The Resurrection File (40 page)

“Of course not!”

“Do you consider such conservative Christian scholarship—and let's define that term as the school of thought that holds that, in the original manuscript text, all of the Gospel stories reliably recounted a bodily resurrection of Jesus—do you consider such conservative Christian scholars to have been—well, how should I put this…have you ever considered such conservative Christian scholars to be on the level of ‘cavemen' who haven't learned the secrets of fire, or the wheel?”

Reichstad laughed. Then there was silence.

“Absolutely not. I do not reach my conclusions because of my dislike of conservative Christian scholarship. I reach my conclusions based on the scientific method.”

“So you would deny any kind of ‘theological agenda' in trying to disprove the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth?” Will inquired.

“I certainly deny that. I absolutely deny that.”

“One hundred percent, absolutely deny it?” Will followed up with a wry smile.

“Yes. One hundred percent, absolutely,” Reichstad said with finality and gusto.

“Doctor,” Will concluded, “tell me every book and paper you have authored on the subject of Jesus of Nazareth.”

“Counsel,” Reichstad's attorney interrupted, “you already have, as an exhibit in this deposition, Dr. Reichstad's professional curriculum vitae. His long-form résumé. All of his published works are listed right there in front of you.”

“Is that true?” Will asked Reichstad. “Are they all listed right here?”

“Yes.” Reichstad responded with a sigh. “Everything is listed there,” and he pointed to the papers on the conference table.

“Are you sure you haven't forgotten anything?”

“Yes, I am sure. Everything I have written about Jesus of Nazareth is listed on my curriculum vitae, which you have right in front of you,” Reichstad answered with irritation in his voice.

“And you are as sure of that as you are of, well, the fact that you were not involved in the deaths of Azid and Hunter? As sure of that as you are of the fact that you have not committed scientific fraud?”

“Yes. As sure,” Reichstad replied, and glanced at his lawyer as if he were searching for reassurance of some kind.

When the deposition was over, Will extended his hand to Reichstad, who merely sniffed and turned, and walked away.

When Will Chambers got into his Corvette in the parking structure he opened his briefcase, and pulled out the slender little book of Reichstad's that MacCameron had brought to their last meeting. He opened it up and re-read the book's prologue once more. Then he closed it, put it back in his briefcase, and started back toward Monroeville.

49

B
Y THE TIME
W
ILL ENTERED
M
ONROEVILLE
it was dark, and the streetlights were on. He planned to stop by the Robert E. Lee Motel first and pick up his belongings, check out, and bid that place a fond, and final, adieu. With the money from Billy Joe Highlighter's church paying some of Will's legal fees, he had been able to rent a small apartment.

Will stopped at the lobby to pay for his stay and encountered the usual stout, expressionless desk clerk there. After Will had paid his bill the man reached down under the desk with some effort and pulled something out. It was a folded piece of paper.

“You received a message today,” he said in his extra-coarse sandpaper voice, handing the note to Will.

When Will opened it up, he saw a communication that had apparently been printed in the desk clerk's own writing.

Will—

See you in court on Monday. I'll be in the audience section cheering you on.

Jacki

As Will smiled and stuffed the note in his pocket the desk clerk asked him simply, “Girlfriend?”

“No, just a friend,” Will replied.

“Nice to have friends like that,” the desk clerk commented, thrusting his hands in the pockets of the gray sweatpants that were stretched over his wide waist.

“Yes. It sure is.”

“You a lawyer?”

“Yes. I'm Will Chambers,” he said extending his hand out to the other man.

“Vernon Dithers,” the clerk said, shaking his hand.

“Well,” Will said as he lifted his suitcase and swung his suit hanger over his shoulder, “it was good to meet you, Vernon. And thanks for giving me the message.” He loaded up his Corvette so he could head over to his office.

He wanted to pick up some other parts of the
Reichstad vs. MacCameron
file and take them home with him for the weekend. “Home” was now the small apartment he had found a few blocks down from his office. He would stay there until he was able to finish his dispute with the insurance company.

Down deep Will wondered if there was any way he was going to be able to remove himself as a suspect in the arson without divulging the identity of the public defender he had met in New York that day. And until he resolved that question to the satisfaction of the insurance company, they would not pay off his fire loss.

Sitting in his car, Will took a minute to call the Public Defender's Office in New York. He figured he'd just leave a voice mail for his informant there, asking him to call back the following week. To Will's surprise, one of the lawyers, who was working late, answered the phone. But when Will asked for the voice mail of his contact, he heard something that made his heart sink.

“Sorry, he's no longer with the office here. Took a job overseas, I think. I'm not sure.”

“You have no idea where he went?”

“No. I'm afraid not.”

“He didn't tell me anything about this,” Will said with a tinge of desperation in his voice.

“I think it happened kind of suddenly—all in the last week or so.”

“How do you suggest that I contact him? It's very important.”

“Well, you can contact our personnel director on Monday. But I do know that, as a matter of policy, they don't give out forwarding addresses of former employees.”

After hanging up Will thought that the only thing he could do would be to break his promise of anonymity and lead the fire investigators to the public defender's office in New York. Surely, the personnel director would give the forwarding address information to law-enforcement officers.

The problem with that plan, however, was that if the investigators did track the lawyer down, Will had no assurance whether he would tell them the truth. What if he denied having met with Will at all that day? If that
happened, Will Chambers would be notched up from a suspect to “prime suspect.”

Further, what if his job change had had something to do with the fact that he had divulged classified information to Will? What if the man had been “relocated,” as with the witness protection program? What if he could never be found?

It certainly seemed foolhardy to invite the fire investigators to try to track down his New York informant unless Will could contact him first. But now that looked impossible.

Driving over to the office, Will tried to forget about the arson issue. He tried to refocus on how he would allocate his time over the weekend to prepare for the Monday-morning court hearing before Judge Kaye.

He tallied off the parts of the file he would need in his argument against Sherman's Summary-Judgment motion. He also wanted to pick up the Bible on his desk and take it to the apartment with him. Will had read the four Gospels through in their entirety, and he had just finished a first reading of the book of Acts.

MacCameron had suggested that Will be conversant with Acts because it was the immediate historical successor to the Gospel accounts. Will had learned that it recorded the events after the resurrection of Jesus, starting with his departure from Earth and then going on to the founding of the first-century church. Now he wanted to read the book through a second time during his evenings alone in his apartment.

As Will approached the front of his law office building, the thought flicked through his mind that he might telephone Fiona on Saturday when he took a break in his work. Then he recalled their last conversation. He considered that to have been a complete and final “Dear John” sendoff. No, he would not call her. Though he had powerful feelings for her, none of that could matter anymore. If he truly had respect for Fiona, then he must honor her resolve that there could be nothing between them.

Will noticed, as he parked his car across from his office, that there was a man leaning against the front of the old, red-brick building, just to the left of the front door. He was dark-complexioned, possibly Middle Eastern, and he was reading a newspaper.

Just down the street, perhaps thirty feet away, there was a white, windowless van. Another dark-complexioned man was there, at the van's back. He was looking down at his keys, appearing to be busy.

As Will started across the street he felt uneasy about entering through the front door. There was something odd about these two men, though he could not put his finger on it. He decided to cross the street at a diagonal
and head to the alley that ran along the side of the building. He could loop around the side of the building and enter through the back door.

While walking down the alley between his building and the next one, Will glanced in the side mirror of a car parked along the alley. Adrenaline shot through him as he saw the two men walking rapidly, shoulder to shoulder, after him.

Will ducked into the side doorway at his right. He grabbed the door handle and pulled hard, but it was locked. He turned and saw that the two men were now at a full run in his direction.

Will ran down the alley and turned the corner. One of the cleaning staff was coming out of the rear door of the next-door building, lugging a floor polisher. Will frantically squeezed past him and ran full speed down the hallway to the front entrance. He planned to cross the street to his convertible and take off. He knew that the van would be no match for his Corvette.

But the front door was locked. Will looked for a release but found none. He heard loud voices and yelling at the back as his two pursuers forced their way past the custodian, and into the building after him.

Will ran up the stairs to the second floor, two steps at a time. He could hear one of the men yelling in a foreign language as he came up the steps after him.

At the top, Will looked in both directions. He saw a fire escape to the right at the end of the hallway. He decided to go for it, and sprinted down to the door marked “Fire Exit” without looking back. The alarm started sounding as he smashed the lock, swung the door open, and started noisily scampering down the metal fire escape stairs that zigzagged toward the ground. He leaped down the last four steps.

Running hard and breathless now, he was heading for the street at the front of the building. The alley was clear. Only fifty feet or so to cross the street, leap into his car, and jam it into gear. Nothing to it. In thirty seconds he would be roaring down the street, with those guys, whoever they were, standing in the trail of his exhaust.

As Will reached the end of the alley he quickly glanced behind him, but saw no one following.

Then he got a very bad feeling.

His brain flashed a warning to stop short before he reached the corner, but his legs were unable to respond quickly enough.

A pair of arms reached out and clotheslined Will at the neck. Will fell to the ground with the man going down on top of him. Will smashed his fist into his face, crunching his nose. The man was shouting something in his language—and then there was a second pair of arms from the other side,
wrestling him back down to the ground. Both men were yelling excitedly in an unrecognizable tongue, then the second man stuck something sharp into Will's neck.

Will felt the needle prick. As the man depressed the syringe, Will saw a brilliant flash of light that consumed everything. And then, in the brilliance of that light, he fell into unconsciousness.

There was a vision. Two rows of men, carrying guns, facing each other as if in a military ceremony. Off in the distance, beyond the rows of what might have been soldiers, and through an arched gate, there was an incandescent, glowing light. The light was getting closer. Out of it came a man in a robe. His robe was white—whiter even than the brilliant light around him. The man in the white robe was walking down between the rows of men, toward Will.