Richard Beard - Acts of the Assassins

‘What do you want from me?’

‘Jude told me you were looking for Jesus. I can help.’

Very kind, Gallio thinks, but not now. From the beginning, way back in Jerusalem, the disciples had led him on, luring him into traps he mistook for his own intentions. He’s had enough of their prayers, their blessings. Andrew makes the sign of the cross.

‘How did you know I was here?’

‘Jesus has a special place in his heart for you. For all of us.’

‘It was a tracking device, wasn’t it?’

Gallio had instantly blamed Claudia, but it could just as easily have been Bartholomew. In between the bandaging and the handouts, with Gallio distracted by social inequality, Bartholomew could have accessed his phone and planted the bug. ‘The tracking device was yours. I should have guessed. I am god’s biggest idiot.’

‘You’re in a basilica, Cassius, in a cloudless country open to the eye of the Almighty. How did you expect to hide from Jesus in a big open church? He can see you everywhere, that’s true, but in here you come to us.’

Andrew’s implacability is exhausting. He must have tracked Gallio first to Caistor, asked questions, sorted through Search History on the computers in the Heritage Centre, then out to Patras on the next chartered flight. Gallio sits down on a front row seat, defeated. Andrew sits next to him. On the screen of the sanctuary they admire the visual focus for every eye turned towards god in the Agios Andreas, which is an oversized icon of Andrew the disciple of Jesus in cobalt and gold. Andrew is roped to an X-shaped cross, a shimmering image on which to meditate a spiritual truth, and Andrew’s iconic expression is inscrutable, as he gazes directly back at Gallio.

‘Jesus remembers you from Jerusalem,’ Andrew says. ‘And from that fantastic day with Lazarus. You’ve seen and shared so much with us. You could tell people what you know, what you’ve witnessed with your own eyes. You’d be welcome to join us.’

Cassius Gallio could give himself up, especially his ambition and pride. He could discard his former self, and this knowledge shines like light — to become a believer he need only be weak. That’s why Jesus has so many followers. But surrender feels like possession, like being inhabited by a person who isn’t him. The meek shall not inherit the earth, not while Valeria is regional director of the CCU, and anyway Gallio isn’t confident of what he’s witnessed or how much he knows. He doesn’t have the facts.

‘Approach Jesus with humility,’ Andrew says. ‘Not as a Speculator, hunting him down, but by opening yourself up to him.’

‘Speculators have open minds. That’s one of the requirements, written into the job description.’

‘Not your mind, your heart. That’s how we the disciples came to Jesus. We felt something was wrong, and we believed Jesus could put the wrongness right. After you find him with an open heart the rest is easy. Then he’s always there.’

A ray of sunshine beams through a window high in the dome, whitens a rectangle of marbled floor. ‘Think how much you have to give.’

‘Nothing,’ Gallio says. ‘I’ve resigned from the case, and I’m looking for no one. You should leave me in peace.’

Cassius Gallio rejects Andrew’s idea of Jesus, and tears brim in his eyes. He hates that. He has several thousand euros in his pocket, and he’s in a Greek ferry port where he can buy travel tickets without question for cash. He should be looking forward to a quiet and comfortable retirement, but the disciples of Jesus want more than his ruined career. Not once, but now twice. Still they refuse to let him be.

‘Are you scared of dying?’ Andrew asks.

‘Yes, like everyone else. Aren’t you?’

‘No. That’s the difference between us.’

Gallio believes him. Andrew projects the same certainty Gallio had envied in Jude and Bartholomew — Jesus died and came back to life, which to a sincere believer constitutes proof that something or somewhere exists on the far side of death. Andrew can die horribly, and at the same time he can succeed. This is the story retold in mosaic on the walls of the basilica, and Gallio remembers the ruined martyrium where Philip hung from his thighs. It was a beautiful spot, high above the blue pools of Pamukkale, impeccably picturesque. The story had been plotted in advance, because Jesus is always a step ahead.

‘Persecutions have started in Rome,’ Andrew says. ‘They’re blaming Peter for starting the fire.’

‘I didn’t know, I threw away my phone.’

‘You need to be careful. Nice beard, but you’re beginning to look like one of us.’

In the Agios Andreas Gallio’s eyes sweep across images and icons but he blocks them into manageable shapes. Andrew is talking but Gallio isn’t listening. His heart is calloused, and Andrew says the dead in Jesus are not dead, Gallio hearing the words but not understanding. He refuses to be tempted into weakness. He’d rather kill himself, confronting death with courage, knowing that death is the end. Cassius Gallio sees no virtue in dying for the selfish reward of a perfect life in heaven.

When he finds his voice he is cruel. ‘Your brother Peter shouldn’t have gone to Rome, which isn’t the wisest place to be, for a disciple of Jesus. He makes himself easy to blame.’

Gallio’s statement becomes a question, a default process for a Speculator. ‘CCU know Peter is in the city. Is he co-ordinating some kind of attack?’

‘We have high hopes for Rome,’ Andrew says, ‘if everything goes to plan. Is Peter imprisoned in the Mamertine dungeon? Or not yet? He’s going to be a great comfort to the other prisoners, even though the jailers will make him suffer. My own fate is kinder. I’m a lesser man than my brother, the least of the disciples, but I expect to arrive earlier into the kingdom.’

‘You mean you’re going to die?’

‘Thanks to you, Cassius Gallio, yes. I’m grateful to you for bringing me to Patras.’

Cassius Gallio adapts his strategy, takes control of his destiny. He refuses to make himself vulnerable on a boat, where they could trap him with no place to run. Either the disciples or the CCU, whoever catches up with him first. Out in the countryside he’d be equally exposed, so he needs to stay hidden in a city.

He decides that paranoia is preferable to being burst asunder or skinned alive. Everyone wants their share of him, and in the centre of Patras Gallio searches out unforgiving faces, hard-skinned palms that can handle ropes and stones. He catches a drunken Greek god looking his way, and is spooked when a boy bangs a drum. He does not want to die.

‘You’ll be back,’ Andrew had said, calling out to him over the rows of seats, walking fast to keep up as Gallio headed for the door. But Andrew was wrong. Gallio wasn’t going to join them, not now. He’d slept with Claudia in Caistor, to make Jesus pay attention. Look Jesus, with a married woman I don’t love. A married woman with two baby girls, and I don’t love any of them. No response. Andrew wouldn’t let him go, followed him through the doors and out of the basilica into the sunlight. Gallio stumbled through solid heat, collided with a topless man in britches and a wolf-mask. He spun, lost his balance, righted himself. He ran, pursued by the howls of the wolfman.

In the streets of Patras Andrew had been busy, presumably on his way to the basilica. He’d made an exhibition of himself, preaching against the sins of Carnival and taking public exception to the Bourbilia, a popular rite where women danced lasciviously for men. Andrew had dared question the supremacy of Bacchus, he’d criticised the local football team and the morals of the mayor’s son. Since the last time Gallio walked these streets, Andrew had been asking for trouble, and as an endangered disciple he ought to shut his mouth. He has offended everyone, making all of Patras a potential assassin.