Richard Beard - Acts of the Assassins

‘What’s your deal with Peter?’ Baruch approaches a painting of geometric shapes, looks at it without looking, hands on hips, jacket wings pushed out behind him. Gallio sees the hilt of his knife, and then it’s hidden again as Baruch turns back to Paul.

‘Who’s second in command to Jesus? You or Peter?’

‘We don’t have a deal.’ Paul looks pained, because Baruch is seriously unenlightened. ‘We once reached a loose agreement.’

‘You convert the Gentiles, Peter sticks to the Jews. That’s what they told me in Damascus. But Peter is the beloved disciple, isn’t he? He’s witless, but Jesus loves him.’

‘He’s a fisherman,’ Gallio adds. ‘Not that bright. He can tell a story but could never unpack it in a keynote speech.’

Gallio decides to refine Baruch’s attack, though he’s probing the same weakness, Paul’s obvious pride. Good cop, he remembers. The nice guy used to be one of his roles. ‘Why deny your differences? Jesus appeared to you on the road to Damascus because the disciples needed help. The Galileans couldn’t communicate his message, not on their own, they didn’t have the brains. They heard the stories and saw his miracles but never knew what they meant. That’s what you do so well, interpret the stories and bring meaning to Jesus. Personally I like meaning, and I appreciate nuance because I’m an educated man, Paul, as are you.’

‘Whereas Peter,’ Baruch says, double-teaming, ‘knows how to thread the bait for flatfish. An underrated skill, I feel. The hook goes in at the eye then down the gut and out through the anus.’

‘The disciples aren’t a big help, are they? Can’t write a decent letter between them.’

‘It’s not that.’ Paul stands up and walks away from what he’s about to say, looking for an exit, but his doubt keeps pace with him and he says it anyway. ‘Twelve was the wrong number from the start.’

He exits to Impressionism and bustles through Orientalism . Everyone follows him — the bodyguard, Gallio, Baruch. Paul stops at a Meromi sculpture, then an Aboriginal dream painting, but none of the art on display can distract him. ‘Jesus had too many original disciples. No one can have that many friends around him, or advisors. He lost track, and the result was Judas.’

Gallio feels that at last they’re making progress, with Paul trying to communicate some sense of the difficulty of being Paul.

‘Twelve is a very trusting number,’ Gallio says. ‘You’re right about that. Perhaps overly trusting.’

In Archaeology Baruch stops at a display of Sicarii killing knives through history, and his unexpected fascination with this single exhibit draws everyone over to the cabinet. They stand round the glass sides of a free-standing box, glinting daggers between them in the refracted light.

‘Someone is hunting us down,’ Paul says, the curved blades holding his attention.

‘They’re targeting the disciples,’ Gallio corrects him. ‘No one apart from the disciples has yet been hurt.’

‘I’m their equal. Believe me. If the disciples are in danger then so am I. I need official protection. Are you going to protect a citizen or are you not?’

Paul appeals to Gallio through the glass, across the vicious ancient weaponry. Baruch’s hand moves under his jacket towards the small of his back, and it may be Gallio’s imagination but the bodyguard takes a step. Not towards Paul, as Gallio expects, but away from him. Baruch scratches himself, his hand reappears.

‘None of the murdered disciples tried to run away,’ Cassius Gallio says.

He checks his phone, as a sign their interview is over, and no news is good news. James is fine, undeviating in his monastic routine. Claudia is bored in the van. Bartholomew is comatose in the medical centre. In short, everyone at risk is alive and well.

‘The disciples are not scared of dying. You are. That’s one reason you’re not a disciple. You’re not in the same category. Also you have a bodyguard. Request for protection denied.’

About one o’clock the next morning a phone rings. Cassius Gallio blinks his eyes open, realises he’s asleep on duty, then that the sound is coming from the landline in James’s flat, broadcast across the central monitor. Gallio grabs headphones, plants one cushioned speaker to his ear. Then with his free hand he zooms the camera in the flat, watches as James stops praying, answers the phone, listens.

James doesn’t say anything and neither does the caller. Gallio frowns at the static, a bad line, nothing coming through. No, he hears something. Breathing. He can hear the caller breathing. He pushes a button to activate a trace. James hangs up. Damn. On the monitor James stands up and dusts himself off, though he’s no more dusty than before. He leaves the room.

This is new. Usually the phone calls stop and after his prayers James sleeps the sleep of the just. Gallio shakes Claudia’s shoulder, moves to the bench when she swings her legs off, switches to the interior corridor cam. Lost him. Streetcam, manual operation. On to the house, to the window. No sign of him, then yes, James is up on the building’s flat roof. He’s up on the roof. Why? Claudia yawns and stretches, stomps her feet one two to the floor.

‘Something’s happening.’

She rubs her eyes, leans forward.

‘The street,’ Gallio says. ‘Get me a camera on the street.’

She fumbles a dial and the shopfront blinks up. No public or passers-by at this time of night, just the riot police in the doorway with thumbs in their belts.

‘Call Valeria,’ Gallio says. ‘Get her down here.’

Gallio pushes open the back of the van and jumps into the road. Claudia is behind him. ‘No. Keep the cameras on James. Don’t lose him. Stay in the van.’

He runs. The riot police see him and suddenly they’re alert, walking to intercept him hands free, shoulders squared. Gallio flashes his card, and throws himself at the door of the shop. It’s locked. So is the door to the stairs for the flat. The fire escape. Gallio runs round the side of the building and jumps onto a metal staircase that zigzags up the brickwork as far as the roof. He shouts up to James and tells him to get back in, because on the roof he’s exposed and anyone could be watching.

‘Go back inside! You’re not safe!’

Through the lattice of iron steps Gallio checks on the street as he climbs. No Claudia, that’s good. The riot police are out in the road now, pointing upwards. Five or six of them. They draw their batons, spooked by Gallio’s urgency. He makes it to the roof, in time to see James step towards the edge.

Gallio stops. He doesn’t want to startle him, but James is oblivious. He lifts his hands, palms upwards. A signal. From Gallio’s angle James looks like Jesus. He knows the shape he’s making.

‘James. Step back from the edge. Come down with me. You’ll be safer inside.’

James stands on the edge of the flat rooftop, hands out, speaking to himself, praying. Cassius Gallio hears roughly one word in three: Jesus, glory, dead. Kingdom no end. Gallio recognises what’s about to happen, but even as he starts forward he’s already too late.

Across the city, in the Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Bartholomew opens his eyes.

IN RETROSPECT, THE task had been easier at the beginning, with Jesus and his disciples collectively active in Jerusalem. Cassius Gallio had been able to organise a textbook infiltration, an exemplary piece of fieldwork in the Passover season while the city heaved. He’d followed the disciples of Jesus through the holiday crowds and worked out that Judas, as treasurer, was entrusted once every day to make a solo trip to buy supplies.