“I won’t be long,” Judas said, and he exited quickly.
Jesus turned back to the disciples, who looked disappointed.
Peter looked at Tom, who looked at John, who looked at Matthew and so on. All were confused and frustrated with anticipation. “Uh, Jesus,” Tom said, “What about the bread and betrayal? You were going hand it to the betrayer, but you just gave the bread to Judas…to eat…and he left!”
Jesus looked around the table. “It would appear that we are out of bread.”
“Judas went to get more bread?” John asked.
Jesus nodded.
“Well can’t we use a piece of fruit or chicken leg or something?”
Jesus smiled. “I’m afraid we’ll just have to wait on Judas.”
No one liked that answer, but what choice did they have? They returned to their previous conversations, which now included speculation as to who would be the betrayer of Jesus.
The rest of the night had gone by quickly and the morning had come even quicker, and still no sign of Judas. Tom wanted to take some of the disciples and search for Judas, but Jesus insisted Judas was fine and the group headed out early for the garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, just east of Bethany and Jerusalem.
Jesus left the disciples in the garden, which was an olive grove lined with sweet smelling, bright red Crown Anemone. He said he needed to speak to his Father. The disciples carried on conversations like nothing had changed. But Tom could sense a change, as though an unseen force were squeezing his skull. He went for a walk to clear his mind.
After five minutes, Tom stopped and sat on a large rock and took a deep breath. He was constantly amazed at how clear the air was here. In Arizona, there wasn’t a lot in the way of air pollution, but on particularly windy days, they’d get blasted by smog from the L.A. basin. Here, the air was always clean.
“Have you noticed where you’re sitting?” David asked.
Startled by David’s sudden appearance, Tom almost fell off the rock backwards, but he quickly recovered. “On a rock.”
“What do you see in front of you, down the hill? Picture a thousand people all gazing up at you. Go back a few years.”
Tom looked around and his mind began recalling the events of the past. He hopped down from the rock and peered at it. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “This is where it all started.”
Tom walked a few feet away and turned toward the rock again. “I was standing here; you were on the rock… Seems like a lifetime ago.”
Tom walked to the rock and rubbed it with his hand like it was an old friend. “You might not believe it, but I don’t particularly miss the future. I have things here I never had there: a large group of friends, I’m seeing the world, learning. In the future we stopped learning, did you ever realize that? We were just working every day, putting into practice what we already knew. Here we learn something new every day.”
“You forgot something,” David added.
“Mary. I know. But I have to return to the future. What we’ve started…the time travel devices… Who else is going to take care of it? Make sure it isn’t abused?”
David raised his eyebrows with a humored expression, “I can’t think of anyone better than us.”
“Right,” Tom said. “We have to go back.”
After walking a few feet away, David turned and faced Tom. His face was sour.
“What’s wrong?” Tom asked, curious as to the change in emotion.
David walked to the rock slowly and leaned against it. “You know how I told you how the past can’t be changed, because it’s already happened?” David asked.
“You’re not having doubts, are you? It’s a sound theory,” Tom said.
“No, I don’t have any doubts. I just wish it were wrong,” David explained.
Tom felt a sudden urgency, “Why? What’s going to happen?”
“It’s already happening.”
“What is?”
“Did you see Judas leave last night?” David asked, looking Tom in the eyes.
“Did something happen to him? Is he okay?”
“Did you see what he had in his hand?”
“Just a piece of bread that Jesus-” Tom’s muscles tensed. It couldn’t be…but the fact was undeniable. “Judas… He gave the bread to Judas! The exchange seemed so casual, it seemed Jesus had forgotten what the bread was meant for…but he didn’t, did he?”
“ARGHH!” A man’s voice cried out in anguish from the olive grove.
Tom jumped off the rock, ready for action.
David stood up straight. “It’s begun.”
NINETEEN
Trials
30 A.D.
Tom had never pushed his lungs to the edge of endurance like this before. He was running as fast as he could. And David, the old man, was right behind him. Tom and David hopped over rocks and wove between trees like rabbits eluding a predator. But rather than running from the predator, they were headed straight for it.
As they rounded a group of trees, the clearing in the olive grove where the other disciples had been came into view. The disciples were in chaos, arguing about what to do, what not to do. No one had a clear course of action.
Dust kicked into the air as Tom came to an abrupt stop. He was completely winded, but didn’t bother sucking in air before speaking. There wasn’t time to breathe. “What happened? Tom asked. “Where’s Jesus? Who screamed?”
“They took him!” Matthew said. His face then contorted to a disdainful expression. “Judas was the betrayer!”
“I tried to stop them,” Peter said, as he held a sword in the air, its metal blade smeared with scarlet blood. “But he took the soldier’s ear and put it back on…like I had never cut it off…just put it right back on…”
“Where did they go?” Tom asked in a hurry.
“They’re leaving the grove even now. Headed for Jerusalem and a trial by the Romans,” Matthew said, hardly believing it himself.
Tom looked at David desperately, “We have to stop them.”
“We can’t. You know that.”
“Even if we fail. History doesn’t say we didn’t try, right?”
“No.” “Good enough for me.”
Being at the top of the hilled olive grove made reaching top speed again that much easier. Tom was thirty feet away within seconds and would soon be out of sight. David followed after him, careening down the hill, arms flailing to maintain balance around the curves.
Matthew looked at Peter, forehead wrinkled. “Stop them? Did they see how many men there were?”
The wind tore through Tom’s hair and his muscles burned with life as he rounded a corner on the twisting
