Messiah: The First Judgement (Chronicles of Brothers) (5 page)

Nick watched intently as the priest reverently made the sign of the cross, then swiftly entered a code in the sophisticated security system. The metal gates slowly opened. They made their way along numerous winding ancient corridors, permeated with the aroma of inks and leather mingled with myrrh, then through an enormous library occupied by hundreds of monks silently archiving data into state-of-the-art Apple Mac computer systems. Nick ducked as they continued through a low dank tunnel. Finally they reached what appeared to be a crypt door.

Two broad-shouldered soldiers holding submachine guns materialized, as if from nowhere, on either side of Nick. Their heads were clean-shaven, and he immediately recognized the digital pattern on their uniforms, Jordan’s elite special operations command.

The old priest handed a document embossed with the Royal Hashemite seal to the taller soldier. ‘He has been granted access to photograph the annals.’ The old priest lowered his eyes to the floor, bowed, then scurried away.

Nick frowned. Suddenly he was shoved hard against the stone wall, his arms splayed out, and rigorously searched by the first soldier. The second grabbed his camera and unceremoniously dumped the contents of Nick’s pockets and bag onto a tray, which he sent through a sophisticated-looking scanner.

He glared at the guard. Five seconds later, he was pushed roughly back towards the door. The first soldier gestured for him to remove his belongings from the tray. Seething, Nick bent down and stowed them back in his bag. He held his camera tightly.

The taller soldier gestured to Nick to follow him through the door. There he found himself in an enormous antechamber, surrounded by at least twelve separate smaller chambers containing the most magnificent collection of antiquities he had ever laid his eyes on. Egyptian, Etruscan, Persian, Assyrian, and Chaldean artefacts, Arabian mosaics and frescos, Greek and Russian icons, original works by Raphael, Leonardo Da Vinci, Titian, Perugino. Priceless treasures.

But ahead of him was the largest chamber. Nick stepped inside, his attention caught by a diorite statue to his right. He frowned. It seemed strangely familiar ... Now he remembered. Its photograph had been circulated throughout Europe on Interpol’s red list of looted Iraqi antiquities. Fascinated, he moved nearer. Hundreds of volumes of manuscripts lay stacked from floor to ceiling. He caught sight of a stone tablet lying inside a glass case. He stared at the tablet, enthralled at the wedge-shaped depressions.

‘The lost legacies of ancient Mesopotamia ... the priceless collection of cylinder seals...’ He stared at the tablet, mesmerized, feeling in his pocket for his camera. Slowly, carefully, he lined up the palm-size digital camera directly with the tablet. ‘Unbelievable.’

Slim manicured fingers snatched the camera firmly from his grasp.

‘No photographs here, Mr De Vere. You must abide by our conditions.’

Nick swung around to find himself staring down into a pair of flashing brown eyes. He bowed his head respectfully.

‘Your Majesty...’

‘We don’t suffer fools gladly, Mr De Vere. Please make sure you respect our agreement, or I can assure you that all licences that we, the Jordanian people, have approved for your work shall immediately be revoked.’

Nick studied the princess before him. She seemed young ... much younger than in any photograph he had ever seen of her – twenty-two, he guessed, definitely not more than twenty-four. She was petite and slim, fine-boned, her high cheekbones and regal features framed by gleaming black tresses that fell past her shoulders. She was understated, dressed only in a pair of faded jeans and white cotton T-shirt, the only sign of inordinate wealth the slim diamond Audemars Piguet watch on her left wrist.

She watched him surveying her, and a slight smile flickered across her mouth.

‘The cuneiform tablets with the missing parts of the epic of Gilmagesh, the earliest written words, a bronze relief from 4000 BC – worth a hundred Mona Lisas,’ the princess of Jordan uttered softly, as though reciting a sacred doxology.

‘Our government returned to the state of Iraq thousands of stolen antiquities that had been smuggled into Jordan during the war in the early 2000s,’ she continued. ‘The sacred vase of Warka, the statue of Entemena, the remainder we bought back, for hundreds of millions of dollars, off the black market in Switzerland. They emerged everywhere: Teherani bazaars, Paris. A US Airport.’ She hesitated. ‘We were patient. Most of the looted treasures eventually surfaced in London.’

She looked directly into Nick’s piercing grey eyes.

‘The world’s largest centre for trade in Islamic art,’ Nick murmured. ‘Uncle Lawrence...’

The princess nodded.

‘Lawrence St Cartier’s network of contacts was extremely useful to the royal house. We now own the largest and most important collection of illuminated manuscripts in the world, apart from the Vatican’s.’

She continued walking. ‘In 180 BC, the Nabateans were bequeathed this monastery by an ancient caste of priests connected with the Royal Courts of Egypt. Egyptian governments throughout the centuries have held its historical heritage in high esteem and continue to honour its present treaty with the Hashemite Kingdom. The royal household of Jordan has kept its priceless treasures hidden from the prying eyes of the outside world, confined behind these walls, in these crypts. We are deeply indebted to your sister-in-law’s uncle’ – she hesitated – ‘and, of course, to you.’

Safwat, her chief of security, walked towards the princess. He was lean and clean cut.

‘Your Majesty,’ he spoke in a low voice in clipped Arabic tones. ‘Your helicopter arrives in fifteen minutes.’ She nodded in acknowledgement, then turned to Nick. ‘Follow me.’

She walked briskly back into the antechamber and turned left down a narrow, dimly lit tunnel.

‘Your English is impeccable, Your Highness,’ Nick said. ‘I read that you were educated at Oxford.’

‘Ancient history and classical archaeology.’

Nick followed closely behind, keeping pace with her through the narrow winding corridors. He could distinguish the faint aroma of myrrh.

‘An English education ... like your father...’

‘Ah,’ the princess replied, ‘but you, like us, are not British, either, Mr De Vere. Let me see...’ Her English accent carried only the faintest Arabic inflection. ‘You were born in Washington, DC, into the De Vere dynasty. Your father was named American ambassador to the United Kingdom five years after you were born. You grew up in Great Britain – Regent’s Park, to be precise. Educated at Gordonstoun, studied serious archaeology at Cambridge, Mensa IQ, gifted, your Achilles’ heel drugs and a playboy lifestyle. Black sheep of the family, trust fund frozen. Your eldest brother, Jason De Vere, US media tycoon extraordinaire, owns a third of the Western world’s television and newspaper empires.

‘Middle brother, Adrian De Vere, youngest prime minister of the United Kingdom and newly appointed president of the United States of Europe; Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

‘In 2014 you were involved in an accident in which your eldest brother’s daughter was permanently crippled. You were the driver; you were inebriated at the time. Jason De Vere has not talked to you from that day on.’

Nick glared in the direction of the princess’s fast disappearing back.

‘You contracted AIDS four years ago. Adrian De Vere paid for the best treatments in Switzerland, London and the Mayo Clinic, but alas, in the past five months, your body has not responded favourably to any of the treatments.’

Nick fought to control the rage building inside him at this prying teenage royal. ‘My private life is no concern of...’

‘You are a
fool
, Nicholas De Vere,’ she interrupted sharply. ‘Since your brother’s stellar political ascent, your entire family has been under every government’s close surveillance: Interpol, Europol, the CIA, M16, Mossad, SAVAMA, the FSB, and the Jordanian secret service –
all
are watching you.’

She turned abruptly sharp right down into a small dank stairway. Nick followed.

‘My brother, the crown prince, and I meet with your brother and the United Arab Nations next month in Damascus for the signing of the greatest peace accord in the twenty-first century. For the first time, we are all at the same table: China, North Korea, Europe, the Pan-Arab Union, the United States, Russia, and Israel. There may finally be peace in our time.’

She turned towards him in the stairwell. ‘We have granted your access to continue your study of the annals. However, Lawrence St Cartier asked me to return a favour – strictly business. You wished to see the cross that is spoken of in the annals?’

Nick drew a deep breath; all his anger instantaneously evaporated.

‘The cross exists, then?’

Nick stepped towards the princess, a strange glitter in his eyes. ‘Oh, yes, Nicholas De Vere, it exists...’

The princess walked briskly down the damp stone stairs.

‘Legend has it that it possesses strange healing powers.’ Nick’s voice echoed after the disappearing princess. He clambered down the stairwell after her.

‘Legends are very powerful in the minds of those who believe,’ the princess countered.

‘Legend has it that Aretas the Fourth protected the Christ child in His flight from Egypt...,’ Nick’s eyes shone with exhilaration, ‘that he brought Him here to this monastery, to an ancient caste of magi...’ Nick stopped, sweat suddenly pouring down his brow. He grasped the stair rail to steady himself.

The princess turned back towards him from the lower stairs. She held his gaze.

He continued, ‘...that the boy Christ Himself carved a cross when He was but a child and gave it as a gift to Aretas before returning from this monastery to Nazareth.’

‘Cartier has briefed you well. It seems you know all our legends.’

They continued descending until they reached the lower crypts, then stopped outside a solid steel door, barely four feet high. Two thickset monks, standing hidden in the shadowed corner, moved towards Nick. A third older monk raised his hand. They instantly returned to the shadows.

‘Thank you, Father Benedict. He is our guest.’

The monk bowed before the princess, entered a security code in the wall, then stepped back as the one-foot thick steel door slid away, revealing an ancient wooden crypt door.

Nick ran his hand over the doorway in wonder. ‘Cedar of Lebanon,’ he murmured.

Father Benedict nodded. ‘The ancient Fathers of the monastery imported it for the original monastery,’ he said.

Nick eased his lanky six-foot frame through the doorway into the tiny mausoleum. There in the centre of the chamber, under thick protective glass, lay his discovery – the Secret Angelic Annals. He gazed at the strange blue light that still flickered faintly from its pages, mesmerized. Then with great effort dragged his gaze away from the annals.

In the far left-hand corner of the chamber, resting against deep-blue velvet under a glass dome, lay a small cross no larger than a DVD, perfectly carved from acacia wood.

Nick moved nearer, then frowned. ‘It’s been mended...’ He examined it through the dome. ‘
Crudely
mended.’

The princess sighed. ‘Two thousand years ago, King Aretas had considered that the Christ child would grow up a warrior, a colossus, and overturn Rome. But Aretas’ warrior was not to be. After the Hebrew was crucified, it is said that in a moment of bitter passion and disillusionment, Aretas smashed the cross in a fit of rage.’

‘There were wild, unsubstantiated tales that as Aretas lay dying, Christ appeared to him,’ Nick said, staring at her curiously.

‘We are a wonderfully dramatic nation, Mr De Vere.’ The princess lowered her eyes. ‘The recounters of Scheherazade’s
Thousand Nights and a Night
. Our rich culture of poetry and prose has made our people the storytellers that we have been through the centuries.’ She shrugged. ‘That is why we have so many legends.’

The princess’s voice broke off as her Prada sunglasses slipped from her grasp and fell to the stone floor. She knelt to pick them up just as Nick did the same. He grasped them in his palm and held them out to her, then stared, fascinated, at the small, plain silver cross that slipped out from beneath her T-shirt.

‘Nonetheless, Princess, you believe,’ he whispered.

She stared at him, silent, frozen in her kneeling position.

‘My people respect and revere Christ as a teacher and a prophet, Mr De Vere. It is common knowledge, even among agnostics such as yourself,’ she snapped. The princess quickly regained her composure, snatched the sunglasses, and stood.

Nick continued relentlessly. ‘Yet your critics claim you choose to go a step further ... even as Aretas the Fourth’s daughter Jotapa.’

Safwat appeared out of the shadows in the doorway with Father Benedict.

‘Your helicopter is here, Your Majesty.’ Safwat’s voice was soft but insistent. ‘The Gulfstream refuels in Alexandria. We must leave for the palace in Aqaba before it is dusk, Princess.’

The princess nodded. ‘You are in good hands, Nick De Vere.’ She gestured to Father Benedict. ‘But I must remind you: all digital film is to be delivered to Father Benedict before your departure – no images leave these grounds, or I
shall
revoke your licence. Even a De Vere brother has to bow to the rules of the Hashemite Kingdom.’