Adrian D'Hage - The Omega scroll

Lonergan. How he detested having to deal with the pompous fat academic priest in Jerusalem. Academic priests were invariably more trouble than they were worth – always that smug satisfaction and oozing self-confidence. But for the moment it was Lonergan’s academic qualifications that made him useful to Petroni. He had put the disgraced priest into the Rockefeller Museum for one reason – to ensure that the Vatican’s carefully crafted ‘Consensus’ on the age and origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls had credibility. Lonergan was the perfect puppet, for it had been Petroni who had saved his worthless hide. That had been over forty years ago when that irksome woman in Idaho had refused the Church’s generous offer of compensation to alleviate the upset over a priest playing around with young boys. The incident had been badly handled in the local diocese and eventually the fallout had threatened to overwhelm the Holy Church itself. So much so that the Vatican had taken charge and quietly arranged for a very young Bishop Petroni to take over damage control and protect the image of the Holy Church. Petroni’s strategy to protect the priest had not been without risk. Many had insisted that the Church should revoke the priest’s orders and accompany that dismissal with an honest apology.

‘I fear that would encourage others to take similar action and expose the Holy Church to many other damaging claims,’ Petroni had argued. The Cardinal Secretary of State at the time had agreed and the priest in question had been summoned to Rome. Petroni had dealt with the priest in a face-to-face interview. The personal exercise of power. It would be something he would regret.

‘You will be posted to the Middle East,’ Petroni had intoned dispassionately. ‘To a little known parish in Mar’Oth. When this unfortunate episode has died down you will then be enrolled at L’Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem where you will complete a doctorate in archaeology. On successful completion of your studies you will be given further instructions. It has come to my attention that this is not the first time you have offended, far from it. In the role I have in mind for you, if your past was ever exposed to the wider public, the damage to the image of the Holy Church would be quite unacceptable. To guard against that you are to be given a new identity. Your papers are in this envelope.’ With that the priest had been dismissed with an icy finality and banished to the village in the Palestinian West Bank. The Vatican had a new priest and, for all intents and purposes, he had a clean record – Father Derek Lonergan. If he was successful in his doctorate Petroni would have in place another building block for dealing with the Dead Sea Scrolls and another strategy to control any rumours that surrounded the Omega Scroll.

In the face of no comment and unable to trace the offender, the media had moved on, as Petroni had predicted they would. The only chance of discovery was a file kept in Petroni’s safe. His strategy had worked brilliantly, and his work had not gone unnoticed by the powerful Curial Cardinals. The young Bishop Petroni’s assignment to the Pontifical Biblical Commission with special responsibility for handling the Vatican’s interests in the Dead Sea Scrolls had been quickly confirmed.

After two years Lonergan had been enrolled for his doctorate and assigned to L’Ecole Biblique and the Rockefeller Museum as the Vatican’s representative and a staunch public advocate for the ‘Consensus’. Had he known what was happening in Lonergan’s favourite bar, Petroni would have been gravely concerned. His plan was starting to unravel.

Jerusalem

T he American Colony Hotel’s Cellar Bar with its hundred-year-old pink stone floor and low stone arches was one of Derek Lonergan’s haunts. An hour ago Derek Lonergan had been holding court with a group of visiting journalists, loudly. Now he was drinking on his own, copiously.

‘Someone overheard you talking about the Dead Sea Scrolls, Monsignor Lonergan. He asked me to give you this,’ Abdullah said quietly. The small, slightly built Arab barman handed over a folded piece of paper. Derek Lonergan squinted blearily at the grubby paper and the even grubbier handwriting. Meet me outside the Damascus Gate at eleven o’clock tonight. I will be wearing a red fez. I have something you and the Vatican want.

Derek Lonergan turned the paper over but there was nothing else on it.

‘Who gave you this?’ he demanded, his words slurred.

Abdullah shrugged inscrutably. ‘I am sorry, Sir, he wouldn’t say. He just said it was important you got the message.’

‘Hrrumph.’ Lonergan snorted and looked at his watch. It was a quarter to the hour. Had he been sober he might have considered such a clandestine meeting more carefully, instead he threw down the rest of his drink and lurched out of the Cellar Bar and into the night. The ancient entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem and the beginning of the road to Damascus, the Damascus Gate, was only a few minutes walk away. When Lonergan reached the gate it was eerily quiet. Only a few people were coming and going under the massive battlements that had protected it over the centuries. It was nearly ten past eleven when a small Turk in a faded red fez approached from the shadows of the old city wall.

‘Monsignor Lonergan?’ the man asked, his coal-like eyes darting.

‘You took your time,’ Lonergan replied thickly, trying to place the accent.

‘You are alone?’

‘Look, whatever your name is…’

‘I asked you a question, Monsignor Lonergan,’ the Turk said, ignoring Lonergan’s comment. ‘I suggest you answer me if you want to see what I have. Otherwise they will be lost to the Vatican for ever, which could be very embarrassing for your Cardinal Petroni.’

At the mention of Petroni’s name Lonergan started sobering up. ‘Yes,’ he said, nodding his head.

‘You will follow me, please.’

The Turk disappeared under the stone ramparts and into the Old City. Derek Lonergan struggled to keep up with the faded red fez as he moved quickly down alleys and through covered streets, and into the Christian Quarter where the Turk disappeared into a dingy narrow stone cul-de-sac, pushed open an old heavy door and beckoned for him to follow.

Struggling for breath and unused to anything more physical than raising his right arm, Derek Lonergan heaved himself up a narrow flight of stone steps, squeezed through a small kitchen and entered an inner sitting room.

‘Was all that necessary?’ Lonergan wheezed, collapsing into a heavy wooden chair.

‘I think when you see what I have, Monsignor Lonergan, you will agree that it would be unwise for either of us to be followed by the authorities or anyone else.’ The Turk lifted some coir matting and prised loose three of the old floorboards. From the cavity in the floor he removed a long olive wood box, leaving another larger box in place. He took out a faded dirty yellow linen roll and placed it on the heavy scarred wooden bench that sat in the middle of the small room.

Derek Lonergan blinked, his memory stirring. He had seen the dirty yellow linen before, around several of the Dead Sea Scrolls that had been brought to the Rockefeller.

‘What do you have there?’ he asked, levering himself out of the chair, his voice hoarse with excitement.

‘A Dead Sea Scroll,’ the Turk replied nonchalantly, noting that the panting of his quarry’s breathing had nothing to do with physical exertion.

‘Where did you get it?’ Lonergan demanded. ‘Let me see.’

The Turk ignored the question, watching while Lonergan unwrapped the priceless two-thousand-year-old artefact. He handed him an old silver magnifying glass that had belonged to his father.