The Lost Apostles (17 page)

Chapter 23

The reputed “sins within our skirts” are nothing in comparison with the shameless mass violence of men, much of it conducted through the cover of their religions. Thousands of years before the Christ, goddess religions ruled the earth, and peace reigned supreme. It was only later, when the male-dominated religions took hold, that the mass killings of warfare and genocide began, invariably “in the name of God.” Such hypocrisy! To kill in the name of God? Jesus was the Son of God Almighty, speaking for God, but he preached
love
. It is no accident that when Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he appeared before the women first, including Mary Magdalene.

—Amy Angkor-Billings, Monte Konos dedication speech

The next morning, Lori made a holo-recording, and had it delivered the largest television station in Rome. For security reasons, she could not go there personally, especially not with all of the she-apostles that she wanted to appear with her in a major public announcement. To solve this concern, Alex Jackson left a parcel in a park near the studio, and then notified them where it was, and the subject of it. He also told them that they had only three hours to make the broadcast—a major news announcement—or Lori Vale would contact another station.

While waiting to see what they would do, Lori went to Mrs. Capo and Domingo Petrovese in her apartment, to tell them the truth. She had Rea and Fujiko with her, and both were armed, just in case. Domingo greeted them at the door, and invited them in.

Mrs. Capo’s apartment was filled with expensive antique furnishings, and she had several glass fronted bookcases in her main living area. She sat in a rocking chair with a shoebox of old photographs on her lap. Domingo took a seat on the couch near her, where he had left a newspaper. They had their robes on, and china cups of coffee sitting on tables by them.

“I’ve been going through my photographs,” the old woman said. “Trying to sort them out. It’s quite a formidable task.”

“I can imagine,” Lori said. Standing with Rea and Fujiko behind her, the mature teenager got straight to the point. “In a short while, the world is going to learn the truth about us, and about the children. We’re here to discuss that with you.”

Mrs. Capo arched her gray eyebrows. “The truth?”

Lori went into considerable detail, revealing that they had eleven authentic she-apostles with them, and that she was going on the air to announce this to everyone. Looking stunned, the old woman and her companion listened without saying anything.

“We don’t like the lies that Dixie Lou Jackson has been telling,” Lori said, “and we’re going to do something about it. We’re also deeply disturbed that she’s taken Pope Rodrigo hostage, and is defiling the sacred Vatican. It is a sacrilege.”

“A sacrilege,” Mrs. Capo said. “Yes, it is a terrible thing.”

“What can we do to help?” Domingo asked. He smiled. “We are Catholic.”

“I thought so,” Lori said, because she had seen both of them wearing crosses. “You can help by not telling anyone where we are. No one. It’s a bigger secret than before, and we’re willing to pay you more, a lot more.”

“Helping you and the children is not something we should be paid for,” Mrs. Capo said.

“And stopping a sacrilege,” Domingo added. “We will accept no additional payment, and will guard your privacy with renewed passion.”

“Thank you,” Lori said. She felt tears coming on, and wiped her eyes. “This means a lot to me. It means a lot to the world. Believe me, this is very important.”

* * *

Upon viewing the recording, the station manager rose from his desk and, in a loud voice, he exclaimed, “Put this on the air immediately!
Mama mia
! In all my days, I have never had such a scoop!”

Within an hour, he preempted all programming, and a white-robed Lori Vale appeared on hundreds of thousands of television screens in and around Rome, some in flat resolution and others in the more expensive, but highly popular, virtual reality version. She said she was speaking from an undisclosed location in Rome, Italy.

Lori addressed not just the Italian audience, for she knew that the story she had to tell was big enough to be picked up by international news organizations. For the holo-recording she looked directly into the camera, grasped a crucifix of the Savior Jesus Christ in her right hand, and in an unfaltering voice spoke to the entire world.

“My name is Lori Vale, and I’m fifteen years old. Despite my youth, a great responsibility has been placed on my shoulders, and I take it very seriously. Like millions of people around the world, I am outraged at the actions of Dixie Lou Jackson, for defiling the Vatican and taking the Pope prisoner. She has not advanced the cause of womanhood at all, as she claims. The only thing Dixie Lou Jackson cares about is herself, not oppressed females or the idealistic members of United Women of the World. While I have never been a member of the UWW, I am still inspired by the exploits of its martyred leader Amy Angkor-Billings, an outstanding woman who would
not
have condoned the actions of her successor.”

Gesturing to her right and left, Lori said, “Now I would like you to meet the
authentic
she-apostles who are here with me, not the fakes being exploited by Dixie Lou Jackson. So far, we have located eleven. One, the real Martha of Galilee, remains missing.” The camera zoomed in on the children’s cherubic, innocent faces.

Lori provided some of the background about how the she-apostles were located, and the creation of the
Holy Women’s Bible
, emphasizing that only one of the gospels had been falsified, not the entire book . . . and that all references to a She-Judas had been deleted, about a woman who was said to have conspired against Jesus.

The bold teenager didn’t hold anything back, not the death of her mother that she blamed on the Chairwoman, or Dixie Lou’s murder of the guard at Monte Konos, or the strange visions Lori had experienced. She held hands with two of the children, while some of the others alternated to speak ancient Aramaic on camera, repeating scriptural passages that had already been transcribed and published. Michelle Renee explained this as the toddlers and babies spoke, and translated their words.

“These she-apostles speak Aramaic,” Lori said. “The children with Dixie Lou do not.”

Immediately following the broadcast, an esteemed local professor of ancient languages telephoned the studio. His comments were played over the air live, as he gushed about the miracle of children speaking the ancient tongue so fluently. His confirmation of the Aramaic gospels added a nice touch of authenticity to Lori’s version of the story, and gave credibility to the disparaging comments she made about Dixie Lou Jackson.

Across Rome, as Lori watched the broadcast from her hidden apartment, Fujiko said to her, “You have a way with words, my young friend, a nice way of turning phrases.”

Lori nodded and thanked her, but she was thinking of something else, of the secret communication methods of the she-apostles. She saw them using it on the air, in their expressions and in the veiled movements of their lips. She was only on the periphery of their universe.

* * *

At home in suburban Washington DC, Zack Markwether leaned over his computer, reading an e-mail message from his sister, Jennifer. Fighting a bout of food poisoning from a restaurant, he had not been at the White House for two days, and had slept for fifteen hours straight. It was the middle of the morning, and he wore a blue robe over his underclothes.

“Sorry you haven’t been feeling well,” her e-mail said. “I had that myself last year, and it’s not pleasant. Please see the attachment, which I recorded for you. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but the girl has the same name as your missing daughter, Lori Vale. Since she’s has been all over the news, I’m sure you’ve already seen this, but just in case—”

Lori?

Feverishly, Zack brought up the attachment, and it began to play a television program on his computer.

Transfixed, he stared at the screen. A pretty young woman in a white robe was challenging Dixie Lou Jackson, asserting that all of the she-apostles with her were fakes.

My Lori?
Zack’s heart skipped a beat. His memory tried to fit pieces into place.

As he heard the girl’s voice over his computer, memories poured into his consciousness, as if a flood valve had been opened on a dam, pouring a great river of information into his skull. Unsure if this was the same person, he remembered carrying his two year old daughter on his shoulders thirteen years ago, and her infectious laughter.

He also remembered her mother, a young woman with light brown hair and a ready smile. Employed in the Pentagon secretarial pool, Camilla Vale had been one of the civilians who had passed stringent security checks. Of all the women he’d known (and there had been many), he’d never married any of them. With respect to Camilla, it may have been the biggest mistake of his life. When their daughter was almost three, Camilla gave him an ultimatum, a deadline for marriage. When he didn’t meet it, continuing to avoid commitment, she disappeared with the child, leaving Washington, DC for parts unknown.

It had left a deep void in his soul, one that had never been filled. He had gone through a series of relationships with other women following that traumatic split, but none of them had been the same. He lived a life of regret for not marrying Camilla, for not promising to care for her and their unborn child. He should have been stronger, should have tried harder to find them.

Studying the girl on the screen, with her heart-shaped face and long auburn hair, Zack wondered if this could possibly be his lost daughter, whom he had not seen for more than twelve years. Since the original broadcast was in virtual reality, he was able to obtain three-dimensional views in his computer, in color. Examining her face from several angles, he thought he saw a resemblance to Camilla in the eyes, and to himself in the nose and chin, but feared that this might only be wishful thinking.

During the first couple of years of his relationship with Camilla, they had clicked—everything had worked. Their relationship had seemed bullet-proof to Zack, filled with passion and laughter. They had the same interests, enjoyed going to folk music concerts, baseball games, and Impressionist art exhibits. There were bicycle rides, hikes into the Appalachian back country, sailing trips in Chesapeake Bay and even quiet times spent reading poetry aloud—Theodore Roethke, Ezra Pound, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The words of a favorite Browning poem came back to him, and he murmured them, “‘Love me, sweet, with all thou art. . . .’”

He fought back his emotions as the rest of the poem came back to him, and choked him up. As close as he and Camilla had been, he hadn’t thought she would ever leave him. He had called her bluff, and had lost. According to a news announcer, Lori Vale was from Seattle. While Zack had never been there himself, this bit of information gave him a rush. Camilla’s mother had been named Lori, and Camilla had been brought up in Seattle. They had discussed her hometown often, had spoken of taking a trip there together one day.

As moments passed, Zack became more and more convinced about the identity of the girl on the computer screen. Even her voice sounded familiar, with the soft, intelligent tones of her mother.

Catching himself, he backed up and tried to rethink the situation.

From a desk drawer he brought out a color photograph of Lori taken when she was a year old, one of the few photos he had of her. Rummaging around in the drawer, he brought out another picture, this one of the toddler standing between himself and Camilla. The child was around two in this one. The shape of her face looked right, although the heart shape was more accentuated now. The eyes looked right, too.

On impulse, he e-mailed the photo to Fred Siegenthaler, a police detective in Washington, DC. He explained the situation and asked him to do a rush projection on the baby’s face, to see what she might look like at the age of fifteen. Knowing he had to wait at least until the next morning for an answer, Zack went into the living room and watched several television news programs, on different channels. His sister was right. Stories on both Dixie Lou Jackson and Lori Vale dominated the communication networks, along with special reports on the mysterious United Women of the World.

Hearing a loud beep from his computer room, he rushed in there. To his surprise, it was a message from Siegenthaler. Bringing up the attachment, Zack stared in disbelief at a projected image that looked like a twin sister to the teenager he’d seen on the television program. There were minor differences, in the thickness of the eyebrows and the length of the neck, but the detective had told him he was more than ninety-nine percent sure it was the same person.

My daughter
!

As if with new eyes, with all doubts removed, Zack saw the truth of this in the features of the girl on the screen, in the unmistakable identity markers of the Markwether family, a lineage that went back to the pilgrim founders of the American nation and to European conquerors before that. Lori had his tallness, nose, and firm chin. The eyes were lavender and widely spaced like his own mother’s.

Zack had suffered tremendous guilt over losing contact with his daughter, and in the first couple of years after Camilla disappeared with her, he had made some attempts to locate them. All to no avail, and he had given up. Now he was elated.

I can’t believe it!

In a daze, he sent a coded e-mail to his brother, the President of the United States. “You’ll have to get by a little longer without me,” he wrote. “I’m on my way to Rome.” He summarized what had happened, and then sent separate notes to his sister and to the detective.

Shortly after breakfast, Zack’s videophone rang. It was his brother calling from the Oval Office, his image projected over the secure land line. The President had been gaining weight recently, as he was prone to do from all of the state dinners. Soon, as usual, he would go on another diet and the pounds would fall off. He could gain and lose weight amazingly fast.

Zack filled him in with more details. After listening in astonishment, President Markwether said, “You can’t go to Rome!” His reddish-brown eyebrows lifted in displeasure.