13th Apostle by Richard F. Heller, Rachael F. Heller Read Free Book Online Page A

barely enough to pay for his family’s basic necessities but kept them together as a family.
    On the night that changed his life, Hassan lay flat on his back across the front seat of a car, attempting to dismantle the radio by flashlight. It was three in the morning and the street was deserted.
    Maluka did not see the intruder until he was within a few feet of the car. Hassan had jumped up and caught Maluka with a stranglehold that Maluka did not attempt to resist. Hassan hesitated, uncertain whether to cut his victim’s throat or run. Quietly, Maluka suggested that Hassan join him for a cup of coffee at an all-night restaurant. Hassan anticipated some unscrupulous but profitable offer. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.
    During the next two hours, Maluka elicited Hassan’s most deeply felt regrets and frustrations; a litany of the painful disappointments that had forced him to undertake such acts of desperation.
    Never had Hassan met such a man. Maluka showed him understanding where others would have condemned him, offered compassion where others would have demanded punishment, and, in doing so, revealed himself to be the spiritual leader in whom Hassan could find hope and meaning.
    Maluka put him to work as a gopher in his video production studio only a few miles from where he first found him that fateful night. Hassan’s days were filled with the fetching and delivering of the million things that were needed to make the famous Muslims for World Truth Videos. Shown each night of Ramadan, Maluka’s television specials were renowned for their powerful portrayal of the inhumanity of the West. Hassan never missed a broadcast. These were the product of Hassan’s loins as great as any child.
    When Hassan had proven himself for two years, Maluka rewarded him with an opportunity greater than Hassan had ever imagined. He had been chosen to serve as the eyes and ears of MWT—down within the very belly of the enemy.
    â€œWhere no hope existed, Allah has provided the way,” Maluka said gently. At any time in the past, it would have been impossible to place Hassan within the all-Israeli workforce at the Israel Museum. With the signing of the exhibition agreement between the two Museums, however, all had been changed. Included in the agreement, at the Museum of Amman’s insistence, a minimal number of non-Israeli’s were to be added as long-term employees. It was only a token stipulation, meant to provide public relations opportunities intended to calm those opposed to the arrangement. Still, the stipulation provided the small window of opportunity that would allow Hassan to be interviewed, then hired.
    â€œTo others, your work will appear menial, to our cause it will be immeasurable,” Maluka explained. There, among the most sacred of Jewish and Christian archives and artifacts, within the Museum itself, Hassan would sweep floors and empty garbage while carrying precious information back to the man who had given him life.
    He had been sent with one purpose: to provide proof of the secrets the Dead Sea Scrolls held and that the Museum concealed from the public eye for decades.
    â€œImagine,” Maluka said, “with each note you copy and photo you take, you will help us lay bare a conspiracy perpetrated by some of the most respected men in the world. The guardians of these antiquities, past and present, will stand naked, exposed as those who have helped to perpetuate the supreme hoax.
    â€œOnce revealed, the secreted messages within these scrolls will prove beyond doubt that Jesus was nothing more than a mere mortal man and that the Church has been but a means to enslave its people as well as our own.”
    â€œAnd then…” Hassan urged.
    â€œAnd then our people and our faith shall be vindicated,” Maluka said.
    â€œAnd truth shall prevail,” Hassan added.
    It had taken the first eighteen months of Hassan’s employ, to work his way into