The Celtic Conspiracy (13 page)

Salvoni knew when he had been rebuked. “Very well, Cardinal.”

* * *

In Dublin, Padre Morati sat at his desk. His mouth and his hands were trembling, partially from age and partially because doubts were beginning to eat away at his conscience again. What had he done with his life? How could he justify belonging to a church that had left such a brutal and bloody trail since the day of its founding? How could someone of his intelligence believe in a god whose death toll was so high?

If Jesus appeared to us tomorrow on St. Peter’s Square bringing the same message he brought to us back then, we would kill him again, betray him again, and abuse him
, Morati thought as he continued reading his book about land appropriation and the true heritage of his long-loved religion.
Ninety percent of the practices, laws, revelations, and ceremonies were already a part of Judaism. Christianity is nothing more than a bastard child, and it isn’t even ashamed of its lack of originality and its thievery. What they didn’t steal from the Jews, they robbed from the pagans.
In addition, they reviled and abused the people they stole from and even other Christians who tried to live and act according to the true revelations of Jesus. We would be faced with far fewer problems today if we had just followed these laws and not the adulterated Bible.
Morati laid the book down.

He had made an extraordinary decision.

Shane’s fear of flying turned out not to be a factor at all, yet another indication that the fateful events of the last few days were literally changing his life. After a three-hour drive from the airport in Vienna, they arrived in Klagenfurt. Markus Steinberger, an old friend of MacClary’s, had joined Ronald in 1970 in a vain attempt to find the site of the trove without any exact coordinates. For decades he had been keeping his silence and, with Ronald’s financial support, had continued to purchase the most up-to-date archaeological equipment. Now he drove them in a dark-blue van up the serpentine paths to the peak of the Magdalensberg.

When they got there, an eerie sight greeted them: a church from the Middle Ages built entirely of a yellowish-gray stone, appearing wraithlike in the foggy, raw weather. As they got out of the van, Shane pulled his hood over his head to block out the freezing cold wind blowing in his face, stricken with the undeniable feeling that he’d been here before.

* * *

Yes, it was possible, Ryan thought. Even now, seventeen hundred years later, it was still possible to revive a culture whose divine gifts were so much more authentic and redeeming and whose relevance to Creation went so much deeper than anything the Christian churches had ever been able to accomplish. If it were going to happen, though, it needed to begin now.

They walked silently through a wooded slope for about ten minutes when Shane suddenly pulled up short.

“Thomas, how much further do we have to go?” he asked nervously.

“Actually, we’re almost there. It should be within a hundred and fifty, maybe three hundred feet.”

Ryan turned around to look at Adam as he balanced on the steep escarpment holding a magnetic field sensor. MacClary had told him he should look for some kind of sinkhole or concavity, a crater that could have been the result of an explosion. As he looked over Adam’s shoulder, he noticed a depression that might be it. “Adam, I don’t know how you do it, but you seem to have a very strong instinct. There’s a pretty big hollow down there, but we’ll probably have to go down a good ten to twelve feet. I’ll start digging carefully. You two should keep an inconspicuous watch over the area and give me a sign if someone’s coming. No matter what, we only go in under cover of night.”

Shane and Deborah started off in opposite directions.

* * *

Jennifer had decided to stay with MacClary to wait for word from Ryan. As she did, she thought about the last thing Adam Shane had said to her during their late-night conversation. He was firmly convinced that a culture was lost when people were robbed of their original spirituality. It would take a long time to revive this, and it would require, above all, evidence, knowledge, and the old, traditional ceremonies.

Jennifer couldn’t really argue with him. She knew only too well what had happened to the Native Americans in the US. They had become not much more than lost souls in their own country, ravaged by alcohol, drugs, and crime. In that case it had also been the Christians who, in their delusional belief that they were chosen by God, had taken over the country and treated people of other faiths like cattle. Maybe Ronald was right. Maybe it had to be the US where those responsible could be held accountable.

She was starting to get impatient about finding out what was going on. What would the three scouts find in the cave? She had been staring at the telephone constantly, but there was still no sign of life from the continent.

Ronald, on the other hand, seemed to be almost completely unfazed. Either he really was that calm or he was an even better actor than she had thought. Just now, he
was in the library finishing up a telephone call with a colleague in Washington. Ruth had just prepared tea, and Ronald came to sit down with Jennifer. Now that she could observe him more closely, she realized that he wasn’t all that relaxed.

“Why don’t you call him?” she asked.

“Because we agreed that he would contact me. I don’t want to rob him of the satisfaction that that call will give him. I’m almost certain that he’s been successful. I know you don’t like Ryan, that you think he’s too coarse and abrupt, but I know him better than you do. We both have a very, very long family history. And coming from Northern Ireland, he knows all too well where fanatical faith can lead. That’s what you’re accusing me of, no? Fanaticism.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything at all. But you’re not laying all your cards out on the table, Ronald. I know you too well not to notice. What if something happens to them? Or if the cave collapses? Or if they’re discovered? And what about Adam? He has no idea what you boys are up to.”

“Oh, I think he does. He’s got at least a basic idea of what this is all about. In any case, they’re three grown people. They’re old enough to take care of themselves. As far as Adam is concerned, I consider him to be a thoroughly intelligent and cautious man. He and Ryan seem to understand each other very well, which is unusual, as you know.”

“You forgot sensitive.”

“What was that?”

“Adam is extremely sensitive and intuitive, in addition to being very intelligent.”

“All the better,” MacClary responded, but she noticed that his thoughts were somewhere else again.

“Oh, you don’t understand.”

“Of course I do. I could hardly miss the fact that you liked him.” MacClary grinned as he stood up. “What I’ve been able to gather about Adam in the short time I’ve known him is that he and Ryan have very similar opinions about the spiritual effects of Christian dominance. Just like Ryan, he wants—”

“—to burn the Christians at the stake? No, I don’t think that’s what Adam wants.”

MacClary reacted more angrily than she had ever seen him. “Jennifer, that’s not what we’re talking about at all! The Vatican is not Christendom. But the Vatican is the origin of an incredible series of crimes against humanity. I thought we had a shared belief about legal ethics. We both know that our field seldom has anything to do with justice, but I want to make a difference here if I can.”

“Don’t you get it, Ronald? What Adam is looking for is a new balance, one that he’s found in the lost tribal culture of the Celts and the other indigenous peoples, before we all got lost in the insanity of this culture of eternal growth. First the tribes lost their inner strength, and then, with the introduction of supercapitalism, the strength of the family. That’s where he sees the real drama taking place.”

“But he also recognizes that this drama has its origin in a culture that exploited nature and humankind. And Adam is no—”

“I have no idea what he is or isn’t. I only know one thing: he is not a vindictive or egoistic patriarch, like you are. You don’t understand him at all. The only thing you care about is yourself and your obsession.”

Jennifer stood up and strode out of the room. A few seconds later, she slammed the front door.

* * *

Jennifer wandered aimlessly through Arbour Hill in a small park. The quiet was good for her. She sat down to rest on a bench, surrounded by trees. It was colder than she had thought; she should have put on something warmer. Suddenly she thought about her grandfather, who had worked as a healer in County Cork. He was one of the few people there who wasn’t Catholic, and he had his own very individual theories about the ways of the world. She must have been about eight or nine when he had tried to explain to her why there were so many poor people in the village. Long ago, he had told her, it was said that there had been great wise people whose spirituality offset the greed of kings and merchants. When these teachers had been pushed out, the quality of compassion was lost, the sense that we are all responsible for each other.

In any case, he had said, these wise men made sure that nature was shown the proper respect. Above all, however,
they never separated science and belief, which is why they were at least partially successful in governing matter with their spirit. Was Adam’s vision just a part of this gift?

She stood up and continued on. The walk had calmed her down.

* * *

Cassidy lit a cigarette. How many was that now? He furiously threw the lighter against the windshield of the small van. He had been waiting for hours, not only for reinforcements from the Vatican police and the archaeological specialists in Rome, but also for the reinforcements Salvoni had promised from the Austrian secret service, which, to his surprise, had not shown up yet. Two buses in Rome had been set up with the best equipment to retrieve the artifacts as quickly as possible. All he needed were the Vatican diplomats and he would have no problems managing even without foreign assistance.

Cassidy grabbed his cell phone and called Salvoni, who had insisted on overseeing the operation personally.

“Patience, Cassidy. We need another two hours or so. It wasn’t exactly a walk in the park organizing everything here. Were you able to follow MacClary’s friends?”

“Yes, of course, and I can tell you now that we’re too late. They’ve found the cave and have probably already broken in. I only have two men here. What should I do?”

“That is unfortunate, very unfortunate, but the cardinal state secretary takes a different view of the situation. Stay hidden and try to get closer as carefully as you can. But don’t make a move before I get there.”

“Understood. I’ll stay hidden and hang back,” Cassidy said, like the loyal subordinate he was. He had long ago given up contradicting his superiors.

Ryan had been shoveling for nearly three hours now. It had gotten dark and the trees in front of the entrance to the cave stood like mystical guards in the soft, thick fog. Adam and Deborah hadn’t seen anyone who might unexpectedly interfere with their work, so they came back after a while to join Ryan.

Just as Adam was getting ready to help, there was a crash underneath the earth. The ground gave way. Adam leaned against a tree, grabbing Ryan’s hand at the last second; otherwise he would have been pulled down into the cave-in.

After Adam helped Ryan regain his footing, there was absolute silence. Deborah came over, shaking her head in frustration. “That’s it, then. We’re not going to get through there, at least not tonight anyhow.” Resigned, she sat down on the damp ground, cleaning her fogged-up glasses with her handkerchief.

“Nonsense,” Ryan said, laughing as he slid down into the hole that had just been created. “Give me the shovel and a flashlight.”

Moments later, Ryan’s flashlight lit up a hole, about ten feet down and three feet wide. The ground gave way a little more, and Ryan, shoveling like a madman, cleared enough so that he could slip inside.