“Answer the question!” Judge Kaye commanded.
“Yes. The State Department was of some assistance in getting that permission for me and my research team. As a matter of fact, we are ready to start digging any day now.”
“You would agree that such a dig is most extraordinary?”
“Certainly. We expect to find nothing less than the remains of Jesus of Nazareth. I would say that the word ‘extraordinary’ is barely adequate.”
“And for permission for such a dig along the old wall of Jerusalem to be granted within just a week or two of the request by you—that also is extraordinary?”
“Of course. That is obvious.”
“And the dig will take place right next to a Muslim cemetery, and just a short way from the Temple Mount area, where mosques are located that are held sacred by the followers of Islam.”
“All that is true, yes. Yes.”
“All of that makes this proposed dig of yours politically and religiously sensitive to say the very least—making it even more extraordinary that permission was granted so very quickly. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“This is such a waste of time. I have admitted how extraordinary it all is. So what?”
“Well, it all seems to come down to this: Undersecretary Sharptin must have placed extraordinary diplomatic pressure on the Israeli authorities to get permission so quickly for your excavation. Is that the fact—or not?”
“I don’t know. I am not an expert in foreign relations.”
“But you have attended a number of functions, meetings, and conferences sponsored by the State Department since the 7QA discovery, correct?”
“Yes. As well as those sponsored by a hundred other organizations and agencies.”
“I’m just concerned with the State Department functions. Just those. At those, the Undersecretary was present, and he praised your 7QA interpretation as something that boosted the Administration’s ‘cultural reconciliation’ policy in bringing together the Islamic East and the Christian West?”
“For peace. It is all for peace. Peace among mankind. The way you say it, you make it sound very sinister, Mr. Chambers.”
“Perhaps. Maybe I’ve gotten carried away. When we think of one of the world’s richest men, owner of the world’s fifth-largest oil interest, funding a religious antiquities project that will disprove the divinity of Jesus at the same time he is courting OPEC and Islamic leaders in an effort to join the OPEC oil monopoly—when we think of the Undersecretary of the State Department praising that very same religious antiquities project and bending over backwards to arm-twist Israel into giving you special permission for the excavation that you expect will disprove the resurrection of Jesus forever—which looks for all the world like a massive public-relations gimmick for the Administration’s ‘cultural reconciliation’ project to bring the Islamic East in closer harmony with America. When you think of all of that—all those little pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle on a card table, all fitting together that way—doesn’t that look sinister to you?”
“Only a paranoid conspiratorialist would think that it is sinister.”
“Then am I being paranoid in suggesting that, in addition to whatever other financial benefits you have received from Warren Mullburn—and apart from the special benefits you have received from Undersecretary Sharptin—and even apart from becoming a world-renowned scholar whose picture is on the cover of magazines around the globe, and on the prime-time talk shows, as the man who debunked Jesus. Apart from all of that, is it paranoid to suggest that deep down, you really wanted to interpret 7QA the way you did because of your disdain for traditional Christianity, and for conservative Christian Bible scholarship?”
“That is the most absurd thing you have said today—and you have said some very absurd things in this case! I am a scholar in my field. I am a scientist. I have no agenda except for the truth. Unlike your client, who uses his medieval religious beliefs to obscure and distort the truth.”
“Are you here for the truth, Dr. Reichstad?”
“I am here for the truth, and you know it.”
“Have you given us the truth today—the truth under oath?”
“Yes. Again you make me repeat myself. Yes. I have told the truth under oath. Yes, I have.”
“You have said ‘yes’ three times—so I guess you really mean it. So then you told the truth at your deposition—also under oath—when you also denied having any theological agenda behind your interpretation of the 7QA fragment?”
“Yes. Yes. I told the truth then too.”
“And you told the truth at that deposition when you denied ever having considered ‘conservative Christian scholars’ to be on the level of ‘cavemen’ who haven’t learned the secrets of fire, or the wheel?”
Reichstad was growing weary of Will Chambers. He glanced over at J-Fox Sherman for some help; but Sherman had long since decided that if he persisted in more questionable objections he would risk alienating the jury. Sherman quickly shot a glance at them to measure their reaction. They were all wide-eyed and solemn. During the silence the bouncer at the dance club cleared his throat loudly, and then leaned the side of his face on his hand as he slowly swiveled in his chair and stared at Dr. Reichstad.
“Did you tell the truth in that regard—in denying that you had any agenda against conservative Christian Bible scholars?”
“Yes, I did. Right. I told the truth. Correct. Anything else you want to bore the jury with, Mr. Chambers?” Reichstad snapped back.
“Well, just one more matter—and I’ll try not to put the jury to sleep with this one. In fact—if any of us are getting sleepy, I think these last few questions will be a wake-up call for all of us in this case, Dr. Reichstad.”
At that point, Will walked quickly over to his table and, from beneath a file, he pulled a slim little book. He held it high in his right hand as he walked back to the podium.
“I am holding in my right hand a copy of A New Quest for Jesus. This is your book?”
“It is one of my books. One of my older books. I’ve written many books—frankly, I thought this one was out of print.”
“But it is the only book that you failed to disclose to me at your deposition, right?”
“Oversight. Little slip-up. That’s all.”
“I am going to read the prologue to this book—a prologue authored by you,” and as Will said that, he handed the book to Dr. Reichstad. “Read along with me, and make sure that as I read it to the jury I have read the words accurately. Your words. Your book.”
Will took a photocopied page of the prologue from his counsel table and began reading it loudly and slowly. While he did, Reichstad’s eyes were flitting back and forth between the book in his hands and J-Fox Sherman, who was grimacing.
Will was emphasizing key words as he read.
While you will find that this book, in its quest for a new idea about who Jesus was, is eminently scientific, I must confess my own personal agenda in writing it. The world has, for too long, been plagued with the poorly reasoned writings and teachings of those who desperately hang on to outdated notions of Jesus as the “resurrected Lord.” This book will, I hope, convince the reader that the conservative and fundamentalist Christian scholarship on the issue of the resurrection of Jesus is much like the thinking of the Neanderthal cavemen, before they had discovered the secrets of fire, or of the wheel. Soon, I hope, the world will begin to reject their dangerous and misleading mythology about Jesus.
Will looked at Reichstad, who was now holding the book by his fingertips, as if it were contaminated—as if its pages were covered with bubonic plague.
“Were those your words, written in your book?”
Reichstad dangled the little book from his fingertips. His face bore a look of disgust and disdain.
“Yes. My words. My book. All right. That is correct. All right? Anything else? Anything else here, Mr. Chambers? Anything else you want to dig up against me? Anything else?”
These last words were voiced
by Reichstad at just below a shout, with his body thrust forward in the witness chair. He had nearly risen to his feet.
“No further questions,” Will said quietly. And he walked over to the witness stand and reached out his hand so Reichstad could give the little book back to him.
Reichstad held the book out, but just beyond Will’s grasp, letting it fall to the floor with a small bang.
Will reached down and picked the book up, and looked into the eyes of Dr. Reichstad, then turned to cross back to his table. As he did, he felt the sensation a high-wire artist might feel when the act has been performed, the risk faced, and the only thing left to do is make the quick walk, one foot in front of the other, back to safety.
65
THE JET WAS SOMEWHERE OVER the Atlantic Ocean, winging through the blackness of the night. In the seat next to Will Chambers, Angus MacCameron was sleeping soundly and exhaustedly. Most of the passengers had turned off their reading lights and were dozing. But Will could not sleep. His mind was racing. And he was troubled.
He couldn’t keep from venturing back to the trial, and the cross-examination questions and the answers. The judge’s interjections and rulings. The look on the jury’s faces as they had filed out of the courtroom that afternoon, not to resume their seats until the following Monday. The cross-examination of Reichstad. And the sound of Reichstad’s little book hitting the floor. He had the feeling that the tide of battle had changed. Slightly, yes—but it had changed in their favor.
But instead of feeling satisfied with the progress of the trial Will was in turmoil. Somehow the trial, its outcome, and winning and losing were no longer the issue. Now that the legal flurry had subsided for a few days, Will, in the quiet, rushing darkness of the jet, was reflecting on the gnawing emptiness within. And on the cold, glacial dissatisfaction he felt with his life.
Of course he was aware how he was finally coming to terms with Audra’s death. And how his abrupt termination from the law firm, his problems with alcohol, the destruction of his home, and the possibility of criminal arson charges had all, somehow, been weathered. He had even survived a bizarre encounter with an international terrorist—followed by his brush with Warren Mullburn, which had been equally bizarre, and just as dangerous.
And Will was even at peace, in a strange way, with the fact that the delightful and gracious Fiona, who seemed to be so full of life, laughter, and tender decency, could never be more than a friend. Though he was tired of loneliness—tired down to the depths of his heart—that was really not what troubled him most. What tortured him was the hunger in his soul. A longing. A quiet voice that could not be stilled. Not a threatening voice—or a nagging one. But a persistent calling. Like a parent who calls an errant child back to dinner. Or a father who calls for a son to join him down at the pier for a fishing trip; like a voice echoing off the lake. It was a strangely familiar voice that was calling. A little like the memory of a reunion, long forgotten. Why did he resist it, even fear it? Why would he not respond to a call that came to him in a way that sounded, and felt, so much like family?
God, it seemed, was closing in. Will knew that he had to make a serious decision about what he really believed. Something would have to be done. The call had to be answered or refused.
Angus MacCameron slept nearly the entire flight. Will nodded off in only small fitful, and interrupted, episodes.
When the jet landed at Heathrow Airport, the two collected their bags and scurried to the subway. The “Underground” was the quickest way into central London and the Bloomsbury District, where the British Museum was located.
MacCameron had called ahead to secure permission to search the office of Dr. Lazarus, who was still out of town on an expedition in the sub-Sahara.
The two of them hurried up the steps of the Museum, and walked through the main entrance of the yawning portico, entering between the mammoth, scroll-topped columns of stone that dwarfed them as if they were ants.
They introduced themselves to the security guard in the cavernous main lobby. He placed a phone call, then asked them to wait.
After a few minutes they were approached by the assistant administrator of the Museum, a thin, middle-aged woman in a drab suit. They showed their identification, and she proceeded to lead them through the hallways, and upstairs, to the office of Dr. Lazarus. They were accompanied by one of the security guards, who, the administrator indicated, would have to be present during their review of the files in the office. As they walked, the administrator shared a little history of the British Museum—which only she seemed to find interesting.
“Now I know,” she explained in her crisp British accent, much like a schoolteacher might lecture a grade-school class, “that you are trying to locate some of Dr. Hunter’s missing artifacts. I know you’ve come a far way. I know you are rather excited about finding them. But I should caution you that the museum here is not like something that people see on the telly, or in the cinema. We don’t have mysterious antiquities lying about, gathering dust and cobwebs in forgotten corners or hidden back rooms. We are a very modern and scientific operation. I should be quite surprised if you find the misplaced object that you are searching for.”
“Have you ever misplaced any antiquities here at the Museum?” Will asked.
The administrator giggled a bit. “Well, not antiquities—but there was this one incident. Oh my, it caused an absolute frenzy! Five human heads were found—I think they were dried-out heads of South African Khoisan bushmen. Someone found them in a cardboard box, in a back room of the Natural History Museum, back about ten years. Can you imagine! Apparently the heads had been brought here from the field in the mid-1800s. They were prepared by an archivist and put away and apparently forgotten for more than a hundred years! South Africa demanded the return of the heads so they could be buried. But of course the Museum felt otherwise. It nearly caused an international incident. Well, here we are.”
The administrator opened the office door of Dr. Lazarus’s office and turned on the lights.
“Good hunting,” she said, and with a “cheerio,” she left.
Will and MacCameron spent nearly six hours searching Lazarus’s file cabinets for any evidence of documents, or files, from Dr. Hunter. But they found nothing. MacCameron looked pale, and had to sit down frequently to rest.
Will was beginning to feel as if this idea of flying all the way across the Atlantic just to search for the elusive 7QC fragment had been a disastrous waste of time. They had no assurance it still existed. All they had was the cryptic message from Hunter that seemed to indicate that it might be in the British Museum somewhere. Will was tired, and knew that he still had work to do to prepare for the next week’s session of the trial.
“Look here,” MacCameron said, trying to muster some enthusiasm. “Let’s try to take Hunter at his word. Maybe the fragment was never in Lazarus’s office after all. Maybe the people who broke into his office did not find it there either.”
“Angus, where does that leave us? I think we are at a dead-end.”
“If we take Hunter’s message literally, he said ‘the next time you come to the halls of the British Museum…’ I think that means that we should comb the halls for clues.”
Will felt himself getting angry and frustrated. For an instant, he wanted to force his client to face the grim reality. He was fed up with the expedition.
“One hour,” Will said. “We walk the halls for one hour. And then we go out for dinner. I’ll even buy. Then we check into our hotel rooms for the night. Tomorrow we fly back.”
They started to look through the hallways of the administrative wing. MacCameron was walking more slowly than usual, and stopped to take sips of water at the water coolers.
“Actually,” MacCameron told him as they walked the halls, “I have booked us on a flight tomorrow to Jerusalem. I believe that Reichstad is already a step ahead of us. I am sure he is already there, beginning excavation of the area at the St. Stephen’s Gate.”
There was silence
between them for a while as they looked in vain around the Museum, being followed by the assigned security guard and occasionally dodging staff of the Museum. They were looking, but they did not know what they were looking for.
As they rounded a corner, Will wanted to start disputing MacCameron’s plan for a side-trip to Israel. But he glanced at his watch and realized that the hour was almost up. Soon the two of them would be dining quietly, and then Will could talk some sense into his client.
Will glanced to his right for MacCameron, but he wasn’t there. He looked back. Angus MacCameron had stopped in front of one of the staff doors. He had an amazed, bewildered, almost pained look on his face. His mouth was slightly open. But no words were coming out.
After a moment, he lifted his hand and pointed to the name over the door.
The nameplate said, “Dr. Lundgren Dedencrist—Department of Oriental Antiquities.”
“So?” Will asked, not seeing the connection.
“This is it. This has to be it!” MacCameron cried out. “How could I have been so cloddish and stupid?”
But Will could still not see the significance of the name over the door.
“Will, boy. Reichstad must have told his goons to hit Dr. Lazarus’s office because of Jesus’ ‘order’ for Lazarus to come forth. They thought it was that kind of order. But they were wrong.”
Will was nodding thoughtfully as he recalled how MacCameron and he had discussed that point previously.
“I still don’t understand.”
MacCameron was jabbing his index finger toward the name over the office door.
“But there is another kind of ‘order,’ isn’t there? Tell me, Will, what is another meaning of the word ‘order’?”
“Well,” Will said, “there is the kind of ‘order’ that you get when there is a well-organized state of something. Like a ‘well-ordered’ society. Like that?”
“Stop thinking like a lawyer! There is another kind of ‘order.’”
Will was getting tired of playing twenty questions.
“Well, there is—oh, I don’t know—maybe ‘order’ in the way it is used in baseball. The ‘order’ of the line-up. Batting order.”
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