Gregg Loomis - The Coptic Secret

When he reached, the front of the crowd, he almost slipped again. More water. The Vatican plumbing had struck again.

But water wasn't what had drawn all the attention. It flowed from the open doorway of the room next to Lang and Francis's. Standing on tiptoe, Lang could see it coursing down the far wall. The sheet of water had washed away the white plaster, revealing a painting, a fresco.

A large bearded man in biblical dress stood, poised to throw a rock. His face was twisted in rage. Hatred, pure and simple. His other hand held a large key. Around him, other men were in the process of throwing rocks, stones or anything else at hand.

Their object was another man who cowered against the walls of what Lang guessed was a palace or castle. One hand was raised in supplication while the other arm dangled at an angle indicating it was badly broken. His face was streaked with blood, yet he wore an expression of serenity hardly in sync with his situation. He was surrounded not only by rocks but also what could have been the contents of a nearby trash dump: pottery shards, sticks and even a seashell.

Lang was about to ask the man next to him a question when the entire hallway went silent as though some cosmic switch had been flipped off. Lang's eyes followed the turning of heads to the left. At the end of the hall stood a figure in a cardinal's red robes. Priests parted like a black sea as the newcomer approached the spot where Lang stood.

"Cardinal Benetti," Francis whispered at Lang's elbow. "The Holy Father's personal secretary."

Lang had not noticed his friend's arrival. "What…?"

Francis put a finger to his lips as the cardinal spoke.

"There will be no word of this outside these walls," the man announced before repeating the message in French, Italian, German and Spanish and again in Latin. "I speak for the Holy Father," he added before closing the door to the room and disappearing in the direction from which he had come.

"What was all that about?" Lang asked.

"I'd say it was about letting what's here stay here," Francis said.

"Playing dumb doesn't become you," Lang observed. "You know what I meant."

Francis nodded toward their room as the priests began to disperse like spectators after the game is over.

Inside, Lang and Francis sat on opposite beds.

"Well?" Lang demanded.

Francis drew a breath and shook his head slowly. "I'm not really sure. A challenge to church dogma at best, heresy at worst."

Neither possibility particularly worried Lang. The Inquisition, indulgences, insistence the universe revolved around the earth had all come and gone, the greatest damage being a tad of soon-forgotten ecclesiastical egg on the church's face. It was obvious, though, that Francis took what they had seen seriously. The endless if friendly debate of the church might not be wise here.

"OK," Lang said, "let's start with the mural, fresco, whatever. What's so amazing about it?"

Francis gathered his thoughts and began. "You recall the discussion we had on the plane about saints and their symbols?"

"Sure. After all, it was just last night."

"Think about what you just saw."

"Looked like an old-fashioned lynch mob to me."

Francis nodded slowly. "Yes, yes I'm afraid it did."

Lang was taking off his shoes. "I still don't get it."

"The symbols, Lang. Remember what the symbol for James was?"

"A seashell, a scallop shell. Like the one next to the poor bastard being stoned." Lang's face lit up with recognition. "St. James! But he was martyred by stoning, right? What's blasphemous about that?"

Francis was staring at the floor. "The other man, did you see what he was holding?"

"A key, a big one. He was going to throw that, too?"

Francis managed a weak smile. "Hardly. The key is the symbol for St. Peter."

Lang paused, shoelace in hand. "St. Peter led the mob against James the Just? They were both Christians. That makes no sense."

Francis nodded slowly. "It does in a way, I suppose. See, at the beginning, right after the Crucifixion, Jesus's followers took up his ministry. Most believed Christianity was a sect, a subspecies of Judaism. That meant to be a Christian, you had to be a Jew, be circumcised, follow the dietary and other laws. James the Just opposed that idea, saying anyone, Gentile or Jew, could be a Christian as long as they ate no meat that had been bled out, sacrificed and avoided fornication."

"Clearly he won out. With the possible exception of the last part."

Francis nodded. "Clearly. As the first bishop of Jerusalem, James gave Peter his orders. Like any good soldier, Peter died obeying those orders not two hundred yards from where we sit."

"Then, someone just made up the bit about Peter leading a lynch mob."

Francis stood and went into the bathroom. Lang could hear him over the running water. "It's hard to believe someone just imagined that."

Lang raised his voice to be heard. "Go down to the Sis- tine Chapel. I doubt Michelangelo ever saw people falling into hell."

"At least there was some theological basis for the idea."

"But none for the fresco?"

Francis emerged from the bathroom, toweling his face. He reached to his throat and began to remove the studs attaching his clerical collar to his shirt. "That is what worries the church. That fresco could very well date back to the time of the rebuilding of St. Peter's. Who knows what heresies might have been around then?"

"And for every heresy, the possibility of truth."

Lang propped a pillow behind his back and stretched out. "Someone faced the problem before. They plastered right over it. Why not just do it again?"

"I'd guess when that painting was obscured, there weren't newspapers and television. Word gets around pretty fast these days, and, will of the Holy Father or not, news of the discovery of an unknown fresco will get out, particularly if it's dated back to the rebuilding of the basilica. Could be attributed to Raphael or Michelangelo, far too big for a cover-up. Besides, the church is no longer in the business of concealing things."

"Right. Tell me what day the Vatican's secret archives will be open."

"It already is open to accredited scholars."

"Accredited scholars" being defined as those whose loyalty to the church is unquestioned.

But Lang felt this wasn't a time for argument. Instead he said, half joking, "You could always just give it an acceptable twist."

Francis looked at him blankly.

"You know, like how the church defaced or tried to destroy nearly every Roman monument in this town. The marble and steel support rods were stripped from the Colosseum to build the 'new' St. Peter's and I doubt Trajan was the one who put a statue of St. Peter on the top of his column."

"I doubt we'd have the Colosseum today if it hadn't been preserved for use as a church at one time. And as for Trajan… One of the early popes, Gregory I, I think, was so taken with the depiction of the emperor comforting the widow of one of his fallen soldiers, he ordered not only the column be preserved but prayed Trajan's soul be released from hell where all pagan souls went."

Lang had never heard this before. "And?"

"And we still have Trajan's column and Gregory had a dream in which God told him he had released the emperor's soul but please not pray any more heathens out of hell."

Lang sensed the dark mood the fresco had inspired in his friend was lifting. "Just for the sake of argument, what if there really were some truth to the painting?"

"Peter is the founder of the church. It would change more than I can imagine. Christianity's premier saint exposed as a murderer. It could tear the church apart, something the more conservative members would never permit" Francis carefully placed his collar and studs on the top of one of the dressers. "Word of that fresco gets out, there'll be a brief stir among the usual skeptics. The faithful will continue. It would take more than a fanciful painting to convince anyone Peter killed James. Did you have anyplace in particular in mind for dinner?"