The Shroud Key (11 page)

“In my left jacket pocket,” he says, “you will find my identification. My country and myself have nothing to hide.”

I dig for it, pull out the wallet, flick it open. There’s a laminated ID in the place where a photograph of a loved one might go. The man’s photograph is included in the ID, along with his name: Lee Einhorn, Senior Archaeologist, Israeli Antiquities Authority.

One more look out the window. Two policemen have arrived. They are drawing their weapons while directing the onlookers to move away.

“What you’re doing is not only illegal,” Einhorn spits, “it is very dangerous. You have no idea the firestorm you will unleash upon the world should you uncover the bones of Christ. You will upset a delicate balance that has existed for thousands of years. Legions of people have already died believing in Christ as divine. Now, if you make him human, even more will die defending his humanity or lamenting what will be only a future of blackness. Don’t you see? I must stop you as others surely will attempt.”

Another glance at the glass. I know the cops are about to board the train.

“Not if I can help it, Einhorn,” I say, tossing his ID back at him. “The world is going to blow itself to hell no matter what I dig up. Always been that way and always will be.” I can’t help but feel myself smiling. “’Sides, there’s a lot of money at stake.”

I hear the sound of footsteps bounding the three metal steps up into the car.

I pocket my weapon. Sliding out of the seat, I turn and head straight for the exit as the policemen make the ninety degree turn into the car’s interior.

“In there officer,” I say, pulling down on the satchel strap. “Thank God almighty you are here.”

The police brush past me and burst into the car. I take the stairs down to the platform, my eyes seeking out Anya. She’s standing behind the crowd of onlookers at the area where the platform connects with the main station.

I make my way towards her, never looking back.

Not even once.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“You okay?” I ask, as I take hold of her arm.

“I’m a nun,” she says. “Suffering is my life.”

I take a look up at the giant electronic Departures/Arrivals billboard mounted to the station’s polished stone interior. The Turin train has arrived at Platform 2 and is now boarding.

“Shit,” I say. “Damn train is scheduled to depart at 7:05pm.” I shoot a glance at my wrist watch. “That’s one minute ago.”

“We’ll have to wait for the next one,” Anya says.

“Let’s go,” I say, taking hold of her hand.

“The platform is all the way on the other side of the station, Chase. We’ll never make it.”

“Run sister run!”

We make our way through the throngs of travelers and commuters going in and out of Milan station. Mixed in with the people are the many polizia who have arrived to investigate the man who pulled a gun on some unsuspecting Roman Catholic clergy on the incoming arrival from Florence. We move on in the direction of the number 2 platform, our shoulders slamming into the shoulders and arms of the people who move too slow, or who come at us in the opposite direction. I know that under normal circumstances people would be yelling at us, swearing, shoving us back, if not for our divine costumes.

I spot the platform.

“The train is leaving,” Anya huffs.

“We’ll make it,” I insist, pulling her arm even harder.

We round the corner onto the platform as the train strains to begin its forward movement out of the station.

“Come on!” I shout. “Come! On!”

The doors on the first car have yet to be closed all the way. Reaching out, I manage to get a handhold on it while jumping up onto the landing platform.

“I can’t make it!” Anya screams, her hand still gripped in mine as she runs, keeping pace with train. “You go. I will meet you!”

“No,” I insist. “Someone will get to you. The police or the gunman.”

I yank on her arm as the train picks up speed. I feel her losing her balance, her footing. I feel myself losing her entirely. Only one choice: Bracing myself I yank her up and onto the platform, the both of us collapsing onto the metal steps. I take my foot away and the door closes. The both of us lie there, looking at one another. We look into one another’s eyes. I kiss her then. Rather, she kisses me, our tongues moving in and out of one another’s mouth, our beating hearts pressed together. When we come up for air, we smile. It’s a crazy scene. Absurd even. A nun and a priest kissing one another on the steps of a speeding train car.

“We’d better get up before we get caught,” Anya says.

“Amen to that,” I say, watching her lift herself up and gather her black bag.

I stand, straighten out my satchel on my shoulder, and together we go in search of our seating assignments. In one half-hour’s time, we will arrive in Turin. With the help of God or fate, the shroud key will be revealed.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

We arrive in Turin on schedule.

It’s dark out now. Foggy. The fog laps the curved cobbled roads like a gray/black tongue while the inverted arcs of sodium lamp light spewing forth from the black, metal street fixtures create an eerie misty glow. As we make our way on foot away from the train station towards the cathedral, I can’t help but feel the dark silence that seems to drape this place like the shroud it houses. To say it feels different here is an understatement of Biblical proportions. Pun intended. This is a holy place if ever there was one. It radiates with an electric spirit, the memory of a soul that shook the world two thousand years ago and continues to shake it today.

Already we can make out the towering spires of the Cathedral. As we approach it, I keep wide eyes out for a secure hiding place for my 9mm and the revolver I stripped from the IAA gunman on the train. I locate one in the form of a dumpster. A blue, heavy-duty plastic box set beside a second identical box. One for paper, the other for glass and metals. Reaching into my black leather coat, I unclasp the shoulder holster, pull it off. Bending at the knees, I set the holster and the gun it carries onto the dumpster’s undercarriage. Then I set the revolver beside it. Standing, I button my coat.

“The truth about Jesus,” I say to myself more than Anya. “It resides inside that old church.”

We stand before the great stone cathedral. But instead of climbing the stairs to its heavy wood doors, we make our way around a perimeter surrounded by an iron fence until we come to a guard shack and the two armed guards who protect it.

“This is it,” I whisper under my breath. “Don’t say anything you don’t need to say.”

“You’re the expert, Ren Man,” Anya whispers. “It’s what I’m paying you for.”

“Good evening,” I say standing before the first guard. He’s taller than me, slimmer, younger. Meaner looking too.

“Buono sera,” he utters, but I’m not so sure he means it.

I smile, even if it’s the last thing I feel like doing on earth.

“Please,” I say. “Our Italian is not so good. I am Father John Crews and this is my associate Sister Rosaire de Maria. We are here to see the shroud.”

The guard turns to gaze over his shoulder at the shorter, but meatier second guard.

Then, turning back to me.

“Do you have an appointment at this late hour? No one sees the shroud without a special appointment.”

“But of course,” I say reaching into the interior pocket of my leather coat, producing the forged documentation. “Natalia is expecting us.”

The guard gazes down at the documentation. In Italian, he asks the second guard if he knows anything about our arrival. The second guard shakes his head.

“Wait here,” orders the first guard.

We do as he says.

He steps into the guard shack, picks up a phone receiver, presses it to his ear. He speaks something into the phone all the while keeping a careful eye on us through the glass wall, as if the burly second guard watching over us with his automatic weapon isn’t enough.

After a few weighted seconds, the first guard hangs the phone up, steps out of the shack.

“Let them pass,” he directs the second guard.

The electronic operated gate opens, and as Anya and I step on through, a woman emerges from out of the dark mist. She’s coming towards us at a light jog.

“Father Crews!” she bellows. “Sister Rosaire de Maria! How wonderful that you have made it here safely.”

She’s the tall blond that Checco described for me. The same woman I recognize by the many multi-media text photos he’s sent my way detailing their recent love affair. She’s taller than the both of us and voluptuously built, like so many Russian women. Especially Moscovites. While eyeing the guards, she takes Anya by the hand like they are intimate friends.

“That will be all for now gentlemen,” she says, in her Russian accented English. Then, leading us up towards the rectory. “Come, come … You must be hungry and tired. Let’s rest a bit and eat something before you see the shroud.”

We walk until out of earshot of the guards. That’s when Natalia changes her tone.

“I’m not sure what your mission here is,” she says, her mood suddenly unfeeling and direct, “and why it’s so important that you must come here tonight and upset everything. But I owe Checco a special favor. This will be the favor.”

We face a solid metal door that’s operated by a key-code and a retinal scanner. Looking up, I can see just one of what, no doubt, are many wall-mounted security cameras that are eyeing both Anya and I in real-time. I try not to look directly into it.

Natalia positions her right eye before the retinal scanner so that it’s able to pick up her ID in a quick flash of ultraviolent light. Stepping back, the door unbolts. The Russian woman pushes it open, steps inside.

“Follow me,” she insists.

Unlike the exterior of this Cathedral which is hundreds of years old, she leads us down a corridor that is constructed of concrete, steel, and glass. Illuminating it are ceiling-mounted sodium lamps. The walls, ceilings and floor are painted white so that it gives off the feel of heaven. That is, if heaven turns out to be part house of God, part reinforced concrete bunker. I had always been under the impression that a team of Franciscan monks had been assigned by the Vatican to watch over the shroud. Thus far anyway, I have yet to see a single monk.

Natalia leads us down the length of the corridor to a hallway that’s situated perpendicular to it. We hook a right and follow her for a few feet more until we come to another solid metal door. This one belonging to an office.

Like Natalia was required to do for entry into the sacristy, she punches in a key-code on the wall-mounted device and once more scans her right eye. When the door unlocks she holds it open for us, asks us to enter into the room before her.

We do it.

If the corridor looks and feels like an underground bunker, this room definitely serves as the war room. A high-tech room you might find in the basement of the White House. The walls are black, the lighting canned and dim. The far wall supports a row of large LCD monitors that not only portray every possible angle of the shroud, but every conceivable pathway to it. The monitors not focused on the shroud, are focused instead on the cathedral’s exterior. There’s even a satellite image of the rooftop. A uniformed guard sits in a leather-backed swivel chair. He’s obviously in charge of controlling the monitors.

“This is our operations center,” Natalia begins to explain. “As you can plainly see, there is no possible way for anyone to get near the shroud without being spotted. The cathedral is armed with only the tightest security, and despite our holy mission, they do maintain an order of shoot-to-kill and ask questions later. Am I understood?”