The Testimonium (53 page)

GARCIA: Remember I told you that two sleeper cells had been activated? Well, I had an inside man in one of them. Been in place five years, and never a hint he had been made. He told us there was a large cache of weapons at a storage facility south of Rome, and that his group was detailed to go pick them up for an impending big op. We were going to swoop in and nab them in the act, see if we could sweat a couple of them into giving up the Ethiopian. But it was a set-up!

BERTRAND: How bad?

GARCIA: Bad, boss. They cleaned out the weapons hours before we got there, and all we found was my agent with his head cut off and severe burns to his lower abdomen. I am guessing that they got everything he knew from him before he died. Not many people can keep mum when they have a blowtorch aimed at their crotch.

BERTRAND: Damn! That’s about as bad as it can get. I am going to tell the Italians they will need massive security on that transport route. I am guessing they are going for the scroll and everyone associated with it.

GARCIA: I think you are right, boss, and we just lost our inside link. I am activating every asset and tapping every line I can, to see if I can figure out when and where. But if you have not warned the Italians yet, I think it’s time.

BERTRAND: Agreed, Dingo. Stay on it, keep me informed.

GARCIA: Aye, sir. Garcia out.

Josh slept soundly the night of the funeral, his dreams chasing each other through his head, until his wake-up call came at 6 AM. He rolled out of bed, splashed cold water in his face, and donned his trunks. He figured it was time to resume his normal routines as much as possible, so he went down to the pool, swimming a dozen laps or so. The aches and pains of the blast were fading away quickly as his body healed itself, and the water felt soothing to him, as it always did. He was out of the pool well before seven, and took a hot shower when he got back to his room. He grabbed a quick and light breakfast, and then called his mom and dad’s room.

“Good morning, Dad!” he said. They had spent a good part of the evening together after supper, but it had been a subdued visit, everyone still recovering emotionally from the emotional service that afternoon. Isabella had been unusually quiet, and wound up heading back to her apartment early in the evening. Josh had also retired early.

“Hello, son!” his father said. “Did you rest well?”

“Slept like a log,” Josh replied. “Have you and Mom thought about my invitation?” Josh had invited them to come to the museum with him that morning and see the Pilate scroll for themselves.

“I think we would enjoy it very much,” his dad said. “We are finishing up breakfast, and can meet you in the lobby in about thirty minutes.”

“See you there,” Josh said. He sat down at his desk and used the next half hour to answer some of the letters from the massive stack he’d received over the weekend. They were still coming in, but the flood was starting to slow down some. Three-quarters of them were junk of one variety or another—hate mail, crackpot theories, and love letters from total strangers. But he still had a stack of over 100 that he had designated worthy of a reply. He had his laptop hooked up to a small printer, and was pretty fast on the keyboard. He managed to get about five letters written, printed, and addressed before heading downstairs to meet his folks at 8:00.

It was a gorgeous morning, and they walked the short distance to the museum, chatting about friends and family members back home. His dad had spent the evening emailing and calling friends back in Texas and Oklahoma, catching them up on events and touching base with his church. He had agreed to return home Friday, so as not to miss two Sundays in a row.

Once they got to the museum, Josh had to call Dr. Castolfo to get his parents cleared through security, and they took the elevator down to the lab. Father MacDonald and Isabella were already there when they arrived.

“Good morning, lad!” said the irrepressible Scot. “Reverend and Mrs. Parker, good to see you two again.”

“Delighted to be here, Father,” said Louise Parker. “Joshua promised us a quick peek at the Pilate scroll this morning.”

“Well, here it is,” said MacDonald. “Impressive, isn’t it?”

It was indeed an impressive sight. The
Testimonium
was neatly placed on the center of a large, stainless steel table, covered with its clear plexiglass box, resting on a black plastic stand that had been specifically crafted over the last few days to hold it in position and display the ancient papyrus in a visually striking manner. The scroll appeared to float above the blackness of the stand, the ancient Latin letters leaping from the page in their clarity.

Josh’s dad leaned forward, his nose inches from the glass as he studied the ancient papyrus. He studied it a long time in silence. “Amazing,” he finally said. “Not just that it dates to the time of Jesus, but that it was actually written by the man who presided over his trial. You can even see the distinct handwriting changes where Pilate takes over for his scribe, and then down here where Tiberius added his comments. Oh, how I wish my Latin weren’t so rusty! We studied it in high school when I was a kid, but in college and seminary I focused on Greek because that was the language of the New Testament.”

Louise Parker was also studying the scroll. “Even having read the text and heard the tale of its discovery, it is still hard for me to believe that the writing is so crisp and clear after twenty centuries. It is such a shame that all the other artifacts from the chamber were destroyed!”

“We have recovered far more than we thought we might,” said Dr. Castolfo. “The sword that belonged to Julius Caesar is still intact and in its scabbard, after being hurled aloft and coming down on the windshield of my car! We also recovered the original Tiberius letter, his signet ring, two unbroken pollen sample vials, and the pendant from the reliquary. The will of Augustus Caesar was burned pretty badly, but we did salvage about one-third of the scroll. The salvage workers have folders full of pictures of all the artifacts we recovered on Capri, and are watching for them as they clear the rubble from the site.”

Josh smiled. “That is more than they had the last time we talked,” he said. “I am excited that so much has been recovered.”

His dad straightened and looked over his glasses at Josh. “Any way I could get a look at that sword, son?” he asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Josh said. “Dr. Castolfo?”

The president of the Antiquities Board nodded, and Josh opened the sealed cabinet where the sword was kept. Donning a pair of acid-free gloves, he carefully lifted the ancient blade out and pulled it from its scabbard.

Ben Parker gave a low whistle of amazement. “My word,” he said, “it’s not even rusted over! I’ve got hunting knives that are in worse shape than that!”

“That sword was really carried by Julius Caesar?” his mother asked.

“This inscription is from his mother.” Josh pointed at the Latin words. “Aurelia Cotta dedicated it to her son, and said ‘Wield it with honor.’ Apparently he bequeathed it to Octavian, who gave it to his adopted son Tiberius.”

She studied the ancient
gladius
. “I remember as a schoolgirl, my Latin teacher had us read
The Gallic Wars
in the original language. He would dress up in a toga and go on and on and on about Caesar, the greatest Roman of them all! He would just die if he knew that I was looking at Caesar’s sword.”

“Joshua,” said his dad, “thank you for letting us come and take a look at your finds. I know you have a busy day ahead of you, and I don’t want to use up any more of your time. Dear, let’s get out of our son’s way and let him get back to work.”

“I’ll walk you to the front,” said Josh. He led his parents back to the elevator and they boarded together.

“Thank you son,” said his dad. “That was something to see!”

“You can’t imagine how exciting it was watching those things come out of the chamber,” he said. “The sword was completely unexpected. It was buried in a thick layer of stone dust, and when Simone uncovered it we were all stunned!”

“I guess we will see you at Dr. Apriceno’s funeral this afternoon,” said his mom.

“I am not looking forward to it,” said Josh, “But I’m not dreading it as much as I did Giuseppe’s. Not that I didn’t love Simone, but I haven’t been asked to speak at her service, so I can just sit in the audience and cry with everyone else.”

“You did very well yesterday, my boy,” said his dad. “There is no such thing as an easy funeral, but you spoke very eloquently.”

“I never met the man, but you made me wish I had,” his mother said.

“I couldn’t even open my mouth until I looked out there and saw you two,” Josh said. “You have always been there for me, and words can’t say how grateful I am.”

“What else are parents for, dear?” Mrs. Parker asked.

Josh walked them to the door and saw them off, and then returned to the lab. Dr. Martens had arrived, and Isabella and Father MacDonald pulled some chairs around one of the extra tables. Castolfo and Guioccini joined them.

Guioccini spoke first. “Dr. Martens, you were my first choice to be a part of this team, but could not be here when the excavation began. Joshua has done an admirable job in your place, but since our numbers are cruelly reduced, would you consider stepping in as a fourth member of our group? Even though the excavation is complete, there is still much to do in curating and cataloguing the remaining artifacts, and any others that we may recover from the wreckage of our lab.”

“I should be delighted, Bernardo, but as you can see by these crutches, I am still not fully mobile. I find myself depending on my wife’s help to get around,” said Martens. “But, if you would be willing to allow her full access to the lab to help me when I need her, I will accept your kind offer.”

Guioccini looked over at Castolfo, who nodded. “Welcome aboard to you, and your lovely wife, old friend!” he said. “I look forward to getting to know her.”

Castolfo spoke next. “We will be transporting the scroll to Rome for further testing on Friday, to be conducted by Dr. Henderson from the Smithsonian. I am very concerned that the terrorists who tried to destroy it before may strike again while we are in transit. We are arranging some very heavy security for the day—we do not want to risk the scroll’s safety. The police and the army will be assisting.”

“The army?” Josh asked. “Wow! That seems a little extreme—but, then again, so does blowing up a lab to destroy a two-thousand-year-old scroll!”

“We are dealing with extremists here, lad, no doubt about that,” said MacDonald. “I just wonder how many, and how well organized, they are.”

“I am amazed that any of the papyrus survived the blast at all,” said Dr. Martens. “And we found pieces of two documents?”

Guioccini nodded. “The Tiberius scroll was fused to the top of that ancient writing desk,” he said. “The desk was broken by the blast, but only the legs landed in the flames. The top of the desk, with the papyrus attached, came down in an area of rubble that never caught fire, thanks to the quick response of the local fire trucks, and the sprinkler system, which did function briefly in the area of the lab left standing. As for the will of Augustus, it was apparently blown into the air and set ablaze, but came down in a puddle of water which saved part of it.”

“I must admit, although they were a pain to work with, I will miss not being able to piece together all those ancient documents that the rats had chewed,” said Josh.

“Well,” said Castolfo, “so far we have recovered none of the fragments. I think the drawer that they were in was completely consumed by the flames. But we will be able to digitally piece them together—the two graduate assistants Father MacDonald assigned had just finished photographing all of them shortly before the blast.”

“Excellent!” said Josh. “We found a few fair-sized fragments that had interesting contents. It will be neat to see if we can piece together enough to make complete documents. There was so much potential for understanding Augustan Rome in those pages!”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to poke through those myself,” said Martens. “The idea of reading the personal correspondence of Tiberius Caesar—it’s a classical historian’s dream!”

The phone in the corner rang, and Guioccini picked it up.

“Excellent!” he said in Italian. “I shall be right up to escort him here personally.” He hung up and turned to the others. “Dr. Henderson is here,” he said.

“I look forward to seeing him again,” said Martens. “He and I had a fascinating conversation at the Smithsonian’s annual ball last year that got interrupted. I’d enjoy finishing it.”

Moments later, Guioccini returned with Dr. Henderson in tow. Behind them trailed two young college-aged men, dressed in khaki pants and polo shirts, each one carrying large briefcases and clipboards. The team rose, Josh helping Dr. Martens with his crutches. “Andy!” bellowed Martens. “How good to see you again!”

“Luke!” said the Smithsonian paleographer. “You look a bit the worse for wear, my old friend!”

“Occupational hazard of having a younger spouse, I suppose,” replied Martens. “So who are these two youngsters?”

“These are my two lab assistants, Cameron Hargrove and Justin Arnold,” said Henderson. “They will be helping me measure and photograph the scroll so that we can be ready for testing on Friday. I have brought some equipment with me, so that we can begin to do some preliminary work today.”

“By all means,” said Guioccini. “We want to confirm the authenticity of all the pieces we found, but this one above all because it is so important to so many people.”

Henderson nodded to his assistants, and they placed their cases on the table on either side of the
Testimonium
, and began pulling out various pieces of equipment. Meanwhile Henderson reached into his pocket and pulled out an old, well-worn, 15x lighted loupe.

“Gadgets are great, but for my first look at an important manuscript, I always prefer to kick it old school,” he said. “You would be amazed how many things you can spot with a simple old hand-held magnifier like this, especially when it has different lights attached.”