Julia Navarro - The Brotherhood Of The Holy Shroud

Pietro hesitated. "If we hadn't found the body, I'd say it was an accident. But we've got the body of a man we don't know anything about, except that he's missing a tongue, just like the other guy. What was he doing there?

"Plus," Pietro went on, "somebody, in fact, broke in. The side door to the offices was forced. You can get from there to the cathedral. There are marks on the doorjamb. Whoever it was knew how to get in and how to get inside the cathedral. Since he did it without attracting the porter's attention, we assume he did it pretty quietly and when he knew there'd be nobody there."

"We're sure," Giuseppe put in, "that the thief, or thieves, knew somebody who works in the cathedral or has some relationship to it. Somebody who told them that that day, at that hour, there wouldn't be anybody around."

"Why are we sure of that?" Minerva asked.

"Because in this fire," Giuseppe said, "as in the purported robbery attempt two years ago, as in the fire in '97, as in all the other 'accidents,' the thieves knew there was no one inside. There's just one entrance besides the main entrance that's open to the public-the entrance to the offices. The others are permanendy boarded over. And it's always been that side door that's been forced. The door is reinforced, but that's no problem for professionals. We think there were other men with our dead guy and they got away. Raiding a cathedral is not something one man does alone. According to the records, all these incidents have taken place when work is being done on the church. Whoever these guys are, they seem to take advantage of repairs to get people in there when no one else is around, maybe short-circuit some wiring or flood the place or otherwise create chaos. But this time, like all the times before, they didn't take anything. Which is why we keep asking ourselves-what were they looking for?"

"The shroud," said Marco. "But why? To destroy it? To steal it? I don't know. I wonder whether forcing the door isn't a red herring, something they do to throw us off. It's too obvious… I don't know… Minerva, what've you got?"

"I can tell you that one of the controlling shareholders of the company in charge of the work, COCSA, is Umberto D'Alaqua. I've mentioned this to Sofia and sent you some of it by e-mail. This is a solid company that works for the Church, not just in Turin but all over Italy. D'Alaqua is a man the Vatican knows well and thinks highly of. He works with them as a consultant on some of the Vatican's big-and I mean big-investments, and he's made the Church large loans for operations where the Vatican wants to keep its presence quiet. He is trusted at the highest levels and he's also taken part in delicate diplomatic missions for the Church. His businesses range from construction to steel, including oil exploration, etc., etc. He owns a big block of COCSA.

'And he's an interesting man. Single, attractive, fifty-seven years old, serious. Never makes any show of the money or power he has. He's never seen at jet-set parties, never been known to have a girlfriend."

"Gay?" Sofia asked.

"No, apparently not, but boy, does he walk the straight and narrow. It's as though he's taken a vow of chastity, although he doesn't belong to Opus Dei or any other lay order that would indicate a particularly religious bent. His hobby is archaeology-he's financed excavations in Israel, Egypt, and Turkey, and he himself has actually worked at the digs in Israel a couple of seasons."

"It doesn't sound like Signor D'Alaqua jumps out as a prime suspect," Sofia commented wryly.

"No, but he's quite a figure," Minerva insisted. "As is Professor Bolard. These guys are heavyweights. See, boss, this professor is a renowned French chemist, one of the most famous investigators associated with the shroud. He's been studying it for over thirty-five years, doing tests on it, probing every aspect imaginable. Every three or four months he comes to Turin; he's one of the main scientists the Church has entrusted with the conservation of the shroud. They don't take a step without consulting him."

"Right," added Giuseppe. "Before moving the shroud to the bank, Padre Yves spoke with Bolard, who gave very precise instructions as to how the transfer was to be done. Years ago a small room was constructed for it, literally inside the bank vault, and it was built to the specifications of Bolard and other scholars."

"Okay, well, so Bolard," Minerva continued, "is the owner of a big chemical company. He's single and rich as Croesus, just like D'Alaqua, and has never been known to have a romance either."

"So… do D'Alaqua and Bolard know each other?" Marco asked.

"Not that I've found, although I'm still working on that. Of course, there'd be nothing strange if they did-Bolard also has a passion for the ancient world, and they're both involved with the Vatican. They travel in the same circles."

"What have you found out about our Padre Yves?" Marco asked her.

"Quite a guy, this priest of ours. Very sharp cookie. He's French, his family belongs to the old aristocracy, lots of influence in high places. His father, no longer with us, was a diplomat and one of the bigwigs in the Foreign Ministry under de Gaulle. Yves's older brother is a delegate to the French National Assembly, not to mention that he's held several posts in the Chirac administration. His sister is a justice of the French Supreme Court, and he himself has had a meteoric career in the Church. The person who's most directly helped that career is Monsignor Aubry, the assistant to the Vatican Under-Secretary of State, but Cardinal Paul Visier, keeper of the Vatican finances, also looks with favor on our Yves-he was Yves's older brother's roommate at university. So he's gotten one promotion after another, done his time in the diplomatic service. He's held posts at the nunciatures in Brussels, Bonn, Mexico City, and Panama. He was placed as secretary to the cardinal here at Turin specifically on the recommendation of Monsignor Aubry, and it's rumored that he'll soon be made auxiliary bishop in the diocese. There's nothing special in his biography except for the fact that he's totally devoted to the priesthood, with an influential family that supports his clerical career. His academic record is not so shabby either. In addition to theology, he's studied philosophy, he has a degree in ancient languages-the dead ones, Latin, Aramaic, and so on-and he speaks a number of living languages fluently.

"The only peculiar thing about him-for a priest, anyway-is that he likes martial arts. Apparently as a child he was kind of a ninety-seven-pound weakling, so to keep him from being hammered on all the time, his father decided he needed to learn karate. He took to it, and besides having his black belt with who knows how many notches or whatever in it, he's also a master at tae kwon do, kickboxing, and aikido. The martial arts seem to be his only indulgence, but considering the other predilections one runs across in the Vatican, this one is nothing. Oh, and despite how good-looking he is-I'm judging by the photographs-he's never been known to stray from his vows of chastity, with girls or boys. Nothing, absolutely celibate."

"What else have we got?" Marco asked without aiming the question at anyone in particular.

"We've got squat, boss," Giuseppe said. "We're still at square one. No leads and, what's worse, no motive. We'll look into the door being forced if you think it could be a plant to throw us off, but then where the hell do they get in and out? We've gone over the cathedral with a fine-tooth comb, and I can promise you there are no secret doors or passages. The cardinal laughed when we asked him about that possibility. He assured us that the cathedral has nothing like that. And I think he's right-we've looked at the maps of the tunnels that run under big parts of the city, and in that area there aren't any. In fact, Turin makes a lot of money taking tourists into the tunnels and giving them the history of its hero, Pietro Micca, and there's no hint of anything under the cathedral."