Decipher by Stel Pavlou Read Free Book Online Page A

Student Body building where there were better cafeterias and a livelier atmosphere.
    The Grove was a magnificent piece of parkland at the
heart of Magnolia University. It may have been March, but it felt like summer in Mississippi. The sun shone brightly through the trees and left beautiful dappled spots of shade on the ground. For the most part, the students wore shorts and T-shirts. In his priestly guise Fergus seemed to be taking it all in with the serene air of a good Catholic gentleman. Which for the most part he was.
    But Scott knew him better than that; they’d grown up together, after all. Scott knew the date, time and telephone number of the girl Fergus had lost his virginity to. Fifteen years later and Scott still couldn’t accept that his best friend had become a man of the cloth. And as for that girl jogging down sorority row, was she wearing any underwear?
    â€œYou’re a married man, Richard, stop embarrassing yourself.”
    â€œSeparated,” Scott grunted, kicking the grass in lazy strides and digging his hands in his khaki pants. “What happened to us, Fergus?”
    â€œYou and me? Or you and Jessica?”
    Scott winced at the mention of his estranged wife’s name. His friend really did have this priest thing down to a fine art. Fergus had flown in from Vatican City especially for his lecture and would be going back in the morning, but somehow Scott got the impression their friendship had nothing to do with Fergus’s decision to come here.
    Fergus reached for another cigarette and scratched his head. “Look, Richie, that was an interesting lecture you gave, but are you honestly trying to say that the Catholic Church was involved in a sixty-year conspiracy to keep the Dead Sea Scrolls suppressed?”
    â€œAnd others.”
    â€œAbsurd. We can’t even keep our own clergy in order, so who the hell was supposed to be trustworthy enough to sit on that particular time-bomb? Ireland’s government fell in 1994 because some priests turned out to be pedophiles. I know the Church is fallible.” He paused, then: “Yes, there was a conspiracy, but an academic one. I agree, it’s indefensible. A gang of pompous old asses refusing to release the documents until they’d had first crack at translating them. But what you came out with today … well, I can’t see the Church crumbling over that one. You know what people are like when they
hear a new crackpot theory—they ignore it. Like the one about Jesus going to Britain and starting a school, or the one where he married Mary Magdalene and moved to France—”
    â€œI happen to like that one.”
    â€œAnd then there was that half-assed theory about how he’d been trained in the mystical arts of Egyptian magic. People will believe what they want to believe. And they believe in Jesus Christ, Our Lord. I believe. Richie, you’re throwing your career away on bullshit!”
    â€œYou’re changing the subject.”
    â€œThe Church obviously means a lot to you, or you wouldn’t put in this much effort.”
    They faced off on the lawn. Scott still had his fists planted firmly in his pockets. His tie flapped lightly against his crisp pale-blue shirt in the breeze. He smirked. “Religion, Fergus, is like a disease of the human mind. It’s like rabies. You get bitten and suddenly there’s this great foaming at the mouth, all sense and reason thrown to the wind. There’s a lot of shouting and then you bite someone else in all the madness and it gets passed on down the line across generations, and national boundaries. Forget AIDS. This stuff kills millions.”
    Fergus simply took a long drag on his cigarette.
    Scott said: “Ever heard of the Church of Simon Kimbangu?” The priest shook his head. “It’s on the west coast of Africa. Simon Kimbangu was a militant who believed in democracy. The government considered him a revolutionary and