I told them it would require analysis of the nuclear DNA itself. I did not want to think about how such a project might be managed, but I informed them I would need a small staff and some very expensive equipment.
The Cardinal acknowledged me with a slight wave of the hand. “Do not worry,” he said. Even the price of an electron microscope did not startle him.
I suddenly realized how serious these people were. What in the world was going on?
Of course, as any research scientist will tell you: don’t question anyone when they’ve got their checkbook open. But part of what made me a good scientist was my natural curiosity. I could not stifle the questions already forming in my mind.
I explained my vision of a very intensive project and expressed my need to set up a schedule. I asked about a timetable and an ultimate goal.
The timetable, they said, was as soon as possible. The ultimate goal was rather complicated. I nodded, but stressed my need to know the reason for all my work. Knowing that would influence the way the work was done.
Father Francesco looked at me, but said nothing. I got the impression he was, as the Americans say, “sizing me up,” deciding whether I was worth the trouble. For the first time I sensed an element of danger in the Jesuit. Priest though he was, Francesco had the eyes of something as coolly efficient as a reptile…and he scared me.
The nun spoke at length. Her English was flawless. She had researched my work thoroughly and was conversant in cell biology. She knew of my follow-up to the experiments of Watson and Crick and others who are pioneers in the fields of gene-mapping, splicing, and engineering. She even referred to my paper on transfer RNA as a “classic.”
She went on to mention my interest in the work of people like Steptoe and Edwards, and Shettles and Bevis. I was stunned—how could these people know so much about me? I was beginning to feel a bit uneasy, and I asked them point blank why they were so interested in cell physiology and recombinant DNA manipulation.
Was the Pope preparing a new encyclical on birth control and artificial insemination?
I pushed on. What specific work are we talking about, I asked. Ex utero fertilization, artificial insemination, cloning? What, exactly, did the Church wish to accomplish?
The Cardinal smiled at me and said: all of those things.
I felt more confused than ever. What on earth did these people want?
I asked them one more time to spare me the drama and the cryptic responses. Enough was enough.
The Cardinal raised a single finger several inches above the desk. It was enough to command everyone’s attention. He sighed and agreed to tell me the whole story, but cautioned me on the utter seriousness of their endeavor. I was sworn to secrecy and threatened with death.
The very idea of a priest threatening murder seemed absurd, but as I stared into the cold well-dark eyes of Francesco, I knew the man had spoken sincerely. If I ever revealed what they were about to tell me—I would be a dead man. Incredible.
Lareggia nodded to the nun, and she asked me an intriguing question: did I think it possible to obtain enough genetic information from a blood cell nucleus to successfully re-create the genes through recombinant DNA techniques?
Her question so stimulated my scientific mind that for an instant I forgot my predicament. It was a challenging concept, however, initially suggested by David Silva at Stanford.
Victorianna verified my response, quoting chapter and verse from Silva’s speculative monographs on recombinant research and cloning. “Bringing Back Mozart” was published in the popular press—Scientific American—but was largely ignored by most scientists.
Then Victorianna asked me the pivotal question: did I believe Silva’s idea was achievable? Could I recreate the dead by cloning them from nuclear information left in their physical remains?
I was stunned. The nun smiled at me; I remember her being incredibly beautiful at that moment—almost angelic. She nodded. Yes, she wanted me to recreate the dead.
I paused to consider how much preparation would be required, how many experiments would be needed to verify the complex steps in such a process. My mind leaped ahead, and I almost became lost in reverie. Then I looked at them and asked a very important question: did the blood samples I was given contain the nuclear material—that is, the white cells—that I would be recreating?
All three nodded. The nun added that the donor was deceased, but I had already assumed that.
Lareggia looked at me squarely. He told me the blood and thread samples were taken from something the Italians call the Santa Sindone.
My Italian is not good, but I recognized the phrase. I can still recall the sudden sensation of disequilibrium that hit me at that moment. My vision blurred and the room spun around me like a carousel. These people were brilliantly insane, their plan equally so.
Santa Sindone: The Holy Shroud.
The Shroud of Turin.
They wanted me to clone Jesus Christ.
BOOK TWO
“And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan.”
—Matthew 4:25
FOURTEEN
Vatican City—Carenza
* * *
August 26, 1998
His first reaction was laughter.
Uncontrollable, semi-hysterical. His laughter reverberated in the small room. It had a hollow, counterfeit sound, as if it came not from within him, but from the cold outer hull of the world. The memory-echo of the sound immediately haunted him, making him feel helpless, weak, defeated.
The idea was so absurd! For a time, his mind—trained in the ways of classical theology—refused to take a firm grip on the concept. No way. Impossible. Some kind of joke.
But he knew it was no joke. And it didn’t take a fool to see the pieces of the puzzle all lying there in front of him. There were just enough ego and genuine emotion in Dr. Krieger’s journal to make the account completely believable. Sitting back in the desk chair, Peter drew in a deep breath, exhaled. He felt shaky, queasy.
He forced himself to think, to accept the barest possibility of what the evidence suggested. My God…could such a blasphemy be possible? It seemed so. The time frame: just over thirty years since the first entry in the journal. Krieger’s involvement, then and now. Peter’s “miracle,” and the committee to investigate it.
Again he lapsed into a fuguelike state. His senses dwindled—sight, sound, touch all deserted him as he drifted helplessly in the void created by knowledge that did not fit within the prescribed boundaries of the world he had known only minutes ago. It was unthinkable…
Time fell away from him like shattered crystal. He did not hear the footsteps behind the office door, nor did he at first feel the powerful hand grip his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Father, but you will have to come with us,” said a voice.
Peter’s awareness slowly resurfaced. He looked up. Father Orlando stared at him from beyond the dim light of the desk lamp. Beyond him, shrouded in shadow, stood the scarecrow-thin Francesco.
Peter’s reaction was pure instinct, totally somatic. Without realizing he was moving, Peter sprang up from the chair as though it were an ejection seat in a jet. His raised forearm caught Orlando under the chin, stunning the man and sending him backward into Francesco. While both men were still falling, Peter was already running out the door, through the dark lab, and into the silent corridor. He gave no thought to where he was going. He was in trouble and he was running away from it.
The long hallway stretched away from him, ending in a square black vanishing point. It was like staring down a mineshaft, and as he ran forward, he had the sensation of rushing downward into the earth. Disoriented, he passed countless doors, and still the corridor raced ahead of him. Behind him the sounds of jagged breath and heavy footfalls grew nearer. Stopping, in almost total darkness, he yanked on a doorknob. Locked. No time to get out a credit card now, though.
The sounds
of pursuit closed in. They were going to get him. Just a matter of time. Peter started running again, but his coordination seemed out of whack. His knees weren’t working right, his feet slapped at the floor. His breath stuck in his throat and his tongue was so dry and swollen it felt like it might choke him. He felt as if he were trying to run for the first time in his life.
As Peter reached a T-junction in the passageway, Orlando caught him in a flying tackle around the knees. He went down like the end of a whip being snapped. His head hit the tiled floor, and with a burst of light behind his eyes, he fell into darkness.
“Is he all right?”
The voice was soft, solicitous, female.
“Yes, he will be fine,” said the other in a light German accent.
Peter felt a wave of sensation slowly pass over him, his entire body coming back to life with a tingling sense of weightlessness. He lay on his back, looking up at a circle of four faces, feeling like an accident victim on a night-slick street. The confines of his spare little room took shape beyond the people looming over him. The side of his head throbbed and his cheekbone felt numb.
The memory of what he’d learned slowly returned. It was still crazy. Still impossible.
Krieger and the “committee” were staring at him.
“How much did you read?” asked Francesco.
“Enough,” said Peter. “Enough to think I understand why I’m here. Enough to know you’re not any committee on miracles.”
“We didn’t intend it to be like this,” said the nun.
Peter chuckled grimly. “Really? What had you planned—maybe a little surprise party? ‘Guess what, Peter Carenza? You’re not who you think you are!’ C’mon, people, this whole thing’s ridiculous!”
“In your heart, you know that is not true,” said Cardinal Lareggia. He had constructed an expression of consummate sincerity, but his face wore it like a cheap mask.
Peter shook his head, wishing he could wake up from the surreal dream his life had become. He closed his eyes to shut them all out, and Francesco touched him gently on the shoulder, speaking to him in an uncharacteristically devout tone.
“You know the truth, Peter! The good doctor cloned a baby from Christ’s blood. The baby grew up into a man. And you are that man. You are the Savior.”
“No…I can’t be!”
“You have the power, Peter,” said Lareggia: “Look at what you did to your assailant. Accept it!”
Peter shook his head, turned away from them. What the hell did they want from him?
“This is some kind of trick, right?” he said accusingly. “Some kind of weird psychology experiment.”
Lareggia smiled. “He is persistent,” he said to his Jesuit partner.
“Wouldn’t you be?” asked Victorianna, placing a motherly hand on Peter’s shoulder.
Of the four of them, he intuitively liked the nun the most. As to whether he trusted her more than the others, well, that was hard to say.
Probably not much, he thought. The whole bunch of them were insane. They had to be.
“Peter, we still need you to submit to a series of tests,” said Cardinal Lareggia. “Doctor Krieger will supervise everything.”
God, they weren’t going to ease off, were they?
“What do you want with me?” he asked out of desperation.
“All will be explained in due time,” said Francesco. “After we have examined you. After you are more comfortable with your true identity.”
“Look, you people are nuts! I’m Peter Carenza! Don’t you think I would know it if I was Christ!?”
“Jesus did not manifest his divine nature until he entered his thirtieth year,” said Cardinal Lareggia.
“As you are now doing,” said Victorianna as if praying.
“Oh,” he said. “You mean I’m the Son of God, but I don’t know it yet?”
She nodded.
“Well, that certainly explains everything.”
Peter shook his head. It didn’t matter what he said to these people. They were convinced of the success of their plans. He had to get away from these religious fanatics.
“We have records of everything we did,” said Krieger. “Everything is documented. It took months to perfect the fertilization process ex utero. Then we had to create the proper growth medium. We needed to find a way to keep the embryo alive until it reached the blastula stage. Steptoe and Edwards had attempted implantation with sixteen-cell embrycysts. I’d always believed this was a mistake.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Peter absently, not really wanting to know. Krieger seemed to be trying to convince him of the truth as he saw it—as if the science would impress reality on Peter.
The doctor looked steadily at Peter with steely, gray-blue eyes. Eyes as hard and cold as grapeshot. “I’m talking about the way you were born, son.”
The words pierced him, stinging him with their venom. Could what he was saying be true?
“We even recorded it on film,” said Krieger. “From the implantation to the birth.”
“The virgin birth,” said Lareggia—his tone worshipful.
“That’s right.” Victorianna added. “Your mother was a virgin.”
These people were incredible. Never short on surprises, that was for sure. He shook his head again. He had to get out of here!
“Why don’t you just stop all this bullshit and leave me alone!” His voice shook with anger.
“Calm down, Father,” said Francesco, reaching for him.
Peter resisted his touch, trying to rise from the cot. But his four tormentors formed an efficient barrier of bodies all around him. He swung his arms wildly. Everyone stepped back except the Jesuit, who waded toward him like a boxer. “God forgive me!” he cried.
Francesco’s left hand flashed and was crossed by his right hand. Stunned by the sudden impact, Peter went down and the lights went out again.
When he awoke this time, he was alone in the room. Sitting up on the cot, Peter rubbed his eyes, massaged his temples. He had either the vestiges of a migraine or the beginning of a new one—he didn’t know which. His arm hurt; he spotted the needle mark after a moment’s search. He moved to the door and tried the knob, but it was locked. He tried his credit card trick, but the sloped face of the latch bolt faced the hallway. No plastic tricks this time.
So his room had become a cell.
They had imprisoned him. And he was supposed to be their Savior?
Right.
Peter smiled sardonically, returned to the cot and threw himself onto it. At the same time, the latch clicked and the door opened to reveal Rudolph Krieger, looking somewhat contrite and carrying a gladstone bag. Father Orlando stood behind him, facing outward, down the long, empty corridor.
“Hello, Peter. May I come in?” Krieger stuffed a key into the outside pocket of his white laboratory coat.
“It looks like you’ve already done that.”
The scientist closed the door behind him, sat in the lone chair. He placed the battered physician’s satchel on the floor, then folded his hands in his lap.
“I’d like to apologize for everything that’s happened since last night. Especially your being locked in,” said Krieger. “This was Father Francesco’s idea. ‘Until you are acclimated,’ he said.”
“Ah yes, Father Giovanni Francesco. A unique man,” said Peter. “Not just anybody can say he’s given Jesus a right cross to the jaw.”
“No, I suppose not…”
“What time is it?” Peter’s time-sense was shot, destroyed by jet lag and drugs.
“After eight PM I gave you a sedative. You’ve been out for more than fourteen hours. Do you feel drowsy?”
“No, not really. I feel pretty refreshed, actually.”
“Good,” said Krieger. “Direxin is supposed to leave you feeling that way.”
“Better living through chemistry, right?”
Krieger smiled thinly. “I have to examine you. Do you object?”
“Yes, but does it make
any difference?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“Aren’t you afraid I might zap you with one of my lightning bolts?”
Krieger stared off at the ceiling for a moment, then into Peter’s eyes. “Actually, the thought never occurred to me…”
Peter sat up, looked at the man who had won a Nobel Prize for his work and insights. Though well into his sixties, he cut a lean, energetic figure. His silver-gray hair was thick and healthy-looking.
“How do I know you’re all telling me the truth? How do I know this isn’t some crazy psychological experiment?”
Krieger exhaled slowly. “You read my journal. We have tons of documentation; we have films. I swear to you, it is all true. Besides, you have seen proof—you have provided proof.”
“What happened with that mugger…” Peter said, “that doesn’t prove that I’m…that I’m who they say I am…just that there’s something strange going on.”
“Philosophically, I suppose you’re correct. But I can tell you differently.”
“Do you believe I’m the Son of God?”
Krieger coughed gently into his hand. “I don’t know. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot over the years. The only thing I know for sure is that you are a genetic duplicate of the man who bled into that shroud. Religion is one of the things I’ve never really reconciled in my mind.”
Peter nodded. “Well, that’s a safe answer, I guess. What about my mother? What can you tell me about her?”
Krieger shrugged. There was an aura of sadness about him. He had achieved greatness, but wore it like an ill-fitting suit. “There’s not much to tell. She was a nun. I met her when she was a pretty little girl, only eighteen.”
“And she let you impregnate her? No, she was probably ordered to do it. God’s will or some such thing, right?”
Krieger chuckled. “Well, almost. They told her to participate in the experiments at the wishes of the Pope.”
“And what happened to her after you’d finished using her?”
The Blood of the Lamb Page 10
