The Painted Messiah (21 page)

He sat virtually alone the following morning. His interpreter stood next to him along with two of his personal slaves to keep notes. These men were of course unarmed. Cornelius in full military uniform, supported by a dozen of the prefect's personal guard, stood back several paces from Pilate's rostrum. Pilate wore a toga bordered with a thin purple line, the mark of the equestrian class. His sword and dagger were concealed neatly in the folds. He looked into the crowd for faces of the Jews he had seen before, but he recognized no one. They blurred together into a mass of accusation and anger. Certainly, Judas was no longer a spokesman for the radical element within the city, but that was all he could determine. He thought that strange, since men like Judas did not fade quietly into oblivion, but must burn brightly for their hour of glory and then perish
utterly. He had hoped this would prove to be the radical Jew's last protest.

He estimated as many as five thousand, the number well above Caiaphas's initial reports. As the priest had indicated, there was no leader, no apparent plan of action. People simply wanted an otherwise forgotten cemetery protected, though it defied all reason how a shadow across a grave could offend the dead. At Pilate's request Cornelius ordered the crowd to silence and the various spokespeople were asked to come forward as a group to explain to Caesar's prefect of Judaea the nature of the problem and their proposal for a solution.

Nearly a hundred men wanted to speak, though most of these merely volunteered for the privilege of shouting abuse at a Roman. Pilate did not begrudge them the pleasure. To his thinking it rather justified what was to follow. Still, as the shouting began to overwhelm Pilate's interpreter and the crowd pressed closer in its fury, Pilate began to grow wary. It was a late spring morning, already too hot to bear. The sun beat down directly on all of them as Pilate attempted to answer the charges in a reasonable and orderly fashion.

Having spoken his defense, a second verbal assault came, this from a young firebrand not much different from Judas - though neither as handsome nor as eloquent. As he spoke his supporters shouted their approval. In their excitement, they did not notice Pilate's men, dressed as Jews and desert travelers, filtering into their midst. There were two issues involved, the firebrand declared, two solutions necessary. First, the Romans must destroy the aqueduct and build it, if it must be built, over land that was not sanctified for burial using the imperial treasury, not Temple funds. Second, Rome must return the money stolen from the Temple to build the first aqueduct.

Following a great cheer for this speech, Pilate gave his answer. Slowly, but with force, he explained to them the commercial advantages of the aqueduct. Moreover, he added, it was absurd to imagine that he would throw away half-a-year's work because of a cemetery. Tor the love of the gods,' he exclaimed, 'do you hate water so much that you would turn fertile land to desert simply because its shadow falls on some beggar's grave?'

The crowd erupted noisily as Pilate's interpreter repeated his speech. A number of people rushed forward shouting incoherently, for the Jews were very fond of their dead, it seemed. When Cornelius had ordered them to silence, the firebrand told Pilate that beggars and kings slept in the same hallowed ground. Those who do not honour the dead,' he concluded, 'defile them!'

'Jerusalem needs water,' Pilate responded with calculated zeal. 'For the sake of the living, the dead are always silent. What do the dead care if a shadow falls across their cemetery? The living must drink. They must wash. They must eat the fruits of the land! For centuries you have been living in a desert. With Roman technology you find yourselves with all the water you need. We have turned a wilderness into a garden and yet I must travel from Caesarea to Jerusalem to explain to you the reason for your wealth!'

Another man stepped forward. The wealth, he said, was Roman wealth at the cost of Jewish lives. Pilate had emptied the treasury of the Temple, he added, for the sake of his bath!

'You speak of impurity,' Pilate said, letting the phrase linger. It was the signal to his troops. 'Impurity and pollution! And yet you people care nothing for bathing! You point at Roman administrators, men who wash themselves each day, and you have the audacity to suggest we are not worthy of entering your Temple because we are not clean! I tell you this, because the truth is obvious to all but yourselves. Your desert god has made you the slave of Romans for good reason: the very smell of you sickens him!'

They began screaming even before Pilate's interpreter finished repeating his words. They shook their fists and cursed him. They called on their god to avenge them.

Only when they recognized the screams behind them as those of the battlefield did they hesitate, and that was when Cornelius rushed to Pilate's rostrum. Pilate saw his centurion's sword slash through an outstretched arm. The blood of the wound hit Pilate's toga. Cornelius's men now formed a hard shell around the prefect, but the Jews no longer cared about Pilate. Soldiers, standing in their very midst, were sweeping their swords with calculated zeal. Those closest to Pilate took the first wave of the attack, falling like wheat before the scythe.

As a second contingent of his soldiers fought through the centre, hastening to his defense, the unarmed crowd began to scatter. Finding reinforcements coming in
support of the first two centuries - these in full battle dress - they broke from the plaza and raced toward the road leading into the lower city, known as the City of David.

Those who could not move quickly enough, frozen by the mass of men before them, fell to the sword at once. The rest followed in a desperate, headlong rush from the plaza, only to come upon Pilate's Syrian cavalry. As the leaders recognized the trap, they stopped and tried to turn back. Those behind them, however, still ran forward. The result was both predictable and terrible.

The Syrians, having no love of the Jews, hit them with more ferocity than the cool veterans of the Fretensis Legion, urging their horses to trample those who fell to the pavement. The Jews who managed to retreat back to the Plaza were met again by Pilate's infantry and threw their arms up in surrender, but there was no surrender. Pilate greeted them with phalanxes of disciplined Roman infantry.

Twelve minutes after it had begun, no one remained standing who was not in the service of Rome. In all, four thousand Jewish men lay dead. Of the thousand or so surviving the massacre, Pilate gathered together all who were still whole and without significant wounds, and chose one hundred of them at random to be crucified along the road leading out from the Susim Gate - the so-called Gate of Kings.

The rest he released - that they might know his mercy.

Zürich

October 10, 2006.

The bank of Goetz and Ritter occupied an entire four- storey corner building one street east of the Bahnhofstrasse. It was built of stone blocks at the beginning of the twentieth century. Following the fashion of its day, the building advertised its opulence with typical Neo-Gothic excess. The architect had been especially fond of ivy leaves, grapes, angels and doves. There were micro-balconies serving no function and medallions to cover the occasional blank spots. Along the upper storeys, pilasters in each of the classical styles framed the windows, Doric at the second story, Ionic at the third, Corinthian at the fourth. The building was fairly typical for Zürich, but Malloy took a moment to study it again. At the front door the area opened onto a small circular drive. Parking was limited to a handful of customers, but allowed them access to three different exit routes from the city within a matter of seconds.

The problem was that once in traffic the choices were limited. If the police were seriously interested in intercepting someone leaving the financial district, they could do so at a number of neatly designed bottlenecks. This made bank robbery in downtown Zürich a low percentage play. The difficulties did not end there. Three sides of the bank were exposed, allowing the police open lines of fire from a number of rooftops. What the police could access others could as well. Walking out of the bank, Malloy would be vulnerable. That dimension he had eliminated as much as possible with two off-duty police snipers and a vest that
he wore discreetly under a bulky sweater and jacket.

A safe, fast route out of the city was another matter.

Malloy walked to the fourth side of the building where the Limmat flowed quietly through the city. As it happened, a small harbour located next to Goetz and Ritter sheltered twenty or thirty private boats. Some fifty yards beyond the harbour, the river passed under a low ornate bridge pouring out of Lake Zürich.

At the front of the building again, Malloy found no armed guards, only a locked door. He rang the bell and when asked to identify himself responded in English, 'Mr Thomas.' He heard the buzz and click of the lock, then watched the heavy doors swing open. He walked into a small elegantly furnished reception area. A young woman greeted him pleasantly and called upstairs. Two minutes later a Ms Berlini appeared and escorted him to the elevator. She told him in English that both Mr Wheeler and Dr North had arrived some minutes before.

They were seated in the director's office when Malloy and Ms Berlini entered. Hans Goetz had strategically placed himself behind a large nineteenth century desk suited to the style of the building. Nicole North and Roland Wheeler were facing him. Both Wheeler and Goetz rose when Malloy entered, introducing themselves and shaking his hand with a military snap of the wrist in the European fashion. Goetz was a small neat man with white hair and a singularly florid complexion. His smile was friendly; his manners were impeccable. Like his desk, where every paperclip faced the same direction, Goetz was a man who took care of the details. Malloy had seen his type a hundred times

over. They crowded the financial district's cafes, restaurants and bars. They were a cheerful and confident breed only so long as everything went exactly as they had arranged it. Their façade crumbled the moment anything went wrong. Such was the Swiss banker.

Roland Wheeler was in his sixties, the epitome of English self-assurance. He was tall and straight with silver hair and a dark tan that was both natural and appealing. According to the file Malloy had read, Wheeler kept a winter residence at Cannes, and a second in the south of Spain. It took Malloy only a moment to realize he possessed the urbane air of a man skilled at persuading wealthy clients to trust his judgment. For all his sophistication he was a salesman at heart. He took care of others. He gave advice. He made sacrifices over small matters that his clients might trust him all the more when it came time to purchase pieces of magnitude. Malloy thought Wheeler would be quick to understand the dynamics of a situation or the nuance of an expression, impossible to anger, unrelentingly attentive. And quite wealthy for the troubles he took.

Wheeler wore a charcoal suit, a gold tie clip, and a matching pair of gold cufflinks. Even by Zürich standards he dressed well. The most instructive piece of evidence about the art dealer was the way he included Ms Berlini in the meeting. Nicole North was a client. Hans Goetz was the director of the bank. Malloy was to be entrusted with a great fortune. They were all deserving of his attention and respect, but Ms Berlini was a functionary. Despite this, he treated her as a
partner in the proceedings. Nor was it simple courtesy. She had, Malloy thought, earned Wheeler's respect. It was difficult to guess the extent of contact between them but easy to see that Wheeler had dealt with Goetz and Goetz's assistant on several occasions.

Dr North might have learned something from the man. Every gesture, every failure to make eye contact intimated an unconscious feeling of superiority. She was not only the person with the most money she looked as if she actually believed she was morally superior. Everything about her indicated that she half- expected someone to pull a gun. She clutched her package tightly, anxious to be finished with this unpleasant business. That wasn't going to happen until Goetz received a confirmation that the wire transfer of funds had been completed.

While they waited Malloy talked with the banker and art dealer about the weather. An exceedingly dry fall in Zürich, they informed him. Malloy observed that it was generally dry in the fall in Zürich. Was he familiar with the city? Malloy thrust his legs forward and leaned back comfortably. He had grown up in Zürich, he said. This elicited questions about his knowledge of German. Malloy answered in perfect Swiss German that his High German was barely adequate, but his Swiss German was pretty good. The accent and grammar of this sentence delighted both men, Goetz especially. It was extremely unusual, he said, for people to learn Swiss German.

Speaking now in High German, Wheeler agreed. He had lived in Zürich for over a dozen years. Even though he spoke High German fluently when he arrived, he still
had trouble understanding the dialect. His daughter spoke High German, he said, but only under duress. She preferred Italian, which she spoke better than English, and hated Farmer German even more than she did
Brautwürst
and
Rüsti.
Having finished his speech, Wheeler seemed to catch himself suddenly and apologized to Nicole North. She must think them rude, he said, for excluding her. Malloy understood the exclusion was calculated, his show of good manners nothing more than a bit of emphasis to the insult, European style.

'Not at all,' North answered with a withering contempt she pretended to mask in a bright Texas smile.