James Becker - The Messiah Secret

‘Anzimarah is in the Kashmir, in the old town district of Srinigar, in the Khanjar quarter. There’s a building there called the “Rozabal”, an abbreviation of Rauza Bal . The word rauza means “the tomb of the prophet”. Inside the building there are two tombs, and two gravestones. One of them is the grave of the Islamic saint Syed Nasir-ud-Din, who was buried there in the fifth century. The second, larger gravestone is for another man. Right now, Srinigar’s effectively in the middle of a war zone, but the Rozabal was investigated by several people a few years back, and details about the building are fairly well established.’

Angela took a breath. Still no one interrupted her. ‘Both the gravestones point north-south, in accordance with Muslim custom, but the actual graves are located in a crypt under the floor of the building. In the crypt, the sarcophagus of Syed Nasir-ud-Din also points north-south, as you’d expect, but the other tomb is aligned east-west, which signifies that the occupant was neither an Islamic saint nor a Hindu. Aligning a grave east-west is actually a Jewish custom. In other words, its occupant would have been a follower of Moses.’

She looked at Bronson who nodded for her to continue. ‘The name on the second tomb is Yuz Asaf, but he was also known as Yus Asaph, which translates as the “leader of the purified”, and that specifically refers to lepers who’d been cured of the disease. The first few lines of the Persian text explained how the son of “Yus of the purified” ordered that the “light which had become the treasure” was to be removed from Mohalla and taken back to the place it had come from. I assumed that meant that the light or the treasure had been located somewhere here, in this valley. The next section of the text described how the treasure was hidden in a “place of stone” in the “valley of flowers”. Put all that together and you have a recognizable description of a group of men removing something from Mohalla and hiding it out here.

‘There’s only one generally accepted meaning for the expression “the light of the world”,’ Angela stated. Bronson could tell that she had virtually forgotten she was being held at gunpoint, such was the excitement in her face. ‘I believe that two millennia ago, the son of Yus Asaph and a band of devoted followers removed one of the bodies from the tomb in Srinigar and transported it here, into this specially prepared cave in the mountains, where they hid it, hoping it would stay hidden for all eternity.’

‘But why did they do that?’ the man standing beside Donovan asked.

‘It may have been instigated by Buddhist monks. Buddhism started around five hundred BC, and by the first century AD travelling monks were visiting India and Tibet. They wouldn’t have wanted the location of the tomb to become widely known, for fear that it would become a place of pilgrimage, and they might also have worried that it could dilute the message of their own religion.

‘I also think it’s possible they spread a story that the man didn’t die here, but had returned to his own country and died there years earlier, whereas in fact he lived out his days in Kashmir. And we know he fathered a child here, a man named Isaac, according to the Persian text. In fact, I think that Isaac was either the author of that text or very closely acquainted with the person who wrote it.’

‘And there’s the Baigdandu anomaly,’ Donovan interjected.

‘That’s a contributing factor, yes,’ Angela nodded. ‘Whatever the source of the genes that throw up occasional fair-skinned, blue-eyed children in that village, you can be reasonably certain it wasn’t some wandering tribe of Greeks. It’s far more likely to have been a single source, one very different bloodline that became intermixed with the local genetic make-up.’

‘This is making no sense to me,’ John Cross interrupted. ‘What is this all about?’

Angela smiled at him, half-turned and pointed at the wall behind her. ‘On the other side of that stone door,’ she continued, ‘we’ll find a tomb, and in it will be the body of a late-middle-aged or elderly man who in his time acquired a certain reputation, both here and in the country of his birth, which is a long way to the west of here. In India, he was called Yus Asaph or Yuz Asaf, and occasionally Isa-Masih, but you all know him better by another, much more familiar, name.’

She looked around the cave, taking her time. She took a deep breath.

‘I believe that in the cavern just behind me is the last resting place of Isa-Masih or Jesus the Messiah — the man better known to you all as Jesus Christ.’

‘Four minutes,’ the pilot murmured.

‘OK. Time we sent the Hind in front,’ Tembla said, then issued a crisp order.

Almost immediately, the pilot of the Dhruv banked the helicopter to the left, hauling it around in a tight turn.

As the manoeuvre started, Killian glanced to his right and saw the Hind gunship’s nose dip slightly as the pilot accelerated ahead of them. Then he concentrated on keeping what little he’d had for breakfast in his stomach as the Dhruv seemed to roll completely on to its side, the ‘whupwhup-whup’ of the rotor blades clawing at the air rose to a crescendo, the sound exploding through his skull as the chopper seemed to defy both gravity and the laws of physics.

Below the aircraft, the ground spun past at a dizzying speed, a grey-brown featureless blur. Then the pilot righted the helicopter, pulling it straight, the nose dipping as he increased speed.

Killian looked through the windscreen and saw that the Hind was now well ahead of them, maybe half a mile in front.

‘Good,’ Tembla said. ‘We’ll let the gunship take out the mercenaries; then we’ll go in and see what Bronson and Angela Lewis are up to.’

For a long moment there was absolute silence in the cave, then John Cross muttered, ‘Bull shit .’

Donovan started a slow, ironic hand-clap. ‘Bravo,’ he said. ‘Impeccable reasoning based upon an imaginative and expert interpretation of the available evidence. It’s just a shame you’ll never get to find out whether or not you’re right.’

Angela looked startled.

‘What’s behind that wall may be the most important archaeological find ever,’ Donovan continued, ‘but it means far more to me than that. If the stories in the Bible are true — and I believe that they are — then Jesus had the power to heal the sick and raise the dead. That’s why I’ve been following this trail for so long. Just think what I could do with that kind of power today.’

‘But how can the bones of a two-thousand-year-old corpse be. .?’ Bronson’s voice trailed off as he made the connection.

‘You’re a geneticist,’ Angela said flatly, making an intuitive leap. ‘And the whole purpose of all this’ — she gestured at the armed men in the cave — ‘is so that you can get your hands on the body. Or more accurately get your hands on a sample of tissue from the remains.’

Donovan nodded. ‘That’s what I’ve been looking for all along — the DNA of Jesus Christ. Have you the slightest idea what that could be worth today? To medical science? To cutting-edge genetic research? To achieve this, any risk, any price, and any sacrifice is entirely justified. And that’s why I’m afraid you’re both going to have to die. There can be no witnesses to what happens next.’

‘What about the two men with you?’ Bronson asked, desperate to keep some sort of dialogue going. ‘Have you told them about the sacrifice you’ll be expecting them to make?’

Donovan smiled. ‘These men are part of my private army. I’d trust them with my life. But I’m afraid you two are surplus to requirements.’ He turned to Masters. ‘Kill them, will you, Nick, and then we can get started.’