Chase Baker and the Seventh Seal (A Chase Baker Thriller Book 9) (6 page)

I pick my beer up off the table, steal a deep drink, then set it back down. Removing my jacket and shirt, I head into the cramped bathroom between the bedroom and kitchen, and turn on the shower. First, I’ll undress, hang up my one and only suit, clean myself off, maybe grab a burger. By then, it will be time to catch the cute professor’s talk.

One thing’s for sure, Magda Azzahra isn’t your typical pocket protector wearing professor. Not by a long shot. Chauvinistically speaking, that is. She’s much more attractive than I gave her credit for inside the dim light of Cross’ old office, which might account for the inordinate amount of young college age men in attendance. Something tells me not all of them are actually interested in the historical biblical implications and possibilities of the true cross. But that they are, in fact, infatuated with Dr. Magda’s short skirt, high heels, tight-fitting tank top, and shoulder-length brunette hair that veils a face that looks sculpted from the finest marble.

She’s already into her lecture by the time I arrive. But her eyes connect with mine as soon as I walk in and she offers me the slyest of smiles from across the auditorium.

Heart be still . . .

She’s holding a long wood pointer in her right hand, and she’s using it to highlight specific areas on a sixteenth-century depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The scene is full color, grisly, and haunting even from where I’m standing all the way in the back of the auditorium.

I take a seat in one of the empty chairs and listen to the professor go on about the realities of Roman crucifixion.

“As you can see,” she says, tapping Jesus’ left hand where it’s nailed to the heavy wood cross beam, “the artist has depicted the palm of the hand as having been the receptacle for the nail. In this case, the nail would have been about six to eight inches long and perhaps a third of an inch in diameter—”

One of the college boys in the crowd shouts “Ouch!” and everyone laughs. Magda takes the interruption in stride and issues her own laugh followed by a “Yes, indeed. We’re not talking a nail at all, but, instead, a spike. Which leads me to my next point.”

She describes the inaccuracy of the painting’s depiction of Jesus being nailed through the palms since His body weight would have resulted in the tearing of the hand’s soft flesh. According to the professor, the reality is that Jesus was nailed at the wrists in an area commonly referred to among anatomists as the “space of Destot,” an area where eight strong ligaments join the carpal bones which are not only strong enough to support a grown man’s full body weight, but where the nerves bundle together to inflict maximum pain and discomfort.

“As you might have already guessed,” Magda says, turning to the audience of dumbstruck and lust-filled college kids, “the ancient Romans were experts at torture.” 

The lecture goes on for another half-hour with more slides depicting more gruesome realities of first-century Roman-occupied Judea and the many crucifixions that took place there. There’s a short Q&A afterward and, by then, even the boys are getting bored, so the place quickly empties out leaving me behind as the sole occupant of the auditorium. Besides the stunning doctor, that is.

I approach the lectern as she’s packing up her various manila folders and notes, sliding them into her canvas shoulder bag.

I clear the frog from my throat.

“Hello again,” I say.

She looks up, smiles, but keeps on gathering her stuff like she can’t wait to get the hell out of here.

“I see you made it, Chase,” she says. “I hope you know a little bit more about Jesus than you knew before.”

“The more I find out about the great man, the more mysterious He becomes.” Then, “I was wondering if you had a time for that coffee or a drink.”

She stands up straight, smirks. “I get quite thirsty after these lectures.” Placing the bag strap around her shoulder. “Tell you what, my office is located just around the corner. I’ll go drop off my bag and then let you buy me a beer, and we can talk in private without Mr. Cross looking over our shoulders and weighing our every word. I’ll meet you right back here.”

She starts making her way to the side door off from the auditorium.

“Is there something you don’t want him to know?”

“I’ve seen them up close and in person.”

“Seen what?”

“The seven codices,” she says. “They exist, and I’ve seen them. Touched them.”

She exits through the side door.

I pause for a few seconds, wondering why exactly she does not want Cross to know the truth.

CHAPTER 11

When she returns, she’s combed out her hair so that it appears just a little bit longer than before, and put on a faded jean jacket over her black shirt. She’s also added a hint of rose petal perfume, making her all the more attractive. She leads me through Washington Square Park and into the New York University campus area of the city with its tall brick buildings containing student housing, theaters, classrooms, shops, eateries, academic bookstores, and of course, bars.

I follow her into a cramped corner bar called
Shade
and manage to steal a table in the back by the window. I take the seat facing the window while she sits across from me.  

“So, Chase Baker,” she says, grabbing the plastic laminated menu from its salt and pepper shaker bookends, “I hope you like crepes because this place is world famous for them.”

“Do I look like a crepes kind of guy?”

She looks me up and down with her big brown eyes. After my shower, I changed into my everyday uniform of Levi jeans, lace up Chippewa work boots, a worn denim button down, and my beat up Tough Traveler bush jacket, the pockets stuffed with notepads, cash, sunglasses, bug spray, even my passport, and vaccination shot history. Did I mention condoms? Chase the always prepared for anything.

Magda’s grin turns up the side of her mouth.

“You kind of look like the man in the yellow hat from those Curious George books I used to read as a kid,” she says. “Only, without the yellow hat.”

“I get that a lot,” I say with a smirk.

“You look like you’re about to explore the jungle of Peru, not consume crepes and beer inside an NYU bar.”

“Been there, done that,” I say. “And I’m leaving at dark-thirty in the morning for my assignment, remember?”

“You trying to tell me you sleep in that outfit?”

“I prefer sleeping naked, and not alone.”

“Oh, and a flirt to boot.” Crossing her arms, sitting back in her chair. “Why are we here together again? Remind me?”

“The codices. Stuff you wanted to discuss with me outside Cross’ office.”

Just then a slim young woman with long, black hair and tattoos covering her wiry arms approaches us. She’s got dark eyes, red lipstick, and a killer smile.

“Whaddya drinking?” she asks.

“Two Budweisers,” I say.

“And two crepes with cheddar cheese,” Magda adds. “Mustard on the side.”

The waitress smiles. “You got it.” She walks away with the order.

“How did you know I drink Budweiser, Chase?”

“Lucky guess. But then, you seem like a salt of the earth college professor. Blue collar beer and crepes.”

“I’m actually a born and bred Westchester snob. Private schools, country clubs, and a trust fund. My father, who is of Palestinian descent, had me holding a squash racket before I could walk.”

“And your mother?”

“A Jew. My parents never fought over religion, though. They believe in God and leave it at that.”

“So, you’re an attractive, smart, rich, country club girl who can afford to live in New York City on a professor’s salary.”

“I like you, Mr. Baker,” she says, that corner of the mouth grin going wide. “You’re . . . what’s the word . . . different.”

“Different is good. Mostly, all I get is
chauvinistic bastard
. Now, how about the seven missing codices? What is it you want me to know?”

She leans toward me. “Two summers ago, I worked in Israel on a dig at a two-thousand-year-old Greek settlement located just outside the Western Wall of the Old City. There was talk of some books — metal books — having been uncovered in a cave in Jordan some years back. They were said to be an outstanding, if not unusual, find. Not necessarily because of their construction, but because the information they were said to contain was to rival that of the very incomplete Dead Sea Scrolls.”

Our beers and crepes arrive causing Magda to pause her story. We don’t dig in right away. Instead, as soon as our waitress is gone, she continues.

“One of the local diggers on the site, a young Moroccan man by the name of Rachid, informed me that he had seen a set of ancient books matching the exact description of the little metal codices in a bookseller’s shop inside the old city bazaar.” She steals a sip of beer from her tall-necked bottle. I do the same. “Needless to say, I was filled with both curiosity and disbelief. If the books existed, and they were genuine, they would not only be priceless, they would need to be studied and examined by a major antiquities organization like the Israeli Antiquities Authority. But there they were, supposedly for sale inside a vendor’s shop like a common shofar sold by the thousands to the tourists day in and day out.”

Taking hold of my fork, I cut into the crepe, its steaming hot, thin pancake-like skin giving way to melted golden cheese. I’ve already downed a McDonald’s cheeseburger on the quick walk from my apartment to NYU. But I can always eat again. I take a bite. Rich and delicious. I follow up with a sip of beer. I’m shocked how well the two tastes go together. Only in New York City.

Magda eats some crepe and drinks some beer.

“So, let me guess,” I say after a beat, “you went exploring.”

She sets down her fork, wipes her mouth with a paper napkin.

“Damn right I did.”

“And you discovered?”

“It took about half a day, but I finally discovered a bookshop about a couple hundred feet in from the Damascus Gates. A proprietor who knew precisely what I was looking for took me inside, locked the door behind us, brought me all the way into the back. He showed me an old leather bag that was kept inside an old black safe. He opened the bag and produced seven separate metal books containing seven pages each, held together with three metal rings each.”

“How big were the books?”

She holds up each hand, curls her index fingers while positioning opposing thumbs parallel with the floor, kind of like a director will do when attempting to frame a shot with his hands.

“About the same dimensions as a credit card,” I point out.

“More or less,” she says. “I didn’t have the chance to examine them all because the proprietor, who was a Muslim, seemed very nervous about showing them to me.”

“Why so nervous?”

“Well, I think he knew very well their historical significance and he must have realized how priceless they were if they were indeed the genuine article. But I also think he knew he was in possession of what was potentially one of the most revered relics in the Judeo-Christian cannon, which just might sufficiently piss some of his fellow Muslims off.”

“So, what did you see on the pages?”

“Like I said, Chase, I didn’t have time to look at them all. Not even close. But I did see a carving that replicated the crucifixion on Golgotha, or the Skull Place, with Jesus in the middle and the two thieves bookending him. There was also a detailed map of Jerusalem in the first century. There was the risen Christ standing outside Joseph of Arimathea’s garden tomb and the ascension into heaven.”

“Did you get to see the last book? The seventh book?”

“No, because it was sealed.”

“Sealed how exactly?”

She swallows the rest of her beer, sets the bottle back down perfectly onto its own condensation ring.

“The traditional view of the lost codices is papyrus rolled up much like the Dead Sea Scrolls. But these books had been constructed of metal and sealed with metal. The metal had been broken on the first six books but on the last one — the seventh book — the seal was still intact.”

I drink down what’s left of my beer, signal with two fingers raised for the bartender to bring two more.