Pope's Assassin (30 page)

    "Why are you risking yourself for us?" Ben Isaac continued. "You've only known us for a few hours. You tried to kill her."

    Sarah lowered her glance. Duty, solidarity, ethics, love of one's neighbor—there was no shortage of reasons. Ben Isaac could choose the one he wanted.

    "The kidnappers didn't leave me any option," she chose to answer, with a half smile. She was nervous.

"I don't want to turn over the parchments," Ben Isaac fi nally confessed.

    Garvis, who'd gone off, returned to the group. "The plane is being serviced now. It'll take off from Gatwick in twenty minutes. We've got to hurry."

    "We're waiting for Dr. Ben Isaac," Gavache told him. "It looks like he doesn't want to cooperate, is that right, Jean-Paul?"

    "Right, Inspector. He doesn't want to pay the ransom."

    "We'll have to give them something," Garvis explained. "We'll place a detector in the parchments, so we can keep track of their location at all times."

    "You've seen what kind of people we're dealing with, Inspector Garvis. They're always one step ahead," Gavache warned.

    Garvis approached Gavache conspiratorially. "We'll have to impro vise with whatever bait we can use."

    "If an agent were making the delivery, I'd risk his neck, Garvis. But we're dealing with professionals, and it's an inexperienced civilian who's going to be exposing herself to the bullets." He looked at Sarah, who was listening apprehensively. "Speaking figuratively, of course. I don't think it's a good idea for her to carry bait instead of the originals."

    "There must be another solution," Ben Isaac offered.

    Myriam shrugged off Sarah's arm and turned to her husband. Tears were running down her face. The slap she gave her husband was hard, and echoed through the room. "This is all your fault, Ben Isaac," she said, giving him a sorrowful, cold stare. "Do you want to kill my son? Is that what you want? Do you want to send an innocent person to her death, carrying false papers? This is not the man I married." She turned her back and left the room.

    The room was in shock.

    Garvis looked at his watch and frowned. "We don't have much time."

    "What's it going to be, Dr. Ben Isaac?" Gavache pressured him as he brought a cigarette to his lips.

    Ben Isaac took a pen, wrote something on a piece of paper, and handed it to the French inspector with a resigned expression. "The code to open the vault."

    Gavache gave it to Jean-Paul, who hurried toward the underground chamber.

    "Sarah, we're going to wait for the parchments in the car. We have to hurry. Time's running out."

    Two agents escorted Sarah to the car. Garvis put on his jacket and saw Gavache sit down next to Ben Isaac. "Aren't you coming?" Garvis asked.

    "Jean-Paul's going to escort the woman. I'll come later."

    "As soon as I have Sarah sitting in the plane, it's your problem."

    "Don't worry. Everything's under control. Thanks, Garvis." Gavache looked at the defeated Ben Isaac. "Now I want to hear that incredible story that was interrupted by the phone call. Tell me about Jesus Christ."

T
he conversation had reached a pause. Robin excused himself, his full bladder urging him. Rafael felt uncomfortable, and the Jesuit noticed it.

    "It's out there to the left," Robin pointed to a door down the cor ridor. "You'll see it. Relax. No one's going to do anything . . . unless I give the order."

    Robin went into the second door on the left and didn't take much time. Two minutes later there was a flush, followed by the priest wash ing his hands. He came out with his hands dripping and dried them on a towel hanging behind the offi ce door.

    "Still afraid of germs?" Rafael joked.

    "Laugh away. You have no idea of the pests that surround us. If we're not careful, they'll do us in," Robin said with conviction.

    "We have bigger things to worry about now."

    "Do you know it was a Jesuit who discovered the microbes invisible to the naked eye that are responsible for the black plague and other diseases?" Robin asked, assuming a professorial tone.

    "Athanasius Kircher." Rafael sounded like a student who thought he knew it all. "The master of a hundred arts. He was one of the fi rst people to observe microbes through a microscope in the seventeenth century. German by birth, he was considered the ultimate Renaissance man. He was the author of innumerable treatises, not only on medi cine but also on geology, magnetism, and even music. A true Da Vinci, this Jesuit."

    Robin looked at him with mock disdain before sitting down. "Now, where were we?"

    "You know very well where we left things. Keep going."

    Robin crossed his legs and licked his lips. "What do you know about Jesus?"

    "He was born in Bethlehem and crucified at thirty-three. . . ."

    "Okay, I see you know nothing," Robin scolded him.

    "That's what they taught us in catechism and at the seminary," Rafael argued.

    "Is that still taught in seminary? No wonder the society is so far ahead. How curious that they teach you to think better than most people and invest years and years in your moral, philosophical, and religious education, yet so often you fail to see the obvious."

    "And you do?" Rafael challenged, fed up with Robin's know-it-all attitude.

    "What did the Jews in the first century call Him?"

    "I have no idea."

    "By his first name, followed by the name of his father or place of birth.Yeshua ben Joseph; Jesus, son of Joseph; or Yeshua Ha'Notzri, Jesus of Nazareth. I never heard of anyone calling him Jesus of Bethlehem."

    Rafael had never thought of that, but he wasn't going to give Robin the pleasure of knowing it. He played it down. "Okay. He was Jesus of Nazareth, and not Jesus of Bethlehem. There goes business for the Church of the Nativity," he joked again.

    "If the church was mistaken or, more accurately, gave misleading information about the birth of Christ, don't you think it would do the same with other events in His life?"

    
As a matter of fact, yes,
Rafael thought. He himself was living proof that the church defended herself by hiding, eliminating, and getting around every obstacle. He wasn't the person to ask about the Holy See's good intentions. He, better than anyone, knew they didn't exist.

    "Look at me, Robin. I'm the guy ready to blow your brains out. Do you think I believe in the holiness of the church?"

    "Why do you, then?" Robin wanted to know.

    That was a question Rafael avoided asking himself, but more and more frequently occurred to him. Why did he believe? Because others had believed before him? Because life carried him in that direction? Why? Because, despite all the errors and injustices, the church was still the institution that prevented the world from falling into chaos. He still believed that, and perhaps that was the only reason, the one that made him get out of bed without knowing if he would do so the next day, not knowing if he would sleep that night, if he survived, where he would be, what the next step would be, in what direction it would take him. Every day, hour, minute, and second were unknown to fate. He only thanked God for the time He gave him.

    "I believe because I want to," he said.

    "Whether you want to or not, you do it for mistaken reasons," Robin warned him.

    "And I presume you do so for all the right ones."

    "You can believe I'm not going around deceived," Robin admon ished, irritated.

    "So, set me straight. Why do they say He was born in Bethlehem, when he was actually born in Nazareth? Let's begin there," Rafael asked, losing patience with the argument.

    Robin also seemed willing to move on and began an explanation in the professorial tone of one who has always known the truth, and not some deluded version made up for gullible believers.

    Jesus Christ was not born in Bethlehem or in Nazareth, but fi rst saw the light of day somewhere in the outskirts of Jerusalem in 5 B.C., according to the Gregorian and Julian calendars. The reason for this strange date had to do with the calculation of the calendars. Agree ments and disagreements about counting made it possible, according to theory, for Jesus to have been born five years before Himself, that is, the year 5 B.C. Herod the Great reigned until the year 4 B.C., and since the heir of David had to flee the insanity of that lunatic king, according to Robin, He had to have been born before the death of Herod.

    "Forget everything you know or thought you knew about Jesus," Robin said.

    Jesus's father was never a carpenter. Joseph had royal blood, descended from Jacob, Solomon, Abraham, and Isaac, and his son was therefore of royal lineage, too.

    "According to Matthew," Rafael interrupted. "Luke traces Him back to Adam and God."

    "Whoever tells a story . . ." Robin returned to his account. "Why was it necessary that Jesus be born in Bethlehem, and not in Jerusalem, or Nazareth, if you prefer to fall into this error?" Robin asked rhetori cally. "Because the prophet Micah foretold: A
nd thou Bethlehem, in the
land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of thee
shall come a governor that shall rule my people of Israel.
"

    Rafael recognized the words of Matthew.

    "There's more. Let's begin with the birth of Jesus, who was conceived"—Robin sketched quotation marks in the air—"by the power of the Holy Spirit. Why? To fulfill what the Lord spoke through His prophet Isaiah: Be
hold a virgin will conceive and bring forth a son, and they will call
him Emanuel, which means God be with us. E
ither Matthew had a great propensity to make things up or was a poor reader with a bad memory, because, as you very well know, Isaiah never said such a thing.

    
"A young woman with child will bring forth a son,"
Rafael quoted.

    Robin nodded in agreement.

    "Then Herod secretly called on the magi to set out for Bethlehem"— more quotation marks in the air—"to discover the hiding place of the child, who, in the meantime, would flee to Egypt, since God appeared to Joseph in dreams and ordered him to go there and stay until he received new direction." Robin got up and assumed a dramatic pose: "As announced through the mouth of the prophet Hosea:
Out of Egypt
I shall call my son.
"

    The deceived Herod then ordered every male child under the age of two to be killed, fulfilling the prophesy of Jeremiah:
A voice is heard
in Ramah, a lamentation and loud cry: it is Rachel weeping for her sons
and refusing consolation because they no longer are alive.

    Herod died, and an angel of the Lord appeared again in Joseph's dreams, ordering him to return to Israel. Since Arquelaus, the son of Herod the Great, was the tetrarch of Judea, Joseph decided to settle in Galilee, specifically in Nazareth, where the tetrarch was Arquelaus's brother, Herod Antipas, fulfilling another prophesy: He
will be called
the Nazarene.

    Here Robin stopped and sighed. He was tired from so much talk ing, and his mouth was dry. He sat down again heavily. "I don't know what prophesy Matthew is alluding to. In the Old Testament there is no mention of a Nazarene or Nazareth. Presumably he confused the name or didn't interpret it correctly. Probably it wasn't Nazareth but Nazarite, like John the Baptist, someone consecrated by God—"

    "Where are you going with all this?" Rafael interrupted, fed up with all of it.

    "Can't you see your hand in front of your own face?" Robin com plained. "You're an idiot."

    Rafael didn't bother to reply. He saw nothing.

    "Do you think Jesus and his family didn't read the Bible?" Robin asked suddenly.

    "They read the Old Testament," Rafael responded, remember ing Jacopo's lecture to Gavache the night before in the Church of Saint-Paul–Saint-Louis.

    "Exactly—that is, they knew all the steps they had to take to present the heir of David, the Messiah, to the world."

    No carpenter in the first century in Israel would have the resources to make a journey to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the Passover. Nor was it necessary, according to Robin's vivid account, to consult apocryphal texts to know that Jesus's family went every year, as was the custom of those who could afford it. Some of these journeys are described in Holy Scripture.

    Jesus continued to make them as an adult with his disciples.

    "He even died during Passover, if we choose to believe this."

    "Don't tell me that's not true," Rafael grumbled uncomfortably.

    Robin got up suddenly. It was not something he could say sitting down. He was visibly upset. "We still don't know."

    "Then who does know?" Rafael asked impatiently.

    Robin looked up at the angry Italian priest, who was acting like a petulant child.

    "You don't have any idea what's happening, do you?"

    Rafael shook his head no, as if he didn't know and didn't care.

    "Remember the manuscripts that mention manuscripts that men tion bones?" Robin reminded him.

    "Of course."

    "We're talking about the bones of Christ."

    "What? Repeat that." Rafael was astonished.

    "We're talking about the bones of Christ," the Englishman repeated.

    It was Rafael's turn to get up. What the hell was he talking about? He could only be joking. Rafael shivered from nervousness. Had Loyola gone to look for those bones in Jerusalem? "Are you kidding, Robin?"

    "I wish." He smiled slightly. "For nearly five hundred years the Society of Jesus has been guarding these relics with their lives, under constant threat, inside and outside the church."