The Book of Spies

72

The Isle of Pericles
EVERYONE IN the Library of Gold was focused on Preston, who was standing inside the door with his M4 and thick bath towels and listening to a message on his radio. As Eva watched, he strode to Chapman and spoke quietly into his ear.
"Gentlemen, we may have visitors," Chapman announced with relish. "Take out your pistols."
Swiftly the men laid their weapons on the table beside the illuminated manuscripts. Although they had obviously been drinking, their hands and gazes were steady, and they moved with authority. There was an undercurrent of enthusiasm, too, Eva thought. They were looking forward to shooting their guns.
She exchanged a worried look with Yitzhak.
The sommelier advanced with bottles of brandy. He poured into Chapman's glass first, emptying the bottle, then poured from a fresh one into the glasses of the other men.
As the sommelier returned to his bureau, everyone looked at Chapman.
Eva and Yitzhak had answered correctly seven of the eight tournament questions. The competitive excitement among the men around the banquet table was almost tactile as they waited for the final challenge--from the director, Martin Chapman.
"Jesus of Nazareth, known as the Rabbi and later as Jesus Christ, 7 to 2 B.C. to sometime between A.D. 26 and 36," Chapman said. "Jesus was the leader of an apocalyptic movement, a faith healer, a rabble-rouser, and with John the Baptist, the founder of Christianity. The consensus of scholars is the four canonical gospels about his life--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--weren't recorded by any of the original disciples or first-person witnesses, although they were probably written within the first century of his death. Your challenge is to find in the library where Jesus tells one of his disciples he 'will exceed' the others and learn 'the mysteries of the kingdom.' "
Eva did not remember either quote. She looked at Yitzhak, and he shook his head worriedly. They turned away to study the list. There were three possibilities: One was St. Jerome's early fifth-century Vulgate Bible. The second was Vetus Latina, which was compiled before the Vulgate. The third was even earlier, the title translating to The Old Gospels. They read the descriptions.
"He's trying to fool us by referring to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John," Yitzhak whispered.
She had reached the same conclusion. "Do you think it's in the Gnostic book of Judas?" The only known text of the Gospel of Judas had been written seventeen hundred years before, discovered in fragments in the Egyptian desert in 1945 and assembled and translated from the Coptic language in 2006, which was when she had read it.
"I do."
"Then the third one, The Old Gospels, is the only choice," she said, "although it predates the Gnostics."
"Dazzle them." Anger flashed in his eyes.
She turned back to the table. The brandy glasses glistened. The men's calculating eyes watched her.
She paused. "In the New Testament, Judas Iscariot betrays Jesus to the Romans for thirty silver coins. The Gospel of Judas says the exact opposite--that it's Jesus' idea, and that he asks Judas to do it so his body can be sacrificed on the cross. If Jesus did ask Judas to do that, it's logical he might've encouraged him by saying he 'will exceed' the other disciples and learn 'the mysteries of the kingdom.' Therefore, the quotation is from The Old Gospels. According to the list we were given, the book contains quite a few, including those of James, Peter, Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Philip--and Judas."
Was she right? She could read nothing in Chapman's face. Yitzhak was already walking along the wall. Following him, she passed a section on the Koran and other early Muslim works. Next to it Bibles and Christian literature were shelved.
Yitzhak stared at a manuscript covered in hammered gold. At the center was a simple design--small blue topazes in the outline of a fish. Gingerly he picked up the old book and carried it to Chapman.
Eva's lungs were tight. She forced herself to breathe.
"Damn you." Chapman took the book. "You're right. The Old Gospels is an original, written on parchment pages that Constantine the Great ordered rebound and covered in gold in the early fourth century. It's pre-Gnostic, composed in the first century A.D., during the time the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were recorded. It can arguably be considered as accurate as the New Testament." He stroked the book. "The power of this is considerable. It explodes the myth of monolithic Christianity and demonstrates how diverse and fascinating the early movement really was."
There was a round of enthusiastic applause--for Chapman, not for them. He stood the illuminated manuscript on the table next to his pistol and smiled at it.
The men raised their brandy glasses.
"Good question, Marty," said one.
"Hear, hear."
They drank.
As Chapman swallowed and put down his glass, he frowned at Eva and Yitzhak and gestured behind him to Preston.
Immediately the security chief was at his side, his M4 in one hand, the towels in the other.
"Now?" Preston asked.
"By all means."
Preston leaned the assault rifle against the table and took his pistol from the holster at his hip. The men's gazes were riveted as he advanced toward Eva and Yitzhak with the two towels.
"The later Assassins." Yitzhak backed up. "That's what the towels mean. They covered entrance and exit wounds to control the mess that spraying blood makes."