The Resurrection File
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible ®, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
The following Scripture quotations in this book are not identified in the text:
chapter 33 John 20:2; Luke 24:11; Matthew 28:17; John 20:5; 20:6-7
Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon
Cover Photo by Tayeko/Photonica
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. It is the intent of the author and publisher that all events, locales, organizations, and persons portrayed herein be viewed as fictitious.
THE RESURRECTION FILE
Copyright © 2002 by Craig L. Parshall
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parshall, Craig, 1950–
The resurrection file / Craig Parshall.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7369-0847-4 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-6038-0 (eBook)
1. Clergy—fiction. I. Title.
PS3616.A77 R47 2002
813'.54—dc21
2001043634
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author’s and publisher’s rights is strictly prohibited.
To my wife, Janet, who followed in the footsteps of the Gospel women. Like them, she hurried to this doubting man many years ago, brimming with extraordinary news about the tomb.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
About the Author
The Chambers of Justice Series
Acknowledgments
Much appreciation is owed to my administrative assistant, Marilyn Clifton. Her typing, editing, research, and constructive suggestions were invaluable, including her input as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. Sharon Donehey’s help in managing the office and interacting with editors was truly helpful, particularly as we approached deadlines.
My wife, Janet, was as always a source of inspiration, who also gave me the benefit of her pragmatic eye. So much of us is “between the lines” of these pages—the mountains and valleys that mark the pursuit of justice, the land of Israel, the archaeology of the Bible, the frontier where the gospel meets public policy, the influence of the media, and both the primacy of truth and the power of love.
I must also thank my now-adult children, Sarah, Rebekah, Samuel, and Joseph, for their love of the bedtime stories I invented for them as children. As an eager (but discerning!) audience, they taught me the interpersonal connection that can come with storytelling. (And now that Allison and Matthew have married into the Parshall family, I look forward to a whole new generation of rapt listeners, yet to be born!)
And, of course, a very special note of thanks is due to Harvest House Publishers: to Terry Glaspey and Carolyn McCready, for taking a chance on a new novelist, and for their unbounded support and encouragement in the creative process; and to Paul Gossard, for his superb suggestions in the final edit of the book.
1
Monroeville, Virginia
In the Near Future
WILL CHAMBERS WAS LATE AGAIN. For the last year or so the forty-year-old attorney had been getting to his law office late almost every day. This morning his head felt like it had been pressed in a trash compactor. Coping with a hangover was part of Chambers’ daily routine. Today, like most days, he was recovering from his liquid diet of Jack Daniels. He had spent the last night in the usual manner—sitting alone in the great room of his empty, half-restored pre–Civil War mansion, listening to music, and drinking himself numb. He would drink until things hurt a little less for a while—and his personal demons were a little more fuzzy and a little less distracting. And he would fall asleep in his chair with his golden retriever lying next to him on the floor. Then, about two or three in the morning, he would awaken, stumble up the winding staircase, and fall into bed. Clarence, his big dog, would pad up the stairs close behind and bound onto the bed next to him.
This morning, amid the hammering inside his head, Chambers suddenly remembered that he had to be in court. He was grabbing around his cluttered office trying to locate his case file when Betty, his secretary, yelled for him around the corner. Chambers walked into her area. A lit cigarette was hanging out of Betty’s mouth.
“Will,” she said in an exasperated voice, “You’ve got to get going. You’re going to be late for court.” Will took two fingers and snatched the cigarette from her lips, crushing it out on a message pad at her desk.
“This is a non-smoking office, Betty,” he said. “Geez, you know that.”
Betty’s eyes narrowed. “You’re going to be late for court. Have a nice day.”
The lawyer looked at his watch and saw that he might not make it to the central Virginia federal court on time. He stopped for a split second to examine the framed photograph of his wife that was prominently displayed on his bookshelf. He stared at the pretty face in the photograph, then carefully
placed it back on the shelf. For a moment, he felt the old buried sorrow clawing once again to the surface. A noise outside jolted him back, and he grabbed his briefcase, picked up his suit coat, and dashed down the stairs, his almost shoulder-length hair flying wildly behind him.
When Will reached the street below he crossed it at a run, heading to his red-and-white 1957 Corvette convertible. There was a yellow parking ticket stuck underneath the windshield wiper, which he didn’t bother to retrieve. He leaped into the driver’s seat, tossing the briefcase to the seat next to him, and in one continuous motion started the car and wheeled it around in a half circle, cutting off a tour bus driver.
By the time Will had swung his car around by the front of his building, Betty had bolted out of the front door. She was waving the case file above her head that Will Chambers had forgotten. Will slowed his car down and motioned for her to toss it into the moving Corvette. With a lunge, she threw the thick brown folder onto the passenger seat. Will waved at her without looking back as he gunned the engine and accelerated out of sight, the yellow parking ticket flapping wildly underneath the windshield wiper.
2
WHILE WILL CHAMBERS WAS MOTORING on the Interstate toward federal court in north-central Virginia, a small panel truck with a lone driver was heading toward New York City from across the river. The white vehicle bore only a sparse message in black lettering that read “Pay Load Truck Rentals.”
The truck was nearing the New Jersey border, heading for the George Washington bridge into Manhattan. Traffic was jammed to a crawl that morning during the tail end of rush hour.
Several years had passed since the attack on the World Trade Towers. Renovation and construction at ground zero was nearly complete. Gritty New Yorkers, refusing to succumb to a bunker mentality, had returned to daily life.
But memory had been altered. Like a flag raised and lowered in daily salute, the images of destruction had continued to speak a warning and a resolve.
Then one day last year, a van had pulled up in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Two Middle Eastern men in the van bowed their heads in prayer. Then they shouted something. That was when the driver touched his sweaty thumb to a homemade plastic button connected to a wire that disappeared into the back of the truck.
And then he pushed down, causing the van to evaporate in a blast that rocked Wall Street. In the months that followed, it became clear that the prime suspect was Abdul el Alibahd, a rising leader in a Syria-based terrorist network. But the FBI was still lacking clear evidence linking him to the Wall Street bombing. For a while, magazines and television news programs carried Alibahd’s face—bearded, deeply lined, expressionless, with black turban and tinted sunglasses.
So once again, New Yorkers had to shake off the dust, mourn their dead, clear the rubble, and carry on.
But this particular morning, thirteen months after the Wall Street attack, normalcy seemed to reign, at least for a while. Cars and trucks inched along toward the bridge into the city. In the middle of the traffic was the white rental truck.
A New Jersey state trooper sat in his parked squad car, watching the snaking line of vehicles. Officer Ezer Nabib took off his wide-brimmed trooper’s hat and scratched his head, then smoothed his hair back.
Nabib, a Sufi Muslim, had only been on the state patrol a few months when the Wall Street bombing took place. He resented the fact that those claiming that they were serving Allah had, again, committed unspeakable acts of slaughter. None of the other troopers said anything. They didn’t have to. Nabib felt it in their eyes, and their grim silence said it all.
The trooper eyed the tide of snarled traffic. Then he heard the code number of his squad over the dispatch. He picked up the receiver.
“Officer Nabib here.”
The female voice at the other end started talking. “We’ve got a suspect vehicle, a rental truck heading toward the river, plates are JM435X. Here’s the VIN…”
Nabib jotted down the VIN in his daybook. Then he asked, “Suspect for what? I think I see our vehicle here in the traffic jam, heading for NYC.”
The radio dispatcher was silent.
“Copy, please,” Nabib continued. “Suspect for what? I’ve got no probable cause for a stop. Do you have some warrants outstanding? Is this a stolen vehicle? What’s the deal? Advise.”
“Proceed with extreme caution.”
“Please identify yourself, dispatcher,” Nabib shot back. “Annie, is that you?”
The other voice said, “Follow the vehicle with extreme caution.”
Nabib slammed his squad car into gear and swooped into the safety lane, pulling up to a few car lengths behind the truck.
“Track the vehicle and then apprehend on the other side of the river,” the voice said.
“That’s New York,” Nabib countered. “I suggest we call NYPD right away. I can’t arrest over there.”
“Apprehend on the other side. Secure the vehicle. But use extreme caution. It may be carrying very dangerous contraband.”
“Request to speak to the barracks commander,” Nabib countered nervously.
But that was when the communication ceased. Nabib pushed the call button on his handset. Nothing.
As the trooper followed the truck across the bridge, he snatched his cell phone and quickly punched in the number for headquarters. A familiar voice announced, “State Patrol…”
But before the trooper could talk, the cell phone indicated low battery. Then it blinked off completely.
Nabib tossed it aside in disgust. The truck was exiting the bridge on the other end, heading into New York City. The trooper switched on his lights and siren and pulled up next to it. He glanced into the cab and motioned the driver over.
Nabib quickly exited the squad car, wishing he could have called for back-up. The driver, who looked Middle Eastern, produced a license that identified him as “Rahji Ajadi.”
After frisking the driver and finding no weapons, the trooper ordered him to the rear of the truck. “Open it slowly,” Nabib instructed him. The trooper had already un-holstered his side arm.
The driver rolled up the door, and the trooper peered in cautiously. A tarp covered something long and large.
“Lift up the canvas,” Nabib ordered.
He stared at the sleek metal that was unveiled, then gestured at the driver to pull back more of the tarp so he could get a better look. Then the trooper saw the familiar symbol on the side of the gleaming steel. His knees almost buckled.
Nabib snapped up his head and pointed his weapon at Ajadi.
“Out of the truck,” the trooper screamed, “on the ground now! Now, get down now, spread them on the ground or I blow your head off!”
Ajadi dropped to the pavement like a weight was tied to him.
Nabib scrambled back with his revolver trained on the driver.
A whirling sound of high-speed rotor blades sucking and slicing the air made the trooper look up. Three U.S. Army helicopters were sweeping down to his location, as a chorus of car horns was beginning to rise in angry confusion along New York harbor.
3
WILL CHAMBERS WHEELED UP TO THE FEDERAL court building for the Central District of Virginia and roared down into the underground parking garage. He grabbed his briefcase, stuffed the file into it, and started walking at a fast clip toward the front doors of the courthouse. He could see the huge figure of his client, William “Tiny” Heftland, pacing out front, waiting for him.
Heftland was wearing bright-red suspenders, a white shirt, and a tie. He stood six-foot-four and weighed about two hundred and seventy pounds. Back when he had worked as a beat cop with the D.C. police, and later in the Middle East in the security force of the State Department he had been in mean, lean, fighting shape at two hundred and twenty pounds—most of it muscle. But after a permanent knee injury, problems with his supervisor and, ultimately, a discharge from government work, he was on his own now as a private investigator, cruising around in his black Cadillac, filling up on cheeseburgers
and shakes, mostly doing surveillance in divorce cases and serving process. The years had caught up with him.
“Hey, good buddy,” Heftland called out to Chambers as he saw him coming. “Man, did you hear about that truck they stopped in New York?”
Will, in his mad dash to the courthouse, hadn’t turned on the radio and didn’t have a clue what Tiny was talking about. And frankly, he didn’t care. He did not respond to the big private eye until he was two inches from his sweaty bulk.
“Don’t give me the ‘good buddy’ treatment,” Will said. “Why haven’t you paid your bill? You still owe me five thousand dollars from the last case I handled for you. And you still haven’t paid the retainer for this one yet.”
“Yeah, okay, I was going to be talking to you about that. First of all, I’m good for the money.”
“Is that it?” Will asked. “That’s your best shot—you’re good for the money?”
“Hey, we’re not going to break up a wonderful friendship over something like money, are we?” Heftland quipped as they entered the court building.
“I’m waiting for the ‘second of all.’ You said ‘first of all.’ So where is the ‘second of all’…?” Will asked as they both climbed up the stairs at a fast clip.
“Okay, second of all, I just sent you a really great case the other day. This Reverend Angus MacCameron guy, who is being sued in federal court in D.C. I mean sued big time. Guess who the attorney is on the other side? Just guess? J-Fox Sherman himself—head legal terrorist with that real blitzkrieg-type law firm in D.C. The name escapes me. But a really big-time law firm.”
“Get to the point, Tiny,” Will said, panting a little as they topped the marble stairs to the second floor. Tiny was breathing heavily, trying to keep up.
“Okay, so anyway, Reverend MacCameron hires me to do some P.I. work on the lawsuit for him—some investigative stuff—to check out the plaintiff who is suing him in the lawsuit, this Herr-Doktor type with like a dozen different PhD degrees. The plaintiff who is going after MacCameron is this Dr. Albert Reichstad guy—nice name, huh? So I am right in the inside loop on this case. And get this—the Right Reverend asks me for a recommendation on legal counsel to defend him. So I sent him your way. I said you were like the genius of the American legal system as far as I was concerned. So, the way I figure it, that ought to count for something, right?”