F Paul Wilson - Novel 03 (18 page)

           
 
"But what of the passage where he says 'I
do not fear killing. I have killed before, slipping through the crowds in
Jerusalem
, stabbing with my knife. And I fear not
damnation. Indeed, I am already thrice-damned.' That doesn't sound like a
Pharisee."

           
 
"What'd you do, memorize that
translation?"

           
 
"No. But I've read it a few limes."

           
 
More than a few, Dan bet.

           
 
"Some of the upper-class Israelites, a
few Pharisees among them, got involved with the anti-Roman rebels, some with
the zealots. These were a rough bunch of guys, sort of the Israelite equivalent
of the IRA. They mounted guerrilla attacks, they murdered collaborators and
informants and generally did whatever they could to incite revolt. These were
the guys who gathered at
Masada
after the fall of
Jerusalem
. They held out for three years, then all 950 of them chose to die
rather than surrender to the Roman siege. This scroll writer—
fictional
scroll writer—is patterned
after that sort of zealot."

           
 
"He was a pretty tough cookie then."

           
 
"Extremely. Not the kind you'd want to
cross."

           
 
"I wonder what happened to him?"

           
 
"He's probably hanging around, laughing
up his three-striped sleeve, waiting for someone to chase the wild goose he
created."

           
 
He regretted the words immediately, but he was
tired,
dammit.

           
 
Carrie yanked the sheet angrily and turned
onto her side, her back to him. "Good
night,
Dan. Get some sleep. We're out of here at dawn."

           
 
"Good night, Carrie."

           
 
But exhausted as he was, thoughts of the
forger kept sleep at bay. And the more Dan thought about how this slimy bastard
had sucked Carrie in, making her believe all this nonsense, the more he wanted
to get back at him.

           
 
And removing that corpse or whatever it was
from its cave was the perfect way.

           
 
Then it wouldn't matter who came searching for
the secret atop the
tav
rock—
The New York Times,
the
Star,
or even a mission from the Vatican
itself—all they'd find was an empty cave.
The
tomb is empty!
There'd be no turmoil, no orthodox confusion, no Catechismal
chaos. And the forger would be left scratching his head, wondering where his
clever little prop had disappeared to.

           
 
Dan smiled into the darkness.
Two can play this game, Mr. Forger.

           
Tomorrow Carrie would have
enthusiastic help in her efforts to smuggle the forger's prop out of
Israel
.

           
 
After that, Dan would have plenty of time to
coax her back to her senses. If he could. He was more than a little worried about
Carrie's mental state. She seemed to be drifting into some religious fantasy
realm. He sensed some strange chemistry between her and that body that he could
not begin to comprehend. A switch had been thrown inside her, but what circuits
had been opened?

           
 
Maybe it all went back to her childhood. Maybe
it was all tied up in the abuse by her father. Little Carrie had been a virgin
and no one had protected her; now here she was with what she believed to be the
Virgin Mary and the grown-up Carrie was going to become the protector.

           
More parlor psychoanalysis. But
perhaps it gave some clue as to why this artifact was so important to Carrie.

           
 
Too important, perhaps.

           
 
And that frightened him. How would she react
when it finally became clear—as it must eventually—that the body she thought
belonged to the Blessed Virgin was a hoax? What if she cracked?

           
 
Whatever happened, he'd be there for her.

           
 
But what if he couldn't bring her back?

           
 
He stared into the darkness and wished Hal had
brought him another sort of gift from the
Holy Land
. Anything but that damned scroll.

           
Tel Aviv

           
 
Kesev watched the morning news on TV while he
sipped his coffee and considered the journey ahead of him. Oppressed by some
nameless sense of urgency, he'd left Devorah's in the early morning hours,
fighting the urge to jump into his car and drive into the Wilderness.

           
Instead he'd driven home and
attempted to sleep. Wasted hours. He'd had not a minute of slumber. He should
have driven to the
Resting Place
. He'd have been there by now and all these vague fears would be
allayed.

           
 
He'd called into Shin Bet with an excuse about
a family emergency that would keep him from the office all day, but he wondered
if this trip was necessary. He'd be on the road all day, probably for nothing.
Only eighty air miles, but three times that by car. And for what? To satisfy a
nameless uneasiness?

           
 
Idly he wondered if he could get a helicopter
and do a quick fly-by, but immediately discarded the idea. He'd made a
spectacle of himself back there in '91 during the Gulf War when he'd refused to
leave the SCUD impact site until all the investigations had been completed.
He'd actually camped out there until the last missile fragment had been removed
and the final investigator had returned home. There'd been too many questions
about his undue interest in that particular piece of nowhere. If he requested a
copter now . . .

           
He sighed and finished his coffee.
Better get moving. He had a long drive ahead of him, and he'd know no peace
until he'd assured himself that no one had disturbed the
Resting Place
in his absence.

           
 
Absence . . . guilt twisted inside of him. He
wasn't supposed to be away from the
Resting Place
. Ever. He'd promised to stay there and
guard it.

           
 
He shook off the guilt. How long could you sit
around guarding a place that no one even knew existed?

           
 
The
Resting Place
was as safe as it ever was, protected by
the greatest, most steadfast guardian of all—the
Midbar Jehuda.

           
The Judean Wilderness

           
 
Carrie held her breath going through the
little passage to the second chamber. But then the beam flashed against the
Blessed Mother and she let it out.

           
 
"She's still here! Oh, thank God, Dan!
She's still here!"

           
 
"What did you expect?" Dan muttered
as he crawled in behind her with the electric lantern. "Not as if we left
her on a subway."

           
 
She knew Dan was tired and irritable. Anyone
seeing him stumbling around the guesthouse this morning would have thought he'd
been drinking all night. Her own back ached and her eyes burned, but true to
her word, Carrie had awakened him at first light this morning and had them on
the road by the time the sun peeked over the Jordanian highlands on the far
side of the
Dead Sea
. It glowed deep red in the rearview mirror
as it crept up the flawless sky, stretching the Explorer's shadow far before
them as they bounced and rolled into the hills.

           
 
And now as she stood in the chamber, staring
down once more at the woman she knew—
knew
—was
the Mother of God, she felt as if her heart would burst inside her. She loved
this woman—for all her quiet courage, for all the pain she must have suffered
in silence. But the Virgin didn't look quite like what she'd expected. In her
mind's eye she'd imagined finding a rosy-cheeked teenager, or at the very least
a tall, beautiful woman in her early twenties, because that was the way Carrie
had always seen her pictured. But when she thought about it, the Virgin
probably had been average height for a Palestinian woman of two thousand years
ago, and must have been pushing seventy when she died.

           
 
Dizziness swept over Carrie as she was struck
again by the full impact of what—
whom
—she
had found. God had touched this woman as He touched no other human being. She'd
carried the incarnation of His Son. And now she lay here, not two feet in front
of Carrie.

           
 
This is
really her. This is the Mother of God.

           
 
Until yesterday, the Blessed Virgin had been a
statue, a painting, words in books. Now, looking at her aged face, her glossy,
uncorrupted flesh, Carrie appreciated her as a woman. A human being. All those
years, all those countless Hail Marys, and never once had Carrie realized that
this Mary she'd prayed to as an intercessor had once been a flesh-and-blood
human being. And that made all the suffering in Mary's life so much more real.

           
 
And rising with the love was a fierce
protective urge, almost frightening in its intensity.

           
 
No one must touch her. No one must desecrate
or defile her in any way. No one must use her for anything.
Anything!
The Church itself couldn't be
trusted. Who knew what even the
Vatican
might do? She'd dreamed during the night of
the Blessed Mother's remains on display in St. Peter's in
Rome
and it had sickened her.

           
 
Mary had given enough already, and Carrie knew
it was up to her to see to it that no one demanded any more of her.

           
 
Dear Mother,
whoever was left to guard you is long since dead and gone. I'll take care of
you. I'll be your protector from now on.

           
 
She unfolded the dark blue flannel blankets
she had brought. Dan set the lantern down and helped her spread them out on the
floor. The bright light cast their distorted shadows against the wall where the
Virgin lay in her stony niche.

           
 
"All right," she said when the
blankets were right. "Help me move her out."

           
 
She didn't want anyone else touching the
Virgin, not even Dan, but she couldn't risk lifting her out of that niche on
her own. God forbid she slipped from her grasp and tumbled to the floor.

           
 
As Dan approached the Virgin's upper torso,
Carrie waved him back.

           
 
"I'll take this end. You take her
feet."

           
 
Her hands shook as she approached the Virgin.
What was this going to be like, touching her? She hesitated a moment, then
wriggled her fingers under the Virgin's cloak and cowl, slipping her hands
under her neck and the small of her back. The fabric felt so clean, so
new . . .
how could this be two thousand
years old?

           
 
Unsettled, she glanced to her right. What did
Dan think? But Dan stood there with his hands under the Virgin's knees and
ankles, expressionless, waiting for her signal.

           
She suddenly realized that things
had changed since yesterday afternoon. Until then, Dan had been in charge.
Sure, this trip had been her idea, but Dan had made all the flight
arrangements, decided where to stay, what car to rent, while she'd done all the
research. But here, in this chamber, in the presence of the Virgin, she was in
charge.