Project J (31 page)

Chapter 54:
 
Aftermath

“I should have done something,” she told the collected Chronodyne big brass an hour later.
 
“I should have done something,” she repeated.

The adrenaline high had passed, leaving her in a depressed state, trembling and almost in shock.
 
But there were questions to be answered and she could not curl up into a ball and ignore the world like she wanted to.

“It was in no way your fault, Miss Graves,” Stryker told her.
 
“He had a gun on you and threatened to kill you.”

She had described in detail all that had happened.
 
They informed her that Buerer was alive but in a serious condition.
 
She had cracked his skull, so hard had she pounded his head into the wall.
 
She told them she had no regrets about doing that, save possibly that she had not finished the job.
 
No one chided her.

With her story told and confirmed by the video surveillance cameras, there was not much more to do. Tamara felt herself drained but fought the urge to break down and cry.

At that moment, the nurse from their infirmary came in.

“He’ll be okay,” she told all the anxious faces.
 
“He has a cracked rib and good sized bruise, but nothing worse.
 
The doctor said that he was lucky Buerer used a small caliber gun.
 
If it had been a .45 or even a 9 mm, he could have died.
 
But Buerer had a 380.
 
That’s a .38 caliber bullet but without much power behind it.
 
This is what saved his life.”

She laid a cell phone sized device on the table.
 
The metal case was dented.
 
It was the translator he had been holding.

Tamara sighed and could not help but shed a few tears – of happiness.
 
If she had not been there, Buerer could have shot him more than once.
 
If she had not brought that translator with her, the bullet would have entered his chest.

Then it occurred to her that maybe it was not luck.
 
Maybe this was a miracle?
 
She picked up the dead translator and looked at it.

“I told you it would come in handy,” Myers told her.

Chapter 55:
 
Plugging a Leak

The house was dark without a light showing in any of the rooms, the only illumination coming from the streetlight through windows.
 
Outside, crickets chirps mixed with the hiss of a nearby freeway to provide a background soundtrack for breaking and entering.

An unlocked rear window provided an entrance without the need to destroy any property.
 
A small flashlight guided the intruder through the dimly lit rooms.
 
His target was not, however, stereos, silverware, or even a bedroom jewelry box.
 
Instead, he entered a study/office and began going through the desk there.
 
The fact that the desk was locked presented no problem.
 
With a thin sliver of steel he worked the simple lock open and was quickly going through all the drawers.
 
In the third one from the top he found what he was looking for.
 
There was nothing special looking about the cell phone he found there but it pleased him immensely.
 
Switching it on, he touched the screen a few times and confirmed this was the phone he was looking for.
 
Slipping it into his pocket, he closed and locked the desk again.

Five minutes later he was in his car, driving away into the night.

* * * * *

The next morning a meeting was called in the office of Project Director Stryker.
 
The lists of those called to attend was short: Stryker, Manhusen and Crane.

“Have a seat Marshal,” Stryker told Crane as soon as he entered.

“What’s up?” the tall scientist asked, looking from one to the other of the serious faces before him.
 
His smile faded from his face as he did.

Stryker’s’ words were icy, “You can probably guess what this is about.
 
We’ve found our leak to Representative Stockman.”

“And...?”

Manhusen cut in.
 
“With the help of our spook friends, we were able to trace the calls to Stockman’s phone back to a certain cell phone number.”

“You put a tap on a Congressman’s phone?” Crane asked, his face registering both surprise and more than a small trace of fear.

“Didn’t have to, it was already there.
 
But that’s another story.

“You shouldn’t look so surprised.
 
No use pretending.
 
I found this in your house.”
 
He put the cell phone on the table between them.
 
Crane just stared at it, a most depressed look coming over his face.
 
After a few moments of silence, he looked up.

“I only wanted what was best for the project.
 
What we’re doing here is too important to keep from the world.
 
There are thousands of scientists who could benefit from our work.
 
Can’t you see that?”

Stryker sighed.
 
“Marshal, I knew you were for public disclosure once we proved the Machine would work.
 
But I didn’t think that you would leak secret information.”

“It was to a United States Representative!
 
I’m sure he has security clearance.”

“But not a need-to-know.
 
Come on, Marshal, you’ve worked on other secret projects before.
 
You know the rules.”

Crane was beginning to look desperate. “This project goes beyond just being secret.
 
It is too important to keep a secret.”

“And it will be released,” Stryker told him.
 
“When the time is right.”

Crane could only shake his head.

“Come with me,” Manhusen told him.
 
“There are some criminal proceedings to initiate.”

When the two had left his office, Stryker sat down and sighed deeply.
 
He had thought Crane was his friend, and trustworthy.

He was turning his chair towards the window when Miss Swanson came in with some papers in her hand.

“You know, Rachael,” Stryker said slowly without looking away from the view out across the pines to the mountains, “maybe Marshal was right.
 
It’s getting too hard to keep all this a secret.”
 
He swiveled and looked at the shapely blonde.
 
“You know, I had to let Brown grab that damned dinosaur he wanted, just to scare Stockman.
 
Now we have to figure some way to get it to San Diego.”

He glanced at the papers in her hand but did not reach for them.

“My friend blabs secrets.
 
Another of my scientists tries to kill Jesus!

“I’m getting too old for this.”

Chapter 56:
 
Pure and Beautiful and Blessed

Four days after the disappearance of Dr. Crane from the project, and two days after the appointment of Dr. Fielding as the new Assistant Director, one of the technicians delivered a package to Dr. Myers’ office.
 
Tamara happened to be there when it came in.

“This will please you,” he told her. “Again.”
 
He opened the box and removed four devices much like the translator that had saved Jesus’ life.
 
“This is the second generation of translators.
 
Does the same thing but you don’t have to press the buttons.
 
Just switch it on and it will listen to whatever is spoken.
 
It will digitize the sounds and send them to the server.
 
The server will determine what language it is, English or Aramaic, and translate it into the other.”

He switched on one of the units and laid it on the desk next to his coffee cup.
 
“Let us test this,” he said.
 
A moment later the device’s monotone spoke some words Tamara did not understand but assumed was a translation.
 
Myers smile and repeated a sentence Tamara recognized: “
Eli Eli lema sabachthani
?”
 
A moment later the speaker obediently said, “God God why you have forsaken me.”

He pushed the device across the desk to her.
 
“This is yours.
 
Keep it.
 
The others are for Fielding and Juliette.
 
And one for Jesus to keep.”

“Thank you.
 
There are still questions I would like to ask Jesus.”

“Let me ask you one.
 
What about your job?
 
You said that you’re taking vacation time to stay here.
 
And you are most certainly welcome.
 
If it hadn’t been for you, Jesus might have been killed – twice, in fact.
 
I, for one, am glad to have you with us.
 
But won’t the DOD want you back?”

“I have gotten an inquiry from my boss asking just how much vacation I intend to take.
 
But I have plenty of time coming.
 
It seemed I was always too busy to take my vacation time.”
 
She put the translator into her pocket.
 
“Besides, if it came to it, I would quit just to stay here.
 
This is simply too incredible to miss!”

“Maybe I can get Stryker to hire you on as an assistant,” Myers told her.
 
“Chronodyne has more money than it knows what to do with.
 
You’d be surprised how much they’re paying me.”

He chuckled, and so did Tamara.
 
Fact was, she knew exactly what his salary was.
 
She had been wandering around in the project’s financial records, after all.

“If you don’t mind, would you give this to Jesus?”
 
He handed her another of the units.
 
“It will make it easier if he can talk with anyone when he needs to.”

“Of course.
 
In fact, I’ll go over and give it to him now.”

Jesus had been released from the infirmary, so Tamara found him in his apartment.
 
When she knocked on the open door to let him know she was there, he was trying to put on a shirt over the wrapping around his chest.
 
Obviously it was a painful process for him with the broken rib, so she offered to help.
 
The shirt was obviously someone’s idea of a joke.
 
It was a Tee, black in color with the only decoration being a single sentence written across the front in white letters and fancy script.
 
Tamara had to laugh when she saw what had been a popular saying a few years back.
 
It said: “What would Jesus do?”

She helped him with the shirt, wincing when she saw the horrible scars across his back.
 
With the shirt on, and him sitting on his bed, she handed him the translator and showed him how to turn it on.
 
“This is for you.
 
A translator,” she told him.
 
“You do not have to do anything.
 
Just talk into it.”
 
Then she waited for it to finished relating that information to him.

“Thank you,” he said.
 
“Again I thank you for saving me.
 
That man wanted to kill me.
 
Did he not?”

“He was sick,” she told him.
 
“Very sick.”
 
When Jesus did not seem to understand that fully, she added, “In his mind.”

“There was a demon within him,” Jesus said simply.
 
Tamara remembered Myers telling her that mental illness was not very well understood in Jesus’ time.
 
Possession by demons was the common explanation for those who did not act properly.
 
She felt the urge to ask him if he would have tried to cast the demon out, as he had been said to have done so often in the Gospels.
 
“Did you kill him?” he asked.

“No.
 
I did not.
 
But he is in more pain than you,” she told him, hoping that would be of some small consolation.
 
“And he will be in prison for a long time.”

Jesus looked at her strangely.
 
From what she remembered of her studies, simply putting someone away in a prison for a fixed period of time was not a common practice back then.
 
Prisons back then were simply places to hold someone until you decided his punishment.
 
Capital punishment was much more common back then – almost casual, especially the way the Romans applied it to those they did not like.
 
She decided not to try to explain the whole concept of penal institutions and correctional facilities.

“He will not be put to death?”

“Probably not.”

Jesus shook his head.
 
Tamara was momentarily taken back by his reaction.
 
Was this not the man who had advocated turning the other cheek?
 
And loving your enemies?
 
She expected him to forgive Buerer.
 
Then she remembered that the turning the other cheek had been advice to his disciples not to antagonize the Romans.
 
Jesus himself had explained that to her once.
 
And as for loving your enemies, this was a man who expected that with the coming of the Kingdom of God, they would drive out the hated Romans at the point of a sword – with the help of God, of course.

To change the subject, she asked him if he would like to have lunch at the company cafeteria with her rather than in his apartment or courtyard.
 
He said that would be nice and slowly got to his feet.
 
They walked slowly along the sidewalk, enjoying the warmth of the day before it grew too hot.
 
Fortunately, they were at enough of an altitude that it did not become blazing hot as it did farther down in the desert areas.

Tamara held her translator in her hand so they could chat while walking.

“Rabbi, is there something that you would like to see?” she asked.

“I would like to see the Temple again.”

“That may be difficult.
 
But maybe someday.”
 
She did not want to try to explain what else had happened to Jerusalem since he last saw it.
 
The ancient city was much more than just the Temple now.
 
There was the division of the old city into four quarters, the Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and a lot more that he would have trouble relating to.
 
It would be most interesting to see his reaction to the Church currently sitting on the site claimed to be the former Golgotha where he was crucified and buried.

“Then I would like to see more of your land.
 
It is very big.”

“Much bigger than you imagine.
 
I would love to take you around our country and show you everything.”

She began telling him of the wonders of Yosemite and the warm, clear waters of Florida.

Lunch was eaten at one of the outdoor tables.
 
Jesus found the array of food interesting and chose a chicken salad, while Tamara picked a crab and shrimp quesadilla.
 
They shared a glass of Chardonnay each.
 
Jesus never seemed to tire of trying new wines.

As they were finishing the wine, Jesus reached over to put his hand over hers.
 
“Tamara, you and Seymour have promised that you will use your magic to let me see what happened to Mariam and my children.
 
This I wish for.”

She was touched by his devotion to a woman who had been described by some as a prostitute.
 
“I will speak to Dr. Myers.
 
I’m sure that we can do something for you.”
 
She finished her wine and settled back in the chair.
 
“Jesus, there is something I have wanted to ask you.
 
The Bible says that you cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene.
 
Is that true?”

When the translation was finished, Jesus was frowning.
 
“I am not sure what you speak of.”

“When we get back, I’ll show you.”

The walk back to his apartment was leisurely with little talking.
 
Once there, she asked for the Bible that Juliette had given him.
 
Opening it to Luke, she read 8-1: “
A
fter this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another.
 
The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out – and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.”

“And there is Mark 16-9.
 
He says: “
Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils
.”

She closed the book and looked at him.
 
“Did you cast demons out of her?
 
There are many other places where it says that you did.”

Jesus frowned.
 
“It is true that I have cast out demons.
 
But there were none in Mariam.
 
She was pure and beautiful and blessed of God from the first moment I saw her.
 
This Mark does not tell true that of which he speaks.”

It was Tamara’s turn to frown.
 
Myers was not kidding, she told herself, when he said that the Gospel writers had added a lot to history.

“And I suppose that she did not help you during your ministry?”

“That part is truth.
 
I, and those who followed me, depended upon the help of others.
 
We had no fields to tend, no trees to pick fruit of, no herd of sheep.
 
Those who listened would share their food and sometimes give money.”

“Was Mary Magdalene one of those?”

“Yes.
 
She listened to my words and understood of the coming Kingdom.
 
When we left that village, she came with us.”
 
He paused and a far-away look came into his eyes.
 
“She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.”
 
Then he shook his head and smiled.
 
“Except for you, Tamara.”

She could not be sure but she suspected that she was blushing.
 
“Thank you,” she managed.

Jesus picked up the Bible and opened the book.
 
For a few seconds he stared at the words he could not possibly understand, then closed it slowly.
 
“I wish to learn to read these words.”

Tamara wondered where she could find a Bible written in Aramaic.
 
Then she remembered Myers telling her that Jesus, like most of the Galilee peasants, was illiterate.
 
Very few people in those days could read and write.
 
Most knowledge was passed down via oral traditions.

Well, she thought, he’s still young.
 
He can learn to read and write, either Aramaic or English.
 
Hell, he’s intelligent, probably both.