Sacred Flesh (2 page)

“It’s better trust me. No one will think anything important is going on down here,” Belo says while pushing up his glasses on his round face graced with a few silver stains of hair on top of his head.

“No wonder,” says Roman the middle-aged man with slicked back dark hair and round face. “It stinks down here.”

“We have no choice. It’s secure down here. These rooms haven’t been used for years,” Roman tells him.

“Can we at least get a coffee maker down here or maybe an air purifier?” Jean asks unhappy as Roman but understanding that what they are about to discuss must be kept tightly under wraps.

“I really don’t want to start moving things down here, nothing can pique anyone’s interest,” Belo says.

The three of them resign to sit around the old table in solid yet highly uncomfortable wooden chairs, the finish worn away long ago. Their eyes dart about the room, fingers taping upon the tabletop. Hurried glances scan the stoic bare brick walls, the lone overhead light fixture adorned in an old fashioned decorative ornament, while an odor of dank musk pervades the air.

“My hip won’t take sitting like this for too long,” says Jean with his receding tassel of gray hair he looks the oldest of the three, though they all appear well beyond fifty.

“Let’s begin,” announces Belo sitting at the head of the table.

“I don’t think this is going to work. I mean this project is too big, too far-fetched,” Jean says grimly.

“Of course we’re depending a great deal on certain scientific capabilities – if this can in fact be accomplished at all,” Belo states.

“And if it doesn’t? If it doesn’t work and word leaks out to the press can you imagine the flack we’ll take?” Roman says.

“That’s only if it fails and only if security is breached. We’re a very old and established institution as such I’m not worried about security. And you shouldn’t be either. If this works it will be the greatest event in Church history and we just might be playing a very important part in all of it.”

“But Belo, we’re not even sure it will work in the first place. Those samples could be nothing,-fakes like all those other relics,” Roman says.

“Ha! Don’t let them hear that upstairs, a lot of mileage has been had from those items,” Jean says.

“It’s true, fakes! How else could there be so many of the same?” Roman counters.

“Yes, we all know the DNA tests may very well come back as nothing spectacular, nothing more than another human sample,” Belo says.

“Just another 2,000 year old foreskin,” Jean says.

“If they’re fake they’re probably not 2,000 years old – more like 500 or so. The DNA test will tell us if it is a human sample. If human, then obviously it isn’t from Christ, but,” he lends forward speaking softer, “If the DNA shows it NOT to be human – but different, that’s what we’re looking for ‘Not Human.’ With the virgin birth He couldn’t have both Joseph’s and Mary’s DNA. Through He has Mary’s, the other half would have to be something of the divine order,” Belo says.

“Should we even be thinking about this?” Jeans asks.

“I can’t tell you what it will look like if we find it. Will it be the traditional double helix or something completely different? This I’ve wondered about for so long, there has never been a way to tell, until now,” Belo says.

“I don’t know that we should be doing this. It seems we jest with The Father Himself, seeking such answers. I’m not afraid to tell you I harbor fears of what we may discover,” Jean says.

“I doubt we find anything,-fakes!” Roman exclaims.

“The point is that it very well may be possible, if Christ’s foreskin from when He was on Earth does indeed still exist, then we can run these DNA tests and they will or they should provide answers. And then we will have the DNA of Christ and with that – we can conceivably clone the DNA,” Belo says.

“Oh dear,” Jean grasps.

“Think of it, we will have the child of Christ here with us on Earth! We will raise him to adulthood and when the time is right, the powers that be will have him installed,” Belo says.

“Installed?”Roman asks.

They stare at each other in disbelief.

“Yes, the clone of Christ installed as our new Pope. But for now, an imposing caveat impedes us. First, we must locate the suspected foreskins,” Belo says.

Comb, razor, toothbrush, every morning same damn thing, he thinks while hurrying himself out of the bathroom. At least when Emily was little there were the little Mickey Mouse toothbrushes and fishy wallpaper to look at, often he’d stumble over a few plastic toys left on the edge of the tub and shower. Now that she’s grown and off to school, some two hours drive time away, the nest is empty and so is the bathroom of all the warm fuzzy comfort figures that surround children. He’d thought they were annoying at first but grew to like them, enjoying the company. Now it’s the bareness that annoys him, all that’s left are the simple things: the two toothbrushes, Janet’s hair stuff, soap, a dirty wet towel draped over the bar. Nothing much here anymore, nothing much to look at he thinks while walking into the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” She says sitting at the table holding a cup of coffee.

“Finishing up grades, have to turn them in by noon tomorrow, are these bagels still good?” He picks up an open bag off the counter.

“Yeah, I just had one.”

He grimly tosses a bagel into the toaster.

“Are you teaching summer session again this year?”

“Remember, I thought I told you. I’m not teaching this summer. I have that article I’m trying to get the science journal to publish. I really hoped they would have by now, they should have anyway. But they sent it back for rewrites so now I’m tied down with that while at the same time I’m waiting to hear about the grant. If I get that then the university will have to give me the time and lab space to complete my research which. . .” The bagel pops up out of the toaster. “Which I can’t get to because every freaking semester I’m struck teaching these intro courses to a bunch of hung over freshmen who could care less about the subject,” he says while carefully spreading cream cheese over his bagel, “Man, I love cream cheese.”

“I thought you had a grad student this year.”

“A master’s candidate,” He bites into the bagel, “Is this blueberry?” He says as a crumb falls into his brown beard.

She nods yes.

“He’s done with the program, doing his Ph. D. work somewhere else.”

“I was thinking we could go up to the lake sometime,” she adds hopefully.

“What?”

“The lake, if we could get up there sometime I thought it would be nice.”

“Damn, I haven’t seen that cabin for awhile, did we go last year?”

‘Emily and I went. You were working.”

“Oh yeah,” He finishes the last bite.

“Well?”

“I don’t know Janet. We’ll have to see. I’m worried about this grant. I’m so sick of getting rejected every year. If those idiots don’t come through this year I’m tempted to leave the university.”

“You’re kidding. What about your pension?”

“I don’t care. I’ve had it with them. I got all this work to do and they want me to serve on the search committee for the new chancellor. They don’t respect me, never have, never supported my research,” he wipes his hands on a nearby paper napkin and tosses it into the trash can next to the refrigerator. “Well, I gotta go.” He hurries across the kitchen and through the living room to his home office without saying goodbye. Janet, his wife of twenty seven years, just sits and stares out the kitchen window, sighing she sips her coffee, now cold, “My husband is never home, my daughter away at school. She’ll probably meet some guy and move. I’ll hardly see her or her kids if she has them. Maybe I should get a dog.” She sighs again as she hears from the other side of the house her husband closing the door to his office. Once inside he picks up some papers from his desk when his cell phone rings, “Okay, okay yeah, that sounds good. Listen, I really can’t really talk now. I’m home in my office. Why don’t I meet you later around four o’clock, yeah, that sounds real good, Okay bye.” He tosses the phone into his open briefcase along with some papers from atop his large oak desk. Thinking for a brief moment how much she reminds him of Janet when they were young. Then slowly he removes the strange envelope from the briefcase liner pocket, holding it up again he looks at the odd lettering re-reading it as he has done so many times since receiving it the day before. Quickly, he shoves it back into his briefcase throwing down the lid and rapidly snapping it shut.

“Our first scientist friend is expired, dead, whatever you want to call it – it was better that way. Now we must find another scientist, one who will do our testing,” Haggai says.

“We’ve contacted a very good prospect. He should have received the letter yesterday with the number to call. I’d give him a couple of days to think about it, he’ll call us I’m sure of it,” Mark says.

“How can you be so sure Mark? Oh I mean Logo. I keep forgetting we are addressing each other by
Elite
names only. Let’s see, you are Logo, Thomas is Clovis, John is Cosward, and Peter is Solor, I’ll get it right eventually,” Haggai lends forward across his huge desk. “So, how can we be sure about our new scientist?”

“We’ve been tracking him for awhile. He’s desperate for money. His daughter’s in an Ivy League school and his wife spends all his income. He’s been working for several years to obtain a national award and with the award money open his own lab. He’s gunning hard for it and from what I understand from our contact he’s desperate for recognition in his field. Academia keeps passing him by and retirement is closing in on him like a trap. He’s driven that he must have some kind of breakthrough, wants to make a name for himself. You know, one of those guys,” Logo says standing before him.

“So how much do we tell him?” Haggai asks.

“Only what he needs to know. We’re paying him big for this, a third for each test. To be safe we’ll deliver them one at a time. He’ll do the test and we’ll pick up the sample and the result.”

“We can trust him?”

“Yes, he’s clean. We will indicate to him that we represent a private archaeological group attempting to identify some old DNA from human flesh. He doesn’t need to know any more than that and quite frankly I doubt that he’ll care,” Logo says.

“As long as he gets his money.”

“Exactly!” Logo states.

“Do we take care of him like the others?” Haggai asks.

“I’d rather not. The fewer bodies we have to dispose of the better. Pay him the money and let him go. From his personality profile I doubt seriously if we’ll have any trouble.”

“What if after this breaks into the open he figures out who we are and what his role really was, then what? What if he comes back demanding more money?” Haggai asks.

“If that should occur then I guess we’ll just have to deal with him then. But by that time we’ll be holding all the cards. I mean at that point – if he was to cause any trouble we wouldn’t be the only ones that would want to keep him quiet,” Logos says.

“Yes, I suppose you’re correct. So when do we hear from this professor? I want to move on this now – before Rome comes in and screws everything up,” Haggai says.

“I have a feeling Professor Dunbar will be calling us very soon,” Logo says smiling.

Before the city had grown into a place big enough for a desperate man to conduct an affair with a young woman without much worry of discovery, before all this it had been a much smaller local. Founded by fur traders and fisherman hauling their catches from the rapidly moving river that cuts the city in two, the water brought mill-workers and the impress of easterly immigration. As they grew their city on a hill they built several churches as the pioneers brought along their brands of faith as much as they brought along their pick axes, shovel, and saws. Jim Dunbar now stops at the corner light tapping his fingers on the steering wheel of his blue sedan in anticipation of seeing her again. Unbeknownst to him he sits by the corner site upon which 160 years ago stood a small white church built there by its members who before had been meeting at Jacob Donaldson’s farmhouse. But now they had a proper meeting place for Sunday worship. And they were glad of it, so glad the woman in bonnets and the men in fine black suits hitching wagons and buggies to the posts out front. Any passerby at the time would surely agree that such a sitting seemed nothing but idyllic. They would have no hint of the trouble brewing below the pews in the undercroft where the weekly Wednesday evening church meetings took place.

There, the elders discussed various issues of proper church worship, their opinions rippling through the air. Simple enough at first all this was, but it soon grew into a boiler pace. The twisted faces and rapid hand jesters, the repeatedly raised voices, easily heard from outside the church. The town’s people knew that the inner core of the church could be rather secretive. And they were proved right when no one uttered a word as Silas E. Machson suddenly and unexpectedly packed his wagon with all his worldly possessions and left town. He had spoke with no one about what happened in the undercroft the evening before. All that the townspeople knew for certain was that Silas and his friends were gone and the weekly church meetings turned much quieter.