “I hope so. But he was still up when I left