by Peter James
Finally, just before 8 p.m., his satnav told him he was less than two minutes from his destination. A sign loomed ahead, on his left, ATGC FORENSICS.
He switched on the indicator and glanced in his mirrors. To his relief, the vehicle behind him, some distance back, was indicating right.
55
Thursday, 9 March
Ross drove into what looked like a residential estate, and arrived at a security barrier. A guard came over to him, and he gave his name.
The barrier rose and he went through and, as directed by the man, followed the winding road until he saw ahead of him a row of long, modern, three-storey red-brick buildings, all interconnected. Then a sign indicating VISITORS’ CAR PARK in front of a glass atrium between two of the buildings, which was clearly the main entrance.
He pulled into a bay, and sat still, thinking. The tooth was going to have to be ground to powder. He’d taken numerous close-up photographs of it, but what if it really was Christ’s tooth? The only surviving item of His earthly body, and its unique historical importance – and he was about to sanction its destruction. But without that, he would never know its provenance. Hopefully they might be able to retain a part of it. He climbed out of his car, with his holdall, and walked towards the entrance, passing a sign which read ATGC – BRITISH PHARMACOPEIA COMMISSION LABORATORY. MEDICINES AND HEALTHCARE PRODUCTS. REGULATORY PRODUCTS.
As he approached the doors they slid open and he entered a large reception area, with seating either side, and a curious spiky black sculpture sitting on a shingle base. Ahead of him was a wide, curved reception desk with WELCOME TO ATGC emblazoned on the front.
He walked up to the woman seated behind it.
‘Hi, my name’s Ross Hunter. Jolene Thomas, from the DNA lab, is expecting me.’
He was directed to a carpeted seating area in a recess framed by bare-brick walls. There were several round tables, at each of which were three turquoise upholstered chairs, and a line of screens beyond, on the far wall, displaying photographs of laboratory workers, gowned in white with protective gloves, some wearing face masks and others goggles, performing various tasks.
He placed the bag on the table then checked his phone. There was no message from Imogen. He felt bad, knowing she was so frightened. Maybe this lab would come back with a result showing nothing, and that would be the end of it. A short piece in the Sunday Times about his encounters with a religious nutter who had clearly convinced a lot of people – enough to pursue him to Egypt?
‘Mr Hunter?’
He looked up, startled out of his thoughts, to see a young, attractive woman of about thirty in a bright green dress and black leggings, with silky, waist-length black hair.
‘Yes.’ He stood up and shook her extended hand.
‘Jolene Thomas,’ she said as she sat down opposite him.
‘It’s good of you to see me so late.’
‘No, it’s fine, really. We work mostly for police forces, so we operate on a twenty-four-seven basis. But I understand you’ve come as a private client?’
‘Yes, I have. Can I ask how confidential and secure your work is?’
She smiled. ‘The majority of our work involves crime-scene DNA – where the chain of evidence is crucial. Everything in this company is security code protected. Anything we are given is immediately assigned a bar code, not a name. We are very mindful that we are a prime target for villains who would dearly love to destroy their DNA evidence. But even in the unlikely case they were to break in, they’d find it impossible to locate their samples. Even our individual laboratories here are coded.’
‘Good.’
‘So, what do you have for me?’
‘Is there somewhere private we can go?’ Ross asked.
She took him to a small room just off the reception area. Ross unzipped the bag, removed first the chalice and unwrapped that, followed by the tooth.
‘I believe both of these are very old,’ he said. ‘Many centuries and possibly more – could be as much as two thousand years old. Is dating something you are able to do?’
‘Not dating, no. We can hopefully obtain a DNA profile from each object, and we can get some clues from the degradation, but dating is not our field. We may be able to determine ethnicity, depending on what we are able to find. And we offer three kinds of DNA profile – standard, mitochondrial and Y-STR.’
‘Which is which?’ Ross asked.
‘Well, standard would give you the current profile of the person. That’s what the police tend to want – to see if there is a match to the suspected perpetrator. Mitochondrial, which is harder, and a different test, is the DNA passed down through the X chromosome – the female. That’s the one that enables you to determine the historic bloodline as it doesn’t change.’
‘Doesn’t change?’
‘No.’
‘Does that mean that someone born two thousand years ago, who had a line of direct descendants, could be identified today from their X chromosome?’
‘It does, yes – barring any genetic mutations, which can occur. And the third one, Y-STR, which is more recent, achieves a similar result but down the male line, although it’s not as stable as the mitochondrial, and there are fewer databases at present. The Y chromosomal Short Tandem Repeat.’
‘And that does what?’
‘Well, as I explained, it’s the male equivalent to the mitochondrial. It goes down through the male line, through the Y chromosome, unchanged.’
‘Brilliant, I would like that done too, please. What sort of money are we talking about for all three?’
‘One thing I need to ask you first is whether these items have been handled by gloved or ungloved individuals?’
‘I haven’t touched them with my bare hands – always with gloves or a cloth – but I don’t know who before me might have done.’
‘OK, don’t worry, we’ll take your DNA profiles, which will add a little to the cost, to eliminate you. If you are happy with that?’
‘Yes, fine.’
‘I’ll get these items priced. For the three tests on the two items it will be in the region of two thousand pounds total, plus another two hundred pounds or so for your elimination.’
‘It’s a little more than I’d expected, from my phone conversation earlier, but I can understand why,’ Ross said. ‘That’s fine.’
She looked down at the two items on the table. ‘Doing the tests on this wooden cup will be straightforward, but the tooth is more complicated. I think you were told over the phone that to obtain these results we’d have to crush it into powder, then put it through a sequence of chemical processes.’
‘Do you have to destroy it completely?’
‘I’m afraid so. With an item this small there is no alternative.’
‘Would there be anything left afterwards that you could give me?’
‘Yes, if you wanted, it would be a solution in a vial. And we could make a photographic record of the process, if that would be helpful?’
Ross stared at the tooth. Possibly, if it was real, it was the most significant item in Christian history. He would have to agree to it being deconstructed in order to establish its provenance. Could he do that?
But if he did not, the world would never know.
He felt trapped – a kind of Hobson’s Choice conundrum. Could he do it? Who was he to make this decision? Was there no other way?
‘Jolene, if you crush it, are you able to determine the normal DNA, mitochondrial and Y-STR?’
‘Yes, all three,’ she said.
‘And there is absolutely no other way? No other technology in development that could read the DNA from this without having to destroy it?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
He felt a lump in his throat. His hands were clammy. He was perspiring. What do to? What to do?
‘OK,’ he said, finally. ‘Go ahead, and please make a photo record.
‘Just to confirm, how quickly do you need it?’
‘As fast as you can.’
>
‘We should be able to get you initial results back in about forty-eight hours – is that OK?’
‘Perfect.’
She produced a bunch of forms, which he began to fill in.
56
Thursday, 9 March
The white Boeing 737, emblazoned with the Wesley Wenceslas Ministries logo, was starting its descent into Miami International Airport at the end of its flight from Denver. The jet carried the pastor’s full entourage.
As much a nervous flier in his jet plane as he was in his helicopter, ordinarily the pastor’s prayers to the Lord to keep him safe would have been augmented by a series of glasses of Krug. But at this moment he was too angry to be afraid, and had not touched a drop. Instead he downed several double espressos, in succession, for which Smilealot repeatedly chided him. His MD reminded him that too much caffeine made him hyper, and that when he was hyper he got increasingly angry, and being angry was bad for his blood pressure, which was already too high.
Seated opposite him in the luxurious, rear-facing seat in the office suite of the jet, Lancelot Pope, nattily dressed as ever, swigged smugly and virtuously from a bottle of mineral water. He stuck it on the table in front of him and made another note on his elegant Smythson’s pad with his Montegrappa pen.
‘What’s that bloody smile doing on your face, Smilealot? It’s not holy water in that bottle, you know,’ Wenceslas said.
‘You have to calm down, boss,’ said his trusted MD. ‘You know your doctor’s orders.’
‘Yes, oh wise man? Well, to paraphrase the exchange between the judge and Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, when the judge said, “Never mind your doctor’s orders, Mr Wilde,” he replied, “I never sodding do.”’
‘Tut tut!’ Pope chided. ‘Such language from a man of the cloth. Spiritual leader of millions. Imagine that leaking out onto Twitter!’
‘That would be the least of our problems.’
‘You really are in a bad mood.’
‘And you think I should be in a good one? There is a reason to be in a good one?’
There was a cackle of girlie laughter from the entourage cabin, further along the aircraft. It was followed by a squeal, and then more laughter.
‘Count your blessings,’ Pope said.
‘I don’t have any blessings today.’ He held out his hands in an empty gesture. ‘See? Notice any blessings?’
‘What I do notice is you are biting your fingernails again. Naughty boy!’
Wenceslas curled his fingers over and studied them with an expression of surprise. ‘So I am.’
‘And don’t give me that stuff about the Lord wanting you to bite them as a show of humility, again. I’ll arrange a manicure for you when we get to the house. It’s really not a good image for a leader of the Christian faith to have chewed nails.’
‘Know what you are? You’re a pain in the ass.’
‘That’s why God sent me to you. You want a yes-man, go find him. Until then, you’re stuck with me.’ He put the pen down and held up both his hands. ‘See. Immaculate nails. They say a lot about a person.’
Wenceslas gave him a dubious look. ‘I have bigger things on my mind than my fingernails. We have bigger things. At this moment a very big problem, don’t you think? Possibly the biggest problem the world has ever known?’
The plane bumped a couple of times through small air pockets and the pastor went pale.
‘I can’t believe it’s this scumbag newspaper reporter involved,’ Wenceslas said. ‘Carrying on the work of a dangerous, gullible old man, Harry F. Cook. You know your Bible?’
‘Some of it,’ Pope replied, evasively. In truth, he was well aware of his ignorance of the scriptures, and most of what he knew, he had picked up working for his boss.
‘We know, from our phone taps, that Dr Cook went to a medium and believed that God spoke to him. In 2 Thessalonians 2:9, it says: “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders.” In 2 Corinthians 11, verses 13 to 15, is written: “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.”’
‘Meaning what exactly?’ Pope asked.
‘1 John, chapter 4, verses 1 to 3: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.” And 1 John, 2, verse 18 tells us, “The Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have come!”’
‘So where is he?’
‘He’s clever, he’s smart, he’s a master of disguise. Maybe we are already too late.’
‘Don’t think negatively, boss. That’s one of your mantras, right? Well, that’s what you’re doing now, you are thinking too negatively. Go for the positive. That bastard Ross Hunter is on a crusade, great, let him do the work for us. Let’s see how far he gets. Imagine he finds conclusively that what he has is really Christ’s DNA, fine, then let him lead us to this Antichrist.’
‘How?’
‘We’re on it. Watching him twenty-four-seven.’
‘So is someone else, right? The company, Kerr Kluge. Maybe with a very different agenda from ours – people who want to harness that power, not destroy it.’
‘I’ve hired one of the top guys in the business, ex-Scotland Yard. What he doesn’t know about surveillance isn’t worth a can of beans. We’ve twenty-two experienced covert operatives on Hunter. Want to know where he is?’
‘Yeah, I do.’
‘He’s three miles from home in Brighton, on his way back from ATGC Forensics where he has delivered whatever he brought back from Egypt and—’
‘Whatever he found in Chalice Well that your team screwed up on,’ Wenceslas interrupted. ‘A biscuit tin and a christening cup.’
‘Yep, well, OK, he made a mug out of us – so to speak. Fortunately, our friends in Kerr Kluge screwed up even more in Egypt, according to my sources. And all they have is a small team watching him.’
‘You know, Smilealot, you are being pretty flip about everything. You understand what all this could mean, don’t you? I’m wondering.’
‘Loud and clear, boss. But what if it’s not the Antichrist, but the true Second Coming?’
‘If this smart alec journalist has really got what we think he has, and this gets out into the open – as it surely will – we won’t be in just a two-horse race for it any more.’
Pope nodded. They’d talked it through a lot over the past few days. Christ’s DNA. How many churches of the Christian faith would be after it – starting with the Vatican? How many of Christianity’s ancient enemies? If Wenceslas could go on tour with the Holy Grail and proof of our Lord’s DNA and his messages, they’d fill every football stadium on the planet. He couldn’t even begin to calculate the revenue it would generate. Just supposing it wasn’t the Antichrist but the real deal.
‘We’d become richer than the goddam imposters of the Holy Roman Church! Praise the Lord!’ Wenceslas said, answering his thoughts for him.
‘Praise the Lord,’ Pope echoed.
‘But if the Vatican got hold of it, they’d exhibit it under guard, some place where people could form endless queues to venerate it in a glass display case, in exchange for a donation and the possibility of answered prayers. Or more likely it would disappear. Be buried for ever in some deep vault.’
‘Why do you say that, boss?’
Wesley Wenceslas looked at the man to whom he entrusted the running of his growing empire. ‘What planet are you on? We are in the business of faith, not proof. If His existence is proven, why wo
uld anyone need us any more? They’d just go direct. It would have the same impact on providers of faith that Amazon’s had on retailers. We’d be out of business overnight. You don’t get it? Or what if this turns out to be the Antichrist that has been prophesied? And is already here?’
‘The Antichrist is already here? You really think that? Or is that just your sales message, O Mighty One?’ Pope feigned a bow of subservience.
‘Cut it out!’
‘Let’s have a reality check, shall we?’ Pope said. ‘What is really upsetting you this time about Ross Hunter? Is it your true belief that because he’s following directions given by a medium, it’s the work of the Antichrist? Or is that your smokescreen?’
‘Smokescreen?’
‘Don’t give me that angelic, innocent face, Pastor! I know you too well. You’re afraid that this could be real, aren’t you? That if this is the true Second Coming, then our Lord will expose you for the fraud you really are. That’s your real agenda, isn’t it?’
Without warning, the aircraft plunged for several seconds.
Wesley Wenceslas fell silent and mouthed a prayer.
The plane stabilized.
A minute later they touched down.
‘Praise the Lord,’ Wenceslas said, with relief.
‘Praise the pilot, I’d say,’ retorted Pope.
57
Thursday, 9 March
It was late when Ross arrived home. He pulled into the driveway, scanning all around, but could see no unfamiliar vehicles on the street. All the same he waited before getting out of the car, checking all the shadows. Then he removed his bag from the boot and walked up to the front door.
It was opened by a tearful Imogen before he reached it, with Monty right behind her.
He put his arms round her, hugging her tightly. ‘Hey, what’s up?’
She pressed her wet cheeks against his face. ‘Thank God you’re home. I couldn’t stay here tonight alone. I was going to call the Hodges and ask if I could go over to their place if you weren’t back.’
