The Parchment (2 page)

Yassir clicked off the cell phone and handed it back to Habib.

Outside, a stray dog poked curiously at the body of the doctor, but a shot from an Israeli marksman drove him away.

Cardinal Francesco Barbo, the Vatican secretary of state, was awakened at 5:30 in the morning and told of the shootings at the Sepulchre. Barbo quickly dressed and hurried to his office. Given what had happened at the church, Barbo knew he had to take charge personally of the Vatican's response.

The cardinal secretary of state was a tall, big-boned man with an aristocratic nose and dark silver hair. Although seventy years of age, Barbo's energy and stamina were legendary. He had risen through the Curial ranks with meteoric speed. Born into a middle-class family in Milan, he entered the priesthood when he was sixteen. From his earliest days in the seminary, Barbo was singled out to join the papal diplomatic corps. After finishing four years of study in Milan, he was invited to attend the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy—the Vatican school for diplomats. Then after two years, he was sent to the Jesuit-run Gregorian University for his theological training. At the “Greg,” Barbo became fascinated with the Crusades — most particularly with the fabled Order of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon. Led by laymen, the Templars
were a unique brotherhood of warriors, priests, monks, bankers, diplomats, and scientists. Barbo's doctoral dissertation—
Mixing the Secular and the Religious: The Knights of the Temple and Their Structure of Governance
—had won plaudits, both for the depth of its research and the incisiveness of its analysis.

Barbo's advancement in the Vatican diplomatic corps was assured when he was sent to earn a doctoral degree at the Woodrow Wilson School for Diplomacy at Princeton University. While at Princeton, Barbo was asked to give a series of guest lectures on Church history at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Barbo possessed a first-class mind and an acerbic wit. The cardinal spoke six languages fluently and was comfortable in four more. Little passed him by without notice and, once noticed, little was ever forgotten. When he was named cardinal, the Latin coat of arms he chose read
Tides et Utilitas
—“Faith and Pragmatism.”

Father Enrico Alessandri, the cardinal's chief of staff, stood in the corridor outside Barbo's office. Although he had spent the night monitoring events in Jerusalem, the thirty-two-year-old Alessandri showed no sign of fatigue. Lean and muscular from years of soccer playing, Alessandri's starched Roman collar and pressed cassock gave him a clean, almost scrubbed look.

“Your Eminence, our nuncio in Israel, Archbishop Finnergan, called. The Israelis have retrieved the body of the doctor. It is being flown to the Netherlands for burial.”

“’This has been a sad day for everyone, but that is good news, Enrico. Have there been any further communications from inside?”

A secretary, her eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, stuck her head into the hallway. “Your Eminence, I'm sorry to interrupt but the Holy Father is on your line.”

Barbo strode quickly to his desk. The cardinal waved a handful of staff members out of his office so he could speak privately with the pontiff.

“Francesco.” There were traces of sleep in Pope Benedict's voice. “The Israeli Prime Minister just called. The terrorists inside the church have issued an ultimatum; they will start executing hostages in thirty hours unless Israel gives in to their demands.”

Barbo clenched his teeth in anger. “Holy Father, the Israeli sniper was the cause of this. The Israelis must take steps to defuse the situation.”

“The prime minister understands that. He's willing to reopen the mosque and release the Hamas militants they recently arrested. But he refuses to free the gunmen inside the church. The Israelis believe they were behind the Wailing Wall bombing.” Pope Benedict was silent for a moment. “Francesco, send Archbishop Finnergan into the Sepulchre to talk to the Hamas commander. It might help calm matters.”

“Holy Father, Finnergan grew up on the streets of Belfast. Sometimes he forgets he's a papal nuncio and tries to negotiate with his fists.”

“That's why he's the right person to deal with Hamas. He can't be intimidated.” There was a resolve in the pope's voice that Barbo had not heard for several months. “What is Washington saying to the Israelis?”

Barbo fingered through a pile of emails on his desk. “Washington's trying to persuade the Israelis to let the gunmen go free, but the Americans are meeting resistance. The Israelis have told Washington they cannot do it politically.”

A familiar voice suddenly came on the line. It was Sister Consuela, the pope's housekeeper. “Your Eminence, the Holy Father is exhausted. I must cut the conversation short — it could excite him too much.”

“I understand, Consuela. I'll keep the Holy Father informed of developments.”

The phone clicked off. Barbo walked to the window and looked up at the papal quarters. The solitary light in the pope's bedroom went dark.

THE REWARDS
F SCH
LARSHIP

P
ROFESSOR
J
ANE
M
ICHELLINI
walked across the reading room in the Vatican Apostolic Library to where her colleague James Bielgard sat facing a pile of manuscripts.

“Don't forget, we've got to put in an appearance at the director's office today or our library clearances will expire. We don't want to lose access to the uncatalogued manuscripts.”

Preoccupied, Bielgard barely heard what Michellini said. “Holy shit! I don't believe this.” Bielgard's voice ricocheted around the room.

An elderly priest examining an illuminated Bible glared impatiently at Michellini and Bielgard.

“Jim, be quiet. If there are complaints, the library could revoke our privileges.”

“Look at this! It appears to be a Jewish census record, Jane. Your Hebrew is better than mine.”

Michellini lifted the manuscript from the table and read it. After a minute, she pulled a chair up to the desk, sat down, and studied it more carefully. Bielgard nervously tapped his walking stick on the library floor.

After several minutes of concentration, Michellini stood up and stared at Bielgard with a stunned look on her face. “Where in God's name did you find this?”

“Upstairs in a chest filled with twelfth-century documents from the Knights of the Temple.”

Distracted by the nervous tapping of Bielgard's cane, the priest slammed his hands on the table and angrily motioned for a library attendant to carry the illuminated Bible into an adjourning reading room.

At sixty, James Bielgard, the Robert M. Kevin Professor of Medieval History at the University of Michigan, was a tall avuncular looking man, with a high forehead and a thin aquiline nose. With his inexhaustible collection of bow ties, Bielgard cultivated a flamboyant image among his academic colleagues. He admitted to a close friend, however, that the walking stick he carried with him at all times was an affectation, not a medical necessity. A brilliant and entertaining lecturer, Bielgard's classes at the university were always over-subscribed. Some students thought Bielgard's intellectual pretense bordered on the humorous. Amused, they would organize a weekly lottery. Whoever guessed how often Bielgard would cite his own publications won twenty dollars.

Jane Michellini, an arrestingly beautiful woman, was an associate professor of European History at Bard College in New York. Unlike Bielgard, her former teacher and mentor, Michellini was a stylish dresser, sporting a trademark red and gold scarf that set off her long black hair. Her concentration and focus were legendary. She was reputed once to have sat reading manuscripts for three consecutive days in the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California, with virtually no food or drink.

A few years earlier, Michellini and Bielgard had coauthored a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, which had won the coveted United States Historical Association Prize for Medieval History. The decision to award the prize to the two American scholars, however, was not a simple one. A French colleague had accused Bielgard and Michellini of plagiarizing several pages from his article on Eleanor's relationship with her son, King John of England. In a close vote, a jury of historians exonerated Bielgard and Michellini on the plagiarism charge but warned them about “failures in appropriate citation.” They hoped their second collaborative effort, tentatively entitled “Jihad in the Middle Ages,” would be as critically acclaimed as the Eleanor biography but with less controversy. Initially, at least, they had every cause for optimism. After two unsuccessful attempts, they had finally been given access to the library's uncatalogued manuscript collection. Bielgard attributed the access to their perseverance; Michellini, to a phone call from the White House Press Secretary, who coincidentally had been Michellini's former roommate at Mount Holyoke College.

Standing up from the table, Michellini motioned Bielgard to follow her out of the reading room. The two professors found a quiet corner in the coffee bar.

“God, Jim. If this parchment is authentic, it dwarfs the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Think of the recognition we'll get. The Vatican Library should call a press conference.”

“Forget the library! We found the manuscript, not them.”

Michellini glanced at Bielgard with a puzzled look. “What does that mean?”

“I'm not sure — let me think. The parchment is uncataloged. We could smuggle it out of here and sell it to a collector.”

“Right, and get caught like Robert McNabb.”

The McNabb affair had sent tremors through the library world. A frequent researcher at the Vatican Library, retired Iowa State University Professor Robert McNabb had removed illuminated pages from the Vatican Library's fourteenth-century manuscript collection and offered them for sale to wealthy collectors.

Bielgard thought for a moment as he absentmindedly fingered his cane. “We're in a different position from McNabb. We don't have to approach collectors. The Catholic Church will pay a fortune to get this back.”

Michellini frowned at Bielgard as her mind raced through the implications of his words. “Are you suggesting we blackmail the Vatican?”

“It's a possibility.”

“Well, count me out. I went along with your scheme on the Eleanor biography. I barely got out of that with my reputation.”

A bell sounded, and the public address system announced that the library would close in ten minutes.

“Jane, we can talk about this later. Please do me a favor and renew my library clearances. I'm covered with dust from handling these manuscripts. I've got to wash up. I'll meet you at the exit.”

“Okay.”

Michellini returned to the reading room, picked up her laptop, and walked toward the down staircase. At the director's office on the ground floor, she filled out the necessary paperwork to renew
library clearances for herself and Bielgard. As she was paying the renewal fees, she saw Bielgard hurrying down the library staircase, waving his cane. Without warning, he slipped on the bottom step and fell on the ground. Several security officers ran over to help him up.

“Grazie. It was this damned walking stick. I tripped over it.”

Michellini took Bielgard's arm as they left the library.

“Jim, I'll treat you to a cab back to the hotel. You really took a spill in there.”

At nine o'clock in the morning, a panel truck drove up to the entrance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Archbishop Michael Finnergan, the papal nuncio to Israel, climbed out of the truck and, along with three priests, carried food and medical supplies into the church. A camera crew from the Al-Jazeera news agency accompanied them.

“Who's in charge here?”

“I am.” Yassir lifted his machine gun menacingly and walked up to Finnergan.

“I would like to talk to the hostages and hear their confessions. You've endangered their lives.”

“No tricks!”

“I give you my word as a priest.”

Yassir pointed with his gun. “Go ahead. Make it fast.”

Finnergan took a white stole out of his pocket and walked over to a group of hostages. Brandishing his automatic rifle, a gunman stepped in front of him.