Richard Beard - Acts of the Assassins

The next morning, in the covered market, Judas found an unexceptional foreigner (linen trousers, short-sleeved shirt) close against his shoulder. A moment of your time, sir, no need to look around. An investment, a guaranteed return. Not today, not now, but alas if the mission of Jesus were to fail, if his plans for a righteous uprising should founder.

And the next day again: Judas, friend, it’s hardly my place to judge, but if Jesus has influence with the almighty shouldn’t his aims have been easier to achieve?

And the next: forty pieces of silver, think it through, no rush, a generous offer to a fringe member of a minor cult.

‘A terrorist cell,’ Judas eventually replied. He would not be undervalued. ‘That’s what you fear we are.’

Terrorists were worth more, and fifty pieces of silver would buy a plot of unimproved land not far from the city walls. A little patience, some prudent management, and the land becomes a field. Keep some money aside for livestock. Sell premium lambs to the Temple, Judas his own boss in a seller’s market.

Fifty-three, final offer. Don’t be greedy, Judas, I could ask one of the others. Fifty-five pieces of silver. Absolute tops. You’re breaking me here.

Judas had a head for numbers so he could do the maths. Fifty-five as capital outlay for the field, then he’d borrow against future tenant revenue from grazing. With loans he’d buy a pilgrimage inn that overcharged during festivals, and then he’d borrow again against the capital value of the property. He’d have nothing and he’d have everything. He’d have the big fifty-five, and by these calculations betraying the son of god should work out nicely.

Judas walked away, not glancing behind, not looking back.

You’re being ridiculous. Cassius followed him, stayed close on his shoulder.

The devil, Judas said, tapping his handsome head, I can hear demons whispering in my ear.

Thirty now, thirty on completion. Final offer. Sleep on it.

Cassius Gallio had designed and implemented an impeccable covert operation, for which he’d never received full credit. And until someone killed Judas nobody had died, not even Jesus.

At Ben Gurion airport the flight is delayed, held because of ice at Luton. Bartholomew has slowed their progress. The medical centre had to discharge him, and then on the road to the airport their unmarked car was trumped by the lights and sirens of Paul’s military escort out of Jerusalem. Come on . Cassius Gallio was in a hurry. He touched the crusted row of fresh butterfly stitches pinching the skin above his eyebrow. Motorcycles, a Mercedes and a Mercedes backup, an armoured vehicle, all for Paul and at public expense. Baruch would have been enraged. Even more enraged, wherever he is now.

The flight is diverted to Heathrow, and when they land the sky is pink with snow about to fall. At Nothing to Declare Cassius Gallio lets Claudia go through first. He hangs back beside Bartholomew and senses they’re being watched, a presence at the edge of his vision. He blames Bartholomew, whose familiar features and clothes attract attention. Gallio hurries him past the one-way mirrors and waits for a disembodied voice to call them back, but they make it through. Probably nobody watching, or watching but not caring.

Luton would have been a better airport from which to start. They now have a three-hour taxi drive to the town of Caistor, on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds. Baruch is somewhere in England, ahead of them, but despite his head start they can catch him if they make good time around the M25, M1, A46. These roads are like the weather, clear now but threatening to turn for the worse, and the traffic eventually closes in on the A46 near Historic Lincoln. Gallio resents the jam. Why queue here? What in British Lincolnshire could be so worth seeing?

Except, of course, another sighting of Jesus.

In England a man answering the description was first seen at Glastonbury, then Westminster, now he’s further north at Caistor in Lincolnshire. Here in the outlands they’ve never known anything like it, and early unconfirmed accounts rival the miracles of Jesus. A man who fits Gallio’s Wanted profile has performed incredible exploits, healing the sick and thwarting demons. Voices speak from the clouds and animals talk.

Gallio gazes out of the taxi window. This is such a backward fringe of the Empire, but if Jesus plans to descend from clouds he’s come to the right place. The car battles against snow, then hail, as if their journey opposes the planet’s direction of travel. When the hail stops, as abruptly as it started, the sky breaks open and lets through a cold cosmic light. It is hard to believe that people live here.

The taxi crawls forward, and Gallio uses this crawl time to start the questioning. In the back seat beside him Bartholomew is as lightweight as when Gallio first picked him up in Jerusalem, years ago, though the coma hasn’t helped. He looks like Jesus after a month in the desert. Claudia sits up front, and she’ll struggle to hear the conversation but Gallio expects she’ll make the effort.

‘I don’t like to be the bringer of bad news,’ Gallio says. Claudia slides her seat back a notch. ‘But did you hear what happened to James in Jerusalem?’

‘He had his head cut off.’

‘The other James, this week, also in Jerusalem. I want to show you something, so you’ll understand why it’s in your interests to co-operate. You don’t want to die like your friends. We wouldn’t wish that on anyone.’

Cassius Gallio lights up his phone. Another disciple down, and because these deaths are real they’re available on YouTube. Gallio scrolls through the Google search results for James Bludgeoned to Death . The YouTube listings include Mexican Immigrant Beaten to Death by US Border Patrol Agents, Baby Beaten to Death by Her Nanny and Gay Rights Activist Beaten to Death .

‘It’s not coming up,’ Gallio says. ‘Don’t know why, but this one’s close enough. You’ll get the idea. And by the way, welcome back to planet Earth. Take a good look at what’s been happening in your absence.’

The footage of Mexican Immigrant Beaten to Death is ill-lit but visible, filmed on a cellphone and available at a click anywhere in the civilised world. The microphone picks up ‘Por favor’, and ‘Señores, help me’. At this point, Anastasio Hernandez Rojas is surrounded by US Border Control agents, but he is lying on the ground and not resisting when tasered at least five times. The agents then kick and club him.

The border patrol claims self-defence. Methamphetamine was found in the victim’s bloodstream, and the police reaction was a measured response to extreme antisocial behaviour. The exact moment of death, on YouTube, is unclear.

‘Why did James and the other disciples suffer unbearable deaths?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bartholomew says.

‘Want me to play the clip again? There must be a reason.’

Bartholomew can’t say what the reason is.

‘No one came to save James from the riot police. Philip was the same. No one intervened when he was hanging upside down from his legs, and no one stood up to help Thomas or Jude. You were in a coma for weeks. If Jesus is alive, he’s indifferent to your suffering.’

‘But I’m still alive. I’m here.’

‘Thanks to me.’

‘Jesus may have sent you.’

‘Jesus didn’t send me.’

‘Without you knowing. You wouldn’t have to know.’

‘I would know.’

‘Would you?’

The hail is back, vicious fistfuls on the car windows, deafening on the roof. Claudia thumbs a text, her face lit up by the screen. The sky darkens and the car is barely moving so they stop in the services at Thorpe. Cassius Gallio buys everyone a flapjack, including the driver. Bartholomew likes coffee, so Gallio fetches him a cappuccino from the Costa, and Bartholomew makes a big effort to leave intact the heart shape in the chocolate on the milk. That is not a heart, Gallio wants to say, it’s a coffee bean. You are protecting a bean shape that looks like a heart.