The Last Gospel

by David Gibbins

  ‘Can you prove all this?’ Costas said.

  The man lifted the book slightly into the candlelight. ‘The records of the Consilium Ecclesiasticum Sancta Paula. One day the world will know. History will be rewritten.’

  ‘What does this have to do with Claudius?’ Jack said.

  The man leaned forward slightly, and the candelight flickered off the shadowy outline of his face. ‘It is the greatest threat the concilium has ever faced, and their greatest fear. It is the reason why I have brought you here. You and your team are in the gravest danger, far more so than you may realize.’

  ‘We realize what it’s like to look down the business end of a Beretta 93,’ Costas said. ‘Inside a cavern under the Palatine Hill.’

  ‘He had instructions not to shoot,’ the man said quietly.

  ‘Then maybe the concilium should employ more obedient henchmen,’ Costas said.

  ‘How did you know?’ Jack said. ‘How did the concilium know we’d be diving under Rome?’ The man was silent, and Jack persisted. ‘Was there someone listening in the tunnel at Herculaneum? Was it the inspector, Dr Elizabeth d’Agostino?’

  ‘We know she spoke to you outside the Villa.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Jack felt a sudden chill run through him. What if it was more than fear that had prevented her from returning his calls? ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘There are spies everywhere.’

  ‘Even on board Seaquest II?’ Costas said.

  ‘You need to do everything you can to find what you are looking for and to reveal it to the world before they get to you,’ the man said intently. ‘Once they know where it is, they will do everything in their power to destroy you. I have done all that I can, but I cannot restrain them any more.’

  ‘Dr d’Agostino?’ Jack persisted.

  ‘As I said, I have done all that I can.’

  ‘Why should you want to help us?’ Costas said.

  The man paused. ‘Let me tell you about Claudius.’ He opened the book at the beginning. They could just see the ancient writing in the dim candlelight, extensively annotated in the margins and clearly in several different hands, reminiscent of the page from Pliny’s Natural History they had found at Herculaneum, but more ragged and stained, as if it had been pored over many times. ‘This page recounts the founding of the original concilium, in the first century AD,’ the man said, shutting the book again and putting his hands over it. ‘One of the first three members was a man named Narcissus, a freedman of the emperor Claudius.’

  ‘Good God,’ Jack murmured.

  ‘The eunuch? We’ve met him,’ Costas said. ‘Lying across the doorway into Claudius’ study. Looked as if he was heading in, reaching for something. He got a little singed.’

  ‘Ah.’ The man was quiet for a moment. ‘You found Narcissus. For almost two thousand years we have wondered.’

  ‘I think I can guess now what he was doing there,’ Jack murmured.

  ‘You will know then that Narcissus was Claudius’ long-serving praepositus ab epistulis, his scribe,’ the man said. ‘When Claudius decided to disappear from Rome in AD 54, he also engineered Narcissus’ fake poisoning so that he could accompany his master to his hideaway in Herculaneum, and help him with his books. But after AD 58, there was another reason for Narcissus to stay on. He always accompanied Claudius on his nocturnal visits to the cave of the Sibyl, where Claudius sought a cure for his palsy. Narcissus came to know the Christians who hid in the Phlegraean Fields, and he himself converted after meeting St Paul there. Narcissus already knew that Claudius had been to Judaea as a young man, that he had met the Messiah and had returned with a precious document. Paul himself had never met Jesus, and was astonished to hear from Narcissus that something written in the hand of Christ might survive. He instructed Narcissus to find and bring the document to him in Rome, where Paul was going next. History overtook Paul, of course, and he was martyred, and Narcissus never found it. Claudius had been too cunning even for him. But the clamour for the document grew among the Christian brethren in the Phlegraean Fields, and word spread that Claudius was an anointed one, that he had touched Christ. The other two members of the concilium saw the threat this posed, a threat against their authority, and they implored Narcissus to find the document, to destroy it. They believed it to be false, a heresy, a fable dreamed up by Claudius, a man who they only ever saw delusional, after his visits to the Sibyl. Finally, Narcissus left Claudius one night at the cave of the Sibyl and made his way back to Herculaneum, intending to burn the study and all the books. That was the night of 24 August AD 79.’

  ‘When everything except that room went up in flames,’ Costas murmured.

  ‘The concilium had no way of knowing whether or not Narcissus had succeeded. But with the utter disappearance of Herculaneum in the eruption, the threat was thought extinguished for ever,’ the man continued. ‘Over the generations, the document, the false gospel, was remembered as heretical, as the first of many forgeries intended to bring down the Church, and its destruction as the first of many battles won by the concilium. Then, in the seventeenth century, more than a thousand years after the fall of Rome, the Bourbon King Charles of Naples began digging at the site of Herculaneum, and an ominous truth was revealed. Herculaneum had not been destroyed in the eruption. It was miraculously preserved. Even worse, one of the first sites to be discovered and explored was the villa of Calpurnius Piso, the Villa of the Papyri, which the concilium knew had been Claudius’ hideaway. Then, even worse still, books started to be found, ancient scrolls, mostly carbonized but some legible. The concilium had to act. For more than two centuries now they have done everything in their power to hamper exploration at Herculaneum, at the Villa of the Papyri. The concilium has huge wealth and resources at its disposal, more than enough to excavate Herculaneum in its entirety, or to prevent excavation for ever. Or so they thought. Just as in AD 79, natural catastrophe intervened again. The earthquake last month revealed that tunnel which had been sealed up in the eighteenth century, one the concilium knew might lead to more scrolls, even to Claudius’ secret room. With all the world’s media present, there was no way an investigation could be prevented. The work of the devil might yet see light. That was when your team was called to the scene.’

  ‘Phew.’ Costas sat down against the tomb, then suddenly realized what he had done and sprang up, brushing the plaster from his legs. ‘That explains a few things.’

  ‘But it doesn’t explain who you are, and why you are telling us this,’ Jack said. ‘Are you a member of the concilium?’

  There was a silence, and then the man spoke again, more quietly than before. ‘For many years I was a Jesuit missionary. Once, in a canoe on the lake at Péten in the Yucatán, I had an epiphany, a revelatory experience. When you are on water, in a small boat, the motion seems at once to focus and to free the mind, until you think about nothing except what you are experiencing, the sensations of the moment.’ The man paused, and Jack nodded, but felt uneasy. ‘I began to think about Jesus on the Sea of Galilee. I began to think that the sea was his kingdom of heaven, that his message to the others was that the kingdom could be found, just as he had found it. That the kingdom of heaven is all around us, on earth.’

  ‘And that turned you from the concilium?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Love thy neighbour, because it is easier than hating him. Turn the other cheek, because it is easier than resisting. Free your mind from such preoccupations, and focus your energy on finding the kingdom of heaven. That was Jesus’ message. The concilium had a holy cause, but it did not heed this call. The search for heresy, for blasphemy, became all-consuming, and the goal was lost. Their methods became unsound. And now there is one among the three who has turned a dark corner, has been unable to resist the temptation. The devil has reached out and drawn him into his fold. It has happened to others in the past.’

  ‘Who is he? And how do you know about us?’

  ‘You have come to the attention of the concilium before. The one of whom I sp
eak was also a member of the Norse brotherhood who guarded the secret of the lost Jewish treasure of the Temple, the félag.’

  ‘And who murdered Father Patrick O’Connor,’ Jack said grimly. ‘My friend, and a devout man of God. Butchered in the name of the concilium, it seems.’

  ‘The instruments used by the concilium have often been blunt. But now they have enlisted forces of darkness that seem far beyond the reach of God.’ The man paused, sinking back further into the shadows, his voice little more than a whisper. ‘Father O’Connor was a friend of mine too. He was the other young initiate who found this place years ago with me, the tomb of St Paul. He delved too deep into a past that the concilium did not wish to see opened. He knew about the book that I now hold in my hands. He believed that we must face the truth. And so, now, do I.’

  ‘You have put yourself at grave risk,’ Jack murmured.

  ‘I have done all that I can to protect you. You must swear to keep secret all that I have said until I reveal myself. I must continue to work from within. And you must understand. Were the true words of the Messiah to be found, the concilium would rejoice. Were the words to prove false, as they believe them to be, then the dogs of war would be unleashed to devour those who would convey them, who would peddle such a blasphemy. You must be careful. Do not try to find me again. Go now.’

  Half an hour later, Jack and Costas sat high on the rooftop balcony beside the dome of St Peter’s, swigging water and soaking up the afternoon sun, gazing out over Bernini’s great piazza far below. Beyond the sweeping semicircular colonnades that surrounded the piazza, they could just make out Castel St Angelo, the mausoleum of the Roman emperors beside the river Tiber, and further south they could see the heart of the ancient city, the Capitol and the Palatine Hill. Costas leaned back on his elbows, his face tilted to the sun and his eyes shut behind his designer sunglasses. ‘On balance, I prefer being high up to being underground,’ he murmured. ‘I think I really have had enough of damp subterranean places.’ He peered over at Jack. ‘You trust this guy?’

  ‘Well, a good deal of what he said we’d already guessed at, and the rest fits into place. But I’m not sure.’

  ‘I don’t weasel up to anyone who sends a thug to point a gun at me, turncoat or not. I have to tell you, Jack. I don’t trust the guy. I think it’s all an elaborate game of charades. Tell us enough that’s verifiable and plausible, take us into his confidence, get us to reveal what we know.’

  ‘He didn’t answer my question about Elizabeth. I’m worried.’

  ‘Maybe Hiebermeyer and Maria can find out.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Jack breathed in deeply, and looked out over the city again. ‘Anyway, the crunch time will be if we actually find something.’

  ‘Or if we get no further,’ Costas said. ‘Either way could be bad news. I can’t imagine the concilium wanting us to tell the world what we know. If that guy was playing a game with us, then as soon as he started revealing all that history he was also issuing our execution warrant. It was his risk telling us, but if what he says is even half true then he could silence us with a click of his fingers.’

  ‘You’re assuming the worst about this guy.’

  ‘I’m being devil’s advocate, but we have to be wary, Jack. And it’s not just us I’m thinking about. The hit list gets bigger with each person we bring on board. Hiebermeyer and Maria have to be up there at the top. There’s your friend Elizabeth. And Jeremy’s been seen with us, by that guy who slipped you the message in London. God knows what was overheard when we talked in the cathedral. We should have been more careful.’

  ‘My Reuters friend is only a call away. We’ll send out a press release with the images from Herculaneum at the first threat.’

  ‘There’s not enough hard evidence for this concilium, Jack. As it stands, it could all be a figment of our imagination. It would be yet another conspiracy theory, big news one day, forgotten the next. And any investigative reporter’s got to think twice about taking on this lot.’

  ‘We’ll just have to hope our man really is what he says he is,’ Jack murmured. ‘And that Jeremy comes up with something in London.’

  Costas grunted, and lay back. Jack was still reeling in astonishment at what they had heard. They had another hour to kill before the taxi to the airport, and he got on his cell phone to update Hiebermeyer and their old mentor Professor Dillen with the latest developments, skirting around what they had just been told until he could be convinced it was all true. Many pieces of the puzzle seemed to have fallen together, but the enormity of what they might be up against was only beginning to register. He focused on the view below, anything to take his mind off it, knowing there was nothing they could do at the moment, no leads they could follow until Jeremy had exhausted all possible lines of enquiry in England. He glanced at Costas. ‘A few days ago you asked about the size of St Paul’s ship,’ he said, pocketing his cell phone. ‘Take a look at the centre of the piazza.’

  Costas heaved himself up, and peered over the parapet. ‘You mean the obelisk?’

  ‘Brought here by the emperor Caligula from Egypt, to decorate the central spine of the circus, the place where Peter and Paul were executed,’ Jack said. ‘Twenty-five metres tall, weighing at least two hundred tons. Looking at stone like that is the best way to gauge the size of the biggest Roman ships, including grain ships like the one carrying St Paul. The obelisk-carrier was eventually sunk by Claudius in his new harbour at Ostia, filled with hydraulic concrete to make a mole. It’s still there today. Pliny the Elder tells us all about it in his Natural History.’

  ‘Good old Pliny,’ Costas murmured, then slumped back in the sun. Jack peered round at the other people who had come up to the roof of the dome, his eyes alert for anything suspicious, his vigilance heightened after their warning in the catacombs far below. He might have been telling the truth. Jack had no reason to believe they had been followed, and they were probably safer here than anywhere else in the city. He relaxed slightly, and looked back over the parapet. He had an eagle’s-eye view of the piazza, whose grandeur equalled the greatest monuments of pagan Rome. He watched the people crossing far below. It was as if he were viewing a computer-generated image from a Hollywood epic, of Rome the way people thought of it, not the way it was, as if on closer inspection the people below would be revealed not as flesh and blood but as stick figures, mere embellishments to the architecture, ethereal and meaningless. Jack reached for his wallet and took out a paper sleeve containing the bronze coin of Claudius they had found in Herculaneum, then slid it out and held it up so that it blocked his view of the piazza between the colonnades of the roof.

  ‘My find! You took it. Good man. Nobody would ever have seen it again if we’d left it.’ Costas was peering at Jack, and at the coin.

  ‘Borrowed it.’

  ‘Yeah. Right.’

  ‘I’m thinking about Claudius again,’ Jack said. ‘That history is shaped by individuals, unique personalities, not by processes. Those are real people down there in the piazza, individuals with their own volition, their own free will, and they aren’t subordinate to this whole thing.’ He gestured back at the dome of St Peter’s, and at the huge colonnades surrounding the square. ‘Somewhere down there is someone who could create more grandeur than all this, or destroy it. It’s individual decisions, whims, that make history. And people have fun. Look where Claudius has taken us.’

  ‘Fun isn’t exactly the word that springs to mind, Jack.’ Costas rolled over. ‘Let me see. Dead rats, sewage, body liqueur, a fossilized Vestal Virgin, a terrifying banshee redhead queen.’

  ‘But you got an unexploded bomb.’

  ‘Didn’t even get to defuse it.’

  Jack’s phone chirped, and he quickly sleeved the coin. He took out the phone, listened intently for a few minutes, spoke briefly and then pocketed it. He had a broad smile on his face.

  ‘Well?’ Costas said. ‘You’ve got that look again.’

  ‘That was Jeremy. He had a hunch, and did a search of the i
nternational death registries available on the web. All the obvious places Everett could have disappeared to in 1912: Australia, Canada, the States. You’re going to love this one. The IMU Embraer’s being fuelled up as we speak.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘When was the last time you were in southern California?’

  20

  Jack was struggling towards consciousness, and became aware of the vibration of the aircraft where he had been leaning against the window. Images had been cycling through his mind, flashbacks to their extraordinary discoveries of the past few days. The chi-rho symbol in the ancient shipwreck, the scratched name of St Paul. The shadowy head of Anubis, leering out of the tunnel like a demon, beckoning him into the lost chamber in Herculaneum. More dark places, the cave of the Sibyl, the underground labyrinth in Rome, the blue woaded skull under London, staring sightlessly up at him from her tomb. Images at once vivid yet opaque, disjointed yet somehow bound together, images that flashed up in his mind over and over again as if he were caught in a continuous loop. He felt like Aeneas in the underworld, yet without the Sibyl to guide him back, only some malign force that pulled him down as he struggled to find the light, trapping him in a dark maze of his own devising. He felt disturbed, discomfited, and it was a relief to open his eyes and see the reassuring figure of Costas slumped over in the seat opposite. He realized that the overbearing feeling in his head had been the increased air pressure as the aircraft descended, and he blew on his nose to equalize. The whine of the Embraer’s twin jets swept the images from his mind, and reality took over. He leaned forward and stared out of the window.

  ‘Bad dream?’ Jeremy slipped into the aisle seat beside him, and closed the dog-eared notebook he had been studying.