Richard Beard - Acts of the Assassins

Valeria smiles at him, her first gift since she put her hand on his in the Lebanese restaurant. ‘You are. We’re treating Jesus and the seven survivor disciples as a terrorist threat. An outside chance, admittedly, and a long way from the centre of civilisation, but CCU doesn’t gamble with people’s lives.’

The Complex Casework Unit defines itself through internal security issues, and is always taken seriously for funding because the imagined consequences of doing nothing are extreme and distressing. The CCU speculates, more often than not, on the end of civilisation, playing to a reliable terror of decline and fall. The conspiracies and threats identified by the Unit tend to be clever, they have to be, because Rome is not at risk militarily.

‘Not such an outside chance,’ Gallio says, enjoying his new importance, ‘or as the section chief you wouldn’t be personally involved.’

‘We need to know what the disciples are planning, and how big this second coming thing is. What, when, where and who’s involved. I want to know whether Jesus is alive, controlling every move, or if a smaller group of disciples is acting alone.’

‘How much does Baruch know?’

‘Baruch is our liaison partner for the Jerusalem security services.’

Which means not very much, Gallio thinks. Valeria acts like a god in her localised CCU region; she has knowledge, and can intervene, but she chooses to do so selectively.

‘I’ll find out what they’re planning,’ Gallio says.

‘And then stop it.’

‘That’s the general idea. Nobody gets hurt.’

In the fully furnished major incident room at the Antonia Fortress Cassius Gallio is in charge, and he relishes the responsibility. He feels he always knew instinctively that the story would end in Jerusalem. The membrane between god and man is thin here, between the living and the dead, madness and sanity.

He embraces Valeria’s theory about Jesus as a potential terrorist threat, as it supports his reasonable instinct that Jesus is alive. And if Jesus is as powerful as his disciples claim, then the Temple in central Jerusalem is an appropriately spectacular target. He’d once threatened to pull down the city’s landmark building, so for Jesus the Temple is unfinished business. At the same time, a Jesus capable of such a conspiracy should have been able to protect his disciples from violent death. Either way, the second coming will find Jesus out; he’s involved and immensely powerful, or he’s not and he’s a fraud.

Cassius Gallio develops a strategy, approved by Valeria. He’ll intensify the search for Jesus, which has caused the death of at least four disciples. Searching for Jesus is the key to understanding.

First Gallio ensures that Bartholomew is safe. From Hierapolis with an escort of nurses Bartholomew transfers on a military Hercules to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. The journey by air, above the clouds, fails to wake him from his coma, though in Jerusalem a disciple in a coma needs guarding like a corpse. This time Gallio does not assign the most stupid conscripts.

Next he chases up Forensics about the glass fragments retrieved from Joseph of Arimathea’s bin. The results show the glass comes from two separate vials. The smaller piece shows traces of a saline solution. The lab needs more time for further tests. The larger curved piece of glass once contained a liquid solution of opium and belladonna, traditionally used as anaesthetics.

Forensics confirm that the glass dates to the correct period, and at last Cassius Gallio has credible evidence of a sabotaged, stage-managed crucifixion. From the picture archive he knows that on the afternoon of the execution, when Jesus or a substitute was nailed to the cross, a sponge was touched to his lips. Soon after this event the man, whoever he was, lost consciousness. Until now the sponge was thought to have been soaked in vinegar, to wake Jesus up, though the sponge is missing so the liquid has never been verified.

In which case, the sponge could instead have been soaked in a sedative. Sponges are traditional carriers for anaesthetic, with the active ingredient released by a touch of water. The crucified man received pain relief.

Gallio decides to put every scrap of information into the public domain, to make Jesus sweat. Over the next twenty-four hours he goes through the documents and collates every descriptor of Jesus. Jesus is Jesus, and Gallio assembles the physical images that exist, mostly sculptures and a great many paintings, and also the imprint on shrouds. But according to his closest followers Jesus is simultaneously not Jesus. He is also the door, the light, the way, the bread, the water, the life, the resurrection, the refreshment, the pearl, the treasure, the seed, the abundance, the grain of mustard, the vine, the plough, the grace, the faith and the word.

Any one of these descriptions could generate a positive response. Gallio includes them all, looks up from the screen of his computer, and he’s alone in the case room. Everyone else has gone home, even Claudia. He has no one to tell that the material is nearly ready.

Instead he has an unwanted flashback to his posting the last time round. He’s working too hard, making the same mistake. How can Jesus be a door? he wonders. How can Jesus be a plough? He reaches for the telephone, and his home number is there in his head and he dials it. His ex-wife Judith picks up.

‘Hello,’ she says. Gallio doesn’t know what to say to her. In the silence he might as well not have bothered. ‘Hello, hello,’ she says again, ‘is there anyone there?’

The silence stretches out. Gallio wants her to know he exists, and that he doesn’t mean any harm, but he doesn’t know where to start, not after so much time and so many errors. His silence and his unknowness ends up frightening her.

‘Whoever you are, stop it. Don’t call again.’

And then it’s too late to make himself known, and anyway, Judith hands the phone to another person in the room wherever she is. It’s Baruch.

‘Fuck off,’ he says. ‘Whoever you are. Do this again and I’ll trace the number and hunt you down and kill you. Understand?’

Cassius Gallio puts down the phone, but gently, so they might think he never put it down, and that in fact he is always there, should she want him. He reactivates his computer screen, his list of hopeful words alongside pictures of a man either dying or dead on the cross. Jesus is the pearl. He is the grace. Gallio can’t see the connection: for him, Jesus is harsh and without compassion. The soldiers who guarded the tomb were sentenced to death, their wives and little children tormented by shame and grief. And not just the guards, Gallio thinks, what about me? I was a decent human being before Jesus.

At least he thinks he was, or could have been, but Jesus ignores the damage he causes. He comes back from the dead but his disciples still die, horribly and for no apparent reason.

Cassius Gallio concentrates on the here and now, on uploading his data. At the final screen, before going live, he once again has the choice of Missing or Wanted . He considers calling Valeria for guidance, but decides the responsibility is his. He taps Wanted . And Done . This is now a manhunt, and the live alert activates an immediate fugitive warrant across every civilised territory. The priority of a file marked Wanted brings back a reply within minutes.

They have a man answering the published description of Jesus. He is in Jerusalem.

The sighting is recent, the evening of the day before, and Gallio is still in the office and shocked by the time. It’s the morning of the next day already. He checks the Wanted response. An individual fitting the description of Jesus was issued with a verbal warning by the Jerusalem traffic police at 18.12 the previous evening. The suspect was helping an elderly lady across the road, but was reprimanded for not using a designated crossing, which is hardly surprising. Jesus is an outlaw, a potential terrorist and a suspect for at least three murders. He’s not going to wait for the man to go green.