“I’m not sure you do, my child,” the priest responded. He paused. “I’ve confirmed that our friend Dr. Bondurant’s younger brother is on the list.”
CHAPTER 18
Turin, Italy
June 2014
Eight days into his investigation, and Bondurant was driving his team to make progress at a breakneck pace. He had no choice. He knew some of the most difficult work lay in the days ahead. After that there would be several weeks of painstaking analysis required of over a hundred scientists in five different laboratories spread from Albuquerque to Tokyo before a report on their findings could be released. He was proud of his team’s effort since the relic had been transferred to the university’s labs a week earlier, but they had fallen behind schedule, and emotions had begun to run high.
And just as Bondurant had expected, it was the pentagonal-swatch removal tests by Dr. Terry O’Neil and his team that had caused the greatest amount of heartburn for Church officials thus far. In fact, a fistfight with the “Vatican Vultures,” as Bondurant had dubbed them, had nearly erupted in the lab over the issue, and he was happy to have those arguments behind them.
There was history behind the confrontation. Previous scientific experiments on the Shroud that dated back to 1988 had involved the permanent removal of a tiny swatch of fabric from the cloth—the size of a match head—for the express purpose of destroying it. Destruction of the sample then was a requirement of carbon dating, as it was also for O’Neil’s present effort, but no other element of study science had to offer would come closer to validating the precise age of the Shroud than O’Neil’s carbon dating work.
Carbon existed in every living thing and was found in hundreds of millions of forms. When living things died, the carbon-14, or C-14, in the organism dissipated at a certain rate over time. Measuring the remaining carbon fraction of a linen sample taken from the Shroud would determine the age of the material. However, as a result, the five swatches the Church had agreed O’Neil’s team could remove from the Shroud would be completely destroyed and never replaced.
O’Neil’s work was critical, because the C-14 tests performed on material from the Shroud twenty-six years earlier by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology had become the subject of intense controversy. Their conclusions had been the subject of widespread dispute. The scientists involved had estimated with 95 percent certainty that the Shroud’s origin was in the Middle Ages, not the time of Jesus, thereby proving it was a fake. What they didn’t know during their study was they had chosen a fabric sample from an area of the Shroud that was in reality a medieval repair patch.
Testing the wrong area of the Shroud’s fabric had been an honest mistake. To avoid it, one needed precise historical documentation of the many repairs made to the fabric over several centuries, knowledge the scientists did not possess at the time. Before the Shroud had been placed on display in Turin, it had been stored in a small chapel in Chambray, the capital of the Savoy region. There it was nearly consumed in a fire in 1532 when molten silver dripped onto the fabric and burned symmetrical diamond-shaped holes through the layers of the folded linen cloth. Nuns had worked feverishly for months, painstakingly patching the damage with the local fabric of their time. Over 160 years later, further repairs were made to these same medieval patches. Two centuries after that, more repairs were sewn into the cloth beyond the patches first made by the Poor Clare nuns in 1532. And as late as 2002, the Vatican had restored the Shroud even further for public exhibition, removing material backing from it, as well as taking off more than two dozen previous patches.
To avoid the C-14 sampling mistakes of the past, O’Neil was left with a difficult task that involved the removal of five tiny fabric swatches from the burial Shroud in a “pentagonal” pattern across the bodily image presented on the cloth. Their selection would be made so as to ensure the ghostlike image was accurately tested while avoiding entirely the numerous medieval patches. Removal of even the tiniest of samples that involved the head and face of the Shroud’s image was strictly off-limits. This left O’Neil to choose sites for the removal of fabric swatches from other critical areas. These spots included an area on the image’s clavicle, just below the neck, as well as two other places in parallel locations on the image’s thoracic and leg areas. The size of the swatches cut from the cloth was to be no larger than three times the size of the head of a pin, or six millimeters in diameter. This way, O’Neil could get a sufficient amount of carbon-bearing material for his tests. In turn, the Church could ensure that the image of the Shroud, while permanently altered, would not visibly suffer.
The melee that had nearly erupted, one that Bondurant had anticipated might occur long before O’Neil’s work had begun, involved the sample retrieval in the thoracic region of the image. O’Neil, Bondurant, and Sehgal had studied this area of the image with great interest, because it was there that the purported blood of Jesus was found to be most prevalent. As the Gospel of John recounted, Christ’s demise from crucifixion was followed by the lancing of his side by a Roman soldier who used his spear to ensure Christ’s death. While Bondurant’s own holographic analysis of the area was still indeterminate as to a precise cause for the wound, a large, brown stain in the abdominal region of the image on the Shroud in this very area strongly implied the presence of blood. The collection of material that contained samples of blood was critical to the investigation because that material was certain to be original to the Shroud, making it suitable for C-14 testing. It was also important to the DNA testing Sehgal would perform to determine the many critical qualities of the blood’s source. Was it indeed blood? Was it human? What was the blood type? And this was not to mention the unprecedented treasure trove of traits to be drawn from Dr. Sehgal’s DNA analysis of the sample itself, including sex, hair and eye color, body measurements, and remarkably specific facial features. Every Vatican official present during O’Neil’s sample taking objected to the removal of any shred of fabric that could contain an ancient droplet of the blood of Jesus Christ. But Bondurant held firm and pointed to the discretion his team was allowed in the protocols that dealt with the pentagonal-swatch scheme. After a late-night, tension-filled call with the Vatican, during which Domenika had stunned Bondurant when she ran some helpful interference, Bondurant and O’Neil were able to ensure that two of the five swatches of cloth gathered from the Shroud contained trace elements of blood. Four of the samples were required for O’Neil’s C-14 testing, and the fifth was destined for Sehgal’s lab in India. Now stored in five separate vials contained in a bulletproof briefcase, the samples never left Bondurant’s side.
In related and less controversial work, Dr. Jean Boudreau had already carefully removed material half the size of a postage stamp from the lower left-hand corner of the linen fabric composing the Shroud. His delicate process involving material removal had been approved by the Vatican in the research protocols agreed to with Bondurant. It was evident before Boudreau had begun his work that frayed fabric exposed exactly the type of twill pattern necessary for him to determine its antiquity and geographic origin. The precise spot chosen for fabric removal by the Vatican was also the requisite twelve inches away from the bodily image presented on the Shroud. While the sample removed was tiny, it required eighteen hours of observation and the kind of delicate incision normally accorded to brain surgery. The extraction complete, Boudreau and his team were already at work in his lab in Paris preparing to examine the tiny linen sample they’d captured through high-powered microscopes.
Also complete was the ticklish work of Dr. Lisa Montrose, which involved the material pigmentation analysis of the ghostlike image on the Shroud. While she needed only microscopic samples of the residue that formed the humanlike shadow on the fabric, her complicated task involved a retrieval of these tiny samples from at least twelve points across the image, all without disturbing the integrity of the likeness itself. The only element of the bodily image off-li
mits to her work was in the area purported to be the face of Jesus. As hard as Bondurant had tried to obtain approval of data sampling from the image’s facial area, the Vatican would not budge. They feared an accident or other mishap might disturb the most important aspect of the miraculous image. Dr. Montrose’s meticulous sample-gathering work lasted for an interminable thirty-six hours under intense oversight by the Vatican’s representatives. Fortunately, her team had harvested the requisite number of particles required by the labs at Duke University. They would soon reach conclusions on the chemical process that had occurred to produce the image on the Shroud.
But they were increasingly behind schedule, and Bondurant had begun to grow impatient.
“Listen, Harry, we have just three hours left to get these images complete before we need to dismantle this rig,” Bondurant pressed. “Lessel needs to be in here at eleven to begin the soil analysis. He’s going to need every bit of this room for his own equipment.”
“Jon, I get it, I get it,” Dr. Harry Sato shot back from his perch near the ceiling twenty feet above. The Shroud was suspended horizontally like a phantom in the darkness below him. The tension in his voice reflected his precariously shaky roost. He sat on top of temporary scaffolding that bristled with customized lights and lenses and that surrounded the Shroud beneath him like a birdcage. His computer-generated images would provide definitive evidence as to whether the image of Jesus on the Shroud was a natural occurrence or something man-made. Unfortunately, he was far behind schedule.
“The lighting has to be perfect, Jon, or all of this will just be a complete waste of time. Just give me a minute to make a few more adjustments,” he said.
With that, he signaled his assistant, who shifted the lens of the main camera, one of a nest of twenty, by another three inches to the left. The image fixed on the monitor needed to fit precisely in line with the crosshairs centered over the face of the Shroud displayed on his screen.
“Jack, move that center spotlight further to the right, and we’ll have it,” Sato said as he motioned quickly to his assistant with his free hand.
“My right or your right, Harry?”
His assistant used a thin, metal guide to carefully push the small, fiercely hot halogen light across the rod affixed to the scaffolding toward Sato.
“No, no, no, Jack. Your other right. Here.”
As soon as Sato leaned across the center beam of the scaffolding to pull the tiny eight-ounce halogen light closer to his perch, disaster struck. The weight he shifted onto the crossbeam stressed the scaffolding’s center pole, and the two-inch hollow steel rod holding the eight hundred pounds of scaffolding collapsed with a sickening metallic snap. Sato, and the trusses that supported all his cameras and spotlights, launched into a free fall and hurtled toward the most revered religious relic known to man.
“Watch out!” Jack yelled as he leaned helplessly from his ladder with one arm and swiped with his other toward Sato to catch him in flight. He missed him by a full foot and watched helplessly as Sato dropped like a rock toward the fragile Shroud.
Bondurant’s heart sank as he watched the collapse of the scaffolding, its wire rigging enveloping Sato on his way downward.
Incredibly, Domenika had chosen this exact moment to return for her nightly inspection. As she swung the lab’s main door open to enter the room and caught sight of the collapse under way, she let out a scream.
As Sato somersaulted toward the holy relic from his perch twenty feet above, he became trapped in a tangle of cables, wires, cameras, and lights, some that were burning hot. Miraculously, the electrical cords that entwined him arrested his fall in a sudden jolt five feet above the center of the Shroud. He stared helplessly down at the image that faced him and let out a moan. Then, in one more violent lurch, he dropped once again toward the Shroud as more wires gave way under his weight. He halted again, suspended less than two feet over the center of the delicate relic.
In all the chaos, one large high-intensity halogen light still under power began to tumble directly toward the Shroud. Sato saw the burning hot fixture as it slithered downward toward the priceless linen like a snake. Were the light to continue inching downward on its course, the Shroud was certain to ignite in a flash from the heat and be lost forever. Sato didn’t hesitate. He reached out and grasped the white-hot light with both his hands, pulled it away from the Shroud, and cried out in agony as it burned through his palms to the bone.
The lab grew eerily quiet as the sickening smell of burned flesh began to waft through the room. Out of instinct, Bondurant dove toward one of the scaffolding’s four corner support posts, squared his shoulder against it, and began to heave forward with all his might.
“Jon, what are you doing?” Jack yelled out. “You’re going to bring the rest of the scaffolding down on the relic!”
Bondurant’s face remained the picture of calm. “Jack, Domenika, listen to me. Get to the other corner post on this end and shove it toward the wall with everything you’ve got.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Domenika cried out. “He’s right. You’ll topple the rest on the Shroud.”
“I mean it, both of you. This is our only chance,” Bondurant shouted.
Jack jumped down from his ladder and, joined by Domenika, began to shove at the bottom of the support post opposite of Bondurant’s, just as he’d said. As they pushed back and forth at the base of the posts, Sato and the nest of equipment he was tangled in began to swing back and forth in an arc like a ball on the end of a string.
“C’mon. This is it. Heave it, heave it, heave it!” Bondurant cried out.
As they dug in together, all three pushed against the steel posts over and over with everything they had. The scaffolding rocked back and forth several times until its supports violently sheared from the bolts that grounded them to the floor and broke free. Suddenly, the entire framework lurched forward until it collapsed like a wounded spider on the laboratory floor, five feet away from the Shroud.
As Bondurant had calculated, Sato and his whole contraption of cameras and lights swung clear of the Shroud by inches during their descent to the floor. Sato let out a moan when he hit the ground and momentarily blacked out. Meanwhile, the Shroud lay before them on the examination table undisturbed and completely intact.
“Domenika,” Bondurant said as he collapsed from exhaustion in the darkened lab. He was certain the climax of his life’s work had come to a disastrous end. “Must this go in your nightly report?”
CHAPTER 19
Mumbai, India
June 2014
Kishan turned the pilfered key in the lock and then slowly swung Ravi’s office door open. In the unlikely event a lab technician or a janitor was still at work somewhere in the building late that night, he would need to stay hidden. It was forbidden for him to be there after hours. His heart was pounding so hard he could hear it beat. He stopped for a moment and stood still to listen. Then he turned to look in every direction before he entered to make sure the nearby offices, each with windows where he would be visible, were completely deserted. Ravi’s large office, silent and darkened since he’d left for Turin, contained a small metal box in the lower right-hand drawer of his desk. It held the money Kishan needed.
He had performed this heist many times before, but carefully enough that he felt the small amounts he had stolen from the company’s petty cash box would not draw attention. Lately, he had stolen enough to know it was possible he could draw some suspicion. He crept his way, catlike, across the office in the dark toward his father’s desk and prayed Ravi had been as careless as usual and left the desk unlocked. That would make things a lot easier. Kishan reached for the handle of the bottom drawer, tugged at it slightly, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief when it began to glide slowly open. Jackpot!
He grabbed the box by its handle and placed it delicately on Ravi’s desk. He unlatched it and squinted in the darkness to see how much cash was inside. He needed only 1,600 rupees, just over twenty dollars, to pay the
mechanic who had repaired his scooter, as well as the usual amount to help his sister, Saanvi, survive. It wasn’t the total amount of cash in the box that was important to Kishan, but rather the size of the bills. Stealing too much would reveal an obvious theft that his father or an accountant might notice, enough to set off a bothersome investigation inside the labs. Taking just what helped him get by as well as helped his sister had worked before, and so far he had avoided an embarrassing manhunt in which he knew he would be among the primary suspects.
He peered into the box, lifted the first few bills up by their corners, and smiled. Right on top were a few fresh one-hundred-rupee notes, and beneath them a large stack of thousands. As he sifted through the money, he began to count out the 1,600 he needed, but stopped midway. He noticed a small piece of paper near the top of the stack. It looked like a note. He strained to read the writing in the dark but determined quickly it was his father’s unusual script, bold but nearly illegible. He pulled the note from the stack of bills and held it up near the light of a small desk clock that glowed in the dark.
“Kishan:”—the note read—“Thou shalt not steal. What you take you must return. I have counted this and am counting on you. Love, Ravi.”
Kishan immediately turned and looked around him in a panic as though his father stood right behind him. He quickly counted out the amount he needed, shoved it into his jacket pocket, and peered into each of the darkened corners of the room. He saw no one, breathed easier, and plopped himself down in his father’s chair behind the desk. He was filled with both rage and embarrassment. He kicked the desk in front of him hard enough that the center drawer, the one that was always locked, popped open slightly. Surprised, he leaned over and pulled the drawer slowly toward him to get a glimpse at the treasure Ravi had kept under lock and key for as long as Kishan could remember. He sifted through its contents and found inside only an unremarkable assortment of pens, paper clips, rubber bands, a few coins, and several notepads. But just as he was about to close the drawer, he noticed something strange: a small red button mounted halfway up the side. It was impossible to resist. He pushed it.
The Shroud Conspiracy Page 14
