The Second Messiah

Jack knelt and scanned the ground. The crimson spatters had disappeared. Lela said, “Whoever’s been hit, I guess their wounds have been bandaged to stop the bleeding, so chances are they’re still alive. If it’s Yasmin the men won’t harm her, not after going to the trouble of abducting her. At least until they get whatever it is they want.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Gut instinct. I’m guessing they’ll want to use her to get to you.”

A distant rumbling noise sounded. Jack said, “You hear that?”

“It’s like the noise I heard earlier.”

“We’ve got to be near street level.”

“It seems to be getting a lot louder. It’s probably traffic.” Lela swung the lamp. Ten yards away the wash of the light revealed a half-open metal gate set in the middle of an archway.

Jack said, ‘’What’s your plan now? Slap me in cuffs and drag me off to face a court in Israel?”

“Who said anything about dragging you anywhere? Except maybe to somewhere we can both clean ourselves up. First, I need you to help me find the scroll, Jack.”

“And then?”

“Then I may arrest you.”

They approached the gate. Jack pulled at the metal bars and they creaked open.

Lela went to step through first, her pistol readied, but the second she did so a thunderous roar exploded and a powerful blast of air almost knocked her off her feet.

Jack pulled her back as a thunderbolt of light streaked past. The earth shook beneath them, a metallic roar detonating in their ears as a train screamed past, its lights blazing. Jack felt the ground shake for at least ten seconds until the train roared away into darkness.

Lela was startled. “What was that? It felt like an earthquake.”

“I ought to have remembered that some of the tunnels intersect near Rome’s rail system.” Jack moved cautiously past the gate and pulled a dazed Lela after him. A hundred yards to their left the lights of an underground station blazed. A few passengers stood around on the platform, near a pair of escalators. “They probably took Yasmin out through the station. We’ve lost her, they’ve got away, Lela.”

She put a hand on his arm. “Maybe it’s time I told you what I can, and why I followed you. There’s something else you need to know, Jack.”

“What?”

“It’s about your friend, Yasmin.”

PART SEVEN

86

John Becket knelt on the cold tile floor of his monastery cell.

He stared up at the crucifix on the wall, his forehead drenched in perspiration. The cell was simply furnished with a metal bed, a night-stand, and a plain wooden locker.

As Becket knelt in front of the crucifix, his sinewy hands were locked together in prayer. He knelt there for a long time, unaware of time passing, or of the pains in his knees from the hard floor. His lips moved in whispered prayer until finally he blessed himself and rose to his feet with a faint groan.

He rubbed his knees vigorously, then took a small hand towel from the nightstand and dabbed the sweat from his face.

Sometimes his praying became so intense that he lost all sense of time and place. Just like now. When he looked at his watch he saw that over an hour had passed. He rinsed the towel under a stream of hot water from the sink, then folded it neatly and placed it on the rail to dry.

As he sat on the edge of the bed, from somewhere far off came the echo of the monks’ musical voices as they chanted their hymns. The sound of their voices always brought him back to those dark days after the desert of Qumran, to the remote monastery high in the mountains of northern Italy where he had chosen to atone for his sin. He prayed there earnestly for months on end for forgiveness. It was all many years ago now, but sometimes he felt that his sin had forever stained his soul.

Becket looked up again at the crucifix on the wall as if again to ask forgiveness. The simple cross of two pieces of wood symbolized so much. Once a brutal emblem of Roman injustice and savagery, it had been transformed into a blessed, enduring symbol—of hope and devotion, of justice, comfort, and peace. Proof, if proof were needed, that love and truth were greater than all the shadows.

He thought of the hard task ahead of him and sighed in despair, running a hand over his face. There was so much he needed to do, so many truths he needed to tell that had been kept secret. So many wrongs he wanted to make right, including his own grave sin. But in so doing, he knew he risked destroying both himself and the church.

The distant chanting that washed over him was suddenly interrupted by the jarring noise of his cell phone vibrating on the night-stand. It beeped twice, then twice again. Becket picked up the phone and saw he’d received a text message. When he read it, his face drained.

He had been waiting for this moment, and without hesitation he plucked a compact black leather bag from under his bed. Exiting his cell, he strode down the hall to the open door of the abbot’s office.