Secret of the Scroll (Greg McKenzie Mysteries) Read Online Free
Author: Chester D. Campbell
streets of Tel Aviv, the sights quickly put salesman and souvenir out of mind. We passed Ben-Gurion Airport with jets roaring overhead, then traveled through the stark, desolate Judean hills. Nothing grew there and certainly nothing could live there. It made you wonder why this was called the Promised Land.
We took a rest stop at an isolated service station with a small market. Our Palestinian driver refueled the bus and the rest of us picked over an assortment of drinks and snacks. I had some reservations about hanging around in isolated areas of Israel , but the tour company was owned by Arabs, and we had been told the Palestinians knew this and would give us no trouble. There had been car bombings during the past week, but so far no threats had come our way.
When we turned north again around Jerusalem , Jake Cohen jabbed his stick at a steady stream of sights, including the Arab town of Bethany just east of the Holy City . As we whizzed past, he pointed out the supposed site of Lazarus’ tomb and the inevitable church connected with it. One thing that strikes you on a visit to the Holy Land , whenever you come across a spot believed to have been related to Jesus’ life or ministry, somebody has built a church on it.
“There’s another Bethany in Jordan ,” Jake said, “not far from where you’ll cross over. It’s the place where John the Baptist did his baptizing, according to John one, verse twenty-eight. It was also around there that Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. Also, Bethany has a tel called Mar Elias, or Elijah’s Hill, where the prophet is said to have ascended to heaven in a whirlwind, riding a chariot of fire pulled by horses of fire.”
“That’s from Second Kings, chapter two,” said deep-voiced Arnold Demontbreun. He was our class biblical authority, but I sometimes wonder about him. Arnold can quote the Bible verse by verse but can’t remember his wife’s birthday.
“Are we going to stop there?” This from a small, white-haired woman on the front row named Martha something or other. She was from what we uncharitably called the Old Ladies Class.
“Sorry,” Sam Gannon said. “By the time we get through Israeli customs and immigration, cross the river and get checked out by the Jordanians, we’ll do well to reach Amman by dark.”
I popped another piece of gum and wondered if this might not turn out to be a three-stick bus ride.
We were soon passing through a barren, rocky section of Judean desert. There were several Bedouin camps nestled among the sand-colored hills. The small settlements back away from the highway were marked by long, rectangular tents. Some had wheeled water tanks, and in most the crafty Arabs had traded their “ships of the desert” for pickup trucks.
At the Jordan River border post we were herded off the bus. We were warned to bring everything with us, since we would be boarding a Jordanian coach as soon as we cleared immigration. I decided to give Jill the scroll box to put in her carryon since mine was bulging with camera equipment. Thanks to Jake Cohen we moved quickly through passport checks and visa slip returns. The Israelis were preoccupied with a large group of departing Palestinians, giving us Americans only a cursory look. I noticed the Arabs got a thorough checkout. One of the customs officers, a friend of Jake’s, told him they got frequent alerts about attempts to smuggle guns and bomb-making materials into the country. But a warning bulletin had them on the lookout for a Palestinian attempting to smuggle something out. He didn’t say what.
Back in the parking lot, we were instructed to identify each of our bags from the Israeli bus before they could be loaded onto the Jordanian coach. Such security precautions brought no objections as we recalled the explosions and bloody confrontations seen on the nightly news. And the sight of Israeli soldiers everywhere armed with rifles during our trip had served as
We took a rest stop at an isolated service station with a small market. Our Palestinian driver refueled the bus and the rest of us picked over an assortment of drinks and snacks. I had some reservations about hanging around in isolated areas of Israel , but the tour company was owned by Arabs, and we had been told the Palestinians knew this and would give us no trouble. There had been car bombings during the past week, but so far no threats had come our way.
When we turned north again around Jerusalem , Jake Cohen jabbed his stick at a steady stream of sights, including the Arab town of Bethany just east of the Holy City . As we whizzed past, he pointed out the supposed site of Lazarus’ tomb and the inevitable church connected with it. One thing that strikes you on a visit to the Holy Land , whenever you come across a spot believed to have been related to Jesus’ life or ministry, somebody has built a church on it.
“There’s another Bethany in Jordan ,” Jake said, “not far from where you’ll cross over. It’s the place where John the Baptist did his baptizing, according to John one, verse twenty-eight. It was also around there that Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. Also, Bethany has a tel called Mar Elias, or Elijah’s Hill, where the prophet is said to have ascended to heaven in a whirlwind, riding a chariot of fire pulled by horses of fire.”
“That’s from Second Kings, chapter two,” said deep-voiced Arnold Demontbreun. He was our class biblical authority, but I sometimes wonder about him. Arnold can quote the Bible verse by verse but can’t remember his wife’s birthday.
“Are we going to stop there?” This from a small, white-haired woman on the front row named Martha something or other. She was from what we uncharitably called the Old Ladies Class.
“Sorry,” Sam Gannon said. “By the time we get through Israeli customs and immigration, cross the river and get checked out by the Jordanians, we’ll do well to reach Amman by dark.”
I popped another piece of gum and wondered if this might not turn out to be a three-stick bus ride.
We were soon passing through a barren, rocky section of Judean desert. There were several Bedouin camps nestled among the sand-colored hills. The small settlements back away from the highway were marked by long, rectangular tents. Some had wheeled water tanks, and in most the crafty Arabs had traded their “ships of the desert” for pickup trucks.
At the Jordan River border post we were herded off the bus. We were warned to bring everything with us, since we would be boarding a Jordanian coach as soon as we cleared immigration. I decided to give Jill the scroll box to put in her carryon since mine was bulging with camera equipment. Thanks to Jake Cohen we moved quickly through passport checks and visa slip returns. The Israelis were preoccupied with a large group of departing Palestinians, giving us Americans only a cursory look. I noticed the Arabs got a thorough checkout. One of the customs officers, a friend of Jake’s, told him they got frequent alerts about attempts to smuggle guns and bomb-making materials into the country. But a warning bulletin had them on the lookout for a Palestinian attempting to smuggle something out. He didn’t say what.
Back in the parking lot, we were instructed to identify each of our bags from the Israeli bus before they could be loaded onto the Jordanian coach. Such security precautions brought no objections as we recalled the explosions and bloody confrontations seen on the nightly news. And the sight of Israeli soldiers everywhere armed with rifles during our trip had served as
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