Sign of the Cross

Franz waved dismissively. ‘Don’t start with me, Petr. Even the woman is working!’

‘What woman?’ Jones asked.

‘Your woman,’ Franz said. ‘Ja, ja! She got here yesterday with Dr Boyd.’

‘My woman? You mean Maria? She’s here?’

Payne loved the look on Jones’s face. A mixture of bliss, confusion, and total shock.

‘Oops!’ Payne said. ‘Did I forget to mention that? Sorry. It must’ve slipped my mind.’

‘Wait a second! You knew about this?’

‘Duh! That’s the only way I could’ve planned it.’

‘But I thought she was in Italy, taking care of her brother and her family’s estate.’

‘Not anymore,’ Payne said. ‘By the way, when did Maria become your woman? Does she know about that?’

‘No, but…’

‘But what? Women aren’t possessions, you know. You can’t just run around claiming them.’

‘I realize that, but…’

‘Maybe you’d have a little more luck with the ladies if you treated them with the respect that they deserved. Besides, before you run off and plant your flag in Maria or whatever you’re going to do to claim her, we have some business to take care of.’

‘Business?’ He looked at Payne, confused, until he realized what Payne was talking about. ‘Oh, that’s right! Our business. I almost forgot about our business.’

Ulster and Franz stared at Payne and Jones like they were crazy. Which, of course, they were. They didn’t call them MANIACs for nothing.

Payne said to Ulster, ‘When D.J. and I were in Italy, we came across an item that we thought would look great in the Archives. It’s one of those things that we think everybody should get a chance to study, not just a few old priests at the Vatican.’

Jones added, ‘If you don’t want it, we’ll completely understand. I mean, it is kind of cumbersome. But since you’re building a new wing and all, we figured you’d have the room.’

‘What is it?’ Ulster asked.

‘We can show you if you’d like. We brought it with us.’

‘You did?’

Payne nodded as he opened the back of the chopper. Ulster and Franz peered inside and saw the stone sarcophagus, hermetically sealed in high-grade plastic. ‘We didn’t want to expose it to the elements, so Dr Boyd showed us how to protect it. Hopefully you can figure out a more permanent solution for its upkeep.’

Struggling to see through the plastic, Ulster frowned. ‘I’m sure I could if I knew what I was looking at… Please tell me there isn’t a body in there.’

Jones laughed. ‘I was worried about the same thing when we opened it. But as luck should have it, it was filled with something more, um, shocking.’

‘Shocking?’ Ulster asked.

Instead of answering, Payne pulled several pictures from his shirt pocket and handed them to Ulster. They were taken from a variety of angles and showed the sarcophagus both opened and closed. The final few photos focused on the object that was inside, an artifact that had survived the last two thousand years intact. Evidence that had been saved by Pilate to tell his side of the story. At least part of it. The other part would be explained on a separate document.

Ulster gasped when he saw the item. ‘Are those beams from a cross?’

They nodded. The stipes had been sawed in half, but the patibulum was still intact. And best of all, they had scientists in Pittsburgh test a sliver of wood, and it was first-century African oak.

Just like it should’ve been.

‘You mean,’ Ulster stuttered, ‘this is his cross?’

Payne shrugged. ‘That’s what we’re hoping you can prove. That is, if you have the time.’

‘Yes,’ he gasped. ‘I have the time.’

‘But that’s not all.’ Payne reached into the chopper and pulled out a small storage case. ‘There was one more item inside the sarcophagus, something we haven’t opened yet. We figured it would be best if we left that to you, Boyd, and Maria.’

With shaking hands, Ulster opened the case and saw a bronze cylinder, similar to the one that had been found in the Catacombs. Yet instead of Tiberius’s seal, the cylinder was stamped with Pontius Pilate’s official symbol, an emblem that hadn’t been used since the days of Christ.

‘I have no idea what’s inside. But if we’re lucky, it might just tell us what happened.’

And as luck would have it, it actually did.

*

As far as Payne could tell, only six of them (Dante, Maria, Boyd, Ulster, Jones, and himself) knew everything. And by everything Payne meant the truth about the Catacombs and the identity of the laughing man. Several others — everyone from Franz to Nick Dial to Randy Raskin, not to mention everyone at the Pentagon who monitored Raskin’s calls — knew bits and pieces of the tale. Still, Payne realized it would be difficult for any of them to put the whole story together, simply because none of them had enough information to go on or the proof that they possessed.

No, as far as Payne could tell, only six of them knew the secret that Cardinal Rose thought he’d silenced forever when he killed Benito Pelati. Thankfully, Rose was a poor detective, otherwise Payne knew he would’ve heard from Rose’s bosses by now — in one way or another.

Speaking of which, Payne wasn’t really sure what the Vatican knew (and didn’t know) about their adventure. And he had no intention of asking them. Ever.

Why? There’s an old adage that says there’s no such thing as a stupid question. Well, that might be true, but Payne knew there was such a thing as a dangerous question.

Especially if the wrong person wanted to know the answer.

Or wanted to keep it a secret.

Epilogue

The scroll was in remarkable shape considering it was penned by Pontius Pilate on his deathbed. Buried in the hills of Vindobona, the parchment stayed undisturbed for nearly 2,000 years, protected by a bronze cylinder, a stone sarcophagus, and a family with a secret past.

Generation upon generation of Pelati men went to the grave thinking that their forefather, Pontius Pilate, was a hero. That he was the true founder of the Christian faith. That Tiberius had called upon his noble servant and asked him to fake the death of Christ for the betterment of all things Roman. That Tiberius was so impressed with his heroics that he honored his achievements in stone, immortalizing Pilate’s image and amazing deeds in the Catacombs of Orvieto. Yet none of the Pelatis — not Benito, Roberto, Dante, or any of their ancestors except Pontius himself — knew the full story of the crucifixion until Maria broke the seal on the cylinder.

As she translated Pilate’s final words, she gasped at what she learned, because she held a document that proved what she had always believed: God works in mysterious ways.

Pontius Pilate to my sons and heirs.

I sit on the threshold of death, ready to be judged for the things I have done and those I had hoped to do, yet that does not mean I have not already seen the glory of God, for I have witnessed it firsthand, and its magnificence has changed me into the man I am today.

I knew of the Nazarene long before I looked upon him, word of his flock and his miracles spread across the desert like a plague, one that threatened the peace and prosperity of the land placed in my charge. In time I knew word would reach across the sea, as it always does, and I would be asked to place my boot upon the Nazarene before his followers had grown into a mob that Rome would struggle to crush. Yet the opposite occurred, for when I heard from my liege, he spoke to me in hushed tones, asking me to stoke the flames of the fire until we could use the heat for our betterment. I knew not of what he meant but allowed the fire to burn until it heated the walls of Jerusalem, at which time I received the guidance I had been lacking and the steps I had to follow, for they had been sent by Tiberius himself. I was to place the Nazarene on a pedestal, high above the false Messiahs that had preceded him, and give the Jews the proof they needed that this was their true God, that this was indeed him.

It was decided that this could be done only through death, or the appearance of such, for this is a miracle that cannot be faked and one that would assuage even those who did not believe. In time the Nazarene was brought before his peers and for a mere pittance I was able to ensure the outcome, completing the ruse by washing my hands of the events as though I had no part in the verdict. This angered my Claudia, for she felt that I should exert the power of my rule to protect the holy man whom she had seen in her dreams, yet this could not be done, for fear of angering the Roman throne, the one who whispered to me and encouraged my deceit.

To guarantee the illusion of rebirth, the Nazarene was forced to endure brutality on a public stage, for at the end of the day there could be no doubt that this man had been through hell yet survived solely by his station in heaven. I kept apprised from afar since my place was not near the cross, for a man of my status would care not of a common criminal, one of many that was silenced every day under my rule. Instead, members of my elite guard were put on his watch and asked to complete the task that had been laid out before me, and for this they were promised property in a distant land, though they would never enjoy their bounty, for their silence could only be guaranteed with the tip of my blade. The Christ was given a drug that would result in the illusion of death while inducing no more than a heavy sleep that he could arise from at a distant time, yet the dose was too great or his condition too weak, and word came to me that the Nazarene, the man we had chosen as the Chosen One, was no more. I went at once, inspecting the Nazarene for myself, hoping upon hope that his sleep was but deep and his state was but temporary, yet this was not to be, for as I had been told, this man had indeed left the land of the living.

Far from the eyes of Tiberius yet still within his reach, I knew what must be done or I would suffer the same fate as the Christ, only my life would be ended without the peace of mandrake or the glory that is achieved in battle. My allies were few and options limited; thus after a night of no sleep I knew I must flee as this was the only way to ensure my continued life. My preparations started in haste, with me telling no one, not even my Claudia, knowing that word could not leak or I would surely be questioned by those who served the position that I intended to abandon. This continued until the third day, the day I was to leave, when I was greeted by one of my men, a man whom I trusted, one I could count on in the most dire of times, and he gave me word that could not be explained, news that forced me to open my eyes to a new way of life: the Nazarene had risen and walked from his tomb alive.

I knew not how this could be, for no man could wake from the slumber of death from which I bore witness: I felt the cold of his skin, saw blood not weep from his wounds, heard no sound when I rested my ear upon his rib. Yet two days later the holy man from Nazareth, the man I murdered for the betterment of Rome, found the heavenly strength to discard the yoke of death and emerge from the tomb in which he was forever sealed.

Looking back with the wisdom of my many years, the latest of which I have spent repenting in this distant land while living on Roman treasures given to me for the secret task I didn’t achieve, I do regret, after his emergence from the cave, not searching for him in the streets of Jerusalem and falling to his feet and begging his forgiveness for what I had done. I despise myself for not joining his flock and spreading his word, for my presence as a Roman, bearing witness to the death he had risen above, would surely have aided his cause and saved the lives of many of his disciples. But instead I did the worst and most cowardly thing that I could possibly have done: I sent word to Rome that all had been accomplished, that his death had been faked, and his return had been revealed to members of his flock — though unforeseen events prevented it from occurring on the great stage that Tiberius had hoped, for if it had been done as planned, the religion of the Christ would have taken hold at once, and the people of Judea would have sung his praises to the world, and the world would surely have listened, believing that the Messiah had returned as prophesied, and everyone in all lands Roman would have joined hands in unity, and the benefits to the Empire would have been immense.

In retrospect, some might ask why I write this now, why it has taken so long to share my story with those who must hear it, and for that my answer brings me no pleasure, for it means I lived my life as a coward and not as the hero that Tiberius was led to believe: the approach of my death has given me courage I did not have in life, and with this courage, I beg of my sons, and their sons as well, to honor the life of the Christ, for he was the true Messiah.

Author’s Note

(WARNING: Some crucial story lines will be discussed in this section. If you haven’t read the book, you shouldn’t read this note. Some major plot twists will be ruined if you do.)

The concept for Sign of the Cross first came to me in 1998. I was teaching high school English at the time and had just started to outline my first published novel, The Plantation. I loved both concepts equally well but chose to keep SOTC on the back burner since I knew it would require the type of research that I couldn’t do in a rural community.

Looking back, it was the best decision I could’ve made as a writer. Not only because I had access to several world-class libraries when I moved back to Pittsburgh, but also due to the explosion of the Internet. That allowed me to scour documents from the Vatican, view the Dead Sea Scrolls from the Qumran Library, and read letters that were penned by Tiberius himself. All of which allowed me to expand my story beyond the concept that I had originally planned.

Amazingly, SOTC could’ve been a thousand-page book. My agent urged me to stop my first draft at the 711-page mark, even though I had more than enough research to keep it going. In hindsight, I’m glad he stopped me. Otherwise SOTC would’ve killed half the rain forest. Of course, the sad part in all of this is that I saved some of my best research for the end of my original story line and was never able to squeeze it into the shorter version. Oh well, if SOTC ever gets made into a movie, I can include my research in the bonus material on the DVD.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in the non-traditional history of Christianity, there are many nonfiction books that explore the final years of Christ. The most infamous is Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. Published in 1983, it reveals many theories about the crucifixion of Christ that I chose not to include in my story. Other books that I saw mentioned in my research (but haven’t necessarily read) include: The Templar Revelation by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince; Rosslyn: Guardians of the Secret of the Holy Grail by Tim Wallace-Murphy and Marilyn Hopkins; Jesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy.

A complete list of books can be found on my website: www.chriskuzneski.com.

Changing subjects, I’d like to address one final issue. After reading SOTC, several people have asked me to point out which parts of my book are real and which are fiction. Obviously I take that as the ultimate compliment because it suggests I have blended things well enough to create a plausible world. That being said, I have no intention of telling anyone (including my mother) which details are true and which are make-believe. I mean, that’s one of the reasons I chose to become an author. I longed for the opportunity to blur the line between fact and fiction without ever having to explain myself.

In other words, everything you read is the way it really happened in my universe.

Besides, Jonathon Payne won’t tell me anything else. The bastard.