The Artifact (68 page)

Authors: Jack Quinn

“WHEN I FOUND THE ANSWERS TO THOSE QUESTIONS, HOWEVER, IT APPEARED THAT THE ONLY LAWS THAT HAD BEEN BROKEN WERE THOSE OF IRAQ, THAT WOULD HAVE PRESUMABLY AND EFFECTIVELY DEPRIVED THE WORLD OF A PORTENTOUS DOCUMENT. VALID OR INVALID, AGITATING, CONTENTIOUS OR CALAMITOUS, SHIMON’S WRITINGS BELONG TO NOT ONLY THE CHRISTIAN POPULATION OF THE WORLD, BUT EVERY PERSON IN IT. NOT A NATION OF MUSLIMS, WHO WOULD CERTAINLY DESTROY IT, NOT THE CATHOLIC POPE WHO WOULD SPIN IT TO HIS OWN ADVANTAGE, NOT A SECULAR GOVERNMENT THAT WOULD SECRETE IT FROM THE PUBLIC FOR OUR OWN GOOD.”

Harrington switched from Andrea on NBC to CNN carrying a split screen of the afflicted reporter with his SWAT teams shooting sporadically into the lodge from which there was no return fire. The Deputy Director punched a key on his desk phone. When Lowry came on the line, Harrington was apoplectic. “Storm the Goddamned building!”

“I’m waiting for them to return fire,” Lowry shouted over the sound of gunfire. “Those

cameras will make us look like assassins if we charge in now.”

“I want that pompous renegade general and every one of his people taken out, you got that, Tom?”

“My hands are tied.”

“Use the incendiaries, f’Christsakes.”

The SWAT team leader spoke calmly into his cell phone. “Chief, with all due respect, my

ass is hanging out here on Candid camera, not yours. I’m not signing up for twenty years in

a federal pen for a bunch of religious kooks.”

“You’ll obey my orders, dammit!”

“I’ll walk in there unarmed and arrest them, that’s it.”

“Kill the sonsabitches!”

“I’m recording this conversation, Mr. Harrington, as I have the last couple of talks we’ve had.”

“You sneaky bastard!”

A volley of stuttering machinegun fire shattered the front porch an windows of the lodge in return for Jerry’s shots at Tom Lowery, jogging back from the lodge to cover. Several rounds struck Jerry’s flack vest as he bolted through the front door onto the porch, one bullet piercing his throat, sending him sprawling down the flagstone steps, the fatal wound leaking dark blood into the banked snow.

Andrea continued speaking with only a few of her words lost in the brief rattle of gunfire. She had been addressing her audience with passion, but hesitantly, pausing frequently to draw a breath, pulling more oxygen into her depleted lungs. Then she resumed her report with renewed vigor.

“MY JOB IS DONE NOW. I HAVE MADE YOU AWARE OF THE EXISTENCE OF

THE DOCUMENT, AND HAVE BEEN INSTRUMENTAL IN REVEALING ITS CONTENTS TO YOU. I SAY INSTRUMENTAL, BECAUSE IT HAD ALWAYS BEEN THE INTENT OF GENERAL CLYDE CALLAGHAN AND HIS SO-CALLED ARTIFACT THIEVES TO BRING THIS PRECIOUS DOCUMENT TO PUBLIC RECOGNITION. HIS CLANDESTINE METHOD OF DOING SO WAS TO PREVENT CENSURE OR THE OUTRIGHT SUPPRESSION OF WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY YOURS. AT BEST, I HAVE BEEN MERELY A FACILITATOR IN THIS REVELATION.

“YOU HAVE HEARD COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS REGARDING SHIMON’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY FROM A DIVERSE RELIGIOUS PANEL, AND PROBABLY THE OPINIONS OF YOUR OWN CLERGY. THE CONTRADICTIONS AND CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING THIS ANCIENT DOCUMENT JUXTAPOSED TO THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE WILL BE RESOLVED LONG AFTER MY DEPARTURE FROM THIS MORTAL COIL. BECAUSE I HAVE NO GREATER INSIGHT INTO THE DILEMMA THAN ANY OF YOU, I WILL NOT COMMENT ON THE CONTENT OF THIS ASTOUNDING TRACT OR ON THE INTENT OF THE AUTHOR. I LEAVE THAT MORE TO THE COMMON SENSE AND HONEST INTROSPECTION OF INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIANS AND EXPERTS THAN THE POTENTIALLY PROTECTIVE ARGUMENTS OF RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND POLITICIANS. THIS IS ANDREA MADIGAN. GOOD LUCK AND GOODBYE.”

Sammy zoomed out as several background observers moved into frame. Paula Najarian identified herself as a federal agent who would take ex-general Callaghan and his Artifact guardians into custody for questioning to determine their culpability in removing the ancient document from Iraq. The outer door of the lodge burst open and several agents wearing SWAT gear fanned out on either side of the entrance from the kitchen, leveling Uzi machine pistols at the group standing before the live camera. Seconds later Tom Lowry walked into the living room wearing helmet and flack vest, as three of Callaghan’s troopers emerged from the dining room with shotguns and M-16 rifles. Sammy continued recording the scene on camera.

“You’re under arrest,” Lowry told Callaghan from just inside the doorway. “Have your men put down their weapons, hands on heads.”

“I have this under control,” Paula said.

Andrea drew as much air into her lungs as she could. “STOP!”

Lowry ignored her to address Callaghan. “What does it matter if I take you in or Najarian does?”

“I think I can trust her,” the General answered.

The whupping rotors of a Black Hawk helicopter swooping down from above the roof pulled every eyeball in the room toward the ceiling and drowned out all conversation. Above the lodge, a figure clad in black released the rope trailing from the chopper, both feet landing on Crandall in mid-turn, catapulting him over the snow-covered roof edge. Rognol kicked through the skylight, landed on the second floor loft overlooking the living room and leveled his Uzi over the banister at Callaghan. Cassandra lifted her arm, palm out to the sniper, who froze in position squinting through his gun sight, with his index finger inside the trigger guard.

The scene below had turned into a precipitous stalemate, both Callaghan and Lowry apparently helpless to resolve it. After several moments of tense impasse, Andrea seemed unable to catch her breath and suddenly slumped forward out of her wheelchair onto the floor.

Everyone in the room was silent except Cassandra, who called out: “Enough!”

Lowry was shocked. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

Cassandra knelt beside Andrea and cradled her head in her lap, her lips moving against the stricken reporter’s ear. She grasped Andrea’s hand. “Rise up.”

Lowry’s laugh was derisive. “Another deranged fanatic.”

Andrea slowly sat erect, her eyes closed, her expression calm and placid.

“Rise up,” Hannah commanded again.

Andrea opened her eyes as if awakening from a troubled sleep. She took a deep breath as Hannah helped her to her feet, standing without effort, unsteady, though dazed and confused.

The AmerAsian woman addressed the live camcorder. “I am Hannah Ogie, the Messiah of the Third Millennium.” She opened her blouse, lowering the top of her brassiere to expose a gauze bandage taped above her left breast. She removed the bandage revealing the open wound on the thirty-caliber bullet that had been shot into her heart by the cleric assassin. When Sammy came in for a close-up, the jagged hole appeared red and recent, clearly replicated on video screens

throughout the world.

Hannah turned her face toward the ceiling, her arms outstretched, the long wide sleeves of her white blouse billowing in the breeze from the open door, a soft penumbra outlining her body, diminishing the surrounding area and figures to shadow.

“I bring you a message from God.”

She fixed her gaze on the lens of the camcorder as Sammy continued transmitting her image to seven billion television viewers, her words heard by each person in her and his native tongue.

“Peace.”

Virtually every pair of lips in every nation across the globe repeated the word with utter amazement, understanding and emotion, so that it rang out and echoed across the heavens as a single voice taking a personal pledge to their God.

“PEACE.”

THE BEGINNING

APPENDIX

Bibliography

THE ARTIFACT is entirely a work of fiction. With the exception of historical facts (i.e. the Roman War, gladiator combat, and the 2003 Iraq War), every concept, scene and event are the product of my imagination. Many of the story elements, however, are based on valid historical documents, in addition to the assumptions, postulations and conclusions of historians and religious scholars of ancient Palestine, Rome and Christianity during Common Era Year One to Seventy-Two.

For example, an extant census conducted by Herod in CE Seven cited James (who ultimately became a high priest in the Sanhedrin), as the first born of Joseph and Mary of Nazareth; Yehoshua (Jesus) their second child; three daughters about little was recorded; and a third son, Simon.

Any apparent or actual errors are either made on purpose to abet story intent or are mine.

A list of my readings and research for background material and a plausible framework for this novel is contained below. I am indebted to the authors of theses fascinating works that have also jumpstarted my creativity during the past seven-year incubation of
Artifact
.

TITLE
AUTHOR

Acts of the Apostles & Letters of St. Paul, The Ridley, Lewis E.

Bible as History, The Keller, Werner

Birth of Christianity, The Carmichael, Joel

Boots on the Ground Zinsmeister, Karl

Everyday Life in Ancient Times National Geographic

Fall of Baghdad, The Anderson, Jon Lee

First Century The Klingaman

From Jesus to Christ Fredriksen, Paula

TITLE
AUTHOR

Gift of the Jews, The Cahill, Thomas

Gladiators, 100 BC-AD 200 Wisdom, Stephen

Gnostic Gospels, The Pagels, Elaine

Gospel According to the Son, The Mailer, Norman

Hammond’s Atlas of the Bible Lands Frank, Thomas

Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews Fredriksen, Paula

Jesus, A Life Wilson, A. N.

Jesus, a Revolutionary Biography Crossan, Dominic

Jews in the Time of Jesus, The Wylen, Stephen M.

Jews—History to 70 AD (various)

Life in Ancient Rome Cowell, F. R.

March Up (Taking Baghdad 1st Marines), The West, Bing &

Gen. Ray L. Smith

Messiah, The Vidal, Gore

History of the Bible, The Oxford Press

Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, The McEvedt, Colin

21 Days to Baghdad
Time
, (Eds.)

View from Nebo, The Marcus, Amy Dockser

Wall Map of Ancient Holy Land (Internet/Wikipedia)

Way of the Gladiator, The Mannix, Daniel P.

Writings of St. Paul, The Meeks, Wayne A. (Ed.)

GLOSSARY

My rationale behind the intentional inconsistencies of some Latin words and phrases, plus differing standards of measurement is the alleged interpretive translations of several different ancient language, history experts, paleontologists, philologists and archeologists. Successful or distracting, it was merely my attempt to make the circumstances of the discovery of Shimon’s fictional autobiography more credible.

Some of the following dates may seem contradictory, because certain Hebrew “month” designations include two of our modern Gregorian calendar months: i.e. Cheshvan = October and November.

TEXT
TRANSLATION
FOOTNOTE #

Dates

Av
3752 CE 5 July 4.

Cheshvan
3766 CE 20 October/November 21.

CE 35 October Chapter 18.
Cheshvan
3781

Elu
3766 CE 20 August 5.

Iyar
3767 CE 21 May (C18 section)

CE 66 May (C22 section)
Iyar
3812

Iyar
3818 CE 72 May Chapter 16.

Iyar
3818 CE 72 May Shimon’s Signature

CE 36 May (C21 section)
Iyar
3782

CE 3783 (C21 section)
Iyar
3783