“No, it isn’t,” James answered, “not in front of a guest, and especially not in front of a good friend I am about to ask for a serious favor.”

“I disagree,” Jack said. “This shows me how important this is to you, whatever it is you’re going to ask me.”

“You are too kind,” James said. “Now permit me to say grace.”

After James had voiced his final amen, he glanced up at Jack and said, “Please start. I’m sorry we don’t have much time, as I mentioned earlier, but I have to be at Gracie Mansion at two p.m.”

Jack picked up the heaviest silver soup spoon he’d ever had the opportunity to use and took a taste of his soup. It was sublime.

“She’s a good cook. Not the most pleasant personality, but definitely a good cook.”

Jack nodded, glad that James had recovered from his emotional outburst.

“As I said, I believe the ossuary downstairs will eventually be proved to be just another unfortunate forgery. I say ‘unfortunate’ because before it is proved to be a forgery, it can cause a good deal of harm to the Church, its followers, and to me personally. The problem is that proving it a fake is not going to be easy and may ultimately rely mostly on faith.”

Jack silently acknowledged that in science, proof that relied on faith was hardly proof at all. In fact, it was an oxymoron.

“The biggest problem we face is that the ossuary was discovered by one of the most renowned archaeologists in the world.”

“You mean Shawn?”

“Yes, I mean Shawn. After we opened the crate and looked at the top of the ossuary, Shawn pointed out two things. Among all those scratches are a date and a name. The date is in Roman numerals and is 815 AUC, which in a Gregorian calendar is AD 62.”

“What the hell is AUC?” Jack asked, then blushed. “Excuse my French.”

“I remember your French, as you call it, was significantly more colorful in college. No need to apologize, I’m as immune to it now as I was then. But AUC stands for ab urbe condita, referring to the supposed date of the founding of Rome. In other words, it’s a date appropriate to such a find. And when the date is combined with the name, it becomes truly disturbing—the name Maryam, written in Aramaic characters, which when translated into Hebrew is Mir iam or the English Mary.”

“So Shawn is convinced the ossuary contains the bones of the Virgin Mary, Jesus’ mother?”

“Precisely. Shawn is an extremely credible witness and can prove that this ossuary has not seen the light of day since the time it was interred almost two thousand years ago. He found it nestled next to the tomb of Saint Peter. Furthermore, the ossuary is sealed. All other ossuarys as far as I know have not been sealed.”