Pentecost. An ARKANE Thriller (Book 1)

by J. F. Penn

  Pilgrims knelt, kissing the ground and praying out loud. The whole place dripped with excess adoration, weeping women and pious priests. They all crowded towards where the body of Jesus had lain, the rock where he was crucified and the sepulcher where he was buried and rose from the dead. It was a study in human behavior to watch people worshipping, a competition in piety before their God. Morgan led Jake past the Stone of Anointing, hung with ornate candleholders like canopic jars suspended over the praying pilgrims.

  At last they were in the center of the church where Christian denominations were thrust uncomfortably together. It may have been the center of Christianity, but Morgan knew that within the church the different branches hated each other. The throne of the Jerusalem Patriarch of the Orthodox Church buttressed against the Shrine of the Armenians and the marble urn in the middle of the church, marking the Omphalos, the center of the Christian world. This was a highly political building, a mish-mash of theology and architecture composed of Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, the breakaway Armenian church and the Ethiopian Coptics. United in believing that Jesus died and rose again, most other aspects of faith were still debated between them. Grievances between the groups caused blows to be exchanged in the one of the holiest places in Christendom.

  The first century tomb was adjacent to the Syrian chapel in the east end of the church, behind the Holy Sepulchre. Back there was also a tiny Coptic chapel, just big enough for one monk to maintain constant vigilance and prayer.

  “This isn’t even the real tomb of Jesus,” Morgan said. “Just the place that Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, decided would be the tomb in 300AD. The shrine was built then and continues to be a place of faith, but it’s really based on political lies.”

  Jake looked surprised. He’d been to Israel before but his role in ARKANE was generally on the action side rather than research. “How come this isn’t the real place? Surely they could have got that right?”

  “Jesus wasn’t famous when he died,” Morgan explained. “He was just another criminal to the Romans, another failed Messianic pretender to the Jews, so the place wasn’t marked. It’s wrong because it’s inside the walled city for a start, and crucifixions would not have occurred here. They were held outside the gates, where the unclean bodies were left to rot on the crosses and stoning could occur in the quarries below.”

  “So where’s the real crucifixion site?” asked Jake, genuinely interested.

  “The most likely place for Golgotha is now the main bus station in Jerusalem.”

  “Seriously? That’s hardly an appropriate place for the spiritual center of the Church.”

  “I don’t know.” Morgan gestured at the crowds. “This is a crazy place and perhaps a dirty bus terminal is fitting as a transit center for the crossroads of humanity. If you look up to the white cliffs above the station, you can still see the holes of the eyes in the rock walls. The place of the skull eroded and chiseled by two thousand years of weathering.”

  “So why is all this here?” questioned Jake, pointing around them to the excess material spirituality.

  Morgan shrugged. “Tradition I suppose, and a turf battle over this ground that has raged for generations. But there is a place outside the walls, a garden that some believe is Gethsemane where Jesus spent his last night crying out to God.”

  “Why’s that a more likely location?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know if it is,” Morgan said, “but the olive trees there are thousands of years old and it’s still a place of meditation and peace. There’s also a rock-hewn tomb that is rumored to have been owned by Nicodemus the priest, with a stone rolled over its entrance. It could be the right place.”

  “You sound like you almost believe it yourself.” Jake said.

  “Of course not, but I’m fascinated with what others believe and why. These sites could all be false, but does it matter where the real place lies? Faith is in the heart.”

  Jake paused, looking through the crowds of people.

  “Jerusalem is one crazy place,” he said, “like a religious theme park. I’m sure many of these people are devotees but most seem like tourists, experience junkies snapping pictures and loading up with tacky icons. Plus, I can’t see anything to do with Pentecost here. It’s not like the Basilica in Venice.”

  Morgan nodded.

  “The legend of Pentecost isn’t strong here. It’s celebrated as one of the festivals of the church but this place is all about Christ. His death and resurrection are venerated, not the Acts of the Apostles that came afterwards.”

  “So where do we look next?” Jake asked.

  “There’s no apostolic iconography here but I still think the Keeper can be found through the ancient tribe that lived and worked with the Apostle Philip in Ethiopia. This was their constant vigil and, after all, the Pentecost stone was meant to have been cut from the stone where Jesus rose from the dead. So, maybe it returned to the source. You wait here. I won’t be long.”

  She strode off into the crowd.

  The Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus supposedly rose from the dead, was only big enough for a few people, so a constant line stood outside and the scalloped entrance was so low that pilgrims had to stoop to enter. Morgan walked past the faithful and went alone into the Coptic sanctuary behind the shrine. Largely ignored by the praying hordes, a single Coptic monk sat there with his Bible open, staring at it in meditative silence. He didn’t look up as she entered and Morgan thought the monks must be sick of being curiosities to the pilgrim-tourists who had been coming here daily for hundreds of years. She knelt by the altar, almost at his feet because the chapel was so small.

  “Abba,” she said, using the term of respect for a father of the church. He looked at her, a question in his eyes. Reaching into her pocket, she brought out the plain, rough-hewn stone of St James and held it before him. He gasped and then spoke swiftly in Geez, the Ethiopian language, exclaiming something and pointing to the door. Morgan tried to make sense of it.

  “I need to speak to the head of the Coptics here. Is that possible?”

  He pointed again, seeming to indicate that he could not leave his post but encouraging her to go and speak with his people. The stone must be here. Back outside, Jake was staring at the lines of pilgrims. She pulled him away.

  “Come on, we need to get onto the roof. He definitely recognized the stone. Let’s get out of here and into the fresh air.”

  They found the way up to the roof from the courtyard of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, and climbed the roughly hewn stone steps into the home of the Ethiopian Coptic Church in Jerusalem, an incongruous village of monastic cells known as Deir el Sultan. A strong faith sustained the little community despite the poor conditions and meager resources. Morgan looked around her. Huts with low doorways were built above the chapel of St Helena, one of the oldest parts of the church where the monks and a few nuns kept their stake alive in the holy place, as close as they could get to the heart of Christendom. She knew that there was a small chapel dedicated to the Archangel Michael up there which might hold information about the stone.

  An old nun sat on a metal backed chair in a patch of sunlight, leaning against the side of one of the rotund shrines. She seemed to just be sitting, perhaps in prayer but certainly enjoying the sun. Simple pleasures were still to be relished even this close to God. She pointed above and behind them, clearly accustomed to directing pilgrims to the chapel for prayer or holy tourism. Morgan and Jake turned to see rickety stairs that led up to the Coptic chapel, badly in need of repair. The Ethiopian Church, although ancient, had never been wealthy like the Roman Catholics. They were mostly a forgotten people to the rest of the Christian world.

  They walked up and entered the little shrine. Although the chapel was poor, it was rich in colorful paintings from the story of Solomon and Sheba, central to the Ethiopian traditions. The bright red of the Patriarch’s chair, the deep brown of the lattice of the holy screen and the paintings on the wall achieved a more celebrator
y atmosphere than the Sepulchre below them. Fresh air also blew through the space, making it inviting and a welcome break from the incense overload they had escaped. A monk knelt by the altar, a vital middle-aged man, ebony skin highlighted by his bright saffron robes. He rose to meet them, greeting them with a smile of welcome.

  “We’re closed for private prayer at this time, but can I help you?”

  His voice was deep and sonorous, a touch of an accent to his clearly educated English. Morgan pulled out the stone of James.

  “We’re looking for another stone similar to this. It belonged to the Apostle Philip and we think it might be hidden by the Ethiopian Church.”

  The monk reached behind them and closed the doors to the chapel, locking them in place. He ushered them further in towards the altar.

  “There have been rumors that the time has come for the stones to be revealed again. I’ve heard from my brothers of deaths among the Keepers and now you are here.”

  His eyes betrayed his suspicions.

  “There have been deaths but not at our hands,” Morgan explained. “But there are men coming who want the stones and will continue to kill for them. If we take the stone, we can lead them away from you.”

  The monk sat down. “Why should I trust you?”

  Morgan opened her shirt at the neck to reveal her own stone.

  “I am a Keeper, a holder of the stone as you are.”

  The man sighed, his body sagging as the tension left him.

  “Our stone has been passed down from monk to monk for generations. It was brought back here a few hundred years ago, and it has remained since in this shrine. I am the present day Keeper but if you take it now, we will lose this final relic of the Apostles.”

  Morgan lent in towards him, her voice gentle.

  “But if we don’t take it now, it will be stolen from you by force and some of your people may be hurt. We’re being followed by men who will not rest until they have all the stones. I promise that we’ll protect it with the others.”

  As she spoke the words, Morgan felt a twinge of unease. Her promise rang false when she considered she was planning to give the stones to Everett, but part of her wanted to find a way to save her family as well as preventing the sacred talismans from being used for evil.

  She felt the monk’s gaze on her, his eyes seeing her true motivation, but then he nodded.

  “There was a prophecy passed down with the stone, that in the end times the twelve would be together again, as they were at Pentecost. A band of men bonded by the death and resurrection of our Lord dispersed to all the ends of the known world. The only remembrance of their brotherhood was the stones. Philip, who preached among us, gave it to the first Patriarch when he left to return to Jerusalem. Perhaps it is fitting that you take it now, and reunite the twelve again. I do not want to bring violence to this place and my faith is in the unseen, not a piece of rock.”

  Jake had been quietly observing them, taking in the paintings on the walls, but now he spoke.

  “What do you believe about the stones Father? Do they really have power?”

  “If the legend is true, then this stone is from the tomb where Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The resurrection is the miracle I live my life by but miracles happen every day, my son, and God does not need rocks to perform them. But the power of myth is strong and there are those who seek earthly power. Such talismans can wield authority, so take our piece and protect it with the others.”

  He rose and went to the altar behind the lattice, patterns of the sun through the skylight forming a shining nimbus around him. He pulled out a tiny leather satchel from beneath the altar and handed it to Morgan.

  “This is the stone of Philip. I give it to you as a Keeper of the stones of the twelve. Protect it, and go with God.”

  Morgan took it with reverence and they left him standing there in the ancient Coptic church, a proud religion in the heart of sacred Jerusalem. As they walked away through the twisted streets of the Old City, Morgan said, “I’m torn, Jake. I feel as if these stones have been entrusted to me as a Keeper to protect them and keep them safe. But then I have to give them up to save Faye in only a few days’ time. How can I do both?”

  Jake turned, his eyes shaded by the dark sunglasses he wore against the bright sun. “Maybe the choice will be made for you.”

  Tel Aviv, Israel.

  May 24, 1.30pm

  Back on the plane, Morgan sat with the laptop roaming the ARKANE search engine. She was hunting for the myths of Simon the Zealot, the last Apostle who held a Pentecost stone. Jake had told her that the ARKANE search engine was a powerful tool linked to the secret archives of the world’s knowledge. ARKANE was trying to digitize the remaining hidden scriptures of the world so they could be indexed and analyzed. They even had a clandestine team in the Vatican who were cataloguing the secret archives there. This team photographed texts with hidden cameras and the images were archived at the London base. Morgan was absorbed in knowledge suppressed for millennia, hidden as dangerous and seditious and she wanted to lose herself in this esoteric labyrinth. Every document she found was some new temptation to read and become immersed in. For an addict of learning, this was a powerful drug and she felt the pull of desire to dive deeper.

  Martin Klein had written algorithms to tag items with keywords for easier relational search. He was also working on a huge map of all the different faiths and traditions, linking common elements and trying to track the spread of ideas across the world. Jake had told Morgan that Director Marietti had a vision of establishing some kind of evolutionary religious psychology, a grand scale spread of ideas demonstrating how similar the faiths were instead of how divisive. ARKANE had published a number of papers from the study in mainstream journals. Unfortunately, most of the knowledge they had access to had been gained by less than legal means, so much of the ground breaking work could not yet be published. But the ARKANE network was growing, with scholars interested from all fields so this database was surely the best place in the world to search for a missing relic.

  Morgan sat back in her chair, rubbing the base of her neck and rolling her shoulders. They had been at it for hours now, trying to track the path of Simon the Zealot across the early world of the early first century. They couldn’t leave Tel Aviv until they knew the next destination. Time was running out to find the final stone before Pentecost, but still they sat in a hangar waiting.

  “No wonder Everett’s father couldn’t work out where the stone might be,” Morgan said with annoyance. “This guy went everywhere. His notebooks trace the same possibilities we’ve found, but there’s nothing conclusive on where Simon might have ended up.”

  Jake looked up from his laptop, where he was reading Martin’s findings on the physical properties of the stones. He had extrapolated the effect of the stones when they were together based on the miracles of Varanasi and modeled the impact if they were somehow activated together.

  “So what have you found so far?”

  “There are so many accounts but Simon the Zealot was definitely a great traveler. He is said to have gone into Egypt and across North Africa to Carthage, then on to Britain before heading back East and being martyred in Persia. He was killed by being sawn in half, hence the saw he is often shown with in hagiography. One of his arms ended up as a relic in a church in Cologne, Germany but there are possible sites for his body as far away as England, Egypt or Tunisia in North Africa, and even back in Iran. How do we even know where to start?”

  Jake leaned over to look at the map on the screen.

  “We left this one for last because it’s the most difficult to find. We knew that,” he said with encouragement. “Just try to narrow down the options.”

  “But we don’t have time to just sit around here.” Morgan said. “I have to check in with David soon, and he’ll go crazy if we don’t know where we’re headed next.”

  She jumped up, nervous energy making her pace the length of the highly equipped cabin.

  “I need Ben
’s help,” she said. “The Blackfriars have access to so much history and tradition and maybe ARKANE doesn’t have everything in the database. Ben will be able to research at the same time as us and hopefully turn up some new information. He’s a walking encyclopedia of the early Church, so he might be able to shed some new light on the options.”

  Jake hesitated as he knew Marietti had some history with Father Ben. He had warned Jake to stay away from him as much as possible and keep him in the dark about their journey. But the first priority of the mission was to find the stones, so he nodded.

  “There’s Skype installed on the laptop. Go ahead.”

  Morgan turned to the monitor, put on her headphones and skyped Ben. Technology was welcomed at Blackfriars and Ben was often in his study. He was there when she called and Morgan smiled to see his old face on the tiny screen. He embraced new technologies as much as he loved the crumbling old books of the Bodleian Library. His face was delighted at first but then creased into a frown.

  “Morgan, where have you been? I’ve been so worried about you. The police are still investigating the murders here, calling them a terrorist attack on a religious institution. I’ve kept your name out of it so far, but those men are still after you.”

  “I’m fine, Ben,” Morgan smiled. “Really. I’m sorry to have been out of touch. It’s been a whirlwind few days. We’ve found several more of the stones but I can’t tell you much right now. There’s no time. We only have a few days left and I need your help with a problem I can’t seem to solve.”

  “Of course, what do you need?”

  “I need to know about Simon the Zealot, where he went or may have ended up, and anything you can find on his relics.” Ben nodded in the little video screen, “and I need it soon.”

  He looked directly into the camera.

  “I understand the haste, Morgan. You’ll be desperately worried about Faye and Gemma.”

  “It’s not just that. Our deadline is the feast of Pentecost itself when the comet will be at its zenith. Everett wants to re-enact the fiery event and call down the power of the stones.”