The Lost Testament (19 page)

Father Anto
nio Morini was again wearing civilian clothes and walking steadily down a narrow street in Rome when he received a text on his cell phone from a British-registered mobile.

He continued walking as he took out his mobile and read the message, which was brief to the point of abruptness. It simply stated “On sale” and gave the address of a Web site he’d never heard of before, but he knew immediately what that had to mean. He turned around and immediately began retracing his steps, his stride noticeably brisker than before.

Back in his office in the Vatican, Morini sat down at the table and lifted the lid of his laptop to wake up the machine. As soon as all the programs were working again, he opened his browser and input the URL. Seconds later, he was staring at the images of the lost parchment.

This was immediate confirmation to him that the man Husani had obtained the genuine relic, but he still had no idea of the exact mechanism by which it had reappeared. The Vatican had for many years employed a policy of photographing books and manuscripts and other objects that were held in the Vatican Library or elsewhere in the Holy See, even objects it did not officially acknowledge that it owned. In an encrypted folder on his hard drive, Morini had copies of those original photographs of the relic. He was absolutely sure about what he was looking at.

Although it would take a lot of work before anybody would be able to read the entire text, Morini guessed that whoever possessed the parchment would eventually decipher it. And then they would fully understand why it was such a colossal threat to the credibility of the Vatican, of the Pope and indeed of the entire Roman Catholic religion.

He walked out of the Vatican again and as soon as he was out on the streets he made the call.

Within just
a few minutes of looking at the images of the parchment on the Web site, Angela typed and sent a simple reply to Anum Husani, stating that she was in Madrid, was interested in buying the parchment for the British Museum, and asking him where and when he wanted to meet. She didn’t mention the other museum official who would have to be there as well.

George Stebbins, a specialist in ancient manuscripts, and especially parchments, had also e-mailed her to say he’d just arrived in the city. He had been sent out by the British Museum to assess the relic and provide Angela with expert advice on its authenticity. Stebbins had checked into a hotel not too far away from the one where Angela and Bronson were staying, and suggested they meet that afternoon.

“Would he be a good judge of the provenance?” Chris asked.

“Not the provenance, because that’s down to the seller, but he’ll certainly be able to confirm its authenticity,” Angela said. “He’s one of the foremost experts in the field for this period. He’ll be vital in getting the parchment authenticated.”

“And have you had a chance to figure out any more of the text on the parchment?”

Angela shook her head. “When do you think I’ve had the time to do that? Plus I really need to see it before I can do more. The photographs Ali Mohammed took show far more of the writing than can be seen with the naked eye, but there are several parts of it that still aren’t legible. I’m sure we’ve got enough sophisticated gear at the museum to read pretty much all of it, which is why we need to take possession of it.”

Bronson looked slightly puzzled.

“But if you don’t know exactly what the text on the parchment says, how do you know it’s of any value at all? Surely you’re not just going by that name you read on it? Yusef or whatever it was?”

Angela looked at him with an expression of mild irritation on her face.

“Actually,” she replied, “I am, because that wasn’t just a name. Yusef bar Heli wasn’t just some man wandering about Judea two thousand years ago. He was a person that almost everybody in the world has heard of, but somebody about whom very little is actually known, because he was sidelined by his son. In modern English, we would translate Yusef as ‘Joseph’ and, according to those few accounts that have survived, a man called by that name married a woman called Mary, and they were the parents of a man who was much later known as Jesus Christ.”

“You’re kidding,” Bronson said.

“I’m not. I still have no idea what the parchment is describing, but that name is clear enough to read, as is the name of the Judean town of Tzippori, and it is believed that Joseph spent at least some of his life in that area.”

“But surely ‘Yusef’ was a very common name at that time?” Bronson argued. “And how do we know that Joseph’s father was called ‘Heli’?”

“We don’t, but it’s believed he was named either Heli or Yacob. As I said, very little is actually known about him. But the Tzippori reference, plus the fact that two men who had access to the parchment have been brutally murdered, suggests that the text probably does refer to this particular Joseph.”

She looked down again at her computer screen, then back up at Bronson.

“I don’t know what event or fact the text on the parchment is describing, but I’m as sure as I can be that there must be something, some groundbreaking secret, that the relic reveals. And if the parchment does reveal something about Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, or even something about Jesus himself, then there’s one very obvious candidate who would rather it were kept quiet.”

“The Catholic Church again? Do you really think so?”

“I know it sounds crazy—but it’s the only possibility I can think of. They have the reach and the motivation. If this parchment turns out to be a contemporary account of something that proves beyond doubt that, for example, Jesus wasn’t crucified, then the entire basis of the Christian faith could be destroyed. This could go straight to the very heart of the religion.”

George Stebbi
ns arrived at their hotel in the middle of the afternoon. Angela made the introductions, and the document specialist joined her at their table while Bronson collected drinks from the bar.

“You know this might be a bit of a wild-goose chase, Angela?” Stebbins said, stirring a cube of sugar into his coffee. “It’s not that difficult to fake a piece of text on a parchment.”

He was in his late forties, comfortably plump and almost bald, not even enough hair on his head to attempt a comb-over. He apparently tried to make up for this with a bushy square-cut beard of a slightly reddish hue, which made his head, at least in Bronson’s opinion, look like a large egg resting in a bird’s nest.

“I realize that, but I have a feeling this is probably genuine. Most of the text only shows up when you bathe it in infrared or ultraviolet light, and I can’t think of any way that could be faked. And, more worryingly, two people who are known to have seen and examined the parchment have been murdered, including one scientist that I knew personally.”

“What? Murdered? Who was murdered?”

It was suddenly obvious that when Stebbins had been asked to travel out to Madrid to examine the parchment, he hadn’t been given the whole story.

Angela took him through the whole sequence of events, from her first contact with Ali Mohammed to the present situation, including what had so nearly happened to her at the Tottenham Court Road Underground station, and that they were dependent on Anum Husani making contact in such a way that there would be no unwanted third parties at their meeting. When she’d finished, George Stebbins looked positively drained.

“I had no idea,” he said. “All they told me was that an old piece of parchment had been found, which you were negotiating over, and the museum wanted me to come along as well just to confirm that it wasn’t a recent forgery. Nobody told me people had been killed over it.”

“Well, the good news,” Bronson said, “is that those two deaths occurred in Cairo, and that’s a hell of a long way from Madrid.”

“But look what happened to Angela in London.” Stebbins leaned forward, his hands gripping the table in anxiety. “What if they followed her here and are watching us now?”

“They might well be, but there’s one important difference between here and both London and Cairo. In London, the man who tried to kill Angela followed her from the British Museum and one of the men who was murdered in Egypt was killed in his office at the Cairo Museum. I’m not sure about the other victim, but I’d be prepared to lay odds that he died either in his house or where he worked.

“The situation here is completely different. We can go and meet this man Anum Husani at any location of his choosing, anywhere in the city, and there’s nothing whatsoever to link either him or us with that meeting place. I can’t imagine they’ll be able to intercept his e-mails, so there shouldn’t be any way they can find out where we intend to meet.”

Stebbins still didn’t look entirely convinced, but nodded reluctant agreement.

“You might be right,” he said. “So all we can do for the moment, I suppose, is sit around and wait for this Husani to send us details of the rendezvous.”

“That, basically, is our plan,” Angela agreed, “but in the meantime you can take a look at the pictures of the parchment and let us know what you think about it.”

“I’ll need to see the relic in the flesh before I can give you my professional opinion,” Stebbins said.

Angela nodded.

“I know that, but at least looking at the pictures will give you a good idea what to expect when we finally meet this Arab.”

But before the man from the British Museum could do anything, Angela’s laptop emitted a tone to show that another e-mail had been received.

“It’s him,” she said. “He wants to see me in fifty minutes, and he’s given me the address of a café.”

Bronson stood u
p and turned to face Angela and George.

“Right, we only have a short time, so we need to plan quickly. This is a potentially dangerous situation that we’re walking into, and I want to make sure that we have the means of getting away from it as quickly as possible. So we’ll be taking the car, and ideally I’d like you two to meet this man while I stay in the vehicle, somewhere with a good view of the rendezvous position. That way, I’ll be able to carry out surveillance of the whole area, and provide immediate backup and a quick way of getting out of there if anything untoward happens.”

Throughout Chris’s speech, George Stebbins had been squirming uncomfortably in his seat, and now he spoke, directing his concerns at Angela.

“Look, I’m not all that happy about going ahead with this. My understanding was that I simply had to examine a piece of parchment. Nothing more, nothing less. I expected to be able to do this in the comfort of my hotel room or some other sensible and civilized location. I was never told that there was a possibility that there might be violence involved.”

Then he swung round to look at Bronson.

“It’s easy enough for you to say it’ll be safe. You won’t even be at the rendezvous. You’ll be sitting in the car somewhere and able to drive away at the first sign of trouble.”

There was steel in Bronson’s voice when he replied.

“Angela knows me very well,” he said, “and she knows that there’s absolutely no way I would just
drive away
, as you put it. I only suggested that I wait in the vehicle because that would enable me to provide surveillance of the entire area and react if anything happened. I’m a police officer. I’m trained in surveillance and I’m a Class One police driver, so I’m the best person to have in the car. If you’d rather we did it the other way round, and you wait in the car while Angela and I meet with Husani, that’s fine by me.”

“You might be happy to do that, Chris, but I’m not,” Angela snapped. “The only reason George is here at all is to give his opinion of the parchment, and he can’t do that if he’s sitting in a car fifty yards away. Either you come to the rendezvous with me, George, or there’s no point at all in you being here. The clock’s ticking. If we don’t leave here within the next few minutes, we’re not going to make it on time. It’s time to piss or get off the pot.”

She paused for a moment, her glance switching between the two men.

“So what’s it to be?”

Stebbins looked somewhat sheepish, then shook his head.

“I think I’ll get a taxi back to my hotel,” he said quietly. Then he stood up and walked out of the bar.

Bronson and Angela watched him go.

“So it’s just the two of us again,” Bronson said, turning back to look at Angela, “and personally I think it’s better that way. Now, we need to go.”

As Bronson had hoped, the location Anum Husani had specified was positioned on a street that offered ample parking on both sides of the road, providing plenty of places to view their meeting from. He reversed the car into the spot he’d chosen, so that he would be able to drive away immediately if the circumstances dictated.

“We’re still about ten minutes early,” Bronson said, “so I’ll come over with you and check there are no surprises at the café itself.”

There weren’t as far as he could tell. The café was just a café, probably chosen by Husani because it could be approached from multiple directions. As a rendezvous position, it wasn’t bad.

In his e-mail to Angela, Husani had instructed her to sit on one of the tables outside, by herself, and order a
café con leche
and a glass of water. As soon as Bronson was satisfied that there were no potential dangers lurking within the building or anywhere near it, Angela took a seat.

Before he left, Bronson sat down beside her.

“I’ll be in the car, with the engine running, less than thirty yards away from you. I’ll be watching you and anyone who comes anywhere near you. If there’s anything you’re unhappy about or you feel uncomfortable at any time, just get up and start walking toward me. I’ll pull out of the parking space immediately, and we can be gone from here in ten seconds.”

Angela smiled at him.

“That sounds like the kind of briefing you’d have given when you were in the Army. Just relax, Chris, and I’m sure it will all work out well. Now go. I’ll be fine.”

Bronson nodded, gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze of encouragement, then walked across the road to the car.