The Jesus Germ

by Brett Williams

  ‘I know my Presidential history, gentleman, but you haven’t answered my question. How does this relate to my safety?’

  ‘Mr Ashby and Mr Chandler were both under the care of Doctor Toby Bell, for heart conditions. Our check of their medical records shows Mr Ashby had stents inserted into three coronary arteries, and Mr Chandler an aortic valve replacement. Both operations were performed by Mr Bell. Further to this we obtained a comprehensive list of all the heart related procedures he performed while heading up the John Hopkins unit.’

  The President turned white in front of them. He knew what was coming.

  ‘Mr President, it has come to our attention that the stent you received when Governor, was inserted by Toby Bell.’

  The President tried to rationalize the news.

  ‘Does that mean I have TNT inside my chest?’

  ‘That, sir, we do not know. Toby Bell appears the only person who can tell us and currently he is off the radar. We are working twenty-four-seven to find him. Everyone knows there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of getting near you with a gun during the debates, and security will be tight as a drum, Mr President.’

  ‘This means I’ve got three days to get this sorted and I’m damned if I will revoke our occupation policies in the meantime.’

  ‘I think that’s irrelevant, Mr President. The threat does not detail any demands. These terrorists apparently think they can do as they wish when they wish.’

  ‘Can we remove the infernal thing by Monday?’

  ‘That was our next suggestion. We propose to cancel the debate and have consulted a surgeon who will perform the operation if you agree. Unfortunately, removing the stent is far more invasive than the original procedure. Sir, you will require open-heart surgery. It seems the only course of action to ensure your safety.’

  ‘Leave me, gentlemen. I must confer with the First Lady.’

  70

  To the Editor of the Washington Post,

  It is with deep regret that we convey this message to the world. Due to the inaction of the Government of the United States of America, our hand has been forced. We are wholly responsible for the sudden deaths of Jefferson Ashby and Michael Chandler, and possess the means to dispose of another sixty dignitaries. Enclosed is a list. Their deaths are avoidable. The investigative arms of the Government are well aware of our threats and demands. The President of the United States must make a public announcement tomorrow to explain this. This letter and accompanying list must be printed on the front page of Saturday’s editions of your paper, including the internet. Any cover-up or dilution of the facts by the President or failure to print this letter will precipitate the deaths of every person on the list, randomly at six-hourly intervals henceforth. You have been warned.

  We encourage you to engage the Government. It requires clear, purposeful direction. The people on the list will demand it. Their lives depend entirely on the correct response.

  We remind you that failure to publish will make you personally responsible for the ensuing deaths.

  Jupiter.

  The names on the list were some of the most influential and famous people on the planet.

  The Government and the Washington Post had barely two hours to liaise before the presses were set. The President was undergoing emergency heart surgery when the letter arrived, compounding the problem. More disturbingly, one name leapt off the page. The U.S. President himself was on death row.

  71

  Monique Zambeel eyed the tabernacle, knowing she must concentrate her energies on Cardinal Venti. In the holy confines of the Vatican she would weave her magic and preserve the destiny she believed was hers.

  ‘Thank you, Felix, it is truly beautiful.’

  She held the ornament to the light and the colours started her dreaming and plotting. Cardinal Venti hid his excitement at being entrusted with the tabernacle; the ultimate instrument of God’s plan for mankind.

  Like God sent His only son, so His son confided in Cardinal Venti. He had the power to save man from himself and couldn’t wait to play judge and jury. On returning to the Vatican he’d take a straw from the cafeteria to further hone his skills on the cover of his Bible.

  The gathering at Firelight disbanded at midnight. None entertained the idea of staying until morning. Six choppers thumped away into the darkness. Toby Bell flew further than the others, racing across open water, landing above a rocky shore on the Isle of Wight. He ran from beneath the spinning blades onto the veranda of a stone shack and waved the pilot away. The sky glowed white with stars, and the cold wind carried the crash of surf up from the bottom of the cliffs.

  From Zachary’s villa, the triumvirate listened to the conversations filtering from Firelight as Venti returned to his nest inside the Vatican with his much-coveted egg.

  ‘If Venti is arrested on our account we will never get our hands on the tabernacle, and alerting the police to Paris Vanderock’s predicament will further endanger her life,’ Rachel said.

  ‘We must make a decision,’ Father Stephen said.

  72

  The President’s heart was stopped. The endothelium, now thickened around the stent, was delicately pared away. When the forceps tried to pull it free, a bio-switch flipped and the dot of TNT popped and fizzed, burning a great hole in the side of an artery. Disbelieving surgeons quickly inspected the injury, flushed it clean and set about restoring the blood vessel.

  The pale horse passed the President by.

  Cardinal Venti made his decision. With the Presidential debate cancelled, the world would not see the President die on prime-time television, at least not on Monday, April 1st. On Saturday, as soon as the President finished explaining the impossible situation in which he found himself, Venti would end the free world leader’s life.

  The Cardinal had not a shred of guilt about the correctness of his actions. God had ordered him to complete the task of absolution for man. In Venti’s mind the instruction was straight from the Book of Revelations; chapter and verse written to him.

  Saturday began like the previous thousand. The Washington Post published Jupiter’s threatening letter. Now the President of the United States of America must front the nation and the world.

  At 4 p.m. came an announcement. At 7 p.m., the Vice President would make a televised address. Venti watched, glued to the stream of alarmist reports and speculation. The Vice President was an unacceptable standin. The threat specifically said the President must explain everything.

  Venti unfolded the crumpled list of detonation codes, inputted the twenty-digit number and sent it. Some said the U.S. President was the most powerful individual on the face of the earth, but Venti begged to differ.

  At precisely 7 p.m. all stations broke from normal programming to take the Vice-Presidential address. Venti salivated. A pathetic plea for time made no reference to the letter sent to the Washington Post. The President had undergone emergency heart surgery and was therefore unable to speak.

  For trying to save his own skin, making his own rules and ignoring the demands, the President evoked Venti’s Fourth Law of Motion - for every action expect an even nastier reaction inflicting fatal damage.

  The ground rules were set. At 1 a.m. Sunday, Venti would select his next victim.

  Fear crashed upon the sixty-people marked for death, with insufficient diplomacy to meet the terrified enquiries bombarding the office of the President. Amid lies and appeals for calm, the hairline cracks between international embassies were fracturing into insurmountable canyons. Some of the most divisive countries in the world had good reason to threaten the U.S. into action. The United Nations was overwhelmed in the crossfire of argument. Iraq, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, Russia, France, North Korea and Britain had citizens on the list. That each of these countries harboured nuclear weapons added frightful complications. Jupiter’s threats, designed to end wars, were now fuel to ignite them. The United States offered no answers, serving only to anger foreign diplomats working feverishly on behalf of their endangered c
itizens.

  Just after midnight, Venti availed himself of his trusty Bible. Instead of reading its pages for words of wisdom and guidance, he poured three lines of powdered ice onto its cover and sniffed them up his left nostril in quick succession.

  The British Prime Minister died in his bed at one in the morning, and afterwards Venti could not sleep. He bridged the gap to dawn with three more lines of powder. The news would break soon after the Prime Minister’s wife failed to wake her husband, or scandalously, he might be sleeping with another.

  The Cardinal knew drugs alone could not sustain him over the next two weeks. He needed rest and sleep, no longer than six hours at a time, to meet each approaching deadline. The Lord had entrusted him with an important job and he would prevail, no matter the threats to his human frailties.

  When the Prime Minister’s death was announced, millions bayed for American blood. The British tabloids were raging and merciless with their provocative headlines.

  When legendary stuntman, Jackson ‘The Hammer’ Hammerman, unexpectedly dropped dead on a movie set, the tone was irreversibly cast. Venti watched international tempers flare with an unparalleled thrill. As the ice wore off he decided to shower and shave.

  Now he could not stop, believing the pain of hell no worse for killing sixty or one. His addiction was gratifying and seductive. He was the king of kings.

  In an attempt to avert the slaughter, each person on the list was rushed into surgery to locate and remove the TNT. The risk pre-empted an otherwise certain death, except the media was all over the development and consequently so was Cardinal Venti. If the American President survived, others might too. It upset the order of things. The Cardinal loved structure but it was crumbling around him. He entered more codes immediately, and some on the list were already under anaesthetic. They would not escape the destiny Venti had in store for them.

  73

  Zachary punched the steering wheel in frustration as the traffic crawled toward the Vatican. The three-lane highway leading out of the city was closed, devoid of vehicles except for a motorcade of police bikes and an ambulance, rushing the Pope to Gemelli Hospital.

  When Zachary and Father Stephen finally stopped in St Peter’s Square, they ran from the car into a building and along a corridor, almost bowling over Sister Dorothea. Father Stephen gripped her by the shoulders.

  ‘Sister, where is Cardinal Venti? We need to find him immediately.’

  ‘He is in the garden, praying for the Holy Father.’

  ‘Bless you, Sister.’ Father Stephen left her bewildered, as they raced away.

  They dashed through a doorway into a garden of perfectly manicured lawns and flower beds but Venti was nowhere to be seen. Like the Devil that knew they were coming, the Cardinal was nowhere to be seen.

  Then a voice sung out and he materialized on the balcony above them.

  ‘Is this what you want?’

  Venti threw an ornament over the balustrade.

  Father Stephen caught it awkwardly and its glass edge cleaved his index finger so it bled. Venti was suddenly gone. Zachary bolted out of the garden and tackled him coming off a spiral staircase, holding him down with a knee on his chest. ‘Give me the other ornament.’

  ‘I don’t have it.’

  Zachary snapped open a flick knife. ‘And the codes!’

  ‘You haven’t the courage.’

  ‘I’ll count to three.’

  Uncertainty crossed his father’s eyes, and darker things beyond interpretation.

  ‘In the fountain statue.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The fold of the Archangel’s wing.’

  ‘Go check, Steve,’ Zachary yelled.

  ‘Phone and codes,’ Zachary said to Venti.

  Venti pulled his phone and a crumpled bit of paper from his top pocket. Zachary snatched them, removed the SIM card and smashed the phone into fragments with his heel. The codes on the paper were typed neatly against each name.

  Zachary took a roll of silver gaffer-tape from his jacket, tightly binding the Cardinal’s ankles and wrists and taping his mouth shut. Venti did not protest.

  Father Stephen returned with the ornament. It had the distinguishing features outlined by Venti at Firelight – the chipped corner and the opaque frog; easily recognisable against the sunlight.

  Zachary grabbed Venti by his ankles and dragged him to the garden, the ground eating into the Cardinal’s back like sandpaper.

  He hoisted Venti up under the armpits and laid him on a bench, then ran tape around his body, fixing him to the seat.

  Father Stephen handed the bloodied ornament he’d caught below the balcony, to Zachary, who rinsed it in the fountain and unflinchingly forced it down the front of Venti’s trousers.

  When the two men left, Cardinal Venti endured an uncomfortable wait in the shadow of the angel. A blue wren, attracted by the vibrant colours, danced from the shrubbery, pecked briefly at the protruding ornament then flew off. Venti recited one number repeatedly in his head. He wished the woman would hurry.

  The woman outside the Cardinal’s office called to Sister Dorothea. ‘Excuse me. I have an appointment with Cardinal Venti.’

  ‘He must still be in the garden. Follow the corridor to the end.’

  In the raw sunshine, she saw a blue wren splashing on a sparkling pond beneath the statue of an angel. Venti was bound to a bench, teaming with sweat, ripened veins covering his head. His eyes darted about trying to speak to her, the ornament pointing crudely in her direction.

  The woman knelt next to him, produced a pair of nail scissors from her lime-green handbag, and clipped away at the silver tape around his head, careful not to stab him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cardinal.’

  He nodded in desperation, struggling for air, a watery discharge ducking in and out of his nostrils.

  The woman tried to tear away the tape, wrenching the Cardinal’s head sideways. She apologised but his eyes scolded her. She tried pulling the tape slowly but it stretched and distorted the skin on his face.

  Venti tightened his bleeding lips as the silver strip scoured across his mouth. He took in a welcome lungful of air, and the bulging vessels in his neck instantly subsided.

  ‘Thank you, Monique. Now take the tabernacle and free my hands.’

  Monique Zambeel pulled the ornament from the Cardinal’s trousers. She noticed a furtive glance and half smile from Venti’s tortured face as she wrapped her slender fingers around the glass. She sat it on the ground and cut away the tape binding him to the bench.

  ‘Who did this, Cardinal?’

  ‘Never mind. Take the tabernacle and go.’

  ‘Where is the opaque frog? And there’s no chip off the corner.’

  ‘Trust me. It is the one.’

  Monique put it into her handbag.

  ‘Goodbye, Cardinal.’

  She hastened from the garden, passing Sister Dorothea in the corridor.

  ‘Your meeting went well, signora?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Sister.’ Monique Zambeel forced a polite smile.

  She resumed her speedy walk, eager to escape the Holy City where she did not belong on account of her sins. Perhaps forgiveness for them was beyond the realm of God.

  Venti flexed his hands to help restore the blood flow and quell the tingling in his feet. If Sister Dorothea happened across him in his current state she would say nothing and simply wonder to her grave. Venti pondered how she internalised the things she saw without confiding in another soul. He guessed faith and trust in the Saviour was her rock of silence.

  Venti made it to his quarters unseen. Before checking his appearance in the mirror, he made a phone call.

  ‘Good afternoon, this is Inspector Rosa.’

  ‘Inspector, Cardinal Venti.’

  ‘Eminence, are you well?’

  ‘I am, Inspector. Any news?’

  ‘Yes, Eminence, I received a package less than an hour ago.’

  ‘Have you listened to the recordings?’

&nb
sp; ‘All of them.’

  ‘Then they are safe at this time?’

  ‘They will never again see the light of day, Eminence. I have destroyed them all. Can you guarantee my safety?’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector. You will be well rewarded. God, bless you.’

  Venti hung up and entered a twenty-digit number into his cell phone. The Devil had friends in high places.

  Inspector Rosa fell down the stairs at lunch. He did not flinch when his head cracked on the bottom step, for the mini explosion in his chest had already ended his life.

  Venti believed he had outwitted his most dangerous adversaries. He inputted the other number etched in his memory and sent it on its merry way. He undressed and showered, letting the steaming water sting his bloodied face. He welcomed the pain. Cardinal Venti would suffer anything for his God, and he felt a great power welling within him.

  74

  The TNT popped inside the Holy Father’s chest as they made the first incision. He felt nothing, dying in the blackness of his dreams, carried away in the arms of the reaper as the medical team fought to revive him.

  In mid-afternoon, the world learnt of the Pope’s sudden death. Soon six more from the list were reported dead, three by accidental detonation and three from complications of open-heart surgery. They included a Russian politician, a French actress, a Chinese gymnast, an English cricketer, an American songstress and a child actor who had just celebrated his eighth birthday.