Chapter 4

4
LOS ANGELES

Dr. Horst Tillotson strolled back to his office after the morning lecture, happily the only one of the day. Stopping at the faculty secretary's desk, he absently rifled through the day's mail, his eyes stopping on a large envelope with foreign postage. Selecting a couple of other envelopes that seemed to be important, he replaced the bulk of it back into his mail slot.

Tillotson ran the gauntlet of his secretary's icy stare. Nancy never felt it was really her job to sort through his volumes of mail.

Once safe in his office he opened the foreign letter. It contained a round trip first class ticket to Rio de Janeiro, an irrevocable letter of bank credit for $5,000, two readouts from a gas spectrometer and a phone number in Brazil. "Pretty presumptuous to think that five grand will whisk me off to Brazil like a game show. On the other hand, I can make time for a phone call." he mused while looking at the envelope's contents strewn across his littered desk.

Picking up the phone, he placed the call. A man answered in Portuguese, but another who spoke English with a British accent quickly replaced him. The voice said only, "We are so pleased that you have called. Please hold the line for Senor, excuse me, please hold the line for Mr. Robeles."

Another man began to speak, "Professor Tillotson, I have two Essene scrolls which might greatly interest you. The gas readings were made from them. I would very much like for you to come here, take a look at the scrolls and then discuss an opportunity I believe they represent. I promise we will have you back in Los Angeles in a day or two."

"It would be very difficult for me to leave on such short notice. I have a lecture schedule."

"One of the scrolls is stained with blood of the Savior Himself, Dr. Tillotson. I will send a car to meet your plane tomorrow at 6:30 in the evening. You won't regret indulging me. I'll see you when you arrive." The man on the phone abruptly hung up.

Horst Tillotson turned to stare out of his office toward Nancy. The secretary knew the look on his face. Tillotson waited for the audible sigh, then he spoke almost as a little boy hopefully announcing some plan to his mother. "Will you please cancel everything until Tuesday? I'm going to Brazil."

Nancy was on the phone, but she smiled at him and nodded. Who was she to say 'no' to a Nobel Laureate?

A day later the archaeologist was heading to the outskirts of Rio in an aging Mercedes limousine. The traffic was fierce, but the driver was clearly a man unafraid to take risks. They had traveled far out into the countryside before they arrived as a security gate. Tillotson was puzzled to see nothing of a house anywhere ahead.

Finally, after passing yet another gate they came upon a monstrous house made of native stone. A servant and an old man in a wheel chair were waiting at the front entry to greet him.

"Dr. Tillotson? I'm very glad that you have come. I trust that you have had pleasant trip. I'll take the liberty of sending your luggage to your room.

"I am Senor Ernesto Robeles. I am honored to have you in my home. I know you are anxious to see the scrolls, but perhaps you would enjoy a brandy and coffee first. We will dine at eight tonight." The old man drove his motorized wheel chair into a luxurious sitting room. "Here, please sit down and make yourself comfortable." He motioned to a chair facing himself. A servant appeared immediately with hot towels. Another waited with hot coffee and a decanter of what turned out to be exquisite brandy.

"I have to admit that I was completely surprised by what I found in my examination of the scrolls. I actually purchased them for very little from an estate. The seller was unaware of their remarkable nature. I believe his father had been an amateur archaeologist, perhaps only as an avocation. Whatever their recent history, I have them now. It has been one of those tremendously exciting turns of fate, and I find myself caught up in the possibility of pursuing the whole affair to its conclusion." The old man's eyes were on fire as he continued. "When you have had time to look at them yourself, I hope you will be interested in discussing a project I have in mind."

"I would like to see them now, if possible, Senor." Dr. Tillotson rose. "Perhaps I might spend a few minutes with them before dinner."

"Of course. My laboratory is on the second floor. We'll have to take the elevator. This way. It's right over here." Robeles motioned to the man to follow the wheelchair. "Please consider my facilities to be your own during your visit."

Considering the medieval style of the rest of the mansion, the laboratory was brightly lit and filled with state of the art equipment. Tillotson found the scrolls held flat against individual vacuum plates in a chamber of helium. A second chamber held an ancient remnant of linen with several stains of what appeared to be blood. His eyes widened as they followed the faded writing. He stepped over to the second chamber, then back to the first. Finally, he turned to Senor Robeles who was smiling broadly from his wheel chair. "The first writer, Cannanuk saw it. He was there when the other one entered the tomb, but the second writer, the anonymous one... The anonymous one helped remove the body. Cannanuk was afraid, but the other one... the other one placed Jesus in His final tomb, far from His tormentors' and he says where that tomb is. Senor, can this...?"

"Yes, Dr. Tillotson, I think this second scroll tells of the final burial of the Christ. I know what feeling has a hold of you right now. I experienced the same thing when it first began to dawn on me about what these two scrolls were describing. The analysis you have done in ten minutes took me a few days, but I promise you, the feeling was the same. These two scrolls may rewrite history." Robeles backed up to the second chamber. Pointing to the linen, he said, "That blood stain may have been made during the Crucifixion itself."

"I know you will want to test everything again, Doctor, but I can tell you that if it is a forgery, it was definitely forged in the first century. The only possible means to finally establish its authenticity is to match the DNA from that blood sample to the DNA in the lock of the Holy Mother's hair in the Vatican's Holy Reliquary. I know that the lock was DNA tested, but an individual such as myself can have no possible access to the results. I am hoping that you, as a Noble Prize winner can accomplish that."

"You're thinking of trying to find the tomb!" Tillotson was beside himself.

"Yes, Doctor, I am thinking of trying to find the tomb. As you can see, I am a virtual prisoner of this chair. But you, you can do it and I can sponsor you. Every preparation must be made in secret. Your inquiry into the Holy Mother's DNA must be camouflaged completely. Even if the tomb is found, even if the body is found, nothing must be public until the find can be certified. By that I mean certified at the very highest levels. No one must be able to call the findings into question. There will be enough excitement without a debate on archaeology done by every shop keeper and village wag."

"Do you think you could mount an expedition with some other objective as a disguise? Whatever that might amount to, nothing shoddy can be done with this tomb, that is, nothing but the finest equipment, the best people. How could we forgive ourselves if we were to cut corners on this?" The old man was insistent. And he knew how to tempt an archaeologist.

"Go to the Sinai and muddle around until everyone loses interest. I think you should spend several months before you approach the tomb site. It is quite secure if it hasn't been found out through all these years. Meanwhile I will prepare an extensive and extremely messy anonymous gift to the National Museum in Rio. I am prepared to give them enough artifacts that there will be no chance of them translating the scrolls before you secure the tomb site.

"When you are quite prepared there in the desert, you will call my subsidiary in Paris to order a replacement compressor. Once you have done that you must proceed to unearth the tomb proper. I am assuming that you will not want to open it.

"With your copies of the scrolls in hand and the tomb before you, just where the ancient writers said it would be, you will make a very tentative, shaky announcement and call in Eagletaire. You will be challenged at this point from some quarter and it will be time to make the contents of scrolls public. By then you can attribute them to the National Museum in Rio. The story will be complete." Robeles was on fire as he put the final touches on his plan.

"Are you absolutely certain that you want the United Nations to come in on this?" Tillotson asked.

"Not sure at all, Doctor. That organization tends to be quite unpredictable. They also have a bad habit of taking their time when important things must be done. But I don't see the possibility of a university or even a single government having the resources to guarantee that the project can go forward. There must be no cover up or trickery, and there must certainly not be any strong arm government trying to harness the power of this thing for their own interests. There must not be a Saudi Mecca or a war to set one up or a war to tear one down. I don't want a war fought on top of this tomb."

Tillotson agreed with Senor Robeles last comment. He also acknowledged the real possibility of it. "At least the UN will be able to take the heat from the certification process. If you're the biggest fish in the pond the opinions of others don't count for too much."

Senor Robeles was mysteriously absent from the house while Dr. Tillotson painstakingly transcribed the Aramaic of the scrolls.

When Dr. Horst Tillotson left for Los Angeles a week later he had not seen his benefactor again. He wondered if he had made a deal with the devil. Devil or not, the expedition was underway.