He made to speak but she saw Irvine say something to him behind his hand and then grip the Professor’s arm. In Irvine’s eyes she could see nothing, no emotion, no pity, not even a scrap of understanding: the cold, dead eyes of a shark. Sumter shot an anxious glance at Irvine, looked down and said quietly, ‘Let the Lord’s will be done.’ Irvine led Moretti out through the door and after a final backward glance Sumter, with Flora’s briefcase in his hand, made to leave.
Before he had taken a single pace Flora felt rather than heard the explosion. The blind took some of the impact but a shower of safety glass flew across the lecture theatre like hail. A second detonation, more muffled this time, was immediately followed by a crackle of automatic fire, punctuated by the high-pitched cracks of single-shot weapons firing in reply. Instinctively, Raymond and Flora dived to the floor amidst a chaos of shouting, clouds of acrid smoke and running feet.
Black-clad figures in gas-masks swarmed in through the shattered windows. Cries of “Federal Agents: get down, don’t move,” filled the air. Lying on her side half in, half out of the makeshift dock, Flora saw the student president aim a handgun at the intruders, but he was flung backwards by a burst of high-velocity, rounds, the pistol flying out of his hands and sliding off the back of the stage. Most of the other students bolted for the exits: others were already pinned to the floor, their wrists and ankles tightly bound. Suddenly, she was aware of someone kneeling beside her, calling her name, muffled almost to incomprehension by his gas-mask. Ducking down, he removed first his Kevlar helmet and then the mask. ‘You OK, Flora?’ It was Cohen.
‘No I’m not,’ was all she could think of saying as he cut the cable ties holding their wrists.
‘Keep down and don’t move or you’ll get shot,’ he said, getting to his feet.
‘But Sumter, what about –’ but he was on his feet and gone before she’d finished the sentence.
She crawled forward a couple of feet. Raymond, who’d also been freed by Cohen, caught her by the ankle, ‘Are you out of your fucking mind? You heard what the man said.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine, just let me go.’
‘Have it your own way,’ he said, releasing his grip.
From what she could see, the FBI agents seemed occupied with securing the building and no one noticed her as she inched across to the back of the stage. Fumbling in the gap her fingers closed round the butt of the student president’s pistol and she tucked it into the waistband of her skirt. She looked around to make sure no one had seen, and then, with as much calm as she could muster, walked briskly out of the door through which they’d been led not fifteen minutes earlier.
The air in the corridors was heavy with smoke, and the sound of nearby gunfire made her flinch with each burst. ‘Flora, where the hell are you going?’ She spun round to see Cohen: no gas mask this time, but clad in body armour and topped with a protective helmet he seemed twice his normal size. ‘I told you to stay put.’
‘Sorry, Ben. This is important. There’s an archive full of stolen manuscripts downstairs and I want to make sure nothing else happens to them.’
‘Not a chance. Go back to the lecture room or I’ll arrest you for your own safety.’
Cohen’s personal radio crackled into life. ‘Agent down, reception area, western side. Nearest unit identify yourself.’
‘That’s you, Ben,’ she said pointing towards the end of the corridor. ‘Up there, turn left then straight on.’
He moved the mike up towards his mouth. ‘Foxtrot Bravo three responding. I’m thirty seconds out,’ he said and then turned to Flora, releasing the transmit button and wagging a gloved finger in her face. ‘And you. Do as you’re damn well told.’
‘Yes, Ben,’ she said meekly and turned to retrace her steps as he charged off. Waiting till he was out of sight, Flora continued towards the library. Twice she had to step over the motionless forms of students cut down by the FBI’s weapons.
Flora took the pistol from her waistband and moved gingerly down the steps. The library was in darkness; the curtains were drawn with only the glow of the emergency lighting to show the way. The electricity had been cut.
She tiptoed inside but had only gone a few feet when from ahead in the gloom she heard men’s voices, one of them unpleasantly familiar: Sumter.
Using the cover of a bookshelf she inched closer, crouching down as low as she could get. Ten feet in front of her, Moretti, Sumter and Irvine were hurriedly piling archive files into cardboard boxes.
Flora hesitated. The sensible thing to do would be to go for help. On the other hand, there might not be time. She decided to stay. Trouble was, each man kept ducking in and out of the archive room meaning she never had clear sight of all three at the same time. Moretti won’t be armed, she thought, but as for the other two, that was anybody’s guess. Standing up to get a better view between the rows of books she came up onto tiptoe, pistol in one hand, the other steadying herself against a shelf, watching and waiting. Then, she strained just a little too hard to get a better view and her left hand slipped, sending her clattering sideways, grasping helplessly at thin air and tumbling books. As she hit the ground, the pistol jolted out of her hand.
The three men spun round and Irvine pulled out a pistol, pointing it at Flora who was now sprawled on the ground between the bookcases. ‘You don’t learn, do you?’ he said, taking careful aim. She closed her eyes, flinching for the impact, and heard the gun fire. There was no pain and for a moment Flora assumed she was dead. Then she heard the all too real sounds of a struggle and a man cursing in Italian. Irvine broke free from Moretti’s grasp and with the sole of his foot, pushed him hard in the stomach, sending him sprawling against the opposite wall. Irvine levelled the weapon and fired twice into Moretti’s chest, the blood spraying high up the wall. The moment’s reprieve was just enough. Flora lunged forward, grabbed the pistol and as Irvine swung towards her, fired a single shot that hit him just above the right eyebrow, removing the top of his skull and toppling him backwards towards the lifeless form of Moretti. By the time she’d recovered from the recoil, Sumter had gone and the doors to the archive slammed shut. Her first instinct was to follow him but the thought that he might be armed made her pause. Then she looked down at Moretti and the pool of blood forming around him. Whatever he may have been blackmailed into doing, he hadn’t deserved this and a red mist of hatred rose up, driving her on. Now it was like old times and a cocktail of training and adrenalin pushed her old demons into the background. Barging the door open with her shoulder, she dashed out of the library.
In the thick smoke filling the corridor, she almost ran head-first into a squad of FBI agents coming the other way. ‘He’s in there,’ she panted. ‘In the archive room. I think he’s armed.’ Without a word they pushed her aside and clattered down the steps: a phalanx of alien beings. She called after them. ‘Be careful with anything in cardboard boxes. It’s fragile….’
Flora began to choke. With no doorway in sight, she opened one of the sash windows and dropped down into the flowerbed. In front of her stood the familiar evergreen magnolia. As she bent over, coughing and retching to clear her lungs, a squad of black-clad figures doubled past and were lost to sight behind the end wall of the library. Seconds later came a warning shouted through a loud-hailer, ordering Sumter to surrender. She took a couple of paces towards the tree when at once the air seemed to disappear from her lungs, followed instantly by a deafening concussion. When her ears stopped ringing she heard gunfire and then a series of smaller explosions. Smoke poured from the shattered library windows and then tongues of flame.
This was too much and she backed away up the slope, trying to get as far away as possible. A sudden movement caught her eye and at first she couldn’t work out what it was. Something was moving the curtain under one of the skylights – the very same one she’d used as a makeshift exit – and then she saw the face of Donald Sumter, red and panic-stricken as he pushed and beat at the unyielding toughened glass dome above his head. Littl
e threads of smoke began to appear around him. Another bang ripped through the air, accompanied by a flash and she saw him look down as a bright red glow blossomed through all four skylights of the archive. It was on fire. She watched, helplessly as he beat against the glass, the flames now shooting up around him, but it was too much to bear and as he opened his mouth to scream she turned away.
FBI Headquarters, Washington DC
‘Christ, you’re still alive,’ said Cohen as Flora walked back into the Art Crime Team’s offices.
‘Alive? Why shouldn’t I be? The man’s a poppet.’ Her hair shone, she was wearing a new dress and her old bounce and self-confidence were back.
He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I’ve heard the Director called many things but “a poppet” isn’t one of them.’
She put her head on one side and looked at him. ‘Well, he seemed a bit grumpy at first but after I explained a few things to him, he was fine.’
‘I wish somebody would explain them to me. The first thing I knew was when your friend Moretti called saying someone was about to kill you and Raymond. His English was lousy, by the way.’
‘True, but thank goodness he discovered his conscience when he did,’ said Flora, her voice catching at the thought of the man of whom she’d once been so fond. ‘Have you heard from Lombardi yet?’
‘Yeah, I got off the phone with him about ten minutes ago. He’s embarrassed as hell – I mean, after all, he tried to short-circuit every procedure in the book and ended up sending us the very man the Camorra wanted to get next to you. He made their job a hell of a lot easier.’
‘What’s going to happen to him? Lombardi, I mean.’
Cohen shrugged. ‘Probably get his ass kicked, that’s all. Moretti was never here officially and I’m sure both the State Department and the Italians will want to punt the whole thing into the long grass. The press are all over the religious angle to the exclusion of anything else which suits everyone just fine.’
‘Yes, I saw that,’ said Flora. ‘You’ve got crazies out there comparing it to Waco – Sumter’s being treated as a martyr for Christ’s sake, and church attendance has gone up even more since the fire.’ She paused for a moment, deep in thought. ‘We didn’t win this one, did we, Ben?’
‘Dunno about that. On balance I think we did. Sumter and Irvine were up to a bunch of nasty shit – some of the witness statements we’ve got from the students would make your hair curl – you wouldn’t have been the first people they’d burnt either.’
‘I suppose I define winning differently to you,’ she said.
‘Officially of course, you’re right – all the stolen archive material’s gone and we didn’t get to arrest any of the key players,’ he slid a thick sheaf of papers across the desk to her. ‘Take a look at this. The kid who took over as archivist from George Patterson gave us a full list of the manuscripts that were in there. I’ll bet half of it hasn’t even been missed yet.’
Flora thumbed through the first pages. ‘And so priceless manuscripts are lost forever, a few students get locked up and the religious slanging match goes on. Wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I said I’d help.’
‘Not everybody sees it that way. They believed what they wanted to and the stuff Sumter faked up just helped reinforce it. The fact your buddy Josephus said it was all a crock won’t mean a thing to them.’
‘It frightened some of them enough to make sure The Seven Stars never saw the light of day though,’ she replied.
‘Do you reckon there’s enough of it left to work with?’ he asked.
‘I hope so, for Francesco’s sake, even after everything he did. Trouble is, even if we can piece it all back together it’ll be Josephus’ word against the Christians’ and the result of that fight was decided nearly two thousand years ago by the likes of Eusebius.’
‘True.’
‘By the way, what’s going to happen to Raymond?’ asked Flora. ‘You’re not going to arrest him are you?’
‘Nah. He’s one of the good guys now. I can’t go into detail but let’s just say Raymond’s agreed to help us. He’ll be fine.’ He stopped mid-stream and looked at her intently. ‘More importantly, what about you? You got any plans for this evening?’
‘Packing,’ she replied. ‘My flight leaves for London tomorrow evening. Giles Smith and his chums want to debrief me too according to the Director.’
‘So how long’s it take you to pack a case?’
‘I don’t know. Hour or so maybe.’
He looked at her with the makings of a smile creasing his face. ‘Why don’t we go and get drunk?’
Flora bounced across the room and gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘That’s the best offer I’ve had in weeks.’
THE END
The Seven Stars – Author’s Note
Although this is a work of fiction, the first-century background to The Seven Stars is based on real events, places and people. That said, I’ve taken quite a few liberties in filling in history’s gaps so it’s only fair that I should take a little time, now you’ve been so kind as to read this far, to add a bit more detail.
I’ll start with Titus Flavius Josephus, born into an aristocratic Judean family around 37 AD and originally known as Joseph son of Matthew (Yosef Bar Matityahu or Yosef Ben Matityahu, both terms for “son of” being pretty much interchangeable between Aramaic and Hebrew). He took the surname (Flavius) of his imperial patron, Vespasian, after the Jewish Revolt which ended in 70 AD with the sack of Jerusalem and the burning of Herod’s Temple by the Roman army of Alexandria, commanded by Vespasian’s son, Titus. However, to avoid confusion, I’ve used the name “Josephus” throughout the narrative.
Despite Josephus’ obvious intellect it’s difficult to find any redeeming features in his character, but his value to us lies in his two major works of history: The Wars of the Jews (written c.75-79 AD), an eye-witness account of the disastrous uprising against Rome; and his twenty-volume monster, The Antiquities of the Jews (c. 93-94 AD), also written for a Roman audience and designed to show Jewish culture and religion as resting on ancient foundations, thus making it comparable to those of Rome and Greece. As with much of his writing, both works represent a selectively edited version of history – I’m almost tempted to use the word “spin” – and are riddled with self-justification, but nonetheless they give the modern reader an invaluable insight to the period and to the Jewish world view prevailing at the time. In The Wars, Josephus takes this self-justification to new heights when he tries, not that successfully, to explain why he was one of only a handful of Jewish defenders to survive the siege of Yodfat (also known as Jotapata) in 67 AD. Not only did Vespasian spare his life but immediately took Josephus under the Flavian wing, all – according to Josephus – on the basis of a last-minute and utterly contrived religious prophecy that he persuaded the cynical and pragmatic old Roman warrior to swallow. My version of events, where Josephus betrays the fortress and its defenders in return for his life, is pure fiction, but so I suspect is his.
The Seven Stars is my own invention too, as is the whole idea of Josephus as the son of the Biblical Jesus – so before reaching for the green ink, please remember; it’s just fiction, a load of old fibs that I made up. The same applies to his quest to track down and kill the surviving apostles. However, some of the events recounted by Josephus in his autobiography (or Vita) (c. 99 AD) do have uncanny parallels with stories in the Gospels. For example, Josephus was such a prodigious scholar that at fourteen he was consulted on the Law by Jerusalem’s chief priests: an almost identical story is told of the twelve-year-old Jesus in chapter two of Luke’s Gospel, written at around the same time as the Vita. The shipwreck of St Paul recounted in the Acts of the Apostles (again, contemporary with Josephus’ writings) is remarkably similar to Josephus’ account of his own misfortune, also on the way to Rome, which I’ve adapted in chapter 3. Whether or not the writers of the Gospels cribbed ideas from Josephus is a debate for far wiser heads than mine: all I would say is that I’ve taken
the liberty of moving the shipwreck from the Adriatic to the coast of Sicily in order to introduce two real characters; Alityros the actor and Proculus the naval commander.
Alityros, also of Jewish birth, was a favourite of Poppaea Sabina, Nero’s wife, and through Alityros Josephus gained an introduction to the Imperial court: that said, there’s absolutely no evidence to suggest he was on the ship with Josephus and I apologise to his shade for dunking him.
Proculus is brought into the narrative as a patron of Josephus although nothing suggests they ever met: the Admiral was one of the key players in the unmasking of Piso’s unsuccessful coup against Nero via his friendship with Epicharis, a woman who was horribly tortured to make her reveal details of the conspiracy.
Gubs, steersman and all-round good egg, is fictional too but the Roman fleets must have abounded with stalwarts like him – good men to have on your side in a crisis. As for Lamia, the child-eating demon of Greek mythology, she was a daughter of Poseidon and often appeared to mortals as a shark. Even today, Great Whites are common in the Mediterranean (apologies to anyone who’s reading this on holiday but maybe going for a last swim isn’t such a good idea after all…) and in ancient times were far more numerous. Lamia was known for turning up whenever sea battles took place, attracted by the noise and by blood in the water, so Gubs’ concerns about her having a liking for shipwrecks weren’t far off the mark.
Josephus’ writings tell us he eventually reached Rome via Puteoli but for some reason he omits to mention that I waylaid him, sending him for a scenic tour along the bay of Naples and its villas.
Thanks to Poppaea’s intervention, Josephus achieved the aim of his trip, to persuade Nero to release his friends: three Jewish priests sent to Rome under arrest by Governor Festus. Before they can make it home, I admit to kidnapping them, giving them new names and setting them to work with Josephus in his hunt for Paul and Peter. In the process of helping my narrative, two of them are killed and a third, Giora, is with Josephus when they inadvertently start the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD. The wooden grandstands of the original Circus Maximus would have been an ideal spot for the fire to break out.
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