I, Judas the 5th Gospel (9 page)

DiSalvo didn’t answer, but the muscle on the side of his jaw flickered.

“Perhaps your mission was not to kill me, but to use me?” Judas asked.

DiSalvo remained silent.

“But why talk about the Bible?” Angelique asked, deflecting the confrontation. “You say you are Judas, which means you met Jesus. So you know—”

Once more Judas cut her off. “But you don’t trust me. You do trust the Bible, and you especially trust the good father here. So let’s talk about your trust. I could speak of all I know and you would choose to believe what you want and disregard anything I say that conflicts with what you already believe. And bear with me please; I am not challenging your faith. I am talking about a book about your God and your faith. Have you ever looked at the Bible like that? As a book? A story?”

Judas did not wait for, nor did he expect, an answer, as he already knew what it was. Of course they had not considered the Bible to be anything other than the direct word of God.

“The Bible is very uneven in terms of narrative structure,” Judas said. “The Old Testament, which I did not have personal experience with, but have been told about, is quite interesting in that manner. It starts out like a story—a novel almost—with Genesis. Great hook for a novel, wouldn’t you agree? I mean, creating
everything
. And really, has it occurred to you there is no back-story to the Old Testament? Every other book has back-story, expository material to explain what was going on before the start of the story, but in the case of the Bible there was nothing before the start, right?”

Judas paused, and then leaned forward. “But there was, wasn’t there? God existed before the start, didn’t he? So the Bible is not really God’s story, but the story of God and man.” He spread his arms wide toward the sky. “There’s a big universe out there. Don’t you think there are other feats that God was responsible for? Or is it simply man’s ego that brings God down to his own level and be his special province?”

“Our world came into being when the universe came into being,” DiSalvo argued.

“Oh, come now,” Judas chided. “Are you a creationist?” He paused once more, holding up a hand to forestall a response. “We’ll get to that and I think you will find it most interesting, because neither the creationists nor the evolutionists are right. It’s like most things. The truth lies in between, or it lies completely outside the realm of what has been considered. Let’s get back to the book. The Bible as most of you people call it. It opens—” He paused and cocked his head. He placed a finger against his lip as one of the natives ran up and whispered something in his ear.

Judas stood and issued a few short commands in the native tongue, and within twenty seconds the table and all the natives had disappeared underneath the nearby trees. “If you would join me for a second.” It was a command, not a question.

The three walked behind him into the shade of the trees where they stood. Judas whistled, very low, and DiSalvo’s brow furrowed as he tried to recognize the tune.

“An opera,” Judas said. “I heard it long ago.” He cocked his head. “It’s safe to go back.”

The bench and table were brought back out.

“What was that about?” DiSalvo demanded, but Gates had already guessed.

“A high altitude reconnaissance flight just passed overhead,” Gates said.

Judas nodded. “It appears someone else is getting curious about what is going on here. I think your friends in the Illuminati have been casting their eyes this way. We might have other company soon. Things could get testy.”

“We already had company,” DiSalvo said. “The Illuminati sent mercenaries to attempt to ambush us.”

“I know,” Judas said. “They are certainly persistent.”

Angelique looked up, then back at Judas. “But how could you know a plane was approaching overhead?”

“I have a long reach.” Judas smiled. “Where was I? Ah, yes. The beginning of the Bible. It opens with Genesis and then the story rockets from Genesis to Second Kings. But there it stops being a story about God and becomes a series of testimonies as various people come to the fore to talk about God. It’s rather amazing.” Judas was caught up in the excitement of finally talking to someone about this. “Do you know that in the Hebrew Bible, God sort of disappears? I mean, read it. God’s last words in that version of the Bible are the ones he thunders at Job. He never speaks again, at least according to the book. In fact, in the Book of Esther he’s never even mentioned.

“The Bible changes. God also changes if you read it objectively and carefully. Look how much he intervened early on. He unleashed plagues on Egypt to free his people. He helped Moses part the Red Sea. Not much of that in the last two thousand years or so unless I’ve missed something. Could have used a hand during the Holocaust, eh?”

“That will change soon,” DiSalvo interrupted, pointing up at the incoming orb.

“We shall see,” Judas said. “Do you know how many authors contributed to the Bible? And I mean writers, not translators, because if we look at the latter the number is overwhelming. The Bible is rather unique in its authorship. Unlike other books of worship.”

Judas held up a single finger. “The Book of Mormon, which by the way is the fastest growing religion at this moment, came from one man, Joseph Smith. The Koran came from one man, Mohammed. But the Bible is different. First off, it’s got two major parts. The Old and the New Testament, and some religions ignore the second part.

“The best guess among reliable Biblical scholars is that approximately forty different authors across three continents over a sixteen hundred year period contributed to authoring the Bible. Pretty amazing. The most amazing literary feat in the history of man. There’s a positive aspect to this. Since God is so big, how could one man in one time span get down the entire story and message? The negative aspect is how did so many people over so much time receive the story and message? And get it right?”

“The message is the same,” DiSalvo said. “God.”

“So sayeth you,” Judas said, “but so sayeth a Muslim and a Mormon.”

Anger flushed across DiSalvo’s face but Judas continued. “Given first hand knowledge, I must admit that all these authors were remarkably accurate in many ways. There are over three hundred prophecies in the Old Testament about a Messiah that were supposedly fulfilled by Jesus. Busy fellow. And archeological evidence supports many of the stories, at least historically. And I can tell you Jesus was most real from personal experience. Knew the man. Flesh and blood. He was most real.

“But don’t believe just me. There’s also some support from historians. Tacitus, a Roman historian who lived in the first century, Anno Domino—” Judas chuckled—“it is pretty amazing that our entire calendar pivots around Jesus. He’d have liked that. He wasn’t very punctual, actually. Our Father was always on him about that. Anyway, Tacitus mentions a group called Christians that were persecuted by Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius.

“As far as Jesus himself, there are a few historical references, most, however, not particularly flattering.” Judas ticked them off on his fingers. “Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian from the time just after the crucifixion wrote that Jesus was a wise man who did amazing things, had many followers among the Jews and Greeks, and was crucified. The Jewish Talmud says that Jesus was conceived out of wedlock, had disciples, made blasphemous claims about himself, and appeared to work miracles that he attributed to God but which were most likely some sort of magic or sorcery. Then we’ve got mentions of early Christian worship from Pliny the Younger, Thallus, and Suetonius among other ancient historians.”

Judas paused as several native women brought out wooden dishes of food, most of which the two male guests did not recognize. Judas grabbed something that looked like a roasted cockroach and popped it into his mouth. His jaws shut with a crunch. “Quite good, I assure you.” He waited until Angelique tried one, and then continued.

“Where was I?” He tapped a finger against the side of his head. “Ah, yes. Then there are the translations. Proponents of the Bible as the word of God point out the amazing degree of agreement and accuracy among the various translations. Opponents say it has been translated so many times that the original language has to have been corrupted. Which is the truth?” Judas shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve learned a lot of languages over the years, and can tell you translating is a dangerous act. One man’s curse word in one language is another man’s term of endearment in a different tongue. It is a case where one could get caught among the trees trying to compare them and ignore the entire forest.”

“The New Testament,” DiSalvo threw out. “If you are who you say you are, then—”

“You would not be here if you did not believe I am who I say I am,” Judas interrupted. “Either the three of you accept that I am Judas, or you can get up, turn around, and walk back into the jungle.”

The three exchanged a quick glance, and then Angelique nodded. “We accept you are Judas.” She didn’t pause. “And since you are, then you have first hand knowledge of the New Testament, so you can tell us of the accuracy of those accounts.”

Judas laughed as he picked up another roasted tidbit. “I not only have first hand knowledge, I wrote my own Gospel. The Fifth Gospel of the New Testament. But that also, isn’t what most people think it is.”

Terminal Impact In 48 To 24 Hours

Two Days Earlier

The International Community

Tracking stations in the United Kingdom, Russia, Japan and China had all picked up the Intruder. Like the United States, their governments had immediately ordered a veil of silence. Their projections concurred with those of the Americans. The Intruder would intercept Earth in two days. ”Intercept” being a nicer way of saying “collide.”

The estimates varied, but only in how fast everyone would die. There was no argument about the end result: annihilation of the human race. And pretty much every other species on the surface of the planet, but humans tend to only focus on themselves in extremes.

The President of the United States contacted the leaders of the four countries, and unparalleled discussions at the highest level were instituted. And in all those countries, agents of the Illuminati stepped out of the shadows to help with financial, technical and other support.

And in all those countries rumors began to circulate that something strange was going on. The veil of secrecy was maintained, but it was only a matter of time before word of the Intruder reached the people.

Kourou, French Guiana, South America

The French Space Agency was the first to use Kourou as a launch pad for travel into space when it launched a Diamant rocket there in 1970. In 1975, the European Space Agency (ESA) decided to make Kourou its primary launch facility. There were multiple reasons for this. First, there were no large unpopulated areas of Europe where such a facility could be placed, thus locating it anywhere on the continent would pose a danger to many civilians. Second, Guiana was close to the equator at latitude 5.23 degrees north. A large speed bonus can be gained from the Earth’s rotation with a launch angled to the east. This meant the same rocket thrust launch from Kourou could actually carry a larger payload than one from NASA’s facility at Cape Canaveral, which was further away from the equator. The coastline also allowed launches over the ocean in a northeasterly direction, which was advantageous for Earth observation satellites.

The rocket currently on the launching pad this evening was an Ariane Four booster with a unique payload. It was to go on the northernmost launch path. The entire mission had been paid for by private funds and shrouded in mystery. The nose cone was placed on top of the booster just scant hours prior to launch, testing the safety restrictions of the facility to the limit, and agreed to only because of the outrageous fee the facility had received from the firm that owned the payload.

The only people who knew what the payload was were the Central Council of the Brotherhood, their two representatives at the launch facility, and of course, the man who was part of the payload. Ensconced in the nose cone was an experimental orbital vehicle developed by one of Peter Galbraith’s companies to compete in the next generation of re-usable craft to replace the space shuttle.

The X-37 was much smaller than the shuttle. Indeed, it was designed to be able to fit into the cargo bay of the shuttle, being only twenty-seven and a half feet long with a wingspan of fifteen feet. It weighed in at a relatively light six tons. It had its own small cargo bay, measuring seven feet by four feet. The model being designed for NASA was for un-manned missions, but this one had been specially modified with what was optimistically called a ‘life-pod’ that was fit into the cargo bay. The life-pod contained enough oxygen, food and water to sustain one man for eight days, more than enough time for the mission ahead.