Howard Blum - The Gold of Exodus: The Discovery of the True Mount Sinai

Also by Howard Blum

Nonfiction

W ANTED! THE SEARCH FOR NAZIS IN AMERICA

I P LEDGE A LLEGIANCE T HE S TORY OF THE W ALKER S PY F AMILY

O UT T HERE

G ANGLAND

Fiction

W ISHFUL T HINKING

SIMON & SCHUSTER
R OCKEFELLER C ENTER

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C OPYRIGHT 1998 BY H OWARD B LUM

A LL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM .

S IMON & S CHUSTER ANDCOLOPHON ARE REGISTERED TRADE MARKS OF S IMON & S CHUSTER INC.

D ESIGNED BY K AROLINA H ARRIS

ISBN 0-684-86768-0
eISBN: 978-0-684-86768-7

A PORTION OF THIS BOOK WAS PUBLISHED IN SLIGHTLY ALTERED FORM IN V ANITY F AIR .

In memory of my parents, Gertrude and Harold Blum, and Dan Wolf, my friend.

Take heed that you do not go up into the mountain or touch the border of it; whoever touches the mountain shall be surely put to death.

THE BOOK OF EXODUS, 19:12

The thing about the ends of the earth is that someone somewhereusually in Langley, Virginiawill imagine that they have strategic value.

Christopher Dickey, EXPATS

The Desert Southeast of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia: 1988

J UST before daybreak, Bob Cornuke decided they should leave the cave. The way he explained it to Larry Williams, if they headed down the mountain while it was still dark, at least they would have a couple of things working for them. First, they had a pair of night-vision binoculars to illuminate the narrow trail. And second, as best he could tell, things were still quiet in the concrete guardhouse at the base of the mountain; with a little luck the soldiers would not stir until after morning prayers. Cornuke tried to lay it all out in the same calm, reasonable voice his SWAT team lieutenant had used whenever he was sending them into something that had a large chance of going bad. And, another kindness, Cornuke decided there was no point in mentioning that even if down in the valley the soldiers were sleeping, that was no guarantee that night patrols were not combing the mountain. If there were soldiers out there, he figured, his friend would find out soon enough.

After only a moments consideration, Williams agreed that the plan made sense, or at least as much sense as anything was making these days. A month ago his biggest worry was the dent his wife had put in the Rolls while backing into a tight space at Nordstroms. Now he was about to crawl away from a musky cave to head down a treacherously steep mountain in the dark of night; and, one further complication, the mountain happened to be standing in the middle of a Saudi Arabian military base. No problem, he assured Cornuke.

When they left, Williams led the way. He knew if he did not take that first step, he might never take one. He headed toward the ledge that led away from the cave, and all at once he heard the wind. It blew over the desert with a fierce, insistent, high-pitched whine. The noise was loud, but insufficient, Williams feared, to deaden the wild thumping of his heart.

They walked slowly, and since the path was narrow they went one behind the other like Indians. Footing was difficult; the mountain was mostly rock. But they made good progress, and after a while Williams was able to see with the night-vision binoculars down to the section of barbed-wire fence they had crawled under almost six hours ago. He was about to tell Cornuke when suddenly he was pushed to the ground from behind, the wind nearly knocked out of him. It was a moment before he realized that it was Cornukes bulk on top of him, and his friends hand wrapped tight across his mouth. Quiet! Cornuke commanded in a whisper.

There was a small hesitation, the overwhelming desire to do nothing; but then, moving carefully, Williams raised his head just inches from the ground and he saw it too: two silhouettes moving behind a boulder a hundred yards or so off, red-checkered gutras wrapped around their heads and Kalashnikovs strapped over their shoulders.

The two men lay there hugging the ground in the darkness until the figures moved noiselessly on. But even after the patrol had long disappeared down some unseen path, Cornuke and Williams couldnt find the will to go on. It wasnt until the sky was lightening, and they began to hear the first stirrings from the guardhouse, that they realized it was now or never. Besides, Williams reminded himself, there was still something else he needed to prove. It was the part of the mystery that, back in what now seemed like another lifetime, had first moved him to come to the mountain.

They both got to their feet. When they didnt hear a round of automatic fire come blasting at them, they silently gave thanks and continued the short distance down the mountain to the valley.

A FLAT , rocky plain without even a tree for cover stood between the base of the mountain and the barbed-wire fence. But there was no other way out, and so, on a count of three, they made a dash for it. There was no stealth, no pretense of quiet. All that mattered was getting to the fence and finding the spot by the dried-up creek bed where they had earlier dug a crawl space in the spongy sand. Williams was a marathoner, but after just a hundred yards he was huffing mightily since he had never before run for his life. Cornuke had not gone full out since he had blown his knee on a fullback sweep more than a decade earlier. But even if he had been years younger with a packed stadium cheering him on, he could not have imagined himself ever running faster than he did that morning across the desert sand. They hit the fence in a dead heat.

With both hands, Cornuke held up the fence and Williams crawled under on his belly. When he was on the other side, it was Cornukes turn. He got down on all fours, ready to go, but all at once there was a noise as loud as the crack of a rifle. It was an unsteady instant that seemed like an eternity before they realized the door to the guardhouse had swung open. A soldier had come out to pee. Cornuke waited until the sound of urine hissing into the sand had subsided, and then he, too, crawled easily under the fence to safety.

The sun was now high, and the desert was beginning to bake. It was a mile or so walk from the fence to the wadi where they had hidden their truck, and, hot and completely exhausted, they took their time. Still, they felt good. It looked as if they had made it. And when they saw the truck sitting just as they had left it, their supplies still loaded in the rear, for the first time they congratulated one another. They had pulled it off! Done the impossible!

It was only as they were walking the final ten yards toward their campsite that the two Bedouins stepped out from behind a large bush. Where they had been waiting all along.

One of the Bedouins, the taller man, leveled a 12-gauge shotgun at them. Williams saw the weapon and, instead of coming to a stop, moved in closer. He had grown up in Montana and knew a bit about guns. A 12-gauge was only a single-shot, so he quickly calculated that maybe only one of them would have to die. He took another step toward the gunman. That was the other thing about shotguns: They need distance to be effective; up close the shooter has no room to maneuver.