For a moment, Pantera thought of walking off the stage. He looked back, trying to find Amato and Renata, but they were nowhere in sight. Pantera swallowed and turned again to face the multitude waiting for his sermon. They had finally quieted, and while they still stared adoringly up at him, they were clearly becoming impatient. As the seconds passed and he still hadn’t spoken, a restlessness began to course through them.
Amato finally crossed the stage to speak to him. “Let’s split,” he told Pantera quietly, trying to keep the mic from picking up his words. “Something’s wrong. Maybe Renata was right. Jude boy double-crossed us.”
“No,” Pantera said firmly. With a weak smile, he added, “The show must go on.”
He turned to the audience, now clearly restless and ready for something—anything. He wondered if any of them could fathom why Nick Amato was standing with him with a nervous expression.
“Master!” someone yelled. Others called out, “Talk to us!”
Pantera raised his arms, expecting to be shot at any moment with a real bullet. Crucified.
“Welcome, Sons and Daughters of Man,” he began. His voice was low—weak, barely audible. He drew in a breath, suddenly unable to remember what he had planned to say. The words had always come so easily, but today, he could not find the magic.
At last, he repeated, louder now, “Welcome, Sons and Daughters of Man!” A great roar went up again.
Still no gunfire. Nothing. Constantine was gone.
Amato had bent again toward him, saying in a firm, direct way, “Leave the stage, Master.”
Renata had run out to warn him off as well. “Get off, Cristos!” she begged.
Before he could move or respond, a platoon of men wearing white shirts, black ties, and black suits had bounded up the stairs and were double-timing it across the stage. With them was a squad of uniformed DC police officers. Some of them grabbed Amato and Renata and pushed them out of the way while the others surrounded Pantera. Another strong contingent of police pushed Amato’s biker guards off the stage. Some of the bikers threw punches and tried to fight, but were tasered and quickly immobilized.
Six tall agents wearing black suits stood around Pantera. One agent held up a document, an arrest warrant. The agent ripped the headset from Pantera and spoke into it.
“Cristos Pantera,” he shouted, then looked out to the multitude stretching out before him who stared up at the stage in stunned silence, “By order of Justice F. Samuel Willingham of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, upon indictment by a United States Grand Jury for inciting rebellion and insurrection, advocating overthrow of the government, recruiting for service against the United States, treason, mail fraud, tax evasion, and embezzlement, and misprision of a felony, among other charges, all of which are felonies under the United States Criminal Code, mandating imprisonment and possibly death, you are hereby placed under arrest.”
In the next moment, the agent grabbed Pantera’s right arm and turned him around. Another slapped handcuffs around his wrists behind his back, and then both agents began leading him across and off the stage, surrounded by their comrades.
The great crowded gawked up at the scene in stunned silence. The Messiah was being arrested for some serious-sounding crimes. As the initial shock began wearing off, some in the crowded called out, “Let him go!” “Hands off him!” “Bullshit!”
The outcry was moments too late. The agents had already hustled Pantera down the staircase to a black, windowless van and, somewhat roughly and unceremoniously, pushed him into the back compartment and slammed the door.
The crowd surged forward, shouting angrily—fists raised, brows furrowed. They finally rushed the stage, far too late.
The van had already driven off, taking their Messiah to prison.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Former Agent Constantine
Constantine woke up in a windowless room with cinderblock walls painted bright white. He’d been out for an indeterminable time and found himself under the covers of a narrow bed. There was a metallic taste in his mouth, and he had a mild, lingering headache. As he pushed himself up on his elbows, he saw Chief Bradley sitting on a plastic, armless chair in the corner of the room, reading the Wall Street Journal.
“Ah, finally, you’re awake,” Bradley said. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, placing a section of the paper on the floor.
After a moment, Constantine levered himself up to a sitting position, his mind racing. He finally settled on the most pressing question, “Who betrayed him?”
Chief Bradley raised an eyebrow. “Who do you think?”
“Goldstein,” Constantine said heavily.
“Yes, the Jew.” Bradley let out a small laugh. “Ironic, don’t you think?”
After a sigh, Constantine asked, “Is he…dead?”
Crucified, he’d almost said.
“We arrested him,” Bradley said. “Charged him with a smorgasbord of crimes—treason, sedition, everything we could. He’s sitting in a jail cell as we speak. The proof is insurmountable. We’ve already gone public with it.” He smiled. “That, and stuff about sexual deviances. The tide of popular opinion has already turned against him.”
“Deviances?”
“Did you really think he could beat us, Agent Constantine? Or should I say, former Agent Constantine?”
Constantine brought up his knees and with his arms around his legs, bowed his head and closed his eyes. “I suppose not.”
“Your head will clear in short order,” Bradley told him. “The drug is wearing off.”
Constantine looked up, as if a thought had just occurred to him, and asked, “Why didn’t you…?”
“Eliminate you?” Bradley cocked his head to one side. “We considered it, but your death, or even disappearance, might make his arrest seem part of a grand conspiracy orchestrated by his claimed ruling elite.” He sighed and continued, “Anyway, the intel analysts crunched their numbers and determined that we’re better off with you and your fellow disciples alive. Even Renata Singh, although she carries his child. The only real threat to us is the one and only Cristos Pantera, and he’s now been neutralized.”
Constantine’s eyes widened. So Pantera would have an heir.
“How far along is she?” he asked.
“Three months. The Jesus bloodline lives on.”
Constantine nodded, suppressing a smile.
“So what do you do with him now?” he asked.
“Well, we can’t exactly have a trial,” Bradley said. “As I said before, can you imagine the media circus? It would be his ultimate pulpit. No, we can’t allow it.”
“So he’ll be murdered in prison,” Constantine stated flatly. “Waiting to stand trial. Or I should say, he’ll be crucified after all.”
Bradley shrugged and said, “It’s being practical. Done to preserve order. No one can better rule the world than us. Did he not gauge the threat we posed? He knew we’d never let him disrupt our work, that we’d do everything in our power to prevent him from changing a world we don’t want changed.” He frowned at Constantine. “Jesus did the same thing. Grossly underestimated us.
“The fact is, former Agent Constantine, you failed him. You should have alerted him to the full extent of our power. That he could not defeat us—at least not now. Perhaps, had he gone slower. His rise was far too fast and so easier to nip in the bud.”
Constantine shrugged. Perhaps. But he’d truly thought they could pull it off—fake Pantera’s death and follow it with a fake resurrection that would ignite the revolution. That it had failed was the fault of a traitor, not Pantera’s. Still, Constantine wondered if he and Pantera and the rest of them had indeed been at fault for failing to see that coming.
Constantine had never felt so defeated. These bastards who controlled the world had won again. Humanity would never escape their grip until, as Pantera warned, the species went extinct.
Then, he imagined Pantera sitting alone right at that moment in a cell
in the DC federal holding center, feeling as low and abandoned as Jesus must have felt in the grip of Rome. Like Jesus, he was probably thinking, God, why hast thou forsaken me?
After a sigh, Constantine looked up and asked, “So that’s it? You let me go?”
Bradley nodded and said, “Yes. Soon.” Then, he shifted in his chair and gave Constantine a curious look. “You truly believed in him, didn’t you?” he asked. “That he was the messiah?”
“I believe…still believe, that he is,” Constantine said, giving his former boss a determined look. “That what he preached was the truth. That the world created by the elitists you support is a soulless one, destined for extinction.”
“Well, then,” Bradley said, “maybe you can make that your new life’s mission. Start a new religion based upon his name and teachings. Wasn’t that the plan all along? Only you won’t have his resurrection to give that religion the needed spark, that connection with God and the promise of immortality. That’s what people always need from their religion, isn’t it? A god. Heaven?”
“You are one cynical bastard,” Constantine said.
Bradley frowned as if hurt by such a sentiment, and said, “Not as much as you think, Agent Constantine. Do not judge me so harshly. I too have a soul.” He sighed, picked up his newspaper, and stood up. “Well, have to run,” he said. “Much to do. A regional chief’s job is never done, as they say.”
Chief Bradley walked slowly to the door. As he opened it, he turned to Constantine and asked, “So when’re you gonna start it?”
“Start what?”
“Your gospel. A religion has to have a gospel.”
Yes, thought Constantine, a gospel.
“You can call it,” Bradley said with a wan smile, “‘The Book of Jude.’”
Part Five
Resurrection
I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?
- John 11:25-26
The resurrection completes the inauguration of God’s kingdom. It is the decisive event demonstrating that God’s kingdom really has been launched on Earth as it is in Heaven.
- N. T. Wright
And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain … And if Christ be not raised, your faith [is] vain; ye are yet in your sins.
- Corinthians 15:14, 17
And who among us doubts that the Master rose from the dead while they say he did not?
- The Book of Jude 17:24, Testament of the Church of Cristos
Chapter Forty-Eight
Crucified
In the end, Cristos Pantera was indeed crucified. Only, it wasn’t called that.
A scowling guard gave Constantine the New York Times newspaper with his breakfast. A headline in the middle of the front page blared, “Pantera Suicide Claimed.” The article reported that, according to official claims, Pantera had used the laces from his sneakers to hang himself from a pipe stem protruding from the ceiling of his cell in the DC holding center. He was wearing an orange jump suit, his hair shorn off.
A week after Pantera’s death, three stone-faced Network operatives, two tall men in their late twenties with thick, athletic bodies and an attractive woman in her late twenties with short, black hair and an equally athletic frame, entered Constantine’s cell. Without a word, they slapped handcuffs on his hands behind his back, and placed a hood over his head.
“Don’t worry too much,” the woman assured him. Her gravelly voice had the slightest twinge of an Eastern European accent.
Constantine was led out of his cell and down a short corridor. They stopped walking, and he could hear an elevator hum its way to them. After a short ride down, he was hauled along another corridor and through a doorway into a large, cold, echoing space. After another few steps, the agents worked together to lift and shove him into the back of a large vehicle. Someone sat him down on a metal ledge in the compartment and buckled him in. A few moments later, the door slammed shut, and what Constantine surmised was the traditional windowless van started up and drove off.
After about forty-five minutes by Constantine’s calculation, the van turned off a main highway and he heard the wheels crunch down a gravel and dirt road. After another couple of minutes, the van stopped. By then, his heart was racing. Despite Chief Bradley’s promise, perhaps they would kill him after all. The compartment door opened, and two sets of hands grabbed Constantine by the arms. The agents stood him up, then led him out of the vehicle.
“Step down,” one of the men said. “Slow.”
They helped him take that step by holding onto him until he found his footing on the soft ground.
It was a warm day for early November, maybe low sixties. The air was clean and fresh. He could smell pine needles. It was also very quiet. The only sounds were the chirping of birds and wind slashing through the pine trees. It seemed they had brought him to the middle of nowhere.
One of the agents unlocked his handcuffs. Constantine reached out his arms, then let them fall to his sides and hang there, certain that the agents wouldn’t want him to pull off the hood just yet.
“Wait,” the woman said, confirming this. “First, we leave. When you hear the horn, you take off the hood. There’s a hundred dollars in your wallet. Five twenty-dollar bills.”
She grabbed his right hand and placed something in it—a key. Constantine clasped it and put it in his shirt pocket.
“You head down the path out of here,” the woman went on. “It leads to a state highway. There, you turn right. Walk half mile to a car. It’s in your name. Full gas tank.” She waited a moment. “You understand?”
With a nod, Constantine said, “Yes.”
He heard the van doors open and shut and the engine roar to life, then the crunch of gravel as it drove off toward the state road. After about fifteen seconds, he heard the van’s horn.
Constantine lifted the hood off his head and found himself standing in a shadowy area with tall pine trees. He started walking down the narrow gravel road toward the state highway the agent had mentioned.
Just as the agent had promised, a small sedan was parked half a mile up the road. He reached into the back pocket of the jeans they had given him and grabbed the wallet. Also as promised, he found five twenty-dollar bills along with a driver’s license in his real name, as well as various credit cards and a debit card for a major bank. He wondered for a moment whether he should deposit the half a million dollars he had stashed away over his ten years as a Network agent in banks around the world.
It looked like the Network had made sure he was ready to commence the next phase of his life.
Constantine soon found that he’d been deposited in northern Virginia. For the first few days after his release, he stayed at one of the more reasonably priced chain hotels along Interstate 66 with an internet connection. After checking in, he bought a laptop and a smartphone at a nearby Best Buy.
Back at his hotel room, he googled Pantera’s death. After reading every newspaper and magazine article he could find, he watched the reports of it made by CNN and Fox News. Most of the print and broadcast reports agreed that Pantera’s suicide had been brought on by his shame at being found out as a fraud and the sudden demise of his celebrity. In short, he was not the saintly, wonderful person his followers thought him to be. Even his ties to Jesus began to be questioned by purported scholars, no doubt on the Network’s payroll.
In the final analysis, the pundits all claimed, Pantera’s story was the worn-out, archetypical saga of the rapid rise and fall of an evangelizing charlatan. He was yet another false prophet in the pantheon of false prophets who’d quickly come and gone, all with unrealizable promises about God and Heaven and immortality.
In response to this cruel assessment, Constantine opened Facebook and Twitter accounts, and created a Facebook group called “The Church of Cristos.” He fought back as best he could, posting comments and tweets
that everything said and written about Pantera in the media and on the Internet were lies perpetrated by a secret ruling elite known as the Supremacy. In short, they were pulling yet another fast one on the mindless masses. His writings included a kind of autobiography concerning his role as a spy for the Supremacy’s intelligence agency, the Network, and his last assignment to monitor and infiltrate Pantera’s ministry—and the order to crucify the man who had taught him about God.
Constantine also did his best to describe the Kingdom of God as Pantera had explained it. If he couldn’t keep Pantera’s teachings alive, then everything else was pointless.
Unsurprisingly, most people were skeptical that the person making these posts really was a former “Network” agent who had become one of Pantera’s inner circle. There were detractors—possibly on the Network’s payroll—who challenged his claims about a secret ruling elite as the ravings of a mad man.
A few people—only a handful, at first—accepted him and his claims as authentic, became his friends and followers, and wanted to know more. That number slowly grew.
The Supremacy Council’s assessment that once Pantera was out of the way, his movement would fizzle out and soon be forgotten was borne out in the weeks following his death. The Network’s statistical and intelligence analysts supported this assessment.
People got on with their lives, their interest in Pantera and his mission diverted to something else—another major and frightening terrorist attack (arranged by the Council just for that purpose), a new viral epidemic in Africa with the potential to spread around the world, a mysterious plane crash, a Papal visit to America, the NFL season getting into high gear with meaningful games determinative of playoffs, the stock market’s whimsical ups and downs, the early holiday season in full materialistic swing. And of course, there was the usual hotly contested American presidential election.
The Messiah Page 18
