Gospel (120 page)

All heads turned to see Reverend Bullins wrapping up his video spot, surrounded now by five Ethiopian children, raising his voice, praising Jeeeeezus, arms outstretched and face heavenward. Farley Jr., standing to his daddy's side, waved at Lucy.

“Sickening,” she breathed.

“I think you'll really get to like Reverend Bullins,” Thorn predicted. “He's a scholar, like yourself, professor. Oh, don't let his fiery preaching put you off, he's a real showman, yes indeed, but first and foremost he's a living Christian example of charity.”

O'Hanrahan scoffed, observing Bullins being filmed before the crates marked
MEDICAL
and
FOODSTUFFS
, holding the Ethiopian boy and girl shoulder-high.

“Those crates were there before the plane landed,” noted O'Hanrahan drily.

“Well, that's just for, you know, the cameras,” said Underwood. “The real stuff is on the plane.”

No one, however, was unloading anything from the plane. Lucy noticed that the one mechanic was refueling the jet.

When she turned back to the ceremonious Reverend Bullins, she saw that filming had stopped and he was crossing the tarmac to greet them. Bullins, all grins, approached and grasped O'Hanrahan's hand: “Greetings and God bless!” he called out, his trademark opening of each Promised Land Bible Hour. “So you're Patrick O'Hanrahan. My my, it's good to meet you at last, following your adventures secondhand these many weeks.”

“Lucy!” called out Farley Jr., running to her side.

“Son,” said Farley Sr., “this must be Miss Lucy, yes ma'am,” he exhaled, forcing a blast of Southern charm. “Why don't you take Miss Lucy and her bags and the professor's … Colonel, would you help us here? Into the plane, that's right. We'll be leaving for New Orleans tonight.”

O'Hanrahan was severe. “Leaving for
where
?”

“For The Promised Land, my friend. It's a thirteen-hour flight to New Orleans, with a fueling stop in Accra, I think they told me. Then we'll drive on from there. Plenty of time, plenty of time.”

Mr. Cheap Suit held out his hand to the professor. “Good to finally meetcha, sir,” he said with a twang. “John Smith, the name.”

Something caught in O'Hanrahan's mind.

“Yes,” said Smith, “I hate to bring it up, but if I could have Mr. Merriwether's credit card back? The one we sent you for your travels?”

O'Hanrahan fumblingly reached into his wallet. John Smith, Treasurer. It
was
his real name.

Lucy asked Farley Jr., “You said you were named after Farley Bullins, the minister.
Why,
Farley, didn't you tell me you were his actual son?”

He shuffled and shrugged. “Well shucks … Didn't want you, you know, to think I was braggin' or nothin'.”

Lucy was speechless.

“You know,” Farley said, “I do the Bible Study segment on the telecast back in Philadelphia, Louisiana, and people treat me different, in stores and shops and stuff, and I just … just wanted you to like me for who I was.”

Before Lucy could protest, Reverend Bullins was taking O'Hanrahan by the arm and leading him away: “Miss Lucy,” the minister said, “we have some refreshment in the lounge on board, if you'd like. I would enjoy a word with Dr. O'Hanrahan here.”

As the others scattered, Reverend Bullins put his arm around O'Hanrahan's shoulder, man to man. “Good to meet you at last, sir. I consider it a blessing, a blessing indeed. A scholar of your reputation. I tried to find out about you. I went to the library to check out your books, but it doesn't seem you've written any, heh heh heh … You're like me! You're a talker. A preacher. And a helluva translator, I understand. The best. Oh, we shopped around and checked out lots of alternates, like your friend Philip Beaufoix at American University in Cairo, but you're the man for the job.”

“What job?”

“Translating this antigospel.” Here Bullins paused, savoring the details deliciously. “The second our scouts heard tell of a First-Century gospel on the market, well, you can bet we naturally wanted to get our hands on it! Bob Jones, Oral Roberts—had to beat 'em to the punch! I am sure you will bear out our contention that the
Gospel of Matthias
is the False Prophecy that is foretold. The tool of Antichrist himself, and his minion, the False Prophet. We assume, of course, the False Prophet will be the pope, but there's still room to move on this thing. We'll know better when more of the signs manifest themselves.”

O'Hanrahan tried to be reasonable with the man. “Look, Reverend, heretical gospels have come to light before. Several this century. What makes this scroll the False Prophecy of
Revelations
?”

“What else could it be? The fathers of the Church condemned the Matthias gospel as heretical and dangerous. You're telling me it's a coincidence that 1900 years pass by and then now, just now, when so many of the signs are in place, when Babylon is on the ascendancy and the Jews have returned to Israel, that
just now
this wicked manuscript returns to us. Oh no, Dr. O'Hanrahan—this is Satan's final ploy, his program for the minds of the faithless!”

It took all of his courage for O'Hanrahan to utter fearfully, “And you want to destroy this gospel?”

Reverend Bullins took a step back from the professor, staring at him oddly as if trying to recognize a stranger. And he said with an unnerving quiet: “No. On the contrary. Would I stand in the way of the Coming of Jesus?” The reverend seemed strained with emotion: “Oh it will be a horrible thing, really it will. To see so many of my own congregation perhaps, my own extended family, turn away, fall away into doubt and apostasy. But many will turn away before the Rapture. So many…” Reverend Bullins was genuinely moved by their plight: “… so many otherwise good people, left behind. Left to the Tribulations.”

Reverend Bullins clutched at O'Hanrahan's arm:

“
Daniel
12:4:
For these words are concealed and sealed up until the End Time.
Also it says
that those who have insight will understand.
In the End Times, sir, the world is to be besieged with the lies of Antichrist.
Second Thessalonians,
you'll recall.
Therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in error.
The great False Prophecy, the Ultimate Lie of the End Times, will be written from within the Church, apparently by one of the very apostles of Christ.”

“The very apostles?”

“Second Corinthians
11:13, the deceivers at the end of the world are
false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
And that's what we've got here, isn't it? The antigospel banned by the early fathers, supposedly by Matthias, an apostle of Christ himself! Oh so long I wondered how these particular prophecies would come to pass, but then I heard from my friend Charles Merriwether that his father once owned such a heretical scroll, and that this heretical scroll had now found its way to the black market, purported to be by one of the Twelve! Well, it couldn't very well be anything else! I realized that this was
my
mission. My little humble contribution to the preparing of The Way.” Bullins looked off distantly at the fringe of forest near the runway.

“What with the impending end of the world, Reverend,” said O'Hanrahan drily, “do you think there's time for me to translate the … this False Prophecy?”

“About nine more years,” he said confidently. “This skirmish is merely the drawing of battle lines. Saddam will emerge from this coming conflict to fight another day.”

“If we go to war, Reverend,” laughed O'Hanrahan at the absurdity, “I sincerely doubt anyone's going to do anything as idiotic as leave Saddam Hussein alive!”

“He must plague Israel,
Revelations
suggests, for three and a half years, professor. You know that! 1993, 1994, somewhere in there he will make his most destructive move on Israel—either he or his successor in the Moslem world. We're not sure on that.” Then Bullins gave O'Hanrahan a friendly press on his shoulder. “Come with us to The Promised Land and you'll have all the help you can use to translate this.”

O'Hanrahan was somehow relieved. Bullins wasn't going to burn it. In fact, he was appallingly sincere. Jesus, thought O'Hanrahan, Gorbachev, the Mark of Cain, Saddam Hussein on the warpath, Israel vulnerable—what if he's actually correct about … Nahhhh.

“I have your cooperation, professor?” Bullins asked.

As O'Hanrahan smiled noncommittally, he thought: it has happened. The last chapter was reunited now with the first six. What do you know? The
Gospel of Matthias
may actually get translated and published! O'Hanrahan had never seriously let the thought settle for a moment in his brain: translated by
me.
Yes, Lucy was right, I'm a dabbler, a messer, a mucker-about. But I will rise up! I will meet this challenge!

(So you got what you wanted.)

Yes, Lord, but did you know I was immortal and indestructible as long as I kept pursuing that next place, that next monastery! For you see, Holy Spirit, I knew it was my destiny to translate it. Therefore, as long as it eluded me I remained alive. And now a new worry: will I live long enough to finish this translation?

(That's up to you.)

O'Hanrahan stared at the TPL plane and the camera crews scrambling about the scene taking pictures, first Farley Jr. holding up a milk bottle, then his mother Lila Mae attempting to read off the cue cards. She got carried away and began crying, running her thick mascara.

“For God's sake,” said Reverend Bullins impatiently with a false smile, “Lila, read what's on the goddam card and let's get the show on the road.”

A makeup girl in the uniform blue TPL jogging suit rushed in to repair the facial damage.

“When I think,” said Lila Mae, fighting tears, “of all the hungry people in Ethiopia, it just makes me wanna bawl, Farley, just cry my eyes out! But there is a worse hunger. The people that don't know Jesus, Jesus Christ…” She closed her eyes as more tears streaked a black mascara trail down her lacquered cheek.

Reverend Bullins snorted disapproval, and turned to O'Hanrahan with a male-complicitous smile: women, what can you do with 'em? “All right, honey,” he conceded. “Let's forget it. We'll do it back in Philadelphia—”

“But I was witnessing, Farley,” she said, wiping her eyes and allowing herself to be hugged by her husband. “I can't do anything right,” she said, taking a first step on the gangway.

“Nawww, honey. You're just a bit tired, that's all.”

O'Hanrahan, amusingly, was the last person to board the plane. Two Ethiopian airport mechanics—the fathers, O'Hanrahan surmised, of the prop children used in the TPL video—stood at the gangway platform ready to roll it away as soon as he got on board. Colonel Westin and Agent Thorn waved farewell beside their limousine.

(A chance to make a run for it.)

Not anymore. No more running. Poor Ethiopia, he thought, looking back in the direction of downtown Addis, the African utopia turned hellhole. I should keep you, Ethiopia, in my prayers.

(We would like to hear some of those prayers, Patrick.)

But O'Hanrahan would not pray. Not this close to finding out the true answers. When he knew what Matthias had to tell him he would pray or not pray—but not until!

7

But my scribe Tesmegan is eager for his own appearance in this important history, so let us proceed on this last day of dictation, to Meroe, this mysterious African kingdom, so beautiful and welcoming, so unpredictable and …

(Ah, but here Tesmegan is frowning, fearing my bad opinion of him and his people. I shall say what I wish, my boy—yes, yes, write down all I have said.)

2.
In Elephantine, that temple-sodden island of paganism stubbornly rising out of the Nile after the Cataracts, I mingled uneasily with those who call themselves Sons of Abraham, though I question their Jewish pedigree. In one home I heard a ritual rejoicing that the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed, a vengeance allowed by God for the centuries of persecution and arrogance Jerusalem had come to represent for the Elephantinians.

In this village of seething ignorance, I found the merchant that Duldul ibn-Waswasah would have me find—they were twins in mischief and double-dealing, I could tell in a moment. But what Arabians are anything else?

3.
With my trade documents delivered and my mission completed, I asked the locals about the small Nazirene commune established by the Disciple Matthew in his evangelistic travels in these parts.
1
The Nazirene converts, I learned, had died, moved, or converted back to the odd, paganish Judaism that inhabits the island—so that concludes that proud episode!

It takes God Himself, apparently, to establish a new church, and here with community after community failing or falling into heresy, I realized that nothing but an act of the Most High could conspire to make the Nazirene Church survive another twenty years.

4.
The marketmaster was sympathetic as I told him the story of the slave Benjamin and his unexplained wealth. He was a kind man who was not opinionated upon religions, having seen so many flow up and down the Nile.

He said to me: “This Matthew fellow banished a number of good people from this island for one reason or another. He finally lost his will to fight the heretics, as he called them, and moved on himself though I know not where. But not before banishing the person I believe you seek to the realms of Cush.
2
A rich man you say?”

I discussed what I knew of Benjamin, former slave of Joseph, and the marketmaster nodded and said with great certainty that his name was not Benjamin but Belshazzar, like the king. (Indeed, it was common in Joseph's generation to rename slaves after former overlords of Israel, as an ironic reversal of fates—I was much encouraged by this!)