The Brotherhood Of The Holy Shroud

29

THE BRIDE WAS RADIANT AS SHE RECEIVED congratulations from her countless relatives. The ballroom was filled to overflowing. It was the perfect cover, thought Addaio.

He had traveled with Bakkalbasi, one of the eight secret bishops of the community, officially a prosperous merchant in Urfa. The wedding of the bishop's niece had allowed the pastor to meet with most of the members of the community in Berlin.

With the seven leaders of the community in Germany and the seven in Italy, he stepped into a discreet alcove off the enormous ballroom, where they all lit up long cigars. One of Bakkalbasi's nephews kept watch near them so that no one would approach unexpectedly.

He patiently listened to the men's reports, the details of the life of the community in those barbarian lands. Then one of the Italian leaders broached the subject uppermost in Addaio's mind.

"This month Mendib will be set free. The warden has spoken several times by telephone with the head of the Art Crimes Department. They're putting on a charade of sorts, to allay any suspicions Mendib might have. The social worker and the psychologist have protested, but it is clear the plan is moving forward."

"Who is your contact inside the jail?" Addaio asked.

"My sister-in-law. She works there as a cleaning woman. She has cleaned the administrative offices and other areas of the jail for years, and she says they are all so accustomed to her being there that they pay her no attention. When the warden comes in in the morning he just motions to her to keep working even when he is involved in sensitive phone conversations or is meeting with one or another official. They trust her. She is more than sixty years old, and no one ever suspects a gray-haired old lady with a mop and pail."

"Can we find out the exact day that Mendib will be released?"

"Yes, of course," the man replied.

"How?" Addaio persisted.

"The release orders come in to the warden's office by fax. My sister-in-law is there before the warden arrives, and she already has orders to go through whatever may be there to see whether Mendib's early-release order has come in. If it does, she will telephone me immediately. I bought her a cell phone specifically for that call."

"Who else do we have inside the jail?"

"Two brothers serving a sentence for murder. One of them worked as a chauffeur for a high-ranking official in the Turin regional government; the other had a vegetable stand. One night, at a discotheque, they got into a fight with some men who were saying things to their girlfriends. Our men took umbrage, you might say, and one of the other men died of a stab wound. They are good men and true to our cause."

"May God forgive them! Do they truly belong to our community?"

"No, no, but one of their relatives does. He has talked to them and asked them if they could… you know, if they could…"

The man shuffled uncomfortably under Addaio's fixed gaze.

'And what did they say?"

"It depends on the money. If we give their family a million euros they will do it."

"How can we get word to them?"

"Someone from their family will visit them and tell them whether we have the money and when they should… proceed… with what you have ordered."

"You shall have the money. But we must prepare ourselves for the possibility that Mendib may leave the jail alive."

A young man with a thick mustache and an elegant manner spoke up.

"Pastor, should that come to pass, he would try to make contact with us through the usual channels."

"Review them."

"He would go to Parco Mario Carrara, in the northern part of the city, at nine a.m. and walk around in the southern area of the park, near the Corso Appio Claudio. Every day at that hour, my cousin Arslan passes by as he takes his daughters to school. For years, members of the community who are in trouble have gone there if they are certain they aren't being followed. When they see Arslan pass by, they drop a piece of paper saying where they can be found a few hours later. When the teams you send arrive in Turin, we give them these instructions.

'Arslan then contacts me, tells me where the meeting is to be held, and we organize a team to find out whether our men are being followed; if they are, we do not approach them, but we do follow them and get in touch if we can.

"If contact is not possible, the brother or brothers know that something is wrong, and they try for another meeting. This time they must go to a greengrocer's on the Via dell'Accademia Albertina, in the center of the city, and buy apples; when they pay, they give the grocer a piece of paper with the place for the next meeting. The greengrocer is a member of our community, and will contact us.

"The third meeting place-"

"I hope there will be no need for a third meeting place," Addaio interrupted. "If Mendib leaves the jail alive, he must not survive the first meeting. Is that clear? We run a great risk in this. The carabinieri will surely follow him, and they are experts at their job. We must find a team that is able to do what must be done and disappear without being caught. It will not be easy, and it is most regrettable, but we cannot give him a chance to contact one of us. Is that understood?"

The men nodded gravely. One of them, the oldest of all, spoke.

"I am Mendib's father's uncle."

"I am sorry."

"I know that you do this to save us, but is there no possibility of getting him out of Turin?"

"How? They will have a team following him wherever he goes. They will photograph and tape-record everyone who goes near him or whom he approaches, and then they will investigate those people. We would fall like a house of cards. Even if he manages to elude them for a time, he is now known to them, marked. They will post his photograph with police across Europe. I feel the same pain you do, but I cannot allow him to reach us. Against all odds, we have maintained our vows for over two thousand years. Many of our forefathers have given their lives, their tongues, their possessions, their families in this cause. We cannot betray them or betray ourselves. I am sorry."

"Very well, pastor. I understand and accept your judgment. Will you allow me to do it if the boy leaves prison alive?"

"You? You are an honorable man, an elder of our community. How can you do it? You are his great-uncle."

"I have no one. My wife and two daughters died three years ago in a car accident. I planned to return to Urfa to spend my last days with what remains of my family. I will soon turn eighty, I have lived as long as God has wished me to live, and He will forgive me if it is I who takes Mendib's life and then my own. It is the most sensible way to do this."

"You will take your own life?"

"Yes, pastor, I will. When Mendib goes to the Parco Carrara, I will be waiting for him. I am his great-uncle; he will suspect nothing. I will embrace him, and in that embrace my blade will take his life. Then I will stab that same blade into my heart."

No one in the group uttered a word. They looked at the old man in respectful-awed-silence.

"I am not sure this is a good idea," Addaio finally replied. "This is not something we-I-can expect you to do. And they would have your body. They will discover who you are."

"No, they will not be able to find that out. I will pull out all my teeth and burn off my fingerprints. For the police, I will be a man of no identity."

"Will you truly be able to do this?"

"I am weary of life. I will make the same sacrifice so many of our brothers have. Let this be my last act of service-the most painful-so that the community may survive. Will God forgive me?"

"God understands why you do this."

"Then if Mendib leaves the prison, send for me and prepare me for death."

"If you betray us, the rest of your family in Urfa will suffer for it."

"Do not offend my honor or my name with threats. Do not forget who I am, who my ancestors were."

Addaio lowered his head in a sign of acceptance, and the old man left their circle to be alone with his thoughts.

The pastor broke the silence that Mendib's great-uncle left in his wake. "What is the status of Francesco Turgut, the porter at the Turin Cathedral?"

He was answered by a short, muscular man with the look of a stevedore, who worked as a janitor in the Egyptian Museum.

"Turgut is frightened. The people from the Art Crimes Department have interrogated him several times, and he believes that the cardinal's secretary, a Padre Yves, considers him suspicious."

"What do we know about this priest Yves?"

"He is French, he has influence in the Vatican, and soon he will be made auxiliary bishop of Turin."

"Might he be one of them?"

"He might be. He has all the characteristics. He is not a typical priest. He belongs to a family of aristocrats, he speaks several languages, has an excellent education, excels at sports… and he is celibate, totally celibate. You know that they never break that rule. He is a protege of Cardinal Visier and Monsignor Aubry."

"Who we are sure belong to their order," Addaio said flatly.

"Yes, there is no doubt of that. They have been very skillful in infiltrating the Vatican and reaching the highest ranks of the Curia. I would not be surprised if someday one of them became pope. That, truly, would be a mockery of fate."

"Turgut has a nephew in Urfa-Ismet, a good boy. I'll have him go live with his uncle," the pastor mused.

"The cardinal is kind; I imagine he will allow Francesco to take in his nephew."

"Ismet is quick-witted; his father has asked me to look after him. I will give him the mission of establishing himself in Turin and preparing to relieve Turgut when the time comes. To do that, he will have to marry an Italian girl, so he can remain in the cathedral as porter in place of his uncle. In addition, he will keep an eye on this Padre Yves and try to find out more about him."

"Is our tunnel still undiscovered?"

"It is. Two days ago the head of the Art Crimes Department inspected the underground tunnels; there were soldiers with him. When he came out, the frustration on his face told it all. They found nothing."

The men continued to talk and drink raki until late that night, when the bride and groom took leave of their families. Addaio, who did not drink, had not even tasted the liquor. Accompanied by Bakkalbasi and three men, he left the hotel where the wedding party had taken place and made his way to a safe house that belonged to one of the members of the community.

The next day he would return to Urfa. He had planned to go to Turin himself, but that would put the community at ultimate risk. He had given very precise instructions; everyone knew what they were to do.

He spent the rest of the night praying, seeking God in repeated exhortations, but he knew, as he always knew, that God was not listening-God had never been near to him, or given him any sign. Yet he, Addaio, miserable Addaio, had destroyed his life and the lives of so many others in His name. What if God didn't exist? What if it was all a lie? Sometimes he had let himself be tempted by the devil and allowed himself to think that his community was kept alive by a myth, by dusty dreams, and that none of what they had told the children was true.

But diere was no turning back. His life had been chosen for him: to serve the community and lead it and, above all, to secure for it the shroud of Jesus Christ. He knew that they would try once again to prevent that-they had been doing so for centuries. The community had fought back as it could, tracking its adversaries and their plunder through the centuries, tracing their activities in pursuit of a common goal. The knowledge they had gathered led down tantalizing avenues, to mysteries and answers Addaio sensed lay just beyond his grasp. But there was no mystery about his overarching purpose on this earth. Someday the community would recover the sacred cloth that had been bequeathed to it, and it would be he, Addaio, who at long last achieved that impossible goal.