by Tom Haase
On entering the boss's office this morning, Scott asked what the containers held.
“They're gifts from a guy named Schultz. He's a benefactor of the museum and extremely wealthy,” came the reply.
“What does he give?” Scott asked.
“Whatever Mr. Schultz gives to the museum is always of immense value. You just treat these boxes with extreme care and make sure they're delivered and logged in for processing in the exhibit area in the morning.”
“What's in them?” he again queried.
“He said they were artifacts from pre-Inca Mexico. He implied that we would be pleased with this addition to the museum. We're not to give him credit for its donation. What a guy.”
“Is natural history his field?” Scott asked.
“I don't think so. Rumor has it he's into early Christian artifacts. He donated many to the New York museums. Admin is now open, so off you go,” he said and waved Scott away.
While in the boss's office, he noticed another ancient man sitting in a chair next to the desk. The man didn't get up, but he did turn around and stare at Scott. The silver hair extended over his shoulder and flipped in the air when he turned his head back to the front. The face looked like a bulldog and the lips seemed to hang over the side like the jowls of that breed. Scott imagined he could enter the Westminster dog show with that face.
When Scott pulled the door over on his way out, he heard the man ask, “Is that the Donavan boy from the Crown of Thorns fiasco?”
“Yes, Cornelius.”
Scott quietly shut the door. He did not want to hear any more.
The first task for him this morning entailed moving those boxes. He put the boxes down outside the locker room to use the men's room. He then set off to make their delivery, but he heard voices coming from the break area. Moving to the door, he heard his name. He listened.
“You know that Donavan guy,” said Stan, one of the big African-American workers. “He was a professor at a big University here before he screwed up. You know they fired that guy for planning some hoax. Just got rid of him. Just like that. Quick as you could say Jack Rabbit. Seems like a nice guy, but after he and his sister tried to talk everybody into believing he'd found the Crown of Thorns of Jesus Christ, I wouldn't trust him with a wooden nickel.”
“Yeah, I agree with that,” said Sami, the smallest and shortest member of the workgroup who continually brownnosed Stan.
“You'd agree with anything that Stan says,” said the one friend that Scott believed he had in the group. Scott knew Michael was the only one who possessed a college degree in the crowd. That achievement might’ve by itself given him the ability to think on his own.
Scott decided to walk into the room, but just then Stan opened up with another blast.
“I saw a picture of that sister of his. What a piece of ass. She is gorgeous with a great set of jugs. What I could do with that.”
Scott hurried into the recreation room and looked at big Stan.
“You couldn't do anything with her because she wouldn't have your big black ugly ass. She has better taste,” Scott said, adrenaline from his early morning venture surging back into his veins.
Michael started laughing out loud, and Sami looked at Stan to see what he planned to do.
Scott just stood there clenching his fist preparing for a fight. Stan had never ridiculed him before, but this degradation of his sister he could not let pass. Stan hefted him by a good fifty pounds and could probably stomp him into the ground, but Scott determined to stand up to the guy. Being an hourly employee here after losing everything that he'd worked all his life for, Scott wasn't going to let this big blowhard demean him or his sister.
“Okay, okay, Scott. I was just having some fun. Forget it,” Stan said.
Scott stared at him with rock-hard intensity that the others could see and feel. Stan must have recognized that he went too far.
“You want to forget it?” Scott spit out.
In the months since he and his sister suffered their defamation, they attempted to figure out how they could recoup their former status. They were paying dearly for the judgment mistake they’d made. On top of all that, he had to suffer the insults from people like Stan and endure the murmurs behind his back about what they did.
“Let's go to work,” Stan said. He turned and walked off leaving Scott without a target for his anger.
Stan grabbed Sami by the shoulder as he passed by and pushed him through the doorway. Michael followed after them and Scott, with reluctance, took up the rear.
Their workday began. He waited a few seconds until they disappeared in various directions for their daily assignments. After delivering the boxes, he headed up to the second floor to tell his boss that admin wanted him to sign the receipt after it accepted the boxes.
Scott would forget what just happened. There existed no benefit in not doing so. This job provided him focus at present and now he needed to concentrate on getting his first assignment of the day completed. He hurried up the two flights of steps to get the boss's signature on the receipt.
While ascending the steps, his mind wandered for the millionth time to his predicament and how he could possibly get out of it. His money almost ran out, and he had no prospects for achieving any type of financial success in the near future. The job he worked now barely sustained his meager lifestyle. Stepping onto the top floor landing, he turned the corner with his eyes down.
Slam!
Bang!
Sounds resembling gunshots ricocheted off the empty tiled floors and marble walls as books hit the floor on their flat side.
The lady and the books she carried went to the floor. Scott looked down at the female trying to regain her footing. One of the books continued sliding across the floor.
“I'm sorry. I'm sorry,” Scott said while reaching down to help her up.
“You moron.” She refused his offered hand.
Scott bent down to pick up the books flung from her hands on the impact. He gathered them, stood up, and offered them to her. As he handed her the books, he took in the beautiful face surrounded by close-cropped black hair and piercing blue, really sky blue, eyes. Soft red lipstick smoothed her lips.
“You stupid klutz. Don't you watch where you're going?” The beauty pelted him with her disgust.
She just couldn't keep her mouth shut. So Scott again said, “I said I am sorry. I didn't mean to run into you.”
“You're just a—”
“Listen lady, I apologized.” Scott raised his voice.
The lady's full breasts were pushed up as she clutched the books to her chest. “I don't care—”
Before she could go on, Scott said, “Listen lady, I apologized. If that's not enough for you, screw you.”
She turned without comment and walked off. Scott noticed the sexy sway of her rear end. He gave a silent chuckle and wondered why it seemed like all the beautiful ones were such bitches. All except his older sister, Bridget.
Scott heard something coming from her mouth as he walked off, but he ignored it and continued on. What an arrogant tart. He had things to do and didn't need that type of interruption, not for the second time today. He had the boss sign the receipt and returned it to the admin clerk. He needed to get a coffee in the break area. He hadn't drank one today.
He sat down with his drink at a table by himself, no one else in the room. It didn't seem possible that already this morning three irritating events took place. Maybe the time arrived to give up his job and go find something else in a warmer climate. No one in the academic world would give him any credence. Yes, he could probably find a job teaching grade school or high school, but that didn't satisfy his intellectual capacity. He had his doctorate degree in modern and ancient Islamic studies. Not much need for that in most high schools.
That woman with the books, a real beauty, but what an attitude she exhibited. Forget her. She thought she owned the world, and he just the hired help. Bet she would have freaked if she would have discovered the bomb.
They would all be dead. Damn her anyway. Why wouldn't she accept a simple apology? He didn't mean to bump into her.
His cell phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and opened the lid. The screen displayed the name of the caller.
Bridget Donavan.
Chapter 6
Belem, Brazil – at the mouth of the Amazon River
Monday Morning
The mass of bodies and the noises of the big city felt strange to Bridget as her boat approached the dock. She came some of the distance by air and now by boat from the local airport. Belem, an old city, was founded in 1616, as the first European colony on the Amazon. Today, over two million inhabitants resided in this thriving metropolis, and the throngs felt oppressive to her after the small village with its few hundred souls.
Bridget's journey down the Amazon had returned her to civilization. During the trip, she outlined what she planned to do. The tropical heat of South America didn't annoy her anymore, she became used to it. A light breeze came from the movement of the boat. She acclimated herself to the sweltering tropical heat after many years of summers spent on archaeological digs in Africa.
Father Pedro’s lecture, the newest hint she heard that a possibility of a real Constantine bible existed. Someone had actually seen it, and he lacked any apparent reason to lie. In her graduate studies, she remembered an old professor who described the historical conditions of the Eastern Roman Empire at the time of Constantine. From the lectures, she recalled the reason he ordered the bibles from the monastery in Jerusalem, undoubtedly because of pressure from his mother, the Empress Helen. The old professor said that in his youth he’d been on a search for a supposedly existing bible ordered compiled by Constantine, but no hard evidence had ever emerged to support the claim that one somehow survived the centuries. He always maintained that he did have a reason to believe that one existed. He never revealed that reason. The legend of the existence of such a book had not died in over a thousand years. He’d concluded that someone knew something to keep it alive and he’d still had hopes that one of the precious bibles would be discovered.
In her class, Bridget learned that her professor suspected the Roman Church would hide any evidence of one just to protect itself from anything in the book that might be contrary to church teaching. Now, to hear of such a bible from someone who reported to have seen one provided the motivational force needed to get her regenerated. Her new life really had started.
This could offer her and her brother an opportunity to redeem themselves, to prove that they were able to discover one of the great treasures of the ancient Christian church—and this time they would reveal any secrets contained in it. What writings could hide in such a bible? Was there something the churches of today would denounce? Why had it remained hidden? What worth could it hold for today? These and similar question triggered Bridget's imagination.
But all of these and many more questions would remain unanswered until the bible's existence could be confirmed. She knew it would take money and time. Right now she had plenty of time but money ran in short supply. The lawyers, the IRS, the cost of everything associated with the last adventure drained the money the Vatican gave them. She calculated a budget that would be required for this venture.
At least, here in the big city the hotel would have access to the Internet. Once settled in, she could research in detail the history of the events the priest recounted. In the village, she’d had no regular phone and no Internet. First she would have to charge her Mac computer.
She disembarked at the pier shortly after the boat tied up and walked toward the center of the city. She spied a quaint hotel just down a side street a couple of blocks from the dock area and decided to try it. It would be inexpensive, and even here most hotels would likely have Wi-Fi.
Less than fifty feet into the small street she sensed that she made a bad decision. Never having been in this town, not knowing the area, and knowing no one here all came together to warn her to get out of the dock area. She needed to go to the center of the city. She needed to get out of this small street.
A man stepped in front of her, his complexioned dark, with a few days growth of beard, and a knife in his hand.
Well, girl, you wanted to start over, and this might be the first test of your determination.
She lowered the backpack she carried and placed it on the ground, careful not to bang the laptop inside. When she looked up, the man advanced and demanded her money. Pointing at her backpack he demanded she give it to him. She felt sure the man could easily recognize her as a foreigner and would probably conclude she must have money to travel.
Bridget squeezed her eyes shut for a second and collected her thoughts. Damn knives. She hated knives. All her training would be needed immediately. The man moved toward the bag on the ground with his outstretched hand holding the knife. The bag now located behind Bridget. The slowness of the attacker's action allowed Bridget to snap her right arm in front of his outstretched left hand with lightning speed. The blade went out of the danger zone in front of her body. She instantly ducked to avoid the returning swing of the man's arm.
She saw the blade flash as it passed over her head. The smell emanating from this gutter rat almost beat the rat hole hotel she left upriver. She knew what she must do. She popped back up and used the momentum of the man's swing to his left to trip him as his right foot rose due to the force of his arm motion. Bridget kicked the raised right leg up higher until he lost his balance and plummeted to the ground.
Dust flew up like a rising cumulonimbus thunderstorm cloud in the spring as his bulk hit the street. Bridget jumped on him and forced his head down across the arm with the knife. It had to hurt since she experienced that feeling before during her jungle training. She once used this same technique in the Ethiopian desert. The last part of the training stressed that she must press as hard as she could to disarm the assailant.
“Aaagggrrr!” The man let out a cry. Then a loud curse, as Bridget whipped the knife from his hand and placed it at his throat.
The fight should end with the blade stuck in the attacker's neck. That training rule she learned at Fort Bragg. Never give mercy to someone who attacked you with a weapon. She held the point at the vertebra of his spinal cord.
“Don't move or you're dead.”
“Please, please, I have a wife … and two kids. Have mercy.”
She almost grinned. The laughable plea broke her anger and focus. She sliced him a little on the neck to remind him not to do it again. Then she got to her feet, allowing him to get up on his knees. She flipped the knife in her hand simulating the intention to kill him, and at the last second, with the fear in his face screaming at her for pity, she hurled the weapon point over handle embedding it deep into a nearby telephone pole. Two people standing nearby shrugged when they saw the attack over and walked off. Such attacks must be common, but such an ending rare, she thought.
“Go home to your fantasy,” she said and walked on toward the main street to find a nicer hotel.
The hotel room she landed in felt like the Ritz compared to the room in the village. It had Wi-Fi, but she decided to clean up first. She immersed herself in a tub, shampooed her hair, and then lay on the bed completely naked and let the overhead fan dry her.
Hours later, she surfaced from doing research on the Internet. She read the history of the Bibles of Constantine, and what she read confirmed that none were known to exist. She slept for a few hours and then returned to her research. Sun filtered into the room indicating a new dawn. The data she uncovered relating to the Bibles of Constantine proved that the clergyman's account of the historical events seemed to be accurate. All but the fact that he claimed one existed in Jerusalem, despite the information on the Internet indicated none of the sacred texts were known to exist today. There were other holes in her information that warranted investigation. And she knew just the person to accomplish that feat.
She compiled her thoughts on a sheet of legal paper. If the bible existed and no one knew about
it, the first thing to do had to be to find the bible. Then she would have to validate its authenticity. Sounded easy, but she knew from experience that it didn't happen that way. Someone successfully kept it a secret for centuries. They wouldn't let it be found without great difficulty. Second, there must be something in the bible that wasn’t supposed to be revealed. Maybe a new dogma, or the location of Christ’s tomb. Otherwise there would be no reason for it to be sequestered for all these eons.
Was it still in Jerusalem? Was the archbishop still in possession of the text? Obviously, the holders of the Bible went to great lengths over the centuries to ensure that the location and its existence were kept a close secret. They would not likely give up any information to a snooping archaeologist type.
To locate this Bible would be difficult and could be expensive. Was there anything in it the world needed to know but somehow forbidden to hear? What made it so precious that its very existence remained a closely guarded secret? If it even existed. These types of questions pounded on her brain every waking moment since she heard the priest's story. A burning desire to uncover these answers now drove her on her road to recovery, but she couldn't do it alone.
There existed one person she trusted and who might be able to help at this beginning stage. She placed a call on her cell phone.
In Washington, D.C., her brother answered.
Chapter 7
Washington, D.C.
Monday Afternoon
Cornelius Jake left the museum of natural history before the afternoon rush hour. He enjoyed a lengthy tour of the building and ate a late lunch. The rain still fell in the District of Columbia, and the rush-hour traffic snarled. The bomb blast from the morning left Constitution Avenue resembling the proverbial parking lot with police barricades everywhere. Damn terrorists. He hoped they would all have to fornicate with goats for what they did to civilized society.
