The lost pope, p.8
The Lost Pope, page 8
Tommy caught Beth Ann’s attention by pointing at his phone and smiling broadly. “So, Giuseppe, as I understand it, you’re asking me to find a way to knock off Sister Elisabetta.”
Tosi sniffed. “Not literally, of course.”
“I was speaking metaphorically,” Tommy said. “I wish the good sister a long and healthy life, just not as secretary of state. Let me get to work on some ideas. We’ll communicate by phone. No electronic messages, no notes to file, all right?”
“Certainly.”
Tommy said, “With the Good Lord’s help, we’ll send Sister Elisabetta back to teaching elementary school, where she belongs.”
7
Dodo Shamoun stared at the pair of emails sitting in his sent folder and wondered why he had not received a reply. After the first went unanswered, he sent another a day later, marking it urgent, and still there was nothing. Dodo double-checked the email address. The messages had not bounced back, so they must have gone through. He had a phone number, but he was hesitant to use it, fearing his English skills weren’t up to the task.
There were other potential buyers, but none better. This group was known to pay handsomely, sometimes outbidding competitors by an order of magnitude, but they only bought quality. Dodo had a strong feeling that his merchandise was golden, but he couldn’t be sure what he had at this point.
He was at a sweltering outdoor café in Cairo, having a morning coffee and watching cars whizzing by on the broad avenue, when he finally sucked up his courage. A street cart vendor on the corner was already preparing kebda eskandarani, and the air filled with the aroma of grilled beef liver. It was midafternoon in the buyer’s time zone, a respectable time to call. He steeled himself as the phone rang through.
“Yeah?” was the clipped answer.
“Oh, I am sorry,” Dodo said. “I am wishing to speak to Mr. Evan Cunliffe.”
“Who’s this?”
“I am Dodo Shamoun from Egypt. I sent you emails about a papyrus I find. Maybe a very important papyrus.”
“Do I know you? Have we done business?”
“Unfortunately, no. I never had a good enough item to make present to you. This item is very, very good, I think.”
“You’re a broker?”
“Yes, yes. Antiquities.”
“How’d you get my number?”
“From a colleague. A Mr. Mansour who sold something to you before.”
Dodo suddenly heard loud, thumping pop music, followed by Evan shouting at one of his friends, “Turn it down, jackass! Can’t you see I’m on a goddamn call?” The music stopped. “Sorry about that. You say you sent me an email?”
“Two.”
“Hang on, let me check. What did you say your name was again?”
“Dodo Shamoun.”
“I don’t see them. This was to my company email at CEG or the museum email at AMF?”
“AMF.”
“Okay, I see them. They were in spam. Hang on a sec.”
“Yes, yes.”
“So you say this is first century, from a mask?”
“Yes, mask was first century.”
“What’s the provenance?”
Dodo’s lies rolled off his tongue. “A private collector I meet. Maybe his father’s father bought mask many years ago in a bazaar.”
“You have paperwork?”
“Yes, yes. Bill of sale. Testimony of seller. All perfect.”
“I’m looking at your photo. The papyrus is awfully dark.”
“Before it dries. Photo is from right after being found in cartonnage. My colleague, she’s an expert in papyrus. She tells me it is dry now.”
“So, this was just found?”
“Yes! Only two days ago.”
“You say it’s Greek?”
“Greek, yes.”
“What’s it say?”
“I don’t read the Greek. My colleague no reads either. I am hoping you have people to make good translation.”
“It could be someone’s shopping list.”
“No, no, I don’t think. Could be Bible.”
“But you don’t know.”
“I think, don’t know.”
“Has it been dated yet to confirm the mask date?”
“My colleague, she say, maybe tomorrow we have carbon date.”
“All right, Mr. Shamoun. I get the picture. I’ll pass this along to my expert. If you don’t hear back from me, we’re not interested, okay?”
“Yes, yes. Fair man. Thank you very much.”
* * *
Bill Stearns liked to say that it was the hand of God that steered him to Pittsburgh. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to a Bible-thumping family, he grew up loving football and God. The strapping lad played fullback on a state champion football team in high school. He was good enough to get an athletic scholarship to Texas Christian University, where he promptly blew out a knee during the first week of practice.
Fortunately, he was a pretty good student. He regrouped and majored in business, figuring it would set him up for a career in industry. When his scholarship evaporated, he became one of those kids who had to take out loans and find on-campus jobs to make ends meet. In his junior year, he landed a gig in the laboratory of a biblical studies professor who needed to catalog a donated collection of papyrus texts.
These little bits of antiquity with squiggles of writing instantly captured his imagination. He pictured ancient scribes hunched over their tables, dipping quills into pots of ink and scratching out contracts and inventories and, most thrillingly, the precursor texts and earliest copies of the Old and New Testaments. Yet he felt as helpless as an ape, unable to make sense of the squiggles, and he asked the professor how he could learn the ancient languages.
“Take Introduction to Ancient Greek next semester, and if you like it, you can take the intermediate course next year, and if you’re gung-ho, the beginner’s course in Coptic or Aramaic.”
He liked the Greek course, and he wound up taking the others, but a panic set in over his student debt as graduation approached. Instead of pursuing his passion for early biblical texts, he took a job as a junior financial analyst at a company he had never heard of, Cunliffe Energy Group in Houston. It wasn’t a colossus, but it was large enough that he only saw the blond and charismatic founder and CEO, Tommy Cunliffe, from afar.
Bill did well in Houston, got a few promotions, steadily whittled down his debt, and met his future wife at a church potluck dinner. He told his Friday night poker buddies, “Being a financial analyst isn’t my dream job, but I consider myself a lucky guy. CEG’s a good company, America needs to get energy-independent, and fracking is the way we’re going to get there.” Biblical studies were relegated to the status of a hobby. That is, until the day the hand of God intervened again.
That day, Bill was taking his lunch in the company cafeteria at a table overlooking the courtyard. It was a blazing summer in Texas, and despite the air-conditioning, the thermal panes were hot to the touch. He often ate alone to read, and he was fully absorbed when he noticed that someone was looking through the window at him, none other than Tommy Cunliffe. He didn’t quite know what to do, so he gave the CEO a sheepish wave. Tommy held up a finger as if to say wait there and fast-walked to the nearest door.
Bill wasn’t sure if he’d done something wrong, so he held himself stiffly, waiting for the big cheese to appear. Tommy headed toward his table and extended a callused hand.
“Tommy Cunliffe. How are you?”
“I’m fine, sir. Bill Stearns, from finance.”
About twelve years separated them. Stearns was twenty-six at the time. Tommy had been that very age when he founded CEG. Tommy Cunliffe was considered a true wunderkind when he opened up a small energy exploration shop in Houston straight out of a graduate program in petroleum engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. What twenty-something kid had a dozen scientific publications and a raft of patents for wellbore heads and new types of fracking additives?
Tommy lived up to the hype, and CEG quickly became a success, drilling a portfolio of its own wells and licensing its technology to other companies. Some said that Tommy Cunliffe would become a billionaire, and on that hot summer day in Houston, he was well on his way.
“I couldn’t help notice what you were reading,” Tommy said.
Stearns felt his face getting warm. A young financial analyst should have been using his lunch hour to read company reports or trade publications, not this.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “It’s a hobby, I suppose.”
Tommy reached for the journal. “The Bulletin for Biblical Research is pretty heavy-duty for a hobbyist, I’d say.”
“I majored in finance but minored in biblical studies.”
“Where?”
“TCU.”
“Good school. Mind if I join you?”
Stearns was aware that nearly everyone in the cafeteria was staring, undoubtedly wondering how a peon had messed up enough for the CEO to be targeting him at lunch.
“Please do.”
“What’s the article you’re reading?” Tommy asked.
“It’s about a new translation of something called the Bodmer Papyrus, Number Ten. It’s—”
Tommy finished the sentence. “Paul’s Third Epistle to the Corinthians, found in Egypt in the 1950s. It dates to about AD 200. It’s in Greek, am I right?”
Bill was dumbfounded. “How do you know about the Bodmer Papyri?”
Tommy grinned. “You’re not the only guy with a weird hobby. I’m a bit of a collector. I own a few bits and pieces. Nothing spectacular. Yet.”
“Papyri?” Bill asked.
“That’s right. I don’t have much disposable time, but I dabble in the antiquities market. How’d you like to see what I’ve got?”
“I’d love to.”
“What’s your church, if I can ask?”
“My people are Baptist,” Stearns said.
“I’m Catholic,” Tommy said, getting up, “but I won’t hold it against you. I’ll send you an invite—Sunday evening if that works. It’ll be great shooting the breeze about something other than oil and gas.”
* * *
Tommy’s house in the tony River Oaks community didn’t hold a candle to the grandeur of his future estate in Pittsburgh, but it was the most magnificent home Bill Stearns had ever seen. It was a redbrick neo-Georgian backing onto the River Oaks Country Club, where Tommy was a member.
In an instant, Bill realized he had overdone it with a blazer and slacks. Tommy and his wife were hanging out in shorts and golf shirts. Tommy was hunched over the grill in the backyard, and his wife, Barbara, a woman who still resembled the cheerleader she had been, drank something potent from an iced pitcher. Bill, a teetotaler, sipped a soda and watched golfers hit approach shots to the green on the long tenth hole.
“It’s nice here,” Bill said, unsure how to converse with the wife of the company’s CEO.
“You think so?” she said.
“Oh yeah. I’ll bet your kids love it. I mean, look at the size of your lawn.”
“How did you know we have children?”
He sheepishly pointed toward a sandpit off to the side, littered with buckets and spades and toy trucks.
Barbara looked askance at the play area and apologized that the nanny hadn’t put away the toys.
The young man was desperate to keep the chat going, as she asked nothing about him. “Will they be coming down for the barbecue?”
“Oh God, no. This is our time of day.”
Bill’s stomach was in a knot before he ate, and after a half hour of stilted conversation with his hosts and an overdone cheeseburger, he was in a full cramp. He didn’t relax until Barbara floated away on a tide of whatever was in her pitcher and Tommy invited him to his study, a clubby space with cherry paneling and plaid chairs.
“Let me show you what I’ve got,” Tommy said, opening a cabinet and presenting a glass-topped display box.
Bill feasted his eyes on a few dozen papyrus fragments, the smallest the size of a postage stamp, the largest a file card.
“This one’s Hebrew,” Tommy said, tapping on the glass with a pen. “I’m a New Testament guy, but I couldn’t resist picking this one up. It’s a snippet from Deuteronomy, found in Egypt, second century before Christ, but who knows—I could have been sold a bill of goods. I got it in a package deal with the stuff I was especially interested in.”
He tapped the glass over a cluster of papyri.
“Koine Greek,” Bill said.
“Hey, you know your stuff,” Tommy said. “This one’s a fifth-century fragment of Mark 4. Can you make it out?”
Bill suspected this was a test. He sounded out the words and said, “‘Again, Jesus began to teach by the lake.’”
“Bingo!” Tommy said. “Have a look at this one. It’s Acts 12, fourth century.”
Bill studied it. “There’s a couple of words I don’t know.”
Tommy urged him on.
“‘The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in—’”
Tommy consulted a notebook that held all the translations. “Solomon’s Colonnade,” he said. “‘—meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade.’ You’re the real deal, Bill. How many years of Greek do you have?”
“In college, just one. I was a business major and crammed in a few electives. I’ve tried to keep learning, you know, on the side. On weekends.”
“And during your lunch break.”
“Caught me red-handed.”
Tommy had him join him on a couple of overstuffed club chairs. The young man accepted a cigar, aping his host by sniffing the wrapper and using a guillotine on the tip.
“Permit me to tell you my dream, Bill,” Tommy said. “I’ve been fortunate. The company’s been a success. We’re pulling a lot of energy out of the ground, and it’s only the beginning. I’ve got a wonderful family, and as you can see by this little window into my world, we’re enjoying the fruits of our labor. Do you want to know who I credit for my good fortune? I credit our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
“Amen to that,” Bill said, letting out an aromatic puff of smoke. The strong tobacco was making him lightheaded, and he blurted out, “If you don’t mind me saying, you sound more like a Baptist than a Catholic, sir.”
Tommy let out a belly laugh. “I am grateful I was born a Catholic, but I do envy the zeal of you evangelicals. So listen, here’s my dream. I want to dedicate the rest of my life to honoring the word of God. One day, I want to build a museum that will teach people, young and old, about the glories of the Bible. I want to pack that museum with artifacts of Christianity—artwork, statues, relics, icons, and especially its foundational texts. My motivation for buying these papyrus fragments was an investment—I won’t tell you how much I paid, but it was obscene. But they’ve come to mean a lot more to me than money. They are a connection to the early days of Christianity, and I feel as if they bring me closer to Christ.
“My dream is to one day own as much of this heritage as I can for good people to come and marvel over it. Problem is, I’m a babe in the woods. I’m a petroleum engineer. The little I know of the antiquities world is that it’s full of snakes. I don’t know what’s real and what’s fake. I need experts who are one hundred percent loyal to me and my mission. I want to be able to buy the best at fair prices. See where you might fit in?”
Bill blinked through the smoke and told his host that he did not see.
“Do you like your job?” Tommy asked.
“Yeah, I like it a lot. It’s interesting work. The people I work with are great.”
“But do you love it?” Tommy didn’t give Bill a chance to answer. “The way I see it, a fellow who reads a scholarly biblical journal over lunch is declaring his true love. How come you didn’t pursue it?”
“I needed to make a living. Besides, I couldn’t afford grad school.”
“Bill, there are thousands of financial analysts out there. I’m sure you’re good at what you do, but it’s a fungible role. What I need is a biblical expert I can trust.”
Bill shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Mr. Cunliffe—sir—I only had a few college courses.”
“Sure, I understand that. But what if I paid for your grad school and gave you living expenses to boot with the proviso that, when you’re trained up, you come back and work for me on this museum of mine? I already have a name for it: the American Museum of Faith. What do you say, Bill? Can I get you to change the course of your life for the better?”
* * *
Three decades later, Bill Stearns was at his desk at the American Museum of Faith, studying a photograph of a purportedly first-century papyrus recovered from Egyptian cartonnage.
Everything that Tommy Cunliffe had promised him that long-ago day in Houston had come to pass. He had paid for his tuition and expenses during the five years it took for Bill to get his PhD in religious studies and ancient languages at Yale, the repository of one of the great papyrus collections in the world. When Bill returned to Houston, Tommy put him to work at his newly formed Cunliffe Foundation to lay the groundwork for the museum to be built one day on the grounds of another passion project, the Cunliffe Catholic Bible College in Pittsburgh.
Over the ensuing years, Tommy’s business empire grew on the back of shale gas extraction. He became one of the largest frackers in Texas, Louisiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. He joined the billionaire club and became the environmentalists’ public enemy number one. Both designations delighted him. His foray into energy exploration in his home state was the catalyst for moving back to Pittsburgh and buying Heartland Manor, much to the distress of his wife, a fixture on the Houston philanthropy scene.
One of his children became a doctor, one went to work at his charitable foundation, three joined Cunliffe Energy where they advanced mostly on merit, and Evan, the college dropout, lived at home and worked at the museum, ostensibly overseeing acquisitions. Everyone at the museum, with the possible exception of Evan himself, saw him as a figurehead with a director’s title. Bill Stearns signed off on the bona fides of acquisition pieces, and Tommy signed off on the payments, leaving Evan to field inquiries and shuffle papers.
