The Constantine Codex

by Paul L Maier

  Kevin said nothing. He simply shook his head in continuing dismay.

  Next, Jon opened a small plastic case that held a drill bit with a diamond-edged cutting head less than an inch in diameter. “This one loves to eat mortar,” he said.

  Finally he hauled out a thin metal wand to which were affixed two tiny strobe lights and two miniature digital cameras, with battery power supply inside the wand and all controls in the handle at its top. “Are you getting the picture, Kev?”

  He cupped his chin in hand and nodded slowly.

  “I got the idea from the Italian archaeologists who explore the Etruscan tombs in Tuscany. There are so many up there that they excavate only those with interesting contents. And how can they tell which those might be? They bore a hole at the top of their circular ceilings and take flash photos by lowering something like this inside. Only our model here is smaller and much more sophisticated. We might even be able to produce three-dimensional images by using the two cameras.”

  “Not to burst your bubble, Jon, but I doubt that your gadget will penetrate solid marble very quickly, unless you want to spend an hour or two drilling away.”

  “I won’t penetrate the marble. I plan to use one of the holes already made in the lid but mortared over. This drill should cut it almost like butter. I already promised you that I’d destroy nothing at all in the process. It’s going to be quick, painless surgery.”

  “I only hope you’re right. In fact, I only pray that you’re right. And please-because of my special relationship with the Holy Father-I never helped you at all in this escapade, right? And if you’re caught, I don’t even know you.” Sullivan stopped and they both chuckled. Since Kevin had originally introduced his friend to the pope, both knew how ridiculous that proposal was. “Okay, then,” he went on, “if you are caught, get me on your cell phone. I’ll have been ‘in the neighborhood’ and will ‘rush over to help my friend’ and maybe try to get his tail out of jail if it comes to that.”

  “Fair enough, Kevin. I couldn’t ask for more.”

  Shortly before noon the next day, they were driving back to the basilica of St. Paul. “You look just great in that Italian repairman’s getup, Jon,” Sullivan said. “Didn’t I see you and Mario on Nintendo?”

  Jon merely smiled, trying to steel himself for the peril ahead.

  “But why in the world you would want to choose the busiest time of the day for your escapade is quite beyond me.”

  “Noon isn’t the busiest-tourists will be leaving for restaurants-and I couldn’t bring it off if the place were nearly empty.”

  “Why not? That’s when I would have done it.”

  “Wrong. Same number of guards then, but fewer things to distract them… greater chance of detection. Tourists are my protection.”

  At the basilica, Sullivan parked his Fiat near a service door in the rear and extended his hand to Jon. “God go with you, you crazy fool! I’ll be waiting out here, praying for a miracle but with my cell phone handy.”

  “See you here in fifteen to twenty minutes, Kev.”

  Jon hoisted his gear, walked up to the service door, and passed through it without challenge. At a very deliberate pace so that he would not attract attention and yet arrive at the crypt exactly at 11:59 a.m., Jon walked through the ranks of pilgrims in line to see the crypt and approached the railing surrounding it. It was 11:58-a minute too early-but no real problem. He slowly opened his toolbox and looked around for guards. Thank goodness noon was also the time for the changing of those guards.

  A great boom seemed to explode inside the sanctuary. Although it was merely the Janiculum cannon doing its thing as it did at noon each day, the tourists were sufficiently startled for Jon to make his move. He hauled out his dark green tarpaulin and started spreading it over the glass ceiling of the crypt. “Mi scuzi! Per favore, mi scuzi!” Jon said in his best Italian accent, while nudging several pilgrims aside in the process. At the center of the tarp now covering the glass, he placed a large sign in both Italian and English: CHIUSO PER QUINDICI

  MINUTI CLOSED FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES

  Then he went to the small doorway near the side of the high altar and tried the door. It refused to open. Was it locked? With prayer and a stronger tug, it opened at last. He crawled through and emerged inside the crypt. Quickly he opened his tool kit, hauled out the drill, and set it to work on his target, which was the most centrally located mortar-filled hole in the lid.

  The drill purred away without making the quick progress Jon had counted on. He put more pressure on the drill. This reduced the rpm but the drill seemed to start making some penetration. Still, no breakthrough. The mortar they used centuries ago was pretty good after all, he mused. The drilling seemed to go on for endless minutes.

  This was all taking too long, he realized. He pushed harder and harder, yet the material refused to yield. His concerns had become worry, and worry was now bordering on panic. He’d have to abandon his wild scheme, cut his losses, and head out ASAP. Yes, common sense dictated that he do just that. After one final push, it would be the end.

  Suddenly the drill broke through. It would instantly have crashed into the lid of the sarcophagus had not Jon’s gloved left hand been waiting to cushion the blow. Trembling with joyful relief, Jon pulled the drill out and replaced it with his photo wand. It just fit into the orifice. He lowered it exactly one foot down, then turned on the strobes and started tripping the camera shutters. He twirled the wand forty-five degrees and did the same, then the next forty-five degrees, and so on until he had made a complete circle.

  Next he lowered the wand nine inches further and repeated the process. He thought briefly of trying a third round but canceled the concept in the name of prudence. He quickly removed the photo wand and retrieved all his gear. As a final touch, he plugged the hole in the lid with color-matched hardening clay. Then he crawled back out of the crypt. He emerged through the door at the end of the passageway and could finally stand up again. Then his heart almost failed. One of the basilica guards was standing there, looking at him with a great frown.

  “Buon giorno!” Jon said amiably, retrieving his wits. He closed the little door, ignored the guard, and walked over to the railing around the crypt, where he removed the sign and the tarp. Then he strolled casually but methodically back to the service door, wondering whether the guard was following him. But he dared not look backward. That would have been too obvious a tip-off.

  When he reached the service door, Jon was sure brawny hands were about to seize him by the very scruff of his neck. But no. Thank the good Lord, his bluff had been successful.

  He climbed into Kevin’s Fiat and they drove off. Jon looked at his watch. Only nineteen minutes had elapsed since they’d arrived. To Jon it had seemed more like nineteen hours.

  “Do you mean to say the guard just stood there, looking at you?” Kevin asked while driving through the Ostian Gate on their way back to the Janiculum. “I find that a little hard to believe.”

  “I don’t blame you. I was lucky. But it’s all in appearances, Kev, appearances. To that guard, I was just one of the many handymen tending the place. He probably sees dozens like me every day.”

  “But how did you ever have the… the guts to pull off something like this? When you put on those duds, you must have known something as serendipitous as this could happen.”

  “I got the idea from something that happened years ago when I was a freshman at Harvard. One afternoon, some students-dressed like street construction workers-brought a huge air compressor onto the corner where Mass Avenue runs into Harvard Square. They fired up the compressor, and then-with three jackhammers roaring at the same time-they started blasting away at Massachusetts Avenue, tearing up the pavement and stacking huge pieces of asphalt onto the curb. The police quickly came, of course, but what did they do? They carefully directed traffic around the construction area so the ‘city workers’ could get their job done!”

  Kevin was laughing so hard, he had to pull over to the curb.
Finally he asked, “What did they ever do to those pranksters?”

  “Not a darn thing. After a half hour of this, they simply left the scene-air compressor, jackhammers, and all, which they had ‘borrowed’ from a university construction site.”

  “They never caught them?”

  “Never.”

  Kevin shook his head, incredulous.

  “See,” Jon said, “like I said, it’s all in the appearances, Kev.”

  “Maybe it was more like you were Daniel, and the Lord himself closed the mouths of the lions.”

  “Yeah, maybe so.”

  That evening, they prepared to upload Jon’s precious photographs. As he attached each camera to USB cables connected to his laptop, Jon was cautious-trying to keep his own hopes in check more than to convince his friend. “You realize, Kevin, that there are plenty of things that can go wrong here. For one, we could have technical failure with one or both cameras-not the strobes, since I saw the flashing-but if the remote shutter controls failed, we’d have nothing. That’s unlikely, but not impossible. Or the camera lenses might have missed their target because I angled them wrong-although I tried hard to get the geometry straight. Or even with all the technical stuff working perfectly, there might well be nothing inside, no target.”

  Kevin shook his head. “Why so negative? I’m sure there must be something inside the tomb.”

  “Well, I suppose there probably are bones inside, but they might not be St. Paul’s.”

  “But how would you ever know that?”

  “Simple. If the skull were attached to the neck bones, then it couldn’t be St. Paul because we know he was beheaded.”

  “Oh… of course.” With an impish grin, Kevin asked, “Is that all?”

  “Well, there is one more possibility,” Jon admitted. “There’s a remote chance that we have the photos of… the real McCoy. Sorry, that’s a dumb phrase for something as extraordinary and sacred as this, but you know what I mean.”

  “Right.”

  Jon’s hand was actually trembling as he turned on his laptop. Why did the booting up take so long? Finally his screen came alive with all its icons. He double-clicked on his favorite photo-imaging program, clicked the Import button for camera #1 at the one-foot level, and waited for the images to appear. They arrived, one by one, with excruciating slowness, yet all were-well, not blank, but showing only the gray marble interior of the sarcophagus. After the eight 45-degree-angle photographs had made a complete circuit, Jon slapped his hand on the table and muttered, “Nothing! Just the same drab interior walls of the tomb. Either there’s nothing inside or my lens angles were wrong.”

  “Well, try camera two, for goodness’ sake!” Kevin advised.

  “Camera two? Oh yes, of course.”

  Jon shook off his disappointment and returned to his laptop. The uploads from the second camera started appearing on the screen, but with the same disappointing results: nothing but shots of the interior wall. Jon clapped both hands over his eyes in dejection.

  “Jon, look!” Kevin yelled. Photo number four from the second camera was coming onto the screen. It showed the top of something that was difficult to make out, but it was most definitely not part of the walls.

  “Yessss!” Jon exploded. “The hole was near the eastern edge of the sarcophagus, and I aimed the wand there first. Now we’re getting the views across to the other side. And just look at seven o’clock!”

  “Wow!” Kevin enthused, looking over Jon’s shoulder. “Nine o’clock is even better!” Both angles showed bones at the base of each view.

  Then there were indrawn breaths: Eleven o’clock showed the top half of a human skull.

  Both were silent for some time, savoring the moment. Finally Jon said, “The next series, which was taken nine inches lower, should be even better.”

  Indeed, this became the series that Jon knew could make history. Both cameras clearly showed the image of a skeletal figure, ranging in height-they estimated-between five-foot-five and five-foot-eight. A shock of what looked to be salt-and-pepper-shaded hair-much on the sides, little on top-was still attached to the skull. And unless this was wishful viewing, there seemed to be a break in the neck vertebrae five and six beneath the skull.

  “What do you think, Jon? Do we have a gap there or not?”

  “It’s tough to tell at this point. We’ve got to avoid letting any bias color our results. In any case, we won’t be able to determine that until we enlarge the photos. Then again, if the people who buried this person pushed the head back into position, we may never know, short of a real autopsy.”

  Suddenly Kevin said, “No, Jon. You’re wrong. This… this is St. Paul.” He knelt down, crossed himself, and took several trembling breaths, clearly overcome.

  “Easy, man. How can you be so sure?”

  He wiped his eyes. “Look at those pieces of purple fabric still attached to one of the ribs!”

  “What?”

  “And remember how Second Acts closes? ‘On his breast we placed a small cross of wood, the emblem of what has become the center of everything he preached and taught.’” Kevin stood and pointed at the latest image on Jon’s laptop. “Look closely. Look at that rib cage…”

  Jon squinted. There it lay, on the sternum: the image of an ancient cross made of darker material that contrasted with the gray of the ribs.

  Jon slumped down on Kevin’s sofa, moving his head in a slow arc from side to side as the full ramifications ran together in his mind. Then he looked up. “Well, there’s our material evidence. And the evidence is actually a keystone, bracing up both sides of our mutual interests: Second Acts and the remains of St. Paul. How incredibly, wondrously, fabulous! Both authentic! ”

  Kevin agreed-enthusiastically. “And of course, you can guess my next question.”

  “I can. ‘When may I tell the Holy Father?’”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “Well, if you tell him now, he might not take too kindly to what we’ve-I’m sorry-what I’ve done.”

  “I doubt that. He’ll be overjoyed that both Second Acts and St. Paul are authentic.”

  “Maybe, but that cardinal with the five names will be furious.”

  “True. Done without his sacred permission.”

  “So why don’t we do this? Let’s have St. Paul’s remains ‘discovered’ several weeks after we announce the codex to the world. Benedict could persuade Cardinal Many Names to have archaeologists examine the interior of the sarcophagus. We know what they’ll find, and it will be a delightful corroboration to silence all the naysayers-”

  “Of which there’ll be a whole chorus, I’m sure.” Sullivan nodded, then added, “Yeah, I think that would be the best way to handle it. And I trust you’ll keep me abreast of how the scholarship is moving on Mark and Second Acts.”

  After Jon landed at Logan and hurried into Shannon’s waiting arms, he jabbered almost incessantly on the drive back to Weston about his adventure at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, though without mentioning his culminating discovery. Never one to mince words, Shannon let him know exactly what she thought of his escapade. It was beyond risky, she said, and more in the nature of foolhardy, rash, juvenile, and even reckless. Jon winced at each of those adjectives but kept his peace until they were home. Then, on the kitchen table, he booted up his laptop and paraded the views of no less than the skeleton of St. Paul. Now Shannon was mute, the back of her right hand covering a mouth that had sprung open in awesome surprise.

  While the photographs had exonerated him so far as his wife was concerned, Jon realized that much of her comment was absolutely on-target, and-but for good fortune-things might have turned out very differently, with a massive negative impact on his own good name and reputation. It was a near thing.

  The next morning, Jon turned the crypt photographs over to techie friends at MIT for enhancement. He did not, of course, disclose the provenance of the pictures or the probable identity of the skeletal remains in them. When they were returned-enlarge
d and printed in color-his friends had a little fun at Jon’s expense with comments like “Aha, so you’re professor by day, ghoul by night!” “Dr. Frankenstein, I presume?” and “When do you unveil your new pet monster?”

  More significantly, Jon took the prints to a colleague Dr. Theophil Samuel, dean of radiology at Harvard Medical School, who resembled an aging Sigmund Freud. “First off, Ted,” Jon asked, “do we have a man or woman here?”

  Samuel looked quickly through the photographs, sometimes squinting. “Male. Unquestionably, a male. Not a big person, but male nevertheless.”

  “How do you know? What do you look for to determine that?”

  “Relative bone size. Narrow pelvis-couldn’t deliver a baby.”

  “Okay. Now, perhaps you can’t tell from the photographs, but do you have any guess as to his age at death?”

  “Hmmm. Oh, I think I can… come reasonably close. See those extraphytic accretions at the edge of the bones? They develop over age. So I’d say… hmm… someone in his sixties-maybe a shade younger. If I had the remains, I could also check the teeth for wear from grinding and therefore age.”

  “That’s quite impressive. All right, please also check out these enlargements of the neck area.”

  Dr. Samuel studied the new photographs, then hauled out a large magnifying glass to zoom in further. “Strange,” he said, “there’s definite disarticulation, a definite gap between vertebrae five and six in the cervical plexus. Hmmm, and also a… a very consistent, flat abrasion of some kind along the top edges of vertebra five.”

  “Any idea of what could have caused that?” Jon asked.

  “Some very poor neck surgery, perhaps,” he trifled. “Where did you get these photos-from Yale Medical School?”

  Both chuckled; then Samuel commented, “Well, if someone were, say, beheaded, he’d look very much like this… if his relatives wanted to make the departed look more natural by trying to piece the bones together again. This isn’t King Louis XVI of France, is it-he of guillotine fame?”