Sidney Sheldon - Chasing Tomorrow

“How much is insane?”

“The figure I heard was ten million euros. Why? Are you thinking of going into competition with him?” Domingo asked teasingly.

“I wouldn’t steal the Shroud of Turin for a hundred million,” Jeff said hotly. “Especially not for a guy who wants to burn it. That’s disgusting! That’s criminal and inhuman and anyone involved in something like that should be shot.”

“Heavens above, calm down. I was only joking with you.”

“Has anybody informed the authorities?”

“Called the police, you mean? Of course not. These are rumors, Jeff, nothing more. You know how people like to gossip in this underworld of ours. It’s probably all hot air. After all, you said yourself that stealing the Shroud would be impossible.”

“It would.”

“Well then. Have another drink.”

Jeff did. But he could no longer relax. The image of some bearded, robed, Iranian lunatic dousing the Holy Shroud in gasoline refused to dislodge itself from his brain. Eventually he asked Domingo, “Did you hear a name at all? Among all these sources of yours. Did anyone know who the ‘brilliant American’ was supposed to be?”

Domingo said, “As a matter of fact, I did. Not that it meant anything to me.” He looked Jeff directly in the eye and asked innocently, “Have you ever heard of Daniel Cooper?”

“HAVE YOU EVER HEARD of Daniel Cooper?”

This time it was Jeff speaking. He was at another dinner table, also in Spain, fourteen years earlier. Had it really been that long?

Madrid. Jeff and Tracy were both in town to steal Goya’s Puerto from the Prado, although neither would admit to the other. Jeff had booked a table at the Jockey, an elegant restaurant on Amador de los Ríos. Tracy had agreed to join him. He could see her now, sitting opposite him, radiant as always. Jeff couldn’t remember what she was wearing, but he remembered the challenge blazing in her green eyes. They were competing with each other. The dance had begun.

Jeff thought, I love her.

I’m going to beat her to that painting.

And then I’m going to marry her.

“Who?” Tracy asked.

“Daniel Cooper. He’s an insurance investigator, very bright.”

“What about him?”

“Be careful. He’s dangerous. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Don’t worry.”

Jeff had put his hand over Tracy’s.

“But I have been. You’re very special. Life is more interesting with you around, my love.”

Madrid had been the start of everything. Jeff and Tracy had fallen in love there. And all the while Daniel Cooper had hovered like a shadow in the background. On the trip to Segovia, Cooper had tailed them in a Renault. That night, Jeff had taken Tracy to the bodega where they’d watched some flamenco dancers perform, their wild frantic rhythms mimicking Jeff and Tracy’s own desire, undeniable now.

Cooper was there too. Brooding. Waiting.

Jeff did beat Tracy to the Puerto , stealing it out from under her nose after she’d done all the hard work, poor darling. It was years before she forgave him.

But Tracy wasn’t the only one who’d been outsmarted. After Madrid, Daniel Cooper followed Tracy and Jeff across Europe, always just half a step behind. Jeff had grown increasingly fearful of him, but Tracy never took him seriously.

Jeff thought, Cooper was the third person in our relationship from the start. He was Tracy’s shadow.

“JEFF?” DOMINGO MUÑOZ’S VOICE dragged Jeff back into the present. “Are you all right?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes. I’m fine.”

“I lost you there for a moment. So I take it you do know Daniel Cooper?”

“In a way,” said Jeff. “Although when I knew him he wasn’t a criminal. Quite the opposite in fact. Is he here, in Seville?”

“That’s what I heard.”

Jeff frowned.

Domingo said, “You look worried. Do you think Cooper might really try something like this?”

“I don’t know what he might try,” Jeff said truthfully.

“Do you think he could succeed?”

Jeff thought for a moment.

“No. It’s impossible. Daniel Cooper’s very smart. But no one could steal the Shroud.”

THAT NIGHT IN BED, Jeff made a decision.

I’ll go to Seville tomorrow. Stay for a few days and check out the Antiquarium for myself. Just to make sure.

He didn’t really believe Domingo’s “rumors.” It was all too far-fetched. But if the Shroud of Turin were stolen, and destroyed, and he’d done nothing to prevent it, Jeff Stevens would never forgive himself.

CHAPTER 21

HOUSED BENEATH THE ULTRAMODERN Metropol Parasol project in Seville’s famous Plaza de la Encarnación, the Antiquarium museum is a maze of Roman remains, dating from the first century AD. Jeff Stevens marveled at the mosaic of Bacchus and the perfectly preserved pillars of an ancient mansion as he lined up for his ticket to the “Sábana Santa” exhibition, the Spanish term for the Holy Shroud.

Jeff had expected lines around the block. After all, this was the first time in almost half a century that the icon had left its carefully temperature-controlled home in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, an industrial city in northern Italy. But perhaps because this was March, the off-season for tourists, as well as midweek, only a handful of people had turned out to see the linen cloth bearing the image of a man who may or may not have been Christ Himself.

“Would you like the audio tour?”

The girl smiled at Jeff, addressing him in perfect English.

“Thank you. Yes.”

Jeff slipped the headphones on and proceeded into the first chamber of the exhibition. He already knew most of the history of the Shroud and the intense scientific and theological debate that accompanied it. But it never hurt to learn more, and the earphones gave him a chance to move slowly through the museum, carefully detailing all of the security arrangements, alarms, fire exits and so forth with an expert eye. He’d noticed that there was no additional security at the entrance to the museum, besides the usual, unarmed security guards. But there was a permanent police presence in the square throughout the exhibition’s run. Plus the fact that the Antiquarium was basically a crypt meant that there were only two ways out to ground level—the front entrance and a single set of fire stairs leading up into the Metropol Parasol. As for the Shroud itself, it was housed at the end of the exhibition, in the center of a large spiral of “false” rooms, like the bull’s-eye on a dartboard or the end of a Victorian maze. Anyone attempting to remove it would have no option but to retrace their steps to the outermost ring of the circle, and choose an exit from there. With each room along the way alarmed and monitored by a high-tech system of infrared beams, not to mention the ubiquitous cameras, Jeff felt reassured that any attempt at a straightforward smash and grab would certainly fail.

Moving from room to room, Jeff began to focus less on his surroundings and more on the audio tour. It was quite fascinating.

“The image on the cloth, thrown into sharp relief as a photographic negative, shows a man who has suffered physical trauma consistent with crucifixion and torture. Although radiocarbon dating places the cloth’s origins in the medieval period, between 1260 and 1390, later scientific studies have cast doubt on those findings. Chemical tests suggest that parts of the Shroud at least may be considerably older.”

Jeff walked through room after room, with the audio explaining the science. Never-seen-before images of the Shroud captured by sophisticated NASA satellites were displayed next to early Christian artwork and sculptures relating to the cult of the Sábana. Despite apparently definitive carbon dating and other tests carried out in the 1970s and again in 1988, experts still remained baffled as to the nature of the image and how, exactly, it was fixed on the cloth. No paint had been used. Human blood had been found and DNA-tested, but the negative photographic image made no sense. One gruesome, and widely held theory was that some poor soul had been deliberately tortured and crucified in the Middle Ages in order to fake Jesus’ Shroud. But that still didn’t explain how such a perfect image was captured, eternally, on the cloth.