Blood Symbols

by Izak Botha

  ‘The Gospel of Matthew is dated between 80 and 90 CE, correct? Both the biblical texts and tradition are unclear on the date of his death. The Muslim tradition places him in Ethiopia, which is far enough away from Rome to escape the purges under Nero. And maybe he lived to a great age. If Matthew was born around the time of the crucifixion, he would have been in his fifties or sixties when he recorded his gospel. As for Luke, tradition has it he was from Antioch. Most scholars date his Gospel to around 80 to 100 CE. Tradition holds that he died in 84 CE, making him around seventy. That leaves Bartholomew …’

  Simon stopped her mid-sentence: ‘You’re not going to resolve this now, Jennifer. These things take time.’

  Her shoulders drooped. How could they be so patient?

  Rabin also did not have time for further debate. They were unearthing what might prove to be a more momentous find than their initial discovery and he had to get his workers to come over to assist with the recovery of the remains. ‘The faster we move the remains the sooner we’ll have our answers,’ he said, heading for the exit. ‘For starters, Simon needs to do DNA tests to determine if Peter really was the patriarch. Then, we need to determine if damage to the bones forensically matches the traditions around each Apostle’s death.’

  Rabin was about to squeeze through the exit when the door abruptly slammed shut. He assumed it was the wind, but with the door requiring some effort to open, that was not possible. Then he heard the keys turn in the locks.

  Simon pushed against the door, but it would not budge. Taking the flashlight from Rabin he shone on the locking mechanism, looking for a way to turn the keys from the inside, but the keys were no longer there. Through the keyhole, he saw a figure.

  ‘Who are you?’ he shouted. ‘What are you doing?’

  Jennifer’s heart raced, and she felt suffocated.

  Simon pressed his ear to the door. There was a splat, as if someone had slapped a piece of putty against the door. When there was another splat and two skidding noises, he backed up. He heard shuffling feet and the screech of a wheel growing fainter as it moved away from the door. Someone was climbing up the ladder, and then further shuffling. The sounds faded but the silence roared in his ears.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Jennifer shrieked.

  Simon was not saying anything, but he knew exactly what was going on. Years of military service in war-torn areas had given him a sense for distinguishing sounds. Often on night missions, they had had to rely on their senses to stay alive. Sound sequences could tell stories, and if interpreted correctly, they yielded all the information one needed. He was sure someone had stacked C4 against the door; the sliding was detonators being placed; and the squeaking was the laying of a detonator cord, which was hauled up the ladder to the shrine above. If it was a command-wire improvised-explosive device with an electrical firing cable, they were in serious trouble. The Cave Church was silent. The person must have gone outside to detonate the system. They awaited death.

  Jennifer banged on the door frantically. She did not want to die—not like this.

  Simon racked his brains. Depending how the charges went off, the C4 might free them if the tunnel did not collapse.

  ‘Get back into the catacomb,’ he said, pulling Jennifer and Rabin with him.

  Jennifer did not comprehend the technicalities, but from their urgency she sensed the trouble they were in. As they scampered to the back of the pillar, she hugged Simon. She could not imagine being killed right then. Despite spending only days with him, she was already in love with him.

  *****

  A man rolled the detonator cord to one of the park benches outside the Cave Church. On the terrace, the temperature had soared to over eighty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. ‘It’s the hottest day this spring,’ he thought as he sat down in the shade. He scratched his chin. The drops of sweat in his beard irritated him, but this was no time to fuss. He connected the detonator cord to the C4 clacker, a handheld device he had stolen from the British Military Corps many years before. He had felt ashamed at the time, but now that he needed it, he felt vindicated.

  His life had not turned out as he had planned, and lately things had worsened. It had not always been this way; as a kid, he had had many friends and a large family, but as he aged he had found himself alone and isolated. He had joined the Church for the community of monastic life, but had found himself assigned to a monastery with no other monks. He had also joined the Church to escape the violent man he had been, but found himself called upon by the Holy See to perpetrate violence in God’s name. The only reason he had not yet taken his own life was his faith. As a man of God, he felt suffering purified the soul. As his body succumbed to the aging process, he found himself less concerned with it. It was not that he was giving up, exactly. Life just did not matter much anymore.

  And yet, death terrified him. He feared he would find himself even more isolated on the other side. When he prayed, he would ask God not to let him be alone, and to curry favor with Him, as a sort of apology for his suicide, he would execute the orders he had received from the Vatican—or, at least, from those cardinals still committed to Holy Mother Church in opposition to the Holy Father’s new program. Not everyone appreciated Pope Gregory’s point of view. The Church had flourished for two thousand years without liberals like him. Ridding the Church of the pope’s new favorites would, it was hoped, make the Holy Father see the error of his ways.

  Once he was finished here, he would head for the archaeology site and destroy Saint Peter’s remains as well. He would make sure no evidence blemishing the Catholic faith remained, so he had to ensure that none of the discoveries made at the Cave Church that day were found a second time.

  Standing, he wired the detonation cord to the C4 clacker. ‘What a pity the Cave Church must go as well,’ he thought. Admiring the façade—what was left of it—for the last time, he recollected proudly how the Capuchin Friars had restored the site in 1863. His predecessors had done a fine job then. A piece of church history would be lost forever, but so be it.

  *****

  ‘I’d put that down if I were you,’ a voice said from across the courtyard.

  Friar Malone turned towards the entrance. Engrossed in his thoughts, he had not heard anyone approach, but turning, he saw a man in a white t-shirt, faded jeans and a brown-leather jacket standing by a nearby tree. The man had a pistol aimed at the friar’s chest.

  ‘You’re just in time, Colonel,’ the monk said.

  ‘Stop what you’re about to do, Friar,’ Schreider replied sternly.

  Malone lifted the clacker to his chest. ‘But we’re on the same team, Colonel.’

  ‘That’s not true, Friar. You know that as well as I do. Now give me that handset. You’re just making things worse than they already are.’

  The monk did not trust the Swiss commander. He had heard how the colonel’s betrayal had ensured that Their Eminences Santori and Cardoni were relegated to a Carthusian Order cloistered in the French Alps, where they would now live monastic lives of meditation, prayer and studying. Each cardinal—now stripped of his title and treated as a monk—had been forced to live in a small cell. Being a recluse himself, Malone had once almost found himself in the same monastery. He could imagine what the cardinals must be going through, severed from the opulent, powerful world of the Vatican.

  For a clearer view of the church, Schreider moved to the center of the terrace. ‘Where are they, Friar?’ he asked, his eyes scanning the remaining entrance.

  Witnessing his Church degenerating into mediaeval practices again was horrific to Schreider’s principled mind. Fortunately, Pope Gregory had called on Schreider to ensure the safety of their captives as promised at the Vatican Palace days before. The colonel was also indebted to Simon for having saved his life. He did not think he would repay the debt so soon.

  Malone hugged the clacker to his chest. ‘They’re doing the Devil’s work, Colonel. We can’t allow them to go on like this.’

  ‘Put that down, Friar,’ said
a voice behind the monk.

  Malone turned to see Weber standing behind him, the captain’s pistol pointing at his chest. Schreider’s distraction had allowed the captain to get in behind him.

  ‘You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man, Captain,’ Malone said.

  Weber held his aim. ‘You look armed to me, Friar.’

  ‘Do as my captain says, Friar, and put down the clacker.’

  Schreider waited for Malone to waver, then launched himself towards the monk, grabbing his hand. Malone resisted, but the colonel forced his index and middle fingers between the trigger and handset, preventing it from being triggered. Then, with all the force he could muster, he yanked the clacker from Malone’s hand.

  Weber plunged forward, dropping his pistol as he fought to retrieve the clacker, but Malone won. Lying on his back, clacker in hand, the friar stared up at Schreider.

  Schreider aimed between Malone’s eyes. His captain was perhaps not ready to shoot a monk, but by God, if the man dared activate that clacker, Schreider would kill him.

  ‘I will blow them up, Colonel.’

  ‘Yes, that does seem likely.’

  ‘I am not afraid of death. In fact, I embrace it.’

  The movement of a person’s eyes could indicate a prelude to action. This was something Schreider had learned in basic training in Switzerland, and it had served well to keep him safe. Now, he watched Malone’s eyes in a deadly staring contest. If he saw even the slightest flicker, he would shoot.

  ‘What are you going to do now, Colonel? If you shoot me, you are eliminating a member of the opposing faction—which would make you no better than me.’

  ‘Be rational, Malone,’ Schreider said. ‘Why do you let them dictate your faith? Think, Friar! Think about it. Don’t let others decide your life for you. For once, think.’

  Malone’s pupils dilated and his hand contracted.

  Schreider did not hesitate. He squeezed the trigger. As if in slow motion, the hammer hit the firing pin, and the powder ignited. The pressure of the combustion forced the hollow-point from its chamber, spinning the projectile along its way and spitting flames as it left the barrel. The slide kicked back, ejecting the cartridge, ramming the next round into the chamber and cocking the hammer into the firing position once more. Simultaneously, a tiny hole sank into Malone’s forehead, and the back of the monk’s skull bounced up as it burst open, then slammed back against the paving. The monk lay still, blood pooling around his head.

  Adrenaline raced through Schreider’s body, but he held his aim steady until Weber had pulled the clacker from the dead man’s hand and disconnected the detonation cord. Then, Schreider holstered his pistol under his jacket and picked up the keys next to Malone’s body. Following the detonator cord, he entered the Cave Church and descended the ladder. At the steel door, he removed the detonators from the C4. Finally, he inserted and turned the keys.

  ‘Lazarus, come out!’ he shouted into the opened burial chamber.

  Moments later, Jennifer appeared. Behind her followed Simon and Rabin. They were shaken, but they were smiling.

  Chapter 53

  The frightening few days that had so nearly cost Jennifer, Simon and Rabin their lives lay behind them. Had it not been for Schreider and his captain, Malone would have sent the three to a stony grave. That Pope Gregory had assigned his own soldiers to protect the Church’s apparent enemies was evidence of his commitment to change.

  Making statements to the police and then disclosing their finds to the Turkish authorities had taken nearly all day. It was dawn before the professor had permission to relocate the precious remains to his laboratory.

  Jennifer sighed with relief as she pondered the past week. With so much still left to uncover, she had decided to stay another day. She was determined to see how everything corresponded and had asked Simon if she could sit in on the DNA test.

  Unearthing the relics of those so close to Jesus felt extraordinary. Not only did it cast light on the Apostle Peter’s death, but if Matthew, Mark, Luke and Bartholomew were his offspring, the dates the Gospels were composed and the time of their authors’ deaths would be empirically determined. Perhaps most significant was that each of the authors had warned his followers against false prophets. Given the context of the Cave Church find, the meaning of such admonishments had become clear. Not once in any of the Epistles had Paul warned of this. It would soon be an article of faith that the Synoptic Gospels were warning of the interloper apostle specifically.

  Considering the Gospels were written after the Epistles, Matthew, Mark and Luke were intent on preserving the original faith. As per Pilate’s letter, Paul had persecuted Jesus, then set his sights on Peter; the self-appointed apostle had then discarded the Jewish tradition in favor of his own Romanized doctrine, and it was this that made him a false prophet. Paul’s ministry only flourished once he had silenced his Jewish critics. With Peter eliminated and no longer there to contradict him, he had annexed the Nazarene faith for Rome, and until now, Paul’s doctrine had held sway.

  It was eight o’clock on Saturday morning, and after a night of tossing and turning on Rabin’s office couch, a quick shower in the communal bathrooms and breakfast at the onsite kitchen, Jennifer joined Simon in his laboratory, where he and his technicians were extracting DNA from the remains. Before entering the dry laboratory, he made her slip into a lab coat as well as a mask and hair net, and although he had her put on surgical gloves, she was to touch nothing without asking. The nature and sensitivity of their work called for extreme care, and if contaminated with extraneous material, the DNA results would prove worthless.

  Simon introduced Jennifer to four technicians who had already spent hours preparing potential DNA by grinding the extracted bone and tooth material into a fine powder. No sooner had she sat down on a laboratory stool than she enquired about the time the testing would take. Apart from flying home the next day, she was not sure how much she could endure on an uncomfortable stool doing nothing. Simon reassured her that they could have the results that evening. However, with twenty-seven steps needed to yield DNA and the age and condition of the cells playing a major role, he added that he wouldn’t place a bet on it.

  Jennifer tried not to interfere with Simon’s work, but she could not help herself. ‘Why is everything done on site?’ she asked from her uncomfortable perch.

  Simon laughed. She might not be a journalist yet, but she certainly sounded like one. ‘The Turkish government won’t let us remove anything from the site until we are one hundred percent sure it belongs to persons of Jewish descent.’

  ‘What are you hoping to find?’

  ‘Connections.’

  ‘Between?’

  ‘The relics and people living today.’

  With the dry material, ready for purification, Simon set off for the wet laboratory. As Jennifer followed, he explained the process: ‘There are around twenty-five thousand Jews still living in Antakya. My objective is to link these historic figures with contemporary residents.’

  ‘Do you expect to find relatives of the people whose remains we’ve just found?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  His nonchalance was sinful. How could he be so casual about it?

  Jennifer had never considered the possibility that biblical figures might have living descendants. Their mythical status made it near impossible to imagine them being the ancestors of people she might pass in the street.

  ‘Have you managed to connect any yet?’

  ‘That’s the next step.’

  Conforming to the prescribed protocols, the wet laboratory, where purification took place, was separate from the dry area. Five more technicians and researchers were working at various stations when Jennifer entered. After relegating her to another laboratory stool, Simon joined his team. To facilitate DNA release, they transferred the dry material into tubes before adding agents to each sample. A high-speed centrifuge isolated the DNA by removing inhibitors that interfered with DNA amplification. With the purified
material transferred onto strips in thermocycling tubes, an anthropomorphic robot used pipettes to dispense measured volumes of reagents and, once completed, the samples were ready for DNA isolation.

  Simon’s genotyping was captivating but also laborious and time-consuming. And with the weight of recent events on her mind, Jennifer drifted off. With a newfound aversion for jumping to conclusions—and irritating Professor Rabin—she was limiting herself to hoping the Cave Church’s tombs were authentic. The remains of a victim who was crucified upside-down in a cave dedicated to Apostle Peter at least seemed like solid evidence. The adjacent ossuaries indicated that they held the remains of the Gospel authors. The inscriptions attributed Peter as the father, and though Matthew’s and Luke’s filiation did not agree with the canon and tradition, it made sense that he had fathered them. But, who was the mother, and where did Bartholomew fit in? Since they were buried together, there must be some connection. And how fascinating was the account of Paul’s journey to Malta after his meeting with Peter and the fact that the Maltese cross featured in nearly every aspect of the Cave Church, including the tombs.

  Jennifer smiled wryly to herself. She imagined how Professor Rabin would have reprimanded her if he had overheard her thoughts. She could not help herself; it was in her nature to question everything. At least she was learning to wait for evidence before she spoke.

  Even so, she played now with the notion that Mary Magdalene had been Peter’s spouse. The previous night she had been reading that Mark, while in Jerusalem, had stayed with a woman named Mary, and that his mother, Mary, had a large house in the city where Peter had also hidden. Mary Magdalene had been prominent amongst the women who followed Jesus. The Gospels held her in such esteem that she took second place only to the Virgin Mary. By calling her ‘the Magdalene’ or ‘the woman from Magdala’, she was differentiated from Christ’s other female followers. Just as Apostle Peter had been Jesus’s rock, so Mary appeared to have been His closest female friend. Mary Magdalene seemed to come to the fore during Jesus’s last days. The Gospels record how Mary witnessed all three major events of the Passion of Christ: the crucifixion, the burial and the Resurrection. She vanished soon after the Ascension, and while legends abounded, her fate remained a mystery. Some traditions held that she had a child with Jesus and that she had gone to the South of France or Germany with Brother Lazarus. Others said that she had lived as a hermit in a desert cave for thirty years, fasting and communicating with angels. Various sources speculated that she was a leader in the early Church, and some churches even claimed possession of her remains. The first of these relics appeared in the eleventh century at the Abbey of la Madeleine in Vézelay, Burgundy. The second surfaced in the thirteenth century at Saint Maximin la Sainte Baume, Provence. A glass dome said to contain her skull still sat in that church’s crypt. Mary’s connection with that region extended into the nearby mountains where legend had it she had taken refuge in a cave. Perhaps she had fled there. Perhaps.