“Wait. They’re not just breeding cows, they’re cloning cows?”
“Oui. Cloning. Trying, but they do not succeed yet.”
Alarm bells were tolling like crazy in my head. “And he’s working with this preacher, Reverend Jonah—the guy who wants to switch on the doomsday machine? And these guys want the bones from the Palace of the Popes? Why?” But I already knew the answer, even before I finished the question. “Good God, they’re hoping to get DNA from the bones. They want to clone Jesus. The high-tech Second Coming of Christ.”
“Sure,” said Descartes. “If you can clone a cow, why not Jesus?”
I set down my cup and raised my arms. “Because it’s crazy and impossible,” I sputtered. “There can’t possibly be undamaged DNA in those bones—not nuclear DNA, not the kind you’d need for cloning. Maybe, maybe, there’s mitochondrial DNA, but that’s just little pieces; it’s not the whole set of blueprints.”
“You are sure of this?”
“Very sure. Besides, it’s not unique to individuals. It gets passed down from mother to child, generation after generation. Your mitochondrial DNA is identical to your mother’s, Inspector. And to her mother’s. And her mother’s mother’s.”
Descartes considered this. “Jesus had the same mitochondrial DNA as his mother, oui?”
“Oui, Inspector.”
“So: the same as the Virgin Mary.” He raised his eyebrows. “Another virgin birth, then, n’est-ce pas?”
“But mitochondrial DNA can’t be cloned into a human being,” I practically shouted. “It’s scientifically impossible.”
He shrugged. “All it takes is another miracle, et voilà.”
I wanted to take him by the collar and shake him. “Damn it, Descartes, these aren’t even the bones of Jesus!”
“Ah, you are wrong, Docteur—they are the bones of Jesus. There is scientific proof, remember? The carbon-14 report from Miami. The bones are two thousand years old.”
“That was total bullshit, Inspector. Stefan faked that. You know that.”
“But the preacher, he does not know. He has faith in this report. If we tell him it is bullshit, he won’t believe us. He will say we are controlled by demons.”
Despair clutched at my heart, and I found myself thinking the unthinkable. Is the crazy preacher right about the end of the world? Is it time?
CHAPTER 32
AVIGNON
1335
IS IT TIME? SIMONE COUNTS THE STRIKES OF THE bell ringing in the Carmelite church—ten—and realizes with despair that he has another hour to wait. To wait for her.
He sets to work tidying the studio but quickly realizes that it’s hopeless. The place is a mess; it is, after all, a workshop, crammed with brushes, boards, fabric, pigments, solvents, and a thousand other implements and ingredients. He uncovers the small portrait, then covers it again, so he can watch her face as he unveils it. Realizing he has no chair to offer her, he rakes brushes and tools off the worktable, shoves them underneath it, and drapes the rough boards with a clean drop cloth. He paces, then perches restlessly on the table, then paces again. Sixty minutes is an eternity.
Finally the bell begins to toll eleven, the hour of Mass, through the iron latticework of the steeple. By the second peal, he knows that she will not come. She should not come, he realizes—it could compromise her, and he would not wish to add that to her troubles. But then there is a knock at the wooden door, which he has left slightly ajar, and his heart surges when she calls his name.
“Yes! Please come in! I feared you would not come.”
“I feared you would not be here when I did.” Laura de Noves smiles. “What a lot of worry we’ve both wasted, Master Simone.” She is wearing a black shawl around her shoulders and a black scarf over her head; they mute her beauty and the elegance of her dress, but even so, she must surely have been the most striking woman in the streets of Avignon.
“Was it difficult for you to get here?”
“Not very. I only had to poison my husband and strangle my maid.”
Again he is startled and delighted by her humor. He wishes he could spend hours learning her habits of conversation, of mind, of movement. But he knows this will likely be his only chance to indulge his curiosity.
She points a silk-gloved hand at the small covered rectangle on the easel. “Is that it? Is that me?” He nods. “And did you fix my eyes?”
“I think so. I hope so. And did you bring your looking glass?”
“Of course. I said I would, didn’t I?” She pulls a small silver-handled mirror from some inner pocket, some secret fold of the dress.