The Last Gospel

by David Gibbins

  ‘I’m liking you more and more, you know, Jeremy,’ Costas murmured.

  ‘I’m sure Everett would have loved the technology,’ Jeremy continued. ‘But he would have seen that with some decoding, no amount of computer wizardry can replace the human brain. Decrypting the Zimmerman code depended on understanding the Germans who created it, their perception of the world, their vocabulary. You had to know the words they would have used and been familiar with.’

  He tapped a command and a page of numerical sequences came up, with words and syllables alongside. ‘As it turned out, the key to the German code was quite simple,’ he said. ‘Each cluster of numbers is a word or a phrase or a letter. You use the codebook like an index. The problem was, the Germans who created the code hadn’t anticipated some of the words that were going to be needed for this particular message, so a few words had to be made up from smaller parts. Here, you can see the word Arizona, made up from four different clusters of numbers, for the syllables AR, IZ, ON and the letter A. That’s the part of the Zimmerman telegram where the Germans were going to help the Mexicans reconquer the southern states. The intelligence people back in Germany had never imagined they’d need the word Arizona, evidently. This was probably where Everett came in. He may have been more familiar than any of the other British codebreakers in Room 40 with America, having lived there for several years before the war. He may have been the one who suggested that they should be looking out for geographical names, unique place names that might not be in the codebook.’ Jeremy paused, tapped the keyboard again and sat back. ‘Okay. I’m going to run these numbers. This might take a minute or two.’

  ‘Everett was having fun, wasn’t he?’ Costas said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, all this business was deadly serious for him, of course, hiding the ancient gospel and leaving this trail, but he was also having fun.’

  ‘He loved puzzles,’ Jeremy replied. ‘A codebreaker.’

  ‘A bit like Claudius.’

  ‘A treasure hunt can be like a game of chess,’ Jack murmured. ‘With someone who thinks they’re always one move ahead of you, and leaves openings to make the game last longer, and then you trounce them.’

  ‘I thought you were an archaeologist, not a treasure-hunter, Jack,’ Costas said, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I’m getting seriously worried about you.’

  ‘Bingo!’ Jeremy said excitedly. ‘It worked!’ Six words had appeared on the screen.

  ‘Well I’ll be damned,’ Jack murmured.

  ‘It’s in German, of course.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘How’s your German?’ Jeremy asked, scribbling down the words on his notepad.

  ‘Rusty.’ Jack paused, scanning the words. ‘Grabeskirche. I think that’s church, though there might be a more specific meaning. But I know a man who can help.’ He dug his cell phone out of his pocket, flipped it open and pressed the number for the IMU secure line. ‘Sandy, this is Jack. Please find Maurice Hiebermeyer and have him call me asap. Thanks.’ He held the phone expectantly, and a moment later it chirped. ‘Maurice? Good to hear you.’ Jeremy ripped a sheet of paper from his pad and gave it to Jack, who took it with the pencil and walked outside. A few minutes later he returned, still holding the phone open. ‘I read the words to him, and he’s going to mull it over for a moment then call me back.’

  ‘How is our friend?’ Costas asked.

  ‘He’s in a pizzeria in Naples,’ Jack replied. ‘Seems to have had a change of heart about the place. Says as long as you actually want to string along the bureaucracy, it’s a piece of cake. All you have to do is show up at the superintendency in the morning and throw another spanner in the works, then you can go away and relax for the rest of the day. He’s on his second circuit of the pizzerias. Says even if we were allowed back into the passageway in Herculaneum again, he wouldn’t fit.’

  ‘Cue his latest discovery in the Egyptian desert, the one he’s been trying to tell you about,’ Costas said. ‘No tight passageways, more room to maneouvre. Would we care to join him? Finally?’

  ‘Nope. Didn’t even mention it. His mouth was full.’

  ‘What did he say, seriously?’

  ‘He’s really taken the initiative. The authorities had already used him as a media figure when they got him in to excavate the tunnel, the famous Egyptologist, showing they’d got the best person in to do the job. He’s fluent in Italian, and they probably hadn’t reckoned that he’d become an overnight star on Italian TV. He’s used it to our advantage. The superintendency wanted him to front a big press event on the Anubis statue, and he insisted it take place in the villa site, outside the tunnel entrance. That way, he and Maria were able to keep an eye on things. He’s made a huge play in the media about the dangers of the site, the need to seal it up until the funding’s there for a complete excavation of the villa, once and for all. He insisted that the superintendency concrete up the entrance to the tunnel while he watched. They were only too happy to oblige, of course, but at least it means we know that what lies at the end is still intact.’

  ‘Amazing guy,’ Costas murmured, then eyed Jack closely. ‘Was he able to find out anything about Elizabeth?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Nothing.’ The phone chirped, and he rushed outside again. He returned a moment later, pocketing the phone, looking at the notebook. ‘Here it is.’ He cleared his throat, and read slowly: ‘“The word of Jesus is in the grave chapel.”’

  There was silence for a moment, and they all looked at the painting on the wall.

  ‘The word of Jesus,’ Costas said. ‘Surely that means the gospel, what we’re after.’

  ‘It might,’ Jack murmured.

  ‘And the grave chapel. That must be this room. He’s telling us the gospel is somewhere in this room?’

  ‘Or he’s simply telling us that this room is a burial chapel.’

  ‘Not much of a clue.’

  ‘It doesn’t add up.’ Jack looked around the austere interior, then back to the painting. ‘He could have hidden it here. But somehow it’s too obvious. He would have known that anyone standing here, anyone who’d reached the point of decrypting those Greek letters, would have known something of his life, his background. There’s something more, something we haven’t recognized. There’s a big piece missing.’

  ‘Nineteen seventeen,’ Jeremy murmured. ‘That’s the key year.’

  ‘I can’t see what else we can tease out of it,’ Jack said.

  ‘Did Everett remain here, after Montgomery left?’ Costas asked.

  Morgan looked up, distracted. ‘Huh?’

  ‘In 1917. When Everett and Montgomery came here. The war was still on, and Everett was still a British intelligence officer. Did he remain in the States, working with the Americans?’

  ‘Ah. I forgot to say.’ Morgan cleared his throat. ‘I was in London and had a few days in the National Archives at Kew. To my astonishment I found a file of his personal correspondence, mainly related to his wound, doctors’ reports, medical board evaluations, stuff that couldn’t be classified as top secret because it was routine officers’ papers, unrelated to his intelligence activities. What they’d forgotten was that medical reports specify where a soldier’s being posted next, on the basis of the fitness recommendation. It turns out Everett already knew his next posting, assigned to him just before the trip to America. The British Army realized they needed decryption experts at the front, ideally officers with field experience. And somewhere along the line, the War Office discovered that Everett was not just a mathematician but had also studied Arabic at university. That made him a real prize. After returning from America in 1917 he became a cipher officer with British Middle Eastern forces, on the other big British front of the First World War, fighting the Ottoman Empire. He accompanied General Allenby in the liberation of Jerusalem.’

  Jack suddenly went still. He let his pencil drop, and looked up at Morgan. ‘Say that again.’

  ‘Everett was in Jerusalem in late 1917. We only
have that faded picture of him as an old man to go on, but I believe you can actually make him out in the famous photograph of Allenby and his staff dismounted, walking through the Jaffa Gate on the eleventh of December of 1917. I believe he’s one of the officers behind T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia. We know they walked on through the Old City to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where they prayed in the square. Everett stayed on in Jerusalem as an intelligence officer with the British occupying forces for the remainder of the war. They had plenty of time on their hands after the Turkish defeat, and that explains how he drafted an architectural treatise on the Holy Sepulchre, the manuscript of his I told you about that I’ve been working up for publication. After his demobilization from the army in 1919 he returned to America and spent the rest of his life here in this nunnery. His lungs had been so badly damaged in the gas attack in 1916 that he was unable to travel again, and he eventually became an invalid.’

  Jack had his back to them still, and was staring at the painting. ‘Well I’ll be damned,’ he whispered.

  ‘That usually means something,’ Costas said.

  ‘I know where Everett buried his treasure.’ Jack stood up quickly, and turned round with a broad smile on his face. ‘That message in the letters. The word of Jesus is in the grave chapel. Not grave chapel. Maurice has given us a literal translation. There was no reason why he should have done otherwise. But my German isn’t that rusty. I knew that word was familiar. It’s from the last time I was in Jerusalem. It’s the German for Holy Sepulchre.’

  There was a collective gasp. Jack felt a huge burst of adrenaline course through him, as all the loose ends suddenly seemed to coil together and point in one direction. He quickly took his cell phone out again, and pressed the number for the IMU direct line. ‘Sandy? How soon can you get us to Tel Aviv?’

  Morgan gestured, pointing towards himself. Jack eyed him, nodding. ‘Four of us. Yes. His name is Morgan.’ He listened for a moment, replied quickly and snapped shut the phone. ‘We may as well head for the airport now. We’ll pick up what you need on the way.’ Morgan nodded, and Jack stepped towards the painting with the chi-rho symbol, putting his hand on it. He turned round and looked at the others, his khaki bag slung over his shoulder. ‘From now on, we’re back in the firing line. We already know someone else has been on the trail of Everett, and may even have tracked us here. As soon as we leave on that flight, things really hot up. They’ll know we’re on to something. We’re all in this now. There’s no backing out. Anyone got any questions?’

  ‘Let’s do it,’ Costas said.

  22

  ‘Jack? Jack Howard?’

  A woman detached herself from a huddled group of monks on the rooftop of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and marched across the sun-drenched courtyard, her white robe flowing around her. Jack shielded his eyes as he took in the scene. The dome of the greatest church in Christendom lay before him, rising above the whitewashed walls and flat rooftops of the Old City of Jerusalem. Up here there seemed to be more room to think, above the narrow alleyways and hemmed-in courtyards below, where every square inch was zealously guarded by one of the many factions who had staked a claim in this holiest of cities. Jack looked over at Costas, and rubbed his eyes. He had found it impossible to sleep on the flight from Los Angeles. They had left Morgan a few minutes earlier at the entrance to the Holy Sepulchre, intent on checking accessibility to the part of the church he wanted them to explore. But Jeremy was not with them. At the last minute Jack had asked him to go to Naples, to join Maria and Hiebermeyer and to do what he could to find out what had happened to Elizabeth. Jack had felt uneasy about sending anyone else back there, but Maria and Hiebermeyer were completely wrapped up in the media circus at the villa site and he felt he could rely on Jeremy to do everything possible until he himself could get there.

  The car ride from Tel Aviv had been hot and dusty, but as the Old City of Jerusalem opened out in front of them Jack had felt a surge of exhilaration, a certainty that they had come to the right place, that whatever lay at the end of the trail would be here. With the feeling of certainty had come increased anxiety. Ever since he and Costas had met with the mysterious figure in the catacombs under the Vatican he had felt trapped in an inexorable process, a narrowing funnel, with no knowledge of who might be watching them. If what they had been told was true, for almost two thousand years those who were following them had won all their battles, allowed no failure. And with every new person Jack brought into the fold, there was another name added to a hit list. He looked at the approaching woman, then glanced again at Costas beside him. He suddenly remembered his friend’s old adage: If you can calculate the risk, then it is a risk that can be taken. But he hated gambling with other people’s lives.

  The woman came up to him, smiling. She had strips of colourful embroidery down the front and around the wrists of her robe, and wore a gold necklace and earrings. Her long black hair was tied back, and she had the high cheekbones and handsome features of an Ethiopian, with startlingly green eyes. She extended her hands and Jack embraced her warmly. ‘My old school friend,’ he said to Costas. ‘Helena Selassie.’

  ‘That surname rings a few bells,’ Costas said, shaking hands with her and smiling.

  ‘The king was a distant relative,’ she said, in perfect English with an American accent. ‘Like him, I’m Ethiopian Orthodox. This is our holiest place.’

  ‘Virginia?’ Costas murmured, his eyes narrowing. ‘Maryland?’

  Helena grinned. ‘Good guess. And you have a hint of New York? My parents were Ethiopian exiles, and I grew up among the expat community south of Washington DC. I was at high school with Jack in England when my father was stationed in London, then I went back to MIT. Aerospace engineering.’

  ‘Really? I must have just missed you. Same faculty, submarine robotics.’

  ‘We didn’t mix with the sub jocks.’

  ‘The Old City of Jerusalem’s a far cry from moon rockets and outer space, Helena,’ Jack said.

  She gave him a wan smile. ‘After NASA wound down the space shuttle programme, I figured I’d seek the spiritual route. Get there quicker.’

  ‘You knew you’d be coming out here eventually.’

  ‘It’s in the blood,’ she said. ‘My father did it, my grandfather, his father before that. A fair number of women along the way. There are always at least twenty-eight of us up here on the roof, mostly monks but always a couple of nuns, have been for almost two centuries now. Our presence on the Holy Sepulchre is the hub of our Ethiopian faith, helps keep our sense of identity. I don’t just mean the Ethiopian Church, I mean my extended family, Ethiopia itself.’

  ‘Seems a little crowded down in the church below,’ Costas said.

  ‘You can say that again. Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Roman Catholic, Coptic Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox. We spend more time negotiating when we can use the washroom in this place than we do worshipping. It’s like a microcosm of the world here, the good, the bad and the ugly. In the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Turks who ruled Jerusalem imposed something called the Status Quo of the Holy Places, in an attempt to stop the bickering. The idea was that any new construction work, any change in the custodial arrangements in the Holy Sepulchre required government approval. Trouble was, it got turned on its head and used for more in-fighting. We can’t even clear fallen wall plaster from our chapels without weeks of negotiations, then formal approval from the other denominations. Everyone’s always spying on each other. We’re never more than one step from open warfare. A few years ago an Egyptian Coptic monk staking a claim up here moved his chair from the agreed spot a few feet into the shade, and eleven monks had to be hospitalized.’

  ‘But at least you’re in pole position on the roof,’ Jack said.

  ‘Halfway to heaven.’ Helena grinned. ‘At least, that’s how the monks console themselves in the middle of winter, when it’s below freezing and the Coptics have accidentally on purpose cut off the electricity.’

  ‘You liv
e up here?’ Costas asked incredulously.

  ‘Have you smelled the toilets?’ she said. ‘You must be kidding. I have a nice apartment in the Mount of Paradise nunnery, about twenty minutes’ walk from here. This is just my day job.’

  ‘Which is what, exactly?’

  ‘Officially, I try to get back all our ancient manuscripts, the ones held here by the other denominations. They’re easy to spot, with Ethiopian Ge-ez inscriptions and bound in colourful artwork, the signature of our culture.’

  ‘Get back?’ Costas repeated.

  She sighed. ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘The nub of it.’

  ‘Okay. Ethiopia, the ancient kingdom of Aksum, was one of the first nations ever to adopt Christianity, in the fourth century AD. Not a lot of people realize it, but Africans, black Africans from Ethiopia, are one of the oldest Christian communities associated with the Holy Sepulchre. We were given the keys to the Church by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great’s mother Helena, my namesake. But then for centuries we had a very unholy rivalry with the Egyptian Coptic Church, the monks from Alexandria. Things began to go seriously downhill when we refused to pay taxes to the Ottoman Turks after they took over the Holy Land. Then in 1838 a mysterious illness wiped out most of the Ethiopian monks in the Holy Sepulchre. They said it was the plague, but none of us believe it. After that most of our property was confiscated. The surviving monks were banished to the roof, and we kept our foothold here, bringing mud and water by hand from the Kibron Valley to build these huts you see around us. Then came the worst desecration of all. Many of our precious books were stolen from us and burned. They claimed the manuscripts were infected with the plague.’