‘How did you know I wouldn’t tell others? About the concilium?’
‘Because you needed to keep it secret until you had found what we seek. I told you that others were searching for it, that you were in grave danger. And I was telling the truth. I saw through you, Dr Howard, when you were sitting in front of me in Rome, beside the tomb of St Paul. I took you into my confidence, and you thought you saw something sympathetic, something kindred. But you cannot escape the concilium. We will always prevail.’
‘You mean you can’t escape it,’ Jack said, playing for time. ‘You’re wrong. I saw through you. You weren’t just telling us the truth about the concilium, you were telling us what you really felt. You needed to confess, even though you were living a lie. You wanted to break free, but you didn’t have the strength.’
‘Blasphemy,’ the man spat out, his voice quavering. ‘I could never break my covenant. That is my strength.’
‘Do you really think St Paul would have wanted all this?’ Jack said.
‘St Paul was our founder,’ the man replied.
‘Really?’ Jack said. ‘I thought it was Constantine the Great. You told us yourself. The concilium was re-created as his secret council of war.’
‘He foresaw the battles we have had to fight, the sacrifices we have had to make. In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti. Our war is the war of all humanity. The devil is omnipresent.’
‘Only in your mind,’ Jack said. ‘The concilium sought out dissent, and created fire. Self-fulfilling, and self-consuming. ’
‘I think not, Dr Howard,’ the man said icily.
‘You won’t get far with these thugs as henchmen.’
‘There are plenty more where he came from.’ The man gestured into the shadows behind him. ‘Our extended family, as I said.’
‘Family? And how does your family treat their relatives? Elizabeth d’ Agostino was a friend of mine.’
‘Ah, Elizabeth. She was my pupil, I drew her in, but when the time came she lacked the strength to pledge the covenant. It is always honour that has ruled in her family, and we have always found that most convenient. Their honour was to serve us, and she betrayed them. We know she tried to warn you, when you were in Herculaneum. Even then she knew her fate.’
‘What have you done to her?’
‘The path will be cleansed. We will prevail.’
Jack felt anger well up inside him, but knew he had to keep his cool. ‘If I were you, I’d be careful who I trust,’ he said, his voice level. ‘They’re drug-runners now, not servants of the Lord. One day they’ll come for you.’
‘Blasphemy,’ the man hissed again. ‘They have been our faithful servants always. Nothing has changed, and nothing will change.’
‘Wrong again,’ Jack said. ‘Others will seek you out, for what you have done. Once the world knows, the weight of your own history will destroy you.’
‘Nobody will know. We never leave a trail.’ The man gestured into the darkness beside him. ‘There are eleven water cisterns dug deep into the rock below this place. You are already inside your own tomb.’ He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and held it up. ‘When we are finished here, I will go outside and call Naples. By the end of today, your colleagues will all be gone. None of this will ever have happened.’
Jack glanced at his watch. Two minutes. ‘The smell of death,’ he said. ‘You can’t hide the smell of death.’ He looked at Costas, who was suddenly staring at him, and seemed to have stopped breathing.
‘Everything here smells of death,’ the man sneered. ‘Have you ever been to the Mount of Olives? That sickly-sweet smell is everywhere. And you won’t be the first. From Pelagius onwards, others have brought their delusions here, and gone no further. We will not let blasphemy visit the tomb of Christ, our Lord.’
‘You believe that? That he was buried here?’ Jack said.
‘This was the place of the resurrection. We know little of Jesus the man.’
‘That’s your trouble.’
‘Enough of this,’ the man said, his voice suddenly shrill. ‘You will give us what you have found. It makes no difference whether your companions die now or over your dead body.’ He clicked his fingers into the shadows, and Costas and Helena suddenly lurched out, the man with the silenced pistol behind them. ‘Give it to me now, and the end will be quick.’
Jack took a deep breath, reached into his bag and felt around, deliberately smearing what he was searching for with the wet grime that was still on his hands from the tunnel. He pulled the object out, walked forward and placed it on the altar, beside the statue of the woman with the cross. He stepped back. Costas and Helena both stared at it, transfixed, but said nothing. It was the bronze cylinder from the tomb in London, the cylinder Claudius had put there. Jack had carried it with him to California and then to Jerusalem, convinced that somewhere along the line it still had a role to play. The man had stepped back into the shadows as Jack approached, but now reached over and snatched the cylinder, holding it at arm’s length behind his shoulder, shielding himself from it. ‘It is as it should be,’ he whispered. ‘The will of the concilium is done.’
Jack glanced at his watch. Zero hour. He pointed at the cylinder. ‘You might want to check inside,’ he said quietly.
‘I will not gaze upon blasphemy,’ the man said, his voice contorted. ‘It is a falsehood, created by that fool Claudius. A falsehood that has deluded all who have sought it. I will burn it and crush it and throw it into your tomb. You can cherish your treasure in oblivion.’ He clicked his fingers, and Costas was pushed towards a dark hole in the floor beside him, the barrel of the pistol in the nape of his neck.
Jack threw himself forward and held his hands up. ‘Wait!’ he exclaimed. ‘There’s something else you should see.’ He reached towards the flap of his bag. The pistol swung abruptly towards his head. He stopped his hand in mid-air. ‘It’s just a computer.’ Nobody moved, and there was silence. Jack cautiously withdrew a palm-sized laptop from his bag. The gun was still trained on him. He walked slowly back and set the laptop on the altar in front of the statue, flipping the lid open. He had already switched it on when he was fumbling in his bag. The screen showed the IMU logo, with a headline and three paragraphs of text beneath. ‘I set up this page an hour ago, when we were on the roof of the Holy Sepulchre. We used Helena’s wireless connection to e-mail it to our press agency contact here. Morgan has taken a disc with the full text in person to the agency. I wrote it during our flight from Los Angeles.’ He tapped a key to enlarge the text. The banner headline was now splashed across the top of the screen: THE LAST GOSPEL? LOST TOMB REVEALED
Jack turned to the man in the shadows. ‘You see?’ he said coldly, his temper barely in control. ‘I too have friends. Willing brethren, as you would say. As we speak, this story is being syndicated around the world. I arranged for the press release at nineteen hundred hours, three minutes ago. The whole story. My name, your name. This place. Two thousand years of terrorism and murder. Everything you so helpfully told us about the concilium.’
The man said nothing, and then there was a sneering laugh. ‘You don’t even know my name.’
‘Wrong again,’ Jack replied. ‘That’s one thing Elizabeth did manage to say to me, Cardinal Ritter.’
The man twisted in rage and tripped backwards, scrabbling for the wall. At that moment there was a clatter and a blinding light from the stairway at the entrance to the chapel. Everything suddenly happened at once. Costas ducked forward, then swung his left shoulder back at the figure behind him, catching him in the stomach and sending him sprawling. There were shouts in Hebrew, and two uniformed figures advanced out of the light with M4 carbines trained ahead. One of them pulled the gag out of Costas’ mouth and slashed his wrist tie. Costas sneezed violently, then lurched over to Jack, breathing hard. ‘That came in handy,’ he panted, nodding at the bronze cylinder. Helena stumbled over to help Costas.
Jack looked back to the light, and could see Ben standing guard at the entrance to the room, an Israeli police inspector and Morgan alongside. He reached out and held Costas by the shoulders. ‘Thank Christ for that,’ he said, suddenly exhausted. He gave Costas a tired smile, then gestured at the bronze cylinder. ‘And now you know. I haven’t become a treasure-hunter after all. I only loot artefacts if there’s something bigger at stake.’