The Templar's Secret (The Templar Series) (46 page)

‘
Having assumed as much, I’ve already prepared the email attachments. Stand by while I send you digital photos, front and back, of the copper plate. Additionally, I’m sending you the translated text which I thought you might be interested in perusing. Unless, of course, you read Aramaic, in which case you may disregard the English translation. I’ll give you several minutes to examine the file.’ Pulling up the email program, Caedmon hit the ‘Send’ button. ‘Read it and weep.’

Her anxiety escalating, Edie stared at the now-blank computer screen.

Caedmon glanced over at her. ‘So far, so good.’

What did he mean by ‘Read it and weep’?

Curious as to the meaning of the Englishman’s addendum, Gracián Santos opened the first email attachment. He gave the two digital photographs of the copper plate a cursory examination. Satisfied that the plate was genuine, he closed the attachment.

Despite the fact that he’d made contact a day early, Aisquith’s
sudden arrival was an unexpected boon. At that moment, Gracián was alone at Mercy Hall, Roberto having driven to New York City to meet the transatlantic flights from Paris and Rome. Cardinal Fiorio, who had contacts within the Vatican secret service, had discovered that Aisquith had booked two seats on a nonstop flight to JFK Airport. ‘
Clearly, the footloose Englishman is headed your way.
’
To Gracián’s surprise, the Cardinal then announced that he intended to travel to New York to personally take possession of the third plate.

‘I need to get the ghastly deed over and done with,’ Gracián murmured resignedly.
Since the student body and staff were gone, there would be no witnesses lurking.

Other than God Almighty.

But Gracián need not worry on that count, Cardinal Fiorio having assured him that everything he did to secure the ancient gospel would be forgiven, absolution always given to Defenders of the Faith. No matter how horrific their crimes. Even though it would weigh heavy on his conscience, it
must
be done to protect the Church and save the Sanguis Christi Fellowship. To that end, the old Parthenon folly would be the perfect location to set the trap. Afterwards, the Diablos could use a water hose to wash away any blood evidence.

Lost in thought, Gracián drummed his fingers on the desk.

The Cardinal had been adamant that the
Evangelium Gaspar
was ‘The Great Heresy’ that could destroy the Church. For that reason, there must be no witnesses left alive who knew of its existence. As for Anala Patel, because Gracián couldn’t bring himself to kill her, he intended to leave her locked in the root cellar and let nature take its course.

Curious as to what was contained in the heretical gospel
, Gracián opened the second attachment and began to read the translated text.

‘
Ay Dios mio!
’ he gasped when he reached the last line, shock squeezing the air out of his lungs.
Surely, this was someone’s idea of a sick joke!
The gospel – if one could call it that – was an utter abomination. A heresy of the first magnitude, the
Evangelium Gaspar
couldn’t possibly be a true account of –

But what if it was true?
What if our Lord actually survived the crucifixion?
Would he still be the Savior of mankind?

Gracián swallowed a gastric bubble, the acid burning the back of his throat.

‘No!’ he exclaimed, banging the flat of his hand against the desktop. The
Evangelium Gaspar
was a hoax. A despicable parody. A few shreds of truth cleverly woven into a blatantly false script. Nothing more than that. And Cardinal Fiorio was absolutely right to have gone to such lengths to retrieve the blasphemous gospel.

The Apostles’ Creed clearly states that Jesus was ‘crucified,
died and was buried . . . On the third day he rose again.’

The beating heart of the New Testament
had always been mankind’s redemption from sin. Jesus Christ, our sweet Lord and Savior,
willingly
sacrificed himself to atone for that hideous stain upon our souls. A stain that had prevented humankind, even the most devout of believers, from entering into Heaven.
Everyone knew this!
The Blood Atonement was not in contention. Even the Protestants wholeheartedly believed it.

Gracián
glared at the translation, infuriated, certain that it was a perverted hoax.

‘
I shudder to think what sort of blasphemy was contained in the first two plates,’ he muttered.

His blood boiling, Gracián turned on the Skype feature and returned
Caedmon Aisquith’s phone call.

‘
How dare you!’ he exclaimed when the Englishman’s face popped on to the computer screen.

‘
Is this translation some sort of sick joke?’ Father Gracián Santos demanded to know. Cheeks unnaturally flushed, eyes narrowed, the Catholic priest was in high dudgeon.

Grasping the iPad between his hands,
Caedmon bit back a satisfied smirk. The other man appeared not so much rattled as shaken to his Catholic core. ‘No joke, I can assure you. The translation that you’ve just read was made by a biblical school at Oxford University. Not only is it an accurate transcription of an authentic early-first-century gospel, unlike the four canonical gospels, I might add, but as you’ve undoubtedly realized, it’s an eye-opening text.’

He paused a moment, letting the specifics sink in. Convinced now that Father Santos had heretofore been unaware of the gospel’s explosive contents,
Caedmon intended to shove the biblical blade as deep as possible. He wanted to weaken the other man’s resolve before he delivered the ransom. Unless he was greatly mistaken, the priest had been purposefully kept in the dark by his master in Rome. If he shed enough light, it might be possible to turn Santos against the maniacal cardinal. Which would lessen the danger immeasurably.

Forcefully plunging the blade,
Caedmon said, ‘I have good reason to believe that Cardinal Franco Fiorio intends to use the
Evangelium Gaspar
to affect the outcome of the upcoming Vatican conclave.’

‘No
!’ Santos clutched his heart with his right hand. ‘First the Resurrection . . . now
this!
It’s . . . it’s more than I can bear,’ the priest rasped, his eyes glimmering with unshed tears.

‘
Surely, as a priest, you know that the crucifixion story in the canonical gospels was crafted by the early Church Fathers in an editorial process similar to Jewish Midrash.’

Santos shook his head, uncomprehending.
‘Wh-what are you talking about?’

‘
Midrash is a method of pasting and editing bible verses together in order to elucidate certain theological tenets,’ Caedmon explained, taking a savage pleasure in the other man’s emotional turmoil. ‘Which means that the end result bears no relation to the truth. As is the case with the crucifixion and the subsequent, albeit erroneous, resurrection.’

The priest’s bottom lip began to quiver.
‘B-but if there’s n-no Resurrection, h-how can Jesus be the Son of G-God?’

Caedmon
’s own lip turned down at the corner as he shrugged and said, ‘Afraid that you’re asking the wrong chap. I’m an historian not a theologian.’ Noticing the beads of perspiration that began to form at Santos’s hairline, he intuited that the other man was teetering on the edge. Backpedalling a bit, he softened his voice. ‘Grácion, all will be forgiven if you make restitution and release my daughter.’

A glossy tear rolled down Santos’
s cheek. ‘The things that I have done will never be forgiven. Not on earth nor in heaven.’

Needing to extract a commitment from the other man,
Caedmon tried a different tack. ‘Turn my daughter over to me and you have my solemn word that I’ll not go to the authorities.’
In other words, everything that has transpired this past week shall forever remain our deadly little secret.

Hearing that, the priest
readily nodded his assent. ‘Yes . . . your daughter . . . she must be released. Come to my office at Mercy Hall and I’ll –’

The iPad screen
suddenly blipped before going blank.

‘Granted, I’m no shrink, but Father Santos seemed to be in the throes of an emotional meltdown,’ Edie
remarked, brows drawn anxiously. ‘I mean, he didn’t say a word about taking custody of the copper plate.’

Caedmon
stared contemplatively at the iPad. ‘I, too, found that odd. While I’d hoped to unhinge Father Santos so that he would reconsider his loyalty to Cardinal Fiorio, I never expected him to forego the prize.’

‘So, do we accept his invitation or do we stick to the original plan?’

‘We need to lure Santos away from his stronghold. In my experience, it’s always best to meet the devil on neutral ground.’ That’s why he’d purposefully selected an abandoned farmhouse where he could safely deliver the ransom and collect his daughter.

Annoyed by the unexpected twist,
Caedmon quickly redialed.

‘Damn! We lost the connection,’ he muttered a few seconds later.

Clearly unnerved, Edie peered at the tree-lined driveway. ‘Guess that means that we’re accepting the invite, huh?’

Left with no other option,
Caedmon turned the key in the ignition. ‘Put on your happy face. It’s time to properly introduce ourselves to the devil.’

‘
I was wrong . . . the
Evangelium Gaspar
is no hoax,’ Gracián Santos murmured as he stared at the damning translation.

Did the Englishman know that he’d just delivered the death blow?

Unable to breathe evenly or to think clearly, all he could do was
feel.

‘“O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer.”’

Hands shaking, Gracián was seized with a hideous fear. His Catholic faith, which had always been so carefully proscribed, now had a gaping hole.

‘
I became a priest because I
believed
in the Blood Atonement.’

Believed in its purity
. And virtue. And sanctity. Jesus, as the Son of God, was without blemish. Incorruptible. Therefore, His blood was incorruptible.
That
was the reason why His blood, and not anyone else’s, could save mankind. And when He rose from the dead on the third day, the sacrifice was spiritually complete. The Blood Atonement was the
central
message of the Gospels. The rest was mere window dressing.

If Jesus didn’t die on the Cross to save mankind from sin, how was anyone supposed to get into heaven?

Nothing else could save man’s blighted soul. Holy water, rosaries, the altar rituals: they were only accoutrements to faith, but had no power to
redeem
mankind. Without the Blood Atonement, without the Resurrection . . .
there was nothing.

I am nothing.

No, he was a Judas. A man willing to forsake what few shreds of morality he still possessed for thirty pieces of silver. Cardinal Fiorio never intended to destroy the
Evangelium Gaspar
as he’d repeatedly maintained. All along, he’d planned to use it to manipulate the conclave. Which now explained why he’d been so adamant that the ransom had to be delivered no later than Sunday at twelve noon, the conclave scheduled to convene the following Monday morning.

Gracián had
given his life to the Church, sacrificing his very manhood for what might well be a carefully crafted lie.
A Midrash.

Was it
really possible that the Christ he’d been taught to worship never existed? That, instead, a different Jesus walked the earth in the first century?

And
if that was the case, what happens to the last two thousand years of the Christian faith?

Buddhism could easily survive without Siddhartha. Islam could even survive without Mohammed. But Christianity could not make it to the next sunrise without Jesus and the
crucifixion.

Yes,
admittedly, he’d always thought it odd that after the Resurrection a divine being would require food like any mortal man. But like so many strange anomalies in the gospels, it was one of those things that a Catholic must never question.

Clutching his head between his hands, Gracián
stared out of the window, unable to stop the stream of horrific flashbacks.
Beating a defenseless man because he stole money from the Diablos. Extorting protection ‘taxes’ from frightened old shopkeepers. Dealing drugs to innocent children. And, of course, the worst crime of them all, beheading a rival gang member.

‘
Don’t worry, homie. It’s no different than cutting the head off a dead chicken.
’

A more illicit statement had never been uttered.
Beheading a man was
nothing
like butchering a chicken. A plucked, lifeless bird didn’t splatter your face with warm blood. Or make a horrible squishy
crunch!
as you hacked through bone and sinew.