Will stepped inside onto the worn-looking multi-colored stone of the vestibule. He saw a stairway to his left. He started walking up, then increased his pace. Soon he was running up to the second floor. From there, a very narrow set of stairs led upward in a dizzying spiral. Will ran up the cramped stairwell, around and then around again as it took him higher and higher. He glanced through the small side windows and, as he quickened his steps, the street, the office building, and the passersby down below, kept getting smaller.
Finally, several stories above the city of Monroeville, the staircase came up into a square, musty room with dark, warped wooden floorboards, and thick ropes dangling through an opening in the ceiling.
There was a thin young woman in the center of the room, with long brown hair that reached to the middle of her back. She looked straight at Will through the bell ropes, still hanging on to one of them. The woman was smiling, and then Will noticed something shiny at the collar of her sweatshirt.
As Will walked a little closer he saw that she was wearing a little baby’s-feet pin—and then he recognized her face.
“You were there in court that day. You’re the one who grabbed my arm.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “That was me.”
“And you told me you would be praying for me.”
“Yes. And I have been praying for you. You haven’t remembered who I am, have you?”
Will struggled but only shook his head.
“I’m Kimberly. My father was the police chief. You were his lawyer, a long time ago. You won the case for him, when the department tried to suspend him from duty to force him to get help for his alcoholism.”
“You were just a little girl then. Now I remember,” Will replied. “I didn’t mean to scare you by running up here like this. I really don’t know why I’m here.”
“Oh, but I do,” she said gently. “I know exactly why you are here.”
Will wanted to reply, but whatever words he had intended to speak became stuck in his throat.
“You see,” she continued, “I sort of wished you would have lost that case for my Dad, then maybe things could have changed and he wouldn’t have drunk himself to death. In the years after that, I would see your cases mentioned in the newspapers, or a magazine here or there. So I started praying, every day, that the Lord would lead you to become a defender of his truth—and a mighty advocate for his kingdom. I’ve been one of the bell-pullers here at St. Andrew’s for a while, ever since I moved up here. Sometimes I’ve been up here at night, and the only light shining in that building across the street has been coming from your office. And I’ve been able to see you working at your desk. And I pray for you. So I figure that’s why you’re here, right?”
Turning away slightly, Will had no words to speak at first; all he could do was nod his head in agreement, and try to clear the catch that was in his throat.
The woman put her hands in her jeans and smiled an even broader smile.
Finally Will said, “Kimberly, I’ve got to go. There is something I have to do.”
He went on. “Sometime I would like to come by, and we’ll talk some more. You can get me caught up on how you and the rest of your family have been doing all these years.”
As Will started down the stairs, he stopped and turned, and looked back at the woman standing amid the ropes.
“Thank you, Kimberly,” he said, “from the bottom of my heart.” Then he walked down the long spiral descent to the ground level.
Will crossed the street to his building and steadily climbed the stairs. He strode through the lobby and through the door into his office, where he then plucked the Byzantine coin given to him by Nathan out of its place in the glass box he had put it in on top of his desk. He studied it, and then sat down on the carpet with his back against his large mahogany desk, knees drawn up, the coin in his hand. Will looked hard at the semi-obscured, fifteen-hundred-year-old visage of Jesus that lay in his hand.
He was quiet for a long while, oblivious to the sounds of cars down on the street below, and the occasional noise from elsewhere in the building. Now he was intent on conducting only one piece of business. Nothing else, at that moment, seemed to matter very much.
Crossing his arms, he rested them on his knees and bowed his head against them. And with his eyes closed he walked into the silence of that moment. Time slowed. Will Chambers knew that in these quiet seconds of eternity he was to encounter the Person of God. The ever-watching and unseen face of the Everlasting One.
“God,” he started out, “I don’t know how to do this. I’m not much of a man. Lost. Confused. Busted dreams. And a broken heart. I have so many questions. And not many answers. But I’ve read your written record. And I know that Jesus is real—I know it. That he was killed on that cross for my sins. And for everybody’s. That was the mission. That’s why he came. Death couldn’t hold him back—and the tomb couldn’t either. Which means he really was your Son, after all.”
Will thought for a second and then said, “I’m afraid I don’t know what comes next. Tell me what I ought to do now. Just do what you have to do with my heart. Thanks for listening.”
Then he added, “Amen.”
“Praise!”
Will started at the shout. Opening his eyes and turning himself to the side, he heard it again.
“Praise!”
Hattie, the cleaning lady, was looking at him through the open door. She was standing in the lobby of his office, beaming.
“Praise God!” Hattie was exclaiming. She was sweeping the air grandly, back and forth with her hands, and doing a little jig with her feet.
“Lord, oh Lord! You went fishing and you caught yourself a lawyer today!”
Will started to get up to his feet, but Hattie walked in and admonished him boldly, wagging her index finger.
“Don’t you get up from there. That’s holy ground. Holy ground! You stay right there on that floor, Mr. Will Chambers.”
Will complied, leaning back against the desk again, still seated on the carpet.
“I want you to know, now, I wasn’t spying on you. I was just coming in to empty your wastepaper baskets,” she continued. “But I must have been led here for a reason. Now, you don’t want to be a wasted seed, do you?”
There was a puzzled look on Will’s face. “That’s bad, right?”
“Jesus says that the sown seed that gets swooped up by the birds, or gets scorched by the sun, or gets all choked off by the weeds—well, that seed is no good to nobody.”
“Yes,” Will said remembering, “I think I read that…”
“Do you have a church?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Now you ought to come down to my church; it’s the one down by the river. Not five blocks from here. Mount of Olives Church of the Risen Savior. Brother Henry Bickford, Pastor. You come on down there any Sunday morning.”
“I surely will,” he said.
“And you bring a friend. That’s our motto. ‘The message is too good for just one.’ You got someone to bring with you?”
“Yes,” Will replied. “As a matter of fact, I think I do.”
“You invite that person.”
“I most assuredly will. I will be calling her tonight. I’ll ask her to join me in coming to your church sometime.”
“You do that, Mr. Chambers. God bless you real good now,” she said as she left the office and closed the door.
Will could hear her singing “What a friend we have in Jesus…” as she pushed her cleaning cart down the hallway.
74
ONE WEEK LATER, AFTER SUNDOWN, when the street lamps along the cobblestone streets of Monroeville had just come on, Will was making a quick trip back to his office. It was a mild night. Some of the evening birds were still chirping, and there was a soft breeze blowing through the blossoms on the pear trees. He had forgotten his wallet and checkbook and was returning to the office to fetch them. As he got out of his car he paused a minute to enjoy the sweet evening air.
Then he entered the building, locking the tall oak front doors behind him, and walked up and the stairs to his darkened office and turned on the lights. He spotted his wallet and checkbook—on his desk, as he had thought. He was about to leave when the phone in the lobby rang. He thought about letting it go to voice mail, but instead picked up the receiver. Jacki Johnson was on the other end.
Her voice was excited and she was talking a mile a minute.
“I was just on the Internet—I saw something that indicated that Judge Kaye had just filed his decision…he’s posted it on the Web…but I can’t get through to read it.”
The fax line started ringing in the copy room.
“Wait a minute,” Will yelled, and he ran down the hallway.
After a few seconds the document started printing out. Will could see the letterhead of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia on it.
He ran back to the lobby and picked up the phone.
“Jacki—the court decision is just coming through the fax right now…hang on the line, and I’ll tell you what the judge ruled as soon as I read it.” Will put the receiver down and started to run back down the hallway, but the second phone line rang.
When Will picked it up he heard a woman’s voice.
“Mr. Chambers, I am a reporter from the Affiliated Press Service. We have just received something in, a few minutes ago. I’m wondering if you could confirm Judge Kaye’s ruling, and give us a statement—”
“Listen, could you hold on for a minute?” Will broke in. He put her on hold, and started back down the hall to the fax machine, but the third telephone line started ringing.
He grabbed it and asked that caller also to wait just a minute, and then put him on hold as well.
Before Will could start for the fax machine again, he heard someone yelling his name outside, down on the street.
Will ran over to the window and yanked it open. There, down on the street, was Jack Hornby.
Hornby was standing next to a television truck with a large satellite dish.
“Will Chambers! I need to talk to you!” Hornby yelled. “I really need the first interview here…after all I’ve done for you. So what do you say? Come on down here and unlock the door of this relic and let me in.”
“What’s going on?” Will shouted down.
“Reichstad versus MacCameron. That’s what it is.”
“I’m just getting the court’s decision now on my fax, I haven’t even read it yet!” Will yelled.
“You don’t have to. I have it right here!” Hornby shouted back, waving a copy of the court’s ruling in his hand. “Just give me the first crack at this story, and then after you talk to me, a real newsman, then you can do the standup interview for these TV clowns down here, alright?”
“So why did the Herald change their mind and decide to cover this?” Will asked, leaning out of the window.
“They didn’t. I changed jobs. Congratulate me. I’m the new Washington, D.C., bureau chief for American Press International. Now go pull the court decision off your fax—just read the last page and then the footnote on page seven—that’ll give you the box score. You can read the rest later.”
Will sprinted down to the fax machine and pulled off the sheets of paper. He riffled through them and pulled out the last page and page seven, as Hornby had suggested.
Hornby was right. At the last page Judge Kaye summarized his ruling.
Regarding Reichstad and his attorneys having to pay MacCameron for the prejudice caused by their abrupt dismissal of the lawsuit, the court found Will’s demand for half-a-million dollars “slightly excessive.” Instead, the court ordered Reichstad to pay Angus MacCameron $400,000.
As for Will’s attorney’s fees and costs, and those of Jacki Johnson, the court granted the entire $596,843.74; this also to be paid personally by Dr. Reichstad.
J-Fox Sherman’s law firm, however, had been mercifully let off the hook.
Then Will turned to page seven of the court’s ruling and looked at the footnote. It read:
Plaintiff Reichstad argues that he decided to dismiss his lawsuit in the middle of the jury trial because his recent discovery of an ancient corpse has ‘vindicated’ his claim to have disproved the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth—thus dispensing with the need for a jury verdict to clear his professional reputation.
This argument the Court believes to be so incredible as to not be worthy of belief. MacCameron’s expert, Dr. Giovanni, testified convincingly, as to the identity of the corpse found recently in Jerusalem, near St. Stephen’s Gate, most likely being that of one Joseph of Arimathea, a follower of Jesus and the religious official who, according to the New Testament, was the prime mover behind the burial of Jesus.
It would appear to this court that Dr. Reichstad’s real motivation in dismissing his lawsuit when he did was to avoid the damaging—indeed, perhaps even indicting—testimony of Muhammad el Juma, a Bedouin tribesman who discovered the 7QA, 7QB, and 7QC fragments—and who could have linked Dr. Reichstad to the suspicious deaths of antiquities dealer Harim Azid and Dr. Richard Hunter.
Judge Kaye concluded the unusual footnote this way:
The conclusion of this rather extraordinary legal action now ends the inquiry into the burial, and possible resurrection, of Jesus Christ—the most central tenet of the Christian religion. That question is left unresolved. But then, perhaps that is also fitting. It is better left decided within the chambers of the human heart, rather than the chambers of a court of law. So, as matters stand, this Court, at least, can venture no official opinion on that issue.
As Will started toward the door to go down and speak with Jack Hornby he remembered Jacki on hold. Her line was beeping at the front desk.
“Jacki,” Will said, picking up the phone, “the court gave us almost everything we asked for. I can’t talk right now. I’ll call you back in thirty minutes. But when I call you back, I’m going to make you an offer to come back to work for me, so be prepared to say yes!”
When Will got down to Jack Hornby on the sidewalk, the reporter was smiling one of his ironic smiles.
“I wanted to interview God on this one, like you once suggested, but he’s not available. So I’ll have to settle for you instead.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Will replied. The bells of St. Andrew’s were now beginning to toll from above them. “That may be him calling right now.”
75
Seven Months Later
WASHINGTON, D.C., IS A CITY OF MANY SECRETS—but ultimately, secrets only poorly kept.
The word had begun to surface that a federal grand jury had been convened in the District regarding actions of Undersecretary Kenneth Sharptin—the subject matter was illegal campaign fund-raising, possible violation of several foreign relations laws, and influence-peddling and international bribery regarding Warren Mullburn’s attempted entrée into OPEC. The federal prosecutors handling the grand jury were in possession of unique evidence that had been gathered by the FBI.
The FBI’s agents had followed up on Will Chambers’ strange story of his abduction by Abdul el Alibahd. Will’s description of Alibahd’s physical condition confirmed other information gathered by the CIA and military intelligence. The terrorist, it appeared, was dying, and his web of international criminal activity was expected to soon unravel; his organization, it was thought, would be retooled and continued by several of his lieutenants. But that would not happen. American military operatives were closing in on Alibahd and his group. Soon they would kill his bodyguards, and capture the man himself. Consumed by lung cancer, Alibahd would be carried away by Delta Force commandos on a stretcher—gasping for air, but finding none.
The FBI was also actively investigating the message Alibahd had delivered to Warren Mullburn through Will. Mullburn himself soon became their focus, as well as his cozy relationship with Kenneth Sharptin and his financing of Sharptin’s bid for the vice-presidential slot. But the federal agents were astonished at the breadth and audaci
ty of their apparent conspiracy: a joint effort to bribe their way into a foothold in OPEC’s oil monopoly by using the currency of pro-Islamic American policies and leveraging increased U.S. military aid to the Arab nations.
All of that was more than sufficient, several times over, to short-circuit any possibility of Sharptin’s running as the vice-presidential candidate. The public explanation given by the White House for Sharptin’s name being dropped from the shortlist of running mates was that he needed to “spend more time with his family.”
The real question was—what family? Sharptin’s wife had moved out a year before, when she had learned of his various affairs.
One night, after Sharptin had learned that he had been targeted by the grand jury, and while his mistress slumbered beside him in the bedroom of his Old Town Alexandria townhouse, the Undersecretary slipped out of bed, put on his best bathrobe, and quietly walked down the plush, carpeted steps to his well-furnished den. He eased himself down onto the smooth luxury of his leather sofa. Then he popped the top off a small plastic bottle and poured the contents into the glass of liquor that was sitting in front of him on the glass coffee table.
There would be no hesitation. Kenneth Sharptin prided himself on being a man who knew how to make decisions. He looked at the glass for only a second before he swallowed the contents in a single gulp.
The next morning, following that fatal decision, his mistress would find his body sprawled out on the couch. She would grab her things and slip away, before the police—and the press—descended on the townhouse that was about to achieve fleeting celebrity status as the scene of the suicide of the Undersecretary of the U.S. Department of State.
By the time the news media started reporting Sharptin’s suicide and the grand jury in progress, Warren Mullburn had already relocated his primary residence to a secret villa in Switzerland. To his extensive staff he had left the formidable task of clearing out his Nevada desert mansion. Fifteen moving vans and three auto-transport trucks were needed to contain the imported antique furniture he had collected from France, Austria, and Russia, some modern furnishings inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Italian stone fountains, the eclectic mixture of original artwork ranging from Cézanne to Andy Warhol, the antiquities purchased from dealers around the world, the classic antique automobiles, and the large collection of the world’s most expensive sports cars.
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