Indisputable Proof

by Gary Williams

  “No, Señor Tolen. The Sudarium is only put on display three times a year. The last time the chest was opened was on Good Friday.”

  “It’s not periodically inventoried?”

  “No, there is no need. The contents remain inside.”

  Tolen leaned forward and peered at the decorative chest. “Is the chest locked?”

  “No, but the iron gate is kept closed and locked at all times.”

  Tolen knelt down and examined the keyhole. There were scratch marks where someone had clumsily picked the lock. “Who has the key to this door?” Tolen asked.

  “I have a key in my office, and the local police have one. They confirmed after the crime that they still have their copy of the key, as do I.”

  “Do you keep your office locked?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does anyone besides you have a key to your office?”

  “Yes, the poor guard, Javier Diaz, did.”

  Tolen thought for a moment. “Where was his body found?”

  “On the floor behind the chest. Father Carletta, who discovered Javier with that halberd buried in his chest, hasn’t been the same since.”

  Tolen looked deep into the man’s eyes. “Archbishop Gustavo, surely you are aware of the violence which will erupt tomorrow if the Sudarium is not returned in time. Is there any way to forestall the festivities, even if for only a few hours to buy us more time to locate it? Could a substitute be used in place of the Sudarium?” Tolen knew what he was suggesting equated to blasphemy. No matter how small the chance, he had to try.

  The Archbishop’s gaze turned icy. He spoke sternly. “The Feast of the Cross will proceed as it always has. God will be with us. Everything we do is part of His plan.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Thank you for your time, Archbishop Gustavo,” Tolen said, shaking the man’s hand. “I can see myself out.”

  The Archbishop wore an expression of surprise as if to say, is that all you needed to see?

  Tolen left the Cámara Santa, passed through the main sanctuary, and left the building. He stepped out into the grassy courtyard where he was greeted by a mild wind and comfortable temperature. The sun was beaming into his face, and he placed his sunglasses on.

  He walked to his rental car parked in the side lot, now armed with information which had turned his investigation in a new direction.

  CHAPTER 40

  September 13. Thursday – 2:57 p.m. Oviedo, Spain

  Tolen contacted Bar and requested a residential address, which she provided. He found the single-story villa situated at the end of Calle Cristiana, a quiet street on the edge of Oviedo. The residence was secluded, at least a hundred yards away from the nearest dwelling; a house situated far from the road on a wooded lot.

  It was the home of Javier Diaz.

  Tolen no longer believed Javier Diaz was an unsuspecting victim of a malicious, premeditated murder and theft. He now had evidence suggesting the man might have been part of the theft and, most likely, had been double-crossed somewhere in the process. Unfortunately, Boyd Ramsey’s attendance at Simon Anat’s gathering suggested that the ex-CIA analyst was, indeed, deeply involved. Tolen theorized that Ramsey and Javier Diaz had formed an alliance intent on winning Simon Anat’s $30 billion reward. Ramsey must have somehow believed the Sudarium held the key to satisfying the proof Anat sought. The fact that the Virginia lab tech, with whom Ramsey had been in contact, had thread samples of the Sudarium on August 24th meant they had access to the Sudarium at least a week prior to its known theft. To compound matters, there was still the mystery of how Jade factored into all this.

  Tolen pulled into the long, gravel driveway after confirming the address on the mailbox. The yard was overgrown, but the exterior of the house was well kept. Tolen parked, left his coat in the car, and approached the front stoop. He was not sure what he was looking for, but similar to Aaron Conin’s apartment, which had not been thoroughly searched since it was believed his murder had taken place on the street, Javier Diaz’s house had been left out of the investigation since the homicide occurred in the church. With any luck, he might uncover some telltale evidence to help solve this ever-twisting riddle.

  Using a compact tool kit he pulled from his pocket, Tolen picked the front door lock and entered the house. The stagnant air inside was warm. The decor was quaint, not particularly color coordinated, nor had it been dusted in a while. Sports and automotive magazines were heaped on an end table. Typical bachelor’s house, Tolen thought.

  He made his way into the kitchen. Dirty dishes were stacked in the sink where the sour smell of rancid food rose from the drain. There was a stain on the counter which appeared to be the result of a spill from tomato-based pasta sauce of some sort.

  He passed through, into a dining room with a small round table and two chairs. A filing cabinet was on the left. It was unlocked, and he opened it. The first two drawers were empty. The bottom drawer contained folders in complete disarray; turned and twisted, some ripped off the metal runners. Papers were scattered everywhere. Tolen spent the next fifteen minutes sifting through them. It was all personal information: bank statements, receipts, car titles, insurance cards, etc. Tolen assembled the monthly bank statements from the last four years. The only one missing was the statement for the month of June two years ago.

  Tolen drifted into the master bedroom. The bed was unmade; the adjoined master bathroom cluttered with toiletry items. He thumbed through the junk mail on the bureau and found nothing of interest.

  He checked a second, then a third bedroom with the same results. Whatever secrets Javier was hiding, he had left no evidence behind. Or perhaps someone had already purged the place, as evidenced by the file folders being scrambled and disorganized.

  He moved into the living room and den before he returned to the kitchen. He checked inside the refrigerator. Only a scant amount of food was tucked into the small freezer above the main storage unit. He meticulously went through each cupboard, yet still nothing of substance turned up.

  Tolen eyed a pantry door across the way. He looked at it momentarily, then strolled over and turned the handle expecting to see a shallow recess containing shelves of food.

  Instead, when he swung the door open he saw gaping darkness.

  Thin wooden stair steps led down into a basement. Tolen looked around on the wall near the door, inside and out, for a light switch. He found none. He retrieved a pen light from his pocket and turned it on, aiming the small shaft of light down into the abyss. Eight feet below, the beam landed on a solid cement floor. He carefully negotiated the steps, holding onto a rickety wooden side rail. The air became damp and cooler as he descended. A rank, earthen smell pervaded.

  He arrived at the base and found a hanging string. After a single tug, an exposed light bulb on the ceiling flickered on. Tolen turned his pen light off and returned it to his pocket.

  The enclosure was small; no larger than the kitchen above. The walls were unfinished, revealing uncovered wall struts and electrical wiring. The bare cement floor was uneven and rough. The only object in the room was a white freezer at the far end. He headed over to it.

  The chest freezer was a large, rectangular unit. He could hear a low whir of a motor that signified it was turned on and working. There was a smear of red at the lip where the gasket sealed the lid to the main body. Tolen flashed back to the pasta stain on the kitchen counter above. A disquieting thought ran through his mind: What if the two stains were something other than spilled food?

  Tolen leaned forward to examine the red fluid, which had long ago dried. He stood upright and removed a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and put them on. After wrapping his fingers under the edge of the lid, he pulled up. With a pop, the lid broke free of the cold-air seal.

  A light came on inside, illuminating the assortment of frozen
foods. Like the filing cabinet, the contents were strewn about haphazardly. Boxes of vegetables, bags of poultry, bread and food of every ilk packed the freezer nearly to the brim. Chilly air lifted to Tolen’s face. Steam left his mouth with each exhale.

  It was only after several seconds of examining the contents that Tolen saw it.

  An icy human head was wedged in the back left corner, facing him. The frosted face resembled an alabaster statue. The eyes were closed; the nose holes plugged with crystallization. The thin, off-colored lips had mutated into nothing more than a frozen horizontal cut in the lower half of the face. The cheeks were pressed out, locked in a bizarre position as if food was stuffed in both sides.

  Even in this grisly state, Tolen recognized the face. It was Boyd Ramsey.

  Damn.

  With his gloved hands, he reached forward and pulled some of the frozen items away. It had first appeared the head was severed, floating atop the frozen goods, but it had only been an illusion. As he drew back the stiff bags and cold boxes, he saw the man’s taut neck led down to clothed shoulders and chest. His body was intact, which was not much consolation.

  He spotted Ramsey’s left hand sticking up between two bags of frozen carrots. As he had morbidly expected, the ring finger had been severed at the first joint.

  Tolen looked back at the permafrost face. Just below the neckline, Ramsey was clad in a dark, bulky shirt of some sort. He gently dug the food away. Strangely, a red light began to flash across the man’s chest where he could now see a harness and vest had been secured. The flash speed escalated until it was nearly a steady red light.

  Tolen’s blood went cold. He recognized it in an instant: he had primed an explosive.

  He willed himself not to panic. He had to find the source and disarm it quickly.

  Tolen looked at the underside of the lid, expecting to see a wire connection which had armed the device when he raised it. Oddly, there was none, but he did see a thin insulated wire running from inside the freezer and curving over the back edge. From there, it dove behind the freezer and out of sight.

  It appeared that opening the freezer was not what had armed the device, but Tolen was unsure exactly what had. Holding his feet in place, he looked down. He was surprised to find he was standing on a paper-thin, white rubber mat which blended almost seamlessly into the cement floor. He squatted, ensuring his feet remained in place. He spotted the tiny insulated wire again. It originated from underneath the freezer and slipped beneath the mat where he stood. Stepping on the mat had armed it. He was also certain it would detonate if he stepped off the mat. Weight-trip detonators were activated when weight was applied and then detonated when some percentage of the original weight—usually 20%—was removed.

  His only chance was to displace his body weight with another object. He looked about in the empty room struggling to discard morbid thoughts of what would be left of him if the device went off.

  Now he knew why the basement was barren. Whoever had set this trap had considered the countermove.

  He had to come up with another plan. As gruesome as the thought was, he considered pulling Boyd Ramsey’s body from the freezer and placing it on the mat, but that would surely entail removing the harness with the explosives, and he was reasonably sure doing so would trip the detonator.

  Tolen pulled out his cell phone to call for help. Then he hesitated. If someone was smart enough to establish an arming device underneath a mat (and remove potential weight displacements from the room), they were smart enough to engage relay tracking of cell phone transmission signals as a secondary form of detonation. Hitting the send button would have the same effect as stepping off the mat. He deposited the phone back in his pocket feeling more and more defeated.

  His father’s words rang in his ears: Defeat only grabs you by your feet and yanks you under water when you invite it to do so. Always tell defeat to hold its place at the muddy bottom while you enjoy success swimming across the surface.

  An idea struck him. He could use the weight of the freezer.

  But there were inherent risks in doing so. If the sensor underneath the mat was complex, it might complicate the parameters for detonation. For example, if additional weight is added, it may re-establish this new combined weight as the top mark, and a 20% decline in this weight would detonate the explosive. So if he was able to lift the freezer and get a corner of it on the mat, once he stepped off, chances were it would still detonate. The positive side of such a scenario was that such a more complex trigger would have a lag time in order to re-establish a top weight and assess the 20% drop. That lag time could be a few seconds.

  Would that be enough time to get up the stairs and clear of the basement?

  Another problem was lifting the corner of the freezer onto the mat. With the freezer full of food and a corpse, there was no question it would be immensely heavy. If, once he raised it, he was not able to move it over onto the mat quickly and set it back down, the loss in weight would spell his doom. For him to be successful, he had to lift it, move it onto the mat, and drop it down in one motion, then sprint up the stairs. There would be no second chance.

  It was a glum predicament, yet it appeared to be his only option. Time was running out, and he had to take action. Beads of perspiration sprouted across his forehead.

  He looked up at the top of the stairs. Light was coming through from the kitchen where he had left the basement door open. At least he had that going for him.

  Tolen closed the lid. He knelt down and reached underneath the freezer. The bottom edge was sharp. It was going to be painful. He steadied his resolve and took a deep breath, knowing it might be one of his last.

  ****

  Maria Sanchez had just returned home on Calle Cristiana, navigating up the long, dirt driveway. She had been out buying groceries and exited the vehicle carrying an armload of bags. Alimerka had a sale on vegetables, and she had taken full advantage of it, practically filling her front and back seat. Now she was tasked with getting them into the house and put away. She awkwardly readjusted her purse onto her shoulder, struggling to hold the numerous bags. Content she had everything under control, she headed to the front door, realizing with chagrin she had already placed her keys back in her purse.

  Just as Maria reached the porch, a tremendous explosion rocked the afternoon silence, violently shaking the air. She jumped, uttered a slight scream, and dropped everything she was holding. To the left, a monstrous fireball appeared over the trees, swirling red and yellow, and then mushroomed out as the awful sound reverberated in the distance. The repercussion left her ears ringing.

  It took her a moment to gather her wits. The only thing in that direction was Javier Diaz’s house.

  She shook herself from her daze and found her purse several feet away. She fished out her cell phone, spilling most of the contents of her purse, and dialed 112 for Emergency Services.

  CHAPTER 41

  September 13. Thursday – 4:14 p.m. Isle of Patmos, Greece

  Jade was pacing about the hotel room relentlessly.

  “Why don’t you have a seat?” Diaz said from the table. He kept his head down looking at the hotel guide on top of the desk.

  She swept across the room, moving from wall to wall, not bothering to respond. There was something about the rolled parchment clue which nagged at her…something familiar. God, lion, desert…the words swirled in her mind.

  This was a clue she felt certain Dr. Cherrigan, with his biblical archaeological background, could have solved, and it made her miss him that much more.

  She involuntarily sucked in a breath and felt her chest shudder. Suddenly, she knew why the clue rang familiar. Everything came together as a memory from the past replayed. She looked at Diaz. “I’ve solved it! I know where the last jar and the cache are located!”

  A firm series of knocks on the hotel room do
or startled her.

  Diaz looked up at Jade, his finger pressed to his lips to silence her. He gently laid the guide book on the table and withdrew his pistol while silently motioning her to the bathroom.

  There was another series of hard knocks.

  Jade slipped into the bathroom and closed the door, leaving it slightly cracked so she could see out.

  Diaz went to the door, staying to the left side. “Who is it?” he called.

  No response.

  Jade felt a chill.

  Diaz looked at Jade and raised the Beretta 9mm. He slowly moved his free hand across the door and grabbed the door handle silently.

  Jade had a very bad feeling.

  He glanced back at her one last time. With a quick twist of the knob, he yanked the door inward.

  ****

  Tolen watched from a sitting position in a nearby copse of trees as the rescue vehicles arrived. His ears were ringing, his body was battered, and his clothes were torn in several places. He had been successful in lifting the freezer onto the trigger mat and, as he hoped, when the unit recalculated the additional weight after he stepped off, it bought him several seconds to flee. He had just enough time to traverse the basement stairs and reach the kitchen before the charge on Boyd Ramsey’s corpse detonated. He was propelled through the window into the yard where debris rained down upon him. Groggily, Tolen had dragged himself away from the burning building and into the sanctity of the woods.

  Javier Diaz’s house was now engulfed in fire. The flames shot high in the air, sending black smoke billowing upward into the blue Spanish sky. Firefighters had converged on the scene and were hurrying about setting up hoses and waterlines from a mobile tanker.

  Tolen looked at the palms of his hands. There were bloody cut lines across each where the sharp underside of the freezer had bitten into the skin. He flexed his hands in pain. After a few minutes, he rose, gathered his wits, and moved farther into the woods to avoid being seen. A loud static noise indicated the emergency crews were now fully engaged, armed with flowing water hoses, their concentration focused on containing the blaze. It would be some time before they had the fire under control. Even then, the house would be destroyed, as would any remains of Boyd Ramsey not already disintegrated by the explosion.