Sign of the Cross

Then, once the Jews started to believe in Christ, he was going to take their Messiah away, which would allow him to grab control of this new religion.’

‘But how?’ Ulster asked. ‘Wouldn’t Jesus have to be in on things?’

Boyd shook his head. ‘Not if they drugged him like Jonathon suggested. Think about it. Jesus would have awoken in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and his disciples would’ve told him that he had died on the cross and the Lord brought him back. Furthermore, if skeptics needed evidence of Jesus’s identity, they could’ve done what was described in the Bible — because that part of the crucifixion probably wasn’t faked.’

According to John 20:25–27, Thomas told the disciples that he wouldn’t believe in Christ’s resurrection until he could place his finger in the holes of Jesus’s palms and his hand in the wound in Jesus’s side. Eight days later Jesus reappeared, giving doubting Thomas the opportunity.

‘OK,’ Payne said. ‘Let’s pretend you’re accurate. Tiberius faked Christ’s death for the good of the Empire. What would he have done next?’

Maria answered for Boyd. ‘After giving them their new God, Tiberius planned to strengthen their unity by giving them a common enemy to fight against.’

‘A common enemy? What enemy?’

‘Rome,’ she answered. ‘Tiberius actually wanted them to unite against the Empire.’

Boyd smiled at the irony. ‘Don’t you see? For this to work, Rome couldn’t roll over and play dead. They had to fight back with everything — or in this case what Tiberius allowed them to fight with — or else people would’ve caught on. That’s one of the main reasons that he wanted Paccius to run things in Jerusalem. Not only could he trust him, but he knew his general had the experience to throw a battle or two to Christianity, which in turn would be a victory for Rome.’

Payne shook his head in disgust, staring at the photo of the stallions. He couldn’t imagine riding into battle on such a magnificent beast, fighting side by side with his armor-clad men, knowing full well he wasn’t supposed to win.

‘Of course,’ Boyd theorized, ‘Tiberius would’ve required a long-term plan if he wanted the Empire to profit from any of this, for the switch to Christianity wouldn’t have happened overnight. In fact, it took three centuries before Rome actually made it their official religion.’

‘Did you say centuries?’

He nodded, letting that fact sink into Payne’s head. ‘That meant Tiberius couldn’t have pulled this off alone. He had to have a partner in this, someone who was in Judea at the time of Christ’s death. Moreover, Tiberius knew if the Empire was ever going to profit from this scam, he had to notify his line of successors of the entire plot and pray that they kept the ruse up long enough for it to take hold. Otherwise, everything would’ve been for naught.’

‘Perhaps,’ Jones suggested, ‘that’s the reason Tiberius built the Catacombs in the first place? Maybe he built them to protect his secret. That would explain why he made them so damn grand. It would’ve convinced future emperors that Rome had invested quite a bit in this plan, no matter how outrageous it seemed. And if they stayed the course, they had even more to gain.’

Maria looked at him, impressed. ‘That’s not half bad.’

‘No, it’s not,’ Boyd concurred. ‘Of course that doesn’t mean that his successors followed his wishes. Recorded documents prove that Tiberius feared for his safety during the last few years of his life. Consequently, he left Rome and lived on Capri, a tiny island off the western coast of Italy, until his death. During that time he only talked to his most trusted advisors, and later they admitted that he went a little crazy toward the end. Who knows? Maybe his bout of insanity prevented future emperors from taking Tiberius’s plot seriously?’

‘Which means what?’ Payne asked.

‘Which means we’ve hit another roadblock. Right now there are three distinct possibilities in my mind. And as far as I can tell, we’re lacking evidence to prove any of them.’

‘Three?’

‘Yes, three,’ Boyd assured Payne. ‘Number one, everything went as Tiberius had hoped, and the Empire milked Christianity for three centuries before adopting it as its official religion. Number two, the crucifixion of Christ was faked, but future emperors went against Tiberius’s plot, thereby preventing the Empire from taking full advantage of the anticipated windfall.’

‘And number three?’

‘The death of Paccius — or another unforeseen obstacle — ended Tiberius’s plan before it could be carried out, meaning Christ was actually crucified, died, and was buried, then came back to earth to prove that he was, in fact, the Son of God.’

All of them sat, silent, pondering the final scenario.

Eventually, Jones cleared his throat and spoke. ‘So what are you saying? We’re stuck?’

Boyd nodded. ‘It’s starting to look that way. Unless you’re keeping something from us.’

‘I wish. But the truth is, my mind is spinning from all of this new information.’ Jones turned toward Payne. ‘What about you, Jon? Are you holding something back?’

Payne looked up from the photo of the stallions, half stunned by what he had just seen. So he rubbed his eyes and looked at the picture again. ‘Holy crap. I might be holding something back.’

‘You are?’

Nodding, Payne handed him the framed picture. ‘Look at this. What do you see?’

Jones glanced at the photo. ‘If I’m not mistaken, those are the Lipizzaners… Hey, did I ever tell you the story about General Patton and those horses?’

Payne rolled his eyes, thankful that he hadn’t brought it up earlier. ‘Come on, D.J., focus! Do you really think this is an appropriate time to talk about Patton and those albino ponies?’

‘No,’ he said, embarrassed.

‘Tell me, what do you see behind the horses?’

‘Behind them?’ He studied the building in the background. ‘I’m not sure. Is that the Hofburg Palace in Vienna?’

‘Yes it is. Now look at the artwork on the building.’

‘The artwork? Why in the world — ’

‘Dammit, D.J.! Just look at the picture!’

The black-and-white photograph showed the horses on their home turf, parading gracefully in the stone courtyard of the Hofburg grounds. Yet Jones had to ignore their magnificence. He had to force his eyes to look beyond the focus of the lens, to search the shadows and crevices of the building itself while ignoring the heart of the picture. Of course, when he came across the image in question, a look of revelation filled his face. ‘Oh my God! Where did you find this?’

But Payne chose not to answer. Instead, he simply leaned back and laughed as Maria, Ulster, and Boyd tried to attach meaning to Payne’s lucky discovery.

54

Frankie was the official spokesman for Universita Cattolica, so he was well-known at the campus police building. He nodded at the man behind the front desk, a sergeant who had more important things to worry about than the midget from the PR office. It was the reaction that Frankie had hoped for. If his plan was going to work, he needed to be left alone for the next few minutes.

After checking the roll-call sheet, Frankie knew which officers were gone for the day and went to one of their offices. Acting quickly, he turned on the computer and accessed the police database, which allowed him to search for the identity of the men who died in Orvieto.

Shortly after spotting the first victim, Frankie found visual proof of a second soldier twenty feet away. That meant four people had died in the accident, not two, a fact that struck Frankie as suspicious. What were the two soldiers doing at the time of the crash? And why in the world were they outside the helicopter? That didn’t make sense. Neither did the cover-up in the middle of the night. Why remove the wreckage before anyone had a chance to examine it?

From his perspective, it reeked of conspiracy, even though he didn’t have much to go on.

He scanned the photo of the first corpse into the police computer, then narrowed the parameters of his search by eliminating men over forty-five years old. It was tough to determine the climber’s exact age because of