The phone rang on the bedside table. “Leo, are you ready?” It was the voice of Father Morelli.
“Give me an hour, Anthony.”
“OK, my friend, but no longer. I’m starving.” Leo hung up and smiled as he thought of his free-spirited friend speeding around Rome in his new sports car. He could afford it, of course. The man had a knack for the stock market, and although it was rumored that Father Morelli had accumulated a small fortune, Leo knew that most of his money went to charity. In addition to the BMW, the priest owned a beautiful seventeenth-century country estate south of Rome, where he planned to retire someday and save the church the expense of supporting him in his old age.
As the head of the Vatican’s department of archaeology, Morelli spent the majority of his time on official church business, so despite the fact that he owned a large house in the country, his main residence was a spartan apartment inside Vatican City. Since all priests within the Jesuit clan took vows of poverty, a Jesuit who drove an expensive car and possessed a magnificent house might have been looked upon with disapproving eyes, but since Morelli was also a source of so much money for the Church, these two luxuries were overlooked.
The product of an Italian American father and an Irish-born mother from the Bronx, most people thought Morelli looked more Irish than Italian. Dark red hair framed his brown eyes and ruddy cheeks, and a slight paunch gave substance to his medium frame. Leo was always amused by the surprised looks on the local’s faces when the Anglo-looking priest spoke Italian.
Leo showered and changed into a light-blue polo shirt and gray slacks. They would be going to a favorite restaurant this evening, catching up on old news and probably drinking a little too much. He didn’t want to wear “the uniform.”
Even though the wine and beauty of Rome had softened his mood, he felt a vague twinge of apprehension. The contents of Father Morelli’s file continued to fill his mind with disturbing images. Why did this information, as frightening and controversial as it was, need to be kept from official prying eyes? The priest looked down on the street below as Father Anthony’s bright red car pulled up to the hotel entrance. Leo would have his answers tonight. No more stalling from the good Father Morelli.
It was still drizzling outside when Leo bounded down the steps of the hotel and squeezed into the passenger seat. “Why didn’t you buy the large sedan?”
“Not as much fun. Anyway, I’m usually by myself, and this car is perfect for those narrow, twisting roads when I drive to my house in the country.” Father Morelli stepped on the gas and spun the tires as he left the hotel and raced through the narrow streets, missing parked cars by inches.
Leo tightened his seatbelt. “You should have been a Grand Prix driver.”
“I used to daydream about being a racecar driver when we were in seminary. I do some of my best praying when I drive this car to the Italian Grand Prix near Milan every year.”
“What a coincidence,” Leo said. “I also pray when you drive.”
The sight of an Italian police motorcycle in the rearview mirror prompted Morelli to drop his speed for the remainder of their drive to the center of the city.
Civitas was a small restaurant located across the river Tiber on a side street close to the Spanish Steps. The rain had ceased, so the two priests had decided to take a table outside, where they were finishing off their first course of crostini di polenta con pure di fungi porcini e tarufo, polenta squares with a puree of porcini and truffles. This would be followed by rabbit roasted with tomatoes, onions, and garlic and accompanied by a dark, rich Morellino di Scansano wine.
A warm breeze ruffled the white tablecloth as Leo looked across at Morelli and decided that his friend had stalled enough. “So, Anthony, care to let me in on what all this is about? The subject matter in that folder you sent me was a tad disturbing, especially coming from someone as pragmatic as you.
“Got your attention, didn’t it, Father.”
“That’s an understatement. A hidden code in the Bible … a secret chapel connected to the end of days as prophesized in the Book of Revelation. Do you seriously believe any of this?”
“I’m now convinced of it, Leo.” Morelli passed the glass of wine beneath his nose, inhaling the aroma as he tried to think of where to begin with this fellow Jesuit he had known for most of his adult life. “Do you know of my work with Professor Lev Wasserman?”
Leo had to think for a moment. “The famous mathematician in Jerusalem?”
“Yes. He’s also one of the world’s leading experts in group theory, a field of mathematics that underlies quantum physics. A few years ago, he was reading about the Genius of Vilna, an eighteenth-century Jewish sage in Lithuania who predicted 9/11 to the day and spoke about the possibility of a code being embedded within the Torah. Lev became fascinated with the idea and learned that, throughout history, many Bible scholars had been trying to prove that there was a secret code in the Old Testament. He convinced a group of scientists at the university in Jerusalem that they could find it using modern code breaking methods, and to their surprise, they did. Their work has been replicated by the code breakers at the National Security Administration in the United States, using their most powerful computers, and Lev Wasserman’s paper on the subject has passed academic peer review and has been published in leading scientific journals.”
“He’s Jewish, isn’t he? I mean, how did a Catholic priest become involved in all of this? Why not a rabbi?”
“He was born Jewish but converted to Christianity several years ago, before his American wife died. Believe it or not, Lev’s also an archaeologist, and our paths have crossed many times over the years on various projects. He invited me to spend all of last summer with his team in Israel as their resident expert on biblical prophecy.”
“Biblical prophecy? Is that what all of this is about? You think this code in the Bible has the power to predict the future?”
“It’s complicated,” Morelli said. He poured some more wine into Leo’s glass. “Lev said the first evidence of the encoding was discovered in the Pentateuch, the original five books of the Old Testament, otherwise known as the Torah. The code only exists in Hebrew, because that was the original language of the Bible as it was first written. Evidently, sixty years ago, a rabbi from Eastern Europe noticed that, if he skipped fifty letters and then another fifty and then another fifty, the word Torah was spelled out at the beginning of the Book of Genesis. He then used that same skip sequence again and spelled out the word Torah in the Book of Exodus. To his amazement, the word Torah was also embedded at the beginning of the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.”
“That’s interesting, Anthony, but even in biblical times it would have been relatively easy to embed a word in the text of any written work, and it doesn’t predict the future.”
“That’s what most people thought until modern technology came along. Lev and his team found additional hidden messages by using computers to alter the sequencing and then scanning the pages both horizontally and vertically, like a crossword puzzle. That’s when they found words grouped together on the same page that mentioned historical events that occurred after the Bible was written. For instance, words like airplane and Wright brothers would appear together with sentences like they will fly and first flight at Kitty Hawk.”
Leo stared across the table at Morelli and breathed in the fresh air washed clean by the recent rain. As a college professor, why hadn’t he heard about any of this before? The whole subject smacked of pop religion.