Tartarus: Kingdom Wars II (5 page)

D
ark mahogany wood dominated the décor in Dr. Whitson’s office, complemented by forest green carpeting and drapes. It was as dim as a cave.

Four chairs had been arranged in a semicircle facing a laptop computer on the conference table. The professor had wheeled himself between the two middle chairs. Dr. Whitson sat to one side of him. Sue Ling took the chair on his other side.

As I maneuvered into the remaining chair next to Sue, the professor said, “Your girlfriend betrayed us.”

“Former girlfriend,” I corrected him. “Jana and I haven’t dated since high school. And she didn’t betray anybody. She was doing her job.”

“Her job?” Whitson roared. “Blindsiding us in front of the cameras is her job? I thought you were going to talk to her be-forehand.”

“Didn’t have time. She arrived just as the press conference was getting started.”

“Well she certainly came loaded for bear,” Whitson complained. “Do you have any idea what I looked like up there? I call on her, thinking we have an ally in the media, and the next thing I know I’m being blasted out of the water.”

“Let it go, Marvin,” the professor said. “What’s done is done. The question now is, Where do we go from here?”

The professor was himself again. I’ve seen him get angry before. He has a summer squall temper. It passes quickly.

Sue, however, is a sulker. She slouched in her chair, her eyes fixed on things only she could see.

“Did you really think you could keep the third manuscript a secret?” I asked no one in particular. “Between news services and the Internet, everyone has instant access to everything.”

“We have an agreement with the Egyptians,” the professor replied. “They agreed to keep the contents of the third manuscript under wraps to give us time to investigate its authenticity.”

“To reveal it for the humbug that it is,” Whitson asserted. He was still heated.

I said, “It seems the director of antiquities has forgotten your agreement.”

“So it would seem,” the professor replied. “Marvin, have you seen the releases Miss Torres was quoting from?”

Whitson shook his head. “She probably fabricated them.”

“Jana wouldn’t do that.”

I was about to say the same thing. Sue beat me to it. She was still angry and sullen, but she knew Jana better than anyone.

“So then, what’s the big deal?” I asked. “If the manuscript is obviously fraudulent, where’s the threat? Whoever put it in the jar with the other two manuscripts made a mistake. Grabbed the wrong scroll. Maybe he was in a hurry. Maybe he loved spoofs and slipped it into the jar as a joke. You know, something to confound future scholars. A time-released joke. Why not just refute it? It’s not like this is the first time this has happened. Just a few months ago…what was that manuscript that the media were fussing over?”

“The
Gospel According to Judas,”
Sue said.

“That’s it. And weren’t there others?”

“A number of others,” the professor replied. “The
Acts of Thomas,
the
Epistle of Barnabas,
the
Epistle to the Laodiceans.”

“And the one about Jesus’ boyhood,” Sue said.

“The
Infancy Gospel of Thomas,”
Whitson said, identifying it.

“Stories of Jesus’ boyhood?” I prompted.

Whitson elaborated. “A young Jesus fashioning pigeons out of clay and bringing them to life; bringing a dried fish to life; cursing a boy who fell dead on the spot; resurrecting a man who fell off his roof; carrying water in a cloth; stretching a wooden beam so that his father could finish constructing a bed.”

“So how is this third manuscript different?” I asked.

“Let me put it this way,” the professor said. “If Hollywood were to write a blockbuster script so as to undermine and discredit Christianity, this would be it.”

Whitson added, “We just can’t take the chance of its getting out until we’ve accumulated the necessary evidence to refute it.”

“How long will that take?”

Whitson and the professor exchanged glances.

“Show him the video clips,” Sue said.

Looking to Whitson for a decision, the professor said, “We’ve brought him in this far, might as well go all the way.”

“All right,” Whitson conceded, though not without a moment of hesitation. He stood. “You show him the clips. I’ll see if I can find out why Dr. Zahin has gone back on our agreement.”

As Whitson left the room, Sue moved to the laptop. The arrangement of the chairs suggested they had been watching the video clips while waiting for me to arrive earlier. With a combination of mouse-clicks Sue summoned the video to the screen.

The professor provided an introduction. “This was taken a week ago in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.”

I leaned forward in my chair.

The video was raw footage of an archeological dig. The area was marked with stakes and string. Two heavily bearded men brushed dirt from what appeared to be the foundation of a very old building.

“The house of Caiaphas,” the professor explained. “He was—”

“—the high priest when Jesus was crucified,” I said.

Sue glanced at me, surprised that I knew that.

“All that Gospel reading in preparation for my showdown with Semyaza,” I reminded her.

On the video, one of the men traced the edges of a brick with the point of his trowel. The brick became loose. The dirt of time, not mortar, had held it in place.

The trowel gave way to fingers that worked the brick side to side, then pulled it from its place. It came free with surprising ease.

I had no idea how many people were witnessing this event as it was being recorded, but I can tell you none of them were breathing. The only sound was the scraping of brick against brick as it was extracted.

The camera and light were lowered to get a look inside the cavity. Harsh shadows made it difficult to discern what was inside, if anything. A hand reached in.

There was an audible gasp and someone muttered in Hebrew. When the hand withdrew, it clutched something in its palm. Fingers unfurled to reveal tattered remnants of a pouch and a mound of coins, all of them identical. Several more extractions were necessary to retrieve all the coins. They were then counted as the camera recorded the tally. An unidentified voice provided the count in Hebrew.

At sixteen, my mind wandered for a moment and I lost count. So I was grateful when the professor picked up the count, interpreting the Hebrew.

“—twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine…thirty.” There was a pause, then a concluding sentence.

“Thirty pieces of silver,” the professor interpreted.

The video clip ended.

“Are those the coins I think they are?” I asked.

“Given to Judas to betray the Christ,” the professor said. “The text of the manuscript told us exactly where to find them.”

“OK.” I thought out loud, attempting to assess the damage. “So whoever penned the manuscript knew where the coins were hidden. He obviously knew someone, or overheard it. That doesn’t mean that everything in the manuscript should be taken at face value.”

Sue said, “In Ephesus, three jars have been unearthed. One contains gold. The other two contain remnants of frankincense and myrrh.”

“The gifts of the Magi,” I said. “In Ephesus?”

“On the cross Jesus entrusted his mother to John’s care,” the professor explained. “Tradition holds that he took her with him when he went to Ephesus.”

“OK, so the author of the third manuscript was privy to two secrets,” I said. “That still doesn’t mean—”

“In Rome,” the professor interrupted me, “Pontius Pilate’s report to his superiors has been discovered. It details the trial and execution of a certain Nazarene. The collection of documents includes the report on the criminal violation of the tomb, the report of the watch, and the circulating rumors that the Nazarene had risen from the grave.”

“All right,” I said, a little less enthusiastically, “so whoever wrote the third manuscript was a keeper of secrets. That doesn’t mean—”

“We have people scouring Jerusalem excavating sites. To date we have found a carpenter’s shop in Nazareth, the four-drachma coin Peter found in a fish to pay his taxes, and the bones of John the Baptist.”

“What? No Holy Grail?” I quipped.

The professor chuckled at my exasperation. He shared it. “You’d think that would be at the top of the list, wouldn’t you?”

“That in itself could be used as evidence of the manuscript’s authenticity,” Sue said. “The items you’d expect to be on the list, aren’t—the cup of Christ, remnants of the cross, the shroud. Many of the items are personal artifacts, indicating that the author of the manuscript wrote from firsthand knowledge, that he was obviously an insider, someone the inner circle trusted.”

“I take it you’ve read the text,” I said to Sue.

“Portions of it,” she replied.

“The science. Was Jana correct about the science? Does the author demonstrate a true knowledge of modern discoveries, or are the statements like those of Nostradamus, generalizations that people can read into whatever they want?”

“The language is different,” she said. “It doesn’t use the same terms we use today, such as string theory or general relativity.”

“So you’re saying Jana’s source has an agenda?”

Sue looked at the professor before answering. “No. That’s not what I’m saying.”

I sat back in the chair, unprepared for what she would say next.

“While the language is different,” she said, “the concepts are advanced physics. Very detailed.”

“I can’t believe that!” I said.

“In fact, in some places it seems to go beyond our present understanding.”

“Beyond?”

“We can’t know for sure until we run some tests.”

I ran a hand through my hair. It was worse than I could have imagined. No wonder everyone was on edge. Who was going to get excited over a couple of ancient songbooks when presented a treasure map of New Testament artifacts and the keys to the universe?

The professor and Sue Ling waited patiently for me as this whirlwind of information settled in my mind. It was a lot to take in all at once. But we weren’t done. I could tell by their expressions.

“Don’t tell me. The manuscript identifies the location of the bones of Jesus.”

“Of course not,” the professor said. “There are no bones to be found. Jesus rose from the grave.”

“The manuscript is quite adamant about that fact,” Sue added. “It confirms the resurrection in great detail.”

“Well, that’s good. Isn’t it?”

The professor gazed at me soberly.

Before he could answer, the door flew open. Dr. Whitson charged over to a cabinet and opened it to reveal a television. He switched it on.

“That woman!” he seethed.

The face of Jana Torres filled the screen. A banner across the bottom of the screen read: L
IVE FROM
H
ERITAGE
C
OLLEGE
, E
L
C
AJON
, C
ALIFORNIA
.

Sue went to the window and drew back the drapes. Jana and her crew could be seen standing in the parking lot broadcasting the news story.

“That’s it?” Whitson barked at the television. “After centuries of being lost, that’s all she’s going to say about the Book of Jashar and the Book of Wars?”

“Oh, my.” Sue Ling covered her mouth. “I’d better check on Tiffany and see if she’s all right. Does anyone know what room she’s in?”

“Helen can help you locate her,” Whitson said, referring to his secretary.

Sue Ling hurried from the room.

Whitson spun around. “Can this get any worse? Can this
possibly
get any worse?”

“Give the girl a break, Marvin. She’s only a junior,” the professor replied. “We shouldn’t have left her alone.”