Authors: Jerry B. Jenkins
I, Saul (34 page)
“I assume you did too.”
“That should go without saying.”
“So, why'd you take the job at Tri-K when you can cash in on deals
like that?”
“Well, it wasn't to greet tour groups in Thessaloniki and ring up their souvenir purchases, I'll tell you that.”
“You guys are pros, all right,” Dimos said as he rolled his trunk up to the suite door. A Do Not Disturb sign was in place. “Let me guess, the door is locked and bolted and chained.”
“I hope so,” Augie whispered. “You know what's in there.”
“Why don't you just announce it to everyone in the hotel?”
“The sign is overkill?”
“Don't play scared is all I'm saying. Nothing is going on here, so it should look that way. Now tell me, you have a code, right?”
“You're good.” Augie rapped three times, they heard the chain and the deadbolt, and Roger let them in.
“Okay,” Dimos said, pushing the trunk in, “resecure the door, but take that fool sign down.”
They followed Roger to Augie's bedroom, where the sheet of parchment lay on the table, still sandwiched between the acid-free protector sheets. Dimos rubbed his palms together and looked around. “All right, take the lamp off the table, shut the drapes. Ambient light will only distract me. Unplug the radio. Let me use the adjustable chair. And be prepared to turn off the overhead light once I'm ready.”
While Augie and Roger arranged things the way Dimos wanted, he hefted his trunk onto the bed and pulled out a tripod, which he set to the right of the chair. He removed a huge conical apparatus covered with elasticized cloth, which he removed to reveal a lamp with a huge floodlight. He secured it to the tripod, then crawled under the desk with an oversized power cord.
Next he lifted out a monstrous microscope with an unusually large viewing platform. The scope itself rode on what appeared to be a miniature dolly and could thus be maneuvered over the viewing area without moving the document. He adjusted the chair and put on a pair of filtered goggles and what looked like a hunting cap with an extra-long bill.
Finally, Dimos rummaged in the trunk for a pair of cloth gloves. As he put them on, Augie said, “You wouldn't have an extra pair of those, would you?”
“Sure, take what you need. And grab me those forceps. They look like oversized tweezers with the pinchers covered in cloth.”
“I could use a pair of those too,” Augie said.
“No. Unfortunately they're as expensive as they look. Imported from Russia.”
Dimos set the forceps to the right of the parchment. “Room light off, please.” Augie hit the switch and the room went dark. “Shade your eyes, gentlemen,” Dimos said. He clicked on the floodlight and the room came alive with intense whiteness.
“Heat's not a problem?” Augie said.
“No,” Dimos said. “A unique filter diffuses it. The parchment is perfectly safe.” He used one hand to slide the protective sheet away from the parchment, then the forceps to grasp the document and guide it to the base of the microscope. He edged the top eighth of the page onto the base.
Dimos sat for at least twenty minutes, slowly maneuvering the lenses over the viewing area, as if carefully studying every molecule. Augie strained to make out what he was mumbling.
“Um-hm, guessing split goatskin. Somebody figured it out when papyrus got scarce. For centuries you could get papyrus only from Alexandria. When prices went up or production fell off, people had to adapt. Parchment became the answer.”
Still peering through the lenses and slowly scanning the exposed part of the page, he said, “I got a look at the famous Jesus-had-a-wife fragment, but that was Sahidic Coptic written on papyrus, and I concurred it could be dated to the fourth century.”
Augie whispered, “This has got to be the most intact, pristine sample of the oldest readable manuscript ever, right?”
“I've seen pieces of parchment from two thousand years before Christ, but they're just barely readable bits on crumbling fragments. I'll be telling both buyer and seller that this is the oldest readable manuscript found to date. It'll have to be carbon dated eventually, but there is no doubt in my mind it will be authenticated. How this remained intact for two centuries, undergroundâparchment not being waterproofâI don't know. Had to be a perfect mix of temperature and lack of humidity.”
“So you're looking at a miracle?”
“I'm looking at the biggest payday I'll ever see.”
“Really,” Augie said. “It does nothing for you that you're handling the very page on which the Apostle Paul wrote in his own hand?”
Dimos cocked his head. “When you put it that way, yeah, that's kind of special.”
Roger said, “It's a lot more than that, man.”
Augie suddenly felt dirty having a character like Dimos Fokinos handling the parchment. But for all Dimos knew, Augie and Roger were as eager as he to get their millions.
“I'm satisfied,” Dimos said a few minutes later as he packed his gear. “I know you know where the rest of this manuscript is. You probably already have it in your own custody.”
“Possibly,” Augie said.
“Well, just so you know, that's where the money is. I'll talk to my people tonight and we'll be in touch tomorrow.”
When the coast was clear, Sofia rejoined Augie and tossed Roger her extra key card.
“I want to get this into a safe-deposit box as soon as the bank opens in the morning,” Augie said. “And then, Rog, you can hang out in Sofia's room while she and I pay a visit to Piazza Sant'Ignazio.”
“Art Squad Headquarters?” Roger said. “What if Sardinia is there?”
“What if he is? He doesn't know us.”
“You'd better hope not.”
“If he did, he'd have had us eliminated already. We're going as tourists. We'll ask for a tour, see what we can find out.”
“You're crazy.”
“I know. But carrying your nine millimeter tonight wasn't the only precaution I took.”
Entrenched
As the sun began to set earlier, Luke found ways to smuggle more cloth into Paul's dungeon. It had become chilly by the time he left the prison each evening, and his own cloak was barely enough to protect him. It would get only worse as winter set in.
One night Primus beckoned him and whispered, “You must hide those extra coverings during the day. Certain guards are grumbling about special treatment again.”
Luke set his jaw. “I'd like to see one of them live at Paul's level of luxury for one hour.”
“I know. Just be careful.”
“Where would I hide anything down there, Primus? There's no room behind the bench. And any guard's faintest light would reveal anything out of the ordinary.”
“I'll go down tomorrow and take a look.”
That night Luke read nearly a hundred more pages of Paul's memoir, learning more than he ever dreamed about his friend's deep sense of loss over Naomi. The parchments were filled with a despair that had haunted Paul his entire life, apparently even to this day.
To my shame, I longed for Naomi until I feared I might die. I missed her look, her touch, her voice. When she married, I felt a fool. No other woman has even given me pause since those days of my youth when I neglected my one true love. I look back and wonder how I could have imagined any other result after the way I treated her. Was I so enamored of myself that I couldn't imagine she would ever feel otherwise?
Even decades later, traveling thousands of miles for the sake of the gospel, I often find myself weeping at the end of the day. Sometimes I even plead with God to deliver me from this obsession with a woman who has long since made her choice. She is a mother and a grandmother by now, and yet her visage is ever before me. My conscience condemns me for my adulterous yearning, and sometimes it is all I can do to surrender my old nature to God and trust Him to help me stay my course.
My only balm has been to pour my whole self into serving Him, striving to return to my first love of Christ, His salvation, His message, His truth, His saving grace. Naomi will never know how the pride that repelled her grew into a determination to daily offer myself wholly to the Lord.
My becoming a Christ follower had to appear blasphemous
to her, and for years I tried to justify finding her and pleading with her to consider Him. I could not allow myself that mission, having never been able to fathom the depth of my true motives. All I could do was pray for her soul and that God Himself would, in His mercy, put the right person in her path to show her the truth.
Though this created a lifelong war within me, the bitterest season had come early when it became known that we were no longer a couple and that Ezra had soon after become her intended. I wanted to hate him, and for a long time I did. Yet it was not his character or his actions I detested. He was not vulnerable on those points. I hated him because he had taken my place.
I must have been a sight back then, short and wiry with bowed legs and already losing my hair by age thirty. My face offered little to desireâfriends teased me about my hook nose, bushy eyebrows that met in the middle, and light-gray eyes contrasting with a ruddy complexion. Naomi herself once said my eyes would have been my redeeming feature, “were they not always ablaze.”
Well, if I was afire before she abandoned me, I soon became a raging inferno. Enemies and colleagues said I spoke twice again as loud as I needed to in order to be heard, and that I gestured so aggressively that I often physically struck someone in my audience without realizing it.
Such assessments had no tempering effect. I wanted nothing less than to be known throughout Judea as the most exacting Pharisee alive. I represented the strictest sect of my religion, among whom I strived to be singularly devout.
No issue, no argument, no subject of conversation was any more important to me than another. Whether it was a member of the Sanhedrin who may have committed some egregious act or merely a child's sandals clacking too loudly in our sacred corridors, I reacted with equal vehemence. Whatever the infraction, it propelled me into a rage. I was known to curse the infidels, call down the wrath of heaven on them, even rent my clothes at the very thought of their impudence.
Some worried I had lost my mind, and more than once Nathanael pleaded with me to be reasonable. Often he called in Gamaliel, whose generous moderation had once served as a standard I strived to emulate. But now he seemed to me a capitulator, weak and indecisive, always open to hearing both sides of a dispute and trying to come to a mutually satisfying middle ground. Often I marched home long after the rest of the clerics had ended their workdays and paced my apartment, forgetting to eat, talking aloud to myself, convinced that I alone was correct in my assessment of every situation.
Imagine my fury when yet another mystic appeared out of nowhere to capture the imaginations of the people. What children they were! What sheep! How many charlatans had we seen in Judea, inventing their own doctrines and persuading the masses that, finally, the chosen one had arrived?
This one is different, they said. This one performs miracles. This one speaks in parables and dichotomies. Even members of the Sanhedrin were impressed. I demanded examples. One told me this man preached that those who
would be great must first become servants; that to become rich, one must give his money away; and that people should love their enemies, do good to those who hate them, and pray for those who mistreat them. Such lunacy!
Many pleaded with me to come and hear Jesus of Nazareth, the one they began to refer to as Master and Rabbi and Teacher. I flatly refused. I knew that like others before him, when he moved on, the clamor would fade.
But when his fame grew and accounts of his miracles became so pervasive they could not be ignored, the Sanhedrin sent scribes and Pharisees to report back. They challenged him and he answered in riddles. He worked on the Sabbath. And while it was not illegal for a layperson to speak in the temples, it was frowned upon. Yet he did this without hesitation or shame.
Some believed he might be our long-awaited Messiah. Now they had my attention! The man had quickly moved from a curiosity to a blasphemer. When one of his admirers asked him if it was true, if he was the Messiah, he did not deny it.
I confess I became curious and privately wanted a peek at this man, who was at least a remarkable performer. But I had made a point of being one of the very few religious leaders in Jerusalem who had not joined the flocks who heard him. Now my pride kept me from going. I told anyone who would listen that he would eventually be exposed. He would somehow offend the very ones so enamored with him now. Something would portend this charlatan's end.
It came as no surprise to me when even those closest to him betrayed him and abandoned him and he indeed ran afoul of Rome. He was hauled before the high priest and the Sanhedrin. He had chosen the wrong audience for his claim to be king of the Jews.
Though I might have enjoyed witnessing it, I pointedly refused to attend that debacle, smugly reminding everyone that I had been right all along.
He was put to death on a cross like a common criminal. To my mind, the man had served but one purposeâto elevate my position as the most astute Pharisee in Jerusalem.
The death of the Nazarene meant the end of a nuisance
.