The Resurrection File (52 page)

“But you said that Dr. Reichstad told you that 7QA had been ‘stuck to the bottom of a jar' in cave 7. Right?”

“That's right.”

Then, for some reason Will recalled a rather silly reference that Tiny Heftland had made to him once about Reichstad's research building. He smiled a little as he concluded his cross-examination.

“One last thing, Doctor. Would you describe the security system at Dr. Reichstad's research center as ‘world-class,' perhaps ‘state of the art'?”

“Yes. It is very sophisticated.”

Will could see that Beady was growing slightly uncomfortable.

“Other than the 7QA evaluations that have gone on there at that building, are there any other ‘secret experiments' going on—maybe down in the basement—that would require military-style remote sensors all over the grounds of the building?”

Will heard a noise off to the side of the courtroom. Dr. Beady's eyes widened as if he had just been punched in the solar plexus. Will glanced over, and saw Reichstad gesturing urgently to the witness—but Sherman had grabbed his arm and restrained him.

“Objection!” Sherman shouted. “Irrelevant. Immaterial. Prejudicial. And asking for confidential, secret, and/or proprietary information about Dr. Reichstad's research center.”

Will agreed to withdraw his question. But as he walked back to his counsel table he knew that he had just hit a trip wire with Albert Reichstad. Perhaps Tiny had been correct. Maybe 7QA was not the only thing that Reichstad had up his sleeve.

Perhaps, he mused, he had really stumbled across the Frankenstein castle after all.

62

W
ILL
C
HAMBERS KNEW THAT CONDUCTING
the ideological warfare of a jury trial required the litigator to constantly reassess the field of combat. To calculate the casualties; to observe the movements of the opposing troops; to anticipate the strategy of the other side before their bombs start raining down destruction.

But he also understood that a trial lawyer needed to practice the skill of a tightrope walker. As is the case with the man way up there on the high-wire, the success or failure of the balancing act in a jury trial is often
felt
before it is actually
seen
.

At the commencement of the trial, Will had determined that the odds would be stacked against him. In such situations his strategy was to force a break in the case—to change the feeling in the atmosphere. To gain absolute mastery over the physics of the high wire—because failure to do so could only mean to experience the desperate falling sensation of defeat.

As Will sat down at the counsel table on the third day he knew that Albert Reichstad would be the next, and last, witness for the plaintiff's case. J-Fox Sherman had originally listed a dozen witnesses. But for some reason, at the last moment he had announced that he would call only three—and his client was the last.

Originally Will had listed Bill Kenwood, his materials engineer, to testify that 7QA and 7QB had been scored by a sharp, metallic instrument of recent origin and then torn apart. But now he did not need to call him. Both parties, after their weeklong examination of the two fragments before the trial, had agreed on the findings that Kenwood would have presented. Now, it was an established fact in the case that 7QA had originally been attached to 7QB and that they had only recently been torn apart.

Dr. Giovanni was bound to do a fine job in her testimony, but Will knew that she could not carry the day alone. His client, Angus MacCameron, was
an honest and forthright man, but he was not going to make a good witness. In particular, Will noticed that Angus had grown quieter during the trial, and by the end of yesterday's testimony had no longer been writing notes on his notepad. In fact, he looked more haggard and exhausted than Will had ever seen him before.

Will also had scheduled the testimony of the two Israeli police officers. But they could only show that “Tony” Azid's death was by an act of murder, rather than suicide. They could not
directly
link his death to Reichstad.

Ultimately, the case was about credibility. Who was the jury going to believe—Reichstad or MacCameron? In that department Will had a plan to expose Reichstad's lack of truthfulness. But it depended on Sherman or Reichstad making the right kind of mistake, in the right kind of way. Sherman was unlikely to trip up. Will's only hope was that Reichstad's own penchant for self-aggrandizement would compel him to walk into the silent trap. Will could only watch and wait.

As Dr. Albert Reichstad stood at the witness chair, raised his right hand, and swore to tell the truth—the whole truth—Will knew that his cross-examination of this witness would probably be the turning point—the hand-to-hand combat that could sway the course of battle over to MacCameron's side.

As Sherman began his direct examination of his client, Will noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Angus MacCameron had pushed something over to Will on the counsel table. They were two airline tickets. One for MacCameron, and one for him. Will noticed that it had them departing at 7:45 that night for London, out of Reagan National Airport.

Will glanced over at Angus who, though pale, was grinning. He obviously still believed that they could find the missing 7QC fragment somewhere at the British Museum even now, at the eleventh hour, in the middle of the jury trial.

How could his client still hold onto that hope? Was it that Angus MacCameron was the most blindly optimistic client Will Chambers had ever had? Or was there another explanation? Was this just one more example of MacCameron's maddeningly persistent faith in a God of both ultimate truth and personal familiarity?
What would it be like to have that kind of faith?
Will wondered silently.

63

A
FTER SHERMAN HAD FINISHED TAKING
R
EICHSTAD
through his extensive professional credentials, he continued his direct examination by having his client relate his discovery of the 7QA fragment. Reichstad spoke slowly and confidently from the witness stand. As he talked, he turned and addressed the jury directly, as if they were one of his groups of adoring students at Harvard.

Will had read every article that Reichstad had ever written about the discovery of 7QA, and had traced every media quote he'd ever given on the subject. Reichstad had always been cleverly vague about how he had come into possession of the fragment.

Now, as Reichstad was testifying, he effortlessly recited the exact same information he had previously disclosed on that subject, sometimes using descriptions verbatim from his writings and media interviews.

Reichstad testified that he had been in Jerusalem, leading an archaeological conference, when he received a phone call from Azid to come over to Bethlehem and look at an ancient fragment. He said he had indeed met with Azid, but couldn't recall the exact day. There had been a free day in the conference, and perhaps that was when he had traveled to Bethlehem, but he wasn't sure. He had immediately concluded that the writing on this fragment, 7QA, referred to the burial of Jesus, and that it looked, at least at first blush, quite authentic, though he obviously had not been able to date it on the spot. Yet the Koine Greek inscription on the fragment had raised his expectations that this might just be a find of monumental proportions.

According to Reichstad, Tony Azid had told him that he bought the ancient papyrus writing from a Bedouin, some type of relative. The Bedouin said he had found it decades before, as a boy, in what was now known as cave 7 at Qumran, near the Dead Sea. The Bedouin had kept it for many years until deciding, for some reason, to finally sell it to Azid.

Azid, as Reichstad explained it, had agreed to accept $50,000 for the fragment. Reichstad left, and later wired the money directly into Azid's account. One of his “assistants” had actually picked up the fragment and brought it back to Reichstad by the end of the conference later that week.

“I am afraid that I can't recall the name of the assistant who picked up 7QA and brought it to me,” Reichstad explained. “We have looked, but can't find any records on who it was. It was someone who was only working with me as temporary staff during the conference. He was a local Arab man, I think.”

“Why didn't you use one of your own personal research assistants to pick up this potentially important fragment from Azid?” Sherman asked, anticipating one of Will's cross-examination questions.

“Well, that was my preference. But, unfortunately, all of my personal research assistants had their hands full during the conference we were hosting.”

Then Reichstad was asked to explain his testing and evaluation of the fragment. He gave a smooth, carefully rehearsed description of his findings.

“This was clearly the most authentic, most historiographically and archaeologically profound document ever discovered on the subject of the burial of Jesus of Nazareth. It clearly showed that a person who was a contemporary of Jesus, who was a witness to his burial, was also a witness to the fact that his body was not resurrected—but indeed was—and is to this day most likely—still in that tomb. The examination I conducted was thorough, and was in keeping with the highest possible standards of science and scholarship. To date, except for Angus MacCameron's wild and unsupported libel against me, no scholarship has dared to question the competency, or the integrity of my conclusions.”

Then Sherman led him into the article written by MacCameron.

“When did you first learn of the article by the defendant, which attacked you and your conclusions about 7QA?”

Reichstad lowered his head dramatically, and asked if he might take a sip of water. The judge and Sherman both nodded. He drank from the glass next to the witness chair. Then he sighed and stroked his eyebrow, a gesture apparently designed to disclose the inner pain of recalling what he was about to describe.

Will was riveted to Reichstad's testimony as he described the party hosted by his colleagues and friends in honor of his discovery of the 7QA fragment. Reichstad said it was at that party that he first learned the real details of MacCameron's “libelous” article against him.

Sherman was about to lead him quickly off that point and onto another, but Reichstad plowed ahead, describing in dramatic detail the “humiliating and shocking experience” of hearing his own friends and associates yelling “murderer,” and “fraud,” to his face, and in the presence of his wife.

There was a quick side-glance from Sherman toward Will's counsel table. Sherman anticipated a loud objection from his opponent as Reichstad's unprompted testimony about the details of what was actually said at the party violated Judge Kaye's order of bifurcation—an order which clearly prohibited at this stage of the case, any mention of evidence for damages, or testimony relating to injury to reputation or emotional suffering.

But no objection came. Will only sat silently. His face gave no hint of the fact that he was preparing the trap that would shut on Reichstad.

Sherman moved quickly to his final line of questioning.

“Did you have any ‘connection' whatsoever with the deaths of Harim Azid or Dr. Richard Hunter?”

“Absolutely not. That is a preposterous allegation by that man, MacCameron, and it is absolutely false.”

With that, J-Fox Sherman rested.

64

W
ILL
C
HAMBERS BEGAN HIS CROSS-EXAMINATION
of Reichstad as he was still walking from his counsel table over toward the podium. Reichstad watched him, smiling confidently.

The large photographic blowup of the 7QA and 7QB fragments was on the easel in the middle of the courtroom. On another easel, a large display bore the fragments' message translated from the Greek:

Will took a little laser pointer and indicated the word “JESUS” in the second line. “Now Dr. Reichstad, let's talk about the Greek language of 7QA and 7QB. In the Greek of that day—and I believe in modern Greek—the
endings
of words would reveal the grammatical structure of the sentence?”

“That is a rather crude way of putting it,” Reichstad answered.

“Well, as an example: In English, the word ‘Jesus' appears the same whether it is used as the object or the subject—or whether we are talking about the ‘possessive' phrase ‘of Jesus,' or referring to something happening
‘to Jesus,' or someone being ‘with Jesus.' In each case, in English, the word ‘Jesus' would stay the same—but we would add things called prepositions, as separate words, to show how we are referring to ‘Jesus' in the sentence?”