The police sirens wailed through the darkness, competing with the chanting protestors. A patrol car and a forensics van splashed through the mud near the cave entrance.

“Back up!” a young officer shouted.

Inspector Yoram Levi, tall with tired eyes, ducked into the cave. A photographer and  patrolman followed him in. Levi’s flashlight beam found the body.

Levi knelt, pressing gloved fingers to the cold neck. No pulse.

Blood from the gash in the skull trailed into a dark smear on the ossuary’s sharp corner. The angle of the victim’s arm looked wrong. Levi made a mental note for the forensics team to check for a struggle.

Levi unclipped a mud-slicked cellphone from the man’s belt.

“Get the inside and outside of the box, everything,” he directed the photographer. “And the footprints. We’ve got a second set here that isn’t sneakers.”

He handed the patrolman the phone. “Get me the last calls.”

“No reception in here, sir.”  They stepped out into the mist and the patrolman hit redial.

Across the field, a few meters from the entrance, Veingarten’s Nokia chirped. He pulled it from his long black coat, his face a mask of confusion.

The patrolman, seeing him answer, spoke into the phone.

“This is Officer Bar-Haim, Jerusalem police. Who am I speaking with?”

“Yehuda Veingarten.”

The patrolman raised an eyebrow. Turning to Levi, he said pointing, “Sir, the man on the phone is right over there.”

Levi looked at Veingarten, then back at the phone, a grim smile on his face. He nodded to the patrolman, who walked toward Veingarten.

“Mr. Veingarten,” the officer said, “Why were you the last person this man called before he died?”

Veingarten stammered, his mind racing. He could deny it, but they had the record. His lawyer would want him to say nothing, but that would only make him look guilty. He decided to tell a version of the truth.

“I don’t know him personally,” he said. “I maintain an unofficial network. I pay Arab construction workers small finder’s fees to protect our heritage by giving me first lead on graves.”

Levi nodded, scribbling notes. The excuse was plausible. A grey market of information, but not illegal. Yet.

Levi took the phone and dialed the second-to-last number. This time, a few meters away, a phone rang.

Porat answered, “Daniel Porat,” his clear and confident voice coming from two places at once. From Porat himself, and a split second later, from the cellphone pressed to Levi’s ear.

Levi thumbed the end call button. He didn’t look at his partner. His eyes were locked on Porat.

“Professor Porat,” Levi said, his voice flat and calm as he walked toward him. His eyes flicked quickly down at Porat’s muddy boots. “Why would this man call you just before he died?”

Porat answered calmly. “I maintain a network of contacts. I pay a five-hundred shekel finder’s fee to ensure the right of first refusal to the site. It protects the integrity of the find. Standard practice, Inspector.”

“Standard practice,” Levi smirked. “So, the dead man was selling the same cave to two buyers? Jerusalem hasn’t changed in two thousand years.”

An ambulance backed through the mud, its strobes painting the rocks red. The paramedics loaded the body. Police strung yellow crime scene tape across the cave entrance and posted a guard.

Porat leaned toward Samir. “The ossuary stays inside tonight. We take it before dawn. We can’t risk Veingarten’s people getting hold of it.”

Samir looked at the yellow crime scene tape fluttering in the wet wind, then at the body being loaded into the ambulance. He gave a single, tight nod.