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  She stared at him in silence, the glow of excitement slowly fading from her eyes. She shook her head.

  “No.” Her voice was a whisper. “That can’t be.”

  “It’s true. Hal said the carbon dating showed the ink is twelve years old tops.”

  Carrie was still shaking her head. “No. There’s got to be a mistake.”

  Dan leaned forward and kissed her throat. “What’s so important about it? It’s paranoid, jumbled, and seems deliberately obscure. The forger was probably some nut who—”

  “It’s about Mary.”

  Now it was Dan’s turn to stare. “Mary? Mary who?”

  “The Blessed Virgin Mary.”

  Dan knew from Carrie’s expression that he’d better not laugh, but he couldn’t repress a smile.

  “Where on earth did you get an idea like that?”

  “From this.” She held up the translation. “The dead woman he’s talking about, the body he’s supposed to guard—it’s Mary’s.”

  “I guess that means we’re tossing out the Glorious Mystery of the Assumption.”

  “Don’t be flip, Dan.”

  “Sorry.”

  And he meant it. He knew of Carrie’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin and didn’t want to tread on any of her vital beliefs. But even though he was a priest, Dan had never been able to buy the Assumption. The thought of Mary’s soul re-entering her body after her funeral, then reviving and being carried aloft to heaven by a host of angels was pretty hokey.

  That sort of fairy tale stuff was all through the Bible, Old Testament and New, and had nothing to do with Dan’s idea of what the Church was all about. Nifty little stories to wow the kids and get their attention, but sometimes fairy tales only served to distract from the real message in the Gospels: the brotherhood of man.

  “But you’ve got to admit,” he said cautiously, “that the Assumption is a bit hard to buy.” Carrie didn’t react; she simply stared down at the papers in her hands. So he pressed on. “I mean, we can agree, can’t we, that Heaven isn’t a place. It’s a state of being. So how could Mary be ‘assumed’ into Heaven body and soul when Heaven is a spiritual state? Her body was a physical object. It couldn’t go to Heaven. It had to go somewhere else. And I doubt it’s in orbit.”

  A vision of the space shuttle passing the floating body of the Virgin Mary popped into his head. He shook it off.

  Carrie looked up at him, her eyes bright again.

  “Exactly! And that’s what this is all about. This tells us where she really is!”

  Uh-oh. He’d backed himself into that one. “Now wait just a minute, Carrie. Don’t get—”

  “Listen to me, Dan! Whoever wrote this was assigned the task of guarding the body of a woman, a very important woman. ‘Twenty years and five after his death they found me.’ Tradition holds that Mary died twenty-two years after her son’s crucifixion. The timing is almost perfect.”

  “But Carrie, the guy never says whose death. In all the Gospels and letters and other texts, Jesus was called by name or referred to as the Master, the Lord, the Son of Man, or the like, and the Dead Sea scrolls referred to the Messiah as the ‘Branch of David’ or a ‘shoot from the stump of Jesse’ or as the ‘Prince of the Congregation.’ I’d expect the writer to use one of those terms at least once if he was referring to Jesus.”

  “Maybe he wrote the scrolls for himself. Maybe he feared mentioning Jesus by name—there were all sorts of persecutions back then.”

  “That’s possible, of course, but—”

  “But I get the feeling from this that he didn’t feel worthy to speak Jesus’s name.”

  A rather melodramatic interpretation, Dan thought, but he said nothing. Carrie’s intensity impressed him. The translation had really got to her. She was inspired, afire with curiosity and … something else … something he couldn’t put his finger on.

  “And here,” she said, tapping one of the pages, “this part where he refers to ‘his brother.’ Who else can that be but Saint James the Apostle, the brother of Jesus.”

  “His brother or his cousin, depending on which authority you believe.”

  But he sat up straighter in the bed and took the page from her. As he scanned the passage it occurred to him that she had a point. The recent publication of some obscure Dead Sea scroll fragments suggested a link between the Essenes of Qumran and the Jerusalem wing of the early Christian church, or “Nazarean movement,” as it was called. The Jerusalem Church had been led by St. James. King Herod Agrippa martyred his share of early Christians, and even the High Priest Ananus was after them. So they were periodically fleeing into the desert.

  “You know,” he said softly, “I never saw it before. I mean, the writing was so disjointed and cryptic, but the timing fits. If we assume that ‘his death’ refers to the crucifixion, and that ‘his brother’ arrived ‘two decades and a half’ later, that would date the Glass scroll somewhere around 58 AD” Dan felt a tingle of excitement in his gut. “James was still alive in 58. Ananus didn’t have him killed until 62.”

  Carrie clutched his arm. “And tradition says Mary died 22 years after Jesus’ death, which is pretty darn close to two decades and a half.”

  Dan could tell Carrie was getting pumped again. It seemed to be contagious. His own heart had picked up its tempo.

  “But who wrote this? If we can trust the little he says about himself, I would guess he was a scribe or a Pharisee, or both.”

  “How can you tell that?”

  “Well, he’s educated. Hal told me the scroll was written in the Aramaic of the time with Greek and Latin words and expressions thrown in. The striped blue sleeve he mentions, and his former free access to the Temple—he’s got to be a Pharisee.”

  “He talks about the inheritance he left behind.”

  “Right. A rich Pharisee.”

  “But weren’t the Pharisees proud? This guy’s wearing rags and he says even the lice won’t bite him. And he tried to drown himself.”

  “In the Dead Sea, apparently—it was called the Sea of Lot back in those days. Okay. So he’s a severely depressed Pharisee who’s fallen on hard times and suffers from a heavy-duty lack of self-esteem.”

  Carrie smiled. God, he loved that smile. “Sounds like he’d fit right in at Loaves and Fishes. But what’s this about Hellenists?”

  Dan reread the passage. The pieces began falling into place. “You know … he could be referring to Saint Paul’s wing of the early church. The two groups had a falling out.”

  “I knew there were disagreements, but—”

  “More than disagreements. A complete split. James and his followers remained in Jerusalem as observant Jews, sticking to all the dietary laws and customs while they awaited the Second Coming of the Messiah, which they assumed would happen any day. Paul, on the other hand, was out in the hinterlands, working the crowds, converting Jews and Gentiles alike to his own brand of Christianity. His father was a Roman and so Paul had a different slant on Jesus’s teachings, one that sacked the dietary laws and most Jewish traditions. It mentions here ‘the brother’s’ fear of the ‘Hellenists using the mother’s remains for their own purposes’—the scroll has got to be referring to James’s rivalry with Paul’s movement.”

  Dan stared at Carrie, his heart pounding, his spirits soaring. Good God, it all fit! The scroll described an encounter with James and the remnant of the Jerusalem church shortly before James was martyred.

  “Carrie, this is incredible! Why hasn’t anybody else—?” Then he slammed on the brakes as he remembered. “Wait. Just wait.” He shook his head to clear away the adrenaline buzz. “What am I doing?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything’s wrong. The scroll is a fake, Carrie. The ink is modern. We’ve got to remember that. A damn skillful job, but a proven forgery. Almost had me going there, wondering why nobody else had put these
pieces together. Then I realized why: Nobody bothered to try. Why waste time interpreting a fake?”

  “No,” Carrie said, shaking her head defiantly. “This is true.”

  “Carrie,” he said, stroking her arm, “somebody tried to pull a fast one on the world.”

  “Why? Why would someone want to do such a thing?”

  “Maliciousness. Like calling in a bomb scare to a concert and watching everybody scramble out. Malicious mischief on an international scale. If the scroll had been released to the world as authentic, someone would have come to the same conclusion as we. The liberal and fundamentalist sects of the Christian world would be up in arms, the Vatican would be releasing encyclicals, the Judean Desert would be filled with expeditions in search of the remains of the Mother of God. There’d be years of chaos. And all the while, our forger would be sitting back, giggling, knowing he caused it all.”

  “But to what end? I don’t get it.”

  Dan looked at her. No, Carrie wouldn’t get it. This sort of maliciousness was beyond her comprehension. That was why he loved her.

  “A power trip, Carrie. Pure ego. The same loser personality that creates a computer virus. The Christian world is in chaos, all because of some lame-o’s clever forgery. All I can say is it’s a damn good thing the Rockefeller Museum did a thorough testing job.”

  “I don’t care what the tests say,” she said, tapping the sheets on her lap. “This is true.”

  “Carrie, the ink—”

  “I don’t care! I don’t care if the ink’s still wet! This man speaks the truth. Can’t you feel it? There’s real pain here, Dan. Whoever wrote these words is isolated—from his friends, from his family, from his God. The loneliness, the anguish … it seeps through in every sentence.”

  “Then how do you explain the carbon dating?”

  “I can’t. And I’m not going to try. But I am going to prove the truth of these words. And you’re going to help.”

  Dan had a sudden bad feeling about what was coming.

  “I am?”

  “Yes, dear. Somehow, some way, you and I are going to Israel and we’re going to find the earthly remains of the Virgin Mary.”

  Dan smiled, humoring her. She was simply a little crazy now. She’d get over it. Besides, there was no way they’d be able to get away to Israel together.

  ELEVEN

  The Judean Wilderness

  Dan wiped his face on his sleeve as they drove through the barren sandy hills.

  “Let’s find a shady spot and take a break.”

  “There is no shade,” Carrie said. “But I’ll drive if you want.”

  He peered through the Explorer’s dusty windshield at the undulating landscape shimmering before them. They’d been wandering through the desert mountains most of the morning, following one wadi, then another, turning this way and that. Still Dan was unable get a handle on his surroundings. He’d never seen anything like it. So barren, so desolate, so close to the sky, so alone. No wonder the prophets went to the desert to find and talk to their God—this was a place devoid of earthly distractions.

  Except, perhaps, survival.

  “No. Better if I drive and you navigate.”

  “Okay. But we’re going to find it soon. It’s somewhere up ahead, I just know it.”

  “How can you possibly know it?”

  She looked at him. Her face was flushed, just like it got in the shelter kitchen, but her eyes were brighter and more excited than he could remember.

  “I can feel it. Can’t you?”

  Dan shrugged. The only thing he felt was hot.

  The air conditioner had given out somewhere around Enot Qane and they’d been sweltering ever since. At least Dan had. Not Carrie. The heat didn’t seem to affect her. Or perhaps she was too excited to notice.

  Carrie had changed. She’d always been driven, and her boundless energies had been focused on keeping St. Joe’s homeless kitchen operating at peak efficiency, doing as much as possible for as many as possible. But her focus had shifted since that evening when she discovered the translation of the forged scroll. She’d become obsessed with finding this so-called Resting Place.

  Nothing would turn her from the quest. Dan had argued with her, pleaded with her, tried to reason with her that she was falling victim to an elaborate hoax. He threatened to make her go alone, even threatened to expose to Mother Superior the true reason for the leave of absence she’d requested this summer.

  Carrie had only smiled. “I’m going, Dan. With you or without you, whether Mother Superior knows or not, I’m going to Israel this summer.”

  For a while he’d hoped that money, or rather the lack of it, would keep her home. Neither of them had any savings—their vows of poverty saw to that—and this pipe-dream trip of Carrie’s was going to be costly. But money turned out to be no problem at all. Her brother Brad had seen to that years ago when he’d presented her with an American Express card in her name but drawn on his account. Keep it handy in case of an emergency, he’d told her. Or use it to buy whatever you need whenever you need it.

  Carrie had filed it away, literally forgetting about it until she decided that she needed two tickets to Israel. She said Brad wouldn’t mind. He had deep pockets and was always trying to buy her things … trying to assuage his guilt, she’d said, although she wouldn’t say what kind of guilt he was assuaging.

  And so it came to pass that a certain Ms. Carolyn Ferris and a male companion arrived in Tel Aviv at the height of the summer, hopped a tour bus to Jerusalem where they spent two nights in the Hilton, toured the Old Town for a day, then rented a four-wheel-drive, off-road vehicle, stocked it with a couple of flashlights, a cooler filled with sandwiches and soft drinks, and headed south.

  And now here they were, trekking through the Judean Wilderness—the Midbar Yehuda of yore—in a Ford Explorer on a wild goose chase. Carrie’s wild goose chase. And that was why Dan was along.

  Weren’t you supposed to protect the one you loved from harm, from the pain of dashed hopes at the end of wild goose chases?

  Well, even though Dan knew this quest of hers was a hoax, the trip wasn’t a total loss. They’d seen the Holy Land. During their day in Jerusalem they’d walked the Via Dolorosa—the original Stations of the Cross—and visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Garden of Gesthemane, and the Pater Noster Church on the Mount of Olives.

  Through it all, Carrie had been so excited, like a child on her first trip to Disney World. “We’re really here!” she’d kept saying. “I can’t believe we’re really here!”

  And all along the Via Dolorosa: “Can you believe it, Dan? We’re actually walking in Jesus’s footsteps!”

  That look on her face was worth anything. Anything except …

  He glanced over at her, sitting in the passenger seat, scanning the cliffs ahead as the Explorer bounced up the dry drainage channel. A yellow sheet of paper sat in her lap. Dan had drawn a large tav on it—the Hebrew equivalent of the letter T, or Th. Carrie was hunting for a cliff or butte in the shape of that tav. Dan doubted very much they’d find one, but even if they did, there’d be no Virgin Mary hidden in a cave there.

  And that worried him. He didn’t want to see Carrie hurt. She’d invested so much of herself in this quest, allowed it to consume her for months to the point where there was no telling what the painful truth might do to her. Let them spend their entire time here driving in endless circles, finding nothing, then heading home disappointed and frustrated that the desert had kept its secret, but leaving still alive the hope that somewhere in this seared nothingness there remained the find of the millennium, guarded by time and place, perhaps even by God Himself. Better that than to see her crushed by the realization that she’d been duped.

  Ahead of him, the wadi forked into two narrower channels, one running northwest, the other southwest. The trailing cloud of dust swirled around
them as Dan braked to a halt. He coughed as some of it billowed through the open windows.

  “Where to now?”

  “I’m not sure,” Carrie said.

  Without waiting for the dust to settle, she stepped out and stared at the cliffs rising ahead of them. Dan got out, too, as much to stretch his legs as to look around. A breeze drifted by, taking some of his perspiration with it.

  “You know,” he said, “I do believe it’s gotten cooler.”

  “We’re finally above sea level,” Carrie said, still staring ahead as if expecting to find a road sign to the tav cliff. The light blue short-sleeve shirt she wore had dark rings of perspiration around her armpits and across her shoulder blades where they’d rested against the seat back. Her loose, lightweight slacks fluttered around her legs. She stood defiantly in the sun, unbowed by the heat.

  Dan looked back the way they’d come. Rolling hills, dry, sandy brown, almost yellow, falling away to the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on earth—the world’s navel, someone had called it. The hazy air had been unbearably thick down there, chokingly laden with moisture from the evaporating sea; leaden air, too heavy to escape the fifty-mile trench in which it was trapped. Maybe it wasn’t cooler up here, but it was drier. He could breathe.

  Above, the sky was a flawless turquoise. The land ahead was as dry and yellow-brown and barren as behind, but steeper here, angling up sharply toward a phalanx of cliffs. Looked like a dead end up there.

  He plucked a rag from the floor by the front seat and began wiping the dust from the windshield.

  “When’s the next rain?” he said.

  “November, most likely.”

  Dan had to smile. Carrie had done her homework. She’d spent months preparing for this trip, studying the scroll translation and correlating its scant geographical details with present day topographical maps of the area. He bet she knew more about the region than most Israelis, but that probably wasn’t saying much. They hadn’t seen another soul since turning off the highway. They were completely alone up here. The realization gave Dan a twinge of uneasiness. They hadn’t thought to rent a phone—not that there’d be a cell out here anyway—and if they broke down, they’d have to start walking. And if they got lost …