‘Now what?’ she panted.
‘Follow me,’ he shouted back as rounds from their assailants’ hunting rifles cracked around them. They sprinted along a deer path by the river bank. At a gap in the dense brush he stopped and pushed her forward. ‘Get in!’ he yelled and, kicking off his shoes, dived into the river. Flora hesitated for a split second but the decision was made for her when a 240 grain .44 inch hunting round slammed into a tree trunk inches from her head. As she flung herself into the water and surfaced for breath, two new sounds joined the deafening cacophony: first came the ominous hiss of bullets slicing through the water all around her; next came a low, purring rumble that seemed to accelerate in intensity for a second and then stop. Whatever this new sound was, the hissing stopped for a moment and she struck out for the far bank. Then a dark shadow blotted out the sun and the noise resumed. She looked up to see the underside of a small, black helicopter; a malignant tadpole spewing fire into the brush where they’d been standing just seconds ago. The sound she’d heard came from its twin 7.62mm miniguns and now a rain of spent casings cascaded into the water all around her. Suddenly, it banked away and sporadic firing, less accurate this time, resumed from somewhere on the far bank. Safety was now only twenty or so yards away but her strength was fading fast as the effects of trying to swim fully-clothed took their toll.
A bullet slapped into the water uncomfortably close and instinctively she ducked under the surface, swallowing a mouthful of water. Lungs bursting, she kicked towards the light but to her horror she realised something was holding her under. Fighting back the panic she tore at the side of her T-shirt which her scrabbling hands told her was snagged in branches. With the CO2 level in her bloodstream rising to danger levels, her whole system screamed at her to breathe and she made one last desperate heave. The branch gave and her T-shirt ripped free, finally allowing her to butt her way to the surface against the lighter resistance from a mesh of twigs.
The saturated wood of the semi-submerged branch had just enough buoyancy to hold her up and so, gulping in delicious lungfuls of air, Flora allowed herself to be carried along by the current, oblivious to the continuing gunfire which now came from far away in a world that no longer had anything to do with her semi-delirious drift downstream. At last, a bend in the river brought her feet into contact with the bottom. Letting go of her makeshift life-raft she stumbled to the sandbar, pitching forward onto hands and knees as her legs gave way like a newborn foal’s. She crawled forward a few feet and then collapsed on her face.
Whether she fell asleep or passed out, Flora never knew but at some point an uninvited stranger wandered into her dream and started shouting.
‘She’s alive!’ A curtain seemed to open, allowing bright daylight into her eyes. She blinked again, levered herself up into a sitting position and stared angrily at the stranger. She meant to say, ‘Of course I’m alive, just leave me alone,’ but a mixture of early-stage hypothermia, exhaustion and shock turned her words into an incomprehensible babble, and she fell backwards into the arms of the FBI Agent who’d found her.
Near William Sunday University, Alabama
The man stopped for a moment and listened. The sounds of his pursuers crashing through the undergrowth had stopped but he knew they were near: twenty of them at least. Somewhere up ahead was the County road and maybe cars; somebody, anybody who might help or could call the cops: trouble was, in the confusion of his flight, his sense of direction had been scrambled. The man, archivist at William Sunday, knew the road was almost due north of the college – he’d driven along it plenty of times – but the two miles which seemed nothing on the map, were a trackless wilderness of winding creeks and viciously impenetrable undergrowth. So far as he could tell, the bugs hadn’t eaten for months and were making the most of his arrival. With the sun almost directly overhead he tried to work it out: eleven AM; rises in the east; sets in the west, which means the road is…no, it must be that way… he had no idea.
Sweat ran down his brow and he tried to wipe the stinging drops from his eyes. At some stage during the initial struggle with his would-be executioners his glasses had gone and his horizon was now limited to a twenty-yard circle of forest, beyond which everything dissolved into a blur.
When the archivist of William Sunday University had arrived for work that morning nothing had seemed out of the ordinary. Certainly, the ongoing professional disagreement with Professor Sumter wasn’t making life any easier and for the first time in over twenty years he thought of looking for a post somewhere else. It must have been just after ten – he knew that because he’d just made his second coffee of the day and unwrapped the last portion of his sister’s home-made cake when they burst in. No fear at first, just indignation, because even in a world of plummeting standards, such behaviour had no place at William Sunday. He stood to remonstrate with them but they simply dragged him out of the office and into a ground-floor lecture room.
It had to be a joke, if these young punks were to be believed, he was on trial for his life. So great was his sense of outrage that a mist of undiluted fury came down between him and the young idiots, solemnly reading out charges of heresy, blasphemy and idolatry, such that the words failed even to register at first. It was only when one of them placed a piece of black cloth on his head and said something about “hanged by the neck till you be dead” that the archivist realised things had progressed beyond a macabre joke. ‘Sentence to be carried out immediately,’ said the same student and a group of young men, with fixed, almost ecstatic expressions moved towards him.
Prank or not, this was downright scary and so, with as much of his old agile self as his muscles could remember, the archivist turned, ran and vaulted over the sill of the open window into the flowerbed below. He’d report them and they’d all be expelled he thought as he puffed up the sloping lawn towards the admin block. A shout went up and, turning to look over his shoulder, he saw them giving chase. Then a second group, ten or more strong, rushed out of the very door he was headed for. He turned and headed for the parking lot.
He’d made it. With over one hundred yards’ start on them, he reached his car. Scrabbling in his pockets for the keys, his relief turned to horror as he remembered that both they and his cell-phone were in his jacket, hanging on the back of his chair. The presence of his car, his safe, sensible, ten-year-old Volvo seemed to mock him as he sprinted towards the tree-line and plunged through a thicket of briars.
And now they were closing in. Mocking voices, calling his name came from all around. Heavy footfalls crashed through the undergrowth nearby and he tried to squirm under a bush but as he did so he caused its branches to move and with a yell they were on him. Despair lent him strength and he fought off the first one, but soon, ten pairs of hands pinned him down and shouting for the others they dragged him away.
US Navy Health Clinic, Quantico
On hearing the tap at the door Flora put down her book. The frosted glass slid aside to reveal her visitor as Cohen. ‘The doc said you were well enough to see people. I thought I’d drop by and check you out.’ He winked at her and smiled. ‘Wanted to make sure you weren’t malingering. So how’re you doing?’
She looked up from the hospital bed and managed a passable attempt at smiling back, ‘I’m feeling much better now, thanks. They’ve said I can leave tomorrow.’
‘You did great, you realise that? If you hadn’t held that first bunch up with that BB gun of yours, we’d have been in a lot of trouble.’
‘If what you call “a lot of trouble” is worse than that, do please leave me at home next time you’re out and about. Seriously though, is everyone all right?’
Cohen nodded. ‘Yup, everyone’s fine. The helicopter guys got a scare though: the “Little Bird” took a couple of rounds and they had to put down in a field before it shook itself to bits.’
‘Any idea who was shooting at us?’
‘None,’ he replied. ‘Both pickups had gone by the time we got people onto the other side of the river and the
only clue’s a big old heap of shell casings. Looks like our friend Raymond was partying with some heavyweight players.’
‘I’ve been thinking about the motive,’ Flora said. ‘If Sumter’s right, Josephus had documents, that if they can be authenticated, would add huge credence to the idea that the New Testament Jesus really existed. On the other hand, what we’ve got from The Seven Stars suggests Jesus was a charlatan and his disciples invented everything we know about him. It’s potential dynamite to any number of major vested interests. I’ve got a theory but I need to take a closer look at what we’ve got.’
‘Anything you can share?’ he asked, perching on the corner of the bed.
‘Not yet. I need a few more days.’
Cohen looked at her intently. ‘So you don’t want to go home after what happened?’
Flora shook her head. ‘Not likely,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world.’
‘Good, I was hoping you might say that. Looks like we might have a suspect.’
‘That’s fantastic.’
‘Not really. He’s dead. Bibb County seems to have a uniquely unhealthy climate. Another suicide: hanged himself. Guy called George Patterson.’
‘Doesn’t ring a bell,’ she said.
‘It wouldn’t. He was the archivist at William Sunday university and guess what?’
Flora almost jumped out of bed at the news. ‘Go on,’ she said.
‘Well,’ said Cohen, ‘He’d been with them for over twenty years and during that time he’d provided specialist consultancy services to museums, universities and libraries all over Europe.’
‘And you think he was behind the thefts from the archives?’
‘We don’t know yet. He fits but the trouble is we don’t have any evidence.’
Flora’s smile faded. ‘So no suicide note?’
‘He left a note but it didn’t say anything about archives; just a bunch of stuff about sins of the flesh. He was gay.’
‘And?’
‘And the Bible says it’s a mortal sin.’
‘But this is the twenty-first century,’ she replied.
Cohen laughed. ‘Not in Alabama it isn’t. Anyway, according to the note – presuming he wrote it himself – he couldn’t reconcile his faith with his sexuality: hanged himself in the woods by the college.’
‘You say “presuming he wrote it”. If he didn’t who did?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘Who knows? The local police are keeping an open mind. He lived with an older sister and she says he seemed fine – she knew he was gay of course. The note was printed out from his PC, signed with a squiggle on the bottom and put in an envelope. Probably not foul play but someone at the college may be trying to cover something up. Anyway, they’re checking it out.’
‘So are you finally going to check out William Sunday?’ Flora asked, savouring the thought of Sumter’s outrage at FBI agents crawling all over his college.
‘We can’t yet. We’ve got to do a bunch more background work to find out if the dates of the thefts line up with the times Patterson was in those places: could take years.’ He shrugged again. ‘If we don’t get the resourcing and budget, it won’t get done at all.’
‘But it’s key to solving the case.’
Cohen shook his head. ‘No it isn’t. This case involves arresting the people who are buying and selling stolen document fragments from a dig in Pompeii, not in finding stuff that was taken from some dusty cupboard in Germany ten years ago.’
Flora was practically beside herself at this. ‘But it’s all linked. Can’t your bosses see that?’
‘Prove it’s linked and they’ll listen.’
‘But it’s obvious.’
‘Not to them, it ain’t,’ he replied.
‘So we’re stuck,’ she said, heaving a sigh of exasperation.
‘Not entirely. The Director of the Agency doesn’t like it when people shoot at his boys nor when they make holes in his expensive helicopters. Trouble is, right now he’s got his ass in a sling.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘It’s the religious angle. He agrees with your theory that this is religiously-motivated, that’s the good news.’
‘And the bad news?’ asked Flora.
‘Whichever way he jumps, he’s screwed. You start poking sticks at God in this country and just about every goddam crazy with a firearms permit and a grudge is gonna come crawling out the woodwork. Just look at that English guy, what’s his name, Robert something?’
‘Robert Darwin.’
‘That’s him. You know where he’s living now?’
‘I thought he was in hiding. Nobody knows where he is,’ Flora replied.
‘I do. Two doors down from Elvis and across the hall from Salman Rushdie. I mean, for fuck’s sake; you call a book The Paedophile of Mecca, what do you expect?’
‘Well,’ said Flora. ‘One of Mohammed’s wives was six years old when he married her and nine when he…. well, you know, “consummated” the relationship. I think even the Mormons would draw the line at that.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know – free speech, First Amendment and all that good shit, but Imaginary Friends: no Santa, no Fairies, no God – you know how many death threats he got in this country after that came out? They’re still holding book-burnings.’
Flora pulled a face. ‘So you’re going to back off rather than upset religious fanatics? Glad to know you’ve got your priorities right.’
‘No. ‘I’m just saying the word from on high is to tread carefully.’
‘What does “carefully” mean in practice? For us, I mean?’ she asked.
‘It means we carry on what we started: we ramp up the media stuff. Anything to keep the texts and the robbery in the public arena. The more publicity we get the harder it’s going to be for whoever’s got the finds to shift them. The downside is that it’ll scare the buyers – including the assholes who tried to kill us – back into the woodwork. The upside is that Grossman becomes the only buyer.’
William Sunday University, Alabama
‘Calm down, Donald, there’s no such thing as bad publicity,’ Irvine said, waving a copy of The Washington Post under Sumter’s nose.
Sumter shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket. ‘There is when the press lumps us in with every other lunatic cult. This could turn us into a laughing stock – they’re comparing us to the Scientologists, for Heaven’s sake.’
Irvine spoke gently, like a mahout whispering in his elephant’s ear. ‘I told you, we’re going to be fine. Just leave it with me.’
‘I’m not sure I like what happens when I leave things to you, Andrew. There are limits – the end doesn’t always justify the means, you know.’
‘Not even when we’re doing the Lord’s work?’
Sumter rounded on him. ‘Don’t be glib.’
Irvine remained unruffled: not a hair out of place, not a speck of dust on his glistening shoes. ‘Forgive me, Donald, but I disagree: this is different, you knew that when we started. Two unfortunate suicides –’ Sumter scoffed but Irvine ignored him. ‘I repeat, two unfortunate suicides and the loss of others who have fallen by the wayside – all regrettable but necessary.’
‘And a stand-up gunfight between our students and the FBI – was that necessary?’
‘Of course,’ replied Irvine coldly. ‘We need to recover the rest of the finds. Sooner or later someone else is going to decode The Seven Stars and when they do…well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’
Sumter shook his head and began pacing the room. ‘There’s no independent corroboration of one single word in The Seven Stars and Josephus is a known liar. You’re exaggerating the threat and you took an unnecessary risk.’
Irvine’s mouth smiled but his eyes didn’t. ‘You’ve changed your tune, Donald. You forget you’re the one who rang the fire bell when The Seven Stars turned up in the first place. And what about the risk you took in going live with the “Q document” extracts?’
‘It’s you who�
��re forgetting, Andrew. If you want to consult the authority on Aramaic philology and epigraphy, you go where?’
Irvine bowed his head in mock deference. ‘Yes, Donald, we all acknowledge your brilliance – the only reliable reference sources are your books on the subject, I know that –’
‘So any academic who takes a closer look at the photographs will decide the “Q manuscripts” are genuine,’ said Sumter. ‘For goodness’ sake, we’ve been over this a dozen times. There’s a massive difference between minimal risks like that and a broad-daylight shoot-out with the FBI.’
‘Yes, we took a risk. Had it succeeded we would have got rid of Grossman and recovered what he hoped to sell –’
Sumter gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘Andrew, you know as well as I do, the FBI have either turned Raymond or they’re using him without his knowledge: Grossman may even be co-operating with them for all we know. They’ll be back.’
Irvine walked over to the window and waved his arm, indicating the broad sweep of the woods that ringed the college grounds. ‘Back? Back where? Grossman and his friends are long-gone: Alabama’s a big place. Nothing points our way, Donald. Nothing.’
Chapter Thirty-nine
Jerusalem, Summer AD 70
From the Roman camp which sprawled across the hills north of Jerusalem, the two men looked down on a sunlit vision of Hell. ‘You’ve done well,’ said Titus. ‘Without your help we’d have been here another six months.’
Josephus mumbled a reply through his tears. From end-to-end the city was ablaze, the flames driven on by a hot south-westerly wind. About an hour earlier the inner sanctuary of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, had collapsed as the roof-timbers burned though. Although named for Herod the Great, it had stood inviolate for nearly six-hundred years but now, because of a stupid religious squabble and its inept handling by the Roman procurator, Gessius Florus, hundreds of thousands were dead and the Temple, the very sanctuary of the God of Israel, lay in ruins.
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