The Order (15 page)

Transport required a minimum
of four hours to acquire an untraceable car, so Gabriel, after changing into his own clothing, walked to a Hertz outlet near
the Vatican walls and rented an Opel Corsa hatchback. He was followed there inexpertly by a man on a motorcycle. Black trousers,
black shoes, a black nylon coat, a black helmet with a tinted visor. The same motorcyclist followed Gabriel back to the Jesuit
Curia, where he collected Donati.

“That's him,” said Donati, peering into the sideview mirror. “That's definitely Father Graf.”

“I think I'll pull over and have a quiet word with him.”

“Perhaps you should just lose him instead.”

He put up a good fight, especially in the traffic-clogged streets of central Rome, but by the time they reached the Autostrada,
Gabriel was confident they were not being followed. The afternoon had turned cloudy and cold. So had Gabriel's mood. He leaned his head against the window, a hand balanced atop the wheel.

“Was it something I said?” asked Donati at last.

“What's that?”

“You haven't uttered a word in ten minutes.”

“I was enjoying the remarkable beauty of the Italian countryside.”

“Try again,” said Donati.

“I was thinking about my mother. And about the number tattooed on her arm. And about the candles that burned day and night
in the little house where I grew up in Israel. They were for my grandparents, who were gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz and
fed into the fires of the crematoria. They had no other grave but those candles. They were ashes on the wind.” Gabriel was
silent for a moment. “That's what I was thinking about, Luigi. I was thinking about how differently the history of the Jews
might have unfolded if the Church hadn't declared war on us in the Gospels.”

“Your characterization is unfair.”

“Do you know how many Jews there should be in the world? Two hundred million. We could be more numerous than the populations
of Germany and France combined. But we were wiped out time and time again, culminating with the pogrom to end all pogroms.”
Quietly, Gabriel added, “All because of those nine words.”

“It must be said that throughout the Middle Ages, the Church intervened on countless occasions to protect the Jews of Europe.”

“Why did they need protecting in the first place?” Gabriel answered his own question. “They needed protection because of what
the Church was teaching. And it also must be said, Excellency, that long after Jews were emancipated in Western Europe, they
remained ghettoized in the city controlled by the papacy. Where did the Nazis get the idea of making the Jews wear the Star
of David? They had to look no further than Rome.”

“One has to distinguish between religious anti-Judaism and racial anti-Semitism.”

“That is a distinction without a difference. Jews were resented because they were shopkeepers and moneylenders. And do you
know
why
they were shopkeepers and moneylenders? Because for more than a millennium, they were forbidden to do anything else. And
yet even now, after the horrors of the Holocaust, after all the films and books and memorials and attempts to change hearts
and minds, the longest hatred endures. Germany admits it cannot protect its Jewish citizens from harm. French Jews are moving
to Israel in record numbers to escape anti-Semitism. In America neo-Nazis march openly while Jews are being shot and killed
in their synagogues. What is the source of this irrational hatred? Could it be that for nearly two thousand years the Church
taught that the Jews were collectively guilty of deicide, that we were the very murderers of God?”

“Yes,” admitted Donati. “But what shall we do about it?”

“Find the Gospel of Pilate.”

South of Orvieto they turned off the Autostrada and headed into the rolling hills and thick forests of Donati's native Umbria.
By the time they reached Perugia, the sun had burned a hole in the clouds. To the east, at the base of Monte Subasio, glowed
the distinctive red marble of Assisi.

“There's the Abbey of St. Peter.” Donati pointed out the bell tower at the northern end of the city. “It's inhabited by a small group of monks from the Cassinese Congregation. They live according to the Rule of Saint Benedict.
Ora et labora
: pray and work.”

“Sounds a bit like the job description of the chief of the Office.”

Donati laughed. “The monks support a number of local organizations, including a hospital and an orphanage. They agreed to
give Father Jordan lodging in the abbey when he retired from the Gregoriana.”

“Why Assisi?”

“After working for forty years as a Jesuit academic and writer, he longed for a more contemplative existence. But you can
be sure he finds time to research and write. He's one of the world's foremost authorities on the apocryphal gospels.”

“What happens if he won't see us?”

“I'm sure you'll think of something,” remarked Donati.

Gabriel left the Opel in a car park outside the city walls and followed Donati through the archway of the Porta San Pietro.
The abbey was a few paces along a shadowed street, behind walls of red stone. The outer door was locked. Donati rang the bell.
There was no answer.

He checked the time. “Midafternoon prayers. Let's take a walk.”

They set out along the street against a flow of outward-bound package tourists, Gabriel in dark trousers and a leather coat,
Donati in his magenta-trimmed cassock. He attracted no more than passing interest. The Abbey of St. Peter was not the only
monastery or convent in Assisi. It was a city of religious.

It became Christian, explained Donati, just two hundred
years after the Crucifixion. St. Francis was born in Assisi at the end of the twelfth century. Known for his lavish clothing and circle of rich friends, he encountered a beggar one afternoon in the marketplace and was so moved he gave the man everything he had in his pockets. Within a few years he was living as a beggar himself. He cared for lepers in a lazar house, worked as a lowly kitchen servant in a monastery, and in 1209 founded a religious order that required its members to embrace a life of total and complete poverty.

“Francis is one of the Church's most beloved saints, but he didn't invent the notion of caring for the poor. It was ingrained
in Christianity from the beginning. And now, two millennia later, thousands of Roman Catholics around the world are doing
the same thing, every hour of every day. I think that's worth preserving, don't you?”

“I once told Lucchesi that I would never want to live in a world without the Roman Catholic Church.”

“Did you? He never mentioned it.” They arrived at the basilica. “Shall we go inside and see the paintings?”

“Next time,” quipped Gabriel.

It was three fifteen. They retraced their steps to the abbey, and once again Donati rang the bell. A moment passed before
a male voice answered. He spoke Italian with a distinct British accent.

“Good afternoon. May I help you?”

“I'm here to see Father Jordan.”

“I'm afraid he doesn't accept visitors.”

“I believe he'll make an exception in my case.”

“Your name?”

“Archbishop Luigi Donati.” He released the call button and gave Gabriel a sidelong glance. “Membership has its privileges.”

The lock snapped open. A hairless, black-habited Benedictine waited in the shadows of an internal courtyard. “Forgive me,
Excellency. I wish someone had told us you were coming.” He extended a soft, pale hand. “I'm Simon, by the way. Follow me,
please.”

They entered the church of San Pietro through a side door, crossed the nave, and emerged into another internal court. The
next door gave onto the abbey itself. The monk conveyed them to a modestly furnished common room overlooking a green garden.
Actually, thought Gabriel, it was more like a small farm. Surrounded by a high wall, it was invisible to the outside world.

The Benedictine asked them to make themselves comfortable and then withdrew. Ten minutes elapsed before he finally returned.
He was alone.

“I'm sorry, Excellency. But Father Jordan is praying now and wishes not to be disturbed.”

Donati opened his briefcase and removed the manila envelope. “Show him this.”

“But—”

“Now, Don Simon.”

Gabriel smiled as the monk fled the room. “It seems your reputation precedes you.”

“I doubt Father Jordan will be so easily impressed.”

Another fifteen minutes passed before the British monk returned. This time he was accompanied by a small, dark man with a
weathered face and a shock of unkempt white hair. Father Robert Jordan was wearing an ordinary cassock rather than the black
habit of the Benedictines. In his right hand was the envelope.

“I came here to get away from Rome. Now it seems Rome
has come to me.” Father Jordan's gaze settled on Gabriel. “Mr. Allon, I presume.”

Gabriel said nothing.

Father Jordan removed the page from the envelope and held it up to the afternoon light streaming through the window. “It's
paper, not vellum. It looks to be from the fifteenth or sixteenth century.”

“I'll have to take your word for it,” replied Donati.

Father Jordan lowered the page. “I've been searching for this for more than thirty years. Where on earth did you find it?”

“It was given to me by a priest who works in the Secret Archives.”

“Does the priest have a name?”

“Father Joshua.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why?”

“Because I'm quite certain I know everyone who works in the Archives, and I've never heard of anyone by that name.” Father
Jordan looked down at the page again. “Where's the rest of it?”

“It was removed from the papal study the night of the Holy Father's death.”

“By whom?”

“Cardinal Albanese.”

Father Jordan looked up sharply. “Before or after His Holiness died?”

Donati hesitated, then said, “It was after.”

“Dear God,” whispered Father Jordan. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

The monk returned
with an earthenware carafe of water, a loaf of coarse bread from the monastery's bakery, and a bowl of olive oil produced
by an abbey-supported cooperative. Father Jordan explained that he had worked there the previous summer, repairing the damage
done to his body by a lifetime of teaching and study. It was obvious he had spent a great deal of time in the out-of-doors
of late; his sunbaked face was the color of terra-cotta. His Italian was animated, flawless. Indeed, were it not for his name
and his American-accented English, Gabriel would have assumed that Robert Jordan had lived his entire life in the hills and
valleys of Umbria.

In truth, he had been raised in the comfortable Boston suburb of Brookline. A brilliant Jesuit academic, he served on the faculties at Fordham and Georgetown before coming to the
Pontifical Gregorian University, where he taught history and theology. His private research, however, focused on the apocryphal gospels. Of particular interest to Father Jordan were the Passion apocrypha, especially the gospels and letters focusing on Pontius Pilate. They were, he said, depressing reading, for they seemed to have but one purpose—to acquit Pilate of the death of Jesus and place the blame squarely on the heads of the Jews and their descendants. Father Jordan believed that, intentionally or not, the Gospel writers had erred in their depiction of the trial and execution of Jesus, an error compounded by the inflammatory teachings of Church Fathers from Origen to Augustine.

In the mid-1980s, he learned he was not alone. Without the knowledge of the Jesuit superior general or his chancellor at the
Gregoriana, he joined the Jesus Task Force, a group of Christian scholars who attempted to create an accurate portrait of
the historical Jesus. The group published its findings in a controversial book. It argued that Jesus was an itinerant sage
and faith healer who neither walked on water nor miraculously fed the multitudes with five loaves of bread and two fish. He
was put to death by the Romans as a public nuisance—not for challenging the authority of the Temple elite—and did not rise
bodily from the dead. The concept of the Resurrection, the task force concluded, was based on visions and dreams experienced
by Jesus' closest followers, a view first put forward in 1835 by the theologian David Friedrich Strauss, a German Protestant.

“When the book was published, my name didn't appear in the text. Even so, I was terrified my participation would become
public. Late at night I waited for the dreaded knock at the door from the Holy Office of the Inquisition.”

Donati reminded Father Jordan that the Holy Office was now known as the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

“A rose by any other name, Father Donati.”

“I'm an archbishop, Robert.”

Father Jordan smiled. His participation in the task force, he continued, did not shake his belief in the divinity of Jesus
or the core tenets of Christianity. If anything, it strengthened his faith. He had never believed that everything in the New
Testament—or in the Torah, for that matter—happened as described, and yet he believed with all his heart in the Bible's core
truths. It was why he had come to Assisi, to be closer to God, to live his life the way Jesus had led his, unburdened by property
or possessions.

He remained deeply troubled, however, by the Gospels' accounts of the Crucifixion, for they had led to countless deaths and
untold suffering on the part of the Jewish people. Father Jordan had made it his life's work to find out what really happened
that day in Jerusalem. He was convinced that somewhere there was a firsthand account. Not an apocryphal document but a genuine
eyewitness report, written by an actual participant in the proceedings.

“Pontius Pilate?” asked Donati.

Father Jordan nodded. “I'm not alone in my belief that Pilate wrote about the Crucifixion. Tertullian, the very founder of
Latin Christianity, the first theologian to use the word
Trinity
, was convinced that Pilate sent a detailed report to Emperor Tiberius. None other than Justin Martyr shared his opinion.”

“With all due respect to Tertullian and Justin, they couldn't possibly have known whether that was true.”

“I concur. In fact, I believe they were wrong on at least one key point.”

“What's that?”

“Pilate didn't write about the Crucifixion until long after Tiberius was dead.” Father Jordan looked down at the page. “But
I'm afraid we're getting ahead of ourselves. To understand what happened, it's necessary to go back in time.”

“How far?” asked Donati.

“Thirty-six
c.e.
Three years after the death of Jesus.”

Which is where Father Robert Jordan, in the common room of the Abbey of St. Peter in the sacred city of Assisi, picked up
the thread of the story.