by Unknown
“Come on in, Claire,” Neti beckoned. There’s just enough room for three people, no more than that. I agreed I wouldn’t put any instruments on the burial slab but we can use the floor.”
“You think this is a good candidate for the actual tomb?” Arthur asked.
“Well, probably better than the Garden Tomb,” Neti answered, “and certainly Catholics and Orthodox Christians think this is the right place. The history goes back to the fourth century when Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, the first Roman emperor to accept Christianity, came to Jerusalem looking for the tomb. So, this is a smart woman by all accounts and maybe she could be described as the first anthropologist because what does she do? She asks the people in the area where they think Jesus was buried. This was less than three hundred years after the crucifixion so it’s not far-fetched to think that people actually had a good idea. And they told her, ‘there,’ in the rubble of one of Hadrian’s old temples, which had been erected on the site of Golgotha but had recently been demolished to build a new church for Constantine. That’s where she was said to have found pieces of the True Cross, the Stone of Calvary and this tomb.”
“But this is inside the city walls,” Claire said.
“Now it is. Back in A.D. 33 this area was outside the Old City walls.”
Arthur looked around. “I’m sorry, but this looks nothing like a rock-cut tomb.”
“No it doesn’t,” Neti agreed. “Keep in mind this Edicule has been built and rebuilt four times over the centuries and the church around it has also undergone enormous periodic changes. This structure we’re in is from the nineteenth century. Essentially the Edicule is like a Russian nesting doll, one building inside another inside another. The actual tomb is probably below us but it would take an earthquake literally to get the church authorities to agree to any kind of modern archaeological exploration. Okay, let’s get on with it, shall we?”
Arthur and Claire went back and forth into the rotunda fetching the gear and setting it up in the tomb room and the anteroom. She was quiet, still not her usual self.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Just a little tired.”
“Remember, tomorrow.”
“I remember.”
Neti was seated in the Chapel of the Angel in front of her laptop, checking the connections. She looked around.
“Where’s the Grail?” she asked.
“In the rotunda,” Arthur said. “Should I leave it there?”
“You can bring it in. It’s okay.”
He left and returned with the lead-lined box.
“Where should I put it?”
“You can put in on the rolling stone altar. They didn’t say I couldn’t put something on it. It’s covered in glass anyway, which is probably not so clean since visitors kiss it all day.”
Arthur gently placed the box on the altar and sat on the marble floor beside Claire. He looked up at the smoke vent and the fifteen hanging oil lamps. He wondered what the chapel would look like if they were all lit and the harsh battery lamps were shut off.
He would have liked to see how lovely Claire looked here in that enchanting glow.
Suddenly, the chapel got a few shades brighter. He thought it was his imagination but Claire and Neti noticed it too.
The three of them stood when the source of the extra light became clear.
It was the Grail.
Bright light was leaking through the seal of the box lid.
Neti’s face changed. She seemed younger, more aggressive. “Open it!” she shouted. “Go ahead and open the box.”
Arthur took a hesitant step forward and flipped the two latches. At that, the lid partly opened and the light was brighter still.
“All the way! Open the lid,” Neti ordered.
Gulping, he lifted it until the box was fully open. The room became as bright as a sunlit day.
The Grail was shining like a beacon. It had changed color from jet black to snow white.
He felt Claire beside him and heard her say, “My God.”
He was scared to touch it out of fear it was hot but when he realized that there was no intense heat he put his hand closer until his finger made contact. It was the same temperature as before.
Behind him he heard Neti say, “It’s happening,” and he assumed she was talking to them, but he was mistaken. She was speaking into the microphone of her laptop.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“You’ll see.”
Claire looked panicked. Her fear rubbed off on him. “Claire, do you know what’s going on?”
“Arthur, I …”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
A young black-haired man came barging through the Edicule entryway and into the chapel waving a gun.
Then a second man entered, more slowly, more confidently, also brandishing a pistol.
Arthur knew this man.
Jeremy Harp.
There hadn’t been time to think, let alone act. Arthur was frozen in place and he felt Claire’s body stiffen against his.
Harp feasted on the sight of the Grail.
“Give it to me, Malory,” he said.
Arthur glowered at him.
Neti repeated the command. “He said, give it to him.”
Arthur looked at Neti with contempt.
She’s one of them.
“Come on then, Claire, you give it to me,” Harp said, pointing his gun at Arthur’s head. “Do you want me to kill him right here, right now?”
Arthur was woozy, disoriented.
“How does he know your name, Claire?”
“I mean it, Claire,” Harp repeated.
Claire reached into the box and picked up the bowl. She handed it to Harp, who pocketed his gun to receive it in his small, soft hands.
Claire stepped back beside Arthur, the two of them on one side of the Altar of the Rolling Stone, Neti and the two men on the other.
“After all these years,” Harp crowed.
“After all these centuries,” Neti added.
“You know, Malory,” Harp said, “one of the reasons for my success in business is a talent for picking the right people for the right job. I backed you to the hilt and you delivered.”
Simone had his pistol trained on Arthur. “Claire did well too.” Then he smiled at Claire. “I missed you.”
She grimaced, refusing to reply.
“You’re right, Simone,” Harp said. “Claire did well, though she did require persuasion.”
Arthur ignored everyone in the chamber but Claire. He turned to her and forced her to look at him.
“You’re one of them.”
Her lips quivered and her eyes began to water. “I was curious, of course, and also honored to be asked to join. Neti was my mentor, Simone, my friend—okay, my lover—the men involved, some of the greatest living physicists. They told me things about the Grail that had been passed down over two thousand years, from alchemists to chemists to physicists. We’re all rational. We don’t believe in magic, we don’t believe in mystical things. We believe in science so we knew that the Grail had to have properties not from the earth but from the cosmos. Ever since dark matter was discovered we thought the Grail might be made of it.”
“And now we know it is,” Harp said.
“This is my subject, my passion,” she went on, “but I …”
“You what?” Arthur asked sadly.
“She got wobbly,” Harp said. “She balked. We had to stiffen her spine.”
“I decided to stop—after they killed Tony. It was madness. And I fell in love …”
Simone’s face reddened.
“Stop, Claire, don’t,” Arthur said.
“Okay … but it’s true. And then they threatened my family, Arthur. They have someone watching them outside their house. They said they’d kill them. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Your father’s not sick.”
“No.”
“Another lie,” he said. “Like the one a
bout putting the Grail in this box. Lead doesn’t block these particles, does it?”
“No.”
“It didn’t make sense but if you said so, why would I doubt you? And these instruments—they don’t do a damn thing, do they?”
Neti snorted. “Gamma ray detectors. Nothing to do with this exercise.”
“And what is the exercise?” Arthur asked angrily.
Harp answered, his eyes fixed on the bowl glowing white in his hands. “Our oral history goes back to the time of Christ. A great alchemist named Nehor found the Grail stone, presumably a one-of-its-kind meteorite, and fashioned it into this bowl. He discovered it functioned as a portal. These days we talk about the multiverse. We shall see about that. Jesus drank from it, the dark matter entered his body and the rest is history. Did he go to heaven? A parallel universe? Are they one and the same? Do you see this melding of theology and science? Nehor, it is said, did the same as Jesus, drinking from the Grail, inside or near Jesus’ tomb. It is also said he had one of his followers kill him but the Grail was stolen before he could, well, be resurrected. For two millennia the Khem have been looking for the Grail. Our aim was to bring it back to the exact spot where Nehor died.”
“We don’t know how extradimensionality works,” Neti said, “but according to oral tradition, the place where you come back has to be the place where you died.”
Harp nodded his jowly head. “So job one was finding the Grail, and job two was finding the right tomb. Look at the way the stone’s behaving. We have the right place. Hopefully, we won’t have long to wait for Nehor’s resurrection, the second great resurrection in history.”
“And what happens if this Nehor materializes?” Arthur asked contemptuously.
“The dawn of a new era, that’s what will happen!” Harp cried. “Out with all the silliness and superstition, in with a rational culture based on science. The Khem will be both learners and teachers. We’ll introduce Nehor to the world and let him tell his remarkable story. We trust he will be wise and articulate and inspirational. We will be the keepers of the Grail, we will be the leaders of a new scientocracy, we will be the ones to drink from it, and yes, attain a measure of immortality. I for one cannot wait to see what lies beyond this world.”
Arthur shook his head. “What if Christ is the one who returns?”
Harp smiled. “We’ve discussed this. We’re not unanimous but we’ve got a working plan. The rest of the Khem are standing by at a nearby venue to respond to any eventuality.”
“Do you know how ridiculous you sound?” Arthur said. “A working plan? This isn’t some project team discussion in a lab or a company. This is Christianity! You really are a pathetic little man. You’re also a grubby, common murderer.”
Harp’s lips flattened then dipped into a frown. He held out the bowl. “Will you hold it for me, Neti?”
She took it from him.
Harp stretched out his arm and pointed his gun at Arthur.
“I’ve never killed a man with my own hands, Malory, but this is a very good place to start.”
As Harp’s pudgy finger curled around the trigger, Claire flung herself between Arthur and the altar.
There was an enormous boom and the bullet struck her chest.
She went down slowly, her knees turning to rubber.
Everything that happened next seemed in slow motion.
Harp stood there numb, dumbfounded that he’d shot Claire, his arm frozen outright.
Arthur lunged for the gun. It slid easily from Harp’s sweaty fingers. As Claire continued to slump, Arthur grabbed her and fell to the floor.
The base of the altar must have offered some protection—while he heard another shot blast out, this from Simone’s gun, the only effect was a boom and a shower of marble fragments.
Arthur turned the gun on his attackers. Down low, the only targets were legs. He fired at them at close range until Harp and Simone crumpled beside the altar, screaming in agony, offering him a much larger target.
Neti yelled in terror. Untouched by lead or marble, she dropped the Grail onto Harp’s body and scrambled out of the Edicule in panic.
Arthur’s ears were ringing and he couldn’t be sure if he was deaf or if everyone had gone silent.
He slithered across the floor to the bodies. The wounds were ghastly. They were no longer a threat.
He heard a moan.
Claire was alive.
He went to her and cradled her head. Her shirt was soaked through with blood.
“I’ve got to get help,” he said desperately.
“No, don’t leave me.”
“I’ve got to get an ambulance.”
“It’s too late, Arthur. I’m dying. I can feel it.”
He put his hand on her wound and pressed in a vain effort to do something, anything.
“I’m sorry, Arthur. I loved you.”
“I can’t lose you!”
He looked around and saw the Grail.
“Please hold on,” he said, lowering her head gently onto the floor.
There was a water bottle in his backpack. He poured some of it into the Grail and took it to her.
“You’ve got to drink this. Can you?”
He lifted her head up and held the bowl with the other.
She gulped at it, coughed, and stopped.
“Please, more.”
She finished it, looked at him one last time and died.
He set the Grail down and put his arms around her, shifting her onto his lap. He wouldn’t let her go. She was still warm, her skin still had a tinge of pink; she still looked beautiful.
He shut his eyes and felt the tears finding their way around his tight lids.
He prayed and rocked her in his arms.
His grief was overwhelming, like a bomb detonating inside his chest.
Suddenly a blinding flash invaded his closed eyes.
Claire was weightless.
He felt fabric in his hands and nothing else.
He opened his eyes and slowly stood, holding nothing but her bloody garments.
She was gone.
38
There was blood on the floor, rivulets forming along the seams of the stones.
A blue-gray haze of gunpowder lingered in the Chapel of the Angel.
Claire was gone.
Arthur fell to his knees at the spot where she had died, barely resisting an insane urge to plunge his hands into the pool of her blood, the way one might madly grope for a ring that had slipped off a finger into a muddy pond.
This was how it ended.
He had been a seeker—a quester.
He had succeeded where his ancestors had failed.
He had found the Holy Grail.
Was he more worthy than King Arthur? Thomas Malory? Was he purer of heart?
None of that mattered.
He had found something dearer than the Grail. He had found love and now he had lost it. Claire had streaked through his life like a comet—bright, shining; then gone.
She had risen.
He would have a lifetime to contemplate what had happened, to try to make sense of it. He stood up, angry and confused. His only thought was that the tomb had to be emptied. The bodies of Jeremy Harp and Simone were an abomination.
He dragged Simone from the Edicule by the ankles and returned to do the same with Harp, leaving them lying on their backs in the rotunda. He made two more trips, clearing out Neti’s useless gear and the ridiculous lead-lined box. He dropped Simone and Harp’s pistols into it after wiping them clean of fingerprints.
He had just shot two people.
Whatever life had in store for him, he didn’t want to wind up like Thomas Malory, rotting in a jail cell.
There was only one thing left to do.
The air inside the Edicule was clearing. The Grail was where he had left it, atop the rolling stone pedestal, still white as a dove. The tomb felt altogether peaceful now, holy; but he could no longer stay. He would have to leave the church, hiding his face as best h
e could from the ubiquitous surveillance in the area. He thought about Barcelona, the planned news conference. That would have to wait. He simply couldn’t go back there now, not without his Claire. He would return to England, take the Grail to the Bear, lay it beside Holmes’ cane, tell his tale to the Loons, get good and drunk.
He took a last look around and reached for the Grail but then pulled back his hands to shield his eyes.
The portal to the chamber had exploded in white light.
Cautiously, he stepped forward and stooped low to see inside, drawn in, as powerless as a moth to flame. With one hand stretched before his face he stepped through the marble curtain and inched ahead until he was fully inside the Tomb Chamber.
A shaft of intense light had risen from the floor beside the rock-cut shelf, obscuring the icon of the Virgin, so bright it savaged his eyes like ice picks.
He clamped them tightly. He waited a second to look again, repeating the cycle of squinting and clenching until the shaft of light dimmed enough that he could see without pain.
And in the shaft of light a human figure began to emerge.
Arthur collapsed to his knees.
The figure was indistinct, opalescent.
Gradually, it materialized into something more substantial. He thought of his father’s old Polaroid camera, the way it would ever so slowly form the image onto wet glossy paper.
He found his hands drawn together like iron to magnet, instinctively clasped in prayer.
Who was it?
Was it Christ?
Nehor?
Claire?
He kept his eyes fixed on the materialization.
In his heart he knew full well whom he wanted it to be, and he cried out over and over again, “Please God, please! Please God, please!” until the resurrection came to pass.
Also by Glenn Cooper
The Tenth Chamber
Near Death
The Devil Will Come