The Jesus Germ

by Brett Williams

  The last item he removed from the sled was a thin cylinder similar to a sprinter’s relay baton. Depressing a button at one end produced a fine adjustable orange beam, much like a light-sabre, able to dissolve solids on contact. The technology would revolutionise surgery, rendering the laser obsolete, its inventor proclaimed Time Magazine’s person of the year.

  The man lifted a trapdoor in the shack’s floor, too small for him to squeeze through. He activated the Stiletto and it hummed softly in his grip. He drove the orange beam into the wooden floor, carved out a wide, almost perfect circle, then melted a thick plug of ice to expose the black-green water below.

  He sat back on the stool, strapped the diving belt around his waist, slung the air tank onto his back and let the regulator hang idly down. He pulled on a dry hood, adjusted his face mask and headlamp then slipped his feet into stiff black flippers. He tucked the Stiletto into a sheath on his right ankle, turned off his torch, and sprung the blind halfway up the window to see out. He entered coordinates into a revolutionary GPS wrist computer, to give bearings beneath the ice, dropped a red fluorescent ball through the hole into the water, and tethered it with a length of cord to the shack’s stove. It would glow for two hours.

  He pulled on tight-fitting gloves, picked up the case, sat on the edge of the ice hole with his flippers pointing down at the dark water and turned on his head lamp - 00:25.

  After a mental check of his kit he pushed the regulator into his mouth, tapping into the tank’s precious air supply with each raspy breath. Case in one hand, torch in the other he slipped off his icy seat into the short chute to the water, plunging through the surface in a shroud of bubbles that cleared and left him in a silent, black world. His torch and headlamp shot long pipes of light into the gloom, startling a slow-moving bass.

  Suspended upright, he orientated himself using the GPS unit, and with a constant beat of his oversize flippers, moved through the crystalline water in the direction of the Papal Mass.

  ‘The Gospel of the Lord.’

  Pope Luke raised the Bible to the congregation and kissed its sacred pages. He half expected a cheer to erupt from the crowd and would have welcomed the spontaneity, except he knew the solemnity of the Gospel demanded greater reverence.

  ‘Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.’

  The Pope’s sermon was short but preached with fire and brimstone, a warning of the need for purity of heart and mind to receive the Body and Blood of Christ. The serious tone dampened the atmosphere somewhat, but Pope Luke resurrected it with promises of joy and new life in a replenished faith. Again, he would have basked in the applause he sensed ready to erupt at the slightest encouragement. Instead, he made the Sign of the Cross and stepped down from the frozen pulpit.

  Eramaeus Best smiled. He felt the skin on his face stretching in new and unfamiliar directions, and the butt of the gun against his throbbing heart.

  The man moved swiftly under water. Nearing the stage, he saw light filtering through the frozen crust above him. It softly illuminated the underbelly of ice, almost negating the need for his torch.

  A dark shape zipped underneath him and dived into the depths. The GPS showed he had arrived. He positioned himself under a large square silhouette that blocked light from above. Hovering in the water, he activated the Stiletto and admired the glowing orange blade. He attacked the ice above him, cutting out a set of steps under the stage. He crawled from the water, spat out his regulator, pushed his face mask on top of his head, kicked off his flippers and rested the case next to him. He sheathed the Stiletto and shone his torch around. With plenty of space to work in, he wandered the uncluttered platform.

  He knew he was directly under the altar, by the cabling running through the floor above him, feeding the electric candles, microphones, speakers, video screens and pyrotechnic consoles of Pope Luke’s magical universe - 00:45.

  The man cut a hole out of the stage floor with the Stiletto, catching the circle of wood as it fell. Kneeling in front of the case, he flipped its latches, lifted out the M18A1 Claymore Mine and sat it on the ice. He took two small cubes of C4 plastic explosive, moulded them into the fuse wells and attached electronic detonators. He peered through a tiny crack at the front of the stage. As a hymn played, a procession of children approached the altar bearing the offertory gifts.

  He stepped up onto a crate, poked his head into the floor space beneath the altar and lifted the mine into place.

  The mine was embossed, Front Toward Enemy, and the man set it on its spindly metal legs with the instruction aimed where Pope Luke stood. A red shoe poked beneath the altar cloth.

  ‘Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness, we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.’ Pope Luke sang the liturgy of the Eucharist.

  The man fitted his face mask and regulator and pulled on his flippers. He bounced the Claymore’s empty case down the steps into the depths then he slipped into the cold water and kicked toward the red shack, stopping after a minute and resting vertically.

  Pope Luke reached into his vestments, removed the Kwarx bottle and placed it on the altar.

  The man checked his watch. It was time.

  Eramaeus Best stood up as everyone else knelt. At first, he caused no alarm to the security detail eyeing the congregation.

  ‘By the mystery of this water and wine...’

  The man pressed a button on his watch.

  Eramaeus Best gazed up at the altar, as if transfixed by some holy apparition then put a hand inside his jacket, inviting twenty security guards to do the same. In one swift, well-drilled action he pulled the ceramic Glock pistol from the harness below his armpit, trained the red laser-dot on Pope Luke’s forehead and gently squeezed the trigger.

  As the bullet left the barrel, the Claymore exploded its load of steel ball bearings, destroying everything under the altar including the ice pillars supporting it. The ceramic bullet from Eramaeus Best’s gun parted Pope Luke’s manicured hair and lodged harmlessly in a fir tree behind the stage.

  Seven other bullets hit their mark and Eramaeus Best slumped to the ground, head leaking like a colander.

  The thick slab of altar ice broke in half. The chalice spilled its contents. At first the congregation thought the explosion part of the special theatrics, and the gunfire the pop of fireworks.

  Then isolated screams suddenly caused a domino effect, starting with the ring of people around Eramaeus Best’s body. Hideous cries spread like wildfire, covering the ice in panic. A crush of people tried to force through the narrow exit chutes. Many tripped and were mercilessly trampled. None stopped to help the fallen. When the chutes were immovably choked, the crowd turned on the barrier fencing, bending it to the ground as they streamed off the ice into the forest.

  The man beneath the ice heard nothing, but assumed the Claymore had done its work.

  The dark shape again flashed by, dislodging his face mask and headlamp, filling his nostrils with frigid water. His eyeballs ached as if freezing solid until he pulled the mask back onto his face and dispelled the water with a burst of bubbles from his nose. His headlamp spiralled into the depths.

  A Saimaa Ringed Seal speared from the bottom of the lake like a torpedo, trailing a corkscrew of bubbles. It had a fish in its mouth, propping in front of the man to show off its catch in the torchlight before powering away.

  The man neared the shack, oblivious to the chaos above the ice.

  Security relinquished control of the fleeing crowd, turning their attention to the stage. Media cameras kept rolling.

  Pope Luke bore the full brunt of the mine. It blew his legs clean off, smashing his femurs, splintering his hips, tearing away his genitals. He felt no pain, instead an unnatural calm, disengaged from the reality of his mortal injuries. Unnervingly, he smiled, examining the thick bleeding stump of his waist and his shredded Papal vestments. He lay on his back, turning his head toward the altar, glad no one had yet come
to him. He spotted the Kwarx bottle intact, lying on the stage, just out of reach, and clawed toward it. The effort purged blood from his entrails, and his heart was close to arresting.

  Pope Luke clutched the Kwarx bottle in a weak fist, a grotesque sight, the half-man lying in a bloody abomination. He used his last ounce of strength to remove the lid and empty the bottle’s contents down his throat into his tattered gut from where it leaked away.

  The moments before death heightened Pope Luke’s senses. He saw the hole in the stage beneath where the altar had stood and cast the Kwarx bottle in its direction. It bounced down the steps the man had carved from the ice, and wobbled into the depths. The seal swooped and took the bottle in its teeth then darted along the ceiling of ice until it found a hole through which to breathe. It let the bottle sink once more.

  After the shock wave, and at the realisation something sinister had transpired, people ran toward the Pope. Hopelessness followed a sharp wounding of the senses at the sight of the Holy Father examining his intestines trailing from his rib cage. Cardinal Grasso averted his eyes, repressing the bile rising in his throat. He pulled the torn cloth off the broken altar, draping it over Pope Luke’s gory remains.

  ‘Thank you, Giovanni.’

  Cardinal Grasso knelt beside the Pontiff, holding his hand, the Fisherman’s ring warm against his cold skin. He leant down and with his thumb made the Sign of the Cross on Pope Luke’s forehead.

  ‘Through this holy anointing, may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.’

  ‘Why are you doing this, Giovanni?’

  ‘It is the least I can do for your most precious soul, Holy Father.’

  ‘I will not die.’

  ‘Indeed, Holy Father. Your eternity is assured, my Vicar of Christ.’

  Pope Luke held the Cardinal’s hand, transfixing him with a chilling stare.

  He coughed blood as his eyes rolled up, his disturbing expression eternally set as his heart stopped beating.

  Pope Luke reigned one day short of a year.

  Cardinal Grasso closed the Pontiff’s eyes to diminish the unholy bearing of his face. He noticed a perfect four-pointed star set in the white of Pope Luke’s left eye below the iris in the area usually hidden deep in the lower orbit. It resembled a purple tattoo and the Cardinal wondered if it was a secret branding reserved only for those who attained the highest station of the Catholic Church. With no prior inkling of its existence, the significance of such a mark was a mystery to him. It was in fact the rarest of hereditary mutations, the vestigial remnant of an undeveloped second iris. It was once noted in a reclusive seventeenth-century English nobleman. Geneticists theorised it may appear only a few times each millennium, an unlikely upheaval of Mendelian chance, descended from a distant past. Its apparent perfect symmetry had its science in the more precise realm of intra molecular physics and the complex structure of DNA’s double helix. In short it occurred against unfathomable odds. Charles Darwin called it the mark of God himself, symbolizing the four points of the creator’s universe.

  Unbeknown to anyone, it first arose in the royal house of David some hundred years before the birth of Christ; the stain of purest evil that signalled an escalation in the eternal battle for souls sought in heaven and hell. The time of its manifestation was predestined and those who bore it were inextricably linked both physically and spiritually.

  A stocky policeman shone a torch into the hole in the stage and lowered himself through. He saw the steps carved into the ice. Crystals were already forming in the water, repairing the excavation. He hoisted himself back onto the stage to inform the detective in charge. ‘Someone came up through the ice.’

  The detective radioed his men. ‘We’re targeting a fugitive or fugitives possibly operating under the ice. Secure the perimeter and screen the lake for entry and exit points. Cordon off the forest and check every vehicle leaving the area.’

  The red ball still shone brightly but the hole under the shack had refrozen. The man powered up the Stiletto and dissolved the ice once more, cutting steps on which to climb out. Inside the shack, he tore off his scuba equipment, secured it to the sled and tipped it into the hole. He untied the cord and let the red ball sink then replaced the circle of wood flooring and neoprene matting.

  Outside the shack, the night darkened again, the clear sky smothered by a march of low cloud.

  When the man reached the forest, a helicopter came low in his direction. It veered upwards then hovered above the queue of fishing shacks, running a spotlight amongst the labyrinth of brightly painted walls and pitched roofs, before banking away in a gust of snow.

  Returning to the Land Rover, the man eased out of the clearing. He was well away, bumping over a ridge of low hills before the police cordon encircled the lake, sealing off any escape route. The snowdrift deepened, covering his trail.

  Bianca pushed her way against the fleeing crowd. Snow and wind assailed her as she struggled to reach the stage, now tightly ringed by guards holding automatic weapons.

  ‘Let me through.’

  ‘Sorry, madam.’

  ‘You don’t understand. My brother is the Pope.’

  ‘I don’t care if he is God himself, madam.’

  Bianca made a half-hearted effort to work past the guards, then dropped onto her haunches and screamed up at the cordon of men. Two guards lifted her by the elbows and handcuffed her to a bank of chairs.

  Infuriated, she tugged violently on the cuff till her wrist bled. Her rage dulled the pain. When she finally realised the futility of her struggle she quietened. She watched the frenetic activity all around her, then closed her eyes and prayed.

  She saw little Michael playing in a sandpit, his shirt buttoned to the top, a crude priestly collar fashioned from a strip of white cardboard, wrapped around his throat. He wore a silly pointed hat, and told her he was the local bishop, eyeing her with his strange grin that hovered between good and evil. In one hand, he held the body of her plastic doll, in the other, its head. Its blonde nylon hair was strewn with sand and Michael adopted the doll’s detached expression at will. It made her uneasy but at the same time she felt safe in his company even though he was not of school age and she was four years his senior. He possessed an undefinable and unnerving quality as a child that stayed with him throughout his life. He balanced and disarmed it with his charm whenever he sensed its overwhelming or distressing effect on others. He always reconnected the doll’s head, lovingly rinsing the grains of sand from its hair. When she got into bed at night the doll was often lying on her pillow, exquisitely dressed with its shiny hair combed and platted. It was as if he knew what she was thinking, interpreting her thoughts, pre-empting her doubts about him.

  A snowflake settled on the tip of her nose. She saw the frosted ball of the sun deep in the grey clouds floating on the horizon. She felt abandoned. Now, only death could reconcile her with the only person who had ever made her truly happy.

  When her time came, she hoped to find him; to be with him on either side of the great divide, the impenetrable barrier eternally separating the angels from the beasts.

  In the strengthening wind the choir and orchestra combined in a haunting rendition of Amazing Grace, the joy of it disfigured in the tragic atmosphere. As if in protest, a long rumble of thunder echoed overhead and the lights blew out.

  97

  ‘What do you want of me, Zach?’ Father Stephen said.

  ‘Rachel hopes you will assist her religious instruction to become a Catholic.’

  ‘I would be delighted, Rachel.’ Father Stephen’s smile belied an underlying solemnity.

  ‘Are you okay, Father?’

  ‘Venti’s death has ended a chance for a cure. Tests on the chalice he used in Finland showed no traces of anything resembling venom, casting doubts over his claims. It remains to be seen what effect it will have on the future of the Church. There are calls for the new Pope to reveal the secret
of the Golgotha Sword and supply the encoded capsule and its contents which we know don’t exist. When the Pope denies knowledge of Venti’s promise the world will dissolve into hopelessness.’

  Rachel changed the subject. ‘No one has been arrested over the Pope’s assassination. Whoever was responsible came up through the ice and detonated a mine. The police found hundreds of pellets embedded in the fir trees behind the stage. It was astonishing others weren’t injured.’

  ‘That’s the beauty of the Claymore, Rachel; awesome directional capability. Any young boy who’s played armies knows the value of strategically placed Claymores in defence of his backyard.’

  ‘The man the police shot as the mine exploded was Toby Bell, identified by DNA. He must have known he would die the second he pulled his gun,’ Father Stephen said.

  ‘Perhaps he was determined to destroy the hierarchy of the Church at any cost. He and Venti were collaborators in the deaths of ordinary men. Maybe they were meant for each other,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Toby Bell was the finest heart surgeon alive. He restored hundreds of people to health. Sometimes I wonder at the balance of good and evil, Steve. Why is it that a solitary mortal sin can stain the soul, severing communion with God unless removed by confession? A man can do good deeds his whole life yet a single unrepented sin can prevent him entering the kingdom of heaven. Why can’t one good deed banish a lifetime of sin? What will be Toby Bell’s fate before God? His life brought much good and much evil in equal measure. The scales seem in perfect balance, yet the weight of sin will surely tip him into hell. It means the power of evil is greater than the force of good.’