The Shroud

by Harold Robbins

  I understood his point. “A cloth with an imprint of Jesus on it would be the most precious object on earth to Christians, more valuable than all the gold and other treasures of a king.”

  “Yes, exactly. More valuable than the treasures of a king. And Edessa was not a safe place for such a valuable relic because the city had long been the crossroads of conquerors and warring nations. To openly display the Image would have invited attacking armies to the gates of the city. Thus it was placed in a gold box that was concealed above the main gate of the city, in the belief that secreting it in this manner would protect the city gate while not attracting the envy of foreign potentates.

  “Besides the fear of invaders, there was another reason to continue to hide the Image. To protect it from destruction by those who opposed the rise of Christianity. When one religion conquered another, it was common for the conquerors to wipe out all remnants of the religion they were replacing.”

  “Is it still in the city wall?”

  “Not for many centuries now. Edessa had become a battleground among Christians, Muslims, and Persians. The Christians who had secreted the Image in the city wall took it out and sent it to the great city on the Bosporus. That occurred more than ten centuries ago … but there are those who still come to my city to inquire about the Image.”

  “Is that what you think happened to the Image? That it was taken to Constantinople?”

  “What you are really asking me is whether Urfa is still hiding and protecting the Image as we had for so many centuries. No, that is a certainty. There are many historical records documenting the fact that the Image was sent to Constantinople because it was believed that Edessa was too small and weak to protect the Image. Constantinople was the center of Eastern Christianity. It was the center of a powerful empire. To send it there was to preserve it.”

  “When was it sent there?”

  “During the tenth century.”

  “A thousand, eleven hundred years ago,” I said.

  He smiled and stroked his beard. “A rather cold trail for one to be following.”

  That was an understatement.

  “Do you know where the Image is today?” I asked.

  “I am afraid my personal research ended decades ago and that brought me only up to the tenth century, to the city we now call Istanbul. Have you been there?”

  I nodded. “Years ago. And it looks like it will be my next stop.”

  He glanced at a clock. “You will have to excuse me, I have another matter I must attend to.”

  I was being dismissed. I stared into Ismet’s eyes, dark pools of mystery that revealed nothing.

  I went out like a lamb, but I had an aching suspicion that something wasn’t right. Our conversation left me feeling … unsettled. As if he knew something important and wasn’t telling me. I had that “waiting for the other shoe to drop” feeling when my instincts are screaming that there’s a surprise waiting down the line. With Lipton involved, it was sure to be an unpleasant one.

  Professor Ismet walked me across the cool, sweet-smelling courtyard to the wooden gate, where he dropped a bombshell.

  “So strange … centuries have passed while the Image rested in peace and now such interest.”

  “So I’m not the only one who has asked you about it?”

  “No. The other person came a week ago. He told me he was British.”

  I wondered if it had been Lipton, but I didn’t want to use his name. “An older man? White hair? Goatee?”

  “Younger. Not British.”

  “But you said he was—”

  He shook his head. “That is what he said, but as I mentioned, I have lived in Britain. The man was not British. European, yes. Probably Eastern European. Perhaps Russian, Ukrainian, Chechen, that part of the world.”

  “How often do you get inquiries about the Image?”

  “Before last week, it had been twenty-two years since anyone but my associates here inquired about the Image.”

  “What did the man look like?”

  Ismet shrugged. “Perhaps your age. Average size. Not too tall, or short. Hair lighter than yours. Deceptive.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He not only lied about being British, but also when he told me he was writing a story for a magazine. I excused myself for a moment and went to my computer and checked the name of the magazine. Nothing came up.” Ismet gave me a sly smile. “He saw me as an old man who never took his head out of books. He didn’t realize old scholars can probe the knowledge of the millenniums online.”

  “Did he contact you directly or was his visit arranged by someone else?”

  “Last week the man simply showed up here at my home and asked about the Image. This week I was asked by an art dealer here in the city to speak to you about it.” He gave me a look. “Why is there suddenly such an interest in a holy relic that has laid buried for an eon?”

  I didn’t have an answer I could share. However, I had a candidate for the British imposter.

  Yuri Karskoff. FSB, KGB, ABC, or whatever the initials were of the organization that he belonged to.

  22

  “Not British” buzzed in my head as I went back down the narrow alley.

  What if it wasn’t Yuri?

  Why would the person claim a nationality that he wasn’t?

  The obvious reason had to be that he didn’t want his own ethnic background exposed, not realizing that the elderly scholar had attended a university in England.

  What if Lipton had sent someone before me? And that someone was no longer available. Maybe terminally.

  My paranoia started spiking. But it didn’t make sense that Lipton would send someone and have him lie to the scholar about his background. Since Lipton had arranged my meeting with the scholar there was no reason for him to send someone with a phony British accent.

  “Eastern Europe” covered a lot of territory, but the one that stood out at the moment was Russia. Whoever the man was, he might be a competitor of Nevsky’s.

  Also mine, since I was after the same prize.

  Eastern European nicely fit Yuri, the Russian mafia, even my tennis buddies.

  Whoever the visitor was, he had a head start of a week. I wondered whether I would be eating his dust for the rest of the quest.

  I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. I should have listened to my instincts and gone back to New York. Hell, I should have listened to my instincts and never left in the first place—mafia or not.

  That nagging feeling about the conversation with the old scholar stayed with me. Something just wasn’t right. Not that Ismet was patently deceptive—he struck me as sincere … up to a point.

  What was wrong was the information. I hadn’t had a chance to do research on the Image but I had to wonder if what Ismet told me was available from other sources—scholarly works, the Internet, even telephone interviews.

  In other words, why was I sent to Urfa to find out something that could have been obtainable from easier sources?

  Maybe I was overreacting.

  As Lipton said, important information might be nothing more than an offhand remark from the person I interviewed. But I couldn’t think of anything Ismet said that made fireworks go off in my head.

  Had I missed something?

  I had the feeling I did.

  I killed some time window-shopping at little shops along the way and got back to the spot where I was supposed to meet Vahid.

  When I came out of the second passageway, Vahid with the Land Cruiser wasn’t there.

  It was Yuri.

  “You’ve been following me.”

  “Of course.”

  Arrogant bastard. “Did you scare off my ride?”

  He shrugged and looked around. “I saw you being dropped off but your driver hasn’t returned. Whatever Lipton paid him apparently wasn’t enough for a round-trip. Which means we can have dinner together. I spotted a café that an adventurer like yourself will enjoy.”

  “What I would enjoy is dinner a
lone.”

  “Why do you go out of your way to offend me? You know you are attracted to me. All women are.”

  Fortunately, he said it with a grin. And he was right—at least the part about me being attracted to him. I hated myself for it. How could I be attracted to someone who was using me as bait to capture murderers or thieves or whatever?

  “Professor Ismet sends his regards,” I said.

  Yuri gave me a puzzled look. I wondered if it was genuine.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your visit to him last week.”

  He nodded and pursed his lips. “Okay … I will play along. Last week I was in Moscow. Unless he came to Moscow…” He shrugged.

  I believed him. Because of his accent. It was thick Eastern European. There was no way he could have affected a British accent without sounding ridiculous.

  We went back to the heart of the bazaar.

  I saw people in their shops eating on newspapers spread out on tables and hoped that wasn’t what he meant by an adventurous meal. Fortunately it wasn’t—he took me to a small café with low tables in which we sat on a mat on the floor.

  I liked the place immediately because I have strange tastes. It was from another era … and so was my soul. When they talk about having an “old soul,” to me it isn’t just being wise beyond your years, but someone who feels comfortable with the past.

  A man sitting on a stool in a corner plucked out folk tunes with a saz, a string instrument that resembled both a lute and a guitar.

  We ate lamb doner kebab over pilaf. The lamb is cooked on a vertical spit and commonly sliced off for sandwiches, but it was delicious with the seasoned rice.

  “Did your meeting go well?” he asked.

  “Let’s just cut to the chase. I spoke to an elderly scholar who told me that an icon of Jesus was once here in Edessa and got sent to Constantinople a thousand years ago. I could have found out that much with a phone call from my apartment. Or a visit to the local library.”

  He nodded as he chewed rice. “Interesting.”

  “Why don’t you clue me in on what you find so interesting?”

  He shrugged. “Why, then, would Lipton send you here to get the information?”

  I had puzzled that out, of course, but I was also involved. It was clever of Yuri to have so quickly come up with the same conclusion.

  “Lipton said I was to listen for subtleties in my conversations with people that I interviewed. The only thing I learned of any interest was someone else had been there before me. A man who claimed he was British but might have been Eastern European. Last time I looked at a map, Russia was in Eastern Europe. If not you, one of your people, perhaps?”

  “Since I only found out today who you would visit, it’s unlikely it was one of our agents. Where is Lipton sending you from here?”

  I saw a face at the window staring into the café.

  Vahid.

  “Excuse me.”

  I got up and went outside. He was gone. So much for my ride, but I preferred a taxi anyway.

  Worse than a missed ride was that Lipton would be told I was meeting with someone. It would spell double-cross to Lipton because that was how he did things himself.

  “Someone you know?”

  “My ride.”

  “I’ll take you back to your hotel.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll just wander around the bazaar awhile.”

  I needed to get rid of him more than I did Vahid because I had the satellite phone on me and was expecting Lipton to call at any moment and ask about my meeting with Ismet.

  Now I would have to come up with a lie about Yuri.

  Without giving Yuri a chance to ask again, I left and walked quickly away from the café, heading toward what I thought would be a main street and, hopefully, taxis.

  A block down to my left, the street was barricaded and people were lined up. I heard music playing and saw the parade as I came up to the corner. Across the street and down another block I could see traffic moving.

  I slipped into the crowd and got to the curb to wait for a chance to cross. Getting myself arrested for running across the street during a parade didn’t seem like a good idea.

  Off to my left I heard a group of tourists being told in English that the celebration was for a victory over Persians an eon ago as men wearing military uniforms of the old Ottoman Empire came marching. The marching men wore costumes of chain mail, wide leather belts and straps, and long, curved swords, and helmets that came to a peak on top.

  I remembered from History 101 that the Ottoman Turks controlled a great empire for seven or eight hundred years, stretching from the Straits of Gibraltar, all along North Africa, what is called the Middle East today, the Balkans, to part of what became the Soviet Union. It collapsed after World War I and the Republic of Turkey rose from the ashes.

  An Ottoman military band appeared next, with its shrill sounds of kettle and double-headed drums, horns, bells, triangles, cymbals, and an oboelike instrument. The traditional military bands had been formed from army units called Janissaries.

  I knew a bit about them because I had once purchased a collection of their uniforms and equipment for a museum. The Janissaries were the sultan’s palace guards, the Turkish version of Rome’s Praetorian Guards.

  Men and women in traditional clothes of the past, reds and yellows and blues, with billowing pants, pointed slippers, vests and headscarves with fanciful designs, came next, holding lines attached to huge floating balloons of a bird, butterfly, and honeybee.

  What must have been the center of the parade came after them because people both laughed and cheered when they saw it: A large, motor-driven parade float of a fierce warrior, wearing a turban and flowing robes. He held a big, curved scimitar-type sword called a kilij by the Ottoman Turks. Slain warriors lay all around him.

  The wide float took up much of the street.

  I suddenly got a distinct sniff of something I’d smelled before as someone at my back gave me a shove that sent me off the curb.

  I stumbled into the street—right in the path of the float.

  I went down, hitting the pavement with knees and elbows.

  Screams erupted behind me as I turned my head and saw a truck-sized wheel rolling at me. I twisted and rolled as the wheel came by me. It brushed my arm and I rolled again, with just enough clearance under the carriage of the float truck to keep from being crushed.

  I froze and stared up in horror, smelling gas and oil as the bottom of the truck slid over me, blocking out the light. As daylight returned two policemen grabbed me and helped me to the curb.

  Questions flew at me in Turkish and I just kept saying, “Sorry, sorry,” until I was able to get away and down the street to a taxi.

  It would be much too difficult and create too much of a bureaucratic nightmare to explain that someone had just tried to murder me.

  23

  When I finally made it back to the hotel, I barricaded myself in my room and ordered up a bottle of wine. I needed a stiff drink, but wine was as potent a drink as my nervous stomach could’ve handled.

  My knees were sore and burning, but it wasn’t serious. I had a tendency to bruise and the discoloration had already started. But my nerves were on fire and so were my anger and paranoia.

  It was no surprise to find an envelope on my bed.

  Lipton’s modus operandi. Be clever and mysterious. Don’t tell me anything until the last minute.

  Inside the envelope was a plane ticket to Istanbul, the city once called Constantinople. Scribbled on the printed itinerary was a single word: Azad.

  I didn’t need an explanation for the name—Azad would be the person meeting me at the airport with a “limo.” And spying on me for Lipton while I was in Istanbul. No doubt be there to shove me under another truck. Or maybe I wouldn’t even make it to the hotel from the airport.

  I held the itinerary in one hand and the silent satellite phone in the other as I sat on the bed. I wasn’t surprised that Lipt
on hadn’t called to ask me about my meeting with the scholar. I suspected he wasn’t going to.

  By now he would know I was still alive, and probably realize I knew he had tried to get me killed—the distinctive whiff I’d gotten just before almost being run over by a truck was Vahid’s garlic breath.

  I couldn’t imagine that the long arm of the Russian mafia reached here.

  Lipton was the only person I could think of who would have told Vahid to kill me. That meant the message was dropped off in my room before I was pushed under a truck.

  Why? It was the question of the day.

  The shove came after Vahid saw me with Yuri. He probably called Lipton and reported what he saw.

  Was being seen with a stranger enough to get me killed?

  Of course, I only assumed that Lipton didn’t know about Yuri. To the contrary, the man seemed to know everything. And Lipton had a great source if he wanted to find out about a Russian government agent—Nevsky.

  Questions chased one another in my head.

  I thought about what Ismet had told me about the Image and wondered again why Lipton had brought me all the way to Dubai and then sent me off on a wild-goose chase to a small town in Turkey—for information he could have easily gotten.

  Why did Yuri show such little interest in my conversation with the scholar?

  And the “British” man who wasn’t British. How did he fit in?

  Nothing was jibing. Everyone was lying to me. The only thing that had rung true since I had gotten on the airplane in New York was some honest sex with a couple of tennis players.

  There were so many tangled webs snarling my arms and legs and wrapping around my throat that I could hardly breathe.

  I picked up the phone and called the concierge’s desk. “If I came down, would you help me with an airline reservation?”

  After a sleepless night, I left the hotel early and took a taxi to the airport.

  I had no intention of using either the flight Lipton had booked or the one I had the concierge arrange.

  It had occurred to me that if Lipton had gained access to my hotel room, he’d probably done it through a hotel employee—someone like the concierge.