‘Oh, oh, oh! What impatience, Reverend Father Hans Matthaus Schmidt, or do you prefer your Jesuit name, Aloysius?’
The voice made Adolph and Schmidt uncomfortable.
‘My own name doesn’t matter. You can call me JC.’
‘Pope Luciani’s assassin,’ Schmidt whispered to Adolph.
‘Men are the most predictable creatures in existence,’ JC continued over Barry’s speakerphone. They don’t understand each other, they don’t share, they don’t like to lose. I’m including myself. I’m the same.’
‘Is there some point to this conversation?’ Adolph asked.
‘I’ve decided neither one of you will get the parchments. I shall be their faithful guardian.’
‘That’s not what we agreed,’ William put in, visibly discouraged.
‘We agreed to recover the parchments. I never said I’d give them to you.’
‘That was implicit,’ William argued.
‘I can be slow to understand,’ JC said ironically.
Adolph looked at Tarcisio furiously. ‘Do you see what happens when you get involved with criminals? The pope’s assassin, for the love of God. What were you thinking?’
‘I must add allegedly to your name-calling,’ JC corrected him. ‘In any case, I want you to lower your guns and go your separate ways.’
Nicolas laughed; so Schmidt did.
‘And we should just because you say so?’ Schmidt asked.
‘I’ll excuse the reverend father because he’s never heard of me. But I won’t repeat my order to lower your guns,’ JC declared.
The impasse and tension remained: Nicolas with two guns pointed at Sarah and Jacopo, Aris covering Schmidt and Adolph, Rafael and Barry pointing their guns away.
‘Kill them,’ Adolph ordered Nicolas.
‘Stay calm.’ Rafael tried to aim in Sarah’s direction to see if he could hit Nicolas, but Nicolas was shielded by the two of them. It would be a difficult shot.
Sarah closed her eyes in panic.
‘Oh, my God!’ Jacopo stammered, terrified.
‘Kill them,’ Adolph said again, without a trace of emotion.
Two shots echoed through the immense structure of the church. Nicolas was thrown forward, arms wide, pushing Jacopo and Sarah aside with the impact of the bullets between his shoulders.
Adolph looked around, but saw no one. The CIA men and Rafael did the same. Nothing, no one.
A chuckle echoed over Barry’s cell phone.
‘If you disobey me again, Adolph, it’ll be your head next time,’ JC warned.
The superior general was livid. Schmidt was sweating profusely. Rafael smiled to himself. Sarah was white as chalk, crouched on the cold floor. Jacopo was fleeing through the nave toward the exit.
The doors suddenly opened to admit a dozen agents under Daniel’s orders. Jacopo passed them without stopping. No one cared about the cripple who went running after Jacopo.
‘Both of your sides are defending a lie,’ JC offered. ‘You’re all very far from the truth. If you knew… if you knew. You can kill yourselves some other day, not today, with my people involved. Remember one thing. I see and hear everything.’ He disconnected the call.
Adolph suddenly left in the direction of the sacristy, muttering imperceptible curses, frustrated profanities, with Schmidt at his heels. Nicolas dragged himself along painfully, bleeding from both shoulders.
Rafael went to Sarah and hugged her. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I think so,’ she murmured.
Daniel came up to them. ‘How are you?’
‘It’s over for now,’ Rafael said. ‘We need to clean this up,’ he said, pointing at the bodies on the floor.
‘I’ll have it taken care of,’ he assured him, approaching Tarcisio and William to provide security for them. Then he prostrated himself before the secretary and cried, ‘Pardon my failure, Your Eminence.’
Tarcisio placed his hand on Daniel’s head. ‘You’re not guilty at all. You couldn’t have done anything, Daniel. The Lord’s plans are unknowable. Get up, my son.’
Barry extended his hand to Rafael. ‘The old man is tough.’
They shook hands. ‘Thanks, Barry.’
Barry looked at his watch. ‘Perhaps there’s still time to dine at Memmo.’
‘Okay,’ Rafael accepted. ‘Just let me see if…’ He looked in Sarah’s direction, but she wasn’t where he’d left her.
He caught a glimpse of her in the middle of the nave, looking at a trompe l’oeil fresco that created the illusion of a nonexistent cupola, an ingenious masterpiece by Andrea Pozzo. He ran over to her.
‘You made things real easy,’ she was shouting upward, red in the face. ‘Real easy.’
Rafael had never seen her like this; she was beside herself.
‘I could have died, JC. You played with my life,’ she continued to shout furiously at no one.
A coughing attack made her double over. She raised a closed hand to her mouth to stop the coughing. Rafael ran to help her.
‘Are you all right, Sarah?’ He was worried.
She coughed a little more and then calmed down.
‘Do you feel better?’ he wanted to know.
‘It’s over, thanks. Something caught in my throat.’
Rafael shook his head and looked at her hand.
Sarah followed his glance and understood. Her hand was full of blood.
69
It was like a rebirth.
When Myriam saw her son coming down the steps from the plane at Heathrow, a little after midnight, thin, rumpled, with a knapsack on his back, it was as if she’d given birth to him a second time. Her tears flowed uncontrollably as little Ben embraced her, crying and smiling, too, like a newborn. His father also hugged him tightly, feeling as if he’d recovered a part of himself he thought he’d lost forever. The entire nightmare had vanished with his son’s smile and the opportunity to touch, embrace, and caress. Everything was good.
‘You can never go out again without my permission, son,’ Myriam said with a voice still heavy with emotion.
‘I need a vacation, Dad,’ Ben said with a smile.
‘Of course, Ben. I’ll take care of everything.’
They got into the backseat of the car. Myriam gave both of them an unhappy look. ‘You’re going to delegate authority, Ben. All three of us are going on vacation, as a family.’
‘Please, not another cruise,’ Ben Isaac objected.
‘We will not be taking another cruise. I promise.’
‘Take us home, Joseph,’ Ben Isaac told the driver.
Having his son safe and sound was worth any price, all the money he had… any parchment.
They looked at the London streets as if seeing them for the first time. The long lines of traffic didn’t matter, nor did taking more than an hour to get home. The lights in the dark streets were comforting. The most important thing was that they were all together. They were a family again, or for the first time.
Myriam wanted everything to last forever. Her husband, her son, together, united, the Isaacs.
‘I’m going to call Dr. Forster to see if you’re all right,’ Myriam advised when they arrived at the house.
‘That’s not necessary, Mother. I’m fine.’
‘Your mother’s right. We want to make sure,’ Ben Isaac admonished him. ‘Do you want me to call a psychologist?’
The experience could have been traumatizing.
‘Not for now,’ the young man declined. ‘Let’s see how things go and decide later, okay?’
He couldn’t lie to himself. It hadn’t been a walk in the park. He’d been tortured, and had seen an innocent person killed in front of him. That couldn’t be erased, wiped from his memory like a computer hard drive.
‘That seems sensible to me,’ his father agreed. ‘What about you, Myr?’
His mother held his face in her hands and looked at him directly. ‘Don’t hold things in. That does no one any good. If you need help, we’re here.’
Little Ben didn’t say yes or no. The car parked at the door of the large house inside the Isaac property.
‘I’m going to take a long shower and go to bed,’ the young man declared as soon as he got out of the car. Coming home was a wonderful feeling.
‘That sounds like an excellent idea,’ his father said jovially.
‘Ah!’ Little Ben remembered something, opening his pack and taking out a package for his father.
‘What’s this?’ The older man asked curiously.
‘Your friend sent you this. He said you should guard it in the vault, and it couldn’t be in better hands.’
Ben Isaac had no idea what his son was talking about.
‘You’ve never mentioned him,’ little Ben observed.
‘Who?’ his father asked.
‘JC.’
‘Let’s go, darling,’ Myriam called, hugging her son. ‘Go take your shower and rest.’
She walked her son to the door and stopped to look at Ben Isaac.
‘Are you coming?’
‘In a minute,’ he replied.
He walked to the vault with the package in his hand. It should contain a large bound book inside.
He descended the twenty steps and walked to the solid door. He was nervous. Who was this JC, whom both his son and Sarah mentioned?
He entered the code to open the door: KHRISTOS.
He placed his eyes in front of the screen and a blue light read his retina. Entry authorized.
He entered a cold chamber as soon as the heavy door opened. He didn’t have the courage to look at the showcases. He felt sad about not being able to look at the written words of the parchments again.
He turned in front of the door to unwrap the package his son had given him. Inside was a book protected by a plastic bag with a hermetic seal. There was a Post-it attached. He read the message.
Nothing has changed, except only you and I know, and I’ve already forgotten.
He opened the seal and took the book out very carefully. He was completely perplexed. Nothing has changed?
The cover revealed nothing, but the first page said it all.
The History of Jesus, the Nazarite.
The entire text was written in Hebrew.
Tears ran down his face. The experience sent waves of anxiety through him.
He turned some of the pages, yellowed with time, of the ancient transcription. The story of Jesus according to Mathew, John, Simon Kepha, Judas Tome, Phillip, Bar Talmay, Myriam. It was all there, a testimony from those days.
He would guard it in one of the showcases, since there was room now. He went over and looked at the displays, astonished. There, immune to the passage of time, were the Gospel of Jesus and the inscription placing Jesus in Rome in A.D. 45. How could that be? Only one of the showcases was empty, the one containing the Status Quo agreements of 1960 and 1985.
He read the Post-it over again and smiled incredulously. Nothing has changed, except only you and I know, and I’ve already forgotten.
Who was this new unknown friend, known by two letters that could mean nothing? He glanced at the inscription and the Gospel of Jesus again and locked the new item very carefully in the empty showcase.
He returned to the heavy door and looked at the three showcases. He took a deep breath and turned his back. The world always sets things right.