The Sacred Bones

by Michael Byrnes

  Through all the activity, discovery, and suspense of the day, Charlotte realized that she'd barely had a moment to take stock. Suddenly she felt almost lonely. Or did she? Wasn't everything perfect? She stared out across the river-- she couldn't have asked for a more idyllic setting.

  But she knew everything wasn't perfect.

  The wine waiter was back at her side and she ordered a half bottle of Brunello di Montalcino. Alcohol wasn't advised, but this evening she wasn't going to deny herself.

  The sound of scooters echoed up from the street below.

  When the sommelier returned, he went about his wine presentation, showing the label, then opening the bottle and having Charlotte give it the sniff test. Finally, he poured some into a glass and asked her to taste it. She sloshed it around the glass, more for show, knowing that the medication she'd been taking would give the wine a slight metallic aftertaste no matter how refined its vintage.

  When he left, her thoughts settled into their own direction, leading her back to Evan Aldrich. She reminded herself that making any long-term emotional commitment to him would be irresponsible. Yet, the doctors had told her that research was advancing all the time. Answers would soon be found. But how soon was soon?

  And what about kids? At thirty-two she was already feeling the pressure that she might never have any of her own. Having researched later, more aggressive treatments that might include bortezomib injections-- known to cause birth defects in unborn children-- her anxiety had only deepened, knowing that might well be an unattainable dream.

  She cast her eyes idly over the neighboring tables. Happy-looking couples, a laughing family to her right. Maybe they weren't happy at all. Appearances rarely told the whole truth-- she knew that better than anyone. Oddly, it made her think about Salvatore Conte and Father Patrick Donovan. What was their story? How had a box of bones brought such a mismatched pair together?

  She thought about the bone sample sent to Ciardini-- how it would be incinerated during the carbon dating test to determine its age.

  Bone being destroyed.

  "Has Signora decided?" It was Alfonso.

  "I'm glad you're here. I need your help."

  Despite the fact that the restaurant had a name Charlotte swore was French, its menu featured Italian cuisine. After a few quick questions about her likes and dislikes, Alfonso steered her to a Sorrento scialatielli-- "sumptuous homemade pasta with creamy Alfredo seafood sauce full of lobster and crab. Absolutely delightful."

  From the first bite of her pasta, she knew he was right on target. Addicted to the Food Network channel, Charlotte was a huge fan of Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals. She wished the peppy half-Italian host could be here now to enjoy this with her-- it was simply delicious. She'd finally found something that had awakened her pill-muted taste buds.

  Eating pasta, drinking wine, surrounded by sweet-smelling flowers, and looking out over the city that had practically molded Western culture succeeded in bringing Charlotte's mind to another place. After she had finished eating, she just sat and took it all in for another hour. Content. Happy.

  When the hefty bill came, she was sure to pay with her corporate American Express card-- restitution for last night's tuna sandwich.

  Outside the hotel, she ambled back along Via Vitelleschi toward the rugged edifice of Castel Sant' Angelo. Continuing around the castle's perimeter, she saw the Tiber come into view. Crossing busy Lungo Castello, she strode onto the Ponte Sant' Angelo, which spanned the river in five elegant arches.

  Rome could boast so much history and culture, she thought. Even this bridge was a sublime work of art, and in its own way the Vatican had helped make it all possible. Admiring Bernini's marble angels posted along the bridge, her gaze was immediately drawn to one that was cradling a huge crucifix. A day ago, she wouldn't have thought twice about it. Now she would never be able to look at a cross in the same way ever again. Such an utterly normal object, almost prosaic-- but now it seemed gruesome. And the fact that they happened to be everywhere if you looked hard enough was not helping matters.

  The one thing she failed to notice was that a comfortable distance behind her, Salvatore Conte was watching her from the shadows of the castle wall.

  WEDNESDAY

  29.

  JERUSALEM

  Sipping qahwa, Razak sat on the veranda of his apartment in the Muslim Quarter overlooking the Temple Mount and its Western Wall Plaza. Throngs of protestors had been gathered since sunrise and now he could see news crews from around the world queuing to get past the police cordons.

  Tuned to Al-Jazeera, the volume on Razak's TV was set low, providing a quiet buzz in the background. The mood in Jerusalem was tense, and even worse in Gaza's Palestinian settlements where mobs of young men were already engaging in low-level intifadas, challenging police with stones. Armored vehicles were now posted at all Israeli checkpoints, as well as the main gates to Old Jerusalem. The IDF had doubled its border patrols.

  People were demanding answers, needing someone to blame. Israel was gearing up its defense, ready for yet another confrontation. Hamas was issuing statements, smearing the Israeli authorities.

  Razak tried to focus on formulating a plan for diffusing the tension, at least temporarily. Damage control. Sometimes the problems of this place seemed intractable and the sensitive history surrounding the heart of Jerusalem's thirty-five-acre shrine embodied them.

  The mobile phone interrupted his thoughts.

  "Sorry to bother you. It's Graham Barton."

  It took him a moment to recall he'd voluntarily given the archaeologist his business card. "What can I do for you?"

  "I've got the transcription back on that scroll we found."

  "What does it say?"

  "Something astounding," Barton promised. "But not something we should discuss over the telephone. Can you meet me to go over this?"

  "Of course." It was hard for Razak to deny the upbeat archaeologist's infectious enthusiasm. "When?"

  "How about noon at Abu Shukri on El-Wad Road? Do you know where that is?"

  Razak glanced at his watch. "Yes, I've been there many times. I will see you at noon." Maybe, thought Razak, this is the break I've been waiting for.

  30.

  VATICAN CITY

  Charlotte Hennesey turned to see her alarm clock's digital readout blinking 7:00 in thick lines of annoying red light. The sun was glaring through the thin drapes that covered the windows and she dropped her head back onto the pillow. Though the small bed was quite comfortable, she imagined that its previous occupant had probably been a cardinal.

  Hanging on the wall directly above her head was a crucifix. Her eyes locked onto it. Against her will, images of hammers pounding huge nails through skin and muscle again crept into her thoughts. Get used to it, she told herself.

  Dragging herself out of bed, she stumbled to her travel bag and wrestled the cap off a bottle of Motrin. The wine had really done a number on her. From the small refrigerator, she grabbed the bottle of Melphalan, popped its lid, took out one of the tiny white pills and swilled it down with some water. Next came a fistful of vitamins and supplements to counteract the havoc it would wreak on her immune system.

  After brushing her teeth, she showered and dressed. She strapped her money belt containing her cash and passport beneath her blouse (her travel guide had strongly suggested it since Rome was notorious for pickpockets). Pocketing her cell phone, she made her way out the door.

  Entering the lab Charlotte saw Giovanni already well into his work, hunched over a metal cabinet and fiddling with some computer cables.

  He looked up and smiled. "Ah. I see you're looking rested today."

  "Still catching up, but doing better." She eyed the device. "What's that?"

  He waved her over. "You're going to like this. It's a laser scanner used for 3-D imaging."

  The rectangular unit was compact, standing about three feet high, with an empty inner chamber and glass door. The controls were mounted on the side.

 
Charlotte eyed it critically. "Looks like a mini bar," she said.

  He gave it a cursory glance and laughed. "Never thought of that. No bags of peanuts inside, though. Why don't you get settled and have some coffee? Then I'll show you how to work this," he said, connecting a USB cable from the back of the unit into his laptop's data port.

  Less than five minutes later, Charlotte had returned suited up and ready to go.

  "With this we scan every bone one at a time and reassemble the skeleton in the computer's imaging software," Bersei explained. "Then the CAD program analyzes them and the associated ligament attachment points, calculates the associated muscle mass each bone supported, and attempts to re-create the image of what our mystery man looked like when he was flesh and blood. I'll do the first one; you can do the rest."

  Bersei reached out for the skull, cradling its toothy mandible with one hand, globular mass in the other, and mounted it in the scanning chamber. "Just put this in the minibar..."

  Charlotte laughed out loud.

  Smiling, Bersei shifted to his laptop. "Then click the 'COMINCIARE SCANSIONE' button..."

  "Is the whole program in Italian?"

  Bersei looked up and was amused when he saw her mildly distressed expression. "Oops. Forgot about that. I'll switch it over to English." Working the mouse, it took him a few seconds to adjust the program settings. "Sorry. As I was saying, click on the 'START SCAN' button-- like so..."

  The scanner hummed as lasers inside the chamber formed a matrix around the skull, detailing its every feature. Less than a minute later, a perfect digitized replica of the skull popped up on the laptop screen, shaded in white and gray.

  "There you go. A 3-D copy. Now the image can be manipulated however we want." He ran his finger over the laptop's touchpad so the on-screen skull rotated and flipped on command. "Save the image and the program will ask you to label the bone using this drop-down menu." Bersei opened the list of labels and scrolled down until he found CRANIUM-- WITH MANDIBLE and clicked on it. "Then you click 'NEXT SCAN.' Why don't you try one?" He opened the scanner door and removed the skull. "Put on gloves and a mask and take a bone."

  Charlotte tossed her coffee cup into the garbage can and pulled on a pair of latex gloves and a paper mask.

  She picked up a segment of spine from the skeleton, and closed it in the scanner. Clicking the SCAN button, she watched the luminescent lasers as they played over the bones. She had quick, uninvited thoughts of CT scans and radiation therapy, but forced them away. "Tell me. How did Carmela do with the chicken saltimobocca?"

  "Actually, it wasn't that bad," he said, surprised. "But my daughter did manage to talk me into that second bottle of wine. Oh, mama mia," he said, holding his head.

  After a minute, the imaging was complete. As Bersei watched over her shoulder, Charlotte used the touchpad to play with the image. She saved it, labeling the scan VERTEBRAE-- LUMBAR. She clicked NEXT SCAN.

  "Perfetto. Let me know when you're finished. Then I'll show you how to piece it all together."

  Bersei made his way across the lab and disappeared into the break room.

  She worked on scanning another spinal segment. A minute later Bersei had returned, holding two espressos.

  "More Italian jet fuel."

  "You're a lifesaver."

  "Let me know if you have any problems," he said, going over to the ossuary.

  Placing himself at the workstation, he peeked into the ossuary to examine the thick coat of dust about half an inch deep that coated the base of its interior. He would need to empty the material out and analyze its composition using a microscope, then pass it all through the lab's spectrometer to identify element-specific light signatures. Using a laboratory scoop, he began emptying it over a screen-covered rectangular glass dish to sift out the small bone fragments that had fallen to the bottom of the box. He assumed that he would find some desiccated flesh and loose stone dust-- perhaps trace amounts of organic material, such as the flowers and spices traditionally used in ancient Jewish burial rituals.

  What he didn't expect to find was the small, circular object that was mixed into his next scoop. Removing it with gloved fingers, and lightly dusting its surface with a delicate brush, Bersei saw that the textures on its two oxidized surfaces were deliberate. Stamped metal.

  A coin.

  Taking a stiffer brush from the tool tray, he beckoned Charlotte over.

  "What is it?"

  "Take a look." Centered on the palm of his hand, Bersei held the coin out for her.

  Her green eyes narrowed as she peered down at it. "A coin? Good stuff, Giovanni."

  "Yes. It'll make our job far easier. Obviously coins can be extremely useful for dating accompanying relics."

  He passed her the coin and swiveled back to the computer terminal, keying in the search criteria: "Roman coins LIZ."

  Charlotte studied it intently. It wasn't much bigger than a dime. On its face was a symbol that looked like a backwards question mark, circled by a ring of text. The flip-side revealed three capital letters-- LIZ-- centered inside a crude floral image resembling a curved, leafy branch.

  "Here we go," Bersei murmured. The first hits had come back instantly. Coming from a generation when thesis papers were still tapped-out on a typewriter, the efficiency of technology and the Internet, particularly for research, simply amazed him. He clicked the most relevant link, which brought up an online coin seller named "Forum Ancient Coins."

  "What did you find?"

  Scrolling down a long list of posted ancient coins for sale, he found an exact image of the coin Charlotte had pinched between her fingers. "Though ours is certainly in better shape, I'd say that's a match." He enlarged the picture and indicated the front and back snapshots that were almost perfect replicas of their coin. "Interesting. Says here it was issued by Pontius Pilate," Bersei pointed out.

  Charlotte was taken aback as she bent over to get a better look. "The Pontius Pilate...as in the guy in the Bible?"

  "That's right," Bersei confirmed. "You know, he was a real historical figure." Bersei silently read some on-screen text that accompanied the image. "Says Pilate issued three coins during his decade-long tenure, which began in 26 AD," he summarized. "All were bronze prutah minted in Caesarea in the years 29, 30, and 31 AD."

  "So these Roman numerals L-I-Z tell us the specific date?" She thought she remembered L being fifty and I being one. But Z was drawing a blank.

  "Technically, those are Greek numerals. Back then, Hellenic culture was still very influential on daily life in Judea. And yes, they do indicate the actual date of issue," Bersei explained. "However, this coin was made hundreds of years before our modern Gregorian calendar existed. In the first century, Romans calculated years according to the reign of emperors. You see those ancient Greek words encircling the coin?"

  She read them-- TIBEPIOY KAICAPOC.

  "Mm-hmm."

  "That says, 'of Tiberius Emperor.'"

  She noted that he hadn't read that off the screen. "How do you know that?"

  "I happen to read ancient Greek fluently. It was a common language in the early Roman Empire."

  "Impressive."

  He grinned. "Anyway, Tiberius's reign began in the year 14 AD. Now the L is just an abbreviation for the word 'year.' The I is equal to ten, the Z is seven-- add them together and you get seventeen. Therefore, this coin was minted during the seventeenth year of Tiberius's reign."

  Looking a bit confused, Charlotte ticked off the years on her fingers. "So it's from 31 CE?"

  "Actually, the Greeks left out the zero. The year 14 CE is actually 'one.' I'll save you the recount-- the correct date is 30 CE."

  "And what about this other symbol-- this reverse question-mark thing?"

  "Yes. It says here the lituus symbolizes a staff that was held by an augur as a symbol of authority."

  "An augur?"

  "A kind of priest. Likened to an oracle and commissioned by Rome. The augur raised the lituus staff to invoke the gods as he was making pred
ictions about war or political action."

  When it came to predictions, nowadays Charlotte was more inclined to envision uptight doctors in white coats trying to interpret lab results. She inspected the coin again. "Aside from the Bible, what do you know about Pontius Pilate?"

  Bersei looked up and grinned. "A lot actually. He was quite a bad guy."

  "How so?"

  He related what he knew. Tiberius Caesar opposed the idea of a Jewish king ruling coastal Judea since Roman troops needed to be fluidly moved down toward Egypt without hindrance. Plus, Judea was a major trade route. Tiberius ousted one of King Herod's sons and replaced him with Pilate, outraging the Jews. Pilate routinely massacred rebellious Jews. According to one well-documented account, when unarmed crowds gathered outside his Jerusalem residence protesting at his theft of temple money to fund an aqueduct, he sent soldiers dressed in plain clothes amongst them. On Pilate's command they drew concealed weapons and butchered hundreds of Jews.

  "And that's only one incident," Bersei continued.

  "Nasty."

  "Pilate mostly lived in a lavish palace in the northern town of Caesarea, overlooking the Mediterranean-- what you would call in America his beach house. I've been there...beautiful place actually. It's where these coins were minted, under his watch."

  Looking back to the monitor, Charlotte noticed the remarkably low bid price for Pilate's relic. "Twenty-two dollars? How could a coin almost two thousand years old be worth only that much?"

  "Supply and demand, I guess," Bersei explained. "There are quite a lot of these things floating around out there. Back in the day, this would have been the equivalent of your American penny."

  Her brow furrowed. A penny? "Why do you think this was in the ossuary?"

  "Easy. Placing coins on the eyes of the dead was part of Jewish burial practice. Kept the eyelids closed to protect the soul until the flesh decayed. After the tissue was gone, they would have fallen into the skull."

  "Hmm."

  Reaching into the ossuary, he fished around for a few seconds then plucked something from the dust and held it up. A second coin. "Two eyes. Two coins." Bersei examined both sides. "A perfect match."