Did I lose more blood than I realized? Am I so light-headed that I’m imagining things?
The baby became quiet again. But Kagan’s muscles didn’t relax.
“ The rest of the story might not be suitable for Christmas Eve,” Kagan said. Hoping to keep the boy intrigued, he added, “Parts of it are what Cole would call gross.”
“ Then I want to hear it,” the boy insisted.
Kagan licked his dry lips. “Okay, but don’t say you weren’t warned.
“ The Magi felt overwhelmed by what the shepherds and Mary had told them. The startling similarities to the story they themselves had told Herod brought them to an extraordinary decision. They violated a primary rule of spy craft and exposed their mission, confessing to Mary that they were foreign operatives pretending to work for Herod.
“‘ We wanted to drive him insane searching for an imaginary newborn king of the Jews,’ they explained. ‘But now we find that the story we invented is true. You can’t stay here. Soon Herod will wonder why we haven’t reported to him. If he learns about your baby from another source, his soldiers will come here and kill you all.’
“ What happened next proves that Mary and the shepherds weren’t part of a rebel scheme. If they’d been rebels, they’d have realized that the Magi were on their side. They’d have admitted they were rebels and tried to join forces with the Magi to weaken Herod.
“ But they didn’t. Instead the two groups separated and fled. The Magi chose a new route eastward toward home and acted as decoys. Meanwhile, Joseph hurried with Mary and Jesus southwest toward Egypt. He claimed that he’d had another dream, this one urging him to take his family and run. A spy would argue that the dream was a cover story to protect the Magi, in case Joseph was caught and questioned. It was believable because, as I mentioned, the house of David-to which Joseph belonged-had a tradition of respecting dreams and acting on them. For the same reason, the Magi claimed that they too had experienced a dream that urged them to return home. If questioned, they could maintain that they weren’t being disloyal to Herod but were simply responding to the same dictates of their faith that had told them to follow the star.
“ Whether Herod would have believed either of these stories is debatable. But at least they had a backup plan.
“ Matthew’s gospel notes that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fled by night, something the Magi would have urged them to do, teaching them how to cross the desert in the darkness. The Magi themselves disappear at this point, as good spies should. But the man who told me this version of the Christmas story believed that the Magi eventually rejoined Jesus,
Mary, and Joseph in Egypt, teaching them the tricks of tradecraft, such as how to spot signs that they were under surveillance, how to recruit operatives-or what the gospels call disciples-and how to detect double agents.
“ The last part makes me certain that Jesus knew Judas would betray him. Indeed, perhaps Jesus ordered Judas to betray him in order to fulfill a prophecy. The spy world is a complicated place. But this is a Christmas story, not an Easter one.”
Cole interrupted him. “You said you had a theory about why Joseph wasn’t with Mary when the Magi talked to her.”
“ Yes. Given his immense responsibility, Joseph became more a protective agent than a husband and father. While the Magi spoke with Mary, Joseph watched the street outside, on guard against Herod’s soldiers. In the future, he would spend increasingly less time with Mary and Jesus because he was always arranging for their security. Like the Magi, he soon disappears from the gospels completely, as a good security officer should. Nowhere in the gospels is he quoted directly. He hovers invisibly in the background.”
“ But you said there were gross parts,” Cole objected.
“ Several. They all involve Herod. Contrary to what the Magi hoped, he didn’t chase the phantom accounts that popped up here and there all over the country. His erratic behavior didn’t destabilize Israel. Instead he did something so disturbing that no one could have predicted it, even taking into account his past actions.
“ When Herod realized he’d been tricked, his fury prompted him to send his men to Bethlehem and the other villages in that area. The soldiers obeyed his orders and slaughtered every male child who was two years old or less. Herod couldn’t be certain when exactly the new king had been born. By choosing the wide margin of two years, he felt certain he’d eliminated the threat.”
“ Every boy who was two years old or less?” Cole sounded shocked, yet fascinated. “I heard about that, but I never realized… How many boys did he kill?”
“ Perhaps as many as a hundred. Tradition says it was a far greater number, but the population of the area that included Bethlehem wasn’t large enough for there to be thousands of children. Even so, the mass murder of a hundred children would have felt like thousands. The effect on the region was catastrophic.
“ If a revolution was indeed being planned, this slaughter of children was so startling that now no one dared move against Herod. How can you fight someone so psychotic that, in his will, he had made arrangements for several hundred men to have their throats slit at his funeral? He gave that order because he wanted tears to be shed at his death. It didn’t matter if the tears were for him or for the slaughtered men. All he cared about was that his subjects would be grief-stricken.
“ So, from one point of view, the Magi’s plan went terribly wrong. They hoped to destabilize Herod’s government, and instead they caused a slaughter. But from another point of view, that mass murder had an unintentional positive effect. By killing every other male child around Bethlehem, Herod insured that the baby Jesus was the only surviving child born when and where the king of peace was prophesied to appear. The census turned out to be crucial. It not only brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem to fulfill the prophecy, but it also provided written proof that Jesus was born there.
“ As for Herod… After the children were slaughtered, a mysterious illness overcame him. An eyewitness reported that the king felt consumed with fire. He convulsed. His legs swelled with water. His bowels developed ulcers. His penis rotted and developed worms.”
“ Worms on his… ewww, gross,” Cole said.
“ I warned you. The historical records say that the king breathed with violent quickness, exuding a terrible odor. His agony lasted for a long time, which I confess gives me satisfaction. After he finally died, the officials in charge of his funeral refused to obey his edict, so no men were murdered when he was buried.”
“ But what killed him?” the boy asked.
“ One theory is that he had chronic kidney disease. Another says he had a raging type of skin cancer. My own belief is that he suffered from what’s called the flesh-eating disease. Basically, he was devoured by his own bacteria. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person. His evil consumed him.
“ But what interests me is, how did it happen to him? Was it bad luck? Was it God’s will? Or do you suppose a spy had something to do with it, touching Herod with a contaminated cloth that caused the disease? We’ll never know. When an espionage mission is successful, we never realize what was actually involved. But I like to think Herod was assassinated with what we now refer to as a biological weapon.”
Kagan paused.
“ And that’s the spy’s version of Christmas.”
Suddenly the baby cried out.
One moment, it was silent. The next, it wailed as if struck by all the pain and fear in the world, and this time, Kagan was absolutely sure.
“ It’s beginning,” he said.
Morrell, David
The Spy Who Came for Christmas
Part Four
The Child of Peace
Morrell, David
The Spy Who Came for Christmas
“ COLE, GET BEHIND the television cabinet! Meredith, take the baby into the laundry room!”