Acts of the Assassins (21 page)

‘I changed my name, like Peter did. Simon to Peter. Saul to Paul. Saul is long dead.’

‘You kill him too?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘Nothing changes, then.’

Gallio registers the intensity between Baruch and Paul, neither man prepared to compromise on his version of the past. He searches for common ground. ‘No one else needs to die,’ he says. ‘The situation is bad enough already.’

‘Seven disciples left.’ Baruch wants only to provoke. ‘The others gone under.’

‘Which is why we need to talk,’ Paul says.

‘Barbarous deaths,’ Baruch says, ‘in outlandish places. Not pleasant at all.’

‘I need protecting from these assassins.’

‘You have a bodyguard.’

‘One man is not enough.’

‘You have your god.’

‘Philip had god on his side,’ Paul says. ‘I’m sure of that. He also had a skewer through the back of his legs.’

Paul decides they’ve walked enough, and in Modern Art he takes a rest on a leather bench facing Salvador Dali’s
Immaculate Conception
. He is as inattentive to surrealism as to seventeenth-century bridal caskets, and acts in all these galleries as if he is the dominant attraction. Gallio sits down next to him. He places a foot on his knee and holds his bony ankle. Straightens out his sock. He’s about to speak but again Baruch is quicker.

‘You’re one of us,’ Baruch says. He does not sit down, or betray an interest in abstract art. ‘When they killed Stephen you held the coats of the murderers. You can look after yourself.’

‘I’ve been forgiven my past,’ Paul says. ‘Though obviously not by you.’

‘We do not forgive defectors, nor do we forget them.’

‘No fighting, please,’ Gallio says. He revolves his black shoe and thinks it could do with a polish. ‘Not in a public gallery of the Israel Museum. We can protect you, Paul, but you have to give us something in return. Politics. You’ll understand the politics. Where can we find Peter?’

‘I don’t know. We’re not in regular contact.’

‘Maybe you should be, if you want us to offer you protection.’

‘Honestly, I know everything and everyone, but I haven’t
heard from Peter in a long time. He’s disappeared off the face of the earth.’

‘Liar,’ Baruch says. ‘Always was, always will be. The Jerusalem security services pick out the finest liars at a very young age.’

Paul’s secretary scuttles in from Oceanic Art with a pile of letters on a silver tray. Paul waves them away, then calls the man back, looks more closely at the letter on top (address, back of envelope, front) then drops it and waves the man away again. ‘Peter may have died, of course. The disciples of Jesus are not immune from natural causes.’

‘Or unnatural ones.’ Gallio pulls his ankle higher up his thigh, doubtful that natural death is an event the disciples are likely to experience. ‘But you’re not in the same danger, are you, Paul? You should be happy. You’re not a disciple so you’re probably safe.’

‘I met Jesus like they did.’

‘But you didn’t, did you? Not properly in Galilee. The disciples were chosen when Jesus was alive, and they worked and travelled as a group. You’re a latecomer, not in the same category, so you’ll probably be fine.’

Paul slaps Gallio on the knee, indulging him, acknowledging Gallio’s boldness in teasing the mighty Paul of Tarsus. Except his hand stops on Gallio’s knee, grips, and Gallio understands that the Saul from a darker lifetime hasn’t been entirely banished. Paul does not take kindly to suggestions he’s second best, especially when the lesser disciples can barely explain the Trinity.

‘What’s your deal with Peter?’ Baruch approaches a painting of geometric shapes, looks at it without looking, hands on his hips, jacket wings pushed out behind him. Gallio sees the
hilt of his knife, and then it’s hidden again as Baruch turns back to Paul.

‘Who’s second in command to Jesus? You or Peter?’

‘We don’t have a deal.’ Paul looks pained, because Baruch is seriously unenlightened. ‘We once reached a loose agreement.’

‘You convert the Gentiles, Peter sticks to the Jews. That’s what they told me in Damascus. But Peter is the beloved disciple, isn’t he? He’s witless, but Jesus loves him.’

‘He’s a fisherman,’ Gallio says. ‘Not that bright. He can tell a story but couldn’t unpack it in a keynote speech.’

Gallio decides to refine Baruch’s attack, though he’s probing the same weakness, Paul’s obvious pride. Good cop, he remembers. The nice guy used to be one of his roles. ‘Why deny your differences? Jesus appeared to you on the road to Damascus because the disciples needed help. The Galileans couldn’t communicate his message, not on their own, they didn’t have the brains. They heard the stories and saw his miracles but never knew what they meant. That’s what you do so well, interpret the stories and bring meaning to Jesus. Personally I like meaning, and I appreciate nuance because I’m an educated man, Paul, as are you.’

‘Whereas Peter,’ Baruch says, double-teaming, ‘knows how to thread the bait for flatfish. An underrated skill, I feel. The hook goes in at the eye then down the gut and out through the anus.’

‘The disciples aren’t a big help, are they? Can’t write a decent letter between them.’

‘It’s not that.’ Paul stands up and walks away from what he’s about to say, looking for an exit, but his doubt keeps pace with him and he says it anyway. ‘Twelve was the wrong number from the start.’

He exits to Impressionism and bustles through Orientalism. Everyone follows him—the bodyguard, Gallio, Baruch. Paul stops at a Meromi sculpture, then an Aboriginal dream painting, but none of the art on display can distract him. ‘Jesus had too many original disciples. No one can have that many friends around him, or advisers. He lost track, and the result was Judas.’

Gallio feels that at last they’re making progress, with Paul trying to communicate some sense of the difficulty of being Paul.

‘Twelve is a very trusting number,’ Gallio says. ‘You’re right about that. Perhaps overly trusting.’

In Archaeology, Baruch stops at a display of Sicarii killing knives through history, and his unexpected fascination with this single exhibit draws everyone over to the cabinet. They stand round the glass sides of a free-standing box, glinting daggers between them in the refracted light.

‘Someone is hunting us down,’ Paul says, the curved blades holding his attention.

‘They’re targeting the disciples,’ Gallio corrects him. ‘No one apart from the disciples has yet been hurt.’

‘I’m their equal. Believe me. If the disciples are in danger then so am I. I need official protection. Are you going to protect a citizen or are you not?’

Paul appeals to Gallio through the glass, across the vicious ancient weaponry. Baruch’s hand moves under his jacket toward the small of his back, and it may be Gallio’s imagination but the bodyguard takes a step. Not toward Paul, as Gallio expects, but away from him. Baruch scratches himself, his hand reappears.

‘None of the murdered disciples tried to run away,’ Cassius Gallio says.

He checks his phone, as a sign their interview is over, and no news is good news. James is fine, undeviating in his monastic routine. Claudia is bored in the van. Bartholomew is comatose in the medical centre. In short, everyone at risk is alive and well.

‘The disciples are not scared of dying. You are. That’s one reason you’re not a disciple. You’re not in the same category. Also you have a bodyguard. Request for protection denied.’

About one o’clock the next morning a phone rings. Cassius Gallio blinks his eyes open, realizes he’s asleep on duty, then that the sound is coming from the landline in James’s flat, broadcast across the central monitor. Gallio grabs headphones, plants one cushioned speaker to his ear. Then with his free hand he zooms the camera in the flat, watches as James stops praying, answers the phone, listens.

James doesn’t say anything and neither does the caller. Gallio frowns at the static, a bad line, nothing coming through. No, he hears something. Breathing. He can hear the caller breathing. He pushes a button to activate a trace. James hangs up. Damn. On the monitor James stands up and dusts himself off, though he’s no more dusty than before. He leaves the room.

This is new. Usually the phone calls stop and after his prayers James sleeps the sleep of the just. Gallio shakes Claudia’s shoulder, moves to the bench when she swings her legs off, switches to the interior corridor cam. Lost him. Streetcam, manual operation. On to the house, to the window. No sign of him, then yes, James is up on the building’s flat roof. He’s up on the roof. Why? Claudia yawns and stretches, stomps her feet one two to the floor.

‘Something’s happening.’

She rubs her eyes, leans forward.

‘The street,’ Gallio says. ‘Get me a camera on the street.’

She fumbles a dial and the shopfront blinks up. No public or passers-by at this time of night, just the riot police in the doorway with thumbs in their belts.

‘Call Valeria,’ Gallio says. ‘Get her down here.’

Gallio pushes open the back of the van and jumps into the road. Claudia is behind him. ‘No. Keep the cameras on James. Don’t lose him. Stay in the fucking van.’

He runs. The riot police see him and suddenly they’re alert, walking to intercept him hands free, shoulders squared. Gallio flashes his card, and throws himself at the door of the shop. It’s locked. So is the door to the stairs for the flat. The fire escape. Gallio runs round the side of the building and jumps onto a metal staircase that zigzags up the brickwork as far as the roof. He shouts up to James and tells him to get back in, because on the roof he’s exposed and anyone could be watching.

‘Go back inside! You’re not safe!’

Through the lattice of the ironwork Gallio checks on the street as he climbs. No Claudia, that’s good. The riot police are out in the road, pointing upward. Five or six of them now. They draw their batons, spooked by Gallio’s urgency. He makes it to the roof, in time to see James step toward the edge.

Gallio stops. He doesn’t want to startle him, but James is oblivious. He lifts his hands, palms upward. A signal. From Gallio’s angle James looks like Jesus. He knows the shape he’s making.

‘James. Step back from the edge. Come down with me. You’ll be safer inside.’

James stands on the edge of the flat rooftop, hands out, speaking to himself, praying. Cassius Gallio hears roughly one
word in three: Jesus, glory, living, dead. Kingdom no end. Gallio recognizes what’s about to happen, but even as he starts forward he’s already too late.

Across the city, in the Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Bartholomew opens his eyes.

“SAWN IN HALF”

In retrospect, the task had been easier at the beginning, with Jesus and his disciples collectively active in Jerusalem. Cassius Gallio had been able to organize a textbook infiltration, an exemplary piece of fieldwork in the Passover season while the city heaved. He’d followed the disciples of Jesus through the holiday crowds and worked out that Judas, as treasurer, was entrusted once every day to make a solo trip to buy supplies.

The next morning, in the covered market, Judas found an unexceptional foreigner (linen trousers, short-sleeved shirt) close against his shoulder. A moment of your time, sir, no need to look around. An investment, a guaranteed return. Not today, not now, but alas if the mission of Jesus were to fail, if his plans for a righteous uprising should end in disappointment.

And the next day again: Judas, friend, it’s hardly my place to judge, but if Jesus has influence with the almighty shouldn’t his project have moved forward more rapidly?

And the next: forty pieces of silver, think it through, no rush, a generous offer to a fringe member of a minor cult.

‘A terrorist cell,’ Judas eventually replied. He would not be undervalued. ‘That’s what you fear we are.’

Terrorists were worth more, and fifty pieces of silver bought a plot of unimproved land not far from the city walls. A little patience, some prudent management, and the land becomes a field. Keep some money aside for livestock. Sell premium lambs to the Temple, Judas his own boss in a seller’s market.

Fifty-three, final offer. Don’t be greedy, Judas, I could ask one of the others. Fifty-five pieces of silver. Absolute tops. You’re breaking me here.

Judas had a head for numbers so he could do the maths. Fifty-five as capital outlay for the field, then he’d borrow against future tenant revenue from grazing. With loans he’d buy a pilgrimage inn that overcharged during festivals, and then he’d borrow again against the capital value of the property. He’d have nothing and he’d have everything. He’d have the big fifty-five, and by these calculations betraying the son of god should work out fine.

Judas walked away, not glancing behind, not looking back.

You’re being ridiculous. Cassius followed him, stayed close on his shoulder.

The devil, Judas said, tapping his handsome head, I can hear demons whispering in my ear.

Thirty now, thirty on completion. Final offer. Think it over.

Cassius Gallio had designed and implemented an impeccable covert operation, for which he never received full credit.

And until they killed Judas nobody died, not even Jesus.

At Ben Gurion airport the flight is delayed, held because of ice at Luton. Bartholomew has slowed their progress. The medical centre had to discharge him, and then on the road to the airport their unmarked car was trumped by the lights and sirens of Paul’s military escort out of Jerusalem. Come on. Cassius Gallio was in a hurry. He touched the crusted row of fresh butterfly stitches pinching the skin above his eyebrow. Motorcycles, a Mercedes and a Mercedes backup, an armoured vehicle, all for Paul and at public expense. Baruch would have been enraged. Even more enraged, wherever he is now.

Their flight is diverted to Heathrow, and when they land the sky is pink with snow about to fall. At Nothing to Declare Cassius Gallio lets Claudia go through first. He hangs back beside Bartholomew and senses they’re being watched, a presence at the edge of his vision. He blames Bartholomew, whose familiar features and clothes attract attention. Gallio hurries him past the one-way mirrors and waits for a disembodied voice to call them back, but they make it through. Probably nobody watching, or watching but not caring.