Intervention (28 page)

Jack jogged back to the OCME. With both Bingham’s and Naomi’s consent, the Daughtrys’ work would go ahead. With the elevators in use he used the stairs, eager to let James know that he’d been successful. Sitting down at his desk, Jack checked the time while he got out the card James had given him. It was after four o’clock. Thinking James had probably long since left the reception at Gracie Mansion, he called his direct line rather than his mobile.

“I have some good news,” Jack said when he heard James’s voice.

“That’s a welcome relief,” James replied. “Is Dr. Bingham going to allow Shawn and Sana to use his crowning-glory facility?”

“He is indeed!” Jack reported proudly. “It’s a perfect situation. It’s one of several completely self-contained laboratories, with space for both Shawn and Sana and all the equipment they should need. It’s very private and secure. They can start tomorrow if they like.”

“Praise the Lord,” James said. “I spoke with Shawn not an hour ago. I told him you had agreed to intervene on his behalf as far as the lab space was concerned, and that you’d call later today to give him the news.”

“You want me to call him rather than yourself?”

“I do. I think it is more appropriate. I know he wants to thank you directly for your help.

That’s what he said, but between you and me, I think he wants to make sure that I adequately emphasized the secrecy involved. He’s as paranoid as I am about leaks.”

“I don’t mind telling him, especially since it’s good news.”

James gave Jack Shawn’s office number at the museum and his home number, then said,

“Let me know as soon as you and Shawn talk! I’m nervous about all this, and the more information I have, the better I’ll feel because the more I think about it all, the more damage I’m afraid this could wreak on the Church, and my career.”

“I’ll call you right after I speak with him.”

“I’d appreciate it,” James said before hanging up.

Jack tried Shawn’s office number but got a busy signal. Foiled for the moment, he turned to locating all the material on the teenage shooting death in Central Park, where the hands had not been bagged by the tour doctor. Jack wanted to stay on Bingham’s good side, and one way was to sign out that case as soon as possible, as he had asked.

Once Jack had the necessary information, he was able to complete the paperwork in less than twenty minutes and e-mail Bingham saying that he’d done so.

Trying Shawn again, he got through but instead of getting his old friend, he got Shawn’s secretary. It seemed that Shawn was out of the office but was due back shortly.

Jack decided not to wait. “Can you tell me when the museum closes?” he asked the secretary. “I think I’ll stop in and wait for him.”

“Nine p.m., but I’ll be leaving at four-thirty.”

“Would you take a message for him? Please tell him Dr. Jack Stapleton is coming in for a visit. I can’t make it before you leave, but I should be there before, say, four-forty-five.”

After hanging up, Jack took a few minutes to straighten up his very messy office. While he did so he located the paperwork and slides on the suicide case Lou had called about.

He knew the DA would be looking for it. When he was finished, he grabbed his damp bomber jacket from behind the door and his bike helmet from atop the file cabinet and was out the door.

18

4:21 P.M., FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2008

NEW YORK CITY

T
he sky was clear and the sun near the western horizon when Jack emerged from the OCME and turned northward on First Avenue. The temperature had dropped to a bracing level, and his cheeks burned as he raced the traffic uptown.

At 81st Street he turned west, and soon had the Metropolitan Museum of Art directly before him.

With its tan, neoclassical façade brightly illuminated against the coal black of Central Park, the huge building momentarily took Jack’s breath away. As night had now fallen, the building looked like a jewel on a square of black velvet.

Jack checked his watch. It was exactly quarter to five. Hurrying forward and up the front steps, he entered the renowned museum, asking himself why he didn’t take advantage of its treasures. Somewhat guiltily, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been there.

The huge multistory lobby was filled with people. Jack had to wait at the large oval information booth in the center of the room to talk to one of the museum’s employees.

When he asked for the location of Shawn Daughtry’s office, he was given a map with the route drawn with a marker.

As Jack approached the office, he was pleased to see the door ajar. He walked in and found himself in an outer office with a secretary’s desk. Beyond the desk was a second door, also ajar. Jack continued in and, reaching the threshold, he rapped forcefully on the jamb.

“Aha!” Shawn voiced, leaping to his feet. “Here’s a sight for sore eyes. How the hell are you?”

Shawn moved toward Jack with his hand extended.

“I got your note,” he added, with a smile splashed across his face. “I’m so pleased you stopped by. And look at you, you look as fit as you did the last time we were together.

How do you do it?”

“Mostly street basketball,” Jack said, a bit taken aback by Shawn’s exuberance.

“I should follow your example, buddy,” Shawn said. He leaned back and stuck out his already protruding gut, patting himself as if proud of it.

“So, how long’s it been?”

“I don’t remember exactly,” Jack admitted. He glanced around the spacious office whose windows looked out on Fifth Avenue. A number of early Christian artifacts sat on a large rectangular center table. An entire wall of bookshelves was filled with an impressive collection of art books. The far wall was dominated by an enormous dark green leather couch.

“Beautiful office,” Jack remarked, thinking of his own tiny cubicle.

“Before I say anything else,” Shawn began, “I want to thank you for being willing to help in this affair. It truly means a lot to me, for many reasons, but mostly because I think this extraordinary find is going to define my career.”

“I’m happy to do it,” Jack said, wondering what Shawn would think if he knew that Jack was doing it as much for himself as for Shawn. Being involved in Shawn’s project was a hundred times more absorbing than investigating alternative medicine, the results of which people didn’t want to hear.

“What’s the bottom line? Have you had a chance to ask your chief about lab space?”

“I did. There’s no problem. You and your wife will have to sign a comprehensive liability waiver, but that’s it. No one has even spoken of any charges.”

Shawn clapped his hands loud enough to make Jack jump. “All right!” he cried, before placing his palms together, closing his eyes, and tilting his head up at the ceiling in a crude mime of praying. A moment later he leaned forward and assumed a serious expression. “Jack,” he said. “I’m thrilled you got us permission to use OCME lab space, but there is one thing I do want to talk to you about. It’s an important issue, and one that His over-the-top Holiness said he’d already mentioned. I’d just like to emphasize the fact that we want this whole project to stay completely secret, especially as it pertains to the Virgin Mary. Are you okay with that? If what we expect is in the ossuary, we want to be able to break the news only after we’ve totally finished our respective studies. I want to be entirely sure of the facts when we make the announcement.”

“James was very clear about the secrecy issues. In fact, he’s probably more interested in secrecy than you. I don’t know if you are aware of this, to the extent that you should be, but he means to launch a serious campaign to convince you never to publish anything at all about the Virgin Mary’s connection to the bones. I believe he’s already mentioned to you that he’s totally convinced this is an elaborate fake: a first-century fake but a fake nevertheless, which he is certain you will learn eventually, as a consequence of your investigations.”

Shawn slapped the surface of the desk with open palms, put his head back, and let out a guffaw. When he’d regained control of himself, he shook his head in disbelief. “Isn’t that typical of James? I spent four years arguing with him about the abuses of organized religion, including papal infallibility, and now that I’m closing in on evidence to refute it, he wants to deny my use of it. What a joke.”

“He’s worried it might have a tremendously negative effect on the Church, undermining clerical authority and the reputation of the Virgin,” Jack said. “He’s also worried that he’ll be considered an accomplice because of how you tricked him into signing for the ossuary as well as his being responsible for your access to Saint Peter’s tomb. I think he believes his career could be over.”

“As far as his being responsible for access, he’s correct. But no one is going to blame him for that. This is five years after the fact, and I did produce the definitive work on Saint Peter’s tomb, which was the reason the access was granted originally. It’s the Vatican’s fault that the access has remained on the books. As far as signing for the crate, he did that entirely on his own accord. I didn’t trick him. Personally, I suspect he believed he was getting a gift, a decision made entirely on his own. I never said anything about the crate containing a gift.”

“Well, I’m not going to get between you two guys,” Jack said, not wishing to take sides.

“You’re going to have to work it out yourselves. I just wanted you to know his mind-set.”

“Thanks for warning me,” Shawn said with a grumble.

“I have a question for you,” Jack said, wishing to go on to another issue.

“Ask away.”

“When do you want to start?”

“As soon as possible.”

“How about tomorrow around eight? I have to meet you to usher you through some details.”

“Fine with me, but let me give Sana a quick call, if you don’t mind waiting.”

“Not at all,” Jack said, and meant it. As usual, he was reluctant to go home for fear of what he’d find. Of course, he didn’t like the feeling and didn’t like himself for feeling it.

Shawn reached Sana at the medical school. She’d gone in that day to try to salvage some of the ongoing studies her graduate-school assistants were trying to keep afloat. It sounded as if things had not gone well in her absence. Even Jack could hear the stridency of her voice as Shawn held the receiver away from his ear. Shawn finally got a word in and told Sana the plan.

He listened intently and soon held up his thumb for Jack’s benefit.

“All right!” Shawn said, hanging up. “Eight it is. Where will we meet you?”

“In the lobby of the DNA building,” Jack said. “What about the ossuary?”

“Sana and I will stop at the residence and pick it up on the way.”

“I have to admit,” Jack said, “I’m wildly curious to see what is in the ossuary. You really think there are bones and documents in there?”

“Very confident,” Shawn said. “And if you think you are curious, you cannot imagine how curious I feel. My wife had to literally talk me out of opening it the moment we got it back to the hotel in Rome.”

“What about the letter? Do you have it here?”

“Absolutely. Would you like to see it?”

“I would,” Jack said.

Shawn retrieved a large volume from the bookcase and placed it on the central library table.

“I used this photography book of Egyptian monuments to get the letter out of Egypt. I’ll have the letter’s pages conserved, but for now it’s keeping them flat.”

Shawn exposed the first page of the letter.

“It looks like Greek,” Jack said, bending over the text.

“It looks like Greek because it is Greek,” Shawn said with a condescending chuckle.

“I thought it was going to be in Aramaic or Latin,” Jack said.

“This is not what we call Attic, or classical, Greek but Koine Greek, which was the language of the western Mediterranean during imperial Roman times.”

“Can you read it?”

“Of course I can read it,” Shawn said, taking mild offense. “But it’s rather poorly written, which makes translating it difficult. It’s easy to tell that Greek was not Saturninus’s first language.”

Jack straightened up. “Amazing! It’s like a treasure hunt.”

“I thought the same thing,” Shawn said, “which is one of the reasons I went into archaeology in the first place. It seemed to me the field was one big treasure hunt.

Unfortunately, that’s more romantic than realistic, but finding this letter and then the ossuary has returned me to that romantic notion. Ironically enough, I feel truly blessed.”

“I thought you were agnostic?”

“I still am, for the most part,” Shawn said. “And you?”

“I suppose,” Jack said, thinking of all his personal trials and the damage done to any religiosity he did have. To change the subject, he pointed to the letter and asked Shawn how he’d found it.

“Do you have time for the story?” Shawn asked.

“Absolutely,” Jack said.

Shawn described the whole thing, beginning with an explanation of a codex and continuing on to his visit to Antica Abdul.

“It was pure luck that I stopped in the shop when I did,” Shawn admitted. “Rahul was about to sell it. He has the e-mail addresses of the curators of the world’s famous museums. He’s in regular contact with the who’s who of the field of ancient Near Eastern antiquities.”

“And it’s just a modest hole-in-the-wall antiquities shop in the middle of the Cairo souk?”

“That’s right,” Shawn agreed, “with ninety-nine percent of its inventory being modern fakes. It’s more of a souvenir shop than a true antiquities shop, but it obviously does have some real relics, as I’ve proved on two occasions.”

“So, you’d been there before?”

“I had,” Shawn admitted. He told Jack about his first visit ten years earlier, when he stumbled on the piece of pottery in the window. “You can imagine my shock,” Shawn continued, “when one of my Egyptian department colleagues convinced me it was not a fake. In fact, it is on display downstairs in a prominent location in the Egyptian collection.”

“Did you see the codex in the window like the pot and recognize what it was, or did he just bring it out?”