The Omega Scroll (22 page)

‘What did you have in mind, Holiness?’ Petroni asked warily.

‘The rise of Islam is an interesting phenomenon,’ the Pope replied enigmatically. ‘A very real threat to the true Faith. Perhaps it is time we had a closer look as to what our response to it might be, and to the other faiths, especially Judaism. It would seem that a man of Father Donelli’s talent and experience might be an excellent choice for such a task. Do you think you could find a position for him? As a bishop?’ His Holiness asked.

Petroni suppressed his anger. ‘I will look into it, Holiness. There are probably no positions immediately vacant but I’m sure a suitable appointment can be found over time.’ Lorenzo Petroni was far too adroit to make an outright refusal of the old Pope’s request. Far better to accede and give the impression that the request would be actioned.

The Pope had also been around Vatican politics for a long time and he was not about to be put off by his most senior bureaucrat.

‘We had hoped that we could do it more quickly than that. We are desirous of bringing the best available talent into the Vatican where it can be most effective. Islam is a very real threat and, as you pointed out at the beginning of our conversation, Father Donelli is a most promising priest. One day, Lorenzo, you and I will need to be replaced.’

Yes, Petroni thought, you have been Pope for a long time. Too long.

‘Of course, Holiness, but promotion?’ Petroni persisted. ‘There are many others with longer experience and greater claims? Such an early promotion might cause resentment, but more importantly I would be concerned that it might actually jeopardise Father Donelli’s career if we put too much responsibility on him before he is ready.’ Petroni maintained a look of polite concern. In the face of the stubborn old Pope’s pointed resort to the royal ‘we’, his mind went into tactical overdrive. He needed to appeal to the Pope’s sense of fairness and get him to change direction rather than appear to be resisting.

‘I have met Father Donelli and I’m sure he will handle an important policy area like inter-faith dialogue very well, and I would hardly term it an early promotion,’ the Pope added meaningfully.

‘Of course, Holiness.’

Comprehensively outmanoeuvred, the Secretary of State stormed back to his office, his lips compressed into a thin line of fury. Bishop Donelli would now need very careful watching.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Milano

A
llegra felt a surge of excitement as she accompanied Professor Rosselli to her first major public lecture. The theatre seated over four hundred and as she and her mentor walked to the stage she realised that it was overflowing. Students, lecturers and members of the public were still filing in and sitting in the aisles.

‘Not a bad turnout,’ Rosselli whispered. ‘Must be my good looks!’

‘Radiocarbon dating,’ she began, after Professor Rosselli had introduced her, ‘was developed in the years following WWII by a team of scientists led by Professor Willard F. Libby at the University of Chicago. His discovery has been described as having one of the most profound impacts on our thinking and as a result, in 1960, Professor Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Not all of you are familiar with the principles of carbon dating,’ Allegra continued, ‘so if those of you who are will bear with me, I will start with a short summary.’ Allegra switched on the overhead and took a pen from her pocket.

‘Carbon is one of the most abundant elements in the universe. It was one of the first elements to appear shortly after the Big Bang, some twelve to thirteen billion years ago. The vast majority of carbon consists of stable carbon, what we call carbon twelve or
¹²
C. But carbon also exists as carbon fourteen or
¹⁴
C, which is unstable and radioactive, and over time decays, giving off energy in the form of electrons and reverting back to nitrogen.’

Allegra walked away from the overhead to stand in front of the lecturn. ‘Some of you will be asking “so what”? How does that help us date something like the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, something that has significant implications for the doctrine of the Church,’ she added, glancing at the man in the front row in a green and yellow checked sports coat who was shaking his head vigorously.

‘Professor Libby and his team discovered that carbon fourteen has a half-life of 5568 years, so if we start with 100 grams of carbon fourteen, 5568 years later we will only have 50 grams and in another 5568 years 25 grams, and so on. This standard rate of decay is the key to radiocarbon dating because the ratio of carbon fourteen to the stable carbon twelve can be measured very accurately.’

In the projection room at the back of the theatre Giorgio Felici put on a pair of fine leather gloves, opened his well-used tool box and extracted the Russian-made Vinovka Snaiperskaja Spetsialnaya sniper rifle with its integral silencer from the felt-lined interior. Unseen, he rested the barrel in one of the square wooden openings and focused the cross-hairs of the sights on Professor Rosselli sitting at the table on the stage. With a minimum of movement he swung the sights onto Dr Bassetti. Pert little breasts, he thought dispassionately, and casually wondered what she would be like in bed.

Allegra explained how plants obtained all their carbon atoms from the atmosphere and how animals and humans gained carbon from eating the plants.

‘Therefore, at any one time, the ratio of carbon fourteen to carbon twelve is the same in the plants, and therefore in humans and animals, as the ratio in the atmosphere.’

To complete her introduction Allegra explained the crux of the theory. ‘When a plant or an animal or human dies, the intake of carbon atoms stops, which starts up a time clock and the ratio of carbon fourteen to carbon twelve is fixed at that point. Carbon twelve is stable and the amount in the body remains unchanged. At the moment of death the amount of carbon fourteen starts to decrease, as does the ratio. By precisely measuring the ratio of carbon fourteen to carbon twelve we can get a very accurate measure of the age of a sample. It raises some interesting questions about the evolution of man over a relatively short period of hundreds of thousands of years compared to the age of the Earth, which is measured in billions.’

Allegra moved into high gear. In a dizzying array of overheads she went through the principal techniques of gas proportional counting, liquid scintillation and accelerator mass spectrometry and how the various techniques might be applied to date objects in archaeology and other fields. Forty minutes later Allegra ended her lecture to a round of spontaneous applause.

‘Well done. They liked it and so did I,’ Professor Rosselli whispered approvingly. ‘With the possible exception of the short fellow in the front row who likes bright colours,’ he added, his hand over the microphone. The man in the sports coat was again shaking his head as Professor Rosselli announced that Allegra would now take questions and his hand was first in the air.

Professor Rosselli nodded to him and he leapt to his feet, flushed and agitated.

‘My name is Walter C. Whittaker the Third,’ he said, introducing himself in a high-pitched southern drawl, ‘and I represent the Reverend Jerry Buffett from the Buffett Evangelical Centre for Christ in Atlanta, Georgia.’ The man was short with thinning red hair, a freckled complexion and a thin, wispy moustache.

‘As if we couldn’t guess,’ Professor Rosselli whispered to Allegra in a conspiratorial aside as she prepared to move back to the lecturn.

‘I think you and Professor Rosselli are seriously misguided, Dr Bassetti. I will have some questions for Professor Rosselli that will destroy his theory on the origin of DNA at the end of his lecture, but your theory that you can use carbon dating to date something like the Dead Sea Scrolls is nonsense. Carbon dating would have us believe that the world is billions of years old, but the Bible says carbon dating is just plain wrong.
In the beginning
God made them male and female, and I am quoting from Mark 10:6. If we were to take your science as true, the Bible would make no sense at all.’

‘Amen to that,’ someone in the front whispered loudly enough for it to be heard several rows back, prompting a titter in the audience. Unfazed, the man continued.

‘It would make no sense at all to have Man appear after billions of years because the Bible tells us quite clearly that Man was in the world from the very beginning of creation. And since Man only appeared a few thousand years ago, passages from Mark only make sense if the world is also just a few thousand years old, which we know to be the case, since the Bible is the Word of God.’

Allegra groaned inwardly and shot a glance at Professor Rosselli, who gave her his trademark wink. He was enjoying the proceedings immensely and was more than a match for the man in Joseph’s coat.

‘Do you have an actual question, Mr Whittaker?’ Professor Rosselli asked.

‘I’m coming to that, sir. Rest assured, I’m definitely coming to that. The Great Flood, Dr Bassetti. Genesis clearly points out that every mountain on the Earth was covered to a depth of 6 metres.’

Which in the case of Everest makes just on 8715 metres and we got there in just forty days and forty nights, a rainfall of 225 metres a day. Some downpour, some flood, Allegra thought sceptically, now prepared to question dogma as she never had before.

‘The Great Flood buried vast amounts of carbon twelve which I would point out raised, not lowered, the ratio of carbon fourteen that plants would have absorbed after the flood. Making them seem a lot older than they really are.’

‘Well, if you don’t mind, Mr Whittaker, you will appreciate that there are other people in the theatre and I’ll now ask Dr Bassetti to comment on your assertions.’ Professor Rosselli had had enough.

‘I can’t imagine any question that is more important than one that is concerned with a Biblical basis of truth, but I await the good doctor’s response with interest.’

At last the Bible-thumping man from the Deep South sat down. Allegra glanced around the room. Many of those present, especially the undergraduates, had huge grins on their faces, but the challenge had been thrown down and she was clearly expected to answer it.

‘Thank you, Mr Whittaker. You raise some interesting points. Let me repeat that carbon dating does not give a date down to an exact year.’

Walter C. Whittaker the Third smirked.

‘But we do claim accuracy within a few decades, and when we are dealing with tens of thousands of years that is quite a small margin of error. In the realm of fifty thousand years or so, as accurate as carbon dating might be, we still check it, and to do that, we compare our results using tree rings or dendrochronology.’ Allegra flashed up an overhead of a majestic bristle cone pine in the White Mountains of California that was more than four thousand years old.

‘Trees produce one tree ring each year, and if we compare the carbon fourteen concentrations in tree rings of a known age, we can accurately check our age range for any specimen.’

Mr Whittaker looked a lot less smug but he was not done yet.

‘Show me a tree that is more than six thousand years old.’

‘Indeed, Mr Whittaker, there are none,’ Allegra responded easily, ‘but we have overcome that problem. We can extend this theory by using non-living specimens from the wood of ancient buildings where the date of construction is known quite accurately.’

‘And I think there was a question up the back,’ Professor Rosselli interjected pointedly.

The audience applauded, delighted that Mr Whittaker had been dispatched, along with his theory of the world being only as old as last Tuesday.

Giorgio Felici calmly adjusted the range to the 77 metres he had measured earlier and refocused the cross-hairs on Allegra’s breasts as she answered more questions.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Jerusalem

G
iovanni pushed open the now familiar rusty gate to the Sisters of Charity Convent in Jerusalem and climbed the steps. It had been over five years since he had first arrived in the Holy Land, although it seemed like only yesterday, and his little church in Mar’Oth had been completely rebuilt. Poor as they were, the villagers of his home town of Maratea had raised the money for two statues. One of Christ in thigh-length boots with a gnarled walking stick, and one of the Virgin Mary in blue. Very Italian and a little out of place in the Middle East but when Giovanni had unpacked the crates he had fought back tears. Patrick, who had educated him on Jerusalem and the Holy Land as no other guide ever could, had re-consecrated the church. He had seemed genuinely surprised, not only at the sight of the rejuvenated little church but at the lack of hostility and the beginnings of friendships between Muslims and Christians. When Ahmed and the whole of the Muslim community of the village turned up and stood outside the church to offer their support for its consecration, Patrick promptly moved proceedings to the front porch. Abraham would have been pleased.

There had been other highlights during Giovanni’s posting. Without any reference to the Vatican, Patrick had organised an invitation for them both to attend the Conference of Latin American Bishops in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. Giovanni’s paper on the Palestinians had earned him a standing ovation, and he had formed some very strong friendships in South America, including Cardinal Médici, the Head of the Church in Ecuador.

The lowlights usually came at night when he was alone, reading by the glow of a candle. There was no newspaper or television to keep him informed of things outside Mar’Oth. To the bemusement of the villagers he had rigged up an aerial, and on a good night he was able to pick up the shortwave service of the BBC, which allowed him to keep track of the world, but he longed for news of his home. When his spirits were at a low ebb, God seemed very distant, unhearing and unseeing, and Giovanni’s thoughts often turned to Allegra.

Although they had kept in touch – Allegra letting him know how her research was going, and him keeping her up to date with events in Mar’Oth and the Middle East – Giovanni missed their regular discussions. He was still concerned as to why she had suddenly left the Church but he knew he wasn’t going to hear her story until she was ready to tell it. He could only understand the pain and doubt she must have gone through to come to her decision. Giovanni often wondered what his life would have been like if he and Allegra had decided to stay together.

‘Father Giovanni, let me take your bag, Bishop O’Hara’s in the study. Come through, come through. How have you been?’ Neither Sister Katherine’s enthusiasm for life nor the warmth of her welcome ever waned.

‘Giovanni! It’s good to see you. Whiskey?’ Patrick asked, not waiting for a reply and already heading for the sideboard.

‘Good to see you too, Patrick, and thank you for the invitation to dinner. Sister Katherine’s cooking beats mine any time.’

‘And mine. It’s a strange vocation, isn’t it? They provide a welter of theological training and then expect you to live on your own without so much as an introduction to the kitchen. Shalom!’

Giovanni accepted the generous glass of Irish whiskey.

‘I’ve had a letter from Cardinal Médici. You left a very favourable impression.’

‘And they on me. They have some very impressive thinkers in that part of the world, speaking of which, I’m really looking forward to catching up with Yossi tonight.’

‘Yes, not only a great thinker but a man with a very strong Jewish faith.’

‘The more time I spend here, the more I come to realise that Islam and Judaism and the other faiths provide just as much guidance and support as our own.’

‘Then your time here has not been wasted, Giovanni,’ Patrick observed thoughtfully. ‘Although that time may be coming to an end. As you know, I came back through Rome on the way home from South America. Your name came up in some interesting company. Care to hazard a guess?’

Giovanni raised his eyebrows. He never tired of Patrick’s love of conspiracy.

‘The Secretary of State?’

‘Nice try but …’ Patrick raised a finger and pointed upwards.

‘His Holiness? You met with His Holiness?’

Patrick nodded. ‘Il Papa. I had a private audience. Someone had mentioned to him that you were here and he wanted to know why. I gather you’ve met?’

‘Only once. I wrote a paper on science and religion for a conference he addressed and he made a point of meeting me. He doesn’t miss much.’

‘Which is no doubt why he is intrigued at your posting to Mar’Oth. Don’t expect to be here much longer, I think Il Papa may want you back in the Vatican,’ Patrick said, only giving Giovanni half the news.

Before Giovanni could comment, Sister Katherine showed Yossi Kaufmann in to the study.

‘Yossi! Come in, come in. You’re looking taller, or perhaps I’m getting shorter.’ Patrick winked at Giovanni.

‘Dinner will be ready very shortly, Bishop,’ Sister Katherine announced from the doorway, ‘so no settling in here with the whiskey.’

‘Mothers me terribly. Sister Katherine would sign me up to a gym if she could.’ Patrick chuckled at the thought. ‘So how is the code-breaking going, Yossi?’

‘Progress is slow, Patrick,’ Yossi replied with a smile. ‘I need a bigger computer. Eliyahu Rips found a fascinating code on DNA in the Torah, so I ran one as well and it turned up in a Dead Sea Scroll,
The Rule of the Congregation
. I’ve sent my findings off to Antonio Rosselli. He’s giving a lecture on it tonight.’

Giovanni immediately thought of Allegra. She had written to tell him she was giving her first public lecture as part of a double act with Rosselli. It seemed that the reminders of her were constant.

‘I’ve made some progress with the warning though. It seems to be connected with Mount Hira.’

‘Islam,’ Giovanni responded.

‘How do you get Islam from Mount Hira?’ Patrick asked.

‘Every year Muhammad used to climb Mount Hira to a cave near the summit and meditate,’ Yossi explained. ‘It is there that he received God’s revelations in his native language of Arabic. Other than the fact that there appears to be a clear countdown for civilisation, I haven’t got to the precise nature of it yet, although it is somehow connected with the Christians, Jews and Muslims.’

‘It’s ironic, isn’t it,’ Patrick said, ‘that one of the greatest threats faced by humankind is religion. The Islamic fundamentalists want nothing less than the entire human population to show obedience to Allah, while many in our own Church claim that salvation can only be found within the confines of the Catholic community. God is entitled to be a bit confused,’ Patrick chuckled.

As if to emphasise Patrick’s observations, everything in Patrick’s house started shaking. It continued for about twenty seconds and the bottles and glasses in his well-stocked sideboard rattled alarmingly.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ Patrick said. ‘Just a tremor. We get them from time to time over here but the whiskey’s still intact, so it won’t have damaged much.’

Patrick was only half right. The damage in Jerusalem was negligible, but out amongst the marl and salt cliffs of Qumran a rock that had not moved for nearly two thousand years shifted ever so slightly. It was a movement that ultimately would have a far greater impact than any earthquake.

‘What do you think the chances for peace are here, Yossi?’ Giovanni asked.

Yossi shook his head. ‘With the present regime? Very slim. Neither the present Israeli Government nor Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority is capable of bringing peace to this country. Neither is prepared to compromise. It will take two totally new governments and a much greater involvement of the international community before the killing stops.’

‘Have you ever thought of running for prime minister?’

Yossi smiled. ‘As a matter of fact I’ve been thinking about starting a new party, based on nothing more revolutionary than a just peace. It will probably take years to build the support but I think it’s worth a try. Why do you ask?’

‘Because there is someone I would like you to meet. Someone on the Palestinian side who shares your views. He knows how hard it will be to sell a compromise but, like you, he believes that the average person wants nothing more than to be able to live their lives normally.’

‘Your opposite number?’

‘Yes, Ahmed Sartawi, the Imam in my village. I’m sure you would enjoy talking with him.’

‘Marian and I still have our little holiday house in Acre. Perhaps you and Ahmed could join us for a weekend?’

‘There may not be time for that,’ Patrick said. ‘I was telling Giovanni before you arrived that Il Papa has discovered he is here and wants his talents put to work in the Vatican.’

‘I doubt they’ll want him back before next weekend,’ Yossi said. ‘Let’s see if we can organise it.’

As if on cue the telephone on Patrick’s desk started ringing.

‘Patrick O’Hara. Guilio.’ Patrick covered the mouthpiece and whispered, ‘Guilio Leone, Il Papa’s private secretary.’

‘What crisis of state in the Vatican has you ringing me at this hour?’ he asked. ‘Am I at last to be made a cardinal then? Papal Nuncio in Paris perhaps?’ A wicked smile spread across Patrick’s face. ‘But the tailors here are so reasonable, Guilio. I had my robes made up ages ago and still I wait for the call.’ He winked at his guests.

‘So few bishops who speak Arabic? That’s what you always say, but you can be telling him yourself, he’s right here.’ Patrick handed Giovanni the phone.

‘They hate it when I rib them,’ he said to Yossi. ‘No sense of humour in the Vatican.’

‘Do you want to be a cardinal?’

‘Good grief no! Unless it was somewhere I could do some good. Too much powerbroking in the Vatican. I might as well become a politician.’

Giovanni replaced the receiver, a slightly stunned look on his face.

‘Well?’ Patrick asked, feigning ignorance.

‘Il Papa wants me back in Rome. He wants to make me a bishop,’ was all Giovanni could say.

‘First name terms at last, and about time. Congratulations, my boy. This calls for a drink.’

‘Congratulations, Giovanni, well done.’ Yossi stretched out his hand.

Giovanni was too surprised to resist Patrick’s renewed assault with the whiskey bottle. He realised now that the Spirit did indeed move in mysterious ways.

Mysterious things were also happening in a cave above Qumran, not far from the Dead Sea, as another few grains of sand trickled through a crack in a rock wall.