The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud

by Julia Navarro

  “The shroud,” said Marco. “But why? To destroy it? To steal it? I don’t know. I wonder whether forcing the door isn’t a red herring, something they do to throw us off. It’s too obvious…I don’t know…. Minerva, what’ve you got?”

  “I can tell you that one of the controlling shareholders of the company in charge of the work, COCSA, is Umberto D’Alaqua. I’ve mentioned this to Sofia and sent you some of it by e-mail. This is a solid company that works for the Church, not just in Turin but all over Italy. D’Alaqua is a man the Vatican knows well and thinks highly of. He works with them as a consultant on some of the Vatican’s big—and I mean big—investments, and he’s made the Church large loans for operations where the Vatican wants to keep its presence quiet. He is trusted at the highest levels and he’s also taken part in delicate diplomatic missions for the Church. His businesses range from construction to steel, including oil exploration, etc., etc. He owns a big block of COCSA.

  “And he’s an interesting man. Single, attractive, fifty-seven years old, serious. Never makes any show of the money or power he has. He’s never seen at jet-set parties, never been known to have a girlfriend.”

  “Gay?” Sofia asked.

  “No, apparently not, but boy, does he walk the straight and narrow. It’s as though he’s taken a vow of chastity, although he doesn’t belong to Opus Dei or any other lay order that would indicate a particularly religious bent. His hobby is archaeology—he’s financed excavations in Israel, Egypt, and Turkey, and he himself has actually worked at the digs in Israel a couple of seasons.”

  “It doesn’t sound like Signor D’Alaqua jumps out as a prime suspect,” Sofia commented wryly.

  “No, but he’s quite a figure,” Minerva insisted. “As is Professor Bolard. These guys are heavyweights. See, boss, this professor is a renowned French chemist, one of the most famous investigators associated with the shroud. He’s been studying it for over thirty-five years, doing tests on it, probing every aspect imaginable. Every three or four months he comes to Turin; he’s one of the main scientists the Church has entrusted with the conservation of the shroud. They don’t take a step without consulting him.”

  “Right,” added Giuseppe. “Before moving the shroud to the bank, Padre Yves spoke with Bolard, who gave very precise instructions as to how the transfer was to be done. Years ago a small room was constructed for it, literally inside the bank vault, and it was built to the specifications of Bolard and other scholars.”

  “Okay, well, so Bolard,” Minerva continued, “is the owner of a big chemical company. He’s single and rich as Croesus, just like D’Alaqua, and has never been known to have a romance either.”

  “So…do D’Alaqua and Bolard know each other?” Marco asked.

  “Not that I’ve found, although I’m still working on that. Of course, there’d be nothing strange if they did—Bolard also has a passion for the ancient world, and they’re both involved with the Vatican. They travel in the same circles.”

  “What have you found out about our Padre Yves?” Marco asked her.

  “Quite a guy, this priest of ours. Very sharp cookie. He’s French, his family belongs to the old aristocracy, lots of influence in high places. His father, no longer with us, was a diplomat and one of the bigwigs in the Foreign Ministry under de Gaulle. Yves’s older brother is a delegate to the French National Assembly, not to mention that he’s held several posts in the Chirac administration. His sister is a justice of the French Supreme Court, and he himself has had a meteoric career in the Church. The person who’s most directly helped that career is Monsignor Aubry, the assistant to the Vatican Under-Secretary of State, but Cardinal Paul Visier, keeper of the Vatican finances, also looks with favor on our Yves—he was Yves’s older brother’s roommate at university. So he’s gotten one promotion after another, done his time in the diplomatic service. He’s held posts at the nunciatures in Brussels, Bonn, Mexico City, and Panama. He was placed as secretary to the cardinal here at Turin specifically on the recommendation of Monsignor Aubry, and it’s rumored that he’ll soon be made auxiliary bishop in the diocese. There’s nothing special in his biography except for the fact that he’s totally devoted to the priesthood, with an influential family that supports his clerical career. His academic record is not so shabby either. In addition to theology, he’s studied philosophy, he has a degree in ancient languages—the dead ones, Latin, Aramaic, and so on—and he speaks a number of living languages fluently.

  “The only peculiar thing about him—for a priest, anyway—is that he likes martial arts. Apparently as a child he was kind of a ninety-seven-pound weakling, so to keep him from being hammered on all the time, his father decided he needed to learn karate. He took to it, and besides having his black belt with who knows how many notches or whatever in it, he’s also a master at tae kwon do, kickboxing, and aikido. The martial arts seem to be his only indulgence, but considering the other predilections one runs across in the Vatican, this one is nothing. Oh, and despite how good-looking he is—I’m judging by the photographs—he’s never been known to stray from his vows of chastity, with girls or boys. Nothing, absolutely celibate.”

  “What else have we got?” Marco asked without aiming the question at anyone in particular.

  “We’ve got squat, boss,” Giuseppe said. “We’re still at square one. No leads and, what’s worse, no motive. We’ll look into the door being forced if you think it could be a plant to throw us off, but then where the hell do they get in and out? We’ve gone over the cathedral with a fine-tooth comb, and I can promise you there are no secret doors or passages. The cardinal laughed when we asked him about that possibility. He assured us that the cathedral has nothing like that. And I think he’s right—we’ve looked at the maps of the tunnels that run under big parts of the city, and in that area there aren’t any. In fact, Turin makes a lot of money taking tourists into the tunnels and giving them the history of its hero, Pietro Micca, and there’s no hint of anything under the cathedral.”

  “The motive is the shroud,” Marco insisted. “They’re looking for the shroud. I’m still not sure whether they want to steal it or destroy it, but the objective is the shroud, that I’m sure of. Okay, any suggestions?”

  There followed an uneasy silence. Sofia looked over at Pietro, but Pietro, head down, was busying himself lighting a cigarette, so she decided to just dive in.

  “Marco, I’d turn the mute loose.”

  Everyone stared at her.

  Sofia plunged on. “I mean, if you’re right, Marco, and this is an organized, long-term effort to go after the shroud, then it’s clear that this mutilation is part of their M.O.—they send tongueless men in to do the job, so if they’re caught, like this guy in the Turin jail, they can keep silent, cut themselves off, not be tempted to communicate. And not only tongueless, right? Their fingerprints are burned off, so there’s no way to discover who they are, where they come from. And in my opinion, Marco, threatening this guy is not going to get you anywhere. He let somebody cut out his tongue and burn off his fingerprints—do you think you scare him? So there’s no way he’s going to look at your card and say, ‘Hmm, maybe I’ll just have a chat with this cop.’ He’ll serve out his time—a year is all he’s got left.

  “We can do one of two things: wait a year, or try to convince the big boys upstairs to approve a new line of investigation—turn the guy loose, and once he’s on the street put a tail on him. He’ll have to go somewhere, get in touch with somebody.

  “It’s a thread that might lead us through this knot, get us into the conspiracy—our own Trojan horse. If you decide to go that route, though, there’re a lot of preparations that have to be made first. We can’t turn him loose right away; we’d have to wait I’d say at least a couple of months and even then do a lot of acting so he doesn’t suspect why we’ve let him go.”

  “God, we’ve been idiots,” Marco said after a long moment. Then he slammed his fist down on the table. “How could we have been so stupid! Us, the carabinieri, ev
erybody. We had the solution right in front of us, and we’ve spent the last two years with our heads up our asses.”

  Marco’s next words dispelled any final doubts Sofia had about her thinking.

  “Sofia, you’re dead right. It’s what we should have done from the beginning. I’ll talk to the ministers and explain it to them—we need to get them to talk to the judges, the prosecutor, whoever, but get them to let him out, and from there we start an operation to follow him, every step he takes. No one can argue seriously anymore that this is random. And I’ll make sure that no one wants to be on the wrong side of securing the shroud for good. It’s time—well past time—to get to the bottom of what’s been going on. And end it.”

  “Boss,” Pietro interrupted, “we shouldn’t rush into this. Let’s think first about how to sell the mute guy the idea that we’re turning him loose. Two months, as Sofia suggests, doesn’t seem like enough time, considering that you just talked to him and told him he was going to rot in jail. If we turn him loose now, he’ll know it’s a trap and he won’t move.”

  Minerva shifted uncomfortably in her chair, while Giuseppe looked distracted and Antonino stared into space. They knew that Marco expected to hear from each of them.

  “Antonino, why haven’t you said anything?” Marco asked the team’s other art historian.

  “Honestly, boss, I think Sofia’s plan is brilliant. I think we ought to do it, but I agree with Pietro that we can’t turn the guy loose too soon; I’m almost inclined to let him serve out the year he’s got left.”

  “And meanwhile what? Sit back and wait for the next group to try something?” Marco almost shouted.

  “The shroud,” Antonino replied, “is in its own vault at the bank, and it can stay there for the next year. It won’t be the first time it’s spent that long without being exhibited to the public.”

  “He’s right,” Minerva broke in, “and you know it. I mean, I agree that it’s hard to have to sit and wait, but if we don’t, we could lose the only lead we’ve got.”

  “Giuseppe?”

  “I hate to wait, boss,” the cop answered. “But I think we have to.”

  “I don’t want to wait,” Marco said emphatically. “Not a year.”

  “Well, it’s the most sensible thing to do,” Giuseppe argued.

  “I’d do more.”

  All eyes turned back to Sofia. Marco raised his eyebrows and extended his hands, inviting her to go on.

  “In my opinion we need to go back to the workers and interrogate them again, until we’re absolutely certain that the short circuit was really an accident. We also need to investigate COCSA, which means interviewing D’Alaqua too. Behind that impressive facade there could be something we’ve missed.”

  Pietro glared at her. He was the one who’d interrogated the workers, and he’d done so exhaustively. He had a file on every one of them, the Italians as well as the immigrants, and he’d found nothing on them in either the police computers, the files of Europol, or the background checks he’d done. They were clean.

  “You think we need to have another go at them because they’re foreigners?” he snapped.

  Sofia rounded on him. “You know that’s not it, and I resent the implication, Pietro. I said exactly what I think; I think we should go back and investigate them all again, Italians and foreigners both, and if you pushed me I’d say the cardinal too.”

  “We’ll all go over what we’ve done so far, and we won’t close off any line of investigation,” Marco interjected, to cut off their escalating debate.

  Pietro squirmed angrily in his seat. “What is this, we’re going to make everybody a suspect?”

  Marco didn’t like his tone. “We’re going to continue our investigation,” he repeated. “But I’m going back to Rome now. I want to talk to the ministers; we need to get their green light on the Trojan horse plan. I’ll try to come up with some way to turn the mute loose sooner rather than later, without him suspecting that something’s up. I want two or three of you to stay here for a few more days. The others will go back with me, but I want it clear that everyone is still on the case. Work it into whatever you’ve already got on deck. Okay, then—who’s staying?”

  “I will,” said Sofia.

  “Me too,” said Giuseppe and Antonino simultaneously.

  “I think,” remarked Minerva, “that I’ll be more useful with my computers back in Rome.”

  “All right. Minerva and Pietro will go with me. I think there’s a plane at three.”

  Sofia and Pietro sat in silence. Marco had left to stop by the office of the chief of the Turin carabinieri before he went to the airport, while Minerva, Giuseppe, and Antonino had decided to go down to the bar on the corner for coffee, to give the couple some privacy. Everyone had noticed the tension between them. She busied herself with papers, while he stared out the window.

  “Are you angry?” Sofia finally asked.

  “No. You don’t have to tell me everything you’re thinking.”

  “Come on, Pietro, I know when you’re upset.”

  “I don’t feel like arguing about it. You came up with a half-baked plan that I could have helped you with if you had talked to me about it. But you talked Marco into it, so that’s a gold star for you. And now we’ll all work to make sure your Trojan horse works. Don’t brood about it, or we’ll wind up in a stupid fight that won’t get us anywhere except pissed.”

  “Is your problem with the plan that it came from me? Or do you really see weak spots?”

  “It’s a mistake to turn the mute guy loose. He’ll figure out that something’s not right and he won’t lead us anywhere. We’ll probably wind up losing him. As for investigating the workers again, go right ahead. Let me know if you find anything.”

  Sofia didn’t bother to respond. She was glad he was going back to Rome. If he stayed, they’d wind up really fighting, and neither of them needed that, especially right now. Not to mention that the work would suffer, and although the shroud wasn’t an obsession with her like it was with Marco, she was challenged and intrigued by the case and looked forward to solving it. And she had a feeling that the Trojan horse might just lead to that solution.

  Yes, the best thing was for Pietro to go back to Rome; a few days would pass and everything would go back to normal. They’d kiss and make up….

  THE MAN RAISED THE TRAPDOOR AND TURNED THE beam of his flashlight into the darkness of the subterranean chamber. Three haggard faces stared up at him. He clambered down the rough-hewn ladder, suppressing a slight shudder. He was eager for the unspeaking ones to be on their way, but he also knew that any rash move could land them all in prison and, worse, add to the shame of yet another failure, guaranteeing Addaio’s eternal contempt—even, perhaps, his order for their excommunication.

  “The investigators from Rome have left. Today they had their last meeting with the cardinal, and their chief, Valoni, has had a long meeting with Padre Yves. I am hearing that the carabinieri have concluded that our dead comrade was working alone and have pretty much wrapped up their efforts. So I think that it is safe for you to begin to make the journey home. As Addaio instructed, each of you will follow a different escape route.”

  The oldest of the unspeaking ones, a man in his mid-thirties who appeared to be their leader, nodded as he wrote a note on a piece of paper.

  Are you sure there is no danger?

  “As sure as I can be. Do you need anything?”

  The man wrote again. We need baths, shaving equipment. We can’t leave here like this. Bring us more water, a tub to wash ourselves in. And what about the trucks?

  “You leave first. Between midnight and one tonight, I will come down to get you, and I will take you through the tunnel to the cemetery. From there, you will make your way to the Merci di Vanchiglia station, on the other side of the piazza. A truck will be waiting there, but it will wait no more than five minutes.” He handed the man a piece of paper with a number written on it. “This is the license-plate number. It will take you to Gen
oa. There you will embark as a sailor on the Stella di Mare, and in a week you will be home.”

  The leader nodded again. Through all this, his two comrades had sat expectantly. They were younger, hardly into their twenties, one tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, with black hair cut in a short military style, the other shorter, lanker, and not as muscled, with brown hair and a face twisted with tension.

  Their contact then turned to the black-haired young man.

  “Your truck will come to pick you up tomorrow between one and two in the morning. You and I, again, will follow the tunnel to the cemetery. When you come out on the street, turn to the left, toward the river; the truck will be waiting for you. You will cross the border into Switzerland and from there make your way to Germany. Someone will be waiting for you in Berlin; you know the address of those who will see that you get home.”

  The last of the three was looking fixedly at their emissary, who suddenly was frightened by the rage he saw in the young man’s eyes.

  “You will be the last to leave. You must remain here for two more days. The truck will pick you up at one or two, as before, and you will be taken directly home. I will have more details when I come for you. Good luck to you all. I’ll be back with the things you need.”

  The leader grabbed his arm and signed that he had another question, which he wrote out quickly on the piece of paper.

  “Mendib?” the go-between responded. “He is in prison, as you know. He behaved like a madman; he would not wait for his brothers to arrive but went into the cathedral alone and reached the chapel. I do not know what he did there, but he must have tripped the alarm. He was caught as he was running from the cathedral. There is no more to tell. I have orders from Addaio not to take any risks, so I cannot help him. None of us can.

  “Now, follow instructions and you’ll all be fine—there should not be any problems. No one knows about this cellar or about this tunnel. Take care to keep it that way. There are dozens of these tunnels crisscrossing under the city, but not all are known. It would be a disaster if they ever find this one—the beginning of the end for all of us and our sacred mission.”