Sacred Bones : A Novel

By the time he’d been tossed from the van in a desolate location not far from the Israeli border, Farouq had suffered three broken ribs, four fractured fingers, cigarette burns to the chest, and seven missing teeth.

But he smiled, blood oozing through his broken mouth, knowing that he had not uttered one word about the whereabouts of the Engineer. No Israeli would ever break him.

He also took great pleasure in knowing that the blood on his face was not only his own. Even hooded and bound he had managed to bite Teleksen’s hand, clamping his teeth into the despicable Israeli flesh, harder, harder, cranking his head sideways until nerves severed and bones cracked. The Israeli had whimpered like a dog.

Shortly after the Engineer was assassinated in his Gaza safe house by a rigged explosive cell phone, Ari Teleksen was promoted to Aluf—Major General. Farouq had seen him a few times since then—news reports mostly—always identifiable by the hand the Keeper had disfigured that night long ago in Gaza.

Now Teleksen had the audacity to call with what initially seemed to be a request for a favor. But after a lengthy explanation, it had become clear that the request would benefit Farouq’s cause equally well.

“Akbar,” Farouq called out to the corridor, struggling to compose himself.

A moment later, the hulking bodyguard appeared in the doorway.

Farouq’s eyes briefly sized him up. “You’re a strong boy. I need you to do something for me.”

44

******

Vatican City

The two scientists rode the elevator up one level and the doors opened into the main gallery that stood above the lab—the Vatican Museum’s Pio Christian Gallery.

As they exited the elevator, Bersei quietly explained, “You see, Charlotte, for three centuries after Jesus’s death, early Christians did not portray his image. However, these early Christians did use other familiar images to depict Jesus.”

“How do you know that?”

“We have archaeological evidence. And much of it is here,” he said, motioning with his eyes to the art collection that spread out before them. “Let me show you something.”

As Charlotte strolled beside him, she eyed the Christian-themed marble reliefs that were mounted on the walls like massive stone canvases.

Bersei waved a hand at them. “Are you familiar with this collection?”

She shook her head.

“They’re relics from the early fourth century,” Bersei explained, “a time when Emperor Diocletian began his campaign of persecution—burning churches and killing Christians who wouldn’t denounce their faith. It’s also a time when early Christians secretly convened in the catacombs outside Rome to pray among the dead martyrs and saints laid to rest there—some in ornate stone coffins.” He pointed to one mounted on a sturdy platform.

“A sarcophagus,” observed Charlotte, admiring the craftsmanship.

“Yes. A sort of cousin to the Jewish ossuary we’re studying. Many early Christians were converted Jews who undoubtedly developed what were to become Christian burial rituals.”

They had stopped in front of a three-foot-high marble statue. “Here we are.” Bersei turned to her. “Do you know what this image portrays?”

Looking at it, she saw a young man with long curled hair, dressed in a tunic. A lamb was slung over his shoulders and he was holding its legs with both hands. Hanging at his side was a pouch containing a lyre.

“Looks like a shepherd.”

“Not bad. It’s actually called ‘The Good Shepherd.’ It was found in the catacombs. This image is how early Christians depicted Jesus.”

Charlotte gave the statue another once-over. “You’re kidding me.” The shepherd was boyish, with smooth features, its design Greco-Roman—not biblical.

“No. Ironic isn’t it? But keep in mind that this representation blended mythology with the Jesus story. This wasn’t intended to resemble him. It was an attempt to embody the ideal he represented—the protector, the shepherd. Orpheus, the pagan Greek god of art and song, was also blended into this image of Christ. Just as Orpheus’s heavenly music could calm and soothe even the most wild of beasts”—he pointed to the lyre hanging at the shepherd’s side—“Jesus’s words could tame the souls of sinners.”

“Just like the dolphin and the trident represent salvation and divinity.” Now she knew why he had brought her up here.

“Exactly.”

“Why though? Why didn’t they worship icons or the crucifix?” They were everywhere, she thought. Especially in this place. It was hard to imagine Catholicism without its gruesome cross.

“First off, it would’ve sent a clear message to the Romans that they were indeed Christians. It wouldn’t have been wise in an era of systematic persecution. And second, the early Christians didn’t embrace the notion of iconography. In fact, Peter and Paul forbade such things. That’s why images of the crucifix didn’t exist back then. That didn’t happen until Constantine came along.”

“That guy again.”

“Sure. He’s the forefather of the modern faith. Constantine changed all the rules. Crucifixions and even the catacombs themselves were abandoned when he came to power in the fourth century. That’s also when Christ was transformed into a true cult hero—a divine being. Crucifixes sprouted up, grand cathedrals built, and the Bible formally compiled. Literally, the faith went from underground to national stage.”

“It’s amazing—Constantine wasn’t really covered in my history classes—and I went to a Catholic high school! I really don’t know anything about him.”

Bersei took a deep breath, relaxing his shoulders. “In 312 AD, the Roman Empire was split between two factions of emperors—Constantine in the west, and his ally Licinius in the east versus Maximinus and Maxentius. Constantine had decided that the sun god, Sol Invictus, had preordained him to be the sole ruler of the entire empire. So with an army made up of an obscure group known as Christians, he battled his way all the way through northern Italy to within a few kilometers of Rome to the only bridge that crossed over the Tiber River... Milvian Bridge. When rumors spread that Maxentius’s army outnumbered Constantine’s by ten to one, the Christians quickly became demoralized. The dawn before his final push into Rome, Constantine was paying tribute to Sol, when in the sky above, he saw a miraculous sign shaped like a cross—the overlapping X and P, the Greek chi and rho, which were the first two letters of ‘Christ.’ He immediately roused his troops and proclaimed that their savior, Jesus Christ, had told him that ‘with this sign you shall conquer.’ Constantine ordered the blacksmiths to emblazon the symbol on all the shields, and the men had regained their courage. Later that day, the armies clashed in a bloody battle and miraculously Constantine emerged victorious.”

“And his army attributed the victory to Christ’s intervention?”

Bersei nodded. “Yes. And owing a debt to his soldiers, perhaps even inspired by the intoxicating power and persuasion of their passionate faith, Constantine later embraced their religion at the national level. Of course, one must also note that the ‘one god’ worshipped by Christians blended well with Constantine’s self-concept as the sole Roman emperor. However, to honor Sol and to appease the pagan masses throughout the empire who had yet to assimilate into the new religion, Constantine craftily blended many pagan concepts into early Christianity.”

“Such as?”

“Let’s start with the simple things.” Bersei laced his fingers together, eyes scanning the gallery. “The solar halo for instance. Just like our coins from Pontius Pilate, Constantine had minted coins in 315, while his alliance with Licinius was falling apart and about ten years before Constantine took over the entirety of the empire. But Constantine’s coins depicted Sol on them—a solar-haloed Sol in a flowing robe that looks remarkably similar to later Jesus iconography.”

“Interesting.”

“Constantine also cleverly coincided the celebration of Christ’s birth with the December twenty-fifth pagan winter solstice celebration of Sol’s birthday. Of course, I think you won’t be surprised when you hear that the Christian day of worship, once celebrated on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, was also moved to a more special day of the week.”

“Sunday.”

He nodded. “Known in Constantine’s time as dies Solis.” Giovanni’s expression darkened. “And then something even more profound emerges during Constantine’s reign. The emphasis on Jesus’s physical rather than spiritual resurrection.”

“What do you mean?”

“The early Greek Gospels used wording that suggested Christ’s body wasn’t necessarily reanimated, but transformed.”

“But in the Bible, Jesus walked out of the tomb and appeared to the disciples after his death, didn’t he?” All those years of Catechism and Catholic school had drilled this stuff into her head.

“Sure. Jesus disappeared from the tomb,” he readily agreed. Then a knowing grin swept across Giovanni Bersei’s face. “Though none of the Gospels say how. In the gospel accounts that follow the empty tomb, Jesus also had the ability to walk through walls and materialize from out of nowhere. And if you recall from the Bible, many whom he appeared to hadn’t even recognized him. Those aren’t attributes associated with a reanimated physical body.”

“Then why does the Church emphasize his physical death and physical resurrection?”

He smiled. “My guess goes something like this. Egypt, particularly Alexandria, was a very influential cultural center in the Roman Empire. There, cults worshipped Osiris, the god of the underworld who was horribly murdered by a rival god named Seth—cut to pieces in fact. Osiris’s wife, the female goddess of life named Isis, collected his body parts and returned them to the temple and performed rituals so that three days later, the god resurrected.”

“Sounds a lot like Easter,” she concurred. “Are you suggesting the Gospels were altered?”

An older couple was dawdling close by, intrigued by the two people in white lab coats. Bersei drew closer to Charlotte. “Largely untouched, but perhaps reinterpreted in key areas,” he clarified. “I suppose some of this could all be coincidence,” he said with a shrug. “Anyway, the point to be made here is that in the fourth century, Christianity was being practiced inconsistently throughout the empire. Hundreds of scriptures were circulating out there, some legitimate, many wildly embellished.”

“Which meant scrapping all the inconsistent scriptures,” she deduced.

“Right. You can’t blame the guy,” Bersei said in his defense. “Constantine was trying to unite the empire. The Church’s infighting only undermined that vision.”

“Makes sense,” Charlotte admitted. It seemed like Giovanni actually admired Constantine, she thought.

“Anyway, that’s where it all began. The Church became more intertwined with the empire, one symbiotically serving the other. Crucifixions had disappeared from the roadways, but one enormous crucifix was erected above the altar and Rome’s fearmongering evolved from ruling by the sword, to ruling by fear of damnation for sinners. All thanks largely in part to one brilliant Roman emperor who reshaped the face of Western civilization.”

She sighed and shook her head. “I thought you said you’re a good Catholic boy?”

“I am,” he assured her.

“Even though you know all this stuff?”

“Because I know all this stuff. You have to understand that if what we’re looking at downstairs is the physical body of Christ, it doesn’t contradict the original Gospels. But it certainly creates a big problem for a Church that’s taken some liberties in its scriptural interpretations.”

“I’d say,” she readily agreed. “What do you think Christians would think if our findings were made public?”

“They’d think what they want to think. Just like you and me. The evidence is remarkable, but inconsistent. So the faithful would remain faithful, like they have through other controversies. Don’t get me wrong, it would certainly be an enormous dilemma for Christianity. And a public relations nightmare once the press got hold of it.”

“Any possibility this could be a fake?”

Bersei exhaled. “It would have to be one hell of a hoax, but you never know.”

45

******

Jerusalem

By the time Graham Barton returned to his second-floor rental unit in a luxury high-rise conveniently located on Jabotinsky Street in modern Jerusalem, it was already eight-thirty in the evening. After all that had happened today, he was looking forward to a full glass of cabernet sauvignon, a call to his wife to let her know that he was okay, and a long night’s rest.

The bombing at the Great Synagogue had derailed the entire day’s plans. After confirming what had happened, Razak had immediately left to consult with the Waqf on how to handle the incident. Mostly everyone else in Jerusalem had spent the day glued to a television, awaiting updates on the blast. So Barton spent the remainder of the afternoon at the Wohl, catching up on the work he had been neglecting. It took everything in his ethical arsenal to decline a six p.m. invite from Rachel to join her and a friend for drinks. The truth was that he would have loved the diversion.

All day, images of Templar crosses flitted through his thoughts like taunting furies, trying to convey a message and reconstruct a miraculous story that beckoned to be unlocked. Having touched the bones of Christ’s benefactor, he was agonizing over the possibilities of what the missing ossuary might have contained and who could have possibly known how to find it.

Now, seeing the violence that was unraveling this city, he felt obligated to come up with real answers that might help the situation. But after the harrowing experience he and Razak had endured in Gaza, he was wondering if the Israelis knew more than they were letting on. He was also concerned that the gunmen might still be anxious to find him and Razak. Who were they working for? he wondered.

The truth was that so far, he had come up with nothing meaningful for the investigation—at least as far as the authorities would be concerned. As promised, he had been making inquiries to his international contacts in the antiquities markets. But nothing suspicious had yet turned up.

Surely Topol and Teleksen would soon be reaching out to him to turn up the pressure.

As he inserted his key into the front door lock, he barely registered three figures coming up the stairwell. He leaned back to get a better view. That’s when Topol and two burly, uniformed officers rounded the corner and came closer in rigid strides.

Topol gave him a cursory nod. “Good evening Mr. Barton.”

A sense of foreboding swept over the Englishman. Sooner than anticipated, an evening visit from policemen—and to his residence. Nothing good could come of that, he thought. He eyed their holstered handguns. Coming from the UK, the sight of so many weapons openly paraded around was unnerving. “Good evening to you, commander.”

“I’m glad you’re here.” Topol’s dark eyes were hard, unblinking. “It will make our visit more meaningful.”

Heart drumming in his chest, Barton replied, “Why would that be?”

“Please, let’s talk inside.” The major general motioned to the door.

Hesitantly, Barton made his way into the apartment and switched on the lights, the policemen crowding in behind him.

The apartment that had been secured by the IAA as part of his generous retainer had a roomy reception area where he invited the guests to sit. Only Topol accepted while his two cronies stood at either side of the door like bookends.

Topol got right to the point. “I’ve been asked to search your residence and I’d like your cooperation.”

Stupefied, Barton was unsure how to respond. “What? Why would you want to do that?”

“I’d rather not get into that just yet. I have secured proper authorization.” He flashed an official looking document and handed it to Barton. “You can read this while we proceed.” It was in Hebrew, of course. Topol nodded to the two bookends and they disappeared into the next room. “Can I please have everything from your pockets?”

“What is this? Am I am being arrested?” Barton hadn’t expected that the call to his wife would be a request for her legal representation. He didn’t have a clue as to his civil rights in this country. Should he protest?

“For now, we’re just talking,” Topol explained. “If you’d feel more comfortable at the station, we can go there now.”

Barton nodded compliantly.

“I received a very disturbing phone call from the Waqf.”

“Oh?”

“Your pockets, please,” Topol insisted, pointing to the table.

One way or another, the major would have his way, Barton realized. Trying not to look alarmed, he began emptying the contents of his pockets onto the table: a wallet, UK passport, keys to the Wohl, bus tickets.

“It seems some things have gone missing,” Topol went on.

The sounds coming from the rear of the apartment were less than subtle—drawers being opened, furniture being moved around. Signs that nothing was safe from Topol’s rigorous inspection.

With enormous reservations, Barton dipped into his breast pocket and withdrew the bronze cylinder, certain it would ignite the policeman’s curiosity. Lastly came the plastic sealed vellum and its accompanying folded transcription. Setting it down on the table, he tried to gauge Topol’s expression.

Eyebrows raised, the major’s head cocked slightly to one side—like a curious dog—as he eyed the vellum’s strange text, but for now, he let it go. “Since the inception of this investigation, I’ve had suspicions that an insider could have helped organize this theft. The head of the Waqf expressed similar concerns. And after hearing what he had to say earlier today, I must admit I’m inclined to agree with his assertions.” Topol recalled his late-night discussion with Teleksen the previous evening. A quick solution was essential to prevent more bloodshed.

Barton’s shoulders sank. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re implying.”

“The theft required extremely sophisticated movements of weapons and explosives.” The policemen sneered. “Not to mention skilled manpower. Only someone with high-level clearance could have handled such transactions. Someone with access to shipping. Someone extremely well-versed in Temple Mount’s history. And someone who knew precisely what treasures lay buried in that vault. The Waqf suggests that person is you.”

Barton felt suffocated. “You must be joking. I know this bombing has escalated the need for concise action, but this is—”

Topol’s hand cut the air. “An Israeli helicopter and two pilots are still missing...”

Barton saw the major’s eyes shift down when he said this. Could he have known about the meeting in Gaza? Did he know about the fisherman and the recovered debris from the Black Hawk?

“Sources indicate these pilots may have been involved in the theft . . . helped make it all happen,” Topol elaborated. “Perhaps someone on the inside approached them? Gave these people some incentive.”

Barton remained steadfast. “You know there’s no way I’m involved in this.”

The major was stone-faced. “I’ve been told you’ve made quite a name for yourself procuring rare antiquities for European clients.”

“Museums,” the archaeologist clarified.

“Quite a lucrative service you provide. Isn’t that right?”

Barton wasn’t about to get into this discussion, not without a lawyer present.

“Given the nature of your work with the IAA, you’ve also been given high-level clearance in the Old City. You’ve been moving equipment in and out at will... many times without inspection.”

“How could I have brought explosives into the city?” Graham Barton’s tone was stronger now. “There are detectors all over the place.”

“Apparently quite easily. Our chemists analyzed the residue of the plastic explosive. Seems it was missing the chemical marker that would allow it to be detected—dimethyl dinitrobutane. You see, Mr. Barton . . . those explosives were military grade. Perhaps provided to you by our missing pilots.”

One of the officers stormed into the room to momentarily break the tension. He was hauling something in a large plastic sheath.

Barton was confused as he warily eyed the package. What the hell was in the bag? It looked like something very substantial.

Still sitting, Topol removed the plastic and read aloud the model name on the black motor housing—Flex BHI 822 VR. “A European manufacturer, I see.” Topol ran his finger over the long hollow drum attached to its chuck. Its circular tip was razor sharp. “A coring drill. This part of your toolbox?”

Shortly following the theft, when Topol’s forensic crime team initially had analyzed the blast area, they’d found the drill abandoned on the floor. No prints. That morning, Topol had ensured all documentation concerning it had been struck from records.

The archaeologist’s complexion turned gray. “I’ve never seen that thing before in my life,” he said weakly. Voices were starting to sound hazy, as if everything was happening in slow motion. Could this really be happening?

“And what do you have here?” Topol leaned over and snatched the vellum off the table, eyeing it curiously. “Seems to be an ancient document.” He unfolded the sheet of paper containing the photocopy and accompanying transcription. “I’m no biblical scholar Mr. Barton, but this looks to me like something that implies a burial chamber hidden beneath Mount Moriah. And if I’m not mistaken, wasn’t Joseph of Arimathea somehow connected to Jesus Christ? Isn’t he the subject of legends about the Holy Grail—a priceless relic for those who believe?”

There was a sarcastic tone to Topol’s voice that only reaffirmed his suspicion that somehow, he already knew about the scroll. Perspiration started to bead on his forehead. The walls were closing in.

“You were given access to the crime scene and in return you tampered with key evidence—scratching inscriptions from the wall, removing the remaining ossuaries.”

“What?” Barton was aghast. “Are you completely out of your mind?”

“You heard me. The Waqf insists that the remaining nine ossuaries have mysteriously vanished. It seems that the thief is still among us.”

That the ossuaries had suddenly vanished was truly disturbing, but something about the major’s first accusation struck even harder. “Scratching inscriptions from the wall? What does that mean?”

Topol was prepared for this. From his jacket, he produced a picture and handed it to Barton. “See for yourself. That picture was taken by my forensic team a day before you arrived.”

Stunned, Barton saw that the clearly framed image was the stone tablet affixed to the crypt wall. Nine names were listed...and one perfectly clear relief depicting a dolphin intertwined around a trident. He had seen this symbol before, and knew its origin well. Its implications shook him to the core. But he couldn’t deal with that now; he needed to save himself first. “Being framed is not what I had in mind when I signed up for this project.”

Topol dodged that comment. The second officer returned and he motioned them toward Barton.

46

******

Paris, France March 18, 1314

Hands bound behind his back, Jacques DeMolay was escorted by guards up the steps of the wooden scaffold in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. Glancing up at what had once seemed a transcendentally grand work of architecture, DeMolay saw only the stone skeleton of a mammoth demon— the flying buttresses were giant ribs, the twin spires horns, the fiery rose window an enormous evil eye. He heard the sound of the River Seine as it looped around Ile de la Cité, carving the tiny island away from the rest of Paris as if it were a cancer.

Gazing down to the cathedral’s front steps, he scanned the assembled papal prelature seated there and tried to find Clement’s ugly face. Having failed miserably in his appeal to King Philip to reinstate the Order, the damned traitor did not have the nerve or decency to make an appearance. Three cardinals sat center stage to officiate and act the role of executioners.

A large crowd had gathered to watch the impromptu trial, eager to lay eyes on a fallen hero about to meet a tragic end. DeMolay felt like an actor, alone on an ominous stage, until moments later, three other Templar dignitaries were pushed up the wooden stairs and herded beside him.

With pride, Jacques DeMolay glanced over to them: Geoffroy DeCharnay, Hugues DePairaud, and Geoffroy DeGonneville—all honorable men who had served the Order nobly. Unfortunately, they too had been in France almost seven years earlier when King Philip had ordered his armies to secretly round up the Templars.

Minutes later, the farce began with fiery testimonies from sharptongued priests inciting the crowd with their farrago of accusations and false charges levied against the Knights Templar. Particular emphasis was paid to lurid accounts of homosexuality and devil worship, since those fabrications played well with the crowd’s emotions. Then, as DeMolay listened in utter amazement, the priest read a document to the crowd that itemized DeMolay’s signed confessions to the charges—a document he had never seen before.

The lies seared DeMolay’s ears like burning embers, but he remained defiant, occasionally glancing up at the stone gargoyles leering down from Notre Dame’s façade.

Silence fell abruptly over the scene when one cardinal stood, pointed at the Grand Master, and yelled: “And you Jacques DeMolay, the very evil who leads this ungodly Order, what say you to the charges presented herewith? Do you once and for all profess your guilt by affirming that these confessions are your true testament so that you may reclaim your dignity in the presence of God?”

DeMolay eyed the cardinal curiously, amazed that he had once so loyally served men like this. So many Templars had died in the name of Christ in the Holy Land. He felt like shouting out the lies that these sanctimonious bastards had propagated through the centuries to undermine that sacrifice. But no one would ever believe the amazing things he had learned and the equally amazing relics still hidden beneath the site of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem that attested to those truths. Without proof, he would merely tarnish his reputation further and play into the hands of his executioners. DeMolay took solace in knowing that some day the truth would be discovered... and woe to all who tried to deny it, he thought. He knew that these men were determined to destroy him. Whether it happened today, or after more years slowly rotting to death in some vile prison cell, he was doomed—the target for the king’s malicious scheme.

The Grand Master looked deep into the eyes of his three friends and saw a common resolve beneath a thin veil of fear. The brotherhood would endure until the very end.

Clearing his throat DeMolay stared back at the cardinal. “It is only right that when my life is to be taken by those I have so loyally served, that I should make known the deceptions here presented and that I tell the only truth from my own lips. Before God and all who witness this injustice”— his eyes panned over the crowd—“I admit I am guilty of a gross iniquity. But not one fabricated by my accusers.” He swung his gaze back at the cardinal. “I am guilty only of the shame and dishonor I have endured through torture and threat of death to induce these disgusting charges laid against the Templar Order. I declare before you now that the noble men who have served this Church to protect Christianity have been unjustly demonized. Therefore, I disdain to disgrace my brothers by grafting yet another lie.”

Astounded at the prisoner’s brazen rebuttal, the cardinal stood mute for a long moment before declaring, “By denouncing this sworn confession, you leave me no choice but to invoke the decree of King Philip that you shall perish by fire.”

DeMolay smiled thinly. Finally, the end would come.

Then the cardinal addressed the remaining three Templars, sentencing all to life imprisonment. DeMolay was shocked when Hugues DePairaud and Geoffroy DeGonneville confessed to the charges.

Then the cardinal asked the same of Geoffroy DeCharnay.

Suddenly possessed, DeCharnay bared his teeth and yelled: “I too renounce all charges brought against me! For God as my witness, these lies serve only a contemptuous pope and an equally villainous king. The only just man who stands here today is Jacques DeMolay. I have followed him into battle and I will follow him to God.”

The cardinal was fuming. “You shall have your wish!”

Jacques DeMolay and Geoffroy DeCharnay were then taken to a boat for the short journey to the neighboring Ile des Javiaux, the site where dozens of Templars had already been burned alive.

The sun melted into the distance and darkness crept over Paris.

As the two prisoners were escorted to the two stakes, both already blackened by charred flesh, DeMolay turned to his Templar brother. The years of torture and imprisonment had rendered DeCharnay to a shadow of the robust warrior he had known in the Holy Land, but the man’s expression was surprisingly resolute. “Remember what we leave behind in Jerusalem,” DeMolay told him. “Your service and sacrifice will be justly rewarded by Him. And His day of justice is soon to come, Geoffroy. You have done the most noble deed a man can do. You have served God. Leave this broken body behind and don’t look back. Tonight, your soul will be free.”

“Bless you, Jacques.” DeCharnay said. “It has been my honor to serve with you.”

As the French soldiers forced DeMolay against the post, he turned to them. “I am no threat to you now,” he insisted. “Unbind my hands so that I may pray in my final moments.”

Reluctantly, the guards cut the ropes from the old man’s wrists, but used heavy chains to bind his body to the stake. The wood heaped around DeMolay was still green. By express order of King Philip, his death was to be prolonged by slow fire.

Looking over his shoulder, DeMolay gave his last thanks to DeCharnay, shackled to the post behind him. As the pyre was ignited, Notre Dame’s bells began to toll.

The heat crawled up the old man’s feet and legs. Then the tongues of flame began to slowly broil his lower body. When the fire intensified, his flesh roasted into red blisters, blackening his feet. As the inferno grew, DeMolay screamed out in agony, the flames licking their way higher up his legs. He could barely register DeCharnay’s screams. Weaving his hands together, he threw them to heaven and yelled: “May evil find those who have wrongly condemned us! May God avenge us and cast these men into Hell!”

As his body was consumed Jacques DeMolay felt his spirit lifting.

The Templar Grand Master was swallowed by the inferno, his mortal remains a brilliant torch against the night sky.

47

FRIDAY

******

Rome

Opening the front door of his quaint townhouse overlooking Villa Borghese’s manicured park, a robed and barefoot Giovanni Bersei retrieved the morning’s delivery of Il Messaggero from the front step. The sun was barely glowing a deep blue over the neighboring rooftops, and the light posts lining the empty street were still casting a warm glow. This was his favorite time of the day.

Turning to go back inside, he paused to glance over at the iron railing that still hung loosely from its mount on his home’s stucco façade. Carmela had been after him for three weeks to fix it. Today would be the day the job would get done, he vowed. Closing the door, he went directly to the kitchen.

The coffee pot, dutifully set on a timer, was already full. He poured himself a cup and sat for a long moment to enjoy the silence. Cupping the heavy porcelain mug in his hands, he sipped the black coffee slowly, savoring the deep, rich flavor. What was it about a great cup of coffee? He swore there was no better elixir.

Last night, he hadn’t slept well at all, his mind endlessly churning over the ossuary, the skeleton, and the shocking symbol that accompanied the relics. The mere possibility that he had touched the physical remains of Jesus Christ had left him feeling ashamed and vulnerable, searching for an explanation. Bersei was a practicing Catholic—a believer in the most powerful story ever told. He went to church each Sunday and prayed often. And later this morning, he was going to be asked by the Vatican to explain his findings. How could anyone explain what he had witnessed over the past days?

Scratching the gray stubble on his chin, he put on his reading glasses and began scanning the newspaper’s front page. A headline on the bottom of the front page read: Muslims and Jews Enraged Over Rumored Theft at Temple Mount. He ignored it, flipping directly to the funnies. Then, almost as an afterthought, he turned back to the front page.

Though articles sensationalizing the tenuous political problems in the Holy Land were regular media fodder, these past few days he noticed that it had dominated the headlines even more than usual. Perhaps all the labtalk concerning ancient Judea, Pontius Pilate, and crucifixion made him consider this one more closely. The piece’s accompanying photo showed Israeli soldiers and police trying to hold back violent protestors just outside the famous Wailing Wall—the Temple Mount’s western wall.

He read the report.

Following Friday’s violence at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, Islamic officials are pressuring the Israeli government to release details concerning the mysterious explosion that inflicted serious damage to the site. Resident Jews are demanding answers as to why thirteen Israeli Defense Force soldiers were killed during a firefight that erupted shortly after the explosion. Thus far, authorities have only confirmed that an Israeli military helicopter had been used to transport the alleged attackers from the site....

“That’s not good,” he muttered.

. . . Many have criticized Israeli officials for ignoring rumors that the incident involved religious artifacts stolen from the site.

“Religious artifacts?”

“What, love?” Carmela emerged from the doorway, donning a powder blue robe over her silk pajamas. She bent to kiss him on the head before making her way to the cupboard for a mug, her fuzzy pink slippers scuffing along the tile floor.

“Probably nothing. Just reading about all this turmoil in Israel.”

“They’ll never get along,” she said, pouring coffee into her favorite mug, shaped like an animated elephant head with a curved snout as its handle. “They all just want to kill one another.”

“Seems so,” he agreed. Seeing her without makeup and her hair tousled, he smiled to himself. So many years together.

He directed his attention back to the newspaper. The article went on to say that efforts toward a more formal and lasting peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians had once again been tabled.

“Will you be home early tonight?”

“Should be,” he said, preoccupied.

Carmela pushed down on the newspaper to get his attention. “I was hoping maybe you could take me out to that new bistro Claudio and Anna-Maria were talking about the other night.”

“Of course, sweetheart. That would be wonderful. Would you make a reservation for eight o’clock?”

“Maybe you can find some time to fix that railing before we leave.”

Grinning, Bersei said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’m going up to take a shower.” Sipping her coffee, she shuffled away.

Bersei turned to where the article continued. Immediately, he felt like he had been punched in the gut. Staring up at him was a photofit rendition of a man that looked all too familiar.

Reading the caption beneath, he mouthed the words aloud: “ ‘The suspect is said to be a Caucasian male, approximately 180 centimeters tall and 88 kilos. Authorities state he is traveling under the assumed identity of Daniel Marrone, and are looking for any information concerning his whereabouts.’ ”

Suddenly, everything was moving in slow motion. He collapsed back into his chair.

The only possible explanation could be that the Vatican was somehow involved in what was happening in Israel. But that was impossible.Orwas it?

Bersei tried to reconcile the timing of the events over the past few days. According to the news report, this theft in Jerusalem had occurred last Friday. A week ago. Both he and Charlotte had arrived in Vatican City shortly afterward. She’d flown into Rome on Sunday afternoon. He arrived on Monday morning, shortly before Father Donovan and Salvatore Conte returned with the mysterious crate.

Of course. Recalling the woven impressions left on the ossuary’s patina, he no longer suspected a careless extraction. He suspected a rushed extraction. A theft?

He remembered Father Donovan’s expression when he opened the crate—anxiety...and something else playing in his eyes. The crate’s Eurostar shipping label was still imprinted into his brain. Bari, the final resting place of Saint Nicholas. The vibrant tourist spot on Italy’s east coast faced the Adriatic with direct sea routes to the Mediterranean...and Israel. Bari was 500 kilometers from Rome—probably less than five hours by rail, he guessed. But it had to be at least 2000 kilometers from Israel.

You’d need an awfully fast boat for that, he thought. But cruising at twenty knots—just over thirty-seven kilometers an hour—it was manageable in perhaps two days. Conservatively allowing for two and a half days at sea and another half day traversing Italy, the shipment fitted comfortably into the time frame.

He went back to the news article. Thirteen Israeli soldiers killed. The thieves had been sophisticated and no meaningful clues had been found.

Was the Vatican really capable of pulling off an operation like that? But an Israeli helicopter employed in the theft? It didn’t make sense. Certainly Father Donovan—a cleric for Christ’s sake!—wasn’t capable of such a thing.

But Salvatore Conte...He eyed the photofit again and felt nothing but fear.

Bersei considered a second theory. Maybe the Vatican had bought the ossuary from whoever stole it and had been unwittingly caught up in the incident? Even so, that could prove very problematic for the Vatican. They could be drawn into this mess as an accomplice. One thing was certain: somehow the relics sitting in the Vatican basement had a very questionable procurement.

He wrestled with how to deal with all this. Should he consult with Charlotte? Or should he go to the authorities.

You can’t make wild claims without adequate proof, he told himself.

Setting the paper down, Giovanni went over to the phone and asked the operator to connect him to the local substation for the Carabiniere— Italy’s military police force that walked the streets of Rome with submachine guns as if the city was under a constant state of martial law. A young male voice picked up the call and Giovanni requested to speak with the resident detective. After a few brief questions, the young man informed Giovanni that he’d need to speak with Detective Armando Perardi who wasn’t expected in the office until nine-thirty.

“Can I have his voice mail, please?” Giovanni requested in Italian.

The line clicked and went silent for a few seconds before Detective Perardi’s glum greeting came on. Giovanni waited for the tone, then left a brief message, requesting a meeting later in the morning to discuss a possible Roman link to the theft in Jerusalem. He left his mobile phone number. For now, he didn’t make any reference to the Vatican. That would only confuse the issue since the Vatican was its own country. Ending the call, Bersei hurried upstairs to put on his clothes. He would need to act quickly.

*** Parking his Vespa in the personnel parking lot outside the Vatican Museum, Giovanni quickly made his way through the Pio Christian gallery’s rear service entrance.

As the elevator doors opened into the basement corridor, he experienced a wave of panic, hoping that no one else had decided to come in early this morning. He checked his watch—7:32.

What he needed to do had to be done alone. Charlotte Hennesey couldn’t be dragged into this. After all, what if he was wrong?

As he moved out of the elevator, the corridor seemed to come alive, as if he were Jonah being swallowed by the whale. He lightly treaded his way to the lab and used his keycard to unlock the door. Looking over his shoulder to see that the corridor was still clear, he ducked inside and went directly to the workstation.

The spikes and coins sat on the tray. Beside them lay the last of the ossuary’s mysteries—the scroll cylinder. There was something about it that stirred him. If his foreboding about all of this were correct, there’d be no future opportunity to read it. And something prompted him that it contained critical clues about the relic’s provenance.

Careful study of the ossuary and its relics had left him in little doubt that the ossuary originated from Israel. The stone and patina were both specific to the region. He eyed the skeleton laid out on the workstation— the bones, too, supported the relic’s provenance. Crucifixions had been commonplace in Judea during the first century. And studying the ossuary one last time, he ran his fingers over the early Christian symbol for Christ—the very thing that had broken down his final wall of doubt.

All were damning facts, pointing to the Vatican. Bersei punished himself for not making the connection sooner. But it had all seemed too fantastic.

From the tray, he picked up the cylinder and removed the unsealed cap. Then he teased out the scroll. As he gently unfurled the calfskin his heart was pounding. Glancing quickly around the room, he swore he felt invisible eyes boring into him.

Lingering questions bothered him. How could such a profound discovery have remained secret for so long? If the bones were truly those of Jesus—or even one of his contemporaries—why hadn’t it ever been documented? And no matter who this man had been, how was it that the Vatican had discovered the secret only now, two thousand years later?

Back to the matter at hand.

Delicately smoothing out the calfskin scroll, Bersei experienced a flurry of conflicting emotions. He was convinced that this ancient document might provide a final clue—perhaps even confirm or deny the dead man’s true identity.

Just like the bones and other relics, Bersei could immediately see that the calfskin scroll had been magnificently preserved. There were countless possibilities of what this document might contain. The last will and testament of the deceased? A final prayer sealed away by those who buried the body? Perhaps even a decree explaining why this man had been crucified.

His fingers were shaking uncontrollably as he held it up.

Neat text was written out in some kind of ink. Studying it more intently, he saw that it was Koine Greek, the dialect sometimes referred to as “New Testament Greek” and the unofficial lingua franca of the Roman Empire up until the fourth century.

The first implication was that the author had been well educated—a Roman, perhaps.

Below the text was a very detailed drawing that looked remarkably familiar.

As he read the ancient message—clear and brief—his extreme tension began to subside and for a moment, he sat there in silence.

Refocusing his attention on the accompanying drawing, the anthropologist again felt as though he’d seen this imagery before. His brow tightened as he studied it intently. Think. Think.

That’s when it hit him. Bersei’s face blanched. Of course!

He had definitely seen this image before, and the place it was meant to depict was only a few kilometers away on the outskirts of Rome, deep beneath the city. Instantly he knew that he would need to go there as soon as his business here was complete.

Scrambling over to the photocopier that sat in the corner of the room, he flattened the scroll onto the glass, closed the lid and made a copy. Returning the scroll to the cylinder, he placed it beside the other relics. Then he folded the copy and stuck it in his pocket.

As he focused on gathering evidence to substantiate his claim against the Vatican, paranoia about his own safety quickly returned. But he needed information that could be used by the Carabiniere to investigate the case.

Nerves ablaze, Bersei linked his laptop to the main computer terminal and began copying files onto its hard drive—the skeleton’s complete profile, pictures of the ossuary and its accompanying relics, carbon dating

results—everything.

He eyed his watch again—7:46. Time was running out.

When the last file had finished copying, he folded the laptop and packed

it into its carrying bag. Removing anything else would seem overly suspicious. “Hey, Giovanni,” a familiar voice called over to him.

He spun around. Charlotte. He hadn’t even heard her come in. Walking past him, she noticed that he looked awful. “Everything okay?” He didn’t know what say. “You’re here early.”

“I didn’t sleep well. Are you going somewhere?” Looks awfully nervous,

she thought.

“I have an appointment I need to go to.”

“Oh.” She looked at her watch. “You’ll be back for the meeting, right?” He stood and slung the bag over his shoulder. “I’m not sure, actually.

Something important has come up.”

“More important than our presentation?”

He avoided her eyes.

“Something’s wrong, Giovanni. Tell me what it is.”

His eyes combed the walls, as if he were hearing voices. “Not here,” he

said. “Walk out with me and I’ll explain.”

Bersei opened the main door and poked his head out into the corridor.

Everything was clear. He motioned for her to follow.

Quietly, he slipped outside and Charlotte followed, easing the door

closed behind her.

In the makeshift surveillance room, Salvatore Conte sat perfectly still until the footsteps in the corridor had faded away. Then he snatched the phone from its console.

Santelli answered on the second ring and Conte could tell by his groggy voice that he’d woken the old man.

“We have a real problem down here.”

The cardinal knew what was coming. He cleared his throat. “Have they found out?”

“Just Bersei. And right now he’s on his way out the door with copies of everything on his way to the Carabiniere.”

“Very unfortunate.” A slight pause and a sigh. “You know what you must do.”

48

******

Bersei didn’t say a word until they were safely outside the museum’s confines. He headed straight for his parked Vespa as Charlotte paced quickly to keep up with him.

“I think the Vatican is involved in something bad,” he said to her in a hushed tone. “Something to do with the ossuary.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Too much to explain right now and I don’t even know if I’m right about all this.” Stowing the laptop bag in the scooter’s rear compartment, he put on his helmet.

“Right about what?” He was starting to scare her.

“It’s best that I not tell you. You need to trust me on this. You’ll be safe here, don’t worry.”

“Giovanni, please.”

Mounting the Vespa, he put a key in the ignition and turned the engine on.

She grabbed his arm tightly. “You’re not going anywhere,” she said over the noise of the puttering engine, “until you tell me what you’re talking about.”

Sighing heavily, Bersei looked at her, his gaze filled with concern. “I think that ossuary was stolen. It may be linked to a theft in Jerusalem that left many people dead. There’s someone I need to speak with about what we’ve found.”

For a moment, she said nothing. “Are you sure about this? That seems a bit extreme, don’t you think?”

“No, I’m not sure. That’s why I’m trying to leave you out of this. I know we’ve signed confidentiality agreements. If I’m wrong, this could turn out badly for me. I don’t want you being dragged down too.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Bersei flinched when he thought he saw a face looking out from behind the shadowy glass of the museum door. “Just pretend we didn’t have this conversation. Hopefully I’m wrong about everything.” He looked down at her hand. “Please, let me go.”

She loosened her grip. “Be careful.”

“I will.”

Charlotte watched as Bersei rode off around the corner of the building. ***

As the elevator doors slid apart, Charlotte hesitated before stepping out into the basement corridor. Folding her arms across her chest, she proceeded forward, fighting off a sudden chill.

Surely the Vatican couldn’t be involved in a theft, she tried to convince herself. Then again, why would they consort with a goon like Salvatore Conte? It was quite evident that he was capable of violence and just about any other act of bad behavior. But what if Giovanni was right? Then what?

Halfway down the corridor, she noticed that one of the solid metal doors was slightly ajar. It hadn’t been earlier—she was sure of that. Until now, every door down here had been closed—presumably locked. Was someone else down here with them?

Curious, she stepped up to the door and knocked. “Hello? Anyone in there?”

No answer.

She tried again. Nothing.

With her left hand, she reached out and pushed, swinging the door open smoothly on well-oiled hinges.

What she saw inside was puzzling.

Stepping into the tiny room lined with empty shelves, she stood in front of a very peculiar workstation—a bank of monitors, a computer, a set of headphones. Her eyes followed a bundle of wires that led out from the computer, crept up the wall, and disappeared into a darkened opening in the ceiling where a panel had been removed.

The system was in sleep mode. The screensaver depicted a slide show of naked women in a variety of pornographic poses. Charming.

Sitting in a chair positioned in front of the equipment, she tried to imagine what purpose this all served. Obviously, it had all been done in haste, because this room looked like a closet—not an office.

Finally, she couldn’t help but reach down to press a key on the keyboard.

The monitors flickered and hummed as the screensaver disappeared and the computer woke up.

Seconds later, the software activated what appeared to be the last program that had been in use. It took Charlotte a moment to piece together the familiar collage of camera images that spread out before her. On one of the on-screen viewing panels, there was a chambermaid cleaning a small room. Charlotte’s stomach sank when she saw her own luggage—a red, rectangular carry-on and matching garment bag—beside the bed. The maid moved into the bathroom, which projected real-time on a second panel. A familiar set of toiletries lined the vanity, complete with a hefty bottle of vitamins.

“Conte,” she seethed horrified at what she was seeing. “That fucking pervert.”

She studied a number of other hidden cameras transmitting from the lab and the break room—live feeds, judging by the time and date counters on the bottom of each panel. He’d been watching and listening the whole time.

In that moment she knew that Giovanni had been right.

49

******

In the Secret Archive, Father Donovan placed the Ephemeris Conlusio codex next to the plastic-sealed document bearing reference number Archivum Arcis, Arm. D 217—“The Chinon Parchment”—and closed the door. There was a small hiss as a vacuum pump pulled all the air out from the compartment.

Secrets. Donovan was no stranger to them. Perhaps that was why he felt so connected to books and solitude. Maybe this archive somehow mirrored his soul, he thought.

Many who were drawn to the Catholic priesthood would attribute their decision to some kind of vocational calling—a special closeness to God, possibly. Donovan had turned to the Church for a more sobering cause—survival.

As a young boy, he’d grown up in Belfast during the tumultuous sixties and seventies when violence in Northern Ireland peaked between the Nationalist Catholics seeking independence from British rule, and Unionist Protestants who were loyal to the crown. In 1969 he watched his house, and dozens of others around it, burned to the ground by rioting loyalists. He could also vividly recall the IR A’s retaliatory bombings, which were a regular occurrence—1,300 in 1972 alone—and claimed hundreds of civilian lives.

At fifteen, he and his friends had been lured into a street gang that ran errands for the IR A and acted as the “eyes and ears” of the movement. On one memorable occasion, he’d been asked to drop a package outside a Protestant storefront. Unbeknownst to him at that time, the bag actually contained a bomb. Luckily, no one had been killed in the subsequent blast that leveled the building. Somehow, he’d even managed to avoid being arrested.

But it was a fateful evening on his seventeenth birthday when Donovan’s life was changed forever. He was drinking at a local pub with his two best friends, Sean and Michael. They had gotten into a shouting match with a group of drunken Protestants. Donovan’s crew left an hour later, but the Protestants—five in all—followed them outside and continued haranguing. It hadn’t taken long for fists to start flying.

Though no stranger to street fighting, Donovan’s wiry frame and swift hands had been no match for the two men that teamed up on him. While one of the Protestants had pinned him to the ground, the second landed body blows, seemingly intent on beating him to death.

It was hard to forget the suppressed rage that had flooded into him as he envisioned the glowing embers of his home. Donovan had reacted on instinct, fighting his way back onto his feet, flipping open a jackknife and plunging it deep into the stomach of the attacker who had held him down. The man had fallen to the pavement, horrified as he tried to hold back the gush of blood flooding out of his abdomen. Seeing the rage in Donovan’s fiery eyes, the second man had backed away.

Dazed, Donovan turned to see Sean, blood-soaked and baring his teeth, had also taken a man down with his own knife. The remaining Protestants had stood frozen in disbelief as the Catholics fled.

He remembered the awful dread he had felt the next day when the newspapers and TV reported that a local Protestant man had been stabbed to death. Though there had been some doubt as to which of the two fallen Protestants suffered the fatal blow, Donovan quickly came to terms with the fact that he needed to leave Belfast behind before he became its next victim.

The seminary had given him a safe haven from the streets, providing hope of God’s forgiveness for the horrible things he had done. Though not a day had gone by that he couldn’t see the bloodstains on his hands.

Despite his past, he’d always been a good student and the solitude of priesthood had reignited his passion for reading. He found peace in history and scripture. Guidance. Seeing his remarkable dedication to learning, the Diocese of Dublin had sponsored his extensive university training. Perhaps, Donovan thought, it was his obsession with books that had helped to save him.

Now, it was a book that seemed to threaten everything he held sacred. The very institution that had protected him was under attack.

For a long moment he stared behind the glass panel at the Ephemeris Conlusio—the lost scripture that had set in motion the momentous events leading to the theft in Jerusalem. It was hard to grasp that it was only two weeks earlier that he had presented this incredible discovery to the Vatican secretary of state. He saw the meeting with Santelli as clear as day, as if a movie played in his memory.

“It’s not often I receive such urgent requests for an appointment from the Vatican Library.” Cardinal Santelli’s hands lay folded on his desk.

Seated opposite, Father Donovan clutched his leather satchel. “Apologies for the short notice, Eminence. But I hope you’ll agree that the reason I’ve come here warrants your immediate attention ...and will justify why I have chosen not to involve Cardinal Giancome.”

Vincenzo Giancome, the Cardinale Archivista e Bibliotecario, was Donovan’s superior and acted as the supreme overseer of the Vatican Secret Archive. He was also the man who’d tabled Donovan’s fervent request to acquire the Judas Papers. So after much deliberation, Donovan had made the unorthodox decision of not including Giancome in on this matter—a bold move that could potentially backfire and cost him his career. But he was certain that what he was about to divulge would directly involve matters of national security—not reserve documents. Furthermore, the mystery caller had specifically chosen Donovan for this task and there was no time for delays or bureaucratic infighting.

“What is it?” Santelli looked bored.

Donovan was unsure exactly where to begin. “You recall a few years back when the Chinon Parchment was discovered in the Secret Archive?”

“Clement’s secret dismissal of charges brought against the Knights Templar?”

“Correct. I came to you with further documents detailing the clandestine meeting between Clement V and Jacques DeMolay, the Templar Grand Master.” Donovan swallowed hard. “The pope’s account specifically mentioned a manuscript called the Ephemeris Conlusio, supposedly containing information about the Templars’ hidden relics.”

“An attempt to restore the Templar Order,” Santelli interjected. “And a rather crude attempt at that.”

“But I think you’ll agree that DeMolay’s negotiations had to be quite compelling for Clement to have exonerated the Templars after ordering their disbandment.”

“A fabrication. No book was ever produced by Jacques DeMolay.”

“Agreed.” Donovan dug into his satchel and retrieved the book. “Because it wasn’t in his possession.”

Santelli shifted his chair. “What is that you have there?”

“This is the Ephemeris Conlusio.”

Santelli was bewildered. This was one legend he had always hoped to be pure fantasy. None of the Vatican’s darkest secrets began to compare. He clung to the hope that the librarian was wrong, but Donovan’s confident gaze confirmed his worst fears. “You’re not suggesting...”

“Yes,” he confidently replied. “Let me explain.”

Donovan recounted the history of Jacques DeMolay’s imprisonment, his secret discussion with Clement, his trial in Paris in front of Notre Dame cathedral and final execution on the Ile des Javiaux. “Apparently his dying curse worked,” Donovan explained. “Pope Clement V died one month later from what many accounts say was severe dysentery—a hideous death. Seven months later, King Philip IV died mysteriously during a hunt. Witnesses attributed the accident to a lingering disease that caused him to bleed rapidly to death. Many speculated that the Knights Templar had exacted their revenge.”

Santelli looked spooked. “Poisoned?”

“Perhaps.” Donovan shrugged. “Meanwhile the Holy Land had been fully reclaimed by the Muslims. The European countries and the Church lacked proper funding to stage further crusades to retake it. Pope Clement’s documents and the Chinon Parchment gathered dust in the Secret Archive as the papal conclave focused on its two-year struggle to restore the insolvent papacy. The Ephemeris Conlusio—this book—faded into history,” Donovan explained. “Until I received a phone call this week.” Donovan summarized his phone conversation with the mystery caller, then went on to describe the transaction with the caller’s messenger in Caffè Greco. Santelli listened intently, hand covering his mouth. When Donovan finished, he waited for the cardinal’s response.

“Have you read it?”

Donovan nodded. As the Archive’s senior curator he was a polyglot— proficient in ancient Aramaic, and completely fluent in Greek and Latin.

“What does it say?”

“Many disturbing things. Apparently this book isn’t a Templar document per se. It’s a journal written by Joseph of Arimathea.”

“I don’t understand, Patrick.”

“The entries in these pages chronicle many events specific to Christ’s ministry. Eyewitness accounts of miracles, like his healing the lame and lepers. His teachings, his travels with the disciples—it’s all referenced here. In fact, after reviewing the language, I’m convinced this book is ‘Q.’ ”

Biblical historians had long theorized that a common source influenced the synoptic—or “one eye”—Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke since all three spoke of the historical Jesus in a common sequence and writing style. The synoptic Gospels, believed to be written between 60 CE and 100 CE, each bore the name of an actual disciple who inspired the work, though all three authors were actually unknown.

Santelli was temporarily encouraged by this, but acutely aware that Father Donovan remained troubled.

“There’s much more here, however,” Donovan warned. “The book describes events leading to Jesus’s apprehension and crucifixion. Again, most of Joseph’s account is in agreement with the synoptic Gospels...with some minor discrepancies. According to Joseph of Arimathea, he himself secretly negotiated with Pontius Pilate to remove Christ from the cross, in exchange for a hefty sum.”

“A bribe?”

“Yes. Probably a supplement to Rome’s meager pension.” Donovan took a deep breath and gathered himself. “In the New Testament, Jesus’s body was supposedly laid out for burial in Joseph’s family crypt.”

“Before you continue, I must ask. This Templar relic ...the book. Is it authentic?”

“I had the parchment, leather, and ink dated. The origin is unquestionably first century. But this book isn’t the relic Jacques DeMolay implied. It’s merely a means of finding the real treasure he alluded to.”

Santelli stared at him.

“Joseph of Arimathea describes Jesus’s burial rituals in vivid detail. How the body was cleaned, wrapped in spices and linen, and then bound. Coins were placed over the eyes.” Donovan’s voice sank an octave. “It claims that the body was laid out in Joseph’s tomb...for twelve months.”

“A year?” Santelli was aghast. “Patrick, this isn’t yet more Gnostic scripture?” In the past Donovan had routinely briefed him on the many prebiblical writings that presented Jesus quite differently—an attempt by early leaders to entice pagans to adopt the Christian faith. Many of those stories were wildly exaggerated, rife with philosophical interpretations of Jesus’s teachings.

“According to Joseph—the man entrusted with burying Jesus—there never was a physical resurrection. You see...” There was no subtle way for him to say what needed to be said. He locked eyes with the cardinal. “Christ died a mortal death.”

It wasn’t the first time Santelli had heard this argument. “But we’ve been through all this before—assertions about early Christians seeing resurrection as being spiritual not physical.” He gestured at the book dismissively. “This Ephemeris Conlusio is a clear contradiction to scripture. I’m glad you found it. We’ll need to ensure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. We don’t need some enemy of the Church rushing off to the media.”

“I’m afraid there’s more.”

Santelli watched silently as Donovan reached into his satchel and removed a furled, yellow scroll. He laid it out on the desk.

The Cardinal leaned in. “What is this?”

“A technical illustration—a kind of map, actually.”

He made a face. “Certainly doesn’t look technical to me. A child could have drawn this.”

The one-dimensional style used to draft the image was simplistic, Donovan would agree. But three-dimensional illustrations weren’t employed until the Renaissance period, and he wasn’t about to belabor the point with Santelli.

“Despite its lack of detail, there are a few critical things you can see here,” Donovan explained. He indicated the elongated rectangular base. “This is Temple Mount in Jerusalem.” Then he pointed to the image drawn atop it. “This is the Jewish Temple that was built by Herod the Great, later destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. As you know, the Dome of the Rock Mosque is there now.”

Santelli looked up sharply. “Temple Mount?”

“Yes,” Donovan confirmed. “This is Joseph of Arimathea’s representation of how it appeared in 30 AD during the time of Christ.”

Donovan explained that Joseph’s writings described in great detail what the temple looked like—its rectangular courtyards and sacred Tabernacle; its storage houses for oil and wood; the water basins used to consecrate sacrificial offerings and the wooden pyres to burn sacred animals during Passover. He said that Joseph had even noted the temple’s sacred threshold beyond which gentiles were forbidden to cross—a railed, outer perimeter called the “Chell.” Then there was the account of the Roman garrison that adjoined Temple Mount—the place where Jesus was taken before Pontius Pilate.

“But it’s this spot here”—Donovan pointed to the small darkened square that Joseph had drawn inside the gut of the platform—“that’s most important. It’s meant to show the location of Jesus’s crypt. In the text, Joseph includes specific measurements as to its proximity from the Temple Mount’s outer walls.”

Santelli’s hand was over his mouth again. For a few seconds he remained perfectly still.

Beyond the window the looming black clouds finally made good on their threat.

“After obtaining the Ephemeris Conlusio,” Donovan continued, “I researched the site in great detail. I’m absolutely certain that the secret crypt is still there. I believe that Crusaders—the Knights Templar, in fact— might have discovered the crypt and secured it.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Donovan reached across the desk and carefully turned the ancient pages, stopping on a group of sketches. “This is why.”

The cardinal had trouble comprehending what appeared to be a catalogued collection—the drawing style equally crude.

“Those items,” Donovan went on, “are the relics that Joseph of Arimathea buried in the crypt. The bones, coins, and nails. Plus the ossuary, of course. These are the things Jacques DeMolay was referring to.”

Santelli was thunderstruck. Slowly his eyes settled on an image of a dolphin wrapped around a trident “That symbol there. What does it mean?”

“It’s the reason I’m sure these items are still secure.” He explained its significance.

Santelli crossed himself and set it down.

“If these relics had ever been discovered, without a doubt, it would certainly have been referenced somewhere. In fact, we probably wouldn’t even be sitting here having this conversation if they had been.” Donovan retrieved yet another document from his satchel. “Then there’s this recent article from the Jerusalem Post which our mysterious benefactor included with the book.”

Santelli snatched it away and repeated the Post’s headline out loud. “ ‘Jewish and Muslim Archaeologists Cleared to Excavate Beneath Temple Mount.’ ”

Donovan gave Santelli time to absorb the rest of the article, then spoke up. “Since Israeli peace accords don’t permit digging on the site, the Templar Knights are Temple Mount’s last known excavators. But in 1996 the Muslim trust that oversees the site was permitted to clear rubble from a vast chamber beneath the platform—a space that was once used by the Templars as a stable, and completely blocked off since their twelfthcentury occupation. The messenger who delivered this book was an Arab. Therefore, I’m fairly certain that the Ephemeris Conlusio must have been discovered by the Muslims during their excavations.”

“But why have they waited until now to present it?”

“At first, I too was suspicious,” Donovan confessed. “Though now I’ve got a good idea as to why.” From the satchel he retrieved a modern drawing—his own. The final exhibit of the presentation. “When the areas were cleared, the Muslims converted that space into what is now called the Marwani Mosque. Here’s an aerial view of the Temple Mount as it stands today. Using Joseph’s measurements, I’ve calculated the precise location of the crypt.”

On the schematic, Donovan had converted the ancient Roman measuring units, gradii—one gradus equal to almost three-quarters of a meter—to their modern metric equivalent. “I’ve marked in red the area that is now the Marwani Mosque, situated about eleven meters below the esplanade’s surface.” The shape of the subterranean mosque looked like a stacked bar chart.

Santelli grasped what Donovan was implying. “My God, it’s right next to the secret chamber.”

“Directly abutting the mosque’s rear wall. Muslim and Jewish archaeologists already suspect that chambers exist beneath Temple Mount and they’ll be performing surface scans to detect them.”

Santelli’s face was drained. “Then they will find this place.”

“It would be impossible to miss,” Donovan grimly confirmed. “If the relics described in the Ephemeris Conlusio are real, there’s a good chance that the physical remains of Christ may be unearthed in a few weeks. That is why I have come here today. To ask you... what can we do?”

“I think that’s all too clear, Patrick,” Santelli’s voice was brisk. “We must retrieve those relics from beneath Temple Mount. Over two billion Christians depend on the Gospels of Jesus Christ. To disrupt their faith is to disrupt social order. We have a very real responsibility here. This isn’t just a matter of theology.”

“But there’s no diplomatic way to obtain them,” Donovan reminded the cardinal. “The political situation in Israel is far too complicated.”

“Who said anything about diplomacy?” Santelli reached over to the intercom mounted on his desk. “Father Martin? In my phone list, you’ll find the number for a ‘Salvatore Conte.’ Please summon him to my office immediately.”

50

******

Veering off congested Via Nomentana through the Villa Torlonia park entrance, Giovanni Bersei slowed along a narrow bike path, the Vespa’s engine purring softly.

Here, beneath the sprawling English gardens where a flurry of joggers and cyclists went about their exercise regimens, a labyrinth of Jewish crypts formed just over nine kilometers of what had recently proved to be Rome’s oldest catacombs—the burial grounds that ancient Rome insisted be well outside the city walls. And somewhere in this subterranean realm, he was certain, lay part of an ancient secret tied to Jesus Christ.

Glancing up at the weathered neoclassical edifice that made this place famous—the palatial villa where Benito Mussolini had once resided—he angled toward a set of low buildings adjacent to the building’s rear courtyard. Here were the stables where excavations in 1918 had accidentally uncovered the first burial chambers.

Outside the Villa Torlonia catacomb gateway, Bersei killed the Vespa’s engine, dismounted, and rocked the scooter onto its kickstand. Opening the rear cargo box, he removed his laptop bag and a sturdy flashlight, then stowed his helmet inside.

Though he’d been caught up in rush hour traffic for the past forty minutes, it was still only ten minutes to nine. Most likely, the place would still be locked up.

Bersei tried the door. It opened.

Inside the crude foyer an elderly docent sat behind a desk, reading a Clive Cussler novel. There was a large boat on the cover caught in a massive whirlpool’s swirling vortex. The old man’s deep-set, hazy eyes shifted up, squinting over thick bifocals. A smile broke across his face—an exterior as aged and historically complex as Mussolini’s villa.

“Ah, Signore Bersei,” he placed his book down and spread his hands. “Come sta?”

“Bene grazi, Mario. E lei?”

“Better and better everyday,” the old man boasted in thick Italian. “It’s been a while.”

“It has. Glad you’re an early bird. I thought I’d be standing outside for awhile.”

“They have me here at eight nowadays, just in case anyone feels motivated to get some work done. They’ve been trying to speed up the restoration.”

The Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma still denied tourists access to the Jewish catacombs due to the intensive conservation efforts that were still underway—a project now spanning more than a decade. Noxious gases still present in the deep recesses of the subterranean labyrinth of crypts had only prolonged the delay.

Bersei pointed to the book. “I see you’re keeping busy.”

The docent shrugged. “Catching up on my reading. Still haven’t gotten word that we’ll be opening any time soon. I need to find action somewhere else.”

Bersei laughed.

“What brings you back here?” The old man stood, stuffing frail hands into his pockets. Mario’s frame was mostly bone, dramatically stooped by age.

It had been a while since Bersei’s last visit. Two years, in fact. This was only one of over sixty Roman burial sites he had surveyed for the Pontifical Commission over the years. “The latest carbon dating results have me second-guessing some of my original assumptions. Just want to have a second look at some of the hypogea.”

The story was a good one. Only a few months ago, a team of archaeologists had carbon dated charcoal and wood fragments embedded in some of the crypt’s stucco. The remarkable results dated the site as far back as 50 BC—over a century earlier than the city’s youngest Christian catacombs. The implications of such a discovery were profound, strongly supporting prior theories about Jewish influence on Christian burial rituals. But what was most fascinating was that mingled with the Judaic motifs were symbols closely tied to the early Christian movement. And these vague recollections had brought Bersei back here.

“I see you’ve got your flashlight.”

The anthropologist held it up proudly. “Always prepared. Do you need my card?” Bersei pulled out his wallet, flipping it open to a laminated identification card granting him full access to most of the city’s historic sites. Few academics had earned this status.

Mario waved it away. “I’ll log you in,” he said, pointing to a clipboard at his side.

“No one else down there?”

“You’ve got it all to yourself.”

Somehow, that wasn’t sitting right with him. He smiled uneasily.

The docent passed him a piece of paper. “Here’s an updated map for you.”

Bersei eyed the revised plan of tunnels and galleries. Now it was even more evident that the passageways had evolved haphazardly over centuries of expansion. The complicated representation looked more like a pattern of cracks in a crazed piece of pottery. A web. “I won’t be long. Would you mind if I left this with you for a little while?” He held up the laptop bag.

“No problem. I’ll keep it behind the desk.”

Handing the bag over, he made his way across the foyer and flicked on the flashlight, angling it low to illuminate the stone steps that plunged into pure blackness.

At the base of the steps, Bersei fought off a shiver and paused to adjust his breathing to the frigid, damp air—the brutal conditions that challenged restoration. It was remarkable that so many frescoes and etchings had been preserved down here, in an unforgiving environment that had completely ravaged the corpses that once occupied its thousands of niches. Barely any bones had been uncovered during excavations in these tombs, most having been stolen centuries earlier by unscrupulous charlatans who had turned a profit by passing them off as the relics of martyrs and saints. Ironic, he thought, seeing as the place was constructed like a maze specifically to avoid looting. So much for protecting the bodies for eventual resurrection. Come Judgment Day, there would be plenty of disappointed souls.

He pointed the light down the narrow passageway—barely a meter wide and less than three meters high—where it dissolved into total darkness only a few meters ahead. Almost two thousand years ago, the Fassores, a guild of diggers, had hand-carved this labyrinth of tombs out of the soft volcanic rock or tufa that formed Rome’s foundation. Burial slots called loculi layered the walls on both sides. In ancient times, bodies had been shrouded and laid out on these shelves to decompose for excarnation—the ritual rotting of flesh that expiated earthly sin. All were now empty.

These subterranean galleries had been layered into the earth, with three levels of similar tunnels running beneath this one. Luckily, the chamber he was most interested in viewing was in the catacomb’s upper gallery.

The necropolis, he thought. “City of the dead.” He shielded his nose from the moldy smell and hoped that nobody was home. Swallowing hard, Giovanni Bersei pushed forward.

“ Desidera qualcosa?” Mario set down his book for the second time and studied the rugged-looking man, standing in front of his desk. The man looked preoccupied. Mario tried English. “Can I help you?”

Aggravated by the formality, Conte didn’t reply. Following Bersei here, he’d been wondering why the hell the scientist had turned into this park. Now as he read the signage hanging behind the docent’s desk, he was starting to make better sense of it. Jewish catacombs? His eyes panned over to the other doorway, opening to a darkened stairwell. Most likely, it served as the exit too. He liked that. “No lights?” Conte queried in Italian.

“You need a flashlight down there,” the old man replied. Again, Conte was pleased.

“But the exhibit isn’t open to the public,” the docent continued, smiling

wryly. “And unless you have proper identification, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Power wielded by the powerless . Conte disregarded the request, ogling a clipboard on the desk. A visitor’s sign-in sheet. And only one name was listed there; the only name that mattered. Besides his quarry, it was clear that the place was empty. This was going to be even easier than he thought. He slid his left hand into his coat pocket and calmly withdrew a small syringe.

As the menacing figure circled the desk in three quick strides, Mario Beneditti was just starting to realize the danger he was in. Cornered, the old man froze.

“Pathetic,” Conte muttered. He threw out his right hand, clasping the docent by the back of his neck, while his left hand swiftly arced through the air, thrusting the needle deep into neck muscle, depressing the plunger to inject a concentrate of Tubarine—a drug used during heart surgery to paralyze the cardiac tissue. Never knowing when he might need it, Conte always kept a lethal dose in his possession.

As the old man crumpled to the floor, Conte stepped smartly away. The toxins instantly invaded Mario Beneditti’s bloodstream and he clawed at his constricting chest with leaden fingers. His face contorted in agony as his heart seized up like a blown engine. His body gave a last, shuddering convulsion and lay still.

Salvatore Conte always marveled at this method’s lean efficiency. Whoever found the old man would assume he’d had a heart attack. Any basic autopsy would come to the same conclusion.

Clean. Very clean.

After securing the deadbolt on the inside of the entry door, and pocketing the empty syringe, Conte rummaged through the desk drawers until he found the docent’s flashlight. He noticed Bersei’s laptop bag had been set aside and made a mental note to take it with him on his way out. Then he reached down to the corpse and yanked away a set of keys.

From beneath his coat, he drew his Glock 9mm. He’d try his best to avoid shooting Bersei. That wouldn’t be clean and he wasn’t looking for complications.

Flashlight on, Conte stepped down into the darkness and pulled the door shut behind him, engaging its meaty lock.

51

******

For fifteen minutes, Giovanni Bersei worked his way deeper into the Villa Torlonia catacomb, stopping intermittently to reference the map. The chill in his bones was impossible to shake and the absolute silence down here crushed his ears. At every turn, history’s long legacy of death swirled around him. Not exactly ideal working conditions, he mused.

Without the diagram, this zigzag of tunnels would have been impossible to navigate. So many of the passages—most of which terminated in dead ends—looked the same, and being underground he had little sense of direction. By no means claustrophobic, Bersei had been in many subterranean lairs more daunting than this. But he had never been alone...in a gigantic tomb.

Judging from the map’s scale he figured he’d walked just under half a kilometer from the entrance. His destination was very close now.

Ahead, the left wall gave way to a sweeping archway—an entrance to a chamber called a cubiculum. In the opening, Bersei paused and referenced the map again to confirm that he had found the right cell. Pocketing the map, he let out a long breath and moved into the space beyond.

Running the light over the walls, he scanned the spacious square chamber, hewn out of the porous tufa. There were no loculi here, just workspaces where bodies would once have been laid out to be prepared for interment. Sitting in a corner were a couple of ancient amphoras, which had probably once contained scented oils and spices.

The floor was ornately tiled, the walls plastered and covered in more Judaic design, primarily menorahs and even strong depictions of the Second Temple and the Ark of the Covenant.

In the center of the floor, Bersei craned back his head and aimed the flashlight upwards. If he remembered correctly, what he’d most wanted to see would be here. The moment his eyes adjusted to the amazing fresco that covered the lofty vault, he felt the breath pulled out of his chest.

His flashlight momentarily switched off, Salvatore Conte listened intently for the distant sounds echoing through the stone maze. Strangely comfortable in darkness, the fact that for the second time in a week he found himself in a tomb had no effect on his resolve.

Totally unaware of his pursuer, the anthropologist was making no effort to conceal the scraping sounds of his footsteps against the rough tunnel floor. And stopping occasionally to view a map only compounded his predicament.

Conte was close now. Very close.

He poked his head around the corner of the wall. About forty meters down the narrow passage, a faint glow spilled out from an arched opening.

Reaching behind his back, he tucked the Glock into his belt. Keeping the light off, he quietly removed his coat and shoes, placing them beside the wall with the flashlight. The Minotaur was moving again. ***

Giovanni Bersei’s gaze was transfixed on the images floating above him.

In the center was a menorah contained within concentric circles like a sunburst, centered upon a large cross—a cruciform—wrapped by grapevine tendrils.

On the ends of the cross were circular forms containing other symbols—a shofar, the ceremonial horn used to usher in the Jewish New Year; etrogs, the lemon-shaped fruit used by Jews during sukkot, the feast of the sacred Tabernacle—all imagery that paid homage to the lost temple.

Between the equal arms of the cross were four half circles that he swore had been purposely arranged to match the points of a compass. Each contained the symbol carved onto the ossuary’s side—a dolphin wrapped around a trident. The early Christian symbol for Jesus Christ, the Savior— the dolphin who shuttled spirits to the afterlife superimposed over the physical incarnation of the Trinity.

Trembling, Bersei tucked the flashlight in his armpit and reached into his breast pocket for the photocopy of the scroll.

“My God,” Bersei muttered. The same exact image—a virtual reproduction of the ceiling fresco—was drawn beneath the Greek text written almost two millennia earlier by Joseph of Arimathea. It was this image that had drawn him here. As far as Bersei had been aware, this fresco was one-of-a-kind.

Impossible .

This commingling of Jewish and Christian motifs was overwhelming enough, but the fact that Joseph was somehow linked to this place was mind-boggling. Bersei lowered the light along the wall to a fresco of the Ark of the Covenant. Surely all these images were related. There was a clear message Joseph had left here. But what did he and Jesus have in common with the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant? The possibilities were tantalizing.

Turning his attention to an opening in the cubiculum’s rear wall, he made his way into another chamber. If the place followed standard crypt design, this funerary preparation room would adjoin a burial room, or cella. Therefore, it was reasonable to assume that the corpses of the family who owned the cubiculum would have also occupied the cella.

He could barely control his excitement. Had he found the crypt of Joseph of Arimathea?

He moved forward into the rear chamber. As anticipated, the walls of this space were cleanly carved into loculi.

Amazing.

The beam of light shifted as Bersei counted the niches. Ten.

Nine of the shelves were fairly plain, spare some ornamental stone moldings. But on the rear wall, one loculus stood out. Most anthropologists would have quickly surmised this to be the burial spot of the family patriarch. But having seen the Jesus ossuary up close, Bersei immediately noticed the intricate rosettes and hatch patterns that framed this particular niche. Undoubtedly, it was the handiwork of the same stone craftsman who had decorated the ossuary.

Awestruck, Bersei paced forward, mouth agape. His imagination running wild, he pointed the light into the carved grotto, just large enough to store a prostrate body. Empty, of course. Now the light caught a symbol carved into the top edge of the frame. A dolphin wrapped around a trident.

Extraordinary.

Could Joseph of Arimathea have really transported Christ’s body back to Rome after the crucifixion? And if so, why? Bersei tried to wrap his head around the gigantic idea. Protection perhaps? But wasn’t there an empty tomb near Golgotha in Jerusalem? Maybe this could explain why the gospels said it had been found empty.

It actually seemed to make some sense. If Joseph’s family lived in Rome’s Jewish ghetto, it would have certainly been much safer to secret Christ’s body here, far away from the watchful eye of the Jewish Council and Pontius Pilate. Especially if customary burial rituals were to take place: rituals that involved shelving the corpse for up to a year.

“Dr. Bersei,” a sharp voice abruptly invaded the dead silence.

Startled, Bersei jumped and pivoted, swinging the light behind him. Half-expecting to see a ghastly apparition looking to punish him for his invasion of the tomb, he was even more terrified when the cylinder of light played on Salvatore Conte’s hard features. Having appeared without the slightest sound and dressed completely in black, it was if Conte had materialized from the wall of the crypt.

“Do you mind?” Squinting, Conte motioned at the flashlight.

Heart thundering hard against his ribs, Bersei lowered the beam to the floor. He noticed Conte wasn’t wearing shoes. At first glance, it also appeared that he wasn’t armed. “How did you get down here?” He feared he already knew the answer.

Conte ignored the question. “What are you looking for, doctor?”

Bersei didn’t answer.

Conte strode up to the anthropologist and snatched the photocopy from his hand.

“It’s merely research. Nothing more.” Cursing the fact that he was a horrible liar, Bersei retreated a step, his back pressing against the crypt wall.

“You must think I’m an idiot. I know you’ve taken files from the lab. Do you intend to give them to Detective Perardi too?”

Bersei went mute. How could Conte have known about Perardi? That call was made from his home. A sinking feeling came over him. Could the Vatican have been so ruthless as to tap his telephone?

“Stealing’s one thing. Stealing from the Vatican...Now that’s just unChristian. You surprise me, Dr. Bersei. But you are a smart man...I’ll give you that.” Conte turned and stepped away to the center of the chamber purposely displaying the Glock stuffed in his belt for dramatic effect. “Come here and give me some light.” He moved out into the center of the cubiculum.

Reluctantly, Giovanni Bersei shuffled into the antechamber and shone the light high up into its vault. The beam oscillated in his shaking hand.

Conte absorbed the fresco’s complex imagery for a few seconds, then compared it to the image on the paper. “So this is what you’ve found,” he said, impressed. “Good work. Who would have thought that box had origins here? I guess Joseph of Arimathea was pretty worldly after all.”

Bersei frowned.

“I take it you think he brought Jesus’s body here first,” Conte continued, “before boxing the bones and shipping them back to that sandbox in the Holy Land. I don’t even think the librarian or the pope’s cronies could have thought this far ahead.”

Bersei was stupefied by Conte’s candor, and his casual disregard for what this all really meant. More so, he was horrified that Conte had just confirmed his suspicions of the Vatican’s knowledge of the theft. Now he was certain they were directly involved and somehow, Salvatore Conte had made it all possible. The master thief. The silent stalker. The Israeli death count scrolled through his mind’s eye. Thirteen dead. What was one more life for a man like this? Especially after what amounted to an admission of foul play. Immediately, his thoughts jumped to his wife, and three daughters. His mouth went dry.

Calmly, Conte folded the paper and slipped it into his pants pocket. Then he was coolly reaching behind his back for the Glock.

Correctly anticipating what was coming, Bersei reacted on survival impulse, slamming the flashlight against the stone wall behind him. There was a harsh clatter of metal and breaking glass as the element shattered, plunging the cubiculum into utter darkness.

An instant later, Conte squeezed off a shot, the muzzle flash strobing the darkness, just long enough to see that the scientist had already scrambled away on his knees. Conte paused briefly to gauge the sounds of his movement before firing again—another flash, followed by a perilously close ricochet that almost clipped Conte’s ear. Though his intention was merely to scare the scientist, not actually shoot him, he’d have to take better care aiming.

“Fuck,” Conte screamed out loud. “I hate this fucking game.” The game, of course, was the futile attempt of any quarry to survive the likes of a seasoned hunter like Salvatore Conte. He listened again, hoping Bersei would double back to the catacomb entrance. But to his surprise, a sloppy fall and fast-moving steps confirmed that the anthropologist had gone the opposite way—deeper into the maze.

Before Conte began his pursuit, he felt his way back a few meters to retrieve his flashlight and shoes. Slipping them on, he flicked on the flashlight and sprinted along the narrow tunnel, the amber glow of his light swinging with each pump of his arms.

Giovanni Bersei had a good head start, but the uncertainty of the catacomb’s layout, filled with long tunnels that ran hundreds of meters to dead ends, had him panic-stricken. He needed to keep his wits about him, above all to remember the map...or else. He shook the thought away.

Running through the uneven stone corridors, each footfall echoed loudly behind him, an aural trail for Conte.

There was something otherworldly about moving so quickly through pure black; disorienting. With nothing for his eyes to focus on, Bersei held one arm out like he was running a touchdown in an American football game, all the while praying he wouldn’t crash face-first into a wall. To make matters worse, as he progressed deeper, the air was harder to take in, putrid with the acrid smells of wet earth and chemicals he couldn’t quite identify—most likely the noxious gases that were the catacomb’s greatest natural hazard.

His right shoulder bounced off the wall and he spun slightly, almost tripping over himself. Slowing momentarily to regain his balance, he began to move again, only to careen into a wall face-first. Panting wildly, he thrust his arms to the right, groping, searching for an opening, praying that this wasn’t a dead end. Nothing except the hollow niches of loculi. For a split second, he considered hiding in one, but knew his uncontrolled breathing would give him away. He spun a one-eighty and paced over to the other wall. More stone.

Jesus, don’t do this to me.

Feeling his way along the wall and moving right, his hands found a void. The passageway hadn’t terminated; it simply angled hard to the left.

Just as Bersei rounded the corner, he swore he glimpsed a distant light that looked like a star in the night sky. He heard the steady drum of Conte running, louder by the second.

Bersei sprinted through the darkness, running purely on faith that he wouldn’t crash again. Seconds later, his feet tangled on something low to the floor. His legs buckled and he slammed hard onto the stone paving. He’d landed on what felt like paint cans, his head colliding loudly against some kind of metal case.

A blinding light shot into his eyes as intense pain racked his skull. He swore furiously, thinking the flash was a by-product of the head blow. But opening his eyes, he stared directly into an illuminated work light. Blinking, he saw that he had run directly into a section of the tunnel where restoration was still underway. Tools, brushes, and cans were strewn throughout the passage. A thick cord had lassoed his ankles and downed the pole light onto its switch. He yanked the mess away, snapping back to his feet, barely glimpsing the magnificent frescos that were in the process of repair.

The footsteps behind him were faster now, closing in.

The toolbox that he’d collided with lay open, a ball-peen hammer sitting in its top tray. He grabbed it and ran.

Conte rounded the corner where a mysterious light spilled out into the tunnel. He was beginning to feel a bit light-headed, not from the run, but from the acrid air now filling his lungs. Slowing to navigate the mess of tools blocking the passage, he planted a firm kick on the work light and it fizzled out.

Up ahead, the passage forked in three different directions. Racing to the intersection, he paused, striving to control his breathing, and listened.

Conte leveled the flashlight straight ahead. It appeared to be a dead end. Then he spun right and shone the light down the passageway, which curved gently out of sight. The left tunnel was also curved.

He listened again. Nothing. Finally he had to make a choice.

52

******

Jerusalem

Inside Station Zion’s cramped detaining cell, Graham Barton stared hopelessly at the solid metal door. Somehow he’d been framed as the mastermind behind the Temple Mount theft. Deep down he knew that the powers were aligned against him for a reason—perhaps an expedient political one.

Early that morning, Israeli police had finally permitted him to call his wife. Given the seven-hour time difference she’d been agitated when woken from a deep sleep. But after he explained his predicament, she quickly softened.

In Jenny’s voice, Barton sensed something that he thought was long dead—concern. She readily believed him when he insisted that he was innocent. “Come on Graham, I know you’d never do something like this.” Reassuring him that she would immediately formulate a plan of action, she’d ended the call by saying, “I love you, darling. I’m here for you.” The words had almost brought tears to his eyes, and in a moment when everything seemed dark and uncertain, he had regained something more precious than his freedom.

The door opened and he looked up at a familiar figure.

Razak.

Clearly upset, the Muslim crossed to the remaining chair as the door

closed behind him and was locked from the outside.

“Quite a predicament you’re in, Graham,” his tone was disappointed.

Razak had always been a good judge of character. Yet the police had presented such strong evidence against the archaeologist that he couldn’t help

but feel he’d been played for a fool.

“It’s a setup,” Barton insisted. “I had nothing to do with this crime. You

of all people should know that.”

“I like you. You seem to be a good man, but really, I don’t know what

to think. They said that solid evidence was discovered in your apartment.

Things only the thieves could have possessed.”

“Someone planted that drill,” Barton protested. “And you know as well

as me that the scroll was in that ossuary.” He saw the incredulous look on

the Muslim’s face. “For goodness sake, Razak. You have to tell them that

the scroll was in that ossuary.”

Razak spread his hands. “I had my back turned,” he reminded him. He

couldn’t discount the possibility that Barton may have purposely gone

through the charade of opening the remaining ossuaries to legitimize the

scroll in his possession. But why? For notoriety? To discredit the Muslim

claim to Temple Mount by sidetracking the investigation with a territorial

dispute? Maybe to divert the blame to a fanatical Christian? “Right. I see.” Disappointment clouded the archaeologist’s face. “You’re

part of this, too.”

“What about the other ossuaries?”

Barton was exasperated. “How could a man my size move nine ossuaries weighing thirty-five kilos each right from under the eyes of the Waqf and police? They’re not the kind of things one can slip into one’s pocket,” he said sarcastically. “Haven’t you seen this city the past few days? There’s surveillance equipment everywhere. All they need to do is play back some

video recordings and they’ll see that I was never there without you present.” Razak was silent, eyes cast down.

“And even if I’d been able to take them, where would I have hidden

them? In my flat? They’ve already searched there. Next you’re going to assume that I defaced the tablet on the wall of the crypt because I saw it before you did.”

The Muslim’s eyes shot up. “What do you mean by that?” “The tenth entry on the tablet. Remember it was scratched away?” Now Razak knew what he was referring to. “Yes.”

“Well tonight, Major Topol conveniently showed me a photograph taken

before I was brought in. It showed the symbol that was originally there.” Razak didn’t like that. “And what was it?”

Barton wasn’t in the mood for another history dissertation. “A pagan

symbol. A dolphin wrapped around a trident.”

Razak tried to comprehend what this meant.

“An early Christian symbol for Jesus, representing crucifixion and

resurrection.”

Razak didn’t know what to say. If this were true, it would certainly

strengthen Barton’s assertions about the crypt’s owner and the perceived

contents of the stolen ossuary. He shook his head. “I don’t know what to

believe.”

“You must help me, Razak. You’re the only one who knows the truth.” “Truth’s a rare commodity in this part of the world.” Razak glanced away.

“Even if it existed, I don’t know if I’d recognize it.” He began to feel a keen

responsibility for the Englishman. Barton’s intuition about the theft had been

virtually flawless and he’d perceived things no one else had grasped. Yet here

he was awaiting charges. Razak had seen these tactics used many times in the

past by the Israeli authorities. But was Barton really just a convenient patsy

for the Israelis? This possibility presented an entirely different challenge. “Is there any hope for me?”

Razak spread his hands. “There’s always hope.” But deep down he

knew that there would be no easy way out of this.

“You’re not going to pursue this investigation, are you?

“You have to understand our position.” Razak was beginning to wonder

if he understood it himself.

“What position exactly?”

“Peace. Stability. You know what happened yesterday,” he said, referring to the bombing. “If something doesn’t change, that will be just the beginning. Already news of your arrest has started to ease tensions. Discussions are resuming. People have someone to blame—and a man who’s

not a Jew or a Muslim.”

“Very convenient.” The archaeologist knew nothing more could be done. “The real problem we’re facing is political.” Razak leaned forward. “I

know it’s terrible. But if there’s no blame, there’ll be no solution. Blame a

man and one man falls. Blame a country and the problem isn’t singular.” “This is how you’re going to let this end?”

“It will never end.” Razak rose to his feet and knocked on the cell door.

Before leaving, he paused and turned back to Barton. “I need to digest all

this, Graham. I will do my best to help. But I cannot attest to things that

I’m unsure of. I know you can respect that.” With a sinking feeling, he

made his way outside.

When Razak had entered Station Zion just minutes earlier, the sidewalks had been empty. But as he emerged out into the harsh sunlight, his eyes adjusted to a completely different scene.

Over a dozen news reporters had materialized. And judging from their frenzied reactions when they saw him, Razak knew he was the reason they were here. Shoulder-mounted cameras swung at him as the reporters came at him like a swarm, thrusting their microphones like epées.

“Mr. al-Tahini!” one reporter managed to break forward to grab his attention.

Razak froze, knowing that confrontation was inevitable and somehow, necessary. After all, he was the Waqf’s designated spokesman.

“Yes.”

“Is it true that the police have arrested the man responsible for the Temple Mount theft?”

As if by some unsigned accord, the entire assemblage of media personnel quieted down in unison, anxiously awaiting his reply.

Razak cleared his throat. “That is still unclear. As far as we know, the police are still sorting through the facts.”

Another reporter yelled out, “But weren’t you working with this man? The English archaeologist, Graham Barton?”

“It is true that I was assigned to the investigation, as was Mr. Barton whose impressive credentials were considered vital to our understanding of the thieves’ motives.”

The first reporter squared up again. “And how do you feel now that he’s been singled out as the man behind all this?”

Careful, Razak told himself. Don’t make things worse for Graham. And don’t make things worse for your Muslim and Palestinian constituents either. “Though I am anxious to come to a resolution, I feel that many more questions need to be answered before anyone should levy accusations against this man.” He glared at the reporter. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, pushing forward through the mob.

53

******

Rome

Huddled inside a loculus high on the passage wall, Giovanni Bersei was sucking in shallow breaths, desperate to steady himself, hoping that Conte would choose the wrong tunnel and wander aimlessly into the catacomb. If he was really lucky, the assassin might succumb to the fumes and pass out. Bersei only hoped it didn’t happen to himself first. He tightened his grip around the ball-peen hammer’s handle. As if this is any match for a gun.

Minutes passed. Silence returned.

A little more time and he would consider climbing back out into the tunnel. But the idea was short lived, because a faint glow of light suddenly played along the craggy wall opposite the niche. Conte was coming.

Having searched two tunnels unsuccessfully, Conte had backtracked to the area where Bersei had stumbled over the tools. Surely his quarry hadn’t returned this way. Bersei couldn’t have navigated the mess in the dark without causing a commotion.

Pacing down the third passage, Conte felt the slightest breeze. The air here was less putrid. Maybe there was a ventilation shaft nearby.

He was beginning to entertain the very remote possibility that Bersei might have outsmarted him. However, that could only be temporary since the only door out of this place was locked.

Moving slowly through the tunnel, he detected a dim light far ahead. Daylight?

Panic overcame him. Perhaps it was a ventilation shaft, but it certainly looked wide enough to provide an escape route. Conte broke into a sprint.

About ten meters ahead, a dark form suddenly arced out from high on the wall too fast for even the mercenary to react. It cracked him hard in the right temple and landed him flat on his back, his head slamming hard against the ground with a hollow thud.

The flashlight skittered across the tunnel floor. The Glock, however, remained fast in his grasp. For him, that was pure instinct.

Dazed, Conte barely discerned a figure crawling out from the wall like a reanimated corpse. Hitting the floor, Bersei scrambled for the light.

Suddenly, through blurry double vision, Conte saw something cartwheeling through the air. It struck him hard in the chest. A hammer? Raising the Glock, he blindly squeezed off a shot, just in case Bersei felt like attempting another blow.

The light disappeared down the passageway as Conte tried to pull himself together.

Running to the light source at the end of the passage, Bersei was grateful Conte’s shots had missed him. Agonizing over the possibility that this might be a dead end, he focused on the luminous cone of sunlight at the tunnel’s terminus that offered some hope of escape. The breeze was blowing stronger now. Maybe, just maybe, he’d get out of this appalling place alive.

But only a couple meters from the shaft, Bersei slid to a stop, just before the gaping opening in the floor where the sunlight flowed down a wide, ragged shaft. He stared down its throat, four, perhaps five stories to a rocky bottom.

The lower galleries . Three more levels lay below, he reminded himself. The restorers must have opened the ventilation shaft to help release lingering subterranean gases.

Christ help me .

His eyes drifted up to the light source. The shaft was too wide to climb. Worse, a heavy iron grate sealed the opening high above. Despair closed in on him like a vice.

Suddenly from behind, he heard a slight noise.

Bersei turned just in time to see Conte’s body poised in horizontal form, launched in mid air like a projectile. The assassin’s shoeless feet caught Bersei square in the chest, throwing him back violently across the mouth of the shaft, slamming his body against the wall beyond.

The flashlight tumbled downward end over end until it smashed onto the rocks far below.

For a split second, Bersei was suspended on the wall, his feet caught on the small ridge that formed a rim around the opening. But the force of the impact teetered him forward uncontrollably. He reflexively kicked out from the wall, hurling himself across to the other side of the aperture, adrenaline pumping hard. Fingers clawed earth and squeezed. But there was nothing to hold onto.

The jagged rocks pinwheeled around him as he plummeted down to collide head first into the tufa at the base of the shaft.

Conte stared down into the abyss. Spread across the shaft’s rocky bottom, Giovanni Bersei was bent into an unnatural shape, blood oozing from his collapsed skull, broken bones protruding through skin.

The hunter smiled. A clean kill that would appear to be an unfortunate accident. It would probably be days, perhaps weeks, before the body was found. Even the awful smell of rotting flesh could be dismissed down here. After all, that’s what this place was designed for.

Backtracking through the tunnels, Conte gathered his shoes, gun, and coat. He even managed to find the Glock’s discharged bullets and casings. It was a rule to never leave behind solid ballistics evidence. That’s why he’d used XM8s for the Jerusalem job. By now, those slugs would have the investigators spinning in circles, trying to figure out how a prototype weapon that should have been stockpiled somewhere in a United States military bunker had wound up in the possession of nameless mercenaries.

Unlocking the door, he made his way into the foyer. Returning the keys to the rigid docent, he grabbed the laptop bag, unbolted the entrance and went outside, closing the door behind him. Taking a moment to let his eyes adjust to the glaring sunlight, Conte proceeded to wheel Bersei’s Vespa over to the white Fiat rental van. Opening its rear doors, he manhandled the cycle into the rear compartment, closed the doors, and jumped behind the wheel. For a moment, he eyed himself in the rearview mirror. A purple lump the size of a walnut had welled up on his right temple. Luckily, Bersei’s swing hadn’t been perfectly timed or he might have been knocked unconscious.

All things considered, it had been a good job.

54

******

Vatican City

At ten to ten, Father Patrick Donovan entered the lab looking like he hadn’t slept in days. A leather satchel hung at his side. “Good morning, Dr. Hennesey.”

Seated beside the ossuary, Charlotte forced her eyes up from the relic.

Donovan looked around the lab for the anthropologist. “Is Dr. Bersei here?”

“I was going to call you earlier,” she said. “He hasn’t come in yet.” Bending the truth was not something she was good at. But now, for Giovanni’s sake, she found herself trying harder than ever to be convincing.

“That’s strange.” Immediately, he suspected that Conte was up to no good, because as Donovan had just come down the corridor, he had noticed that the makeshift surveillance room was unlocked and vacant. Apparently, Conte had left in a hurry. “I hope everything is okay.”

“I know what you mean. Doesn’t seem like him to be late.”

“Especially for something so important,” Donovan added. “Well, I was really hoping he could be here for the presentation. Think you can handle this without him?”

“Sure,” she replied, her insides roiling. How could she possibly go through with this alone? What if Bersei was right? And what if she wasn’t safe in Vatican City? The only solace she had was her gut feeling that this priest would watch over her. Rarely was she wrong about someone’s character.

Donovan checked his watch. “We really should get going. I don’t want to be late.”

Forcing a smile, Charlotte slung her laptop bag over her shoulder, took the sizeable presentation portfolio in her hands, and followed Donovan out into the corridor. “So where are we going exactly?”

He glanced over at her. “To the office of the secretary of state, Cardinal Antonio Carlo Santelli.”

55

******

Traversing the Apostolic Palace’s grand corridor, Donovan stole a glimpse at Charlotte as she strode beside him, seeing in her eyes the same awe he’d experienced the first time he saw this place. “Spectacular, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She was trying to calm her nerves as she eyed the heavily armed Swiss Guards stationed along the corridor. “Amazingly grand.”

He motioned to the lofty ceiling. “The pope lives one floor up.”

At the guarded entry to Cardinal Santelli’s office, Donovan and Charlotte were quickly cleared and escorted by a Swiss Guard into the antechamber where Father Martin stood from his desk to greet them.

He wasn’t thrilled about the cardinal’s decision to meet here. What was Santelli’s motive? To illustrate what was at stake should she actually suspect something?

“Good to see you again, James.” Donovan shook the young priest’s hand, trying not to focus on the dark circles under his eyes. He introduced Charlotte, then asked if Martin could buzz the lab to see if Dr. Bersei had arrived.

Martin obliged and circled behind the desk to make the call. The ring tones chimed for fifteen seconds with no response. He shook his head. “Sorry. No one’s picking up.”

Donovan turned to Charlotte. “I guess you’re on your own,” he said apologetically.

The intercom on Martin’s desk suddenly came to life. “James,” a rough voice tore through the tiny speaker. “I asked you for that report ten minutes ago. What the hell are you waiting for?”

The priest rolled his eyes and smiled tightly. “Pardon me for just a moment.” He leaned over and pressed the intercom’s button. “I have it right here, Eminence. I apologize for the delay. Also, Father Donovan and Dr. Hennesey have arrived.”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Send them in!”

Angrily snatching a folder off the desk, Father Martin led them into Santelli’s office.

Inside, the cardinal was seated behind his desk, wrapping up a call. He acknowledged the visitors with a nod and motioned to the folder in Martin’s hand. After the priest handed it over, Santelli waved him away as if he were a mosquito.

“He’s all yours,” Martin whispered to Donovan as he retreated to the antechamber.

Seeing Santelli’s intimidating figure behind the desk, Charlotte suddenly realized that she’d been so preoccupied with Bersei’s claims and Conte’s creepy spy room that she’d failed to discuss etiquette with Donovan. Ending the call, the cardinal stood, tall and rigid, his face pleasant yet firm. Coming round his hulking desk, she could have sworn he exhibited the telltale signs of someone who’d recently stopped drinking, though there was no denying he had powerful presence.

“Good morning, Father Donovan.” The cardinal extended his right hand as if to grasp an invisible cane.

“Eminence.” Donovan stepped forward and bowed slightly to kiss Santelli’s sacred ring, hiding his disdain for the superior gesture. “Eminence Antonio Carlo Santelli, may I introduce you to Dr. Charlotte Hennesey, a renowned geneticist from Phoenix, Arizona.”

“Ah, yes,” Santelli was grinning widely. “I’ve heard much about you, Dr. Hennesey.”

A look of panic came over Charlotte as he closed in for a greeting. Perhaps sensing it, he offered her a standard handshake. Relieved, she shook Santelli’s enormous paw. She sensed the musky smell of cologne. “An honor to meet you, Eminence.”

“Thank you, my dear. You’re very kind.” Momentarily distracted by her beauty, he held her hand for a long moment before letting go. “Come, let us sit.” Cupping his hand on her shoulder, he motioned across the office to a circular mahogany conference table.

Santelli kept in step with Charlotte, his hand still connected to her shoulder, Father Donovan in tow.

Donovan was amazed how Santelli could turn on the charm when required...a wolf in shepherd’s clothing.

“I’m anxious to discuss this tremendous project you’ve been working on,” Santelli stated exuberantly. “Father Donovan’s told me many exciting things about your findings.”

When they had all settled into their leather armchairs, Donovan provided a quick background to bring Santelli up to speed on the relics that had been presented to the scientists. Then he apologized on behalf of Dr. Bersei who could not attend the meeting due to a personal crisis.

The cardinal looked alarmed. “Nothing serious, I hope?”

The librarian was hoping the same thing. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

“That means you have the floor, Dr. Hennesey.”

Charlotte handed Santelli a neatly bound report and gave Donovan a second copy. Flipping open her laptop, she waited for it to power up. “Our first order of business was a pathological analysis of the skeleton . . .” she began, allowing her professional persona to take over.

Step-by-step she walked the two men through a PowerPoint slideshow of crisp, enlarged color photos of the skeletal aberrations: the gouges, fractured knees, damaged wrists and feet. “On the basis of what you see here, both Dr. Bersei and myself concluded that this male specimen interred in the ossuary—who was otherwise in perfect health—died in his early thirties as a result of... execution.”

Santelli managed to look surprised. “Execution?”

She glanced to Donovan who seemed equally puzzled, but nodded for her to continue. Directing her eyes back to the cardinal she got quickly to the point. “He was crucified.”

The words hung in the air for a long moment.

Santelli leaned forward to put both elbows on the table and held the geneticist’s gaze. “I see.”

“And the forensic evidence unequivocally supports this,” she continued. “Furthermore, we also found these objects in a concealed compartment inside the ossuary.” Determined to steady her hands, Charlotte removed the three separate plastic bags from her carrying bag. Laying the first one down, she tried not to let the spikes hit too hard against the burnished tabletop. Next came the sealed bag with the two coins. The third contained the metal cylinder.

Santelli and Donovan examined each object closely.

The nails drew the most attention, but required little explanation. The two men must have been thinking exactly what she did the first time she saw them: what it would have been like to be impaled by them.

Charlotte expanded on the significance of the coins. Surprisingly, neither Santelli nor Donovan had yet to raise a question. Did they already know about these things? Had that bastard Conte been updating them with the findings from his spying? Trying to shake away her suspicions, she informed them that the cylinder contained a scroll that had yet to be studied. This particular relic had once again managed to hold Father Donovan’s attention for some time.

“We submitted a bone sample and some wood splinters for radiocarbon dating.” She passed across two copies of the dating certificates Ciardini had sent over. “As you can see, both samples date to the early first century. The wood turns out to be a rare walnut indigenous to ancient Judea. Organic material from flowers used during the burial ritual and flax were also found inside the ossuary. Again, both are specific to Judea.” She flipped open more images and data.

“Why flax, Dr. Hennesey?” Donovan asked.

“Most likely from the linen strips and shroud used to wrap the body during the burial ritual.” She paused. “Dr. Bersei performed a microscopic analysis of the ossuary’s patina.”

She moved on to images revealing the varying degrees of magnification applied to the stone’s surface.

“And the biological composition was uniform throughout the sample set. Plus the mineral content of the patina is consistent with similar relics found in caves throughout that region. More importantly, no signs of manual manipulation were detected.”

“I’m sorry, but what does that last point mean?” the Cardinal inquired.

“Simply that it’s not a fake—the patina hasn’t been artificially created by modern chemical methods. And it implies that the ossuary and its markings are authentic.” But you probably already know that, she thought. She brought up the 3-D skeletal imaging and swiveled the laptop toward them. “Scanning the skeleton, we calibrated the specimen’s muscle mass.” Working the mouse, she brought up the digitized, bloodred musculature, allowed them both a few seconds to absorb the image, then clicked a command to assign the monochrome “skin.” “By incorporating the basic genetic profile found in the specimen’s DNA we reconstructed this man’s appearance at the time of death. And here he is.”

She tapped the mouse button and the screen refreshed—pigmented skin, eyes alive with color, the hair dark and full.

Both men were astounded.

“That’s absolutely...extraordinary,” Santelli muttered.

So far, neither the cardinal nor the priest was letting on about whether they had any advance knowledge of the skeleton’s identity or the ossuary’s origin. As they studied the image, she eyed both of them in turn. Could these two clerics possibly be involved in a theft that had left people dead? “Lastly, Dr. Bersei was able to decipher the meaning behind this symbol carved onto the side of the box.” She was confident this next exhibit would elicit a reaction. She held up a close-up photo clearly showing the dolphin wrapped around a trident, and explained the significance of each symbol taken separately. “The fusing of these two pagan symbols was how firstcentury Christians represented...Jesus Christ.”

Santelli and Donovan exchanged uneasy glances.

Mission accomplished, Charlotte thought.

Silence fell over the room.

56

******

Cardinal Santelli was the first to break the atmosphere. “Are you telling us, Dr. Hennesey, that you believe these are the mortal remains of Jesus Christ?”

Though she instinctively liked it when people got to the point, this was more than she’d bargained for. Swallowing hard, Charlotte felt a bolt of energy shoot through her system—fight or flight. She actually had to temper the urge to look toward the open door.

Now she was glad that before leaving the Domus that morning, she had put in an hour’s reading of a book that was always readily available. In the drawer of the nightstand, in fact. If the report was going to even remotely suggest that these bones might have been those of Jesus Christ, doublechecking related parts of the New Testament was prudent.

“At face value,” she began, “the evidence is compelling. But there are discrepancies in the pathology report and contradictions to accounts in the Bible. For example, we found no evidence that a spear was thrust into the rib cage as the Bible states. And this man’s knees were broken.” She went on to detail how the Romans speeded up death with a metal club.

Father Donovan’s attention wandered momentarily as he thought about this anticipated inconsistency. He knew Charlotte was referring to the Gospel of John, verse nineteen, which stated that a Roman centurion pierced Jesus’s side with a spear to help expedite his agonizing death:

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man and of the other one who had been crucified with Him. When they came to Jesus, they did not break His legs since they saw that He was already dead.

Donovan always mused that two lines included in that passage—thirty-six and thirty-seven—actually concisely explained the incongruent account:

...For these things happened so that the Scripture would be fulfilled: Not one of His bones will be broken. Also, another Scripture says: They will look at the One they pierced.

Interestingly, none of the synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, or Luke— made mention of this event. Donovan could only surmise that the Gospel of John included this embellished account to convince Jews that Jesus had been the true Messiah foretold by Old Testament prophets—“so that Scripture would be fulfilled.” He was certain that the skeleton laid out in the Vatican Museum was actually telling the truth: Pontius Pilate and the Romans had treated Jesus just like every other faceless criminal that threatened the empire’s social order. They had ruthlessly annihilated him and when he wasn’t dying quickly enough, they had smashed his knees to speed up the process.

Charlotte forged on. “I’m sure you’re far more aware than I am about what the Bible says about Jesus’s occupation before his ministry.”

Donovan played along with this. “He’d been a carpenter since boyhood.” In fact, the Bible never made explicit reference to Christ’s occupation. Jesus was thought to have been a carpenter merely because the Gospel of Matthew referred to him as “the carpenter’s son.” It was assumed he would have been employed in the family business—even though Matthew’s Greek word, “tektonov”—loosely translated as “carpenter”— really could have applied to anyone who had worked with their hands, from builders to day laborers to farmers.

Charlotte nodded. “All those years of hard manual work would have resulted in visible changes to the finger joints and wrists, where the bone and surrounding tissue thicken to accommodate increased demand. The joints would have shown signs of premature wearing in at least one of the hands.” She flipped to close-ups of the hands. “Yet this man’s show no obvious changes.”

“That’s fascinating,” Donovan managed, almost sounding sincere.

“But most importantly,” she pointed to the monitor, “his genetic makeup isn’t what you’d expect of someone born in ancient Judea. I carefully reviewed the DNA’s gene sequencing and it doesn’t match any documented Middle Eastern profiles for Jews or Arabs. The Bible states that Jesus Christ was born from a long bloodline of Jews. As you both know, Matthew’s Gospel begins by retracing Jesus’s lineage—forty-two generations—and all of them Jews. Way back to Abraham. That blood line would have been flawlessly Jewish. Yet this man’s DNA has no identifiable genealogy.”

Now both Santelli and Donovan looked perplexed.

Santelli tilted his head to one side. “So, Dr. Hennesey, are you telling us that you don’t believe that these are actually Jesus’s remains?”

Their eyes met in a silent standoff.

For an instant, she thought back to her conversation with Bersei—how he’d said that people might have been killed for these relics. Unlike Donovan, the cardinal’s shifty gaze was starting to convince her that Giovanni’s suspicions might just have been right. “From what I’ve seen here, claiming these to be the actual remains of Jesus Christ would be a long shot. The scientific methods available today pose too many questions. There remains a very real possibility that this is some kind of first-century forgery.”

“That’s a relief,” said Donovan.

Taken aback, Charlotte looked at him sharply. “Why’s that?”

Opening his satchel he produced the Ephemeris Conlusio. “Let me explain.”

57

******

Carefully resting the ancient, weathered manuscript on the glossy mahogany tabletop, Father Donovan turned to her. “You know, of course, that the Vatican has been extremely concerned about the ossuary’s provenance?”

Cardinal Santelli sat back in the chair, hands folded across his chest. Charlotte eyed the book curiously.

“And there was a very good reason why,” he explained. “No one outside a small circle within the upper reaches of the Church has heard what I’m about to tell you.”

Judging from the cardinal’s body language, she highly doubted that. “Okay.”

“First, I need to give you some background,” Donovan began. “Many Jews, particularly those living in ancient Judea, maintained that Jesus—the self-proclaimed son of God—hadn’t fulfilled the messianic criteria outlined in the Old Testament. And they were right.”

That’s an odd admission, she thought.

“The Messiah foretold by the prophets was supposed to be a warrior directly descended from King David, empowered by God to militarily reunite the tribes of Israel, thus freeing the Promised Land from tyranny and oppression.” Donovan was speaking quickly, his face animated, hands gesticulating. “The Messiah was supposed to rebuild the Holy Temple. The Messiah was supposed to conquer Rome. The Jews had been vanquished for centuries and subjugated by all the major empires—Persians, Greeks, and Romans. For the first thousand years of its existence, Jerusalem had known only bloodshed.” Images of dead Israeli soldiers reminded him how little had changed. “Yet in reading the scriptures, you find Jesus advocating peace. Here was a man telling the Jews to pay their taxes and accept their lot in life. In return he promised them eternity with God. He believed using evil to conquer evil only prolonged a perpetual cycle.”

Charlotte realized that Donovan needed to tell this story and that she needed to encourage it. “Live by the sword, die by the sword?”

“Exactly. Jesus knew Rome couldn’t be defeated. He was trying to prevent a massive Jewish rebellion that would have ended in a massacre by the Romans. But many chose not to listen.” Donovan’s voice was solemn. “Less than thirty years after Christ’s death, the Jews finally revolted. The Roman response was swift and it was brutal. They besieged Jerusalem and after they’d taken the city, they slaughtered every man, woman, and child. Thousands were crucified, burned, or simply hacked to pieces. Jerusalem and the second temple were razed to the ground. Just as Jesus had predicted.” He paused. “Dr. Hennesey, are you aware that most theologians estimate that Jesus’s ministry spanned only one year?”

She knew that Christ had been in his early thirties when he died. “I never realized that.”

Donovan leaned in closer. “I hope you’d agree that regardless of one’s faith, or even the degree of one’s faith, Jesus was a remarkable human being—a philosopher and teacher—someone who emerged from relative obscurity to bring a lasting message of hope, kindness, and faith that still resonates two thousand years later. No other figure in history has had such an impact.” His eyes on her, Donovan’s hands migrated to the Ephemeris Conlusio and rested flatly on its cover, as if protecting it.

“That book has something to do with all this?” Charlotte noticed that Donovan had yet to look at Santelli, making it clear that this part of the discussion had been choreographed by the two men.

Donovan answered her with a question. “You’re familiar with Christ’s resurrection story, the empty tomb?”

“Of course.” Having attended catechism classes throughout elementary school and having gone to an all-girls Catholic high school, she knew plenty about scripture—more than she wanted to. She gave Donovan the straightforward answer that he’d expect—the one that smoothed out the inconsistencies within all the Gospels: “Jesus was crucified and buried. Three days later he rose from the dead and reappeared to his disciples,”— In what form is anybody’s guess—“before ascending to Heaven.” That summed it up nicely, she thought.

“Absolutely.” Donovan was pleased. “Which brings us to this most remarkable story.” He gently patted the book’s cover. “This is a journal written by Joseph of Arimathea—a biblical figure intimately linked to Jesus’s death and resurrection.”

Charlotte was amazed by the Vatican’s secret treasure trove. Had this book been stolen too? “The Joseph of Arimathea?”

“Yes. The man who buried Christ.” Father Donovan opened the volume revealing pages in ancient Greek, and looked up. “For centuries the Vatican has feared rebuttal of Christ’s role as the Messiah. And this book provides many reasons why.” Stealing a quick glance at Santelli, Donovan braced himself not to falter or let his voice waver. So far, it seemed that the cardinal was satisfied with his performance. “Though portrayed as Christ’s advocate in the New Testament, in fact Joseph of Arimathea was secretly working to undermine Jesus’s ministry. You see, Jesus posed a substantial risk to the Jewish elite. Though he smartly avoided confronting the issues of Roman occupation, he had harshly criticized Jewish authority, particularly those priests who had turned God’s house into a travesty. In exchange for donations, the Jewish priests were allowing pagans to make sacrifices on the temple’s holy altars. They had turned the temple’s sacred courtyards into a marketplace. The temple embodied Jewish faith. Therefore, to faithful Jews like Jesus, its steady decline marked the slow death of religious tradition.”

Charlotte recalled Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus entering the Jewish temple, ransacking merchants’ and money changers’ tables. Understandably, Jesus hadn’t been keen on the holy place being used as a mall.

“Jesus had certainly found fault with the Jewish ruling class,” Donovan went on, “and he wasn’t afraid to let them know it. It was no surprise that it was the Jewish priests who’d sent their own guards to apprehend him. After Jesus was executed, Joseph of Arimathea was chosen by the Sanhedrin to approach Pontius Pilate to negotiate the release of the body. Convinced by Joseph that it would prevent Jesus’s fanatical followers from removing the body from the cross, Pilate granted his request.”

Charlotte knew body language. Though Donovan was telling his story confidently, his eyes were shifting. She recalled Giovanni remarking that removing a criminal from a cross would have been unprecedented. No crucified body had ever been recovered. But given the threat Jesus posed to the Jewish aristocracy—who seemingly had everything to lose should the system be challenged—Donovan’s explanation seemed plausible. “But why would Jesus’s followers even want to steal his body?”

“In order to declare a resurrection and portray Jesus as divine.”

“So Joseph of Arimathea procured the body to protect it?”

“That’s right.” Donovan forced himself to look at her.

Now she was put in a divisive position. There was an obvious question that needed to be presented at this juncture. Her eyes shifted to the laptop screen where the reconstructed image of the crucified man seemed to be watching vigil over the proceedings. “And the resurrection?” She swallowed hard. “Did it really happen?”

Donovan grinned. “Of course,” he replied. “The body was secretly placed in Joseph’s tomb—a location unbeknownst to Jesus’s followers. But three days later it had disappeared.”

“Was it stolen?”

Donovan felt Santelli’s judicious gaze digging into him. “That’s where the Bible is correct, Dr. Hennesey. Four separate New Testament accounts tell us that three days later Jesus rose up from the tomb. Then he reappeared to his followers and ascended to heaven.”

Charlotte didn’t know what to think. She certainly wasn’t one to believe everything in the Bible, and her early-morning brush-up reading had reminded her why. One passage in particular that described Jesus’s physical death on the cross had driven that point home. It began with Matthew 27:50:

Jesus shouted again with a loud voice and gave up His spirit. Suddenly, the curtain of the sanctuary was split in two from top to bottom; the earth quaked and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened and many bodies of the saints who had gone to their rest were raised. And they came out of the tombs after His resurrection, entered the holy city, and appeared to many.

Reflecting on it, she saw something disturbingly contradictory to the Easter story. It was this passage that first mentioned “His resurrection”— with no three-day gap or burial having taken place. It made her wonder: if it was Jesus’s spirit that had already risen during the moment of death on the cross, then what part of him could possibly have emerged from the tomb three days later? A lifeless, spiritless shell? If bones were actually left behind, should that have surprised anyone? And what about all those other reanimated saintly corpses? Why had no other historical account made reference to so many resurrected bodies? She thought she knew the answer. Because it wasn’t a physical resurrection. The words laid out in the gospels were being misconstrued. Looking over at the Vatican’s second-incommand, she saw a seasoned bureaucrat who would hear nothing of interpretation. Though she needed to continue cautiously, she still had to address the obvious: “But what about this ossuary, the crucified corpse... and this symbol of Christ? Does this book say what it all really means?”

Composed now, Donovan leafed through the Ephemeris Conlusio almost to the end, carefully setting it back in front of her.

Studying the pages, Charlotte took in detailed drawings of the ossuary and its contents.

“After Joseph’s secret deal with Pilate,” Donovan explained levelly, “the disciples caused quite a stir in Jerusalem when they discovered that Jesus’s body had gone. The body’s disappearance allowed them to claim a resurrection had occurred. Naturally, Pilate came down hard on Joseph of Arimathea, insisting that he fix the problem.” Donovan pointed to the ossuary. “And that’s when Joseph concocted this idea.”

Charlotte tried to compute what it actually meant. “If these bones aren’t Jesus’s...”

Smiling, Donovan spun his hands, encouraging her to think it through. “. . . That means Joseph of Arimathea must have replaced the body?” “Absolutely.”

She thought she heard Santelli sigh in relief.

“According to Joseph’s account, he acquired another crucified corpse— one of two bodies that still remained on a cross atop Golgotha,...a criminal who had been killed the same day as Jesus. The body was subjected to standard Jewish burial rituals and allowed to decay for a year.”

“Thus wiping out the second man’s identity.” If Donovan was making this all up, he was doing a hell of a good job.

“Yes. A brilliant fabrication intended to prove Christ never left the tomb. A desperate attempt to discredit early Christianity in order to preserve the Jewish aristocracy.”

She let that sink in. Father Donovan’s argument was pretty good, plus he possessed what he stated to be a real document to back up his story. And it did agree with the inconsistencies she’d cited earlier, particularly the odd genetic profile and the clubbed knees. The skeleton could have belonged to some convicted criminal from a backwater Roman province. But the fact still remained that the writings in this ancient book were, quite literally, all Greek to her. The priest’s interpretation was all that she had to go by. Maybe that was how he had planned it. But why? She looked at him sharply. “It’s obvious Joseph’s plan failed. So why is it that no one previously discovered all this?” As soon as she’d asked the question, she felt herself tighten up. Was she pushing too hard?

Donovan shrugged. “I believe Joseph of Arimathea died or was killed during those first twelve months, before the body was finally prepared. Perhaps the Sanhedrin or the Romans murdered him. We’ll never really know. Let’s just be thankful that his scheme was never carried out. Because unlike today, where skilled scientists like yourself can detect foul play, in ancient times, a physical body could have been extremely problematic.”

“And the ossuary was found only recently?” She braced herself for the answer.

“The Ephemeris Conlusio was obtained by the Vatican in the early fourteenth century. But it wasn’t taken seriously until a lone archaeologist unearthed a tomb just north of Jerusalem a few weeks ago. Luckily he was smart enough to know that if he approached us discreetly we’d pay him very handsomely for it.”

Momentarily perplexed, Charlotte let the explanation roll over in her mind a couple times. If Donovan was telling the truth, that would mean that this anonymous archaeologist might have killed people to get the ossuary and the Vatican may have been none-the-wiser about its procurement. Possibly Bersei had jumped to the wrong conclusion. But he was a smart man—a very smart man. She’d personally witnessed that he wasn’t the type who’d make hasty assumptions about anything. What had he discovered that made him so sure of his claims? “A first-century relic of a crucified man bearing the symbol of Christ,” she murmured. “A priceless artifact...for all the wrong reasons.”

“Exactly. This was a seemingly authentic discovery that, without proper explanation, may have caused needless hardship for the Christian faith. We needed to be sure it all matched the accounts in Joseph’s journal before finalizing any transaction. And thanks to your hard work, I’m certain we’ve closed this case.”

Charlotte’s eyes wandered back to the opened manuscript where Joseph’s drawings inventoried the ossuary and all its contents. Then she noticed something. The scroll cylinder wasn’t included there. Her brow furrowed.

“Is something wrong?” Donovan asked.

Taking the plastic-sheathed cylinder in her hand, she said, “Why isn’t this shown there?” She motioned to the drawings.

Donovan suddenly looked nervous. “Not sure,” he said, shaking his head. He tentatively glanced over at Santelli. He had tried to avoid this, not knowing what the scroll inside might actually say.

“Why don’t you open it?” Santelli boldly suggested.

Taken aback, Charlotte said, “I’ve never really handled ancient documents before. We were waiting to...”

“Nothing to worry about, Dr. Hennesey,” Santelli cut in. “Father Donovan is an expert in handling ancient documents. Besides, I doubt we’ll be wanting to put any of this on display in the Vatican Museum.”

“Okay.” She handed the bagged cylinder to the white-faced librarian.

“Go ahead, Patrick,” Santelli urged. “Open it.”

Amazed that the cardinal could be so brazen, Donovan proceeded to open the bag. Withdrawing the cylinder, he removed the loose end cap and tipped the scroll out onto the table. He exchanged eager glances with Santelli and Hennesey. “Here we go.” With the utmost care, he unfurled the scroll on top of the plastic and held it flat with both hands. Seeing what was there, he felt instantly relieved and pushed it further along the table so the others could see it too.

All eyes took in what had been inked onto the ancient vellum. It was an unusual drawing that blended all sorts of images. The focal point was a Jewish menorah superimposed over a cross entwined with leafy tendrils. The symbol that was on the ossuary’s side was repeated here four times, at the end of each arm of the cross.

“What does this all mean?” Santelli asked Donovan.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. He tried to conceal the fact that he noticed the edge of the scroll that faced toward him looked freshly scored. Had someone purposely cut away part of the scroll? He rested his thumbs flat over the edge to conceal the marks.

“Whatever it means, it’s beautiful,” Charlotte interjected.

“Yes it is,” Donovan agreed, smiling.

“Well then, Dr. Hennesey,” Santelli spoke up. “You’ve done a brilliant job. We cannot thank you enough and the Holy Father extends his thanks as well. Just please be diligent in adhering to our request to not discuss this with anyone—including members of your own family as well as the press.”

“You have my word,” she promised.

“Excellent. If you don’t mind, I’ll have Father Martin escort you out. I just have a few items to discuss with Father Donovan. And though your work here is finished, please do feel free to stay with us as long as you’d like.”

58

******

Leaving the Apostolic Palace, Charlotte headed directly to the lab to see if Bersei had returned.

Walking along the basement corridor, her eyes were drawn to the door of the surveillance room. It was still ajar. Against her better judgment, she wrapped her knuckles on it.

“Mr. Conte. Can I have a word with you, please?”

No answer.

She pushed it open and poked her head inside. It was empty—nothing

but bare shelving lining the walls. Even the ceiling panel had been moved back in place. “What the...”

Pulling the door closed, Charlotte proceeded cautiously down the eerily quiet hall. She slid her keycard through the reader next to the lab door, fully expecting that it would not work. But the lock disengaged with an electromechanical tumble and she made her way inside.

For the first time since she’d been here, the lights and air-conditioning in the lab had been turned off. Groping along the wall for the control panel, she flicked a few switches up.

When the lights came on, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The entire lab was empty—the ossuary, the bones, the relics...all gone. Even the computer CPUs were missing from their bays.

Fearing the worst, she didn’t move into the room—just turned the lights off again and doubled back to the door. That’s when she heard footsteps out in the corridor, growing louder as they approached.

Now what? There was no window on the door, so she couldn’t see who was coming. Father Donovan? Bersei? She listened closer. She’d strode up and down the corridor with both of them, but couldn’t recall this rhythm—this smooth stepping she now heard.

What if it was Conte?

Now that she’d seen the empty closet and lab, the laptop she was carrying—the only remaining proof of the Vatican’s secret project—felt like raw meat in the lion’s den. Her whole body stiffened, praying that she’d hear a different door open, or that the steps would retreat back down the corridor.

The footsteps stopped and she could see a shadow moving into the light penetrating in from beneath the door.

Lunging back into the darkened lab, she silently felt her way along the first workstation and crouched low to the floor just as the door lock turned.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled as the door creaked open, light from the corridor spilling into the room. She was certain that whoever it was couldn’t see her below the table. The intruder paused. Listening?

Charlotte held her breath and steadied the laptop bag with both hands, remaining perfectly still. A very long moment went by. Then there was the flicking sound of switches and the overhead lighting instantly stripped away the darkness.

No movement.

Her legs were starting to cramp up.

Pulling the door closed, the intruder moved slowly into the room, snaked between the workstations and back toward the break room.

Though she couldn’t see what was happening, the second she sensed that the intruder had gone into the break room, she sprang up and lunged for the door. Just as her hand turned the handle, she glimpsed Conte as he returned into the lab...and his face twisted into a snarl.

59

******

Charlotte sprinted down the corridor, the rubber soles of her shoes squeaking urgently as they pushed off the polished vinyl tiles. Without looking back, she could hear Conte in pursuit.

Up ahead, the elevator was closed. Knowing she couldn’t risk any delay, she headed directly for the fire exit, shoving the door back hard on its hinges. She practically flew up the stairwell, taking the steps three at a time, clutching the laptop tightly to her side. Halfway up the second flight of stairs, the sound of Conte slamming against the basement door blasted up at her. Climbing higher, she glimpsed his silhouette spiraling upward.

At the top of the landing, Charlotte knew she’d have two choices: the service door leading outside, or the staff entrance accessing the museum gallery. Once she got there, she immediately pushed open the service door so that it swung wide. But instead of going outside, she wheeled toward the staff entrance door and entered the museum as quietly as possible, easing the door closed behind her.

Rounding the last set of switchback steps, Conte heard the lock on the service door snap into place as it closed. Charging up the last few treads, he flung the door open and ran outside.

The geneticist was nowhere in sight—not running down the garden walkways, not scampering around the corner of the building. And there was no worthy hiding place anywhere close by. He spun round, making his way back into the building.

Moving quickly through the Pio Christian gallery, Charlotte was determined to get out of Vatican City. That meant heading straight for the Sant’ Anna Gate. With her money belt containing her cash, credit cards, and passport secured tightly around her waist, everything in her dorm room could be sacrificed.

Feeling light-headed—not from the run, but from the Melphalan swirling through her system—she took a few deep breaths to get her head together. A quick pang of nausea came and went.

Knowing Conte would only be temporarily thrown off, she struggled with how to proceed. Should she lose herself in the museum’s massive galleries? There was plenty of floor space here, no doubt. But with surveillance cameras mounted all throughout the exhibits, she didn’t want to chance him calling museum security. Plus in the long hallways that ran the length of the building’s mammoth footprint, she’d be easy to spot—the curly chestnut-haired lone tourist with a bright pink blouse and computer bag who wasn’t stopping for exhibits.

Luckily, the Pio Christian gallery was in close proximity to the building’s main entrance. After scanning the area beyond the glass doors, she slipped outside.

Threading through the crowds loitering in the courtyard, she rounded the corner of the building, hurrying along the walkway that ran along the museum’s eastern wall. Conte was still nowhere in sight. But that didn’t ease her concern, because she knew firsthand that he wasn’t the type to give up.

Through a short tunnel that passed beneath the city’s old ramparts, she emerged into the small village that clustered in the shadow of the Apostolic Palace’s rear edifice. For a moment, she wondered if Father Donovan was still in there consorting with his puppet master, Santelli. How could such a nice man be involved in all this?

Turning onto Borgo Pio, her eyes reached for the open gate and the Swiss Guards who diligently manned it. She wondered if Conte had called ahead to alert them. Would they try to detain her? She pushed forward, knowing she had to take that chance.

Then, only twenty meters from the gate, she saw him. Though she hadn’t noticed it before, she could swear that there was some kind of wound on the side of his head.

Hands on his hips and breathing heavily, Conte had positioned himself between her and the gate, daring her to take another step.

But she did just that. Determined that there was no going back, her only hope was to stay the course and push forward. This was a public place. The guards were close. Surely they wouldn’t tolerate an altercation here, even if they were on his side.

Then she broke into a sprint, eyes focused on the gate.

Conte reacted instantly, shooting out onto the roadway, just missing a delivery van that was heading into the city. A horn blared, but he ignored it—sights set on his quarry.

She managed another ten meters before Conte drew perilously close. There was no way she’d get around him.

***

Conte lunged in front of Charlotte, stopping her dead in her tracks. “You’re not going anywhere with that,” he growled, eyeing the laptop bag. For some reason, the geneticist didn’t look scared. He noticed that she kept glancing at the huge purple lump on his temple, then over his shoulder toward the gate.

Then she did something he hadn’t expected. She screamed.

For a moment, Conte was paralyzed.

“Help!” Charlotte screamed again, louder this time.

The guards at the gate heard her. Two of them, dressed in blue coveralls and black berets, were running toward her, drawing their holstered Berettas and pushing through the crowd of startled tourists.

Conte considered grabbing the bag. But where would he go? He punished himself for not having a weapon. “Remember your confidentiality agreement, Dr. Hennesey,” he stated calmly. “Or I’ll have to come and find you.”

When she saw his attention momentarily shift to the approaching guards, she took the opportunity to do something she’d been thinking about since the moment she met this creep. Bending slightly at the knees, she swept a powerful left foot at his crotch, landing a perfect shot.

Conte buckled. Wretching, he had to put his hands to the ground to not fall flat on his face. “You fucking cunt!” The veins in his red face bulged as he stared malevolently at the American.

The two guards arrived and planted themselves on opposite sides, guns leveled at his head. “Stay still!” one of them commanded, first in English, then Italian.

Gasping, Conte immediately recognized him as the cacasenno, or smart-ass, who manned the gate the day he arrived at Vatican City with Donovan. The guard had made the connection too and flashed a satisfied grin.

“What’s going on here?” the second one asked Charlotte in English.

“This man was threatening me, trying to take my bag.” Her voice was urgent.

The first guard was asking Conte for identification.

“I’m not . . .”—he spit out more vomit and bile—“carrying it on me.” He was sure Santelli wouldn’t approve of name-dropping in this situation. Later, he would insist on a phone call to the secretary. He also decided against telling the guards that the laptop contained critical information since that would only lead to bigger problems if they insisted on details. For now, he’d have to play the game.

The second guard had also asked Charlotte for identification, which she readily provided. The ornate papal crest on her guest badge showed she was a guest of the secretariat. “You’re free to go, Dr. Hennesey.”

He turned to Conte. “And you’ll need to come with us, signore.”

Conte had no option but to comply.

The guards helped him to his feet and remained at his side, Berettas drawn.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Charlotte made her way to the gate. Once safely outside Vatican City, she angled her way to Via Della Conciliazione, waved down a taxi, and told the driver to take her directly to Fiumicino Airport. Rapidamente! The car lurched forward as the driver stepped hard on the accelerator, but this was one time she wasn’t going to complain about Rome’s insane drivers. She couldn’t get out of this place fast enough.

Only now did she realize that her entire body was trembling.

Peering out the rear window, she watched the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica as it shrank away, fingers still clamped around the laptop bag.

The taxi driver hit the Autostrada and Charlotte watched the needle on the speedometer climb to 160 kilometers per hour. She sank back and put on her seat belt. With Rome safely behind her, Charlotte pulled out her cell phone and called Evan Aldrich. So what if it was still the middle of the night in Phoenix? He picked up almost instantly.

“Evan?”

“Hey, Charlie. I was just thinking about you.”

Hearing his voice instantly soothed her. “Hi.” Her voice wavered.

“Everything okay?”

“No. Not at all.” Lowering her voice and turning away from the driver, she gave him a brief rundown of what had transpired. “I’m heading to the airport now.”

“I was going to surprise you, but ...I was actually on my way there to see you. In fact, my flight just arrived at Fiumicino a few minutes ago.”

“What? You’re kidding!” Her shoulders relaxed.

“I’m at the baggage carousel right now. I’ll tell you where to meet me.”

60

******

Abruzzo, Italy

An hour northeast of Rome, Salvatore Conte’s rented black Alfa Romeo sedan climbed the SS5 autostrada along the Apennine mountain range into Monte Scuncole. The afternoon sky was a dull gray that choked the sun to a fizzled shade of white. A light drizzle sprayed the windshield.

Trying to settle his thoughts, Patrick Donovan stared out the misty passenger window at the patchwork of vineyards in the valley below.

Following Charlotte Hennesey’s unanticipated and hasty departure earlier that morning, and Conte’s embarrassing bailout from the Swiss Guard detention center, a profoundly anxious Cardinal Santelli had given him specific instructions about what was to happen next: “You’ll need to see to it that this chapter of the Church’s history disappears without a trace—by whatever means necessary, Patrick. I’ll have Conte assist you in destroying the ossuary and everything it contains...the manuscript too. Without the physical evidence, the only thing that should remain is a legend. Understood?”

The relics and book could easily have been destroyed in the Vatican laboratory, so he intuited that this drive was about far more than a simple disposal of the ossuary. Glancing at the mercenary, he knew that Dr. Bersei’s mysterious disappearance coincided all too well with Conte’s unexplained head wound.

Conte slowed the sedan and turned right down a narrow unpaved road. Thick grass and low bushes scraped the car’s undercarriage. They drove on in silence until the trail broadened by a small grove of beech trees. Conte braked, and killed the engine, leaving the keys in the ignition. He pushed the trunk release button.

Emerging from the car, both men circled to the back. Shovels and picks had been stowed diagonally behind the ossuary. Conte grabbed them and pushed a spade into Donovan’s hands. “We’ll need to dig deep.”

“Now that this thing’s over”—Conte wiped away sweat from his forehead with the back of his muddy hand—“I’ve got a couple of questions for you.” He thrust his shovel into the soil and leaned on it. The smell of fresh earth filled the damp air. The light rain had resumed.

Donovan peered up at him through foggy glasses. “Haven’t you seen enough to answer your questions?”

The mercenary shook his head. “Whose bones do you really believe are in that ossuary?” Salvatore Conte wasn’t questioning his own faith. That was something he’d abandoned long ago. But the theft of the ossuary and its scientific analysis, along with Bersei’s discoveries at the Torlonia catacombs had really piqued his curiosity.

“You’ve seen the same evidence as me.” Donovan stretched his arms. “What do you think?”

Conte smiled. “It’s not my job to think.”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

“So why go to all this trouble?”

Donovan considered this. “The evidence is substantial. For all we know, these are the bones of Jesus Christ. Our duty is to protect the Church. Surely you can see that action had to be taken.”

“Well, if that’s Jesus in there”—the mercenary pointed to the car’s trunk—“I’d say you’re protecting an enormous lie.”

Donovan hadn’t expected a man like Salvatore Conte to understand the broader implications of all this. Two millennia of human history would be fundamentally affected by the ossuary and its contents. Humankind needed truths to bring people together, not controversies. He’d learned that firsthand on the streets of Belfast. Patrick Donovan was supremely well versed in Catholic history, but what he was defending had little to do with old books. There was a moral imperative that needed to be preserved so that what spiritual belief remained in this chaotic, materialistic world could remain strong. “I’m surprised. You don’t strike me as someone who’d really give a shit about that.”

Surprised by the priest’s language, Conte shot him a look. Suddenly the task before him seemed easier. “I don’t actually. Besides, if there was a God,” he said sarcastically, “men like you and me wouldn’t exist.” He continued digging.

Donovan was disgusted by the idea that he and Conte shared any commonalities, but knew that perhaps the mercenary was right. I am part of this. After all, Conte wasn’t operating autonomously—he was merely a foot soldier. And it wasn’t Conte who’d beseeched Santelli to take action to retrieve the ossuary—he had done that. Granted, he had never anticipated the extreme measures Santelli would employ, but he hadn’t intervened to stop him.

“What really happened to Dr. Bersei?” Donovan’s tone was forceful. Somehow he knew his own fate was linked to Conte’s answer.

“Don’t worry yourself about him.” Conte’s hard face was twisted. “He got what he deserved and I spared you the dirty work. That’s all you need to know.”

“Why was he in the catacombs?” Donovan felt a swell of anger.

Conte considered dodging the question, but knew that at this juncture, Donovan was no threat. “The scroll he found in the ossuary had a picture on it—and he figured out that it matched a fresco in the Torlonia catacombs. Apparently this Joseph of Arimathea character had a crypt in Rome. Seems Bersei thought that’s where Jesus was originally dried out. Who’d have thought?”

Donovan’s eyes went wide. Could it be? Had he found the actual tomb?

“Let me give you a piece of advice,” Conte added. “Don’t get too attached to the girl, either.” He liked it that each revelation weakened the priest’s resolve. “She’s only on temporary reprieve.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Santelli told me all that nonsense you fed her about the manuscript. Nice story. But you’re failing to grasp that you’ve already given her too much information. Did the cardinal tell you she skipped off with her laptop...loaded up with all the data?”

“No, he didn’t.” No wonder Santelli was a bundle of nerves about all this—the whole thing was on the verge of unraveling. Conte had been sloppy—the reports coming out of Jerusalem now included a computerized photofit image that bore an uncanny resemblance to him. Giovanni Bersei was dead. Now Hennesey had managed to leave with all the proof she needed to implicate the Vatican.

“It’s not good. I’ve got to fix that too and her blood will be on your hands.”

Hatred showed in the priest’s eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that, Donovan. You’re the one who insisted on bringing in outsiders.”

“We had no choice.”

“Exactly.”

“What are you going to do to her?”

Grinning deviously, Conte waited before responding. “Wouldn’t you just love to know. You sound like an infatuated lover, for Christ’s sake. Santelli feels that two deaths linked so closely to the Vatican would arouse too much suspicion. But if a freak accident should happen to befall the lovely geneticist back home in the States, the authorities would be none the wiser. Of course, I’ll be sure to show her a good time before she goes.” Then we’ll see who gets the last laugh, he thought. Conte sighed, as if bored. “Keep digging.”

Donovan’s jaw tensed as he thrust his shovel into the dirt, the latent anger pushed deep down in his soul fighting its way to the surface.

It took them almost three hours to carve out the five-foot-deep rectangular pit.

This pit could easily accommodate the ossuary and a body, Donovan thought.

At last Conte threw his shovel to the ground. “Looks good.” Both men were lathered in dirt and sweat. “Let’s get the ossuary.”

They walked back to the sedan.

Donovan turned to him. “Why are we burying this? Can’t we just destroy it on the ground?”

Without responding, Conte leaned into the trunk and lifted the ossuary’s lid. Resting on top of the bones was the Ephemeris Conlusio and two thick gray blocks that resembled molded clay.

Donovan pointed to the C-4. “Is that—”

“Oh, I think a man with your background should know. Or didn’t the IR A use this stuff to blow up Protestant storefronts in Belfast? Boom!” Conte opened his eyes in mock astonishment and splayed his fingers.

How on earth could he have known that? That had been years ago— another lifetime.

“So best to blow it apart underground, wouldn’t you agree?”

Donovan wondered if Conte would hit him on the head with a shovel, then push him into the hole and detonate the explosives. Or was he concealing a gun? Perhaps the mercenary would elect to kill him with his bare hands.

Conte stood to face him. “You take that end.” He moved to one side, wrapping his hands round the ossuary’s base, while Donovan stepped forward to grasp the other end.

They heaved the ossuary out of the trunk, lugging it over to the edge of the pit.

“Drop on three.” Conte counted down.

Father Donovan felt a sudden dread as he watched the ossuary hit the earth with a dull thud. The lid slammed back onto the base, producing a crack along its etchings. He thought about Santelli sitting in his office, working diligently to preserve the huge institution created by the man these innocent bones might have belonged to. He thought about his meeting with Santelli weeks earlier when the initial battle plan had been mapped out. Once again, the Vatican seemed to have emerged victorious.

Conte turned around for his spade. Wrapping his hands around its handle he studied the sharp edges. One solid blow to Donovan’s skull should do it. He’d toss the body in with the box. Covered with dirt, the C-4 would do the rest. From the corner of his eye, he noticed that the priest was crouching down as if to tie his shoe.

Rising to his feet, a very different man now faced him. The priest was aiming a silver handgun directly at his chest. Eyeing him disdainfully, as if the gun-wielding curator was almost comical, Conte scrutinized the weapon—a standard issue Beretta, most likely lifted from the Swiss Guard barracks. The safety was off.

Donovan was determined to survive, not just for himself, but more so to preserve the innocent life of Charlotte Hennesey and anyone else he’d unwittingly involved in this fiasco. “Drop the shovel,” he demanded.

Shaking his head chastisingly, Conte squatted to rest the shovel on the spongy grass, then quickly went for the Glock strapped round his right ankle, beneath his pant leg.

The first shot was unexpectedly loud, striking Conte in the right hand with appalling force. The slug ripped cleanly through flesh and bone, grazing the mercenary’s ankle as it exited. Conte flinched, but didn’t scream. Blood bubbled out from the hole and his damaged hand curled into a tight claw. He peered up at Donovan. “Motherfucker. You’re going to pay for that.”

“Stand up,” Donovan demanded, daring to move a bit closer, leveling the gun at Conte’s head. Killing the son of a bitch wasn’t going to be nearly as hard as he had thought. Give me strength, Lord. Help me make this right.

At first, it looked as if the mercenary would comply. But what happened next was far too fast for him. Conte sprang forward, burying a shoulder in Donovan’s chest, forcing him back and then down.

Remarkably, the priest managed to maintain his grip on the Beretta. Conte reached for it with his left hand, but miscalculated, cupping the muzzle. A second shot cracked through the air and Conte screamed out in frustration. Now his good hand had been mangled too.

Badly wounded, Conte still managed to force Donovan’s gun-hand down to the ground. Cocking his elbow back, he landed a shot just below the priest’s wrist, forcing the Beretta away. Next he brought the elbow down hard on Donovan’s face, crunching bone and cartilage. The priest’s nose instantly spewed blood and he cried out in agony.

Thrashing viciously, Donovan tried to escape from under the assassin, but to no avail. Conte let go of the priest’s arm to prepare another elbow-shot. That’s when Donovan had a fraction of a second to strike the only vulnerable thing he could see through his blood-splattered bifocals. He jabbed hard with his fist at the purple lump on the side of Conte’s head.

It worked. Momentarily dazed, Conte teetered off to one side, allowing Donovan to stagger to his feet. Seeing there was no chance of getting the Beretta, he ran away.

After a few seconds, the blaring pain subsided, but Conte was still seeing stars through a haze of red covering his right eye. Blood poured down his face where Donovan’s ring had opened the hammer wound. Shaking his head, he spotted the priest retreating along the trail toward the Autostrada.

The fumbled Beretta was under Conte’s shoulder. He tried grabbing it, but neither crippled hand would obey. If picking the damn thing up was going to be a problem, firing it would be impossible. “Affanculo! Sticchiu! ” Abandoning the weapon, Conte sprang to his feet in pursuit.

Halfway to the Autostrada, Donovan was running frantically, glancing back over his shoulder. Not only was Conte back on his feet, he was in full sprint, quickly closing the gap. It would only be a matter of time until he caught up. Unarmed, Donovan knew he was no match for the trained killer, wounded or not. Please, Lord, help me get through this. Donovan heard Conte’s hoarse panting. He was only a couple of paces behind him, ready to pounce. Calling on all his reserve energy, Donovan pushed his body to the limit.

Five meters.

Two meters.

As Donovan’s front foot hit the Autostrada’s macadam he barely registered a fast-approaching car just on the periphery of his field of vision. A blaring horn. Headlights perilously close. Squealing rubber. He barely saw the yellow-painted line that divided the roadway. By some miracle, the car veered behind him... just as Conte’s feet touched the roadway.

Collapsing onto the roadway, he watched Conte’s legs bend and snap in the wrong direction against the car’s front end, his body hurled up onto the hood, striking the windshield, tumbling over the roof and onto the roadway.

Trying to compensate for the sudden maneuver, the Mercedes’s antilock brakes and traction control system simultaneously went into action. But the sedan couldn’t defy the physical combination of excessive speed, a sudden turn, and rain-slicked pavement. It careened into a large fir tree, the bodywork crumpling around the trunk in a horrible cacophony of twisting metal and breaking glass. The driver—a young female with long blond hair who apparently hadn’t been wearing a seat belt—was ejected through the windshield and hung limp across the hood of the car, neck broken, blood everywhere. The sound of the Mercedes’s rear tire spinning and the hiss of a broken radiator played along to the car’s radio, still loudly throwing off a techno dance number.

There was nothing Donovan could do for her.

Conte was down, but remarkably, still moving.

Donovan staggered over to the mangled assassin, convinced that a threat still existed. There was no way he was going to gamble that Salvatore Conte was going to have even the slightest chance of making it out of here alive. Looking both ways down the quiet roadway, Donovan clawed for the handgun strapped to Conte’s right ankle, tearing it free. The chamber was loaded, safety off. As he jabbed it against Conte’s lumpy right temple, he swore he could hear the church bells chiming over Belfast. “God forgive me.”

Father Patrick Donovan squeezed the trigger.

61

******

Donovan dragged Conte’s broken body into a thicket of bushes by the side of the road and concealed it beneath a shallow covering of leaves and branches. Stripping the mercenary of his wallet, he came across a syringe and a vial of clear liquid, and pocketed them too.

Next, he ran back along the trail to the pit, easing himself down into it. Donovan manhandled the two broken halves of the lid out onto the ground, then carefully pulled the two bricks of C-4 from the ossuary, leaving them in the hole.

Planting both feet firmly beside the ossuary, he crouched low and grabbed beneath it, lengthwise. With little room to maneuver, it took him a while to steadily ease it up along the dirt wall, its weight not so much a problem as its awkward dimensions. He managed to coax it up and out, until it rested on the rim of the pit. Sweating profusely and struggling to catch his breath, he climbed out.

Moving the Alfa closer, Donovan made a final effort to hoist the ossuary into the trunk and stowed the shovels behind the box. Slamming the lid, he ducked into the driver’s seat, a dirty, bloody mess. Fatigue swept over him. His muscles were aching and his smashed nose throbbed painfully. But, all things considered, he felt pretty good, the waning adrenaline still giving him an almost euphoric high. Overall, he was pleased with his performance. It had been a long time since he’d handled a weapon or fought in self-defense. But as his father used to say, “The Irish forgive their great men only when they are safely buried.”

God had protected him...and he knew why. This injustice needed to be undone.

He wiped the blood and prints from the Beretta and Conte’s Glock, both still smelling of burnt gunpowder, and stashed them inside the glove compartment. He’d toss the Glock in the first river he came across, but for now, he’d hold onto the Beretta. Switching on the ignition, he circled the sedan back along the trail.

When he reached the Autostrada, Donovan paused, surprised that anyone had yet to arrive on the scene. There hadn’t even been another car.

Eyeing the brush-covered corpse on the side of the roadway, Donovan knew that once discovered, it would be difficult, if not impossible to identify the mangled mercenary. Fingerprints, dental records, or any other forensic identification technique, no matter how sophisticated, would no doubt come up blank. Equally certain was the fact that Conte couldn’t be tied in any way to the Vatican. He was a drifter, plain and simple—a man from obscurity, returning to obscurity.

He wondered which way to go.

With little deliberation, Patrick Donovan turned right, heading southwest. As the scene in his rearview mirror disappeared, he prayed silently for the soul of the woman driver.

62

******

Jerusalem

Seated at his kitchen table, sipping a late afternoon tea, Razak was interrupted by his cell phone. Checking the screen, the caller I.D. flashed “UNAVAILABLE.” Confused, he picked it up. “As-Salaam?”

“I saw you on television.”

The man spoke in English and his voice was vaguely familiar. “Who is this?”

“A friend.”

Razak set down his glass. Maybe a reporter, he thought. Or perhaps even someone with information. But he swore he’d heard the lilting accent somewhere before.

“I know who stole the ossuary,” the voice stated flatly.

Razak straightened in his chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The caller would need to be more specific before he would confirm what had been taken.

“Yes you do. I met with you only a few weeks ago in Rome. You delivered a package to me at Café Greco. You gave me your card and said to call you if there were any problems.”

In his mind’s eye, Razak recalled the bald man with glasses, sitting at the table with wiry fingers wrapped tightly around a pint of lager. He had been wearing black with a white collar—a Christian cleric. Razak remembered that the leather satchel he had given the priest contained a confidential dossier, but he was trying to understand how it had anything to do with the ossuary. “I do,” he replied tentatively. “I’m listening.”

“The book contained very detailed information about an ossuary buried deep beneath Temple Mount in a hidden chamber.”

“What book?”

“There were nine other ossuaries there, too. Am I not correct?”

“Okay.” Razak’s voice was encouraging. Not quite an admission.

“And I have the tenth ossuary.”

Wishing he could record this conversation, Razak paused, stupefied. “You killed thirteen men. You desecrated a very holy site.” He stood from the table and began pacing the apartment.

“No,” the caller cut in, insistent. “Not me.”

Razak sensed the man’s sincerity.

“...But I know who did,” the voice added.

“And how do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Because I’m going to give the ossuary back to you....So you can put an end to this, as you see fit.”

At first, Razak didn’t know what to say. “And why would you do that?”

“I see what is happening there, in Jerusalem,” the man continued. “Too many innocent people suffering. I know you agree. You’re a just man. I could tell that the moment I met you.”

It was almost too much for Razak to comprehend. “I don’t suppose you’ll be making the delivery yourself?”

“Unfortunately, there’s more work I’ll need to do. I’m sure you’ll understand that I cannot take that risk.”

“I see.”

A pause.

Razak couldn’t help but to ask: “What was inside the ossuary that made it so valuable?”

There was a long pause.

“Something very profound.”

Razak shuddered when he thought about Barton’s wild theory about fanatical Christians. Could the remains of Jesus really have been inside the missing ossuary? Did this mysterious book tell of the relic’s ancient origins?

“Will the contents be returned with the box?”

“Unfortunately, I cannot allow that.”

Razak dared another question. “Was it really his remains inside that box?” He tried to prepare himself for the response.

The caller hesitated, clearly knowing whom Razak was referring to. “There’s no way to know for sure. For your own safety, please don’t ask any more about this. Just let me know where you’d like it delivered.”

Razak thought about it. He pictured Barton sitting in an Israeli prison cell, awaiting trial. Then he considered how Farouq—the singular force behind the delivery of the book that had set everything in motion—had likely played him like a fool, jeopardizing both peace and lives. Razak decided to give the caller a name and a shipping address. “When should I expect it to arrive?”

“It will be sent out today, I assure you. I’ll spare no expense to have it to you as soon as possible.”

“And the book?” Razak inquired.

“I’ll be sure to include that as well.”

“Can you send that to a different address?”

“Absolutely.”

Razak gave him the second mailing address.

“And for the record,” the caller added, “that English archaeologist be- ing held by Israeli police had nothing to do with all this.”

“I suspected that,” Razak replied. “And the real thieves? What will happen to them?”

Another pause. “I think you’ll agree that justice has its own way of finding the guilty.”

The line went dead.

63

SATURDAY

******

Temple Mount

After dawn prayer, Razak headed straight for the El-Aqsa Mosque. He hadn’t slept at all last night, his mind mulling over the shocking phone call he’d received from the priest he had met in Rome three weeks ago. The Israeli police were right. Only an insider could have abetted the thieves. Now it was clear that Graham Barton wasn’t the insider.

In the rear of the building, he made his way down a service corridor ending at a newly installed metal fire door. Above it, a sign in Arabic read: “Open only in case of emergency.”

He reached down and turned the handle.

Beyond the door, a freshly painted spiral staircase wound down twelve meters, directly to the subterranean Marwani Mosque. A secret passageway? Could this be the modern equivalent of the one Joseph of Arimathea used two thousand years ago?

Turning his attention back to the corridor, he let the door swing shut.

Off each side of this hallway lay the mosque’s storage rooms.

His heartbeat quickened as he went over to the first door and opened it. Inside there were cardboard boxes stacked against one wall and a shelving unit containing cleaning supplies. Another shelf was stacked with fresh copies of the Qur’an, ready to provide spiritual enlightenment to new Muslim recruits. He shut the door and moved on to the next room.

Behind the second door were stacked chairs, a discarded desk, and spare oriental carpets rolled up in plastic, propped against a side wall. Against the rear wall lay the charred remnants of the mihrab that had been set ablaze by a young Australian Jew, Michael Rohan, on August 21, 1969. Razak remembered being told that the fanatic had informed Israeli authorities that his act had been inspired by God to expedite the coming of the Messiah and the rebuilding of the Third Jewish Temple.

Closing the door, Razak considered that maybe his theory was wrong. He wanted it to be wrong.

Next he continued down the hall to the door that marked the threshold to the last storage room. Trying the handle, he was surprised to find that it had been locked. He tried it again. Nothing.

Puzzled, he made his way back through the mosque’s spacious prayer hall, out into the bright morning sun, and across the esplanade toward the Qur’anic teaching school. If he were to find the Keeper there, he’d insist that the room be opened for inspection.

But upstairs, Farouq’s office was empty.

Razak stood motionless for a moment, struggling with what he should do. Then reluctantly, he circled behind the desk and searched its four drawers.

Inside, he discovered a strange array of items that included a compact handgun and a liter of Wild Turkey bourbon that, since the Qur’an strictly forbade drinking alcohol, Razak fervently hoped Farouq had confiscated from someone. There was an ornate bronze casket stashed in the left bottom drawer, but it was locked. Finally, he found what he was looking for: a key ring. Snatching it up, he made his way downstairs and out the building.

Traversing the esplanade, Razak was unaware of the Keeper trailing discreetly behind him.

Negotiating his way through the El-Aqsa’s prayer hall, Razak produced the key ring, stopping at the rear corridor’s locked door. One by one, he tried the keys. Coming across a small, tarnished skeleton key, he wondered if it opened the casket that he’d found in Farouq’s desk. He continued through the set. Finally, with only two keys left and a waning sense of hope, a silver key slid easily into the lock. Praying silently and holding his breath, Razak turned it.

Clicking, the lock gave way.

Razak depressed the door handle. Beyond the threshold, the windowless room was dark. Moving inside, Razak fumbled for the light switch, leaving the door open. The room appeared empty.

The overhead strip lights crackled and slowly came to life, strobing the room with quick flashes that played with his eyes.

Then the room was aglow.

Instantly, Razak’s face slackened in bewilderment.

Along the rear wall, the nine ossuaries, each etched in Hebrew text with the names of Joseph and his family members, had been neatly arranged on the vinyl-tiled floor.

“Allah save us,” Razak muttered in Arabic.

From the corner of his eye he detected a figure in the doorway and spun round.

Farouq.

“You’ve done well, Razak.” Farouq crossed his arms, stuffing his hands into the loose sleeves of his black tunic. “You mustn’t be troubled by this. They will shortly disappear.”

The Keeper’s talent for making things vanish was starting to sicken him. “What have you done?”

“A noble deed to help our people,” the Keeper stated flatly. “Don’t concern yourself with the small sacrifices that need to be made.”

“Small sacrifices?” Razak stared at the ossuaries. “You framed an innocent man.”

“Barton? Innocent? None of them are innocent, Razak. Not when their motive is to threaten Allah.”

“Did the other council members know about this?”

The Keeper made a dismissive motion. “Does that matter?”

“You sent me to Rome to deliver a package to the Vatican—a book that led them to perpetrate this unthinkable crime. I feel some explanation is warranted. Many men died for this and an innocent man is now being detained by the police. And what exactly have you achieved?”