13th Apostle
Page 30
So, that was Sarkami’s sacrifice. Not the death of his son but of himself, of the man who had still carried hope of what his son might have become, of the father who, no matter what, still blindly loved his own child. In that moment, Sarkami had relinquished it all, simply because it was the right thing to do.
“You may not know it yet, Gil, but you have been transformed, as well,” Sarkami said softly. “You will never again feel self-righteous in the face of another’s misdeeds, you will never lack compassion for another’s regrets. Your guilt and anguish were honest and in their truth, they cleansed your soul.”
Two other tasks lay ahead, Sarkami explained. Upon their completion, Gil could deliver the scroll to the righteous soul for whom it was intended.
“But if you are the High Tzaddik, isn’t the scroll meant to go to you?” Gil asked. “Why can’t you just take it from me and do what you want with it?”
“Because it isn’t intended for me,” Sarkami replied. “And because if I were to accept it, its message would be lost on the occasion of my death.”
Gil’s blood ran cold. What was Sarkami saying? He pressed the man who had now become his mentor for an explanation. None was forthcoming.
“Well, you’re going to be with us for a good long time,” Gil concluded on a lighter note. “After all, you’re reasonably young and healthy.”
“The Chinese say that we own nothing that can’t be lost in a shipwreck,” Sarkami replied with a gentle smile. “Now, let’s get back to work.”
The second task was at hand and that came more easily. Over the next two days, at Sarkami’s request, Gil designed and uploaded a message that would serve as a digital signpost in cyberspace for the next millennium.
Gil had written the message using an advanced binary pattern, a language he believed would be understood by the High Tzaddik of the next millennium. There the message would remain, in cyberspace, until it was needed to lead the High Tzaddik to the scroll of the Thirteenth Apostle, a thousand years in the future.
Only the third task remained unfulfilled.
“Soon,” Sarkami assured Gil. “McCullum is not far now. And he is more determined than ever. You will know when it is time.”
Chapter 67
An hour later
Library Conference Room, Israel Museum Library
Sarkami chose his position carefully. With his back to the open conference room door, he would appear unsuspecting. McCullum would believe that his arrival had been unanticipated. That assumption was essential to Sarkami’s plan and, if all played out well, it would buy Gil the few extra days he would need.
McCullum was certain to bring two new Power Angels, capable of an equal or greater brutality than the now-dead twins. Oh, how that loss must have infuriated the old Nazi, Sarkami thought. No matter, the freedom of having George out of the picture had probably done much to sooth McCullum’s loss.
The old eagle’s eyes glanced over the props he had so carefully arranged. On the floor, to the right of his chair, partially obscured by his coat, sat a beautiful new leather travel case, now empty. Handwritten notes, highlighted and underlined, open texts of Aramaic translation, and computer printouts, covered the conference room table. Sarkami’s hand instinctively touched his right pocket. The key to the library locker remained where he had carefully placed it.
If only he hadn’t had to cut short his last meeting with Gil in anticipation of McCullum’s imminent arrival. There was so much left unsaid; so much that could have helped Gil with the last of his tasks. Sarkami shook his head. No, Gil would have to discover it for himself. That was the way it was. And he would succeed. Of that, Sarkami was certain. So, perhaps, it was all for the best.
Now, everything was done but the waiting. And even that went far more quickly than Sarkami had calculated.
In one blur of sound and movement, the door to the conference room had been closed, Sarkami had been lifted to his feet by one of the infamous white angels from hell, and a very angry McCullum awaited the answer to a single question.
“Where’s the scroll?” McCullum asked.
Sarkami remained silent, unmoving, and awaited the enactment of the script he had gone over a dozen times in his mind. It was remarkable, he thought, how utterly predictable this kind of man was almost certain to be.
“There are only so many places you could have hidden it and from what I can see,” McCullum said as he leafed through the notes strewn across the table, “it’s not far away.”
Sarkami repressed a wry smile. The fool had completely missed the empty travel case on the floor. Power Angel #1 emptied the contents of Sarkami’s pockets onto the table. McCullum’s excitement over the discovery of the library locker key was almost palpable. It was all so banal. Somehow, Sarkami would have preferred a bit of imaginative challenge at the end.
A momentary flash of panic brought Sarkami to attention when, for an instant, it appeared that McCullum was incapable of deducing the location of the locker.
Christ, do I have to draw you a map?
In the end, Sarkami concluded that McCullum’s stupidity worked in Sarkami’s favor. The beating and threats stretched out McCullum’s discovery of the scroll and allowed Sarkami to relinquish its location only after suitably persuasive techniques had been put to use.
After stuffing his mouth with his socks, they had broken three of his fingers and had cut the Achilles tendons on both of his feet. In anticipation of permanent damage to the tendons of his fingers, and the end of his life as an artist, Sarkami had surrendered the hiding place, only a few feet from the room in which he had just been tortured.
Key in hand, Power Angel #2 returned with the prize and laid the tarnished scroll into McCullum’s hands. A final stab to the heart left Sarkami barely able to hear his attacker’s last words.
“How do we know it’s the real scroll?” one of the white assassins asked. “I mean, after all, he makes fakes for a living, doesn’t he?”
“He would not die so hard for a mere facsimile,” McCullum said with a satisfied smile, then closed the door behind him.
Sarkami’s last thought brought him inexplicable peace.
No, but I would gladly do so for the real one.
Chapter 68
Three days later, predawn
Sculpture Garden, Israel Museum
The sixth-page newspaper article testified to the fact that the waiting was over. “museum employee found dead. robbery not motive.”
Gil had not known what shape the violence would take, but Sarkami had prepared him for the inevitable. Now, the old eagle was dead.
“I’ve achieved more than I ever thought possible. I’ve produced replicas of antiquity that the world will experience for centuries to come. The wisdom and love of two millennia have transformed me. I have loved and have been loved. Though I will not see my last wish fulfilled, I am content knowing that you shall complete the task that was entrusted to me.” Sarkami placed his hand on Gil’s shoulder.
“Who could ask for more?” the older man asked with a grin that, for a moment, revealed a young, handsome Sarkami of yesteryear.
Sarkami had presented Gil with a soft, white caftan made of the same fabric that had covered the table on which the scroll sat at Sarkami’s house. “This robe was given to me by the High Tzaddik who came before me. Now, it will be yours.”
Sarkami’s instructions had been succinct but exact. “You will know when it is time to cleanse yourself and to put on the caftan. Likewise, you will know what must be done. Leave your mind and heart open. Let the lessons of those who have touched you throughout your life, become part of you. Do not linger on the memories but, rather, on what wisdom they have bestowed upon you.”
“Those are your instructions?” Gil asked incredulously. “Trust the wisdom that has been bestowed on me? So how come, if I’m so wise, I have no idea what you’re talking about? Come on, don’t do this to me.”
Sarkami had smiled, the same loving look that Gil had once witnessed between Sabbie and the old eagle.
“The scroll shall guide you. Become as a channel through which the message of the scroll may flow.”
“But I can’t read it,” Gil had protested. “How can I deliver its message?”
“The scroll does not require an understanding of the language in which it was written. Its words are merely a reflection of history. The message it bears is far greater than words could ever express.”
“How will I know what to do?”
“If you are found worthy, the scroll will tell you.”
“And if I’m not?” Gil asked.
“Then the Covenant of Continuance shall be broken,” Sarkami said simply.
“You can’t be saying that the fate of mankind, God’s determination if man is worthy to remain on this earth for the next millennium, depends on me?” Gil asked cynically.
“No, it will depend on what God finds when He is called to come and count the righteous ones, the tzaddikim, who walk upon this earth,” Sarkami explained.
“I will call…who!”
“You’re not listening!” Sarkami bellowed. “You will call no one. You will be the channel through which the message of the scroll shall flow. It will come as a prayer, a song, not of you but through you. You must be pure of heart and mind. You must offer no impediment.”
It was the most obvious question but one to which Gil wasn’t certain he wanted the answer.
“Why me?” Gil had asked.
Sarkami had looked puzzled. “Why not?” the old eagle replied with sincerity.
“Come on. I’m not the most religious person in the world or the most righteous. There are a hell of a lot of other people who would make a better High Tzaddik than me.”
“Oh, I see,” Sarkami said with sudden understanding. “The whole media image thing. Very American, you know. No, my friend, you’re confusing Cecil B. DeMille with God. God doesn’t require you to be the best at anything in order to win His favor. To become the High Tzaddik, like any tzaddik, you must be a good person, a righteous person, but not necessarily the best person in the world. This isn’t some kind of cosmic contest. You need to have lived a decent life, doing your best with what you have been given, but no heroes need apply. Just a decent human being, who has tried his or her best, and who has never taken a life. Though at times he might have desired to,” Sarkami added with a laugh.
“I still don’t understand, why me? I mean with millions of good, honest, righteous people out there…”
“Good timing,” Sarkami said wryly. “Or bad timing, depending on how you look at it.”
Gil cringed at the thought of the last few weeks.
Sarkami shook one long bony finger at Gil. “The funny thing is, you are absolutely right. There is nothing special about you, and that is exactly the kind of person God wants to find when he returns to consider His Covenant of Continuance. You hold the answers God seeks.”
Gil looked up in surprise.
Sarkami continued, “When you call, God will come. The song within the scroll will bring Him to you. Within you, He will find the essential answers: Who is man today? What has he become in the last millennium? Is he still worthy to be given more time to grow and develop, to become more like God in His own image?”
“And I’m going to stand and be judged for all of mankind? You’ve got to be kidding!”
“No, my egotistical friend. Remember what I have said. You will serve as nothing but the channel, the vessel through which God will touch the soul of man. You need only to open yourself and allow Him to enter.”
Gil suddenly understood. “That is why a High Tzaddik cannot have killed,” he said with certainty.
“Yes. To carry that evil within your soul would prevent God from entering. You could not be a channel if you were already filled with the malevolence of such a past.”
“But suppose the killing was justified?” Gil argued.
“This is not a matter of fairness,” Sarkami answered. “Sabbie is not on trial here, if that’s what you are thinking. And she did not die so that you could be High Tzaddik, so don’t feel that you must defend her. In life, you are not punished for your deeds but, rather, by them. She did what she had to do at the time she did it. Later, she found redemption and peace. She accepted her role in the scheme of things and you must, too.”
Sarkami was quiet for a moment, then added one thought. “You were part of the redemption, Gil. Sabbie had to make certain that, since she could not take my place when the time came, someone else would. A good person, someone who was decent and, in his own way, righteous, although, perhaps, a bit ordinary, at that,” Sarkami added with a smile.
These were Sarkami’s last words to Gil. There was, however, one final act that awaited completion before he left. This one, a gift from Gil to Sarkami.
Gil had taken Sarkami’s fingers in his hand and gently guided his mentor to the backpack that lay in the corner of the room. Wordlessly, Sarkami knelt and, as Gil removed the scroll and delivered it into Sarkami’s waiting arms, a deep serenity engulfed them both.
Now Sarkami was gone and a new High Tzaddik had emerged.
Gil rose at three in the morning. He showered and dressed in the white caftan Sarkami had given him. Somehow he knew it was similar to the one Micah had taken from his back and had given Yeshua in the garden.
From its place in the corner, Gil gathered up the backpack, slipped it over his shoulders, and walked the empty streets that led to the entrance to the Museum Sculpture Garden. The break in the fence that Sabbie described, far from view of the security control pavilion, remained, and offered him easy access.
The enormous sculptures within the garden greeted Gil as if they had been waiting. Built on the hill called Neva Shaanan, Place of Tranquility, the flowing, square, curved, and stark monuments, some dozens of feet high, all seemed to join together as if to say that, though they were shaped by man, they stood in tribute to something greater than man himself. Gil made his way across the five acres of garden to his destination.
The massive white granite sculpture of a staircase shone in the predawn light. It seemed to reach to the heavens. In the moments before the first rays of light would hail the new day, Gil climbed to the top of the monument and seated himself.
There, next to him on the top step of the sculpture, Gil removed the scroll on which Micah had inscribed his story more than two millennia before. Innermost, was the section Sabbie had been unable to unroll and, within it, had been hidden the scroll’s true message, the prayer that could not be allowed to die. Here was the only hope for mankind. Within its prayer lived the plea that would beckon God to come and judge man’s worthiness. Here it would be determined if, indeed, thirty-six righteous souls might yet be found to testify on behalf of mankind’s fate. Here it would be decided if the Covenant of Continuance, between man and God, would be recast for yet another thousand years.
Here, then, the third task would be consummated. As Sarkami had instructed, Gil waited for the final star to disappear from the morning sky. When the final bright point on the horizon winked one last time and was gone, Gil lightly touched his fingers to the edge of the copper scroll. The familiar warmth filled him, once again.
Without effort, the sound of prayer made itself heard. Gil knew nothing of the words he sang. They moved through him as the air passes in and out. He was but the empty channel through which two thousand years passed. Gladly he surrendered himself to it.
Even as the sacred sounds made their way to the heavens, Gil knew the ancient thoughts of one whose wisdom still lived.
Grieve not, my brother.
Be healed. We are all flawed, we fall and fail. Each of us, with knowledge or without, contributes to the suffering around us, if not with forethought, then by our pretense of innocence, comfortable condemnation, and arrogance. When these frailties are relinquished, all becomes right in thought and action. Therein lies everyman’s sacrifice and his salvation as well.
The last boundary between his body and the presence that approached melted away. Now he understood.
Each is the teller of the tale, the bringer of the word. Each soul has his own story and each story is a vital link in the chain of truth, a chain that reaches across the generations, from one millennium to the next. As long as the story is told, as long as struggle and sacrifice bring forth truth, the Thirteenth Apostle lives within each of us. So may God find us worthy to continue to serve and so may our days be long upon this earth.
The Thirteenth Apostle is not one man, not merely he who walked with Jesus and assumed His burdens when He could no longer do so Himself. We are each of us, as Micah, a Thirteenth Apostle, spanning the great abyss between that which we are and that which we would seek to become.
As countless others who have gone before us, we may never know if we are the righteous ones, the tzaddikim, but in this changing and challenging world, we must each live as if we are.
Acknowledgments
We wish to express our deep appreciation to the following people:
Mel Berger of the William Morris Agency—by far the finest agent in the world. His brilliant flashes of insight, coupled with thoughtful and incisive advice, his creativity, quick wit, brevity of comment, years of experience, his caring, hard work, and willingness to put all he has into a project he believes in combine to make him the best agent and the best friend any writer could ever have.
Publisher Liate Stehlik and marketing director Adrienne Di Pietro, HarperCollins, for their essential leadership and guidance.
Sarah Durand, our truly outstanding editor, for her understanding of this project, her earnestness, wise counsel, remarkable editorial expertise, and for her very hard work. We deeply appreciate Sarah’s commitment to producing only top-notch work and for her contribution in securing, for this book, the best cover art we have ever seen.