176277.fb2 The Constantine Codex - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 6

The Constantine Codex - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 6

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-enlarged 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?”

“No. Earlier.” Jon immediately regretted saying that since he should have pleaded ignorance in the interests of nondisclosure.

“Well, then, Charles I of England? Or even, say, John the Baptist?”

“No,” Jon said, chuckling. Then he shaded the truth just a bit. “We really don’t know for sure.”

“Well, I’d go so far as to say that this poor fellow was probably beheaded by a sword rather than an ax.”

“How in the world can you tell that?”

“An ax would cause wedge-shaped damage on the vertebrae. But look at the gap between these vertebrae: it’s perfectly parallel. A sword had to be used. This fellow was dispatched by one swift cut of the sword. At least his torment was brief.”

“And you can tell that because there are no other slash marks on the neighboring vertebrae?”

“Exactly.”

Twenty centuries after the fact, Jon felt relief that Paul’s pain had been brief. Still, he cringed a bit at what Paul had to suffer, and while on the nasty subject, he thought of other victims. “Reminds me of ‘Crazy Boots’ Caligula, the sadistic Roman emperor who ordered a victim killed ‘with a blow and a half so that he could feel he’s dying.’”

“Pleasant fellow indeed! Still, you do seem to have a good hunch as to the identity of these bones. And if so, why aren’t you telling me? Remember, you started hinting with that word earlier.”

“You don’t miss a thing, do you, Dr. Ted?”

“Aw, c’mon, Jon. How about a little hint?”

“Can you keep a confidence?”

“Of course.”

“The bones are probably part of… a skeleton in Rome.”

Dr. Theophil Samuel thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I’ll need more than that,” he said. Clearly the eminent radiologist was hardly an expert in the early church.

“Best I can do, Ted. When it’s time for the news to break, you’ll be the first to know. I promise. But thanks for your help. It was… more strategic than you may realize.”

“Anytime.”

Again, every last clue only further identifies the remains, Jon thought on the way back to his office.

Now there was strong material evidence indeed, despite the theft of the codex, evidence of an extraordinary nature. “Isn’t this all we really need, Jon?” Shannon asked when she saw him clenching his fist at mention of the missing codex. “We have every word, for goodness’ sake. We can publish exact facsimile copies of the codex-even in the exact colors to match the ink of the lettering and the tan of the vellum on which it’s written. All the scholars working on the codex are content with black-and-white facsimiles, which are actually clearer than the codex itself. Fact is, we don’t even need the codex anymore.”

“Lots of truth there,” Jon admitted. “But we’re treading sacred ground here. It’s almost like tampering with God’s Word and the faith of believers to suggest, in effect, ‘Hey, your Bible has been fine up to now, but we have several necessary improvements.’ Without the genuine article, I’m afraid that copies will simply not convince them.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Anything more from the CIA on their search for the codex?”

“Only this: Dillingham learned that three of the men who were on duty at the airport security line the morning Bartholomew and his party took off are members of Islam Forever, a far-right religious party in Turkey. Whether or not that’s significant, no one knows at this point, but I think it could be very important. The switch had to have been made at the Istanbul airport.”

“But why go to all that trouble making a crude replacement? Why didn’t they simply take the codex and run?”

“Can you imagine the huge fuss the patriarch would have made when the attache case came out of the scanner much lighter than before? Of course, that could have happened anyway had he opened the codex after it exited the scanner. But they played their chances, and it gave them enough lead time to make off with the codex. Or maybe pass it on to others.”

Earlier, Dillingham had asked Jon for help on a watermark the CIA labs had discovered on the foolscap paper. Instead of a literal cap with bells attached to its flaps in the headgear of a medieval court jester-the origin of foolscap after all-the consistent watermark looked like a crescent and star over an earth surface with the Star of David and a cross embedded in dust. Such a logo was obvious, and both Jon and Osman al-Ghazali quickly translated it: Islam victorious over Judaism and Christianity.

Could it help identify the perpetrators? “Unfortunately it’s not a big clue,” Dillingham told Jon. “The paper is manufactured in Egypt, but it’s used throughout the Middle East.”

“But this had to be an inside job, Mort,” Jon said, giving the privileged appellation a test run. “Else how could the perpetrators know when the patriarch was coming through the security line and, above all, the exact dimensions of the codex for their copy?”

“That’s clear,” he agreed. “For some time now, our operatives in Istanbul have been using the Orthodox Patriarchate as their second home, checking out every last person on the staff there.”

“They have? I hope they aren’t disrupting the business of the patriarchate now that Bartholomew has returned.”

“Quite the opposite. Bartholomew is just as eager as you to locate the codex. He’s cooperating in every way possible.”

Jon thought of another tack. “Has anyone received a… any kind of a ransom note for the codex? We haven’t. Has Bartholomew?”

“No, not that I’ve heard.”

“Well, where do things stand as of now? What are your plans?”

“We’re doing a stronger background check on the three religious party members at the airport security line. Our Turkish counterparts are a big help-all secularists, thank goodness.”

“Good move. And… thanks for all your continuing help, Mort.”

“Not at all, Jon. I’m still trying to make up for that tongue-lashing I gave you some weeks ago.”

“Aw, don’t worry about that,” he said.

Jon received regular updates, assuring him that the Constantine Codex and Canon committees of the Institute of Christian Origins were working with a near-maniacal drive to complete the opening scholarship on both documents. Slogans like “Urgency, Security, Action” had proven quite unnecessary in urging them on, so very extraordinary was the excitement associated with the Constantine Codex.

Computer studies of the material proved most helpful. The Gospel of Mark was programmed for grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and favorite phraseology, as was the book of Acts. The newly discovered texts were then subjected to the same programming with stunningly similar results. The immediately adverb, so typical of Mark, appeared also in the new ending, which had no mention whatsoever of those clearly embarrassing references to snake-handling and drinking poison that showed up in later attempted conclusions to the Gospel and had always been regarded as spurious by the best scholarship. Jon and Shannon found it particularly pathetic that several cults in Kentucky and Tennessee made this central in their worship.

Similarly, just as computer studies had shown the book of Acts to have been written by the same hand as Luke’s Gospel, so the same hand was demonstrated in First and Second Acts. Above all, not a single verse in any of the newly discovered material conflicted in any way with the existing biblical text.

Should the newly discovered texts become part of the Bible? The Canon committee had been asked to explore that question, but it was quite divided on the issue. Jon and Shannon concluded that it was still too early to venture much of a working plan for that group.

Perhaps the greatest of all wonders in the entire enterprise was that confidentiality seemed to be holding. In Rome, no one had noticed the plugged one-inch circular hole in the lid of the St. Paul sarcophagus, according to a communication from Kevin Sullivan, although Benedict XVI was constantly inquiring about Jon and the codex.

In Cambridge, the only slight breach in security seemed to be the day that Zachary Alexander, an Associated Press stringer in Boston, came to Jon’s office to inquire about “some important document” he was supposed to have discovered somewhere in Turkey after the debate at Hagia Sophia and then delivered to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul. Even as his heart nearly froze in midbeat, Jon affected a forced smile and asked the man where in the world he had heard such a thing.

“My cousin Brett has the AP desk in Istanbul,” Alexander said, “and he wanted an interview with the patriarch because of all the in-and-out traffic there after you left.”

“And did the patriarch grant it?”

“No, he didn’t. It was Brett’s guess that some old manuscript-or whatever-was involved.”

While a “white lie” of denial might have been justified at this point, Jon tried redirection instead. “It was my wife Shannon who found an old document at Pella, which really isn’t all that important. But she’d prefer no publicity on it until she’s done the usual translation and commentary.”

“Hmm… figures, I guess.”

“Tell you what. Let’s make a deal-you stay mum on this for now, and you’ll be the first media person I call when it’s time to go public. Deal?”

“Deal.”

It was a close shave, but no cigar. Obviously-despite the stolen codex-the good Lord was watching over their enterprise. If only the missing codex weren’t such an unforeseen and totally loathsome complication!

Jon would never forget the day, the hour, or the event. No known expressions in the English language could cover it. Nor, he thought, could those of any other language spoken by the civilized. “Bolt from the blue” came close, but that was still pathetically inadequate to describe what actually happened.

He was sitting at his office desk at Harvard, reviewing the latest findings from the ICO committees, when Marylou Kaiser announced, “The FedEx man just delivered something for you, Dr. Weber, and I signed for it. Want me to bring it in?”

“Sure-if it isn’t big and heavy.”

“Well,” she admitted, “it could be both.”

Jon immediately got up and went to the receiving table in her office. The large box measured something like eighteen inches square and over a foot in height. It was well wrapped with brown tape and was indeed surprisingly heavy. Quickly Jon looked for the name of the sender and read: Al-Azhar Mosque and University Office of the Grand Sheikh Madinat Nasi Cairo, the Arab Republic of Egypt

“Well, what in the world?” Jon wondered. “Abbas al-Rashid and I haven’t been in contact since the debate, other than the usual exchanges of thanks. What do you think’s inside?”

“Probably a big, ornate copy of the Qur’an,” she opined. “He wanted to convert you to Islam, didn’t he?”

“You know, you could be right, Marylou. And that would be very sticky. I’d love to maintain the man’s friendship, but I doubt I’ll be making that particular pilgrimage!”

“Well, that’s a relief! Muslims don’t treat their women very well, and that would include secretaries.”

Jon cut through strip after strip of tape, then opened the lid of the box. All he saw was packing popcorn. Marylou hurried over with a wastebasket to prevent her office floor from being littered with Styrofoam pellets. Finally Jon saw the dark tannish cover of what appeared to be some large tome, lifted it free of the packing, and set it on the table.

It was then that breath and heartbeat nearly failed him. It was a codex.

It was the codex.

He slumped down onto a chair, held his forehead, and mumbled, “How?… Why?… It’s simply not possible…”

His eyes were locked in wonderment on the codex. Nothing else existed for him at that moment.

“Are you okay, Dr. Jon?” Marylou asked.

“This is… beyond… all… belief.” Slowly he came back to life. “It shouldn’t have been sent FedEx. It shouldn’t have been sent at all, and yet here it is.”

Marylou seized the moment, opened the codex, and withdrew a letter that was inserted just under the cover. “Shall I read it to you?” she asked.

Jon was too dazed to reply, so she took it upon herself to read him the following: Dear Professor Weber: I greet you in the name of the God we both serve! I am sure that the document I have enclosed has much meaning for you and the faith you so ably represent. It was only by great fortune that I was able to obtain it. I knew nothing of your connection to this document until it arrived at al-Azhar University. It was sent from Istanbul by a radical group of jihadists in Turkey. They wrote that they had managed to take the document from the Ecumenical Patriarch at the airport in Istanbul. But they could not translate it or risk having it translated by any local Greek Orthodox Christians, so they sent it to a Greek scholar in our Department of Classical Languages here at al-Azhar for translation. That would help them know how much to ask for ransom, they wrote. They trusted this scholar-nameless, for his own security-because he was a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and so a fellow jihadist-or so they imagined. In fact, he is a Muslim moderate-our own agent in their radical ranks, since we have also learned to play their game by way of defense. You should not worry about his future safety or that of his family. His role here was becoming more and more difficult, and this was his last service for us before leaving Egypt to teach elsewhere under a new identity. At first, I had planned to return the document to the Ecumenical Patriarch, but those who stole the document also mentioned your strong interest in this work, and I thought it safer to send it directly to you in America. Later, you may return it to the patriarch with proper security. I am glad to have this opportunity of being of some service to you, since I place great value on our continuing friendship. You would be more than welcome to give a presentation at al-Azhar University at any time you see fit, and I hope that our paths will indeed cross in the future. Yours, with admiration, Abbas al-Rashid Grand Sheikh

Jon shook his head. “What extraordinary nobility. Abbas has a higher standard of ethics than I’ve seen in many Christians. What a man! What a truly great man!”

Swimming in waves of elation, Jon picked up the phone and called Shannon. Her “What!” was so loud it nearly damaged his eardrum.

His next call was to Morton Dillingham. The least a good citizen could do was to save the CIA-and the federal government-any further expenses in a search that was no longer necessary. Not everything was solved, to be sure, especially the question of how the jihadist perpetrators at Istanbul learned about the codex and were able to get its dimensions right for their fake copy of the codex, but those problems could be solved later on. For now, the codex was here… present… real… and in the U.S.!

Jon’s last call was to the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul, who wept for joy at the news. Before leaving his office, Jon also dictated the most cordial, most enthusiastic letter of appreciation to Abbas al-Rashid he had ever written to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Jon determined to make short work of the authenticity tests on the codex itself. Putting on white gloves, he cut a small hanging flap of aged tan leather from the cover of the codex and inserted it into a lead-lined pouch. Then he opened the codex and turned through ten pages of Matthew’s Gospel until, on page eleven, he found a dog-ear at the upper right corner that was threatening to separate from the rest of the vellum. Carefully, he cut it free. This he also inserted into a separate pouch, then sent both via UPS Express to his friend Duncan Fraser at the radiocarbon labs of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Fraser had helped him with crucial C-14 tests before, most recently on the leaves Shannon had brought back from Pella, so when Jon phoned to alert him to the express shipment, he seemed unsurprised.

“Since it’s you again, Jon,” Fraser commented genially, “I’ll bet your samples came from, say, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.”

“No, Duncan. Earlier.”

“Okay, how about the Magna Carta?”

“No, earlier still. But no more clues, Duncan. That wouldn’t be scientific, now, would it? You and TAMS will have to tell me the date, but do treat those samples as if they were a letter from God himself.”

“Got it.”

Under normal circumstances, Jon would have sent the codex itself to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where another friend, Sandy McHugh, would have given it a variety of forensic tests. But Jon decided that the reverse had to happen. The scientists would have to come to Cambridge instead, so very priceless was the codex. He was simply unwilling to risk its safety again.

In fact, a parade of scientists came not only from Washington, but from other points on the compass for an extraordinary, secret conclave. Members of the ICO filed one by one to examine the precious document, as well as Daniel Wallace and his delegation from the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. Wallace quipped that he felt like Simeon: ready to depart this life since the ultimate manuscript discovery had been made and he had seen it.

Perhaps the most colorful, yet crucial of the many imported experts was Lancaster Whimpole, curator of manuscripts for the British Library in London. Here was the man who was largely responsible not only for that library’s immense collection of papyri, but who also served as curator for the until-now greatest of all New Testament manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus. Whimpole was a tall, tweedy Oxonian sort who looked like James I of England, though even more slender, his teeth yellowed from years of contact with a meerschaum pipe. Whimpole did not suffer fools gladly and could detect fraud with one eye at a distance of fifty paces. Jon knew the man would have to be skeptical regarding the codex since nothing could dare rival “his” Sinaiticus.

Watching Whimpole examine the codex was an event in itself. He bent over the document like a Sherlock Holmes-with magnifying glass but without the silly cap. His gloved hands felt the texture of the cover and swept across the pages of vellum. From time to time he would stop, squint, use the magnifying glass, and then move on. He pulled out an orthography chart of Greek writing styles from the first to the fifth century AD and compared the uncial lettering for each era. He then superimposed another chart of the uncials in the Sinaiticus and nodded briefly-the first sign of any sort that his poker face or bodily mien had betrayed.

It seemed to Jon that he spent an eternity going through almost every page of the codex, again without registering any sort of response. Jon looked helplessly at Shannon, who stood beside him, just as eager for the verdict as he.

Whimpole failed to notice the Markan ending, but his eyes widened when he came to Second Acts. And they seemed to remain wider for the rest of his perusal. When he had finally finished, he stepped back, looked up, pieced his fingers together, and then said to Jon, “I hope you’ll provide more detail on how you discovered this. You gave some information in your phone call.”

“I will indeed. But what’s your impression of the codex thus far, Dr. Whimpole?”

“Well, I would call it an extremely clever fraud…”

Jon froze.

“… were I given to what you colonials call ‘practical jokes.’ But this codex is authentic. Absolutely authentic. Beyond all debate. The orthography-those beautiful uncials-are fully consistent with the Sinaiticus and other manuscripts from the fourth century. I… I must congratulate you, Professor Weber, on the manuscript find of the century-no, of the millennium. And-quite naturally-I’m also fiercely jealous of your success!”

A round of laughter was enough to transform the stiff and stodgy Brit into a fellow human being.

Two weeks later, all the material test results arrived at Jon’s Harvard office. It began with a phone call from Arizona, Duncan Fraser genially announcing, “I guess you want a pair of dates, Jon, right?”

“That would be very helpful, Duncan.”

“How about 1650, plus or minus fifty years-both samples?”

Jon’s heart plummeted. “AD 1650? You mean… you mean the vellum’s less than four centuries old?”

Fraser laughed. “I knew I’d catch you on that one! No, Jon, 1650 BP, and I don’t mean British Petroleum.”

“So, 1,650 years before the present?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Jon quickly calculated, then broke out laughing. “Perfect! Right on target! Early to mid-fourth century AD. You and your TAMS toy do great work, Duncan!”

“Only to keep you amused, Jon. What did you discover this time, the memoirs of Constantine?”

Jon was startled for a moment by the name but then said, “No, a shade more important than that. Tell you what, because you’ve been so kind, I’ll phone you about it just before we make the general announcement.”

“TAMS and I will be honored.”

Sandy McHugh phoned from Washington with similar results. Every test of the adhesive swipes he had taken from the leather cover and vellum pages showed a progression of pollen running up to the present day, yet also strains that went back to the fourth century.

All tests, then, were conclusive: the codex was absolutely authentic. As Jon told Shannon, “Obviously, we didn’t need the tests in the first place, since no one today could have forged 140 pages of perfect, fourth-century Greek.”

“Why did we go to all that bother, then?”

“The public, Shannon. The skeptical public, not to mention an army of critics.”

That evening, Jon put in two calls, the first to the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul, the other to Kevin Sullivan in Rome. Both were for the purpose of establishing a date for the announcement to the world. His All Holiness Bartholomew II would have the honor of making the initial announcement. Pope Benedict XVI would be invited to attend and participate in the presentation or be represented by Monsignor Sullivan. The location should have been the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, but for obvious security reasons, it would instead be the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New York.

“Glad I caught you before your flight to Cairo this afternoon, Osman,” Jon said as he chatted with his associate. It was a mild spring morning in early May, warm enough for Jon to open the windows of his office. “Like some coffee?”

“Please.”

As Jon poured two mugs, he continued. “I understand you’re visiting relatives in Cairo?”

Osman nodded. “In the western suburbs. At Giza-near the pyramids.”

“Do look in on our publisher while you’re there, Osman, and try to iron out any remaining problems in the Arabic edition of our book-if there are any.”

“Will do. Soon, maybe, I’ll have to do the Arabic translation of Mark 16 and Second Acts from our magnificent codex there.” It was lying atop Jon’s desk.

“Could well be. By the way, didn’t you once tell me you could face death if you ever returned to a Muslim country after converting to Christianity?”

“True for Islamic theocracies like Iran but not for secular states like Egypt. And you’ll recall that we all got back safely from Turkey.”

“True enough.”

“Of course, if they knew about me, Muslim fanatics in any country would find me fair game.”

“Better watch your back, then. I understand that Osman Mahmoud al-Ghazali’s fame is rising in the world of Islam!” Jon was smiling, but then he grew serious. “Hate to bring this up again, but a couple weeks ago, you’ll recall, we talked about the remaining problem in the disappearance of the codex?”

Osman nodded. “How could the perpetrators in Istanbul have known its dimensions, when the patriarch would fly here, et cetera, right?”

“Exactly. We all agreed that it had to be an inside job by someone in the patriarchate over there. But then I recalled that when we told you and Dick Ferris about the codex at the Istanbul Hilton, it was you who asked me about its size.”

“Right. And your point is…?”

“Well, I told you about the size of its pages, but then you also asked me how thick it was.”

“So? Both Dick and I wanted very badly to see the actual codex. And that was as close as we could come at the time.”

“Fair enough. And it’s just possible that my awful vector of suspicion may be pointed in the wrong direction.”

“At me, Jon? Me? After all we’ve been through together?”

“Hate to say it, but yes, Osman, even though it absolutely tears me apart to admit it.”

“Well, you can spare yourself that kind of personal agony because I’d never ever go back to the other side. Conversion is conversion. A Judas Iscariot I am not!”

Jon clenched his jaw muscles and rolled his knuckles on the desk. “I’d like to believe that. I really would.” He paused, avoided eye contact with Osman, and stared out the window. Then he turned in his chair and faced al-Ghazali directly. “Yesterday evening, Mort Dillingham called me from Washington. He hated to admit it, he said, but yes, the CIA asked the FBI to check all phone records on all of us during the weeks preceding the theft of the codex and the weeks afterward. After we hung up, Dillingham faxed me this record. It’s a long list, but please note the items I’ve underlined in red.”

He handed Osman the faxed pages. “To the left is your home phone number in Watertown, dated a week before Bartholomew’s flight to the U.S., and to the right… do you see that number in Istanbul?”

“Where?”

Jon pointed.

“Oh… there.”

“It belongs to one Tawfik Barakat, who is a member of the Islam Forever religious party, and one of three men on duty at Istanbul’s airport security the day the patriarch flew off.”

Al-Ghazali reddened a bit. “But… how can that be? Obviously there has to be some… some ridiculous mistake here. Besides, how could the perpetrators know when the patriarch would fly off?”

“Osman, Osman, we had all that information here in Cambridge, and you certainly had access to it.”

A long silence followed, tense and embarrassing to both of them. Finally Osman cleared his throat. “All right, Jon. Very well. I have a long, long story to tell you, and I think you’ll like the ending. But first, might I have a bit more coffee?”

Jon walked over to the hot plate and turned his back to prepare a fresh pot. Carafe in hand, he returned and refilled both mugs. Then he said, “Please continue, Osman. I’m listening… listening quite carefully, in fact.”

Al-Ghazali began with the story of his descent from the great eleventh-century Muslim mystic, Abu-Hamid al-Ghazali, who despised women and hated science in his concern for rigorist orthodoxy. He went on to the story of his childhood in Cairo, while Jon, his patience wearing thin, let his coffee cool. Details of Osman’s schooling followed, until Jon said, “To the point, man, to the point. This is all interesting, but you have a plane to catch, don’t you?”

“All right, Jon, I’ll give you the short version.”

Jon took a long sip of coffee, noting a slightly off flavor. “Almost tastes like Irish coffee. That’s what I get for not giving the carafe a thorough washing. Is yours okay, Osman?”

“Just a little strong.”

Then he continued with the story of his conversion to Christianity and how his eyes were finally opened to the greater historical reliability of the Bible versus the Qur’an. Despite Jon’s advice to move on with his explanation, Osman seemed to continue dawdling. Jon let him speak on, grasping his mug a little unsteadily as he took another long sip. Soon he looked at Osman with some concern because the man was becoming clouded in some sort of haze. But his office was also suffused in a growing fog, and the whole room seemed to lurch to one side. He quickly set the mug down, lest he drop it, and put both hands on the desk to steady himself. But the desk seemed to be tipping and sliding sideways. Was he having a stroke?

Osman watched the changes coming over Jon with quiet satisfaction. The man was starting to shiver and hyperventilate as Osman continued. “But truth to tell, Jon, for all the evidence you tried to marshal on behalf of Christianity, I found that, in the end, I could never give up Islam. Never! I was convinced that I could best help our cause by intruding into your circle.”

Jon tried to reach for his phone, but Osman swiftly pulled it out of his reach. “You won’t need that,” he said. “Of course, I intentionally made that error in the Arabic translation of your book, hoping a fatwa would quickly settle things. But when that failed and you discovered the codex instead, I had to-wait, here, let me help you.”

Al-Ghazali stood and shoved Jon and his chair deep inside the space under the middle of his desk. “You won’t be able to speak, Jon, so why even try? And don’t even think of standing up because you’d fall on your face.”

Jon tried nevertheless. He squirmed feebly in attempting to use his feet to shove the rolling chair away from the desk while his hands reached up to assist by grabbing the desk’s edge. But his grasp faded, and his arms dropped limply on both sides of his chair.

“Probably you’ll recover, Jon,” Osman said, pulling a small, empty vial from his pocket. “It’s an improved version of the old Mickey Finn, but it acts quicker. With any luck, you should get over it in a day or so. Tell you what: we’ve had some good times together, so I’ll even help you recover.” He scribbled chloral hydrate on a slip of paper and stuffed it into Jon’s shirt pocket. “Be glad I didn’t really poison you, chum,” he added. “Call it a parting gift.”

Just then he heard the long, grinding sound of a huge garbage truck outside the back windows of Jon’s office. “And, oh yes, the codex.” Al-Ghazali picked up the tome, went to the back window of Jon’s office, broke out the screen, and heaved the codex directly into the compacting maw of the garbage truck. “There! Your precious codex is exactly where it belongs, thanks to Waste Management. Live a good life, Jon!”

Al-Ghazali hurried out of the office, relieved that Marylou Kaiser had apparently gone to lunch. He would be over the Atlantic before Jon could even control his tongue. It would also be a one-way trip for Osman since he had planned to flee the U.S. for the past several weeks, suspecting that the discovery of his true role in Jon’s circle was only a matter of time.

Several hours later, he was aboard EgyptAir Flight 986 to Cairo. He gazed out the window, a low smile forming on his lips. Suddenly, though, they formed a pout instead. What utter fools those Turks were, he mused, trying to get a ransom for the codex when I had told them simply to destroy it. Well, he had corrected their wretched mistake. Allah would be more than merciful.

Marylou Kaiser came back from lunch, walked into Jon’s office, and screamed. Jon was sitting at his desk, motionless, glassy-eyed, and unresponsive. In a frenzy, she dialed 911. When the paramedics arrived, they quickly suspected a stroke of some kind-not poisoning: this was Harvard, after all. One of them, however, saw Jon’s half-empty coffee mug and tasted it. Then he spat it out and grumbled, “Irish coffee. Evidently these Harvard sages start drinking early and often.”

They strapped Jon onto a stretcher and carried him downstairs and out into an ambulance that had invaded the sacred turf of the Yard. Although nearly comatose, he started mumbling things like “Kowbage,” “Gowbage,” “Tuck,” and finally “Truck.” But no one understood him. Sirens wailing, the ambulance sped eastward on Massachusetts Avenue, crossed the Charles River bridge, and delivered him to ER at Mass General Hospital.

Marylou had, of course, accompanied Jon in the ambulance, and Shannon soon arrived from Weston, pale and shaken. The only one with some context for Jon’s situation, Marylou finally started interpreting his mumbles. “Police,” she translated from “powice,” “garbage” from “cowbage,” and “poison” from “pawzun.” None of it made sense, except for poison and police, and the latter were summoned immediately.

The ER at Mass General was crowded with patients on the road either to death or to recovery assisted by vast arrays of high-tech equipment. In one of the curtained cubicles surrounding its central core, Jon was starting to fight with his restraints. One of the supervisory nurses saw it and quickly injected a sedative. Marylou had the presence of mind to object. “No,” she said, “I wish you hadn’t done that. He’s trying to regain control. What he needs, I think, is the opposite of a sedative.”

“No, madam,” the nurse sniffed. “We know what we’re doing.”

Still unnerved from Jon’s ordeal-and now a bit peeved by the nurse’s attitude-Shannon happened to notice the slip of paper in Jon’s shirt pocket. Something prompted her to take it out and read it. “Anyone know what chloral hydrate means?” she asked.

“You bet!” said an intern on duty, who sprang into action, asking, “You’re his wife, I understand? Was he taking any sleep medications?”

“No. Jon sleeps like a baby,” Shannon replied.

“I hate to ask this, but… did he seem depressed recently? Did he have any suicidal inclinations?”

Shannon shook her head emphatically. “He’d be the very last person on earth to try anything like that.”

The intern was joined by Jason Hopkins, MD, the chief internist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Apparently, word had traveled quickly regarding a certain Harvard celebrity in the ER. For once, Shannon was grateful for her husband’s celebrity status.

Hopkins read the slip proffered by the intern and checked Jon’s vital signs while dictating to an attending nurse: “Blood pressure low: 80 over 50. Pulse rapid: 120 beats per… Breathing shallow, apparent hypothermia… Pupils pinpointed. Patient comatose…”

And indeed, Jon had lapsed back into deep sleep.

Shannon and Marylou exchanged a glance. At Shannon’s nod, Marylou informed the doctor about the sedative the nurse had administered.

“What?” he bellowed. “How come it’s not on the record? Which nurse? That one?”

Marylou nodded.

“We’ll discuss this later, ma’am!” he said, glaring at the nurse. “Now get me five hundred milligrams of caffeine sodium benzoate for injection- immediately.”

All the excitement was doing little for Shannon’s nerves. “What’s the situation, Doctor?” she asked, blinking back tears.

He removed his stethoscope and asked, “Was he taking medications of any kind, especially barbiturates?”

“Nothing. Other than an occasional vitamin.”

“Well, all the symptoms are quite consistent with chloral hydrate overdosage-or even poisoning. The slip in his pocket seems accurate in that respect. Strange that it should even have been there.”

“But what are his chances?”

Dr. Hopkins seemed to ignore her as he took Jon’s blood pressure again. “Nurse!” he barked. “It’s only 66 over-what? Can’t even tell. We could be losing him.” He called out, “Gastric lavage! Possible Code Blue! And where’s that caffeine? Oh… thank you, nurse.” He now injected the caffeine into Jon’s arm.

Then he turned to Shannon. “Sorry, Mrs. Weber, first things first. I just ordered a stomach pump that will replace the contents of your husband’s stomach with sterile water. That’s to clear out any remaining toxins.”

“But he will… he will pull through, won’t he?” She heard her voice break with apprehension.

“It all depends on how much toxin he ingested. I understand that one of the paramedics thinks it was in his coffee. Does he use cups or mugs?”

“Mugs,” Marylou interjected.

Hopkins frowned as he made the obvious comment, “They hold more.”

A tube was inserted into Jon’s mouth and down his esophagus. The dual procedure began: infusion and evacuation, much as a dentist treats the mouths of his patients. Jon stirred a bit during the process, which all interpreted as a positive sign.

When the procedure was completed, Dr. Hopkins said, “Now it all depends on his blood pressure, Mrs. Weber.” Again they cuffed Jon’s left arm and pumped.

The pressure released in a welcome hiss. “Good,” Hopkins said. “We’re at 92 over 64. Better than the last. If he keeps this up, he should soon be out of the woods.”

Shannon slumped down onto the couch where Marylou was already seated.

The older woman put a comforting arm around her, and Shannon finally surrendered to her tears.

Jon slowly felt himself coming to. He’d been only vaguely aware of being whisked to the hospital, but there was no doubt now that’s exactly where he was. He shook his head and tried hard to focus on those around him. “Shannon, sweetheart,” he said thickly. “I’ll be okay, I think.”

She threw her arms about him.

Eventually Jon’s mind was clear enough to relate the full story to all present, including a detail from the Boston police who had stood in the background until the medical procedures were completed. The Hub’s finest sprang into action at once. They radioed colleagues at Logan to arrest Osman al-Ghazali but learned that he was long gone. They had only slightly better luck with Waste Management, Inc., of Somerville, which supposedly handled refuse from Cambridge. The dispatcher there wanted to get the details from Jon, particularly the time and place of the garbage pickup, so the police officer handed the phone to Jon, and he was able to respond with reasonable clarity.

“And exactly what is it that you’re looking for?” the man asked.

“A valuable codex… that’s an ancient book of manuscript pages sewn together.”

“Oh. Sorry. That’d be impossible to retrieve, Professor, because Harvard tries to show the world how to recycle-green’s their favorite color, not crimson-but you know that. So your book is probably being recycled, even as we speak.”

A stab of despair hit Jon as he handed the phone back to the officer. Both his hands turned into fists, and if Osman al-Ghazali had been within range, he personally would have throttled the traitor for manuscript murder. “It’s destroyed,” he told the women. “This precious, precious treasure is now being recycled, if you can believe it! Into what? Maybe toilet paper…”

Obviously in despair, Shannon and Marylou appeared to search for appropriate words but found none.

The phone rang. It was the dispatcher again, and he wanted to talk to Jon.

“I had it wrong, Professor,” he said. “Turns out that the recycling plant is shut down for repairs, so as of a couple days ago, they’re trucking all waste to the North Andover landfill so that it doesn’t pile up.”

“That’s wonderful news!” Jon said.

“Well, I’m not sure why… I really hate to tell you this, but our chances of actually finding that thing in the landfill are next to impossible. A needle in a haystack would be easier.”

“Please, please,” Jon said, “I really beg of you. You must try to save one of the most important documents in the history of Western civilization.”

“We’ll do our best, Professor, but I’m afraid… Well, we’ll really try.”

They wanted to keep Jon at Mass General that night, but he would have none of it. His wits had now returned and fury was burning through his brain, yet he was still rational enough to let Shannon take the wheel on the drive back to Weston.

Early the next morning, Waste Management phoned again. “It was truck number 68, Professor Weber, that picked up the waste from Harvard Yard about noon yesterday. Driver was Jim Peabody-a good reliable fellow from Bar Harbor, Maine. That’s pronounced ‘Bah Habah’ up there!”

Ordinarily, Jon would have told him to skip such peripheral details, but now he savored every syllable.

“Anyway, Jim dumped his waste at the landfill in North Andover-oh, it’s about twenty miles from Harvard Square-and I’ll tell you what we’ve done. We’ve cordoned off the area in the landfill where our trucks discharged yesterday, and we’re dumping elsewhere while we try to find that big book you told us about.”

“Thank you. Thank you ever so much,” Jon said.

“Again, though, I hate to tell you, it’s going to be a downright miracle if we find it. And even if we do, three thousand pounds of pressure probably crushed that Kotex thing…”

“That’s ‘codex,’” Jon advised.

“Fine. Codex. But it was probably crushed into pulp.”

Jon winced. The statement was true enough. “Just try, please, try . I’ll be driving out to the landfill to help you look.”

“Well, I don’t think… Hold it, on the other hand, it’d be helpful to know exactly what we’re looking for.”

“I’ll be there at eleven, with photographs of the codex.”

For the next two hours, he and Shannon called the secretaries of all departments with offices at or near Harvard Yard with a question that must have seemed quite ridiculous: “What sort of waste did your department discard yesterday?” Of course, there was a quick follow-up to explain the context of that inane query. Clearly grasping at straws, Jon was trying to see if some marker might not be found within all the tons of waste.

But there seemed to be nothing at all unusual. Most of the waste mentioned consisted of cardboard mailers for books sent to professors by publishers in hopes of adoption, interdepartmental communications, intradepartmental memos, book catalogs, advertisements, and the like-nothing with real value as a marker.

One slight glimmer of hope came from the economics department. The secretary there reported that they had discarded about three years’ worth of unclaimed examination blue books the previous day. But could they serve as a marker? Doubtful.

By late morning, Jon, Shannon, and Marylou had raced up Highway 193 to the North Andover landfill, where they were obliged to put on yellow hard hats. Jon passed out photographs of the codex to the dozen or so in the search party that Waste Management was kind enough to supply, all armed with picks to try to pry apart the great, caked slabs of waste. With enormous good fortune, the huge bulldozer that further compacted the slabs of waste by traveling back and forth over them had not yet accomplished that task, or the search would have been fruitless even to attempt. The dozer and all Waste Management trucks were discharging at least a hundred yards away from the zone management had marked off. Jim Peabody, the driver of truck number 68, had shown them approximately where he had dumped his load-to the best of his recall-and was now one of the search party.

But it seemed to be a futile effort. Slab after slab was picked apart, only to disgorge everything from orange peels to coffee grounds to flattened tufts of used Kleenex. By midafternoon, despair started setting in. Jon, returning to Plan B, wondered if the world would have to be satisfied with mere copies of the codex. After all, they did have copies of its every word, so that was at least something.

Yet another part of his mind was telling him, It is humanly possible to examine every last piece of garbage in this sector. Yes, it could take weeks. Yes, it would be enormously expensive. But it can be done.

He was ready to draw up a formal request that exactly this be done when he noticed a thin vein of light blue in one of the untouched slabs. Well, the Department of Economics was near his office, so why not let that vein be the blue-book marker he was seeking. Gently he picked into that slab, and it generously fell apart for him. They were blue books indeed. Student names were written on them, of course, and the department listed on each cover was “Econ.”

Another vein of cardboard framed them off, then a vein of Styrofoam packing. Jon pried the packing material apart and found… the codex. Mercifully, it had been wedged between sheets of protective Styrofoam. In worshipful awe, Jon meticulously disengaged it from its whitish shroud and opened it with tender care. Only a few pages had been detached from their sewn binding by the compacting pressure, but they were still there, nestled underneath the ancient leather cover now embedded with flakes of Styrofoam. The thin board inside had been cracked, but with no apparent damage to the pages of vellum. Only the coverless last page of Revelation had been torn and damaged, though not beyond hope of restoration.

Jon knelt down on the heap of garbage in the North Andover landfill and gave thanks to God.

As miraculous as it was to find the codex in the landfill, Jon thought an even greater wonder was the fact that-with a considerable number now in the know-there had been no real leaks to the media about their astonishing manuscript discovery. Now, however, it was time-high time-to tell the world.

The Ecumenical Patriarch and his party flew in from Istanbul for another visit to New York, where he would have the privilege of making the initial public announcement. His venue would be the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Manhattan. Several weeks earlier, Jon had sent out invitations to the most significant religious bodies and media outlets across the world “to attend a press conference in New York at which a significant biblical manuscript discovery will be announced.” He intentionally underplayed the language in his letter for purposes of security, although by now he was developing something of a track record for issuing bland invitations that led to extraordinary announcements.

Kevin Sullivan arrived from Rome with seven cardinals in tow, including Augustin Buchbinder, the Vatican secretary of state. Kevin confided to Jon that Pope Benedict XVI would have loved to come himself, but in Christian concern, he did not want to risk upstaging the Ecumenical Patriarch. Nevertheless, he could not contain his joy that the codex had been found again and implored divine blessing on its reception.

Many of the major religious bodies in America and beyond were allowed four representatives each-including Jews and Muslims-but no political leaders were invited, intentionally so. Seats along one side of the cathedral were reserved for the newspaper and magazine media, as well as the radio and television networks. When Anderson Cooper of CNN arrived, he looked at the forest of TV cameras and commented, “Well, they’re all here-even Kol Israel and Al Jazeera-though I haven’t come across Radio Nepal, yet.”

Before arriving at the cathedral, Jon had put in a busy early morning, making good on his you’ll-be-the-first-to-know promises by putting in calls to all the curious crucial experts who had aided them. All now readily understood the reason for his previous silence.

At 10:06 a.m. on announcement day, the dean of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral stood before a thicket of microphones and said, “We welcome you all in the name of the Lord, distinguished ladies and gentlemen. It is my great honor to introduce to you His All Holiness Bartholomew II, Archbishop Patriarch of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch.”

Bartholomew stood to enthusiastic applause that he tried to terminate by holding up his arms. At last he succeeded. His clear baritone resonated across the cathedral as he gave the Trinitarian invocation in Greek: “ Eis to onoma tou Patros, kai tou Huios, kai tou Hagiou Pneumatos. Amen! But since some of you may not know Greek, I shall continue in English.”

Ripples of laughter erupted. The audience was now his.

“For centuries, the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople-many of you may know the city as Istanbul-possessed a literary treasure of immense significance for Christians everywhere. It is a magnificent New Testament manuscript codex, written in Greek uncial lettering that dates from the early fourth century-that is, the AD 300s-and is thus a document even earlier than the great Codex Sinaiticus in the British Library, which, up to now, has been the most important of the earliest versions of the Bible. But more. This newly discovered codex is also one of the fifty copies of the Holy Scriptures that the Emperor Constantine commissioned Eusebius, the church historian, to prepare for distribution across Constantinople and elsewhere. Scholars have long searched for one of these codices, but without success. Now, I am privileged to announce, the lost has been found.”

Vast waves of applause splashed across the sanctuary and even some unliturgical whistling and cheering.

Bartholomew continued. “This precious document we have officially named the Codex Constantinianus, but you may simply call it the Constantine Codex. It lies before you on the pedestal to my left, and it is open to the Resurrection account in the last chapter of the Gospel according to St. Mark, chapter 16. After this conference, you may view it briefly in an inspection line, but kindly do not try to touch it in any way. Guards will assist you in this request.

“The codex was discovered by Professor Jonathan and Mrs. Shannon Weber of Harvard University and the Institute of Christian Origins. I am deeply embarrassed to report that the codex was not recovered from our library or archives, but from a room at our patriarchate devoted to manuscript repair and storage. The entire Christian world is in your debt, Professor and Mrs. Weber. Dr. Weber will now provide some extraordinary additional information regarding the codex.”

As Jon walked to the microphone, nothing less than a standing ovation greeted him, and a raucous one at that, complete with cheers and whistling-in a cathedral, no less. He’d wanted Shannon to have this honor-after all, she had really discovered the codex-but she had demurred. “You’re much better at public speaking than I,” she’d said, needlessly buttering him up.

When silence finally fell, Jon looked to the patriarch and began. “Thank you, Your All Holiness. Without your magnificent cooperation, none of this would be possible. I must now tell you, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, of two additional discoveries in the text of the Constantine Codex that some will greet with shock, others with disbelief, and still others with exuberant joy. I would remind the press that all this material will be available in press releases in the narthex after our conference. These have been translated into the ten most widely used languages in the world, identified by an appropriate sign over each stack.

“The first discovery lies before you. If you file by the codex, you will notice that there is more text regarding the resurrection of Jesus at the close of Mark 16 than the traditional last verse you find in all your Bibles. And here, please, understand that the text we do find after chapter 16, verse 8, in your Bibles was added later. The Constantine Codex, however, preserves the original ending that Mark actually wrote. It not only accords perfectly with the other Resurrection accounts in the Gospels, but also helps explain their variations.”

Stunned shock seemed to vacuum all life out of the cathedral, until a veritable explosion of response replaced that void. Shouting, laughing, and cascades of applause reechoed across the cavernous expanse of the cathedral from the sector where the churchmen were sitting. They knew well enough that the broken ending of Mark’s Gospel was one of the greatest problems in New Testament scholarship. Non-Christians, in fact, used it as one of their prime arguments against the Resurrection. But at last, Jon was happy to announce, the problem was solved.

When quiet returned, Jon reported the other “surprise” in the discovery of Second Acts. The vast assembly sat in stunned silence as he sketched its contents: Paul’s trial before Nero, his trip to Spain and subsequent journeys, and finally his martyrdom at Rome. This time the mood of the audience was one of profound awe rather than the raucous elation over Mark’s Gospel. Clearly they were equally thrilled, but totally unprepared for the profound implications of a missing book of the Bible being found. But then a din of discussion seemed to well up from each pew, as church leaders and scholars started putting the pieces together and understanding, for the first time, why Luke ended the book of Acts as abruptly as he did in chapter