It was another “Bondurant Moment.” Some had suggested his random lapses into oblivion were the classic sign of an absentminded professor. His huge intellect did have a way of crowding out the trivial in favor of more important things, but that was only partly to blame. Other people were less charitable about it and believed his bouts of solitude could be traced to heavy drinking.
But for the few who had known him since boyhood, his eventual success, like his oblivious moments, came as no surprise. With an IQ of 165, he ranked near the “highest genius” category. Raised in Baltimore just across the street from a Catholic church and within sight of a dilapidated horse track, he had grown up as one of two sons of Big Jack Bondurant, a gregarious alcoholic, professional gambler, and absent single parent all in one. He was routinely left alone with his younger brother, three years his junior. They were usually left to fend for themselves without a clue as to their father’s whereabouts. Bondurant had home-schooled himself and his sibling in their neglected apartment from the age of ten. He applied for and received a full academic scholarship to Stanford at the age of sixteen. His adoring brother and only “schoolmate” had met a different fate.
“With every blessing comes a curse,” his father used to say. Sure enough, he was right. It was only as an adult that he would come to understand it all. He had found his younger brother, then ten and tiny and his only friend, hanging by the neck from the coat rack of their bedroom closet. He could remember his father’s shouting and all the crying and the funeral too. He remembered the visits of the priests from across the road. All of it had been a blur.
As he grew older, certain functions of Bondurant’s brain became so dominant that they allowed him to concentrate on a level few could ever reach. His ability to focus on detail, coupled with obsessive interest in whatever subject caught his eye, made him a quiet, intellectual phenomenon. He drifted in his self-studies toward a half-dozen diverse academic disciplines, from anatomy to history to anthropology, but given little guidance, he settled on none. He immersed himself in them all, which years later propelled him to the top of his field in ancient forensic anthropology.
He was often socially dysfunctional, and he knew it. Relating to others had seemed like a waste of time, as the child genius had regularly found his thoughts more important than the people around him. Eventually, he’d become strangely paralyzed by an acute shyness, particularly around his father’s procession of lady friends, who came and went as they pleased. The more they doted on the handsome but reclusive boy, trying to coax him out of his shell, the more his symptoms flared.
A social worker dragged him to a child psychologist, who diagnosed the problem as “gender selective mutism,” saying it stemmed from the complete absence of a mother or more permanent female figure in his life. He had never known his mother and had gotten along fine without her, Bondurant recalled telling the psychologist. At fourteen, he dressed the doctor down, telling him he was clueless, citing chapter and verse from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. If there really was something wrong with him, it was not to be found in any of the several manuals he had read.
But there was no letting people get close or letting them in. He never went there. As he grew older, finished his studies, and entered his profession, his unnatural shyness toward others, including women, subsided some. He felt less awkward around them. And, like his father, he discovered over time that they served a useful purpose, staving off the incessant loneliness he often came to feel. While he sometimes suffered unpredictable bouts of severe withdrawal as an adult, his episodes would come and go. When they came, they were devastating. It was normal for an adolescent to appear extremely shy. Most found it endearing. But as a grown man, a sudden or unexpected fit of acute shyness or detachment in public situations would come off as odd or downright rude.
He had to admit it was probably the strange emptiness he felt inside that had led to his undoing as a professor at Princeton. It was strictly forbidden for faculty to have relationships with their students, which was fine by him. While he craved companionship to fight the loneliness he often felt at night, he was no fan of relationships. Relations, yes. Relationships, no. He had discreetly enjoyed the late-night company of a long line of pretty, smart coeds who, unfortunately, didn’t differentiate between the two words the same way he did.
In his last year at the university, he underestimated the wrath of one coed in particular, a twenty-two-year-old senior enrolled in his anthropology course whom he had slept with once. She was stunned to receive a near-failing grade on her midterm. He thought nothing of giving her the D he knew she deserved, but she was furious and threatened to take her grievance to her father. Bondurant, nonplussed, told her she was free to do so. Parents, even alumni, had no pull with grades, he informed her. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize she was the daughter of Dean Thomas Armstrong, the head of his department, who was not amused. Bondurant later described the contentious encounter with the dean and his daughter to a colleague as “acts of submission.” Before the meeting was over, she had admitted to her father that she’d slept with Bondurant, and Bondurant had submitted his resignation.
Despite the dean’s efforts to keep the matter quiet, the campus and local newspaper splashed Bondurant’s resignation all over the front page and cited the reason. Like all good scandals, the story zipped around academic circles, which resulted in the catastrophic gutting of his prestigious reputation and professional academic career. Left with no choice, he struck out on his own. He headed south for Maryland, bought a Victorian farmhouse in disrepair on the edge of town in rural St. Michaels, pulled together a handful of some of the most promising graduate students he could find, and formed the Enlightenment Institute: a nonprofit organization named after the famous movement of the eighteenth century that favored human reasoning over blind faith and religious doctrine. Its mission was the promotion of science in the tackling of religious and historical mystery.
While Bondurant’s academic career path had been ruined, his reputation as a leading forensic anthropologist able to solve mysteries in the realm of historical discovery was not. The array of projects he and his young team took on during the first several years of the Institute’s operations was exciting, enough to keep a mystery writer busy for years. And for Bondurant, it did. For every vexing historical question his Institute took on, he had agreements that allowed him to write companion books detailing his work. His articles for National Geographic quickly caught the attention of the biggest publishing houses in New York, which produced one book deal after another. His books, perennially on the New York Times bestseller list, had made him a well-known author and lecturer.
His first book, Still Missing, delved into the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, the famous aviatrix who was lost at sea during her attempted round-the-world flight in 1937. Hers was one of the last great unsolved mysteries, and several competing theories as to her fate and final resting place had circulated for years. One particularly well-known exploration outfit—ISOA (In Search of Amelia)—had made repeated journeys to the tiny island of Nikumaroro, some 2,100 miles south of Hawaii and directly in line with her planned flight path from New Guinea to Howland Island, where she was to refuel. Convinced the evidence led to a likely crash landing of her plane on a reef at the tip of Nikumaroro, ISOA’s attempts to prove the theory were relentless. After ten excursions over several years to the remote area of the island in the South Pacific and an investment of $5 million, ISOA had discovered a handful of promising items, including the heel of a woman’s shoe, a compact, and buttons and a zipper from a flight jacket, all of which appeared to be from the Earhart era.
News organizations became increasingly doubtful of ISOA’s theory when further evidence ceased to accumulate, but the group’s eleventh expedition produced a jackpot—or so they believed. They returned to the United States with great fanfare and the “undeniable” evidence in hand. They staged a press conference in Washington, DC, that
proclaimed the discovery of three bone fragments thought to be from the finger of a female of “northern European origin.”
The Smithsonian Institution, skeptical of the findings, received permission from ISOA to examine the bones and promptly hired Bondurant. It took his team at the Institute and the Molecular Anthropology Laboratories at Oxford three weeks to resolve the case. With excitement and anticipation building, Bondurant was asked by ISOA whether it would be appropriate to fly Earhart’s great-niece to Washington, DC, for a press conference confirming the extraordinary discovery. It was the niece’s DNA Bondurant had used to compare to the bone fragments ISOA discovered.
“Not unless she stems from a long line of sea turtles,” Bondurant replied. “The mystery remains.”
His second book, Children of the Czar, dealt with the Enlightenment Institute’s intensive examination for National Geographic of the remains in graves discovered outside the city of Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2007. The stakes for the organization and its magazine were high as they prepared to publish a cover story making the remarkable claim that Czar Nicholas’s daughter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, long thought to be dead, was actually alive and living comfortably in a nursing home in, of all places, Cleveland, Ohio. The czar, the last monarch of imperial Russia; his wife, Alexandra; and their children were thought to have been murdered in a basement in Yekaterinburg by Bolsheviks during the revolution in 1918. Rumors had endured for years that one or more of the czar’s children, including Prince Alexei and the Grand Duchesses Maria and Anastasia, might have escaped the assassins’ bullets. Previous excavations in the nondescript Russian countryside had turned up incontrovertible evidence of the bones of the czar, his wife, and an undetermined number of children.
Bondurant, convinced the collection of burned remains he had been shown was indeed incomplete, traveled to Russia to investigate further. Within forty yards of the original sites he found another makeshift grave, this one containing an additional forty-four bones never before discovered. He meticulously matched the newly discovered bones with photographs of the children and, using fragments of DNA from a bloodstained shirt of their father’s that had been preserved in Russia for over a century, the team Bondurant assembled saved National Geographic immeasurable grief. Only a day before the magazine’s cover story was scheduled to go to print, Bondurant had been able to convincingly conclude that all the czar’s children, including the youngest, Anastasia, were shot and brutally stabbed almost a century before.
Bondurant’s most recent book, The Boy King, dealt with the most extensive and historically important postmortem of the famous Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, better known as King Tut. Previous examinations of the mummy had led many to believe that King Tut had met with a terrible accident or had been the victim of murder at the age of eighteen or nineteen. The evidence supporting this stemmed from a hole found in the back of his head, thought to be the result of a blow from a fall or blunt instrument. Bondurant, having studied volumes of material on King Tut, had his doubts. There were clues to another culprit Bondurant had in mind, a source more benign than murder. In the opportunity of a lifetime, Bondurant was asked to lead a team of scientists to whom the Egyptians gave unlimited access to determine the true cause of King Tut’s death.
From previous DNA studies that had revealed the presence of parasites, Bondurant had been convinced King Tut had been the victim of chronic malaria throughout his youth. But it was not until he was able to examine the remains of King Tut himself that he was able to put multiple sets of evidence together and deduce the truth. Given obvious signs of bone disease and a resultant fracture of King Tut’s leg, the team determined a bout of malaria had likely severely weakened his immune system to the point that a severe infection had taken his life. The source of the hole in the back of his head was obvious, Bondurant felt. It was too perfectly formed to be the result of a fall or a murderous instrument. Rather, it was evidence of the technique sometimes used by ancient embalmers to reach the brain and liquefy it in preparation for mummification. His contribution had solidified the scientific community’s opinion of him as first-rate.
Now, Bondurant had just signed an agreement that called for him to embark on his next discovery, one such as he had never thought possible. Setting down his glass of scotch, he reached for a pad of paper and scribbled for the first time the title of his next book: False Shroud.
CHAPTER 7
Alitalia Flight 643
June 2014
It was dark enough in the first-class cabin for Bondurant to doze, but he couldn’t fall asleep. The sleeping pill he had chased with scotch had obviously not worked. Too much on his mind, he thought. Alitalia Flight 643, bound for Milan, had less than five hours of flight time remaining before it landed. Add to that the two-hour train ride to Turin and the loss of six hours for time zone changes from Baltimore, and it was going to be a long day. He envied the peacefully dozing passengers in their comfortable sweat suits in the seats around him. Why was such an easy escape always so difficult for him?
An attractive flight attendant with long legs and brown hair noticed he was the sole passenger still awake and leaned over from behind him. She gently grasped his forearm.
“Can I get you another Macallan, Dr. Bondurant?” she asked softly. Startled at her touch, he shifted quickly in his seat and stared forward silently for a moment before responding.
“Dr. Bondurant?” she asked.
“I’m fine. Just fine, thank you,” he said.
He pulled a letter from his dossier and squinted to read it in the darkness. He had read it several times before and had almost committed it to memory. He was still amazed that after two months of tense negotiations, an agreement with the Church had actually been reached. The letter, embossed with the Vatican’s seal in gold leaf at the top, was to the point:
Dear Dr. Bondurant:
It is with great satisfaction that I enclose the countersigned agreement setting forth the protocols the research team you have agreed to assemble will use to examine the Shroud of Turin. As you know, while the Catholic Church has officially neither accepted nor rejected the authenticity of the relic as venerated by the faithful over many centuries, the Holy Father believes that further and comprehensive investigation by responsible scientists is warranted to address the mystery. As was stated by his predecessor, the Blessed John Paul II, in 1998: “Since it is not a matter of faith, the Church has no specific competence to pronounce on these questions. She entrusts to scientists the task of continuing to investigate, so that satisfactory answers may be found to the questions connected with this Sheet.” The Church’s position remains unchanged.
Per our agreement, all of the necessary arrangements have been made to place the relic at your team’s disposal at the agreed-upon laboratories in Turin, Italy, for a two-week period commencing June 7, 2014, and ending no later than June 21, 2014, subject to the appropriate oversight and safeguarding of the artifact during this period by the Church officials assigned. Given the breadth of advanced scientific techniques and equipment at your team’s ready that were not in existence during previous examinations of the relic, we are hopeful that this research effort as called for in the agreement, and under your leadership, will produce a definitive and credible conclusion to what has been a lengthy debate.
Upon your arrival in Turin, please contact Ms. Jozef, the Church’s official administrator for this examination, at the address provided on the attached. She will make all the necessary arrangements to ensure your research efforts and requests are promptly considered as you proceed.
In Christ’s Name,
Giovanni Orsini
President
Pontifical Academy of Sciences
A letter from heaven, Bondurant mused. But who was Ms. Jozef? He was certain he had heard the name before but couldn’t place it. He was positive she had not been involved in the endless conference calls with Vatican officials over the past few weeks. The last thing he felt he needed was the Church injecting someone new in
to the picture, some potentially bothersome handler just as they were going to finally get down to business.
It didn’t matter. He had thirty-eight pages of signed protocols for study of the Shroud. They were more permissive than any previous investigation of the relic in history. So permissive that he wondered if this investigation was the Vatican’s attempt to surrender to science after all these years. Before he left for Turin, he had debated with several of his colleagues at the Institute and with his publisher whether Pope Augustine himself had determined the relic was an albatross from the past, that it was time for the Church to step into the twenty-first century with a new approach of openness to scientific scrutiny. That was his theory. How else could one justify the Church’s willingness to allow such an invasive examination of its most holy relic?
And what explained the Vatican’s willingness to choose him, of all people? He was known as a high-profile, vocal skeptic of the relic’s authenticity. He had found himself the target of criticism from the Catholic Church at religious conferences and in opinion pieces written for Christian periodicals. He had even received what some would describe as hate mail from leading Evangelicals because of his outspoken views. At a conference in Brussels the previous year, he had appeared on a panel to debate the theory of intelligent design and had been shouted off the stage. Allowing him full access to the Catholic Church’s holiest relic was like handing him the keys to the kingdom. He felt that if the pope wanted to drive a stake into the heart of the Shroud’s authenticity, he had picked no surer way to do it. However, Bondurant wondered whether there wasn’t something amiss. It was all just too easy. He wondered what the Vatican knew that he didn’t. If they somehow had credible evidence that the Shroud of Turin was no medieval fake—and there was a one-in-a-million chance of that—Bondurant knew his entire career would be called into question, and he would have some soul searching and a lot of explaining to do.
The Shroud Conspiracy Page 6
