The Last Day

by Glenn Kleier

  Nicholas placed his hands on the sides of the nervous man's cheeks and gently guided him to an upright position. “Not at all, my son, you have nothing to be concerned about. My visit was unannounced. I was walking past and simply decided to come up for a quick view of my Eternal City. I used to come here often when I was a young priest in the service of Pope John XXIII. Please, don't let me interrupt your work.”

  “No, Holiness,” the monk demurred. “What I do is of no consequence. I'll leave and allow you your peace.”

  Nicholas was touched by the man's deference, and smiled. “Tell me, my son, what is your name?”

  “I…I am Pietri Dominici, Your Holiness. I'm an archivist in the museum, here to document the information left on these walls centuries ago when the tower served as the Vatican's astral observatory.”

  Nicholas found the company of this unassuming young man a refreshing contrast to the pomp and politics of his entourage. “Please, stay and keep me company for a while, Pietri. I won't hold you from your work long. Tell me, what have you learned from your research here?”

  “Well,” Dominici reflected on his studies, “as you can see on this wall here,” and he pointed to an inscription, “these are calculations regarding the movement of the stars and planets, dating from the late 1500s, I suspect. And here,” he indicated a rather involved drawing of the sun and seven planets in elliptical orbit, “is an illustration of the solar system visible with the primitive telescopes of the day.”

  “Ah, wonderful!” the pontiff said admiringly. “And what of these figures over here?” The pope gestured toward a series of numbers in columns.

  “Those, Holiness, date from about 1580, and are some of the early calculations in the preparation of the famous Gregorian calendar, the computations for which were developed right here in this observatory.”

  “Amazing!” Nicholas exclaimed. “Who would have believed at the time that, four hundred years later, this tower would still stand and Pope Gregory XIII's successor would come here to gaze out upon the third millennium!”

  “Of course,” the monk added lightheartedly, “you'll need to visit me again next year to do that.”

  Nicholas was confused. “How do you mean, my son?”

  “Well,” Dominici smiled, “although the world doesn't celebrate it this way, the true turn of the millennium won't occur until January 1 of next year—”

  All the color immediately drained from the pontiff's face. “What did you say!” he demanded.

  The monk stepped back. “Holiness, please, I did not mean to offend you! I—”

  “Explain to me what you mean!” the pope shouted, grabbing the hapless friar by the front of his brown robe.

  His eyes bulging from their sockets, the quaking monk searched the pope's face, as if looking for a clue to the meaning of this inexplicable display. “H-holy Father, forgive me, I merely mean that in terms of the calendar, we are only now completing the one thousandth year of the past millennium. The first year of the third millennium does not begin until the year 2001.”

  The pope's grip had loosened and he stared past the humiliated monk, out across the tiled rooftops of his Eternal City. “Of course!” Nicholas whispered to himself, in shock. “I knew this! How could I have closed my eyes to something so obvious!”

  The friar continued his explanation, trying to redeem himself. “Just as the number twenty completes a full score, and the number twenty-one would begin the next score, and…”

  But Nicholas was no longer listening. As the significance of this revelation fully enveloped him, he released the poor, frightened monk, slowly collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor, his eyes glazed.

  At the sight of this, the friar became hysterical. He dropped his notepad and pencil and fled screaming down the staircase for assistance:

  Before help could arrive, Nicholas had recovered enough to begin a lumbering, lurching retreat down from the tower. He met a flow of would-be rescuers rushing up from below, but they stopped immediately at the sight of him and stepped aside, flabbergasted, as he pressed past. At the bottom of the staircase, Nicholas confronted a bevy of flustered, well-meaning nuns and priests gathered in unfocused confusion. He did not look at them, but waved them off and staggered down the hall, moving persistently onward.

  Vehemently, Nicholas threw open the main doors of the museum and exited into the night air. He trudged relentlessly forward, heading toward the Basilica, a desperate group of Vatican personnel following in halting disarray. Pushing past the astonished guards at the front gates of the cathedral, Nicholas entered the quiet sanctuary. St Peter's was still full of worshipers this Easter Sunday evening, all of whom were quickly overcome with the unexpected distinction. But for those directly in the path of the distraught pope, the exhilaration was cut short by the anguished, wild look on the pontiff's face.

  The baffled faithful recoiled in disbelief as he brushed by. Oblivious to the commotion he was causing around him, Nicholas approached the gaping maw of the catacombs leading to the tomb of Peter. He staggered to a standstill in front of the railing, swaying from the exertion and emotion. Panting, his arms trembling beside him, he glared down into the silent depths, calling out in a booming voice that shook the entire basilica. “Why?

  “Why? Why? Why?”

  Nicholas waited for an answer, but there was none. He leaned on both hands against the railing, breathing less rapidly now. Shifting his gaze upward to the High Altar, and in a more subdued, broken voice, he moaned, “There have been worse popes! There have been popes less sincere, less conscientious, less faithful. Why! Where have I failed? Where have I earned Your disfavor?”

  Still no answer.

  In frustration, he blared down once more into the catacombs, “Simon Peter!” And the words resonated endlessly. “Hear me, Peter! I want no more of it!” And then in an impassioned voice of resignation, “I want no more of it!”

  With that, Nicholas tore the papal ring from his finger, holding it aloft where the light of the altar candles caught it in golden gleams. “I give it all back to you, Peter,” he wailed. “The burden, the agony and the mystery, I return it all to you!” Pausing for a moment, he then hurled the ring into the blackness of the catacombs below where it clanked and clinked and chimed off the stone steps in its descent.

  The bewildered onlookers had drawn close in dumbfounded regard to witness this unprecedented exhibition. Nicholas, sweating profusely, spun around on them suddenly, catching them by surprise and sending them scattering. Taking no notice, the aggrieved pope stumbled off down the main aisle, through the gates of the cathedral, and out once again into St. Peter's Square.

  A large gathering of Vatican population had already collected there. In short order, word of the crisis had circumnavigated the city, and Nicholas's final, labored leg through the square to his papal quarters was through a gauntlet of shocked, embarrassed but irresistibly curious onlookers. It was everything the desperate Swiss Guard could do to clear a path for him.

  While the screams of ambulances drifted closer, the white, perspiring Nicholas finally entered his apartments and arrived at his chambers, sending his attendant nuns into abject panic at his sight. Inside the sanctity of his library at last, he locked his door and faltered to his desk. Dropping heavily into his chair, he laid his head down amidst his books and papers, closing his eyes to the incessant pounding at his door.

  Having never had to cope with such an emergency, the distressed chamber nuns required ten minutes to locate a key to the pope's quarters. Several anxious cardinals and the resident papal doctor, a napkin still around his neck from his interrupted dinner, slowly, cautiously edged open the large wooden doors.

  “Papa?” one cardinal ventured timorously, looking around unable to spot the pontiff immediately.

  Nicholas never even lifted his head. “Leave me and lock the door! I command you!”

  The cardinals stared at each other, and then expectantly at the doctor. The physician gave them an uncomfortable, search
ing look and cleared his throat. “Holy Father,” he croaked, “we are concerned that you have taken ill. You do not seem yourself.”

  Nicholas bolted upright in his chair. “I am not myself!” he cried out, clenching and unclenching his fists on the desk in front of him, his face a contorted mask. And then overwhelmed, hanging his head with grief, he moaned tormentedly, “My self is lost to the ages now. I am reduced to a metaphor, a—a Caiaphas!”

  His fury welling again, he bellowed, “Leave me now!” There was a scurry of footsteps and the door creaked shut.

  Nicholas buried his face in his hands. “My God, my God!” he lamented repeatedly. His phone rang and he slashed out furiously with his arm, sending it crashing to the floor, a passel of papers fluttering down after it.

  His eyes were feverish, his face red and wet. Shaking badly, his hands fumbled for his waist fob. Locating a large, golden key, he jabbed it at his desk vault, missing the lock badly several times until he penetrated the keyhole. The tumblers turned, the vault door sprang open, and Nicholas grappled the faded leather portfolio from its dark haven onto the top of his desk. He tore the securing thongs from their stitchings and threw open the heavy cover, revealing its familiar contents of faded parchments.

  More deliberately now, he cleared aside the top parchments with ungainly sweeps of his hand until he arrived at the page he sought. Praying for a miracle to deliver him, with shaking index finger he followed the handwritten passages to the lines:

  ”… those who know the truth, by the purity of their hearts shall they also know the messenger. But woe be to you, hardened hearts, which fail to see and hear. For you who hold your head high with arrogance, so shall you stumble over that which lies conspicuous before you.”

  And…

  ”…if the First Prophecy is to be, it shall be fulfilled before the turn of the millennium; and if the Second Prophecy is to be, it shall be fulfilled thereafter.”

  Disastrously, Nicholas had accepted at face value Pope John Paul II's call for “a sacred Jubilee Year to begin at the commencement of the New Millennium, January 1, 2000.” Nicholas had overlooked the now-conspicuous fact that the year 2000—and not 1999—was, indeed, the last year of the old millennium.

  Despite how the world might celebrate its coming, in truth, the new millennium had not yet arrived, a point that even Nicholas, isolated though he might have been in his ecclesiastical ivory tower, had surely been aware. Yet somehow, fatefully, he had suppressed that knowledge. The dark passages of the Secret Letter reconfirmed the pope's dread convictions. It was the first prophecy that had been fulfilled. Jeza was the Messiah!

  Nicholas's lips contorted in a grotesque grin of disbelief and betrayed hurt. He began to laugh, tears flowing from his eyes. Leaving the yellowed page where it lay, he pushed himself up from his chair and staggered away from his desk. The vault key, still in its lock, tore free from the pontiff's fob, but Nicholas was impervious.

  “My God, my God” the pope ranted as he passed the threshold of his room, and those with their ears against his door jumped back in fear.

  Collapsing on his bed, Nicholas could feel the pressure of his blood surging within his veins. He rolled over on his back and attempted to calm himself, but the sound of his chamber door closing alerted him to someone's unwelcomed presence.

  “You!” the pope gasped, turning to discover the dark shape of Antonio di Concerci slipping quietly toward him. Nicholas rose up on one elbow, the exertion and anger showing like fire in his face. “What counsel do you bring me now, cardinal advisor?” he cried. “Do you come to fill me again with more of your misconceptions and your schemes?”

  Halfway to the pope's bedside, di Concerci slowed and stopped. Frowning, he raised his hand to his chin and said nothing.

  “The truth is there!” Nicholas pointed to his desk with a badly trembling hand. “I did not want to see it. I allowed my vision to be clouded by power and pride and stubbornness and fear!”

  The prefect's eyes followed the direction of the pontiff's finger to where the yellowed papers lay.

  “What do I do now, my cardinal prefect?” The pope's anxious voice grew louder and more strident. “Where do I go with my soul now? Will you share with me my failure and my shame? Will you stand at my side now before the Lord's throne?” Nicholas contracted his shaking fingers into a fist and bellowed out in desperate rage, “Will you defend me to God for the murder of His only begotten Daughter?”

  With these last words, the pope was overcome with searing pain. He stiffened and pitched back onto his bed, hands fluttering convulsively at his side, eyes turning upward in his head. He shivered there, alone, in unbridled torment. And then, in a long, slow, pained gargle, he exuded his final breath.

  Through all of this, the prefect had stood immobile, a deep furrow impressing itself ever further into his brow. He backed slowly away from the bedchamber, making his way quietly to the pope's desk. Picking up the letter, he read it carefully, stopping only once to glance over at the still form on the bed.

  When finished, Antonio Cardinal Prefect di Concerci gathered up all the parchments, carefully slipped them inside his cassock and then moved to the pope's side to feel his wrist for a pulse.

  Finding none, he stepped back, paused, then exited the room to summon the papal physician.

  116

  Somewhere over the southern Negev Desert 6:34 P.M., Sunday, April 23, 2000

  A thousand feet above the desert floor, in one of six Israeli night-reconnaissance helicopters, Feldman, Hunter, a pilot, co-pilot and two military police were racing toward the supply depot Commander Lazzlo had identified for them earlier.

  Feldman's plan had worked perfectly. Eziah Ben-Miriam's government had a number of sensitive issues to quickly resolve, and Jon Feldman held two of the keys. He could deliver Ben-Miriam a quick and peaceful surrender of the Hadassah, as well as the whereabouts of Israel's most wanted: Goene and Tamin.

  And all Feldman had required in return was:

  First, complete clemency for Commander David Lazzlo and his loyal troops. They had, after all, performed a great service for Israel. In defying Goene, they had defended the Messiah's body and delivered to the world the sacred truths that stopped Armageddon. Moreover, Feldman had argued, if the government accepted the premise that Jeza was risen from the dead, any pending murder charges would have to be dropped anyway.

  And second, acceding to Hunter's demands, Feldman had insisted that he and the cameraman be allowed to accompany the Israeli search team to record the capture of Goene and Tamin—assuming it wasn't already too late. The interminably slow negotiations had cost Feldman precious hours.

  As the reporters’ aircraft cleared a small cluster of mountains, the pilot signaled that they were coming up on the depot Lazzlo had targeted as a probable hideout for the two fugitives. Through the windshield of the craft, in the fading twilight, it was impossible to see much. But the scene was eminently visible in the eerie green glow of the cockpit's night-scanning screen.

  It would appear that Lazzlo had been correct in his suspicions. Feldman could easily distinguish the parked form of a single Israeli military helicopter in front of what looked to be a large rock formation with a door in it. “There.” The co-pilot identified the craft, tapping the screen with his forefinger.

  But it was soon apparent they'd arrived too late. A quick ground inspection showed the depot deserted and truck tracks heading to the southeast toward the least guarded area of the Egyptian border. Also as Lazzlo had surmised.

  “We should have intercept momentarily,” the pilot promised, taking them back up into the sky and away. That proved to be an optimistic projection. An hour later, the tracks having dissolved in rocky terrain, the squadron had split up, hoping to detect the heat of the escape vehicle's engine on infrared sensors. But they came across nothing except a few carloads of millenarians working their way toward the new sacred shrine of Jeza's Resurrection.

  There's no way they could have made it to the border yet,�
� the pilot informed his passengers. “I'm going to swing around and check out that Bedouin encampment we passed a few kilometers back. Maybe they've seen something.”

  A few minutes later, they crossed a rise and came upon a sprawling camp. “Probably about a hundred fifty to two hundred Bedouins, all told,” the pilot estimated, gauging from the size of their large, circuslike tents. “We'll put down far enough away not to disturb their flocks too much.”

  They dropped into a flat bluff about fifty meters downwind, the helicopter's prop kicking up a blinding dust storm. As the blades slowed and the clouds settled, an assembly of about forty rough-hewn men with rifles slowly materialized in the darkness, just beyond the swath of the rotor. One of the Israeli militia slid out of the helicopter, approached the nomads with his arms in the air, chatted for a few moments and then came trotting back at a fast clip.

  “Sir,” he called in to the detail officer, “they've got them both right here! Caught them about an hour ago. Recognized ‘em from TV reports. They claim Jeza spent time with their clan once, and they're real unhappy about what happened to their Messiah. Say they're gonna peel Tamin and Goene alive.”

  The sergeant gritted his teeth. “The hell they are! Call in the other choppers. I want two standard attack deployments behind that dune over there,” he began to order, but Feldman offered an alternative.

  “Sergeant, if they watch TV, maybe they'll recognize me, too. They'll know I was a friend of Jeza. Maybe I can reason with them.”

  Hunter elbowed Feldman hard in his sore side and whispered, “No! Let ‘em shred the bastards!” He was dead serious.

  Feldman ignored his partner and the sergeant acquiesced.

  Indeed, Feldman was immediately received with great ceremony and fanfare. The nomads knelt before him and touched the hem of his trousers, calling him “Apoutii,” or “Apostle,” as he was quickly informed by the military translator. Feldman found this most uncomfortable, particularly with Hunter recording the episode.