The Testimonium (44 page)

* * *

Alessandro Zadora, the Police Chief of Naples, was still trying to piece together the clues from the horrific blast that had destroyed the new research lab at the National Museum of Antiquities. The self-confessed bomber turned out to have been a long-term Al Qaeda sleeper who had been dormant for the better part of a decade. However, al-Medina had not left Capri for more than a year before the blast. So who had bought the explosives and loaded them onto the truck? That investigation was baffling him, so he had called in the State Security Police Force’s leading anti-terrorism expert, Antonio Lucoccini, to help him in the investigation.

The two men had worked together before, and had a healthy respect for each other’s professional abilities. Zadora was surveying the wreckage of the lab, counting the yellow flags that indicated where pieces of the bomb and the truck that delivered it had been found. Al-Medina’s body had been completely shredded in the blast, pieces of it being recovered in more than twenty locations, too badly damaged to help investigators much. So far, only a few clues had been located as to the device that had caused so much devastation: a small fragment of the detonator, a badly damaged remote control, and a few pieces of the crates that had contained the explosives themselves. It appeared to be a standard ammonium nitrate bomb—the fertilizer was easily obtained in small quantities, and occasionally larger amounts of it were reported stolen.

“This place is a mess! Looks like a bomb went off or something!” a familiar voice said behind him.

“Always the wise guy,” said Zadora, turning to face Lucoccini. “If I wanted a comedian, I could have hired one from a local nightclub and left you in Rome taking bribes!”

“Now that hurts, coming from an old friend! Any leads on who supplied the bomb?” asked Lucoccini.

“We’ve barely recovered any pieces of the device at all,” said Zadora. “The fertilizer was most likely stolen—there have been several thefts of ammonium nitrate the last few years. Some have been recovered, some not. Our best shot is going to be with the detonator, but we need to find more pieces of it before we can begin to figure out who might have put it together.”

They walked together through the wreckage of the lab. Two police technicians were lifting a shattered Formica tabletop with the help of a small forklift. Underneath they found some half-melted plexiglass, a crushed stool, and some sort of very black wooden desk or small table, its legs broken and laid flat. Zadora reached down and turned it over to find an ancient piece of parchment, streaked with soot, somehow glued to the surface of the wood. It was covered with writing. “Someone call the archies in,” he said. “We found some more of their junk.”

“Junk?” said Lucoccini. “That’s the Tiberius letter, you uncultured rube! Haven’t you watched any of the news about what they were working on?”

“I’ve been tracking a serial rapist, two kidnapping cases, and a child murderer for the last month,” snapped Zadora. “All I’ve had time to watch is my blood pressure going up!”

“And then came this,” said Lucoccini thoughtfully.

“Exactly!” his friend snapped. “And then came this!” They watched as one of the museum staff made his way down the ruined hallway between them and the main building. “Hard to believe a two-thousand-year-old scrap of paper was worth this much trouble, isn’t it?”

* * *

At ten thirty Sunday morning Josh heard a steady pounding sound insert itself into his dreams. He groaned and rolled over; trying to return to the creek bed he was walking down in northeast Texas, ten years old again, with a pocket full of arrowheads and not a care in the world. But the persistent pounding sound kept forcing itself into his mind until he finally sat up with a lurch and realized that someone was knocking on his door. Grumbling, he pulled on a T-shirt and stumbled through the suite, realizing as he did so that the soreness in his limbs and the pounding in his head were much more subdued than they had been the day before. Still, he was not very happy—he had left the “Do Not Disturb” sign out, and really felt as if he could have slept for another eight or ten hours.

“Who is it?” he shouted, not even looking through the keyhole.

“Are you going to lie in bed all day while the fish are biting?” a familiar voice answered.

“DAD!!” He threw open the door and embraced his father, who stood there grinning, with his mother right beside him. “How on earth did you get here? How long have you been here?”

His father released him, and Josh’s mom stepped up and hugged him too.

“It’s good to see you, son!” he said. “After we saw the news of the explosion, your mother and I were sick with worry, even after you called. Then Brother Bowers called and asked if we would like two tickets to Naples, leaving later that night. Who could turn down such an offer?”

Josh nodded. That would be just like Brady Bowers, a deacon in his father’s church who had made a bundle in the dotcom boom of the nineties and gotten out before it went south. He had dedicated his life to Christian charities and church planting, and was one of his dad’s closest friends. Josh looked at the familiar faces of his parents and found his eyes welling up with tears. Thank you, Brother Brady! he thought.

“You have no idea how glad I am to see you two,” he said. “It’s been a very tough few days.”

His dad nodded sympathetically. “I’ve been watching every bit of news coverage I could,” he said. “We saw the big press conference from the airport, and then caught your remarks to the press right before we boarded the plane.” The old pastor grinned. “Those were some downright eloquent statements—a couple of them seemed a bit familiar!”

Josh grinned. His dad always had a way of making him feel better just by being there. “I suppose I must have picked something up after being dragged into church three times a week for my first eighteen years!” he said.

His mother looked at the room. “Those museum folks must like you,” she said. “This is a lot nicer than our room!”

Josh laughed. “They have been very gracious hosts,” he said.

About that time his phone rang. It was Luke Martens. “Did your folks find you all right, Josh?” he asked.

“Woke me from a sound sleep,” he said.

“Your mother wanted to bring you breakfast at seven thirty,” he said, “but I talked her into giving you another three hours. Why don’t you all come down to mine and Alicia’s suite? We’ve ordered a big brunch.”

“That sounds good,” said Josh, suddenly realizing he had not eaten in nearly twenty-four hours.

“Isabella is coming too,” said Martens. “She called a little while ago and had just woken up. She wants to meet your folks.”

“Great!” said Josh. “Is Duncan coming too?”

“No, but we can watch him on television,” said Martens. “He was on one of the Sunday morning shows in the States—they taped it late last night, but we recorded it on our DVR so we could watch it with you guys.”

“Awesome!” said Josh. “I’ll be down shortly.”

He turned to his folks. “Feel free to have a seat on the couch,” he said. “I’m gonna jump in the shower and wake myself up for a minute, and try to make myself presentable. Then we can go down and eat with the Martens.”

He disappeared into the bathroom, and his mother leaned over toward his father and whispered: “I bet that Italian girl is going to be there! Josh never cares if he is presentable or not!”

Ben Parker looked down at her with a small grin. “You’re an impossible woman!” he said.

A half hour later, they walked into the suite where Dr. Martens and Alicia were staying, to find Isabella had beaten them there. Josh introduced her to his parents and then firmly placed himself between Isabella and his mother, determined to shield her from the third-degree inquisition he knew would be forthcoming for as long as possible. Isabella looked much more relaxed and comfortable, having exchanged the large bandage on her head for a smaller, simpler Band-Aid. The lines of stress and grief had eased somewhat, although she was still more somber and grim than the vibrant young archeologist Josh had met on Capri two weeks before.

The group of six arranged themselves on the sofa and easy chairs and Luke Martens turned on the TV and DVR. The program had aired several hours ago in the States. It was the popular morning show hosted by none other than the impeccably groomed Tyler Patterson.

“Good morning, world!” he boomed his familiar greeting. “And welcome to the
Sunday Morning Report
! The whole world is abuzz with debate about the
Testimonium Pilatus
, the two-thousand-year-old Roman scroll that was discovered in the island of Capri two weeks ago today. Is it authentic? Does it truly prove that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead? Or is it part of a
da Vinci Code
–style plot on the part of the Church? Here in our studio to discuss the matter is Pastor Joel Wombaker, host of
Blessed and Getting Better
, America’s number one Sunday Christian broadcast, and Dr. David Hubbard, renowned atheist spokesman. Joining us from Italy are Dr. Duncan MacDonald, Catholic priest and a member of the original excavation team, and former Antiquities Board member Maria Tintoretto. Welcome to you all! Now, Father MacDonald, you were one of the original team members. Why don’t you tell us why, in your opinion, the
Testimonium
is absolutely genuine.”

The screen split and Duncan appeared, wearing a khaki shirt with his clerical collar. “Good morning to ye, Tyler!” he said in a sprightly fashion. He enjoyed using his Scottish accent to lull verbal opponents into thinking he would be an easy mark before closing in with a devastating response to their argument. “Now bear in mind, laddie, that the actual chamber was discovered by Giuseppe Rossini and Isabella Sforza. I was not called into the site until the next day. However, the minute I got in there and looked around, it was very obvious that everything in that chamber had been left in place for many, many centuries. The stone dust that had filtered down from the steps overhead had created a two-inch-deep layer over everything, and the only part of it that was disturbed was where Dr. Sforza and Giuseppe had entered the tomb and cleaned the dust from Tiberius’ writing desk—which, I am proud to add, was recovered earlier today from the site of the blast, damaged but with the Tiberius letter still attached and intact!”

Josh smiled at that. So the Tiberius letter had survived! He supposed it was a good thing they had not even tried to detach it from the top of the desk. He refocused his attention on the screen.

“The reliquary where the Tiberius scroll was found was in the very back of the chamber and was the last item removed,” the priest was saying. “Being leaned against the back wall, it was covered with a very thick layer of dust, and had been partly buried in a dirt slide, so that we could not even tell what it was at first. Once we got inside it, we did discover that rats had chewed up most of the contents of the reliquary, which proved to be a bitter disappointment. However, there was a small locked compartment up by the top shelf that looked intact. We actually moved the entire cabinet into the mobile lab before we tried to open it.”

“So how was it the rats were not able to get into this compartment as easily as they had the rest of the cabinet?” asked Patterson.

“Well, I did say it was locked, didn’t I?” said MacDonald. “Fortunately, we had discovered the key, an exquisitely worked item, in Tiberius’ writing desk earlier that week. With a little lubrication we were able to insert the key and get the tumblers to move, and the door sprang open. The compartment had solid wooden walls which extended to the very back of the cabinet. The only way the rats could have gotten in would have been to chew a hole directly behind the compartment, and they had already opened a large hole near the bottom which was all they needed to go in and out. Rats don’t eat papyrus; they just use it to line their nests. Apparently there were enough other documents in the rest of the reliquary to give them all they needed!”

“Pastor Wombaker, what thoughts would you like to add?” Tyler interrupted the priest.

“I think the
Testimonium
is a wonderful discovery, which proves to the world what the Church has been saying all along—that Christianity rests on a firm foundation of reliable history,” said the TV preacher, flashing his famous grin. “All the fellas who have been trying to put Jesus back in His tomb for the last twenty years or so have all got egg on their faces this morning!”

“Indeed?” said Patterson. “Dr. Hubbard, do you have any egg on your face today?”

“No sir,” said the atheist. “I am on a low-cholesterol diet. But seriously, Tyler, this whole thing stinks to the high heavens. I mean, first, as soon as the discovery is made, they fly in a Vatican representative and the son of a rural Evangelical preacher to do the excavation? What kind of science is that?”

“Just as solid as hiring an evolutionist to excavate dinosaur bones!” snapped MacDonald. “Listen here, laddie, I am one of the most experienced handlers of ancient papyrus in the whole world, and young Dr. Parker is almost as good as I am! We were called in for our scientific credentials, not because of our religious beliefs!”

“If anyone believes that, I have some ocean front property in Kentucky I’d like to sell them!” snapped Hubbard. “Now, sir, I don’t doubt that you know your ancient documents and inks pretty well. That would make it pretty easy for you to fake them, now wouldn’t it?”

“You can’t fake C-14 dates, laddie,” replied MacDonald. “Nor can you fake twenty centuries’ worth of atomized stone dust! Every single test we ran on the dust from that chamber showed it was two thousand years old!”

“Dr. Tintoretto, you were a member of the Board of Antiquities that oversaw the excavation. You are also an outspoken critic of this discovery. Can you tell us—were there any irregularities in their field techniques that would have created a window for a hoax of this magnitude?”

“Certainly there were! The excavation director left the site overnight, leaving these two Christian cultists in charge of the excavation during that time. Who knows what they could have gotten up to while she was gone?” the Italian scholar sneered.