“What time?”

“A little before eight. It wasn’t there last night, I’m sure of that. An American arrived just before I left-someone who works with one of the international organizations-and she was surprised that there are pine trees up here.” The caretaker smiled. “You know these foreigners; they only expect to see olive groves, real Middle Eastern stuff. I told her the pines were planted not long ago to reduce the wind on the mountaintop and we both looked very closely at them. I would’ve seen the body.”

“When were you and the foreigner looking at the trees?”

“Just before sunset. About six o’clock.”

“So you came along the ridge this morning and looked over the edge of the path and saw the body?”

The short man shook his head. “I saw blood on the Eternal Hill first. I thought a jackal had brought its prey here, so I looked around because I didn’t want the tourists to stumble onto a half-eaten goat. Then I found Ishaq dead in the trees.”

“Where’s the Eternal Hill?”

The caretaker pointed across the path to a sloping rock ten yards square. Sami and Omar Yussef stepped toward it. Blood puddled black at its center. A gory trickle ran to the bottom of the gentle, rippling slope of granite. Thicker daubs led up to the top.

“He was tortured there in the middle of the rock,” Sami said quietly. “These other marks must be where the body was dragged over the rock, before he was thrown into the trees. Some time during the night.”

Omar Yussef turned to the priest. “The Eternal Hill is where the ancient Samaritan temple stood?”

“This rock is the peak of the mountain,” the priest stammered, “the home of Allah.”

“It looks just like the stone inside the Dome of the Rock,” Omar Yussef said.