Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest (15 page)

Benoit cautiously admired the thin female
with jet-black hair, held tightly behind her head with a bone
barrette. Her legs were crossed, revealing heavy ankles that he had
come to associate with Eastern European women. While other men
might prefer their women with slender calves and ankles, he favored
those with sturdy legs, built, as he liked to fantasize, for
locking around a man hips and holding fast during sex. He was well
aware that rumors continuously circulated about a string of secret
lovers, none of which he attempt to squelch. Believing that the
physical attraction he felt so acutely in his loins for the
opposite sex, not the lack of it, tested his devotion to the
church, he frequently allowed his eyes to luxuriate upon attractive
women and his mind to dream about passionate assignations. Before
ordination to the priesthood, he had adored both the pursuit and
the conquest of women, but since pledging himself to the church,
had practiced the strictest control over his hormones. To his mind,
only a man who could discipline his body deserved the honor of
serving God as a priest.

"Irena," he bestowed the woman sitting below
the Naphtali panel an imaginary name, then joined a group of
camera-carrying Europeans slowly moving in a semi-circle. He waited
until space opened on the bench behind Irena and sat down.

"What are you listening to," he asked in
English over the woman's shoulder.

"Prokofiev, Sonata Number Seven," Irena
replied in a Slavic accent without turning to regard him.

"My favorite," he repeated the password
Prokofiev
, leaning so the back of his
shoulders touched hers. "Your people promised they could help me.
Half your fee has been deposited where instructed. The other will
come when you locate Reverend Timothy Matternly. Time is essential,
so there's a bonus for finding him before he leaves Israel. Three
days maximum. After five, we'll have to renegotiate everything.
Will you be my contact?"

"If there's no objection."

"Then may I call you Irena?"

She possessed a raspy voice that made her
even more attractive to the priest. "It's not my favorite, but it
will do." She then chose the name of an ex-lover she now detested
and said, "Then I shall call you Anatoly. You've brought
information about this Timothy Matternly?"

"An envelope with his addresses in Jerusalem
and Chicago, his cell and land phone numbers. I've included three
recent photos from scholarly journals and one personal snapshot,
along with a lengthy biography. He's currently a visiting professor
from the University of Chicago and was seen early last week in this
area. I believe he's still in Jerusalem, or nearby. One reason is
that his female companion, a Reform rabbi by the name of Gabrielle
Lewyn has come from the States looking for him. She lives in his
apartment at 28 Ussishkin Street. She'll lead you to
Matternly."

"Do you want us to apprehend him? If we do,
he won't disappear before you get what you want."

"Just locate him, but if he attempts to run,
then by all means seize him. Under no conditions let him leave the
country."

"Is he armed?"

"Not to my knowledge," Benoit said,
remembering that Tim had abandoned his carbine in the Qumran cave.
"But he knows how to use a weapon. I warn you, he's not the typical
clergyman. He's in excellent physical shape and not afraid of
violence."

"How much force do you want us to use?"

"As little as possible."

"Which means," she sounded as though
chuckling, "as much as necessary to get the job done."

Father Benoit had to think about that for a
moment before concluding that he was in the hands of professionals
who knew their trade.

Irena asked, "Is there a better place to
meet. This is too crowded and, to tell you the truth, I detest
these windows. Chagall is much over-rated, you know. I've seen
better icons in a dozen Orthodox churches."

"No," Benoit inserted himself to cut off an
unsolicited critique of Marc Chagall, whom he personally admired.
"This synagogue works well. I'm placing an envelope next to your
right hip. Please stand, then merge into the spectators, pretending
you actually enjoy the windows. To my mind, the Naphtali panel is a
masterpiece."

***

The following morning, Father Benoit sent,
via the Holy See's diplomatic pouch from Jerusalem, copies of Tim's
scanned documents to Monsignor Guido Capalliani, Director of the
Vatican Archives in Rome. With ruthless pragmatism, he had assessed
how such new material challenged conventional Church thinking, yet
he expected considerable excitement among Vatican clerics
interested in Christianity's historical roots. What he hadn't
anticipated was an immediate response from the Pope's secretary of
state, Donaldo Cardinal Fornenti. Less was he prepared for a
Vatican Gulfstream V executive jet that arrived within twenty-four
hours at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport to transport him and the
Qumran fragments to Rome.

At Rome's Fiumicino Airport, four dour-faced
Vatican escorts in equally grim black uniforms breezed him through
Customs and Immigration, then ensconced him in a well-furnished,
comfortable apartment buried somewhere in the labyrinths of Vatican
City. Where exactly, he had no idea because he had arrived in early
morning when most of the interior lighting was dimmed or entirely
darkened. Once settled into this apartment with few personal
belongings to unpack, Benoit showered and shaved, then lay on a
sumptuous king-size bed to get a few hours of much-needed
sleep.

Three hours later, a knock on the door
awakened him. A novitiate, in the crisply laundered attire of the
young men who routinely trained for high office in the Church by
serving an internship with the Bishop of Rome, brought a tray with
coffee, juice, and baguettes. "
En quaranta
minutes, mio Padre,
he said in Italian after setting the
tray on a coffee table.

In less time than that, Father Benoit found
himself in a spacious room with a vaulted ceiling, sitting at the
foot of an expansive polished mahogany conference table. Five men
with stern expressions were already seated at considerable
distances from each other, their places marked with individual
stainless-steel coffee urns and white china cups.

Monsignor Guido Capalliani rose to welcome
their guest and introduce the other four. Benoit was acquainted
with each by virtue of their distinguished offices, but he had met
only two personally. First and foremost was His Eminence Donaldo
Cardinal Fornenti. Other than the Holy Father, no mortal wielded
more power from the Holy See. His presence sent a shiver through
Benoit, who was beginning to rethink his earlier desire to share
the Qumran fragments with his superiors.

The Reverend Monsignor Erwin Nebdal sat to
the cardinal's left. Benoit knew him as the director of the
Teutonic College for the study of Sacred Archaeology and
Ecclesiastical History, a colleague the Dominican priest frequently
met at scholarly conferences and an occasional visitor to his École
in Bethlehem. The fourth man was the grand chancellor of the
Pontifical Institute of Christian Archeology, Pio Cardinal Laghi,
an official Benoit also knew from his visits to Rome. The last
cleric of this quintet, with whom Benoit had never spoken
personally, was the president of the Pontifical Council for the
Promotion of Christian Unity, His Eminence Johannes Cardinal
Willebrands.

With a dramatic flourish, Cardinal Fornenti
opened a file in front of him and picked up a copy of the message
Father Benoit had sent to Rome. The cardinal adhered to a vegan
diet and took vigorous daily jogs; his jaw protruded along the
lines of his skull with not a trace of intervening fat. He sat with
ramrod posture and allowed long intervals of silence to separate
his words, making Father Benoit uneasy. Such silences gave the
impression that the supreme cardinal was a meditative man more
comfortable asking questions than making declarations. Benoit was
hoping to avoid revealing the details of his escapade at the Qumran
cave, especially the gunfight. In his training as a priest, he had
come to understand that the unspoken word was often more
significant than what was actually said. Though it was impossible
for anyone to know he had been involved in a killing at Qumran, he
nevertheless feared his superior's omniscience. It often astonished
him what officials at the Holy See learned through their extensive
network of informants.

The meeting opened with formal words of
welcome and an apology for plucking Benoit from Bethlehem with so
little warning, but then what had been found at Qumran deeply
troubled the Holy Father. Cardinal Fornenti, very simply attired in
a tailored tunic with not a single ornamentation to indicate his
high rank, was the first to break from introductory formalities and
get down to business by saying, "Father Benoit, you have uncovered
arguably the most important archaeological document in Christian
history. And for that, the Holy Father is most appreciative."

Around the table, heads nodded approval, the
first human warmth Benoit had felt since his arrival.

Fornenti's right hand rose to a thin,
childlike nose, flashing his only token of authority, a cardinal's
ring. "But, Father Benoit, our joy over these fragments is
diminished by not having a complete set. You have brought us a vast
treasury of original documents, but omitted the most important. We
can't establish historical authenticity without the original
documents in their entirety. Cardinal Laghi and Monsignor Nebdal
tell me the electronic copy you have sent could well be a fake
designed to trick us. This is not the first time we have become the
target for forgers and quacks. Do you not agree?"

"I saw the original with my own eyes," Benoit
responded. "In the Orthodox Monastery of St. George, near
Jericho."

"And do you know for a fact that what you saw
was genuine?"

That issue had perplexed Benoit from the
moment Tim Matternly had shown him the fragment in the monastery's
workroom. "Father, I cannot say for certain that it is genuine, but
I was present in the cave at Qumran when it was found. And let me
say to Cardinal Laghi and Monsignor Nebdal, I invite you to perform
Carbon-14 tests on the other original fragments I have brought with
me. If they prove to be from the first century, as have previous
scrolls from neighboring Qumran caves, then by inference we may
assume this particular fragment is also genuine."

"By inference?" barked Monsignor Capalliani.
"Must we rely upon inference when we are dealing with a document of
such importance?"

"I am confident of retrieving the original,"
answered Benoit. "I know who has it."

"Your colleague, Professor Timothy Matternly,
I presume?" shot back Capalliani.

"And I regret that at this moment I don't
know exactly where, but I have it on credible authority that he's
hiding in or near Jerusalem. He possesses not only the original,
but digital copies of what I have brought with me. If I know him,
and I believe I do, he is, at this moment, duplicating his
monumental work on other fragments. With scanned copies of these
texts, he's assembling and deciphering them as we speak."

"But if you don't know exactly where he is,"
Cardinal Fornenti interjected, "that's not going to help us. What
are Matternly's intentions?"

"To give everything we found to the Israel
Antiquities Authority."

"Everything? You mean, even the original
fragment you don't possess?"

"Yes, Your Excellency. Matternly is a
historian of early Christianity not an antiquities collector. Some
men work for mammon. Reverend Matternly labors for love of our
past."

Cardinal Fornenti turned to Cardinal Laghi
and said, "This is the most valuable document in Christian history,
after the Holy Gospels, of course. Does the Israel government have
a right to take possession of it?"

Pio Cardinal Laghi, a distinguished
archeologist in his own right, sighed, then lifted a fist to
conceal an early-morning yawn. "I'm afraid possession is, as they
say, nine-tenths of the law. But in the past, the Jewish government
has been reasonable when it comes to such things. We have political
leverage in Jerusalem, particularly on matters with which the Holy
Father feels deeply. Surely, the Second Section of State will find
something to exchange for this."

Cardinal Fornenti's eyes shot from Laghi to
Benoit. "If this fragment is genuine, we must have it. Has
Professor Matternly already turned it over to the authorities?"

"I don't believe so. While an excellent
scholar, Matternly is also a calculating devil. He won't give away
this treasure until he learns more about the historic context in
which it was written. These documents are worth far more assembled
and studied as a unit than divided into individual parts. Let us
remember that Matternly has only one original piece, albeit the
most important."

"No," Cardinal Fornenti exploded. "No,
Father. I beg to differ. I believe you don't fully understand. For
the moment, we're not talking of historical or archeological
values. In the wrong hands, Professor Matternly's fragment could be
very dangerous. These documents have profound implications for
Catholic theology, and Catholic theology determines Catholic
doctrine. And it is our doctrine that is the bedrock of our faith.
That is why the Holy Father is worried."

Benoit sensed that he was being dragged from
his field of archeology into matters of philosophy and theology,
about which, he liked to boast, he had absolutely no knowledge, and
even less interest. To him, these pursuits were a bottomless pit of
questions for which answers were elusive—if they existed at all. "I
understand the Holy Father's concern."

Fornenti stopped him short. "You must obtain
the original from Professor Matternly."