Gallio feels that at last they’re making progress, with Paul trying to communicate some sense of the difficulty of being Paul.
‘Twelve is a very trusting number,’ Gallio says. ‘You’re right about that. Perhaps overly trusting.’
In Archaeology, Baruch stops at a display of Sicarii killing knives through history, and his unexpected fascination with this single exhibit draws everyone over to the cabinet. They stand round the glass sides of a free-standing box, glinting daggers between them in the refracted light.
‘Someone is hunting us down,’ Paul says, the curved blades holding his attention.
‘They’re targeting the disciples,’ Gallio corrects him. ‘No one apart from the disciples has yet been hurt.’
‘I’m their equal. Believe me. If the disciples are in danger then so am I. I need official protection. Are you going to protect a citizen or are you not?’
Paul appeals to Gallio through the glass, across the vicious ancient weaponry. Baruch’s hand moves under his jacket toward the small of his back, and it may be Gallio’s imagination but the bodyguard takes a step. Not toward Paul, as Gallio expects, but away from him. Baruch scratches himself, his hand reappears.
‘None of the murdered disciples tried to run away,’ Cassius Gallio says.
He checks his phone, as a sign their interview is over, and no news is good news. James is fine, undeviating in his monastic routine. Claudia is bored in the van. Bartholomew is comatose in the medical centre. In short, everyone at risk is alive and well.
‘The disciples are not scared of dying. You are. That’s one reason you’re not a disciple. You’re not in the same category. Also you have a bodyguard. Request for protection denied.’
About one o’clock the next morning a phone rings. Cassius Gallio blinks his eyes open, realizes he’s asleep on duty, then that the sound is coming from the landline in James’s flat, broadcast across the central monitor. Gallio grabs headphones, plants one cushioned speaker to his ear. Then with his free hand he zooms the camera in the flat, watches as James stops praying, answers the phone, listens.
James doesn’t say anything and neither does the caller. Gallio frowns at the static, a bad line, nothing coming through. No, he hears something. Breathing. He can hear the caller breathing. He pushes a button to activate a trace. James hangs up. Damn. On the monitor James stands up and dusts himself off, though he’s no more dusty than before. He leaves the room.
This is new. Usually the phone calls stop and after his prayers James sleeps the sleep of the just. Gallio shakes Claudia’s shoulder, moves to the bench when she swings her legs off, switches to the interior corridor cam. Lost him. Streetcam, manual operation. On to the house, to the window. No sign of him, then yes, James is up on the building’s flat roof. He’s up on the roof. Why? Claudia yawns and stretches, stomps her feet one two to the floor.
‘Something’s happening.’
She rubs her eyes, leans forward.
‘The street,’ Gallio says. ‘Get me a camera on the street.’
She fumbles a dial and the shopfront blinks up. No public or passers-by at this time of night, just the riot police in the doorway with thumbs in their belts.
‘Call Valeria,’ Gallio says. ‘Get her down here.’
Gallio pushes open the back of the van and jumps into the road. Claudia is behind him. ‘No. Keep the cameras on James. Don’t lose him. Stay in the fucking van.’
He runs. The riot police see him and suddenly they’re alert, walking to intercept him hands free, shoulders squared. Gallio flashes his card, and throws himself at the door of the shop. It’s locked. So is the door to the stairs for the flat. The fire escape. Gallio runs round the side of the building and jumps onto a metal staircase that zigzags up the brickwork as far as the roof. He shouts up to James and tells him to get back in, because on the roof he’s exposed and anyone could be watching.
‘Go back inside! You’re not safe!’
Through the lattice of the ironwork Gallio checks on the street as he climbs. No Claudia, that’s good. The riot police are out in the road, pointing upward. Five or six of them now. They draw their batons, spooked by Gallio’s urgency. He makes it to the roof, in time to see James step toward the edge.
Gallio stops. He doesn’t want to startle him, but James is oblivious. He lifts his hands, palms upward. A signal. From Gallio’s angle James looks like Jesus. He knows the shape he’s making.
‘James. Step back from the edge. Come down with me. You’ll be safer inside.’
James stands on the edge of the flat rooftop, hands out, speaking to himself, praying. Cassius Gallio hears roughly one word in three: Jesus, glory, living, dead. Kingdom no end. Gallio recognizes what’s about to happen, but even as he starts forward he’s already too late.
Across the city, in the Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Bartholomew opens his eyes.
VII
Simon
“SAWN IN HALF”
In retrospect, the task had been easier at the beginning, with Jesus and his disciples collectively active in Jerusalem. Cassius Gallio had been able to organize a textbook infiltration, an exemplary piece of fieldwork in the Passover season while the city heaved. He’d followed the disciples of Jesus through the holiday crowds and worked out that Judas, as treasurer, was entrusted once every day to make a solo trip to buy supplies.
The next morning, in the covered market, Judas found an unexceptional foreigner (linen trousers, short-sleeved shirt) close against his shoulder. A moment of your time, sir, no need to look around. An investment, a guaranteed return. Not today, not now, but alas if the mission of Jesus were to fail, if his plans for a righteous uprising should end in disappointment.
And the next day again: Judas, friend, it’s hardly my place to judge, but if Jesus has influence with the almighty shouldn’t his project have moved forward more rapidly?
And the next: forty pieces of silver, think it through, no rush, a generous offer to a fringe member of a minor cult.
‘A terrorist cell,’ Judas eventually replied. He would not be undervalued. ‘That’s what you fear we are.’
Terrorists were worth more, and fifty pieces of silver bought a plot of unimproved land not far from the city walls. A little patience, some prudent management, and the land becomes a field. Keep some money aside for livestock. Sell premium lambs to the Temple, Judas his own boss in a seller’s market.
Fifty-three, final offer. Don’t be greedy, Judas, I could ask one of the others. Fifty-five pieces of silver. Absolute tops. You’re breaking me here.
Judas had a head for numbers so he could do the maths. Fifty-five as capital outlay for the field, then he’d borrow against future tenant revenue from grazing. With loans he’d buy a pilgrimage inn that overcharged during festivals, and then he’d borrow again against the capital value of the property. He’d have nothing and he’d have everything. He’d have the big fifty-five, and by these calculations betraying the son of god should work out fine.
Judas walked away, not glancing behind, not looking back.
You’re being ridiculous. Cassius followed him, stayed close on his shoulder.
The devil, Judas said, tapping his handsome head, I can hear demons whispering in my ear.
Thirty now, thirty on completion. Final offer. Think it over.
Cassius Gallio had designed and implemented an impeccable covert operation, for which he never received full credit.
And until they killed Judas nobody died, not even Jesus.
At Ben Gurion airport the flight is delayed, held because of ice at Luton. Bartholomew has slowed their progress. The medical centre had to discharge him, and then on the road to the airport their unmarked car was trumped by the lights and sirens of Paul’s military escort out of Jerusalem. Come on. Cassius Gallio was in a hurry. He touched the crusted row of fresh butterfly stitches pinching the skin above his eyebrow. Motorcycles, a Mercedes and a Mercedes backup, an armoured vehicle, all for Paul and at public expense. Baruch would have been e
nraged. Even more enraged, wherever he is now.
Their flight is diverted to Heathrow, and when they land the sky is pink with snow about to fall. At Nothing to Declare Cassius Gallio lets Claudia go through first. He hangs back beside Bartholomew and senses they’re being watched, a presence at the edge of his vision. He blames Bartholomew, whose familiar features and clothes attract attention. Gallio hurries him past the one-way mirrors and waits for a disembodied voice to call them back, but they make it through. Probably nobody watching, or watching but not caring.
Luton would have been a better airport from which to start. They now have a three-hour taxi drive to the town of Caistor, on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds. Baruch is somewhere in England, ahead of them, but despite his head start they can catch him if they make good time around the M25, M1, A46. These roads are like the weather, clear now but threatening to turn for the worse, and the traffic eventually closes in on the A near Historic Lincoln. Gallio resents the jam. Why queue here? What in British Lincolnshire could be so worth seeing?
Except, of course, another sighting of Jesus.
In England a man answering the description was first seen at Glastonbury, then Westminster, now he’s further north at Caistor in Lincolnshire. Here in the outlands they’ve never known anything like it, and early unconfirmed accounts rival the miracles of Jesus. A man who fits Gallio’s Wanted profile has performed incredible exploits, healing the sick and thwarting demons. Voices speak from the clouds and animals talk.
Gallio gazes out of the taxi window. This is such a backwards fringe of the Empire, but if Jesus plans to descend from clouds he’s come to the right place. The car battles against snow, then hail, as if their journey opposes the planet’s direction of travel. When the hail stops, as abruptly as it started, the sky breaks open and lets through a cold cosmic light. It is hard to believe that people live here.
The taxi crawls forward, and Gallio uses this crawl time to start the questioning. In the back seat beside him Bartholomew is as lightweight as when Gallio first picked him up in Jerusalem, years ago, though the coma hasn’t helped. He looks like Jesus after a month in the desert. Claudia sits up front, and she’ll struggle to hear the conversation but Gallio expects she’ll make the effort.
‘I don’t like to be the bringer of bad news,’ Gallio says. Claudia slides her seat back a notch. ‘But did you hear what happened to James in Jerusalem?’
‘He had his head cut off.’
‘The other James, this week, also in Jerusalem. I want to show you something, so you’ll understand why it’s in your interests to cooperate. You don’t want to die like your friends. We wouldn’t wish that on anyone.’
Cassius Gallio lights up his phone. Another disciple down, and because these deaths are real they’re available on YouTube. Gallio scrolls through the Google search results for James Bludgeoned to Death. The YouTube listings include Mexican Immigrant Beaten to Death by US Border Patrol Agents, Baby Beaten to Death by Her Nanny and Gay Rights Activist Beaten to Death.
‘It’s not coming up,’ Gallio says. ‘Don’t know why, but this one’s close enough. You’ll get the idea. And by the way, welcome back to the world. Take a good look at what’s been happening in your absence.’
The footage of Mexican Immigrant Beaten to Death is ill-lit but visible, filmed on a cell phone and available at a click anywhere in the civilized world. The microphone picks up ‘Por favor,’ and ‘Señores, help me.’ At this point, Anastasio Hernandez Rojas is surrounded by US Border Control agents, but he is lying on the ground and not resisting when tasered at least five times. The agents then kick and club him.
The Border Patrol claims self-defense. Methamphetamine was found in the victim’s bloodstream, and the police reaction was a measured response to extreme antisocial behaviour. The exact moment of death, on YouTube, is unclear.
‘Why did James and the other disciples suffer unbearable deaths?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bartholomew says.
‘Want me to play the clip again? There must be a reason.’
Bartholomew can’t say what that reason is.
‘No one came to save James from the riot police. Philip was the same. No one intervened when he was hanging upside down from his legs, and no one stood up to help Thomas or Jude. You were in a coma for weeks. If Jesus is alive, he’s indifferent to your suffering.’
‘But I’m still alive. I’m here.’
‘Thanks to me.’
‘Jesus may have sent you.’
‘Jesus didn’t send me.’
‘Without you knowing. You wouldn’t have to know.’
‘I would know.’
‘Would you?’
The hail is back, vicious fistfuls on the car windows, deafening on the roof. Claudia thumbs a text, her face lit up by the screen. The sky darkens and the car is barely moving so they stop in the services at Thorpe. Cassius Gallio buys everyone a flapjack, including the driver. Bartholomew likes coffee, so Gallio fetches him a cappuccino from the Costa, and Bartholomew makes a big effort to leave intact the heart shape in the chocolate on the milk. That is not a heart, Gallio wants to say, it’s a coffee bean. You are protecting a bean shape that looks like a heart.
Bartholomew says: ‘Ouch. That eye of yours looks like it must have hurt.’
The night before, Gallio had organized the removal of the body of James from the pavement. Then the formal suspension of seven members of Valeria’s riot squad. After that, he’d sat with Claudia in the van. They reviewed on the monitors the last moments on earth of James the Less, the sixth disciple of Jesus to die.
James looked old, Gallio thought, realizing he too must be old. They had grown old together.
‘One more time,’ Gallio said, and Claudia pointed the remote control.
One more time for the very end, a rooftop wind fluttering the Galilean clothes that James and the other disciples chose to wear. James ignores the whistling and jeering from the riot police below, and focuses entirely on his will. He prays, lips moving. He steps forward. Into a pure drop of silence he pronounces the name of Jesus.
He jumps.
‘We need that trace on the phone call.’
‘It’s coming.’ Claudia says. ‘Be patient.’
‘James received a phone call. He listened, but whoever was at the other end of the phone had nothing to say. James ended the call. He left the flat and went up to the roof. He held out his arms like Jesus. He jumped.’
‘Maybe he heard something on the phone we didn’t. Or the silence had a different meaning to him than it does to us.’
Cassius Gallio had reached the roof edge a second after James stepped off, in time to see that the road surface below had done most of the damage. The riot police finished the job, attacking James as if he were deranged and dangerous, a surprise assailant from above that they had to subdue. He’d launched himself unprovoked at officers of the law. They had no choice.
In the van Gallio felt they were missing a piece of the puzzle. James ended the silent phone call, stood up and went to the roof. His immediate reaction suggested an agreed sequence, and explained why he prayed so much—prayer kept him close to the phone and in a heightened spiritual state, ready for the call, in the mood to jump.
Gallio found it hard to rewatch what happened next. The riot police should not have responded in the way they did, even though Cassius Gallio was increasingly convinced the disciples were shielding a secret. They denied it: everything pointed to it. They’d rather die than be disloyal, and if James was prepared to jump then Bartholomew’s initial silence in the taxi to Caistor came as no surprise. Unlike Baruch, however, Gallio didn’t believe in coercion. Six disciples had died horribly, and no new information had surfaced.
Claudia did eventually get a trace on the call, that same night. When the results were phoned through she listened closely then clicked off her phone. ‘Landline,’ she said. ‘Via a switchboard. Internal phone at the King David Hotel. We have a room number.’
‘Paul,�
� Gallio said. ‘I’m guessing the room number matches up.’
‘It does. Surprise, and yet not.’
Cassius Gallio whistled. ‘No, you’re right. Paul. I’m more surprised than not.’
The two Speculators made eye contact, but in the van everything was too close and they quickly looked away. Neither of them were convinced that Paul was responsible, even though he had motive. He wanted to be a disciple but they wouldn’t let him join. He also had the experience, a killer from the beginning of his career.
‘In the Israel Museum Paul was genuinely frightened,’ Gallio said. ‘I don’t believe he’s the killer.’
‘But the call came from his suite. Somehow he made this happen, or that’s what it looks like. What do we do?’
‘Paul is all we’ve got,’ Gallio said. ‘We have no option. We pick him up at the hotel, and make Baruch a happy bunny.’
When they arrived at the King David, Baruch volunteered to make the arrest. ‘My reward,’ he said, ‘seeing as I’m the only one who suspected him from the start.’
Baruch wasn’t interested in the how or why. Paul had made the phone call, which was evidently a signal. James had jumped. Paul was involved up to his neck, and he’d devised a way of killing James without even having to speak.
‘So explain how that works.’
‘Don’t know,’ Baruch said. ‘But give me a few days with Paul in custody and I can assure you details will emerge.’
In the breakfast room of the King David Hotel, while Paul was shaking out his napkin and dabbing at the corner of his mouth, Baruch gave him the right to remain silent. Gallio gauged Paul’s reaction, but this wasn’t his first arrest and he calmly rearranged the tableware, made sure the cutlery was aligned at a correct distance from the plate.
‘You’re arresting me on what charge? Making a phone call?’
Acts of the Assassins Page 17