The Book of Q (54 page)

When she broke away and headed down a side street, Pearse guessed she was banking on his help.

Out in the open again, the gaps separating all of them widened, the man unwilling as yet to move in for the kill. It might have had something to do with his radio, thought Pearse. He watched as the man began to shake it rather than speak into it. The explosion had created a communications overload. Maybe it was interfering with the Vatican frequency? No backup. No reason to draw in too close. Whatever the cause, the man was holding back as he placed the radio in his pocket.

Pearse made sure to keep his distance as well, hugging to the sides of buildings, once or twice losing sight of Petra, who continued, with Ivo, to duck and weave through the alleys and streets. Everything was deserted, anyone who had ventured out by now at the marketplace, the sounds of it all receding farther and farther into the background. Pearse heard nothing but the near-silent patter of steps up ahead of him. He kept his focus on the man, not knowing if he should run at him or stay back. A fumbled attack would only leave Petra and Ivo more vulnerable. He had to trust that she knew what she was doing.

Entering a part of town he thought he recognized, Pearse saw her glance back again. It was clear she had meant for the man to see her looking at him. Pearse, as well. She immediately darted down another side street. Pearse watched as the man pulled a gun from his jacket and followed.

It was now or never. Still close to the buildings, he waited for the man to make the turn. He then sprinted out after him, careening around the corner.

In an instant, Pearse saw what Petra had contrived. She was standing twenty feet from the man, Ivo tucked in behind her, the box held out at arm’s length. The man had stopped, the gun aimed at her.

But it was only for an instant. Before the man could react, Pearse came crashing into his back, the collision propelling them both to the ground. Still on top of him, Pearse drove his fist into the man’s neck, rote responses from a part of his mind he hadn’t tapped into for years. With his other hand, he grabbed the man’s hair and pummeled his skull into the cobblestone, the second thrust enough to leave the body limp.

Trying to catch his breath, Pearse rolled off the man and stared up at the sky.

Only then did he hear the screams from Ivo. He immediately flipped over and saw Petra sitting up against one of the buildings, Ivo clutching at her, his face contorted in tears.

Pearse struggled to his feet. He raced toward them. Dropping down at her side, he saw her hands holding an area to the left side of her abdomen. They were stained red.

“It’s okay, Ivi. It’s okay. It’s not so bad,” she said breathing through the pain. She looked up at Pearse. “It went off when you jumped him.”

Pearse hadn’t even heard the gun discharge. All thought seemed to vanish. He pulled off his shirt and placed it over the wound. “We need to get you to—”

“I know.”

“I need to find a car.”

Petra nodded her head toward the next street. “It’s down there.”

Pearse looked up. That’s why it all looked so familiar. That’s why she had brought them back here. He jumped to his feet and started running. “Stay with Mommy, Ivo. I’ll be right back.”

He tore down the side street, the van no more than thirty yards from him. Two minutes later, he was lifting her from the pavement, laying her flat in the back of the van. Ivo climbed in by her side.

“So that’s how you take out a catcher?” she said, the look of pain no less intense on her face.

“Something like that.” He found a blanket and placed it under her head.

“Did he drop the ball?”

Pearse looked into her eyes, his hand brushing back the hair from her forehead. “Yeah. He dropped it.”

She tried to smile. “The main road. Take a right. The hospital’s about a half mile down.”

Pearse shut the back door, picked up the box, and got in behind the wheel. He slid open the partition. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

As he pulled the car around, he heard Ivo singing to her, his tiny voice echoing from the back.

No one had bothered to ask about a bullet wound. The hospital had been too overrun to quibble about the details. They had been nice enough to find him a shirt.

It was two hours since they’d taken Petra—Pearse and Ivo left to sit with the rest of the shell-shocked, waiting for word. Ivo, cradled on his lap, had alternated between sleep and tears, his first half hour without her almost frantic. He had started by punching at Pearse, blaming him for everything, until his little body had given out. The first nap, followed by complete disorientation, more hysteria, a second breaking point, then a third. Finally, he had simply sat, eyes staring out blankly. Pearse had tried to talk to him, but it had made no difference.

One constant: the ball he clutched in his hand.

From conversations around him, Pearse had discovered that the explosion hadn’t destroyed a church; it had blown up the Velika Dzamija, the Great Mosque. Unjust retribution, he had been told. Only when he’d moved to the television in the corner of the waiting area had he understood what they’d meant. The three churches yesterday had been just the beginning. News reports brought him up-to-date on the atrocities occurring across Europe and beyond. And, of course, the Vatican. The mosque had simply been one instance of Christian backlash—at least that was the way Bosnian television was interpreting it. They were expecting a good deal more. The Middle East was already up in arms about the accusations. The Vatican was calling for all Christians—all—to come together in peace. The battle lines were being drawn.

And all to bring about the one true and holy church. The thought sickened him.

A doctor approached. “You brought in the woman with the abdominal wound?” he asked.

Pearse stood, petrified by what he might hear next.

“She’ll be fine,” he said. “The bullet went straight through her side, no vital organs, but she obviously needs to stay with us for a day or so. You can see her now.”

Pearse picked up Ivo and followed the doctor along a series of corridors before coming to a room with eight beds. Petra lay in the one nearest the window. The doctor nodded toward her, then headed out. Before Pearse could take a step, Ivo had dropped down and was racing to her side. He lay his head next to hers on the pillow.

She looked remarkably serene given what she had just been through.

“Hey, Ivi,” she said, still well drugged. She brought her hand up and began to stroke his hair. “Mommy’s going to be okay.”

Pearse pulled a chair over and sat down. He didn’t know what to say.

“I’ve had worse,” she said, her smile weak, Ivo now clutching at her arm.

“I didn’t think the gun—”

“Neither did I,” she said. “Just unlucky.” She stared over at him. “I guess you could tell me you’re sorry.” Again the smile.

“I guess I could.”

Ivo started to cry.

“Mommy’s okay, sweet pea. We’re just going to have to be here for a few days. The doctor says you can sleep right next to me. They’re going to bring in a cot, and blankets. How about that?”

Ivo kissed her cheek. “Okay.”

She looked back at Pearse. She took his hand.

Gazing down at her, he realized how scared he had actually been. To lose her again.

“No cot for you,” she said.

“I need to stay.”

“No, you need to go.” She waited. “I want my son back, Ian. No more little shrines. If what’s in the box can do that, then you have to go and do that. Okay?”

Pearse looked into her eyes. “I need you to know—”

“I do. I know.”

For several minutes, neither said a word.

“Ivi and I will be just fine here, won’t we?”

Ivo pressed his head closer into her.

Again, Pearse said nothing. He leaned over and kissed her. Pulling back, he ran his fingers along her cheek.

Finally, he stood and looked over at Ivo, happily tucked into his mother’s neck.

“I’ll see you soon, little man.”

Without moving, Ivo looked up at him.

“Keep an eye on Mommy for me, okay?”

Ivo smiled.

What more did he need than that?

seven

T
he last day and a half had been nothing short of a miracle, the first bombings—including the devastation at the Vatican—merely a prelude to the madness of the past nine hours. The wave of fear, mixed with outrage, was producing a kind of support Harris had never experienced in all his years connected with mass movements. Even the millennium nuts were getting involved. Religious commitment—whose death the pundits had been tolling for years—was having a genuine rebirth. Spontaneous rallies were springing up all over the place, doctrinal defensiveness evidently inspiring action. And what had begun with groups in the hundreds—petitioners in city squares, others outside state assemblies demanding greater “spiritual” security—had grown to ten times that number in a matter of hours.

And everywhere that blind hatred and moral indignation were commingling, the alliance was there.

Faith with firepower.

Those not so fortunate to share in the right system of belief were starting to feel the repercussions. Incidences of violence against Arab, Indian, even Chinese communities were occurring in every major city in Europe, as well as in the States. Kreutzberg, a section of Berlin, with the largest group of Turks outside of Turkey, had been the target of prolonged rioting. Stateside, several of the more outlandish radio personalities had taken to reminding their listeners not to forget who would benefit most from a clash between Christians and Muslims. Why not include an old favorite in the new brand of anti-Semitism?

In the meantime, Harris had been called by the PM to help devise a plan for calming the growing hysteria. Ten Downing Street was told it would have to wait. Harris needed to put the finishing touches to a Saturday-afternoon rally at Wembley Stadium. He’d been planning it for
months—at the time, nothing more than an appearance to coincide with the alliance announcement. In fact, it had been Stefan Kleist who had suggested the date. The original sale of thirty thousand tickets had ballooned to over seventy in the last twelve hours. English television crews had been told to make space for the internationals, the Times Square Jumbotron in New York even promising to broadcast bits of the session.

Evidently, Savonarola would have his day after all.

The three-hundred-mile drive from Visegrad to Zagreb was eerily quiet, everything, Pearse noticed, virtually deserted. It was as if all of Bosnia and Croatia were holing themselves up. And why not? Who knew better how to gear up for the kind of conflict now boiling to the surface than those who had been caught on its dividing line for centuries?

He’d called the hospital twice along the way. Both times, she’d been asleep. Ivo, as well. No reason to bother them. He’d call again.

Pulling off the highway at Zagreb, he made his way to the station. He’d realized an hour back he needed time with the scroll, time to find out what lay inside, and he wasn’t going to get that in the van. It was why he was now opting for the train. More than that, he knew a train would meet far less rigorous security at the border than the van. Why take the risk? Five to midnight, and he was on board the last overnight to Italy, the scroll—wrapped in velvet—tucked deep inside his pack. The iron box, and everything else Ribadeneyra had placed inside it, remained with the van in the parking lot.

Except for the coins. Those he’d saved for Ivo.

Finding an isolated foursome and table at the end of one of the cars, Pearse settled in. He waited until the conductor had made his rounds, then turned to the scroll.

If he’d anticipated any awe or wonder as he undid the straps, he felt almost none. The scroll was no longer a piece of scripture existing in and of itself. It had a far more defined purpose, regardless of the imagined purity of its message. It was simply one more device to be used. And Pearse knew he was no different from the Manichaeans in that respect. They needed it to establish their church; he needed it to save Angeli and get back to Petra and Ivo. Who was to say which was more noble?

No vacuum dome at his disposal, he laid it out as best he could and began to read.

It took him nearly four and half hours to get through it, his only interruption at the Slovenian border some twenty minutes into the trip. The officer had checked his papers, uninterested in the roll of papyrus carefully placed on the table. Given the events of the past day, itwasn’t an American priest—even one out of black clericals—they were concerned with.

After that, he’d sat undisturbed, his astonishment growing with each verse he read. Device or not, the “Hodoporia” was far more than he expected, especially in its last few verses, his own familiarity with them at first unnerving. Almost disorienting.
Why would these be in here?
Until he realized what he was reading. He’d been so caught up in the Manichaeans that he’d let one of the most obvious choices slip from his mind.

Q.

My God.

Eight hundred and forty-five verses, and he’d only recognized it in the last half dozen or so.

The “Hagia Hodoporia” was Q, from the German word
Quelle
, meaning “source.”
Die
Quelle
. The answer to a pedant’s dream.

Q.

Staring down at the ancient script, he couldn’t quite believe that this was what he had been after all along. Incredible.

Up to this moment, Q had been nothing more than an hypothesis, a scholar’s way to make sense of the central dilemma in Christian theology, the Synoptic Problem. In essence: if Matthew and Luke had used Mark as a common source (as they certainly had), what, then, of the parallel passages in the two Gospels that bore no connection to Mark? In other words, how could either writer—without ever having seen the other’s work—have come up with nearly identical elaborations in his own telling of the story? How? The only answer: another source beyond Mark. And one which, by definition, had to predate the Gospels.

A source contemporary with Christ, and thus unlike any of the four Gospels.

Q.

Reading through it, Pearse knew it was far more than just another exegetical tool. It stood as the last great mystery, even beyond that of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

A link to the Divine. Jesus’ sayings, untouched, pure, written in His lifetime.

Clarity at his fingertips.

Though no expert, Pearse was familiar enough with the scholarship to recognize Q from several of its final verses: “The Coming of John the Baptist,” “John’s Preaching of Repentance,” “John’s Preaching of the Coming One,” and “The Baptism of Jesus.” Matthew 3:1–17, Luke 3:1–22, the first of the non-Markan elaborations. Later still, the “Inaugural Sermon,” “Jesus on Blessings and Woes,” “Retaliation,” “Judging.” More stories: “Jesus’ Temptation,” “The Healing of the Roman Centurion’s Slave,” “The Exorcism of the Mute.” And, of course, the critical passage for any Q scholar—Luke 10:4–6, Matthew 10:10–13:

It was astounding enough to see the verses, one after another, stripped of their usual surroundings, now laid bare on a piece of parchment nearly two thousand years old. The true marvel, though, lay in the earlier passages—the vast majority of the scroll—those that appeared nowhere in the canonical Gospels, and which gave the words a meaning Pearse had never conceived, something to take it far beyond the narrow scope of scholarship.

It wasn’t simply the new collection of Jesus’ sayings, unseen until now, that made it so remarkable, but the structure itself, the form of the discourse, that placed the scroll in a context he couldn’t quite believe. Or perhaps accept.

Q was half Gospel, half diary, one that traced twenty years in the life of a Cynic teacher named Menippus. Like Diogenes—the father of Cynicism, who had walked about with a lantern in broad daylight, looking for an honest man—Menippus was a wanderer, no purse, no bag, no sandals. His mission, to teach the Cynic ideal: flout convention, scoff at authority, disbelieve in civilization itself, and embrace a poverty that could grant freedom and thus a kind of royalty. To be king within a kingdom unknown by those still mired in the excesses of a material world.

A Cynic through and through.

How like another school of thought.

Driven by a force he couldn’t explain, Menippus had set off on his “Hagia Hodoporia” from his home in Gadara—a Greek city east of the Jordan River, overlooking the Sea of Galilee—traveling to points as far west as Salonika, as far east as Jaipur, in India. Along the way, he had
lived in Sepphoris, not far from Nazareth, then spent several years with the Nozrim ha-Brit, the Essene community at Qumran—those who had written the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Keepers of the Covenant. But not alone. Never alone:

Menippus had wandered with a companion, at first the boy’s teacher, then his student, ultimately his “Beloved Disciple.” Menippus, the man forever unnamed in the Gospels, now revealed in the rolls of the “Hodoporia.”

Q was nothing less than a history of the lost years of Jesus’ life, his development from ages twelve to thirty, all transcribed by the pen of a Cynic teacher.

Pearse sat amazed.

To read the sayings in that context created an image of Jesus he had never seen before:

Jesus was, in point of fact, a young Jewish radical firmly rooted in the teachings of a still-thriving school of Greek thought. His mission: to unleash a social experiment based on the rejection of traditional constraints in favor of the individual as part of a wider human family. The rituals associated with eating and drinking, the insistence on a voluntary
poverty, the loving of one’s enemies, even the choice of dress that Jesus insisted upon all came directly from the Cynic influence:

Diogenes himself might have said it.

What was most clear from Q, however, was how strange the message had become in the hands of the writers of the Gospels and beyond. Not only had they inserted certain events—the Last Supper (and thus the Eucharist) was nowhere to be found in Q—but they had eliminated key sentiments that Pearse could only guess had run counter to the needs of the early church. The role of women as preachers (in keeping with the Cynic tradition), the constant emphasis on the individual’s responsibility to maintain his or her own commitment, all disappeared once out of Q’s hands.

Why no women? Why such import to the Last Supper and the Eucharist? No doubt to confirm the crucial role of the male apostles after Jesus’ death.

And yet, the power structure of an elite corps of disciples had had no place in Q. Menippus had gone to great lengths to recount several sermons by Jesus—still in His twenties—that expressly denounced such hierarchy. His was a populist movement, meant for the people as a whole. Everything about it portrayed Jesus not as a harbinger of a mighty structure but as a railer against such monoliths: