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CHAPTER 1

Fall

Jerusalem

The poor man looked as if he were going to cry.

"You ... you're sure?"

Harold Gold watched Professor Pearlman nod sagely as they sat in the professor's office in the manuscript department of the Rockefeller Archeological Museum and gave Mr. Glass the bad news.

Richard Glass was American, balding, and very fat — a good hundred pounds overweight. He described himself as a tourist — a frequent visitor to Israel who owned a condo in Tel Aviv. Last month he'd brought in a scroll he said he'd purchased at a street bazaar in the Arab Quarter and asked if its antiquity could be verified.

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Glass." Pearlman stroked his graying goatee. "A gloriously skillful fake, but a fake nevertheless."

"But you said —"

"The parchment itself is First Century — we stand by that. No question about it. And the ink contains the dyes and minerals in the exact proportions used by First Century scribes."

The first thing the department had done was date the parchment. Once that was ballparked in the two-thousand-year-old mark, they'd translated it. That was when people had begun to get excited. Very excited.

"Then what —?"

"The writing itself, Mr. Glass. Our carbon dating tests — and believe me, we've repeated the dating numerous times — all yield the same result: the words were placed on the parchment within the past ten or twelve years."

Mr. Glass's eyes bulged. "Ten or twelve —! My God, what an idiot I am!"

"Not at all, not at all," Professor Pearlman said. "It had us fooled too. It's a very skillful job. And I assure you, Mr. Glass, you cannot be more disappointed than we."

Amen to that, Harold thought. He'd been in a state of euphoria for the past month, thanking God for his luck. Imagine, being here on sabbatical from NYU when the manuscript department receives an item that could make the Dead Sea scrolls look like lists of old matzoh recipes. When he'd read the translation he'd suspected it might be too explosive to be true, but he'd gone on hoping ... hoping ... Until the dating on the ink had come in.

Harold leaned forward. "That's why we're very interested in where you got it. Whoever forged this scroll really knows his stuff."

He watched Glass drum his fingers on his thigh, carefully weighing the decision. No one in the department believed for a moment that Richard Glass had picked up something like this at a street stall. Harold knew the type: a wealthy collector, buying objects here and sneaking them back to the states to a mini-museum in his home. He also knew that if Glass named his true source he might precipitate an investigation of other purchases he'd made on the antiquities black market, and his shipments home would be subject to close scrutiny from here on in. No serious collector could risk that.

"We're not interested in legalities here, Mr. Glass," Professor Pearlman assured him. "We'd simply like to interview your source, learn his sources."

Harold grinned. "I think most of us would like to shake his hand."

No lie there. Undoubtedly the forger possessed some sort of native genius. The scroll Glass had presented was written on two-thousand-year-old parchment in ink identical to the type used in those days. The forger had used an Aramaic form of Hebrew enriched with Greek and Latin influences — much like the Mishna, the earlier part of the Talmud — and had created a narrative that alternated between first and third person, supposedly written by a desert outcast, a hermit but obviously a well-educated one, living in the hills somewhere west of the Dead Sea. But the events he described ... if they'd been true and verifiable, what a storm they would have caused.

Perhaps that was the forger's whole purpose: controversy. The money from the sale to someone like Glass was a lagniappe. The real motive was the turmoil that would have arisen had they not been able to disprove the scroll's authenticity. The forger could have sat back and watched and smiled and said, I caused all this.

After a seemingly interminable wait, Glass shook his head.

"I don't know the forger. I can't even find the stall where I bought it — and believe me, I've searched high and low for it. So I can't help you find the creator of this piece of junk."

"It's not junk," Pearlman said. He slid the wooden box containing the scroll across the desktop toward Glass. "In its own way, it's a work of art."

Glass made a face and lumbered to his feet.

"Then hang it on your wall. I want nothing further to do with it. It only reminds me of all the money I wasted." He took the box and looked around. "Where's your trash."

"You can't be serious!" Harold said.

Glass turned to him. "You want it?"

"Well, I —"

He shoved the box into Harold's hands. "Here. It's yours."

With that he turned and waddled from the office.

Professor Pearlman looked at Harold over the tops of his glasses. "Well, Harold. Looks like you're the proud owner of a genuine fake first century scroll. It'll make a nice curiosity back at NYU."

Harold gazed down at the box in his hands. "Or a unique gift for an old friend."

"A colleague?"

"Believe it or not, a Catholic priest. He's something of an authority on the early Christians. He's read just about everything ever written on the Jerusalem Church."

Pearlman's brown eyes sparkled. "I'll bet he's never read anything like that."

"That's for sure." Harold almost laughed aloud in anticipation of Father Dan Fitzpatrick's reaction to this little gift. "I know he'll get a real kick out of this."

Manhattan

Father Daniel Fitzpatrick stopped in front of the Bank of New York Building, turned to the ragged army that had followed him up from the Lower East Side, and raised his hands.

"All right, everybody," he called to the group. "Let's stop here for a sec and organize ourselves."

Most of them stopped on command, but some of the less alert — and there were more than a few of those — kept right on walking and had to be pulled back by their neighbors.

Father Dan stepped up on the marble base of a sculpture that looked like a pair of six-foot charcoal bagels locked in a passionate embrace and inspected the ranks of his troops.

Even if we turn back now, he thought, even if we don't do another thing tonight, we'll have made a point.

Already they'd garnered more than their share of attention. During the course of their long trek uptown from Tompkins Square Park they'd earned themselves a police escort, a slew of reporters and photographers, and even an Eyewitness News van complete with minicam and blow-dried news personality.

Why not? This was news, a mild spring evening, and a fabulous photo op to boot. A small army of chanting, sign-carrying homeless marching up Park Avenue, around and through the Met Life and Helmsley Buildings, to the Waldorf — the contrast of their unkempt hair, shambling gaits, and dirty clothes against the backdrop of luxury hotels and pristine office buildings was irresistible.

As Dan raised his hands again and waited for his followers' attention, he noticed all the camera lenses coming to bear on him like the merciless eyes of a pack of hungry wolves. He was well aware of the media's love of radical priests, so he'd made sure he was in uniform tonight: cassock, Roman collar, oversized crucifix slung around his neck. The works. He was well aware too of how his own appearance — clean-cut sandy hair, slim, athletic build, younger looking than his thirty-two years — jibed with that of his followers, and he played that up to maximum effect. He looked decent, intelligent, dedicated — all true, he hoped — and most of all, accessible. The reporters would be fighting to interview him during and after the demonstration.

And as far as Dan was concerned, that was what this little jaunt to the Waldorf was all about: communication. He hated the spotlight. He much preferred to keep a low profile and let others have center stage. But no one else was interested in this little drama, so Dan had found himself pushed into a leading role. Media-grabbing was not his thing, but somebody had to get across the message that these people needed help, that they couldn't be swept under the rug by the presidential wannabe appearing at the Waldorf tonight.

That wannabe was Senator Arthur Crenshaw from California, and this high-profile fundraiser was a golden opportunity to confront the senator on his radical proposal to solve the homeless problem. Normally Dan wouldn't have given a second thought to a crazy plan like Crenshaw's, but the way it had taken hold with the public was frightening.

Camps.

Of course Crenshaw didn't call them camps. The word might elicit visions of concentration camps. He called them "domiciles." Why have a hundred programs scattered all over the country? Senator Crenshaw said. All that duplication of effort and expense could be eliminated by gathering up the homeless and putting them in special facilities to be built on government lands. Once there, families would be fed and sheltered together, with the children attending schools set up just for them; all adults would receive free training for gainful employment; and those who were sick or addicted or mentally ill would receive the care they needed to make them productive citizens again.

The public — especially the urban-dwelling public — seemed to be going for the Domicile Plan in a big way, and as a result the concept was gaining support from both parties. Dan could understand the attraction of getting the homeless out of sight while balming one's conscience with the knowledge they were being cared for as they were retooled for productivity, but he found the whole idea unsettling. The domiciles did sound like concentration camps, or detention camps, or at the very least, gilt-edged prisons, and he found that frightening. So would many of the homeless folks he knew — and Dan knew plenty.

But how many homeless did Senator Arthur Crenshaw know?

These were people. It was easy to forget that. Yes, they were on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder — hell, most of them had fallen off the ladder — and they sure as hell didn't look like much. They tended to be dirty and smell bad and dress in clothing that wasn't fit for the rag pile. They offered nothing that society wanted, and some undoubtedly had AIDS and wouldn't be around much longer anyway. But each had a name and a personality, and they'd hoped and dreamed about the future before they'd forgotten how. Truth was, they could all vanish into smoke and the world would not be appreciably poorer; only a few would mark their passing, and even fewer would mourn them.

But they were people, dammit!

People.

Not a cause.

People.

Dan hated that the homeless had become such a trendy cause, with big-name comedians and such doing benefits for them. But after the stars took their bows, after they were limoed back to their Bel Aire estates, Dan stayed downtown and rubbed elbows with those homeless. Every day.

And sometimes at the end of a particularly discouraging day of elbow-rubbing with the folks who wandered in and out of the kitchen he ran in the basement of St. Joseph's church, even Dan found a certain guilty attraction in Crenshaw's Domicile Plan. Sometimes he wondered if maybe Crenshaw could indeed do more for them than he ever could. But at least with Dan they had a choice, and that was important.

And that was why they had come here tonight.

They stood quietly now, waiting for their last-minute instructions. They numbered about thirty, mostly males. Dan had hoped for more. Forty or fifty had promised to make the march but he was well satisfied with a two-thirds showing. You quickly learned to lower your expectations when working with these people. It came with the territory. After all, if they had enough control over their lives to act responsibly, if they knew how to follow through with a plan — even as simple a plan as gathering in Tompkins Square at six o'clock — they probably wouldn't be homeless. About half of the ones who were here carried signs, most of which Dan had hand printed himself during the week. Among them: SAY NO!

TO CONCENTRATION CAMPS FOR THE HOMELESS!

and:

WHAT ABOUT US? WHERE DO WE FIT IN?

and Dan's favorite:

ARE WE OUR BROTHER'S KEEPER? OR DO WE TELL BIG BROTHER TO KEEP HIM?

"All right," he said, shouting so he could be heard in the back. "Let me say this once more in case some of you have forgotten: We're not here to cause trouble. We're here to draw attention to a problem that cannot be solved by putting you folks in camps. We're here for informational purposes. To communicate, not to confront. Stay in line, don't block traffic, don't enter the hotel, don't fight, don't panhandle. Got that?"

Most of them nodded. He had been pounding this into them all week. Those who could get the message had already got it. This last harangue was for the benefit of the press microphones and the police within earshot, to get it on the record that this was intended as a strictly peaceful demonstration.

"Where's Sister Carrie?" someone of them asked.

That had to be One-thumb George, but Dan couldn't place him in the crowd. George had asked the question at least a dozen times since they'd left Tompkins.

"Sister Carrie is in her room at the convent, praying for us. Her order doesn't allow her to march in demonstrations."

"I wish she was here," the voice said, and now Dan was sure it was One-thumb George.

Dan too wished Carrie were here. She'd done as much as he to organize this march, maybe more. He missed her.

"And I'm sure she wishes she could be here with us," Dan shouted. "So let's make her proud! Waldorf, ho!"

Pointing his arm uptown like an officer leading a charge, he jumped off the sculpture base and marched his troops the remaining blocks. He was just starting to position the group when Senator Crenshaw's limousine pulled up before the entrance. Dan had a brief glimpse of the senator's head — the famous tanned face, dazzling smile, and longish, salt-and-pepper hair — towering over his entourage as he zipped across the sidewalk, and then he was through the front doors and gone.

Damn! He'd shown up early.

He heard groans from the demonstrators but he shushed them.

"It's okay. We'll be all set up for him when he comes out. And we're not leaving until he does."

They spent the interval marching in an oval within the area reserved for their demonstration, demarcated by light blue horses stenciled in white with Police Line — Do Not Cross. Dan led them in chants updated from the sixties, like: "Hey, hey, Arthur C., why you wanna imprison me?" and "Hell, no! We won't go!" And of course there were the endless repetitions of "We Shall Overcome."

The choices were calculated. Dan wanted to bring to mind the civil rights marches and anti-war protests of the sixties to anyone who saw this particular demonstration on TV. Many of the movers and shakers in the country today — the President included — had participated in those demonstrations in their youth; many of them still carried a residue of nostalgia for those days. He hoped enough of them would realize that but for luck and the grace of God they might be marching on this line tonight.

As he marched and led the chants and singing, Dan felt alive. More truly alive than he had in years. His priestly routines had become just that — routine. Hearing confession, saying Mass, giving sermons — it seemed little more than preaching to the converted. The souls who truly needed saving didn't go to Mass, didn't take the sacraments. His priestly duties around the altar at St. Joseph's had become ... empty.

But when he left the main floor and went downstairs to the soup kitchen in the basement — the place he'd dubbed Loaves and Fishes — then he felt as if he truly were doing God's work.

God's work ... Dan had to smile at the phrase. Wasn't God's work for God to do? Why was it left to mere mortals like him and Carrie to do God's work?

And lately, in his darkest moments, Dan had begun wondering if God was doing anything. The world — at least the part of it in which he spent his days — was, to put it bluntly, a fucking mess. Everywhere he looked people were sick, hurt or dying — from AIDS, from racism, from drugs, from child abuse, from stabbings, shootings, or just plain old kick-ass muggings. And the violence was escalating. Every time Dan told himself it can't get any worse than this, sure enough, it did.

And every year there seemed to be more homeless — more lost souls.

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Excerpted from "Virgin"
by .
Copyright © 1996 F. Paul Wilson.
Excerpted by permission of MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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