Following a hot shower, Father Leo dressed and opened a bottle of wine. After pouring a large glass, he walked out onto the balcony and breathed in the warm spring air containing a mixture of flowers, motorbike exhaust, and cooking smells heavy with garlic. It was pure Roman perfume that existed nowhere else on earth. He felt refreshed, and the events of the day had stirred him to feel more focused and alive with a kind of hyper-alertness guiding his thoughts.
A knock at the door startled him. Setting his wine on a small glass-topped table, he moved back inside the room with unreasoning apprehension. Leo pulled the door open slightly and felt a surge of relief to see the grinning faces of Morelli and John standing in the hallway.
“Well, can we come in?” Morelli asked, looking at his friend with a sense of amusement.
“Of course. Sorry. I, well, I …”
“You mean, you’re still a little freaked out about today,” John said.
“Well, yes, to be frank. I mean, this whole business has been so sudden and has such profound implications. Aren’t you two at all fazed by what we’ve found?”
Morelli put his hand on Leo’s shoulder. “Pour us some wine, Father. We have a lot to discuss.”
John opened up his backpack and unceremoniously dropped the painted brick from the chapel onto the bed. There, before their eyes, was the image of a modern jet plane hitting the Twin Towers. It was unmistakable in its breadth and clarity.
“I think the first thing we should do is have it carbon dated,” John said.
“Yes, naturally,” Morelli agreed. “We also need to call Lev in Israel. He’ll want to run an analysis with the Bible code software right away. I feel we are on a breakthrough of … ”
“Of biblical proportions?” John laughed.
For the first time all day, Leo began to relax. These two tireless individuals were able to deal with what was probably one of the most astonishing historical discoveries of all time without losing their sense of perspective. With the thrill of discovery, the specter of unseen evil forces drifted off into the background.
Morelli sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the phone while Leo and John walked out onto the balcony. The glow from the wine, the sunset, and the day’s events, had given Leo a feeling of total gratification to be at this place at this time in history as he listened to Morelli’s animated discussion with Lev Wasserman in Israel. This discovery was most likely the highlight of both their careers and went a long way toward validating the code.
Leo handed John a glass of wine. “Where do you think we’ll go from here?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, that’s not entirely clear, Father. A lot depends on the two men talking on the phone right now. Those guys are probably the most knowledgeable people in the world on what is happening and where all this may lead. I mean, can you believe it? We are actually waiting for an encoded message in the Bible to tell us what to do next. It’s like receiving a text message from God. If this doesn’t convince people of the existence of our Heavenly Father, then I don’t know what else will, besides an actual witnessed visitation.”
“You seem pretty excited about all of this, John.”
“Who wouldn’t be? Aren’t you?”
“Of course. This is definitely the most exciting thing that’s ever happened in my life. I’m just glad to see someone from your generation so pumped up about history and the Bible.”
“I’ve always loved history, Father. I grew up on a ranch in New Mexico, and we were surrounded by ancient Native American cliff dwellings. I used to ride my horse up into the mountains around the ranch house and sit among the ruins. The wind would blow through the canyons and you could almost hear the voices from the past. I would imagine the people who once lived there going about their daily lives in that very spot over a thousand years ago. I got the same feeling today when we were down in the catacombs. That’s why I decided my life’s work would be to learn all I could about history and the different civilizations that have evolved over time.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“The University of Arizona in Tucson. They have one of the best history programs in the country. One of the professors there is an authority on the Holy Land, and he got me interested in the time the Romans occupied Israel in the first century.”
“So why the priesthood, John?”
“I’ve always had the idea in the back of my mind, but I still don’t know if I’m ready to take sacred vows that will affect the rest of my life. At least the time I’ve spent in Assisi has opened my eyes to a lot of what the religious life is all about.”
“You’re smart to give it some time. It’s a lifetime commitment and not one to be taken lightly, but I’m encouraged that more men of your caliber are considering it. You know, since 1965, candidates for the priesthood have dropped by an astonishing ninety percent.”
John swirled the wine in his glass. “That could change after today. In the space of time between breakfast and supper, we’ve discovered what could arguably be called one of the greatest biblical finds ever. Even though we don’t yet know the meaning and purpose of the chapel, we do know that the Bible led us to it. That alone is proof of a higher power at work. I mean, think of it. Ancient man lacked the technology to embed such a sophisticated code in the Bible when it was written. If you ask me, divine intervention has to be the only logical explanation for the existence of a code so complex that it takes modern computers to reveal it. This could be the smoking gun in proving God’s existence to those who lack faith, Father.”
Leo looked across the street at the dome of Saint Peter’s. He was totally spent from the day’s activities. Doubt began to seep into his subconscious. It was not the kind of doubt one experiences from a lack of faith, but a hesitancy that may well accompany all great and unbelievable finds men have stumbled upon throughout history. Conceivably, every one of mankind’s paramount discoveries, whether in math, astronomy, medicine, or archaeology, have all been greeted with similar doubt. Have we truly found what we think we’ve found? Can this, indeed, be real?
Father Morelli hung up the phone and walked out onto the balcony. “Lev was so excited to hear we found the chapel that he put me on speaker phone so that his team in Israel could listen to all the details. I could hear them shouting and singing in the background. When I told him about the brick with the image of the plane crashing into the two towers, he was speechless. He’s well aware of the code’s ability to predict things, but to find a two-thousand-year-old stone with an image of the 9/11 attack painted on it is beyond comprehension. If I know the good professor, and I do, he’ll be awake all night studying the code trying to see how all of this fits.”
“When do you think you’ll be hearing from him again?” Leo asked.
“Oh, it might be in an hour or four in the morning or a month. One can never tell with the code. Even with computers, there is no limitation to the amount of information encoded in the Bible.”
“I’m no mathematician here, but how is that possible?”
“Think of the Bible as a cryptogram sent to us by God himself,” Morelli said, “a cryptogram with a series of time locks that could not be opened until certain events came to pass. Obviously, one of these events is the invention of the computer. This one leap in technology has enabled scientists and cryptographers who’ve been working on the code to discover hidden messages placed there by an intelligence greater than any that exists here on earth. There is another Bible within the Bible. It’s like a massive puzzle in layers, similar to a three-dimensional hologram. Some believe that the Bible itself is a computer program left to us by the Almighty, and there are an infinite number of combinations and permutations yet to be discovered. Even with all our computers and code-breaking programs, no one could have encoded the Bible the way it was done thousands of years ago.”
Leo became even more fascinated with the implications as he listened to Morelli speak. “Just how much information is there?”
“All of our past and all of our future. The name of every person who has lived before us, who is living now, and who is yet to be born. All of our greatest historical events, plagues, disasters, wars, and future wars. All are encoded in the Old Testament.”
“But that’s utterly impossible!”
“Well, Father, you’d better be prepared to argue with some pretty knowledgeable people who have done the research and proved its existence with a 99.998 percent probability. These guys were renowned scientists who set out to disprove the theory of the code, but instead, what they found sent chills up their spines. They saw the hand of God at work.”
Leo refilled his glass. “Then if what you say is correct, we are looking at an intelligence that encoded our past, present, and future over three thousand years ago, using a mathematical model we can’t even grasp today.”
“Exactly,” Morelli said. “And being a man of faith, I’m convinced that intelligence is God. He has given us proof with a modern twist that He exists and is sending us a message.”
“Or opening up a dialogue,” Leo added.
The three men gazed silently at the twinkling lights of Rome as darkness descended over the city, providing a backdrop to the brightly lit Basilica of Saint Peter’s.
“I think we’re missing something,” John said, after a moment of uncharacteristic silence.
Morelli turned toward the young man. “Go on, John. I see those wheels turning inside your head.”
“Well, for one thing, why is there an ancient seal in the catacombs depicting a nuclear attack? And of course, the big question is, who painted the image of the 9/11 attacks over two thousand years ago? Only someone with prophetic ability could have created pictures like that. Then there’s the question of who built the chapel and why.”
Morelli leaned against the balcony railing and took a sip from his glass. “Good points, John. I wish I could answer those questions right now, but I can’t. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, so for now, that part of the puzzle will have to remain a mystery until we have time to sift through all the information.”
“Do you think someone could have cracked the code that far back in time and constructed the chapel and painted the images as some kind of sign or warning to us now?” Leo asked.
“I doubt it,” Morelli said. “Like I said earlier, without computers, the code would have been virtually invisible back then. Whoever built the chapel and painted the images may have had a little help in the form of divine intervention. Maybe it was constructed for a specific reason by ancient Christians led by a prophet who saw into the future. Who knows? We may never know who actually built it, but it’s there just the same, and that’s all we have to go on for now.”
Morelli stretched with his arms above his head. “Well, my friends, the day is late, and I must rest.”
John set his glass on the table. “Yeah, me too.”
“Right. When we were your age, this discussion would have gone on until dawn,” Morelli said. “Oh, I almost forgot.” Morelli reached under his shirt and pulled out a large, gold pectoral cross. “This is for you, Leo.”
“Where did you get that?”
Morelli kept a straight face. “The cardinal store.”
Leo looked puzzled. “The what…?”
“I’m kidding, my friend. This cross once belonged to a pope when he was a cardinal. It’s my gift to you.”
“I can’t possibly accept-”
Morelli shoved the cross into Leo’s hand. “Yes, you can. I insist. Besides, I have a feeling it might come in handy someday, Father.”
Leo turned the large cross over and admired the magnificent workmanship. “It… it’s beautiful. I don’t know what to say. Thank you, Anthony.”
“Just be sure to wear it under your shirt, at least until you become a cardinal.”
“Chances of that happening are slim to none, but thank you anyway. I’ve never owned anything like this in my life.”
“Wow,” John said. “That really belonged to a pope?”
“Yes,” Morelli said, “a very special pope.”
Walking toward the door, Morelli clasped Leo’s shoulder in farewell. An expression of sadness clouded his face.
“You know, Leo, I’ve been waiting all my life for a discovery like the one we made today. I just never expected that it would make my faith even stronger. The more we learn, the more we realize that the code in the Bible is not as reliable as we first thought for making predictions. I believe the real purpose of the code is to authenticate the Bible as a book of divine and supernatural origin. The most beautiful thing about all of this is that it will announce to the whole world that, yes, God does exist, and He is still talking to us today using modern methods.”
“Maybe that’s His intention, Father.”
“Get some rest, my friend,” Morelli said. “You’ve got a lot ahead of you in the days to come.”
“You mean we don’t you, Anthony?”
Father Morelli paused as if he had misspoken. “Of course. We have a lot to do in the days ahead.”
Leo closed the door and thought for a moment before walking back out onto the balcony. Looking down at the street, he saw Morelli and John descend the hotel stairs and climb into the BMW. In the quiet night air, he could hear their voices clearly before Morelli revved the car’s engine in a prelude to his signature high-speed departure. Father Morelli glanced over his shoulder and spotted Leo standing on the balcony. His ever-present smile was absent as he waved and let his foot off the clutch before roaring off into the night.
Leo sat alone on the balcony for another hour, drinking his wine and looking across the street at the Vatican. He breathed in deeply before finally getting up and walking back into his room. The priest sat on the bed and grabbed the TV remote. He thought the distraction of a little Italian television would help to clear his mind, but it was no use. Father Leo Amodeo knew deep down inside that something was very, very wrong.