Read The Sacred Scroll for Free Online Page A

here is ourthree archaeologists. Standard missing persons in suspicious circumstances. Since the missing persons are foreign nationals, and two of them are Americans, there’s more than the usual fuss,’ he continued. ‘It isn’t just that they’ve vanished without a trace, but everything connected with them has as well. We’re waiting on a report from the Turks who are handling it at the Istanbul end. Chase it up.’
    ‘Do we know what they were on to?’
    ‘Find that out and we find them.’ His words, she thought, echoed Hudson’s. ‘Maybe.’
    ‘I’ll leave you,’ said Lopez. ‘I’ve got something to tie up. Tail end of a case. Just needs a last tweak.’
    ‘Make it fast.’
    Lopez disappeared into his lab as Graves picked up a black phone and dialled a number.
    It took Marlow five minutes to digest the other documents in the folder. Background stuff.
    The first was a printout of a
New York Times
article from 2001:
     
Last week, Pope John-Paul II visited Greece – the first pope to do so in nearly 1,300 years. In Athens he had a private 30-minute meeting with Archbishop Christodoulos, head of the Eastern Orthodox Church. When they emerged from the meeting the two prelates were stony-faced as the Greek archbishop read out a list of the ‘thirteen offences’ committed by the Roman Catholic Church against the Eastern Orthodox Church since the Great Schism of 1054 which divided the Church for the first time into its Eastern and Western branches. Among the thirteen offences, Archbishop Christodoulos made particular mention of the pillaging anddestruction of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) by the crusading armies of the Fourth Crusade, inspired by Pope Innocent III and led by Count Baldwin of Flanders, Marquess Boniface of Montferrat and Doge Enrico Dandolo of Venice, in 1204, and bemoaned the lack of any apology for it from the Roman Catholic Church. He said: ‘Until now, there has not been heard a single request for pardon for the maniacal Crusaders of the 13th century.’
Pope John-Paul responded by saying, ‘For the occasions, past and present, when sons and daughters of the Catholic Church have sinned by action or omission against their Orthodox brothers and sisters, may the Lord grant us forgiveness.’
     
Archbishop Christodoulos immediately applauded this statement, and the pope added his opinion that the sacking of Constantinople was a source of ‘profound regret’ for Catholics.
     
Later, the pope and the archbishop met again at a place where Saint Paul had once preached to Athenian Christians. Here, they issued a common declaration, saying: ‘We will do everything in our power to ensure that the Christian roots of Europe, and its Christian soul, may be preserved. We condemn all recourse to violence, proselytism, and fanaticism in the name of religion.’
     
The two leaders then said the Lord’s Prayer together, an act which broke an Orthodox interdiction against praying with Catholics.
     
     
    The next sheet contained a quotation Marlow recognized, from near the end of the New Testament, concerning the fall of Babylon. The sheet was a high-scan photocopy of a manuscript, written in a shaky but educated hand. There was a signature at the bottom, which started with a boldlypenned ‘L’, followed by what looked like an ‘e’ and a ‘p’, but the rest of the name was indistinct. A typescript of the text accompanied it, and told him that the quotation was from the Book of Revelation:
     
And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and were wanton with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning; they will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say,
‘Alas! Alas! Thou great city,
     
Thou mighty city, Babylon!
     
In one hour has thy judgement come.’
     
And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any more, cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of