‘Let’s discuss it on the road, Zach.’
Zachary pulled a key out of his jean’s pocket and tossed it to Father Stephen.
Father Stephen pressed the red button in the dashboard and the engine throbbed to life. He backed out of the garage past his old Ford and descended the driveway.
Through the gate, Father Stephen turned left onto the empty road. Zachary fiddled with the sound-system and Mika’s Grace Kelly filled the car.
‘This is the life,’ Zachary said.
Father Stephen pondered this apparent life he’d abandoned to devote himself to God.
‘Open it up, Steve.’
The Aston Martin hit a conservative 100 kph, hugging the road like a slot car as it wound through the mountains toward the next town.
‘Pull in here, Steve.’
They parked the car on the street, entered a small café and sat at a table.
‘Steve, two thousand years ago, most literate people were men.’
‘Zach, the scroll’s author may have been a leper. I wonder if there’s any information about the old colonies that might lead us to the cave and the map.’
‘Steve, in the movie, Ben Hur, there is a scene in a leper colony outside Tiberius.’
‘If it exists outside the fictional world, Zach, any clue to its location could be only a couple of hours drive from Jerusalem. I’ll e-mail you my itinerary and we can either fly together or meet up later. I think I can squeeze two days out of my schedule to play detective.’
‘It’s a good start, Steve. Let’s get back to the villa.’
The Vanquish did a U-turn, accelerating up the road. Father Stephen clung to his seat and in less than four seconds they were travelling past 110 kph.
‘Sure you can handle this beast, Zach?’
Zachary powered out of a sweeping bend, nudging 220kph into a long straight. In the distance a figure stepped urgently into the middle of the road and Zachary slowed. A policeman waved him onto the gravel shoulder.
‘Good afternoon, officer,’ Zachary said.
The policeman peered through the open window. ‘Both of you step out of the car.’
‘Is there a problem?’ Zachary said.
‘It should be obvious. Get out of the car.’
Father Stephen unbuckled his seatbelt.
A policeman emerged from the patrol car parked further along the road, and came toward the Vanquish, stopping short to keep lookout.
Zachary and Father Stephen placed their hands on the car roof and were patted down. The policeman examined their wallets and Father Stephen’s camera.
‘Are you going to arrest me, officer?’ Zachary said.
‘That depends on what I find,’ the policeman said. ‘Stay where you are.’
He searched the car thoroughly, then came behind Zachary and fired a Taser into his neck, dropping him to the ground. Father Stephen reacted slowly and the policeman turned and fired the Taser into his ribs. He fell, striking his head against the car door. Blood seeped from his nose as he lay unconscious in the shallow sun.
35
A bright light stung Father Stephen’s eyes. The shape leaning over him was blurred. He searched for clarity, and slowly focused on the granite features of Cardinal Grasso.
‘Hello, Father. By the grace of God, it’s good to see you back in the land of the living. How are you feeling?’
‘Where am I?’
‘Gemelli Hospital.’ Cardinal Grasso held a glass of water in front of Father Stephen, directing a straw between his dry lips.
Father Stephen sucked gently, welcoming the flood of cool water into his mouth.
‘What happened?’ Father Stephen said.
‘I hoped you could tell me, Father. You were found by the side of the road with a bloodied nose and...’
‘What day is it, how long have I been here, where’s Zach?’
‘You’ve been at Gemelli for eight days. Beside a broken nose, a hairline fracture to the back of your skull and some swelling of the brain, your prognosis is good. However, Zachary Smith is missing and the media is rife with speculation. His car was gutted by fire, abandoned in a gully below the road where you were.’
‘Zach and I lunched, drove into the country for coffee and were later stopped for speeding. A policeman dropped Zach with a Taser. The last thing I remember was a heavy shock under my heart.’ Father Stephen felt a sharp pain inside his head and suddenly relapsed into unconsciousness.
Cardinal Grasso placed a hand on Father Stephen’s forehead, said a silent prayer and spoke with a nurse in the corridor on his way out. The nearby elevator doors parted to release a man. As the Cardinal passed him and entered the elevator he made a mental note. The man wore heavy-rimmed sunglasses, had strongly bleached blonde hair and a familiar gait he couldn’t quite pinpoint. When the elevator doors opened to the foyer he decided he was imagining, letting the thought fly into the ether.
36
The dozer’s front wheel fell through the dirt, hanging over a hole, tipping the vehicle on a dangerous angle. The operator revved hard in reverse, the dozer bouncing as the rear tyres churned, sinking lower until the chassis jammed against the ground and no amount of revving would move it.
The operator radioed his foreman and jumped down from the cab, shining a torch into a hole that seemed to widen as it deepened.
A truck arrived with a thick steel rope to pull the dozer out. When it came free in a cloud of dust the operator inspected it for damage.
‘Looks okay, boss,’ the operator said.
‘Grab a harness and some rope from the utility. I want to check out the hole.’
The foreman peered into the cavity while the operator handed him the harness and tied it off to the dozer’s bucket.
‘Haul me out if it starts to collapse.’
He threw in a shovel, connected a torch to his belt and eased down into the opening. His feet touched firm ground. Through the dust, he made eye contact with the operator, giving him a reassuring salute. When he turned on his torch he was in a cave. He noticed a cleft in the wall filled with wax where a candle might once have sat, pushing a gentle light in the darkness. He quickly calculated that the hole could be easily backfilled with rock and cement.
A last sweep of the torchlight caught a glint on the stony floor. Under a thin coating of dust was a snake-skin wallet, its corners capped in brass. A zipped compartment contained a driver’s license belonging to Mr Alfredo Borgnine.
The foreman caught the operator’s attention and the bucket rose slowly, swinging him out of the hole.
‘Find anything, boss?’
‘It’s a cave we’ll have to backfill. I’ll get the loaders in first thing tomorrow morning and ready the cement. And I found this.’
He handed the wallet to the operator.
‘There’s a driver’s license inside.’
The operator read the details. ‘Freddy Borgnine was royalty in this region. His family runs the largest textile business in the Middle East. He died three months ago, from a stroke. Hundreds turned out for his funeral. His son, Abel, lives in an upmarket suburb on the lake. I could take this to him’
‘Be my guest, but we split any reward.’
‘Okay, boss,’ the operator said.
37
Amongst the newspaper advertorials the man saw an article about a wallet lost in a cave more than fifty years ago, and recently returned to the owner’s son. When the waiter brought his breakfast, the man inquired. ‘Have you heard of Abel Borgnine?’
‘He has more money than God. Now his father is gone he heads up the family business,’ the waiter said.
‘Where can I find him?’ the man said.
‘If he is not travelling abroad he lives in a palace on the lake. You can’t miss it, bright pink, French provincial. Out the front is a private jetty and on most days, you’ll find a massive launch parked next to it. Diamond Road I think, just out of town. As I said, it’s impossible to miss.’
The man thanked the waiter, ate his b
reakfast in a rush, slid a ten-Euro note under his coffee cup, and left.
The man paid the cab driver and stared at the impressive walled compound, garish pink against the blue sky. He smelled the lake although he could not yet see it. Tall iron gates barred the road into the property and four Doberman dogs stood side by side, focused on him, sable coats shining, threatening but silent. He spoke into the gate intercom and a voice asked for identification.
‘My name is Father Stephen. I am visiting from Rome and hope to speak to Abel Borgnine if possible.’
At a sharp whistle the Dobermans turned in unison, bounding up the driveway toward the main building, disappearing from sight. A golf cart hurried toward the gates. The driver motioned for the man to get on and then proceeded to the pink palace, and into a garage.
The driver led the man into a foyer of cathedral proportions where white leather furniture sat on black marble flooring that drew the eye in abstract directions like a drunken three-dimensional chess board.
Light sheered in off the lake through wide glass windows and the ceiling panels were painted with clouds against an azure backdrop as real as the sky.
Through the glare the man admired the luxurious ship docked at the jetty outside.
A large man draped in gold and purple robes entered the room, gliding across the floor, a grin on his bearded face.
‘Welcome, Father Stephen. My name is Abel Borgnine.’
He held the priest’s hands in a warm fleshy grip, inviting him to sit.
‘How can I help, Father?’ he said in lightly accented English.
‘Mr Borgnine, if I may...’
‘Please, call me Abel.’
‘Abel, I have been in Jerusalem this past week attending a conference. As curator of archival records and religious icons for Vatican City, I am interested in the leper colony reputed to have existed in the mountains outside Tiberius. I also read an article about the return of your father’s wallet and was curious to know how it was lost in the cave.’
Abel gazed into his lap, then to the still waters of the lake, staring blankly, recalling a distant past.
‘Father Stephen, for fifty years I have not spoken of it, not even to my father before he died although he would have made light of it after all these years. Let me explain.
‘I was nine years old in the summer of 1957. My cousin had recently got his driving license and bought an old Ford Ute with cracked paint and rust in the doors. Springs pushed through the worn leather seats but it ran and that was the main thing.
‘On a Sunday, he came to our house and my father allowed me to go for a ride with him and two older boys I’d met previously. Firstly, I ran inside to grab my cap and an orange from the fruit bowl. Strangely, I snatched my father’s wallet off the kitchen table, shoving it into my shorts pocket. I intended to return it after buying ice creams and sodas for my cousin and his friends. Anyway, we drove straight out of town on a new asphalt road. It bisected the plain, entered the forest and narrowed through trees to a small car park halfway up a hill.
‘It was a miracle we made it up at all. The old Ford coughed and spluttered, threatening to stall. All four of us willed it on, bouncing on the seat together, screaming and laughing, unprepared if the car stopped with no room to turn around on the thin road. With relief and cheers we rolled into the car park as the engine died. We jumped out, eager to explore, playing amongst the rocks, having a fine time ambushing and throwing stones at each other.
‘My cousin uncovered a cave entrance hidden by thick bushes, duly informing us no one could enter without his permission. At the same time, he was too scared to explore it on his own, deciding we could help under the pretence some deadly foe or wild animal might be hiding there. We tore away the bushes and when our eyes adjusted to the dim light we edged inside. Parts of the cave roof were collapsed in chunks on the floor. My cousin found some wooden boxes on the ground, one resting on a thick slab of rock near the entrance.
‘We heard the roar of a truck, pulled the bushes into the cave entrance and peered out through the leaves. A man in khaki clothes walked past and returned minutes later, starting up his truck and driving away.
‘Unnerved, we agreed to leave, carrying some of the boxes out of the cave onto the back of the utility. The Ford struggled to start and when it did we eased down the hill in a cloud of smoke.
‘My father was waiting outside our house, relieved to see us. We ran inside for Cokes, downing them with gusto.
‘While the other three boys skipped back out into the sunshine I lingered behind to return the wallet, panicking when it wasn’t in my pocket. I snuck outside, quietly slipping around to look in the Ford but a creaking door hinge gave me away. My cousin asked me what I was doing and I said I was after my cap. When he pointed at it on my head I gave a silly smile, pretending to laugh at my own stupidity. The wallet was nowhere, and I knew I had lost it on the mountain with no chance of retrieving it that afternoon. I prayed my father wouldn’t mention it.
‘My cousin wanted a good hiding place for the boxes from the cave. Eager to redeem myself, I told him of the perfect spot. I pointed to the Ford and we piled in, telling my father I was going to our shop and would be home in time for supper.
‘We chugged to a stop outside the little material shop where a red and gold sign above the door read Borgnine Quality Cloth and Tailoring. I saw my mother near the front window, busily sewing as I struggled with a box down the alley past the shop, trying to act important. The others followed with the rest of the boxes, putting them in a room out the back. I entered the shop and kissed my mother, checking she was preoccupied.
‘The boys were waiting impatiently in the back room. I got down on hands and knees, rolled up a silk runner and lifted a trapdoor in the floorboards. I reached under the floor, pulled a cord that switched on a naked bulb and descended a ladder into the cellar. The boys passed the boxes in, then climbed down and help stack them in a corner and cover them with a brown canvas.
‘We heard my mother on the floorboards above and quickly scrambled out of the cellar, dropping the trapdoor and replacing the runner as she appeared. We must have looked as suspicious as rabbits in a carrot patch but she just smiled and handed out Cokes. Before my cousin drove off I whispered to him that we could return to the cellar another time when we were certain not to be disturbed.
‘For the next week, I slept fitfully, feeling guilty at the lost wallet, and waiting for my father to quiz me. Eventually I had an opportunity to return to the cellar to open the boxes while my mother fitted a client for a wedding dress. I locked the back door of the shop, rolled back the silk runner only to see the trapdoor had been removed and fresh boards nailed in its place.
‘Again, my father said nothing, yet he must have known I had been through the floor. For as long as we ran the shop those boards stayed nailed in place. Any attempt to prise them up would’ve confirmed my father’s suspicions. As far as I know those boxes are still there.
‘Three days after I found the floor boarded up, my cousin called by and I told him what had happened. The boxes were soon forgotten. We arranged to go back up the mountain the following day to continue exploring. With the Ford serviced we were hopeful of a trouble-free run.
‘From that day on my family’s circumstances changed in many ways, beginning that very evening. An earthquake with its epicentre near Jerusalem shook the whole town just after 1 a.m. Aftershocks kept people on the streets until dawn. For me it was a great adventure. Amidst the mayhem, my cousin and his friends called by to drive up the mountain as planned. The front of the cave had collapsed and was choked with boulders, the wallet now irretrievable.
‘Less than a month later my father announced over dinner that we were moving. He walked us across town to see a house near the lake in a rich neighbourhood that was to become our new home. Ever since he’d boarded up the cellar he had a sparkle in his eye.
‘Soon we owned a black Buick coupe straight from a Detroit showroom, and a large manufacturing plant whe
re we made exclusive garments from the finest cloths imported from the world’s best fashion houses. In hindsight, we had extreme wealth for the time but also endured horrible despair following three terrible accidents. Seven members of our immediate and extended family were killed in tragic circumstances that defied the odds. My cousin died when he inexplicably rolled his Ford on a straight stretch of road. Then, in 1960 on a flight to London, my uncle, his wife and three children crashed into the sea in a private jet owned by my father. He forever felt responsible for their deaths.
‘Later, in early 1965, my mother died in a way no human being has ever met their end, mysteriously found in the driveway of our house slumped over the steering wheel of our car with an apparent bullet-hole in the side of her head. My mother was the kindest, gentlest soul I ever knew, entirely unaffected by her wealth and forever loyal to everyone she ever met. Her shooting made no sense.
‘The autopsy initially confirmed her death by bullet. The coroner extracted a spherical lump of metal from the middle of her brain that appeared to be an old musket ball. When they sent it to a laboratory for further testing the finding was unfathomable. The musket ball was in fact a small meteorite. My mother was killed by the random impact of a tiny piece of space debris that minutes earlier was floating in the void of space, where it might have been circulating for billions of years. It launched a host of conspiracy theories, prompting one crazy scientist to proclaim the meteorite might possess alien intelligence and be the first covert extra-terrestrial attack on our planet. He even predicted more deaths from meteorites that thankfully failed to eventuate. The meteorite became the property of the government and with a copy of my mother’s death certificate, forms a bizarre display in the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem.
‘It was a devastating time for us. My father took her death particularly hard, throwing himself into his expanding business ventures, building his empire to ever greater heights. But it never compensated for her absence. The rest is history as they say. Here I am, heading up one of the largest textile companies in the world, reaping the benefits of the dynasty my father created out of nothing and still curious at the sudden wealth that found us all those years ago.
The Jesus Germ Page 16
