The Jesus Germ

by Brett Williams

  ‘What does it say, Zach?’

  ‘It’s classic Aramaic but the words are a total jumble.’

  The tiny line at the bottom was unreadable with the naked eye and Zachary scrambled for a magnifying glass in the desk drawer. He bent close to the scroll, obscuring Father Stephen’s view, bringing the line into focus.

  Zachary straightened slowly, his face drained of colour.

  ‘What’s wrong, Zach?

  Zachary handed the magnifying glass to Father Stephen.

  ‘I can’t read Aramaic.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Father Stephen adjusted the glass so the succinct message became crystal clear.

  See you in hell, Yours in Christ, Michael Cardinalis Venti.

  46

  It was humid beneath the tree canopy.

  The first meeting had gone well, finishing three days before, with a lavish dinner and no expense spared. For the fourth consecutive year, fifty of the world’s super-rich individuals had met to decide how best to distribute their superfluous money into philanthropic projects. There were no fanciful discussions about space exploration, colossal buildings or the world’s biggest of anything. Global warming, carbon emissions, greenhouse gases and rising sea levels were off the agenda. The fifty would have none of it.

  No details of the meetings were ever made public, the dinners strictly private affairs. The media watched the billionaires come and go from the Hilton hotel complex. Speculation was rife.

  As fortunes poured into Swiss vaults faster than they could be shovelled out, kings in the company of kings cut away pretence and one-upmanship. The fifty conjured infinite ways to satisfy their hedonistic lifestyles, and where money was no object, taste was the only point of difference; taste or a moral compass.

  Then at last year’s meeting, boredom reared its subversive head. In a bar facing the hotel pool, two men engaged in deep conversation. Though not religious, emptiness gnawed at them and intuitively they knew what each was thinking. Subtly they canvassed the other billionaires, searching for the common thread to bond them together. They sensed the quest in six others.

  Their meetings were shrouded from the forty-two deemed unworthy of inclusion. The four men and four women rekindled a new hope beyond material wealth, employing thousands of vigilant spies to aid their quest. Out of lust for power, unfulfilled in the realm of consumerism, Jupiter was born.

  The campsite in the rainforest was comfortable but not elaborate. Three women and four men enthusiastically pitched their tents. Between them they lit a smoky fire but their number was incomplete. They awaited a woman to arrive with the news they were waiting for, and with her a man to divulge the details to them.

  Screeching monkeys broke the silence, swinging through the trees away from the river, the air of vulnerability amongst the campers heightened by the invisible threats of the jungle.

  Below the campsite, the ground dipped down to the river that would soon swell with rain and quicken eastward to the Atlantic. Moored to a jetty was a long flat-bottomed boat with an outboard motor.

  Around a bend in the river came a narrow canoe, a native man in a bright yellow shirt working its long throttle. He steered across the flow, running the bow up onto the slippery bank. A man and woman sat in the carved shell, holding the sides for balance. The native stayed in the canoe with the motor idling as the passengers got out. The man slipped on the greasy mud, steadied himself then lifted two pieces of luggage out onto the ground. The canoe backed into the river, and drove against the current toward a settlement to the west. It was 8 a.m.

  Jonathon Brown greeted them first. ‘Welcome, Bianca. How was the boat ride?’

  ‘Primitive and exotic. You should try it, Jonathon,’ she said, glancing at the sleek hull moored against the jetty. ‘Jonathon, this is my brother, Cardinal Michael Venti.’

  The men shook hands.

  ‘Please, call me Michael. Glad to meet you, Jonathon.’

  Venti recognised Jonathon Brown as anyone on the face of the earth would. He observed the six other campers assembled at the shore. Four were well-known public figures. Two, a man and woman, were unfamiliar to him.

  Jonathon picked up Bianca’s bag.

  ‘I’ll show you to your tents, and then we’ll have coffee.’

  Venti decided his pills would mix beautifully with caffeine. He felt an elevated sense of importance amongst the rich and famous gathered in the clearing, knowing he controlled them by what he concealed.

  Bianca and Venti emerged from separate tents to find the Jupiters sitting around the fire, not for warmth but to tend their bacon strips and pots of beans. Two were browning bread speared with forest sticks. Jonathon lifted a blackened kettle out of the coals, filling mugs with hot water, formally introducing Venti to the remaining six members. Venti delighted in the introductions, learning the two unfamiliar faces were husband and wife, heirs to a software fortune, reclusive, rarely photographed, Norman and Joan probably not their real names. But they were financed like no one else in the tiny Amazon clearing.

  The conversations during breakfast skirted around the real reason for the gathering, the atmosphere simmering with anticipation. Lord Felix Jensen would demand their attention at the precise moment of his own making.

  A purple-throated toucan swooped from a tree, landing on a folding table, dashing its oversized-beak into a can of strawberries, gulping down the contents. As it flew up in a blur of colour, vanishing into the jungle, Lord Jensen knew the time was right, and he nodded to Bianca.

  ‘Ladies and gentleman, please assemble in the main tent.’

  Abandoning all else, they filed into a large square tent with a high ceiling, tall enough to stand in. On a table at the front were eight laptop computers. They took one each and sat in deckchairs arranged in a semi-circle. From his briefcase, Venti removed a laptop and a small black drawstring bag from which he shook out a bundle of flash-drives. From another bag, he took the cube, casually tossing it to Jonathon Brown.

  ‘Pass it around, Jonathon.’

  Venti waited as the cube passed along the line and back again.

  ‘Any thoughts?’ he said.

  ‘Gorgeous smell, possibly Middle Eastern, and the carvings are divine. Where did you get it?’ Paris Vanderock said.

  ‘It’s from Sudan. You might recall a wealthy Italian citizen arrested for desecrating a pyramid at the ancient site of Meroe, north of Khartoum. The cube came from within the pyramid.’

  ‘He’s lucky to be alive,’ Lord Jensen said.

  ‘How is it significant?’ Monique Zambeel said.

  ‘Who among you believe in God?’ Venti said, holding the cube in the palm of his hand.

  ‘This beautiful lump of wood was carved by a fisherman. Not one to get his hands dirty with blood and scales but literally a fisher of men.’

  The hairs on Venti’s neck rose to the occasion.

  ‘You know him better as a carpenter.’

  They hung on his every word, not daring to dream the possibility they were constructing in their own minds. Venti paused like a magician before the finale of his greatest illusion.

  ‘This cube was crafted by Jesus of Nazareth.’

  There followed a silence not even the noises of the jungle could penetrate. Venti watched their dumbstruck expressions. A faint smile stretched his lips.

  Toby Bell’s laptop slipped off his knees onto the floor.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, retrieving the computer.

  ‘How did you come to such a monumental conclusion, Michael?’ Norman said.

  The cube in Venti’s hand manifested an unfathomable aura.

  ‘The clue to the cube’s origin was obscure at first but what it contained was indisputable. Open your laptops and plug in these.’

  Venti scooped the flash-drives off the table, handing them out.

  ‘Click on the file labelled Shroud. The first photograph you see is of a scroll, typical of an ancient papyrus document. It is in excellent condition and I will explain
more about it soon. The writing on it is in black ink, the makeup of which is currently undergoing analysis. The next photo is of a similar scroll. The text is Aramaic, formatted like a diary entry with dates at the top. If they are authentic, and there is no reason to suspect otherwise, the entries were written in the third month of the seventeenth year of the reign of Tiberius, more concisely 33 AD. They reveal a predetermined threat which...’

  Venti was interrupted by a slap on the tent. The long silhouette of a snake slid down the nylon roof onto the ground outside. Venti continued, unfazed. ‘If we...’

  ‘Excuse me, Michael, but where is the proof in all of this? Forgive me for playing the doubting Thomas,’ Paris Vanderock said.

  ‘The concepts explained in the scrolls were not familiar to modern science until the nineteenth century. Not even the great minds of middle history had any inkling of a theory that is now common knowledge. The scrolls describe a powerful object so potentially devastating, I fell ill at the revelation. But only when it is in our possession will I divulge its secret to you all,’ Venti said.

  ‘Then why are we here?’ Lord Jensen said.

  ‘We need eyes and ears in the street, Felix. Every Jupiter operative will need a description of the object in order to locate it. Because of its incalculable importance, I will refer to it henceforth as the tabernacle; a holy container storing the most precious and mysterious gift.’

  The eight flashed glances at each other as Venti revealed a sliver of his psychotic mind.

  ‘Click on the red circle.’

  An old-looking sepia photograph expanded onto their screens showing frogs trapped inside a transparent glass block.

  ‘Is anyone familiar with this photograph?’ Venti said.

  There were murmurings in the negative.

  ‘Taken in 1831 in the physics department of Cambridge University, and with photography in its infancy, the quality of the plate is exceptional and rare for the period. The ornament in the photograph is one of three discovered in a tomb east of the modern city of Nazareth in 1792 during an archaeological dig led by Geoffrey Cantwell, and financed by the wealthy shipping magnate Sir Timothy Sivewright.

  ‘They are made of glass and the six frogs in each are suspended in some sort of resin. The craftsmanship is exemplary even by today’s standards. The next photograph is of a drawing from the late eighteenth century by the British Royal Society biologist, Charles Webster, depicting the very same type of frog.

  ‘Initially the scientific community were reluctant to accept the frogs as a new species. Usual protocol required comprehensive dissection to establish reproductive and other physiology but Sir Timothy Sivewright refused to allow the ornaments to be broken open for examination. Ultimately, their undeniable palette of colour and the sheer determinedness of Professor Webster had the frogs officially classified and named Trinity Harlequins.

  ‘Our predicament lies in the present. Currently the whereabouts of the three ornaments is unknown, but we must find them all to determine the one of true value.

  ‘The tomb where the frogs resided contained coins minted during the reign of Tiberius around two thousand years ago, and the scrolls state that each ornament was caressed by Christ’s holy hands. When we find them all we will hold a communion of earthly elements touched by the Son of God.

  ‘Under ultraviolet light, the scrolls appear smothered in finger prints, and each scroll is signed at the bottom.’

  Venti spoke with all the subtle drama he could muster. From his briefcase, he took a sheet of paper with a copy of the signature drawn in black art-line. He showed them the flourishing Aramaic script and underneath, the English translation.

  The Christ.

  The implications were too astounding for them to process.

  ‘Where do we begin?’ Bianca said in support of her brother’s amazing claims.

  Venti continued as if a document written by the Son of God was unworthy of lengthy consideration.

  ‘After the ornaments were displayed together for the last time on the tragic night of Sir Timothy Sivewright’s assassination at the palace of Louis XIV, we know the subsequent fate of just two. One was displayed in the British Museum, the other at Cambridge University. The third ornament is not mentioned again. Later, the British Museum presented a young Charles Darwin with its ornament, to accompany him on his famous voyage aboard the Beagle. Darwin had long admired the frogs, often talking about them to colleagues and friends. They were bewitching to him and he pondered their significance in the wild new theories he was formulating. On his return, Darwin embarrassingly informed the museum the ornament was lost overboard in an incident in the west Pacific, south of Tahiti.

  The Cambridge ornament was stolen from a protective display in one of its boarding houses the day before the Beagle sailed out of Plymouth Harbour, and was never recovered.

  The chances of finding all three appear remote. However, the scrolls predicted the finding of this cube and the loss and rediscovery of the ornaments.’

  ‘Slightly pie in the sky, don’t you think?’ Lord Jensen said.

  Venti sensed them conspiring against his yet unproven claims.

  ‘If it sounds fanciful, I ask this. Who amongst you would jump into the river boat and head into the sunset, ignoring everything you’ve heard this morning?

  ‘I’d bet my soul against the devil’s none of you would want to miss the greatest revelation since the dawn of time, a conduit to power beyond money.’

  Toby Bell closed his laptop and stood.

  ‘Cardinal Venti, sometimes it is easier to confide in one’s imagination so I accept your decree to reveal the truth of the tabernacle in due course.’

  ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ Monique Zambeel said.

  ‘Let’s see if the ornaments reappear as predicted,’ Jonathon Brown said, not wanting to appear the slightest bit cynical.

  ‘The tabernacle will not find its way to our door of its own accord. We must be proactive. Seek and ye shall find,’ Venti said.

  Joan spoke for the first time, all eyes turning to her. ‘I can encrypt a message with the information our operatives will need. In an hour, the quest for the tabernacle will be underway. Out of the steamy Amazon will arise the reign of Jupiter.’

  She maintained a straight face, but only for a moment, breaking into a wide grin.

  Her dry sense of humour melted any ice blocks of dissent and they were united for now.

  ‘It’s done then. Let the games begin. How about piranha fillets for dinner or a hunting trip through the jungle to pop a monkey or two? We could eat the brains fresh from their skulls, a la Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.’

  ‘Stop it, Felix, you’re turning my stomach.’ Paris Vanderock hurled a ball of paper that bounced off his receding forehead, only spurring him on.

  ‘Then we can find that snake that fell off the tent and slice open its soft belly, stuffing our mouths with its young, downing them whole without daring to chew.’

  Paris knew exactly what to do. She got out of her deckchair and walked directly to Lord Jensen who beamed at his own mischief. She came from behind, planting a kiss on the top of his head, leaving a smudge of bright red lipstick. Lord Jensen, beyond embarrassment, conceded with a raucous laugh.

  ‘Perhaps we can settle for a few hands of poker.’

  Jonathon Brown got to his feet, slapping his thigh. ‘Now that’s more my style. Ten thousand per card.’

  ‘Oh please, Jonathon, you can be cheap at times. A hundred grand per card, winner donates all to their favourite charity.’ Monique Zambeel slotted a cheroot into the end of a long ebony holder, lit it, sucked hard so the tip glowed, and blew a stream of smoke at the tent ceiling.

  Venti offered his apologies. ‘Obviously, my meagre Vatican subsidy will exclude me.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Norman said. ‘It seems the Pope has plenty of cash to play with. The Golgotha Sword springs to mind. I propose one hand; my one hundred million Euros against the cube and the scrolls.’


  ‘They are not for sale, Norman. Who could put a value on a document written by the hand of Jesus Christ?’

  ‘Is it worth your life?’ Norman said.

  Venti eyed him circumspectly, unease rising in his throat.

  ‘Nothing is worth more than a life, Norman, nothing except the guarantee of eternal life in God’s heaven.’

  ‘So you will display the cube on behalf of the Church?’

  ‘You know it’s impossible, Norman. If you think the cube a valuable addition to your private collections, the tabernacle will render it worthless in comparison. If you will excuse me, I must prepare for Mass.’

  Venti celebrated on a makeshift altar at the back of the clearing. In some strange way, he hoped to preserve his corroding soul and prevent its descent into hell. God must see some goodness beyond his pills and manic desires. Bianca sat on a foldable stool, the only participant. The rest were either readying for a card session or to accompany Lord Jensen into the jungle. But Venti saw them watching him, admiring his apparent devotion or wondering at his perfect facade, unsure if he was mad or a measured genius.

  The Jupiters were strapped into a roller coaster as it crawled to its peak, ready to descend at speed into a dangerous trough.

  From inside her tent, Joan sent the encrypted message and within twenty-four hours the search for the tabernacle had begun in earnest.

  47

  When Rachel answered the door, Zachary beamed his infectious smile and produced a bunch of long-stemmed daffodils from behind his back.

  ‘They’re beautiful. Let me put them in a vase.’ She grinned at him. ‘Come inside.’

  ‘Nice apartment.’

  ‘Thank you, Zach.’

  After she arranged the flowers in a tall glass, Zachary offered her a package wrapped in silvered tissue paper and tied with a gold ribbon.