“Source blood. Right.”
“Yes. This is the blood of Demiel ben Yusef. It is not human blood. It will match only to the blood of Jesus, the first Son of our Lord God!”
“And how do I know that—I mean for sure? That it matches Jesus’ blood?”
“Find the source blood, find God. Have them both tested before it’s too late. Only a laboratory in this golden age of science versus belief can prove to the enemies of God Himself that this is no human blood!”
“I’m sure they’ve given him blood tests—Demiel, I mean.”
“I’m sure they have, too. That’s why they want to kill Him!”
Oh, crap. More Holy Grail nonsense.
More than a bit annoyed, I challenged him: “Listen, I can’t find the Holy Grail. I just want to find out who killed your friend Father Sadowski and get the cops off my back.”
“Yes, tragic, that. He was a good soldier. Never wavered in his commitment. He could have confirmed it for you. But you need to find the proof.”
“Listen, you supposedly cloned a baby from blood. Where did you get it?”
“Only Grethe knew. And, well, that’s impossible.”
That name again.
“Who is that exactly?”
“She was a nun. But she was also Headquarters’ finest obstetrician. A painter of icons. All of those things. But most of all she was a geneticist, born to it, really, but to perfect her science she worked at it day and night. Could have won the Nobel, but Headquarters would never have let her submit, of course. She, we, had to remain above suspicion.”
“Headquarters? You mean the Vatican?”
He sneered and spat.
“You’re a Catholic priest, aren’t you?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Well, if that’s off-limits, then tell me where to find this Grethe.”
“Oh, long dead. Such a shame, really.”
“When did she die?”
“I don’t know. We were all separated after the birth took place. Forbidden to contact one another. But I heard about her untimely passing some years later. Terrible loss to science.”
“But you don’t know for sure?”
“I can’t believe she lived. She became a real problem. Headquarters, you see, felt it was imperative to re-create the first birth as closely as possible in modern times. That, you see, is the actual meaning of ‘resurrection’—that Jesus could return one day. Literally, ‘blood made flesh.’ And so His blood has been kept hidden for over two thousand years. Some was taken for the Great Experiment, but that was all that was ever taken. As far as I know.
“She was fairly young at the time. In her early thirties. But you see, she refused to fully give up the child to its mother and appointed father. Always trying to find them, always trying to interfere. I would have loved to have been the one to school the boy, but Headquarters did not want us to continue once we completed the Experiment. So I didn’t, but she kept at it. Too many renegades in this situation. I always felt it was Headquarters’ only failing.”
“Headquarters? What does that mean exactly?” I asked again.
He ignored me again. “No, I don’t believe she died of natural causes,” he chuckled. Chuckled! “I’m afraid she had to be eliminated.”
That word again! If nothing else, they are consistent.
“Or,” he continued, “she would have caused a world of trouble. Always trying to track the boy and his family. No, it wasn’t acceptable behavior, even if she did make Him possible.”
“So they killed her?” I asked, totally aghast.
“Don’t play the innocent with me, please. It doesn’t dignify your position.”
“I don’t have a position.…”
“I’m afraid that, yes, indeed you do. Whether you like it or not.”
“Did any one of you think that perhaps the nun thought of him as her child? I mean, if she’s the one who ‘made’ him from a hank of hair and a piece of bone, wouldn’t she have been more his real mother than a twelve-year-old kid who was just chosen as a carrier?”
I had to get up and walk around the room, which was becoming more claustrophobic by the second.
He reached out and took my hand and asked me to sit with him again, which I did, but very reluctantly. “She was thirteen when she gave birth.”
“Oh, brother.”
“You will know what to do when the time comes—and Ms. Russo, or do you prefer Alessandra?”
“I prefer a vodka. Do you have one?”
“No, but I have some very, very fine wine,” he said, pulling another hit from the pipe. He gestured to Cesur, who brought another bottle and a decanter to the table like one of those obsequious waiters in a tourist-gouging European restaurant.