“The wax is more supple than I would have expected,” Anna noted. “It’s coming away relatively easily. However, its great age is apparent in its color and texture.”
Roberto snapped a few pictures as she continued her analysis. The jagged, minute shards of her scraping littered the tabletop, dark speckles against pale gray. Around the seam she went, digging away the seal, the years.
The sanctuary a world had known for two millennia.
“I think that will do it,” she said, setting the probe aside. She picked up a sturdy blade and began to pry, loosening the lid further. Little by little, more gently than the stone warranted, she worked the lid free.
There was a soft hiss as air separated by fifty generations began to mingle.
“Hermetically sealed.” Roberto smiled. “You were right.”
“I’m surprised,” Anna remarked, fascinated. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
The seam opened in full, yielding to a further twist of the wide blade.
“Okay,” the professor said, drawing a breath as she set the tool aside. “Here we go.”
The room was as silent as a crypt as she gripped each end of the lid and slowly lifted it. Roberto and Laneri leaned in, almost crowding her. As the travertine top came away, light spilled into the box for the first time since Paul himself breathed and walked and spoke.
Anna’s eyes fell upon the contents.
Scrolls, a number of them, rolled together and tied with a single ribbon of red silk. Beneath these rested another smaller leaf, facedown in the bottom of the box.
“Oh my,” she whispered, handing the lid to Laneri. Her fingers trembling almost imperceptibly, she reached inside and lifted the fragile roll from its resting place. Roberto’s shutter clicked wildly.
“Papyrus,” she said, measuring the roll with a transparent rule. “Fourteen and one-quarter inches wide. In amazing condition. Still pliable … Very little of the brittleness one would expect, though its age is evident in its scent and color. Perhaps half a dozen leaves here.”
Taking tools in hand, she carefully loosened the ribbon, slipped it off and set it into the box.
“Silk,” she stated for the record. “Also still supple. Brilliant red, about an inch and a half wide. No leaching of color into the papyrus.”
Slowly, gently, her gloved fingers tested the flexibility of the papyri. Finding it safe, she began to unroll them, exposing the first few lines of black writing on the top leaf.
“Greek,” she said. “This is in Greek, not Latin. Interesting …”
She began to read. She had barely finished the first line when a gasp closed her throat. Her eyes darted from word to word.
“Oh my … Oh my …”
“What is it, dottoressa?” Roberto asked. “What does it say?”
Anna took a few deep breaths. She read aloud, excitement clipping her words.
“So that you may walk in truth, worthy of the Father, and increase in the knowledge of God; I, Paul …” She stopped, the words hanging in her throat.
A murmur swept the room. Delight shone on everyone’s faces.
“Paul,” Anna said, her pulse racing.
Laneri clasped his hands. “An unknown writing of the apostle!”
“What did he say?” Roberto implored her.
She swallowed and went on, her tongue strangely dry. “I, Paul, according to that truth, hereby set forth these words; that our Teacher, Jesus, whom we follow as the Christ, having been put to death on a cross by the—”
She halted again, more abruptly. Puzzlement swept her features. The others waited, their gaze dancing between her stilled lips and the papyrus she held. Though she had gone silent, all could see that she continued to read, her focus darting from side to side, tracing the words.
Her eyes glistened like wet diamonds. Sparkling more and more with each moment.
The faces of her students, as one, reflected a great worry. They all knew her, knew her well. But what they saw at that moment was something they had never seen before.
A hardness. A horror.
Anna quickly lowered the top of the scroll and looked away, trying very hard to contain herself. A single tear coursed down her cheek, carrying a faint streak of mascara with it.
“You’re all dismissed,” she said abruptly, in a tone verging on harshness. She spoke the words as if, at any moment, she would no longer have a voice.
Neil shook his head. “But, professor—”
“Later, Mr. Meyer.”
“Where do we go?” he pressed.
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Beth and Craig exchanged puzzled glances as they rose from their seats, then descended the few steps to floor level. Roberto stepped closer to Anna.
“Dottoressa,” he began, “I don’t understand—”
“You, too,” she said, not meeting his eyes. With a hastened glance, she caught the confusion on all their faces. “We’ll discuss this later.”
“Okay, professor,” Beth said as they all moved toward the door.
“Roberto,” Anna called after him. He paused and turned, anticipating something of an explanation. Instead, she held her hand out. “I need your camera, please.”
He approached, holding it out to her. Without looking up, she took it from him. He paused for a moment, looking at her, then turned and followed the others.
“Anna,” Laneri said, concerned about her sudden change of demeanor, “what is it? What does it say?”
She placed the scrolls back into the box and replaced the lid.
“Carlo,” she said, removing the camera’s memory card, “I’ll tell you when I can. I promise. For now, I need some time.”
“Shall we—”
“Alone,” she emphasized. “Please.”
“Very well,” he said after a weighty pause, his brow furrowed. Then, with a subtle nod, he departed the lab, closing the door behind him. Anna tore away her gloves, placed both hands on the box, closed her eyes, and prayed.
Why? she demanded. Why this? Why now?
Why me?
She sat there for almost half an hour, almost unmoving, staring at the box. The red stone warmed beneath her hands. Gathering a sense of composure, she pulled her phone from a cargo pocket, scrolled through the directory, and selected a number.
She pressed the button.
No signal, the screen read.
I’m in the basement, she remembered, and headed for the door.
Darkness lay beyond window glass as Dean Mercer drifted half in and half out of sleep, sporadically sliding his arms and legs within the soothing sheets of his bed. His vacation had arrived at last—weeks to spend with his wife, to visit the grandchildren, and to take care of things too long neglected—so he hadn’t set his alarm clock. The time had finally come to work on the oak-and-walnut chess set he had begun in his workshop and laid aside the year before. Tending to the garden, painting the gazebo, and laying new stone for the fishpond—all these things would be seen to. Leisurely and enjoyably.
The phone rang, jarring him from a sound sleep, his heart racing. His wife prodded him, and he awoke just enough to reach out for the phone and find the receiver.
“Hello?” he said, the word a bit slurred.
“Dean Mercer,” came a familiar voice, “it’s Anna Meridian. I’m very sorry to be calling you so early.”
Mercer’s eyes found the bedside clock and focused just well enough.
“Four twenty,” he said. “What’s wrong, Anna?”
“The find I told you about … There’s a complication. I need you to come to Milan. Right away.”
“Milan? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I’d rather not tell you over the phone. You have to see this for yourself, a
nd there’s no way they’ll ever let it out of the country. No one even knows but me.”
Mercer sat up, switched on a small diffused lamp, and rubbed his face. “You can’t just tell me?”
“No,” she insisted. “I can’t. You have to see this. I need you here. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ve never heard those words from you, Anna.”
There was a long pause. Too long.
“I’ve … never unearthed something that could destroy the world.”
At that, Mercer woke to full awareness. “What?”
“You’ll understand when you get here.”
“The Museo Archeologico?” he asked. “Is Carlo not there?”
“He’s here,” she said, her voice unsure. “But this …”
Mercer waited. No other words came.
“All right, Anna,” he said. “I’ll arrange a flight, and see you as soon as I can.”
As the call ended, Mercer turned to find his wife looking at him, her eyes sleepy, her head resting against her pillow.
“Milan, Albert?” she asked.
“Milan.”
“Good.” She smiled gently as she rolled over. “You promised me an Italian vacation seven years ago.”
Roberto, Beth, and the others sat in the museum cafeteria, trying to sort things out. They had seen their instructor joyous, angry, worried, overwrought, even playful at times. But they had never seen her like this. The woman they knew would never cast them out of the lab so abruptly.
“I don’t get it,” Craig said, his tone more of anger than concern. “What’s the deal? What could have been on those scrolls that would have made her flip out like that? One second she was fine; the next … she’s Ms. Hyde.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Beth said. “But something sure upset her. She was crying.”
“No, she wasn’t,” said Craig.
“Yes, she was. I saw her.”
Roberto shook his head. “It couldn’t have been simple disappointment. She wouldn’t have reacted that way. Sure, when we discovered the vault in the wall, she was as excited as I’ve ever seen her. She got her hopes up. We all did. But whatever she read on that papyrus went way beyond disappointment.”
“She said ‘I, Paul’ when she read it,” Beth recalled. “Mr. Laneri even repeated it. Sure looked to me like she’d found something Paul wrote.”
“So why did she react that way?” Craig asked. “She should have been dancing around the room.”
“Maybe Paul wrote something she didn’t like,” Roberto offered.
Neil disagreed. “Like what? Anything he could have written would have thrilled her. I mean, we’re talking Paul here. That doesn’t make any sense.”
His mind working the possibilities, Roberto rose and crossed to the coffeemaker, where he refilled his cup. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Could it have had something to do with her husband?” Beth wondered. “The only time I’ve ever seen her anywhere near that upset was on their anniversary last year. It would have been their sixteenth.”
“Maybe,” Roberto nodded. “But I can’t imagine how it would have.”
“Looked worse than that to me,” Neil said, returning from a trip to the restroom, twirling the straw in the soft drink he carried.
“What do you mean?” Beth asked.
“Didn’t you see? She wasn’t just upset. She was scared to death.”
Anna smiled politely at the guard as he led her into the small reinforced room. Its walls gleamed with brazen metal.
“This will be your unit,” he said, pointing to a numbered metal door. He held out his hand. “And this is your key.”
She took it from him. “Thank you.”
“Ring the buzzer when you’re done,” the man said, “and we’ll let you out.”
He left, sealing the room behind him. She was alone and unobserved.
Why? she repeated for the hundredth time. The question haunted her.
She inserted the key and gave it a twist. The small square door opened. She reached in, withdrew a metal box with a hinged top, and placed it on a nearby table.
All my life, I’ve been dedicated to the truth.
Reaching into her gym bag, she took hold of the scrolls, now sealed inside a tube of tough white plastic. She checked again to make sure the end caps were screwed down tightly, then held it in her hand, staring at it, brooding over the consequences of its contents becoming known.
After lining the metal box with a suitable cushion of rumpled fabric, she gently lowered the tube into it, followed by the three goblets, their spices and gold sealed in ziplock bags. Then she slid the box back into the wall, closed the numbered door, and locked it. She dropped the key into a zippered inner pocket of her purse, sealed it, and hefted the strap of the much lighter bag back onto her shoulder.
She stood for a moment, her thoughts distant, her eyes sightlessly fixed on the room’s single entrance.
Beyond it, the entire world had changed.
Five
Dean Mercer and his wife stepped through the portal of the airline boarding ramp and emerged into the passenger lounge of Milan’s Linate International Airport. He scanned the crowd, looking at the faces of people reuniting after varied periods of separation.
“Was she meeting us here?” Mary Mercer asked, checking her watch. “Or out in the concourse?”
“Right here, I believe,” the dean replied, his gaze still sweeping ahead. Then he saw the lovely face he had been seeking. She was standing at a distance, her lips red and full as ever, her eyes sparkling still, but they now betrayed an inner darkness, a bitterness, a pain.
“There she is,” he said, leading his wife forward. As they met, he set his briefcase on the floor.
“Anna.” He smiled as she reached out and hugged him. He held her as a parent would hold a child, easing, for that moment, her yet unrevealed burden.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “I trust no one else with this.”
She turned to hug his wife, who smiled widely. “It’s so nice to see you again, Anna. It’s been so long.”
“Lovely to see you again, Mary. Welcome to Italy.”
“Come,” the dean said, indicating the direction of the baggage pickup. “We’ll get out of here and discuss things once we’re on the road.”
The night sky was filled with stars, though a few low clouds partly obscured the rising moon. Mercer carried a suitcase in one hand and his briefcase in the other as Anna led the couple across the loading zone to her waiting rental car.
“It wasn’t as hard to find a parking place as I thought it would be,” she said, pressing a button on her key fob. The car replied with a cheerful chirp, a flash of its lights, and a pop of the trunk. “I hope you had a good flight.”
“It was,” Mercer commented as he placed his bag next to Anna’s purple gym bag and then closed the trunk. “Long, but the company was pleasant.”
“Indeed it was,” his wife agreed.
“But I will say I’m happy to finally be here,” he admitted. “That’s quite a stretch just to be sitting.”
“I hope you’ll still feel happy to be here an hour from now,” Anna teased.
In minutes the car was pulling onto the A51, headed north. Traffic, as it always was in the late evening, was light.
“I told you of our initial find,” Anna said, her eyes on the road ahead.
“Yes,” Mercer called from the back seat. “But you gave precious few details.”
“It’s an underground chamber, beneath the foundation of a Roman villa. Accessed by steps of red travertine. I told you that much.”
“Yes.”
“Well,” she went on, “we discovered conclusive proof that the site was used by the apostle Paul during the time
of Nero, during his first years in Rome. It was the first permanent church there, and the only one we’re sure Paul himself preached in. The early Christians of Rome worshipped in their homes, especially predating Paul’s arrival.”
The dean placed a hand on his forehead. “Oh, my dear … what a discovery! This will change the history books. There has been no sign of whatever was looted?”
“None that I’ve seen,” Anna said. “But it doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Because they missed the site’s prime artifacts. There was a vault in the wall, behind the rotas square. Its contents were untouched and in remarkably good condition.”
“Too good?” the dean wondered. “Do you suppose …?”
“What do you mean?”
“Could these things have been planted by the looters?”
Anna paused to consider the possibility. She was ashamed that she hadn’t thought of it before, even though she had been rattled.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. The plaster seal around the square was original, I’m sure of it. Fresh plaster less than a day old couldn’t have cured that much. I’m certain I’d have noticed. It was brittle and very dry and carried the room’s original paint.”
“Very well,” Mercer replied.
“I wish they were forgeries,” she said. “In fact, I wish we could prove as much, even if we know it isn’t true.”
He was surprised by the statement. “Why, Anna?”
She paused for a moment, choosing her words carefully.
“You’ll understand when you see them,” she said. “Scrolls, Albert. In Greek, on papyrus. And the situation … the place in which they were found argues very strongly for their authenticity.”
The old man’s eyes opened wide. He looked at his wife, who shared his astonishment. As he ran a hand through his snow-streaked hair, his mind flooded with images of lost gospels and exciting new histories.
“I didn’t read more than the first few lines,” Anna went on, “and there were half a dozen leaves altogether. But what he wrote just …”
She went silent, a prolonged cleansing breath her only utterance. Mercer could see the crushing weight pressing upon her and longed to relieve, to share, to remove the yoke she bore.
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