The Third Day Read Online Free PDF

client and present this as definitive proof of Dr. Bryson’s whereabouts.” 
     

Chapter 6
     
    That was how I found myself on the next El Al flight out of New York.  Markowitz couldn’t go; he had a social commitment he couldn’t avoid without the gossip columnists taking note, but he did agree to give his father only a basic outline of our findings until we had a chance to make further inquiry. 
    Sharon, too, chose to stay behind, for reasons she didn’t elaborate. 
    While we waited for our flight to board, Lavon explained that her father, a Dallas real estate developer, had provided the lion’s share of their excavation’s funding for the past several years. 
    He wasn’t just any developer, either.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Edward Bergfeld, Jr. owned the second largest collection of Class A office buildings in the United States, and it came as no surprise to hear that he also ranked among the top contributors to conservative religious and political causes. 
    “Do you have a sense of Sharon’s own views?” I asked.
    Lavon paused to consider the question. 
    “Somewhat like her father’s, from what I can tell,” he replied, “but I’ve learned not to probe.  In our business, we take funding where we can find it.  The old man seems satisfied with our current arrangement and I don’t want to jeopardize our work by getting into unnecessary theological disputes.” 
    I nodded.  This made perfect sense. 
    “How much time has she spent at the site?” I asked. 
    “She visited for the first time earlier this year.” 
    “Does she have any archaeological training?”  
    “No.  She just happened to be there when we uncovered the skeleton; but I’ll give credit where it’s due:  She was the one who initially noticed the polyester core in the thread.  The brand is called D-Core; it’s quite common today.” 
    Since others waiting at the departure gate could overhear our conversation, we agreed not to discuss further specifics until we reached our destination, though I couldn’t resist making a final pass through online databases before having to shut the system down for takeoff. 
    ***
    Considering that I had made my last trip to Israel in the back of a noisy, windowless C-130, I couldn’t complain too much about having to fly coach.  We landed about six the next morning, cleared immigration and customs, and were comfortably ensconced in our rental car by eight, crawling slowly forward in Tel Aviv’s rush-hour traffic. 
    Half an hour later, we pulled into the parking lot of Radiometric Labs and greeted the friendly receptionist.  She escorted us to the back, where two technicians had laid out the skeleton on a metal table in the center of the room. 
    “I called ahead,” said Lavon. 
    We introduced ourselves.  Radiometric’s manager, Jonathan Dichter, had studied with Lavon at Michigan before returning to his native country. 
    The lab was arranged in a typical fashion.  A long bench ran the entire length of one side, covered with an array of beakers and reagents, an autoclave and couple of laptop PCs – though I suppose I should qualify the term “typical.”  Old movie posters of Godzilla breathing fire upon Japanese cities festooned the walls. 
    “Two thousand years from now, confused scientists might attribute the destruction of our present world to such a cause,” Dichter explained. 
    I shrugged.  To each his own. 
    We chatted a few more minutes and then got down to business. 
    “When did you first realize you had a problem?” I asked. 
    “Let me start by explaining our normal procedures,” Dichter replied. 
    “When a skeleton comes in from an excavation site, we lay it out on the table and count the bones, to determine whether it is completely intact and to resolve the question of whether two or more sets of bones may have been mixed together.” 
    “Fair enough,” I said. 
    “Then we take preliminary measurements of the long bones and x-ray