“And?” Domenika asked.
“I can state unequivocally that there are no such irregularities. I could find no flaw or distortion whatsoever in the presentation of the major limbs, the size of the image’s head, his hands, fingers, hips, shins—every aspect of the subject, every wound is in exact proportion to natural human characteristics and causes.”
“The what?” Domenika asked.
“The subject,” Bondurant said. He paused for emphasis on the word as he tried to avoid her image on the monitor. “The subject was indeed severely beaten. There are wounds present in the feet, hands, face, and forehead. Swelling under one eye is prevalent, and large shocks of hair appear to have been ripped from the scalp. The blood-flow pattern from the hands, feet, and thorax are all in forensic agreement with a body following the torture of crucifixion. It’s all there in my report.”
Domenika broke into a broad smile.
“Okay, then,” Bondurant continued, anxious to get to the troubling part. “I am not sure how many of you have had the chance to review Dr. Sehgal’s work, which was completed just a few days ago—that of the DNA analysis on the blood sample extracted from the image itself. Next to the carbon dating analysis, I don’t know of another piece of evidence that has the potential to shine greater light on the subject. Dr. Sehgal?”
“Thank you, Jon. It’s a pleasure to weigh in,” Sehgal said. “I know that I own really only one piece, albeit an important piece, of a larger puzzle here. I am reminded of that as I listen to the extraordinary findings of my distinguished colleagues on the call today. But the DNA analysis we ran on the single blood sample provided leads me to conclude that while the preponderance of evidence you have gathered apparently implies the artifact is of ancient origin from biblical times, it is indeed an ancient fake.”
Bondurant watched as Domenika got up from her chair, folded her arms, and began to shake her head in disbelief.
O’Neil was the first to speak up. “Ravi, I have not yet had the chance to read your conclusions,” he said. “What evidence do you have to suggest this?”
“Put simply, Dr. O’Neil,” Sehgal stated flatly, “the sample we pulled from the Shroud, similar to the sample provided to you, is indeed blood. Of that there is no doubt. We converted the heme, the red blood cells present, into its parent porphyrin, bilirubin, and albumin. Microchemical tests for blood-related proteins were all positive. The iron oxide detected is a natural residue of hemoglobin. So it’s blood, all right. But it’s blood of animal origin.”
Dr. Montrose jumped in. “What do you mean, animal origin?” she asked. She was incredulous. “You were not any more specific than that in your report.”
“We’ve made a determination on that now. It’s a goat. The blood on the famous Shroud is that of a goat,” Sehgal stated in an emotionless tone.
“A goat?” Domenika cried out. “If you believe the Holy Shroud of our Savior covered the carcass of a goat instead of our Lord, then you are insane, Doctor!”
“As I said at the outset of this call,” Bondurant interrupted, trying to calm Domenika and prevent her from further insulting a Nobel Prize–winning biologist, “science is a messy business. Given all the other evidence, Ravi, when I saw this finding in your report, I have to say, I just couldn’t believe it either.”
“Data is data. Genes are genes, Jon,” Sehgal responded dryly, ignoring Domenika’s insult. “Knowing the importance of the conclusions of this project to a lot of people, we took special care in our analysis. The blood is indeed old, but it is not badly fragmented nor contaminated, relatively speaking. We performed over a dozen runs on the sample and were able to amplify a clean DNA structure without much difficulty. We are one-hundred-percent certain that the blood on that Shroud is a precise match to the DNA of a male goat. Specifically, a goat stemming from the ancient Bezoar breed prevalent in the mountains of Asia Minor and the Middle East.”
“You’re serious, Dr. Sehgal?” Dr. Montrose exclaimed.
“As a heart attack, Doctor,” Sehgal replied. “I cannot speak for your disciplines. And I am by no means an authority on religious relics, Jon. I am sorry to have to report the facts as they are. Ms. Jozef, I know how important this is to you, and I urge you to come here if you’d like to personally review my findings. In fact, I’m sure the Church will demand it. But I am presuming the game has changed. What was once viewed by scientists as a fake from the medieval era is simply a fake from a much earlier time.”
“Ravi,” Bondurant persisted, “are you totally certain?” Bondurant had a lot at stake. Sehgal’s confident conclusion that the Shroud was a fake fit perfectly with the narrative Bondurant had proclaimed publicly for many years, and findings of false relics like this were the norm for him. Bondurant’s famous doubts would be proven right again. But he couldn’t put his finger on why something about the puzzle piece provided by Sehgal seemed hard to believe.
“The evidence is in my report,” Sehgal said. “Disappointing as this will be to many, including me, I am hard-pressed to believe that a human being, and in this case the supposed body of Christ himself, would bleed like a goat as opposed to the Savior he was.”
PART 3
CHAPTER 31
St. Michaels, Maryland
July 2014
Bondurant awoke briefly to the acrid smell of burning rubber. He wearily pulled the woolen blanket back over his head and chalked it up to a bad dream with special effects. It was three a.m., and his only interest was blocking the light from the streetlamp that beamed into his silver Airstream trailer along the banks of the Miles River, just outside St. Michaels.
His quarters were cramped, and he needed sleep. His last forty-eight hours would compete with his worst days on record. It had all begun with a late-night call two days earlier from Steve Rohl, a science reporter for the New York Times. By Rohl’s estimation, he was ten minutes from deadline, and as Bondurant remembered it, he got right to the point.
“Jon Bondurant?”
“Yes?” Bondurant said as he set his third scotch of the evening on his kitchen table. He swatted in vain at a moth that had found its way inside the trailer.
“This is Steve Rohl with the New York Times. I hope I’m not disturbing you. We’re working on a story related to your investigation of the Shroud of Turin. Do you have a moment?”
“Steve, I don’t know how you got my cell number,” Bondurant said, irritated, as he opened his front door to chase out the moth. Neither the insect nor Rohl were welcome visitors at the moment. He descended the two steps toward the “front forty,” the small patch of grass that formed his front lawn. A warm breeze blew from the north, carrying with it the familiar marriage of smells from where salt and fresh water met at the intersection of the Atlantic and the Chesapeake Bay. “But like I’ve told everyone else in the press, my report’s not complete. When it’s final, we’ll be coordinating a release with the Vatican. If you want, I can make sure you’re on the list to get the advisory.”
“Yeah, that would be great. Thanks,” Rohl said. “But the reason I’m calling is that we have obtained a copy of your draft report and we are planning on running a story tonight on your findings.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Bondurant said. He took a seat in one of the plastic lawn chairs on the grass and tried his best not to sound panicked.
“No, Dr. Bondurant, I’m afraid I’m not. I have the document in front of me, and I’m calling to know if you’d like to comment on your report’s conclusion that the Shroud is not an authentic religious relic.”
“There’s no way you have that report, Steve,” Bondurant said. He got up from his chair and began to pace in circles around it.
“What page would you like me quote from, Doctor?”
“Page three,” Bondurant said, calling his bluff.
“Page three. Executive Summary. Paragraph four. ‘Notwithstanding the radiocarbon tests dating the artifact to the first century AD, the presence of goat’s blood obtained from material sampling of an area o
n the relic previously purported to be human blood casts grave doubt on the oft-cited theory that the object served as a burial cloth of a man known as Jesus Christ.’ ”
Bondurant stopped in his tracks, dumbfounded.
“Would you care to comment on that conclusion, Dr. Bondurant? I presume you wrote it.”
“Would you care to tell me who leaked the draft report to you?” Bondurant demanded, trying to regain his composure.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’m on deadline and have just a few minutes. We would really like to get your comment on this story before we run with it, given it’s your report.”
“It’s just a stupid draft report, Steve!” Bondurant yelled. He grabbed his lawn chair and flung it toward the river twenty yards away. It cleared the picnic table at the edge of the precipice and sailed toward the river ten feet below.
“Doctor, I know you don’t want me to quote you on that.”
Try bribing him, Bondurant thought in desperation.
“What I’m asking you—actually begging you, Steve—is to hold off on filing your story until our report is final and the Vatican has had a chance to digest it and respond. It’s possible there will be changes in our findings, and it would be a real problem for you to report at this point. I’ll give you an exclusive interview when we release if that’s what it takes.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Are you sure you don’t want to comment?”
“Hold on.” Bondurant paused to think for a moment. His eyes focused on the thin trail of light from the moon that had begun to stretch its way across the river toward him. He knew his quote would be seen around the world. “You ready?” Bondurant asked.
“Yes, go right ahead.”
“Okay, Here it is. ‘Domenika, I’m sorry.’ ”
“Excuse me, Doctor?”
“Forget it, Steve. Never mind. Have a nice day.”
Bondurant ended the call by throwing his cell phone over the bank and into the river, just where his lawn chair had met the same fate seconds before.
Bondurant went inside and stood vigil by his computer for twenty minutes until Rohl’s story appeared. He was certain it was the longest twenty minutes of his life. The headline read:
HOLY SHROUD OF TURIN HOLY NO MORE;
VENERATED RELIC DEEMED A FAKE
Huge trouble, Bondurant thought.
He was torn. He’d found himself starting to believe it was real, even wanting to believe it. And sure, he’d had his doubts about Sehgal’s motives along the way, but given the evidence he’d presented to the team, he couldn’t disagree with the conclusion. Sehgal was the world’s leading authority on the subject of DNA. If you believed what he presented so compellingly in his findings, which Bondurant reluctantly did, it was a slam-dunk to call the Shroud a fake. But nobody, absolutely nobody, was ready for the headline, and this was definitely not the way the Church wanted any news to break.
A media explosion followed. Within an hour, major wire services around the world followed the Times and began to report that modern science had ended the decades-long debate: the Shroud of Turin was in fact an ancient hoax.
Within two hours, almost every major television news organization from CNN to Al Jazeera reported that the mystery of the Shroud of Turin had been solved: the Catholic Church’s most precious relic was a fraud, likely the work of an ancient artist looking for notoriety in his time.
Within five hours, the Vatican, caught flat-footed by the leak, released a statement that expressed its outrage at the unauthorized release of the report. It condemned the report’s findings as inaccurate and incomplete and pledged the release of its own report at a time of its choosing, one that would include previously undisclosed historical material that would refute Bondurant’s conclusions.
Within twelve hours, media outlets from around the world that sought comment from Bondurant had launched their news vans toward the tiny town of St. Michaels, which had sprouted satellite dishes like massive mushrooms overnight.
Within fifteen hours, Bondurant had reluctantly bought a new cell phone to replace the one he’d tossed. And of all the calls to receive first, he got the one he dreaded most. As soon as he set foot outside the electronics store in a tiny strip mall a short walk from his place, his phone began to ring.
“Jon, you are a traitor!” Domenika’s ear-piercing voice was unmistakable as she cried into the phone. She sobbed uncontrollably. “I don’t know why we trusted you to work with us. I don’t know why I ever trusted you.”
“Domenika, you have to let me explain,” Bondurant said. “Please believe me, this is the last thing I wanted. Someone on the team—I don’t know who—must have leaked the draft report. I had nothing to do with it.”
He was panicked. There was no way he was going to salvage anything from their fledgling relationship through a long-distance call. He knew that everything he said would only sound defensive and complicit. And yet he was desperate to convince her of his innocence. “I swear on my life I am telling the truth,” he said.
“Would you swear on your job?” Domenika asked. She was angrier than he had ever heard her before. “Would you swear on your career?”
“Of course I would, Domenika.”
“Great. At least you still have one. Mine’s finished. I’ve been fired, Jon. By the cardinal himself. This whole thing has completely blown up in the Vatican’s face, and they are furious.”
“Domenika, I’m so sorry. It’s completely ridiculous for them to blame you.”
“I warned them about you,” she said, near hysteria. “I did. But they insisted this ridiculous study was the way to go, even when we have solid evidence to refute Sehgal and your report. Oh, they can’t say I didn’t warn them.”
“Warn them? What do you mean ‘warn them’?”
“Never mind. Never mind,” she said. Her voice began to trail off. “Are you satisfied? I suppose you got from this exactly what you’ve wanted all along.”
“Domenika,” he said in desperation. “What I’ve wanted all along is you.”
It was too late. She had hung up and was gone before he could get the words out.
Within twenty-four hours, he had received a certified letter from the offices of Wilson and O’Brien, attorneys at law in Washington, DC, representing the Holy See in Rome. The letter stated that Bondurant was
“in breach of his agreement to share with the Church all findings and all documents related to his investigation prior to public release as well as Clause 32 requiring coordination with the Vatican of all public announcements related thereto.”
It demanded the immediate forfeiture of all material gathered by his team during the course of its investigation.
Within thirty hours, the hate mail, some with death threats, began to find its way through to the Enlightenment Institute’s Twitter and e-mail accounts. The messages started as a trickle, then came in torrents, ending only when the center’s servers broke down, hacked in apparent retaliation for his findings. After he had spent over forty straight hours at his offices and sorted through the mess, he had retreated to his trailer on the Miles River, where he could get away from the noise and would hopefully be left alone.
That evening, the second time he awoke from a deep sleep in his trailer, twenty more minutes had passed. He was really hot, and soaked with sweat. What he had earlier drowsily dismissed as smoke was in reality an actual inferno about to transform his entire trailer into a funeral pyre.
Bondurant bolted upright out of bed. The tires under his Airstream must have melted in flames, because the trailer had collapsed into a twenty-degree tilt. He reached for the wall near his bed to steady himself and nearly burned his hand on the glowing hot aluminum window frame beside him. Flames five feet high licked the outside of the trailer and set the interior of the space aglow, bright red and orange.
He estimated the temperature inside the trailer at over 125 degrees, and it was sure to get hotter. Shoeless, the soles of his feet began to burn. While flames had not y
et breached the inside of the cabin, smoke had begun to billow inward through cracks in the floor. He was certain asphyxiation was his biggest threat. He needed air. The nearest window in his bedroom, cracked from one end to the other due to the heat, was too narrow for his shoulders to fit through and was hopeless as an exit. He also knew that breaking it for precious oxygen would only create a massive, fiery backdraft and certain death. He felt the hairs on his arms begin to singe, grabbed a blanket from his bed, and covered his body as best he could. He worked his way in the dark by memory through the thick smoke on his hands and knees. The path took him from his bedroom in the back of the trailer toward the lone door on the opposite end that led to the outside. Unfortunately, the closer he got to the trailer’s only door, the greater the intensity of the fire.
The front door handle glowed red hot. He couldn’t touch it. It didn’t matter. His only chance for escape was to burst through the doorway at full speed and clear the flames, which had started to envelop the roof of the trailer as well. Paint had begun to bubble on the ceiling above him, and he knew his time was almost up. In one great thrust, he threw all his weight against the door. But when he slammed his shoulder against it, his body recoiled backward like an outfielder who’d hit a centerfield wall. The door hadn’t budged an inch. Twice more he gave it everything he had, but it was no use. It must have melted in place.
Now it’s time to panic, he thought. He figured he had less than a minute before incineration. He hoped it would happen fast. He dropped to his knees once again, covered by his smoldering blanket, and crawled his way back toward his bedroom. He turned left just before he reached it and squirmed his way into the tiny bathroom. He closed the door to try to block the smoke. He crawled into the small shower stall and fumbled in the darkness for the handle. But instead of a stream of welcome relief, only the cruel sound of hot, hissing air escaped the shower head. The water pump had obviously succumbed to the flames. I should have known that, he thought. I’m not thinking clearly.
The Shroud Conspiracy Page 22
