The Artifact (43 page)

“This place is Golgotha,” he told me, lifting an arm toward the dead and dying “where the enemies of Rome are punished thus.”

Finding not a tuft of grass or fallen leaf upon that barren place, I wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my robe and stood on shaking limbs.

“Some of them,” James continued, “no doubt began small acts of resistance at an early age. Others are
Sicarii,
Zealots, or belong to equally militant rebel groups.”

My urge to run back down the hill was barely overcome by my curiosity. “Why do the families not prevent the animals from defiling their brethren?”

“Crucifixion is in all probability the most horrible, ignoble death the Romans have devised. They reserve it for men convicted of crimes against the Empire. Murderers, thieves, adulterers. Lesser crimes against individuals are executed in other ways.”

I felt my stomach churning again, and looked away toward the golden dome of the Temple below. James grasped my neck with a firm hand, turning my gaze back to the horrific death before us.

“After going to all the trouble in scourging the guilty man, prodding him up the hill, affixing him to a cross and waiting for him to die,” he told me, “the Romans are not inclined to allow the dishonored man to receive a ritual burial, washed, anointed, wrapped in a clean shroud, laid in a protective ossuary, then placed in a quiet tomb or cave. In fact it is specifically forbidden.”

I felt a cold shiver run up my spine.

“The last thought that your body will be eaten by animals,” he continued, “your bones strewn about the countryside is part of the penalty for challenging Rome. Anyone caught removing a corpse from these grounds is also considered a rebel and receives the same fate.”

“When nailed to a cross, the condemned man will usually die quickly from loss of blood,” James answered. “Transgressors roped to the wood will suffer longer: buzzards picking out their eyes, stripping flesh from their bodies, predator carnivores jumping up to take a bite out of their legs at night.”

“I wish never to observe this godforsaken place again.”

James nodded, apparently satisfied that I seemed to have gotten the point. He placed his arm around my shoulder and led me back down the path.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Rowe, MA

December 2004

Public reaction to the first reading of Shimon’s story broadcast on Monday evening entailed largely passive demonstrations in non-Christian countries, although disruptive incidents flared in predominantly Catholic nations that quelled them with pleas for restraint by government officials and religious hierarchy. Callaghan feared that the second segment scheduled to be broadcast on Tuesday night, however, could provoke violent riots throughout the world. The worst displays of enmity were made by the large congregation of Southern Baptists and evangelical adherents in the U.S., second only to Catholics and other Christian denominations worldwide, plus ardent fundamentalists and smaller Christian sects whose divergent beliefs were vaguely understood by the majority. Christian anger would be fueled not only by Shimon’s often dispassionate contradiction of the New Testament, but the absence of a clear and present target to rail against.

As in many such mass disturbances in the past, looters and frenzied groups of disenfranchised urban dwellers would embrace the opportunity to set fire to businesses, homes and vehicles, rampaging through city streets uninhibited by wary police, pummeling, stabbing and shooting anyone in their determination to vent their seething umbrage on authority and peaceful citizens.

As it was, outraged individuals inundated radio talk shows and blogged the Internet to protest the content and dissemination of the document until the telephone lines and the World Wide Web were congested almost beyond operation. The afternoon of the second momentous broadcast to be aired on Tuesday night brought increased violence and agitation to cities, towns and rural areas around the globe. Newscasters marveled at the first time in memory that most factions of the two-plus billion Christians throughout the world had banded together against a common cause. Even the recent decline in attendance at church services, pedophile priests and ministers, the conflict regarding gay clerics, and the basic cynicism of modern men and women seemed to have been forgotten in their unified denunciation of the First Century autobiography. Commentators, columnists and other pundits derided the fact that neither famine, genocide, poverty, war nor natural catastrophe had brought the diverse religions of the world together in such unanimity since the beginning of time.

When the results of research polls and on-the-street interviews were tabulated, it seemed that 57% of Christians had grudgingly accepted the authenticity of the document as verified by the independent experts who had subjected representative sections to the latest scientific tests; although 87% either disputed the credibility of the author or his motives and opinions, and 93% were violently opposed to the universal dissemination of the ancient treatise.

Jewish respondents, knowledgeable of the history of their religion and ancestors, believed the Shimon document to be highly credible in almost every aspect. Most other non-Christians, agnostics and atheists saw little reason to become perturbed by the simple story of an ancient Jew, and gave evidence of a subtle glee regarding the disputation of New Testament lore. Conversely, the entire planet anticipated further revelation about Shimon’s brother Jesus and his younger sibling’s phlegmatic doubts regarding Biblical events.

Cassandra made a conscious effort to conceal her amazement at Andrea’s appearance: her sallow cheeks, hair merging the band of gray and previous brunette to white. The tall AmerAsian woman paused on the bedroom threshold of the acerbic reporter who lay fully clothed, propped up on top of the coverlet of the rented hospital bed. Sammy’s adjustment of the pillow behind her head provoked a whispered response.

Cassandra sat in the padded armchair facing Andrea’s elevated upper body. “The reception to the broadcasts is about what we expected.”

“It must feel lonely without a Supreme Being to call on when decimated by irreversible circumstances. Without the expectation of eternal life.”

Andy was pensive for several moments. “Sometimes I think I have an alter ego with whom I engage in internal dialogs. She helps me solve problems, come to decisions, judges my thoughts and actions. Not a god, though, who reaches down from heaven to grant or deny our prayers.”

“In the army, they say there are no atheists in foxholes.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m not in the army.”

Jerry Roland called North Carolina Air National Guard flight dispatch in Charlotte with the badge number of his FBI I.D., and three hours later was riding the rear seat of an F-86 trainer to Hanscom Field in Bedford, twenty miles west of Boston, an hour before the regional airport closed down at the onset of the raging blizzard. Jerry stamped the snow from his street shoes before getting into the hardtop jeep Paula had turned in for the Honda rental she had been using in Washington.

Paula lit an unfiltered Camel with a butane lighter before pulling out of the short-term parking lot toward Route 2, a four-lane blacktop that would take them into the northeast corner of Massachusetts.

“Harrington is standing at the same brick wall we were this morning. I know the Madigan woman’s doc wouldn’t or couldn’t give him a peep unless he could convince some federal judge to give him a warrant.”

“Unlikely.” Jerry adjusted his seat and reclined, closing his eyes. “The document’s half out of the bag already. What are we going to accomplish by finding them now?”

“Save our asses,” Paula reminded him. “If we don’t bring them in we’re out of the Bureau, probably facing hard time in some federal pen for disobeying orders, obstructing justice, whatever.”

“According to the media,” Paula mused, “Callaghan’s endgame is broadcasting the document simultaneously on every network and local radio station in the world via satellite.”

“All Harrington would have to do is find the location of their uplink transmission, shut them down, land a couple of SWAT teams in their backyard.”

Jerry sat erect to wipe the condensation from the windshield with the palm of his hand. “Those transmissions take only a second or two. Could he find it?”

“With every federal agency in the country looking? Need a bit of luck maybe. Damn right he could.”

“They could knock their signal out, but I doubt they could get a chopper up in this weather.”

The wind was buffeting the thick flakes against the Jeep, taking all of Paula’s concentration to keep the vehicle in the right-hand lane.

Sammy sat beside Andrea’s bed reading a news magazine, looking up when he heard the stifled sound of her crying. He pulled a tissue from its box and dabbed the tears from her cheeks. “I have no idea how you feel, Princess, but I know it must be scary as hell.”

“All the things I’ll miss, the ones I haven’t even done yet, too busy trying to be top bitch in the kennel. A lot of good that does me now.”

Sammy reached out to squeeze her hand on the blanket. “Geez, Andy, you’ve lived more, accomplished more, and achieved more recognition in the business than most people do in twice the lifetime in any profession.”

“Not compared to what I could have done.”

“This news coup you’ve pulled off will stand up with Watergate and every other investigative scoop since man stood upright.”

She turned her head to flash a wry grin at him. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been wishing I could get one sweet guy horizontal before I go. One of my saddest thoughts is that the last time I got laid was the last time I’ll get laid.”

They held each other’s gaze without words or expression. Finally, Sammy stood, leaned over the bed, held her head in both hands and kissed her full on her lips.

“Let’s see what I can come up with.”

Head down, his Russian Trooper hat of black beaver taking the brunt of wind-borne snow, Tom Harrington trudged along E Street NW beside the multi-architectural city block headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His gloved hands were thrust in the pockets of his double-breasted ankle-length herringbone tweed overcoat as he ignored three inches of wet snow that had seeped through his calfskin wing tips.

“You won’t get a memo on this,” Harrington said, as they walked toward Pennsylvania Avenue.

Special Agent Phil Rognol inclined his bare head toward the Director, as white flakes accumulated on the agent’s wind-blown hair and tugged at the scarf above the neck of his green loden coat.

Harrington wanted to make sure that his highly dedicated agent understood the precise nature of his assignment, but was reluctant to put the instructions into quotable words that could damn him. “The whole lot, you understand, not just the general.”

“I understand.”

In his early forties, Rognol was a latecomer to the Bureau, a Grade 3 government employee with only seven years seniority. It was his previous occupation that had made him one of the most dependable, selfless, patriots Harrington had ever encountered. He had joined the Marine Corps when he was 17, requiring the permission of his father, a disabled vet of the Vietnam War to do so, underwent the standard rigorous boot camp training at Parris Island, was accepted at Officer’s Candidate School at Camp Le Jeune, took martial arts hand-to-hand combat training, then spent 15 years infiltrating enemy strongholds of genocidal governments to eliminate various leaders, generals and dictators primarily in African nations. Rognol had long ago taken an official and personal oath to serve his country in every way possible, to die for it if necessary.