CS 01 The Grail Conspiracy (21 page)

"Go," lanucci said, his voice low, drawing out the word with disgust.

Sinclair nodded as he stood. With the travel case in hand he
turned and left.

lanucci sat. For many moments, he stared at the folded paper
before picking it up and opening it. After reading the note, he balled
it in his fist. Trying to wipe what had happened from his mind, he
scanned his calendar and made a phone call to check on the progress
of the restoration of a newly acquired Raphael.

But he couldn't clear his head, couldn't concentrate on anything
except Sinclair's words. When he finished the call, instead of hanging
up the receiver, he held onto it and pressed the button with his finger.
He sat motionless, as if time had arrested. A few moments later he
released the button and dialed his aide.

"Cancel my appointments," he said. "I will be out for the rest of
the day."

lanucci left his office and closed the door. So deep in thought,
though he passed several others, he did not acknowledge them.

My God, what if Sinclair was right. What if Christ is to return again
just in the manner he said?

Inside his quarters, lanucci fell to his knees at his bedside, propping his elbows on the mattress, dropping the crushed paper on the
spread. He prayed for God to direct him, tell him how it was to be.

The rest of the day passed as he shifted between praying and reading scripture. At sunset he stood at his window and watched the sky
turn from gold to scarlet and purple. Had God indeed taken his hand during his earliest years and led him to this very moment in time? He
had always known God favored him-always known he was destined
to rise to the top, to lead the Church. Every cell in his body was indoctrinated with that belief. He had never dared to consider it might even
be more than that. Perhaps he was destined not to lead the Church,
but the whole of mankind. Could it really be that the Almighty
entrusted him with the Second Coming?

Ianucci's tears fell onto his folded hands. He wept until his body
trembled and exhaustion weakened him. Sure that he could hear a
chorus of angels, he stared at the crucifix on the wall.

The cardinal sat on the edge of the bed and uncrumpled the
paper Sinclair gave him, reading the hotel name and room number
again.

Then he reached for the phone.

THE CARDINAL CHECKED HIS watch. He'd told Sinclair to come at
11:00 AM. It was ten after. He drummed his fingers on the desktop.
Perhaps he shouldn't have called the geneticist. But he had to hear
more-at least part of him did. On one hand, he steadfastly denied
any validity to Sinclair's logic. Certainly it was as close to blasphemy
as you could get in today's modern, open way of thinking. But somewhere in the recesses of his mind, lanucci kept asking himself the
same questions. What if this was the ultimate test of his faith? What if
human cloning was the method by which Christ would return-the
wolf will dwell with the lamb, the Church and science lying down
together? The young lion and the fatling together. And how would
the cardinal be judged if he ignored the direct word of God? In other
words, what if Sinclair was right?

The ring of the phone startled Ianucci. He picked it up and listened, then said, "Send him in."

As the door opened, the cardinal sat up straight and smoothed
the fabric of his cassock over his stomach. "Good morning, Dr. Sinclair." He motioned to the chair in front of him.

"Eminence," Sinclair said, nodding. As he had done yesterday, he
put the travel case in his lap after sitting. "I am pleased you have
decided to consider all I have to tell you."

"Do not misinterpret my invitation. I have not changed my mind,
but I feel that I want to hear the basis for your premise. If nothing
else, I will have the opportunity to discredit it."

"Your wisdom further validates why God has chosen you to do
this very special task."

"I am not interested in your flattery, Doctor. If I recall, we had
begun a discussion of how the Messiah will come again."

"Exactly. His Second Coming will not be what has been traditionally envisioned. Of course, John, Matthew, Ezekial-all those who
wrote about Christ's return to Earth couldn't have possibly described
it with clarity. How could they have explained even simple objects
such as a telephone or an airplane, much less DNA? Jesus is coming
back to a modern world, our world, to reign supreme. No one has
been able to determine how or when because the event was described
by men who lived thousands of years ago. But with this vision that I
had, it all became so clear.

"The Second Coming is at hand, and you and I have been chosen
to make it happen. Matthew twenty-four-when asked when He
would come again, Jesus indicated a time when nation would rise
against nation, there would be famines, earthquakes, and pestilence.
He called those things the beginning of birth pains. Is this not what
we are witnessing across the globe-earthquakes, volcanoes, floods,
unusual weather patterns that have catastrophic effects?

"Apocalypse, chapter six, verse eight, St. John's vision of the pale
horse-are we not discovering new diseases springing up around the
world on a continuous basis-diseases resistant to anything man
does to stop them?

"Apocalypse, chapter six, verse five-famine. Over a billion people
face starvation this year. Is that not astounding in a world that has
seen a man walk on the moon?

"The scriptures teach us that the single generation that witnesses
the rebirth of Israel will also witness the promised return of the Messiah. And we have seen the false prophets that precede his returnthe Jim Joneses and David Koreshs leading their followers into mass
suicides. We now have the weapons and the technology to completely
annihilate all life on earth. Would that not explain the prophecies of
attacks from the air, the poisoning of a third of the planet, the death
of billions? God's precise plan that was outlined thousands of years
ago is unfolding.

"The time is now. His divine hand has brought the two of us
together-you as a Prince of the Church, and I, an unworthy servant
to whom God has given the gift of knowledge so His will may be
done, that His son will live again. We must have the courage to do
what He asks-to be instruments of the Father."

Sinclair stared intently at Ianucci. "Do you have the courage to
take up this task, Eminence?"

Ianucci's thoughts flapped through his head like batwings-trying to make sense of what Sinclair said, scrolling through all the biblical text that had been brought up, and more-Isaiah, Daniel, Luke,
Zechariah-for confirmation. What Sinclair said sounded logical.
But it went against everything the cardinal had ever believed and had
been taught. Maybe the man was deranged. Yes, that was it. Sinclair
was demented-obsessed with his own power-driven by his super
ego.

"You're insane," lanucci said, standing to pace.

Sinclair remained calm and soft-spoken. "No, Eminence. I'm not
only perfectly sane, I'm inspired. Just consider it for a moment. Why
do you think the Cup was delivered to you personally? Why now? Even the Talmud speaks of the birth pangs of the Messiah ... irresponsible government, wars, poverty, the breakup of families, and
great scientific advances-a time of miracles. Is it not a time of miracles when from a minute drop of the very blood He shed for us, with
our help, He will live again? In the days of the Blessed Virgin, who
could have imagined the miracle of the Virgin Birth? Don't you see?
This is The Miracle."

"You are wrong. This is wrong," the cardinal said, rubbing his
chest, feeling as if a vise had clamped over his ribs. "Stop. I want to
hear no more."

"How do you know I'm wrong? The world is not flat, Eminence.
Christ said `Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.' He
has chosen you. How can you refuse?"

lanucci turned his back to Sinclair, looking out the window into
the courtyard below. "A clone of Jesus, even if it were possible, would
simply be a replica, not ... Christ, not our Redeemer. Perhaps you
can clone a man, but how do you give a replica the soul of our Savior?" The cardinal faced his visitor and watched the geneticist's eyes
soften.

"I can't," Sinclair said.

The words hung in the air as if he wanted lanucci to think about
the question.

"You're right," Sinclair finally said. "It will be a replica only ...
until the Holy Spirit enters it. Just as the Holy Spirit entered the Virgin Mary so she could conceive and give birth. If you believe that was
possible, you cannot deny this. And you will be his mentor. The child
will be your charge. Think of it. You are the one God has selected. You
cannot refuse."

"Mentor the Christ child?" lanucci could not get enough air into
his lungs, and for an instant his heart lost its rhythm and fluttered randomly. He coughed, and with the length of his forefinger the cardinal swabbed the perspiration from his upper lip. "But the Cup was
buried in the desert for centuries. There's no way the DNA could be
preserved."

Sinclair maintained that constant vague smile as he continued.
"Not true-for two reasons. First, from a scientific point of view,
although the blood cells would have broken down over the millennia,
the nuclear material present in the white blood cells would have
remained intact in the form of chromosomes. The chromosomes
could be preserved because the Cup contained wine from the Last
Supper prior to catching the blood. The presence of alcohol would
have acted as a preservative preventing the bacterial-induced degradation of the nuclear material. I can extract the nuclei and insert
them into a human egg. After the sperm and egg nuclei fuse, the
process is arrested, and the diploid nucleus is removed and replaced
with a diploid nucleus extracted from the material in the Grail. This
is similar to the way Dolly the sheep was created. The engineered
zygote is allowed to divide a number of times in a lab culture before
being implanted into a surrogate mother."

lanucci held up his hand, shaking his head. "That means nothing
to me, Dr. Sinclair. Nothing. You might as well be speaking Martian."
He walked back to his chair and sat.

"Then perhaps this will. The DNA has been preserved because it
is Christ's blood-divine blood. This is the work of the Father, and by
His hand it is preserved. It is truly a time of miracles, Eminence."

The full impact of Sinclair's reasoning shook the cardinal. Deep
inside his core, something that felt like a large pane of glass cleaved,
fractured, shattered. It just could be that Sinclair was not mad, but
perfectly sane ... exactly right. He calculated how it made sense.
Ianucci's words came with difficulty. "It has already been decided that
the wax will not be removed-no research will be done on the so called residue beneath. It is out of my hands. Tampering with the relic
in any way would be discovered immediately."

Sinclair took the titanium travel case and sat it on the cardinal's
desk. "I have a solution."

lanucci stared at the case. He said a quick, silent prayer for strength.
He needed more, something that would kill the last fragment of doubt.
"Dr. Sinclair, I think you have an amazing imagination, but it will take
more than your theories to convince me that either you or I, or anyone
on this Earth for that matter has been chosen to help bring about the
Second Coming."

"With all that I've presented you, Eminence, what more of a sign
would you need?"

The synapses in lanucci's brain fired like sparks from a green
wood fire. "One that would be unquestionable," he said. "One that I
could not ignore."

The phone on the cardinal's desk rang. "Excuse me," lanucci said
to Sinclair before picking it up. "I asked not to be interrupted." He listened for about thirty seconds before placing the receiver back on its
cradle. A glacial chill surged through him, and he wrung his hands to
still the tremors. lanucci sank deep into his chair. Looking up, he saw
Sinclair staring at him.

"Are you all right, Eminence?"

"The Holy Father.. ." lanucci voice quaked.

"What?"

"The Holy Father is dead."