The Fifth Gospel (9 page)

Lucio gives him a long, unappreciative stare. “Alexander and Peter are welcome to stay under
this
roof. And you're mistaken: I received a call from the gendarmes twenty-five minutes ago saying they may have caught an image of a suspect on one of the security cameras.”

“That's great news, Uncle,” I say.

“How long before they have something definite?” Simon asks.

“I'm sure they're working as quickly as they can,” Lucio says. “In the meantime, what can you tell me about all of this?”

I glance at Simon. “We found some things in my apartment this morning that suggest the two . . . incidents . . . were related.”

Lucio adjusts the angle of a pen lying on his desk. “The gendarmes are examining that same possibility. It's obviously very concerning. You told them about these things you found?”

“Not yet.”

“I'll ask them to contact you again.” He turns to Simon. “Is there anything else I should be aware of ?”

My brother shakes his head.

Lucio frowns. “Such as, what you were doing at Castel Gandolfo in the first place?”

“Ugo called me and asked for help.”

“How did you get there?”

“A driver from the car service.”

Lucio clicks his tongue. The car service reports to him, but ordinary priests aren't allowed to call for rides, and the boss's nephews are expected to stay above reproach.

“Uncle,” I say, “have you ever heard of someone getting through the gates at Castel Gandolfo? Or here?”

“Certainly not.”

“How would someone have known our apartment number?”

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

Through the open door I watch Diego serve Peter the orange juice in a crystal glass. Peter recoils, remembering that he broke one of these last year. The nuns were on their knees for half an hour collecting shards. I glare at Diego for not remembering.

“Well, then,” Lucio says, “there's another matter I called you here to discuss. Unfortunately, Nogara's exhibit needs to be changed.”

Simon explodes. “
What?
”

“My curator is gone, Simon. I can't mount his exhibit without him. In some of the galleries it's not even clear what's to be hung where.”

My brother rises from his seat. Almost hysterically he says, “You can't do that. He gave his
life
for this.”

I murmur to Simon that after what happened last night, a change or postponement might be a good idea.

Lucio taps a bony forefinger on a budget sheet. “I have four hundred invitations out for opening night. Postponing is out of the question. And as of right now, since Nogara never finished setting up the last few galleries, it isn't really a matter of
changing
an exhibit so much as mounting one. Therefore I'd like to discuss the possibility—particularly with you, Alexander—of centering the exhibit around the manuscript rather than the Shroud.”

Simon and I are agog.

“You mean the Diatessaron?” I ask.

“No,” Simon says. “Absolutely not.”

Lucio ignores him. For once, only my opinion counts.

“How would that even be possible?” I ask.

“The restorers are done with the book,” Lucio says. “People want to see the book. We put the book in a case and show it to them. The details would be up to you.”

“Uncle, you can't fill ten galleries with one manuscript.”

Lucio snorts. “If we remove the binding, we can. Each page can be mounted separately. And we've already made some large photographic reproductions for the walls. How many pages in the book? Fifty? One hundred?”

“Uncle, that's probably the oldest intact binding on any gospel ever discovered.”

Lucio makes a brushing motion with his hand. “The people in the manuscript laboratory know how to manage these things. They'll do whatever we need.”

Before I can refuse, Simon slams a hand on Lucio's desk. “
No
,” he says firmly.

Everything freezes. With a look, I urge Simon to sit. Lucio raises one great, snaking eyebrow.

“Uncle,” Simon says, running a hand through his hair, “forgive me. I'm . . . grieving. But if you need help finishing the exhibit, I can tell you what you need to know. Ugo told me everything.”

“Everything?”

“This is very important to me, Uncle.”

There was a time when these unpredictable eruptions doomed
Simon in my uncle's eyes. They were a Greek trait, Lucio said, not a Roman one. But now he says this is what sets Simon apart. What will launch him places even my uncle has not been.

“I see,” Lucio says. “I'm glad to hear that. Then you'll need to direct the other curators, because we have much to do in the next five days.”

“Uncle,” I interject, “you realize Simon and I are dealing with a situation of our own right now?”

He shuffles the pages on his desk. “I do. And I'm having Commander Falcone send an officer to guard you and Peter as a precaution.” He turns to Simon. “As for you: you'll sleep here, under this roof, until the exhibit work is done. Agreed?”

Simon would sooner sleep on a street corner outside of Termini station. But this is the price of all this uncharacteristic pleading. He's shown Lucio who holds the cards.

Simon nods, and Lucio raps his knuckles twice on the desktop. We're done. Don Diego returns to see us to the elevator.

“Should I send someone for your bags?” Diego needles Simon.

They will be suitemates for the next five nights. Warden and prisoner. But there is momentary solace in the hollow of Simon's eyes. Relief. He won't take the bait. When the metal door slides open, Peter rushes inside, eager to push the elevator button. Before Diego can find another way to prod Simon, Peter and I are descending.

C
HAPTER
8

I
T WAS SHORTLY
after my dinner at Ugo's apartment that I helped him break into the Vatican Library to see the Diatessaron. “Meet me at my apartment at four thirty,” he'd said. “And bring a pair of gloves.”

At four thirty I was at the apartment. Ugo arrived a quarter-hour later. In his hands were two plastic bags from the Annona, the Vatican grocery store. One of them bore the unmistakable contours of a bottle of alcohol.

“To calm the nerves,” he said, winking. But his brow was damp and his eyes were uneasy.

Once we were inside his flat, he drank shot after shot of Grappa Julia. “Tell me something,” he said. “Do you know how to find your way around down there?”

Down there: below his apartment, in the library.

“How could I?” I said testily. He'd given me the impression that he'd done this before. That I would just be following. After all, just to get in the front door of our library required an application with references from accredited scholars. To see a book required paperwork. To fetch it required a library employee, since no patron was ever allowed to enter the stacks.

“If we already know where the manuscript is,” I asked, “then can't we just take it off the shelf and read it?”

His other supermarket bag contained a trove of equipment. Two
flashlights, an electric camping lantern, a box of latex gloves, a loaf of bread, a bag of pine nuts, a pair of slippers, a notebook, and what appeared to be a loop of wire the size of a child's tennis racket. All of which he was proceeding to bury in a duffel bag.

“Oh, we can take it off the shelf,” he said. “
That
isn't the problem.” He checked his watch. “Now step lively, Father Alex. We need to hurry.”

I pointed to his bag. “We won't get past the guards at the front desk carrying that.”

He scoffed. “Don't be silly. There's a steam duct that vents through a window on the second floor. It's been out of commission for years.”

I stared at him.

Ugo chuckled and gripped my arm. “Kidding, kidding. Now stop worrying and come on.”

HE HAD A
FRIEND
on the inside. An old French priest whose office stood in a forgotten corner of the building. The library closed in ten minutes, but Ugo's apartment was so close that we reached his friend in under two.

Ugo stopped me outside the office and said, “Wait here a moment.”

He went in alone but didn't shut the door completely.

“Ugolino,” I heard the man say anxiously in his French accent, “they've found out about you.”

“Doubtful,” Ugo replied.

“Security went door-to-door today, warning us to report any unfamiliar persons.”

Ugo didn't answer.

“The priest who came with them,” continued the voice, “knew your name.”

Ugo cleared his throat. “The new system is still being tested?”

“Yes.”

“So the door's still open?”

“It is. But it's not a good idea for you to be down there alone anymore.”

“Agreed.” Ugo came to the door and admitted me. “Meet Father ­Alexander Andreou. He'll be joining me tonight.”

The Frenchman was a silver fox of a priest. He had a bottle-brush beard that almost concealed the sharp downturn in his mouth at the sight of me.

“But Ugolino . . .” he began.

Ugo collected his friend's hat and umbrella from the coatrack. “You're wasting your breath. And they're going to notice if you don't leave at the usual time. We'll talk tomorrow.”

The priest closed the blinds over the glazed office door. “This isn't wise. Every little sound travels in these halls. With
him
here, you're bound to talk. To draw attention.”

But Ugo only nudged him toward the door. The clock over the door read twelve past five. In the reading rooms, scholars had already packed away their notebooks and laptops. They were returning to the main desk for keys to their lockers, and in a few minutes they would be gone. After that point, it would be impossible to explain why Ugo and I were here.

“What was he warning you about?” I asked when Ugo closed the door.

He peeked between the blinds. “Nothing.”

“Then why are you looking into the hallway?”

“Because I wish your uncle would hire a few curators who look like Signorina de Santis next door!”

I slumped against the wall. In camaraderie, Ugo followed suit, retrieving the loaf of bread from his duffel bag. He smiled sadly. “You understand you won't be able to tell anyone what you see tonight. Not even your students.”

Under the door, the hall lights began to go dark.

“I'm not doing this for my students,” I said.

“Father Simon tells me your father trained both of you to read the New Testament in Greek.”

I nodded.

“He also said you were the studious one, and he was the laggard.”

“The gospels were my favorite subject in seminary.”

For any gospel teacher—even one who taught altar boys in pre-­seminary like I did—there was excitement in knowing that our understanding of the Bible was imperfect. That older, better, more-complete manuscripts of the gospels were always waiting to be discovered. Tonight was a chance to hold one of those manuscripts before it was locked away like the rest.

Ugo cleaned his glasses on his handkerchief. He peered at me with
eyes that were surprisingly lucid. “And did we tell Father Simon what we were doing this evening?”

“No. I haven't been able to reach him for a couple days.”

He sighed. “Neither have I. Your brother disappears sometimes. Glad to know it isn't personal.” He checked his watch and stood up. “Now, there's something you need to know before we go. We mustn't leave a trail, because it seems someone's been following me.”

Remembering his conversation with the French priest, I said, “Who?”

“I don't know. But after tonight I hope he won't have another opportunity.” Ugo removed his shoes and changed into the slippers from his duffel bag. “Just follow me. Down we go.”

THE HALLS WERE dark,
but Ugo knew his way. For a man of his size he was soundless even when we entered the first monstrous corridors of stacks.

I had expected old wooden bookcases piled high in vast frescoed arches. Instead there were low, industrial tunnels longer than ocean liners, veined with electrical conduit. On the cold metal decks my shoes made a slapping sound that echoed down the corridors, and I had to stoop to avoid hitting my head on the caged lightbulbs. But Ugo traveled deftly, as if the drinks had only limbered him up.

The steel stacks were on all sides of us now—left and right, above and below—floor upon floor connected by attic-like openings linked by narrow ship-ladders. Ugo relied on the flashlight he had brought because the overhead bulbs were on timers. Down we went, and down again. At last we came to an elevator.

“Where does it go?” I asked.

My voice, just as the French priest had warned, rebounded across the marble floors, shearing through the woolly darkness.

“To the very bottom,” Ugo whispered.

The doors closed after us, and the car immediately went dark. The beam of Ugo's flashlight went straight to the control panel. Before I could even read the inscriptions there, he had launched us on a slow descent.

The doors reopened on an area with butter-colored walls and fluorescent lights. There were no shelves here, only the occasional crucifix and holy icon on the walls, separated by fire detectors and boxes of emergency lights. All of it had the unfamiliar, chemical odor of newness.

“Are we underground?” I whispered.

Ugo nodded and led me around the bend, murmuring, “Now to see if he was right.”

Around the corner we came to an immense door built entirely of steel. The adjoining wall was mounted with a security keypad.

But instead of entering a passcode, Ugo reached his fingers behind the lip of the door and leaned backward.

The slab of steel quietly swung open. Beyond it lay darkness.

“Excellent,” Ugo muttered. Then he turned and said, “Touch absolutely nothing until I explain why this door was left unlocked.”

He reached inside to twist the timer on the electric lights. When they came on, my legs went numb.

Twenty years ago, John Paul had broken ground on a new project. The Vatican Library had run out of shelf space, so in a small courtyard north of the library, where employees once grew vegetables in wartime and where Uncle Lucio now ran a café to squeeze money from visiting scholars, John Paul dug a pit. Into it he poured the foundation of a bombproof concrete chamber, designed for his most prized possessions. Today, when scholars sipped drinks at Lucio's café, they stood on a thin layer of grass concealing the steel-reinforced crypt of John Paul's treasures.

As a child I had imagined the place. It was, in my daydreams, as large as a bank vault. But the room that now lay before me was the size of a small airfield. The main passage was half the length of a soccer field, with aisles on either side deep enough to park a tour bus.

“Behold,” Ugo whispered, “the world's greatest collection of manuscripts.”

There are two kinds of books in the world. Since the time of Gutenberg, printed books have been spawned by the millions, mass-produced by machines, blotting out the older species of book: manuscripts. An illiterate Renaissance businessman with a printing press could spew ten books faster than a team of educated monks could hand-make a single manuscript page. Considering how few manuscripts were produced, and how much mistreatment they endured over the centuries, it's a miracle any have survived. But since books were first invented, they have had a powerful friend: there has always been a Christian Church to make them, and a pope in Rome to collect them. Of all the great libraries
in human history, only one still exists. And by the grace of God, into the heart of that library I now stepped.

“Take this,” Ugo said, handing me the other flashlight. “The timer lasts only twenty minutes. Now let me show you what we're up against.”

He synced the countdown to his digital watch, set it running, then removed the loop of wire from the grocery-store bag. For the first time I got a good look at it: an electronic handset connected to an oval of metal like an oven coil. When he turned it on, red letters flickered across the handset.

“They're installing a new inventory system,” he said, “so they won't have to shut down the library for a month every year to do it by hand. Do you know what this is?”

It looked like the offspring of a TV antenna and a towel warmer.

“It's a radio frequency scanner,” he said. “Tags have been implanted in the manuscript bindings, and this scanner can read fifty at a time, straight through the air.”

He led me past the first stack, demonstrating as we passed. Lines of text scrolled down the screen faster than I could read them. Call numbers. Titles. Authors.

“Even with this wand,” he said, “it took me two weeks of searching to realize the manuscript must be down here. Two weeks, and a bit of luck.” He nodded in the direction of a white plastic box installed on the ceiling. “Those are the permanent scanners. For some reason, they interfere with the security system, so the steel door has to remain unlocked until the problem has been fixed.” He glanced at me. “For us, that's good news. The bad news is that this RF technology makes the steel door irrelevant. My first visit to this vault, I made the mistake of taking a book to a different shelf across the aisle. The scanners saw it moving. In five minutes, a security guard was here.”

“What did you do?”

“Hid and prayed. Fortunately, the guard thought the system was just on the fritz. From then on, I've followed two rules. One: I read in situ. And two: I wear
these
.”

He produced the pairs of latex gloves from the bag.

“To avoid leaving fingerprints?” I said.

“Not the kind you're thinking of,” he said with a glint in his eye. “Now follow me.”

As we moved through the stacks, his precision increased. Leaving the duffel at the end of an aisle, he exhumed a vial of alcohol swabs and cleaned his hands before donning the gloves.

“Is this it?” I asked, seeing that the handset was now registering a fondo of manuscripts in Syriac, the ancient language of Edessa in the time of the Diatessaron. The language, also, closest to Jesus' Aramaic.

But Ugo shook his head and continued deeper into the aisle. “
This
,” he said, “is it.”

On the screen, a strange notation had appeared. Where call numbers should have been, there was a Latin word.
CORRUPTAE
.

Damaged
.

“This shelf,” Ugo said, “is a backlog for the restoration workshop.” He gestured at an entire stack, more than one hundred in all. “They don't even seem to realize it's here.”

“How did you find the right manuscript?”

Ugo couldn't read Greek, and knowledge of Syriac was far rarer.

“Father Alex, I've been coming down here every night since I came back from Turkey. I sleep only during the days. What you see here has become my life. I'm
this
far”—he pinched his fingers in the air—“from proving that the Shroud was in Edessa in the second century. If I'd had to, I would've searched every manuscript in this palace by hand.” He grinned. “Fortunately, all the manuscripts on this shelf still have indexes from the
old
inventory system—written in beautiful Latin.”

Squinting, he peered up at the shelves and ran a gloved finger through the air, just a hairsbreadth from their spines. When he came to the one he wanted, he cocked his head and glanced back at the nearest scanner on the wall, as if estimating its tolerance for movement. Finally he said, “Put your gloves on.”