Julia Navarro - The Brotherhood Of The Holy Shroud

It was getting increasingly hard to breathe. The lack of oxygen and the darkness of the tunnel made him woozy, but he knew that his only chance to survive was to reach the house of Turgut. Fighting the pain and summoning the last measure of his dwindling strength, he pushed on.

The light from his old-fashioned cigarette lighter wasn't enough to illuminate the tunnel, but it was the only light he had. His greatest fear was winding up in the darkness and losing his sense of direction.

Bakkalbasi's men had entered the cemetery a few minutes after Mendib. They ran to the mausoleum, opened it with a key Turgut had provided, and in a few seconds they were underground, on the trail of their dying brother.

"They went in there." A carabiniere pointed.

Marco looked up at the life-size angel-it was wielding a sword and seemed to be warning them off.

The cop with the pick went to work again. This lock was harder, and while he played with the mechanism, Marco and his men smoked and made their contingency plans, unaware that they, too, were under observation.

Turgut and Ismet paced nervously back and forth in the underground room off the tunnel. Three of the men from Urfa were waiting with them. They had managed to evade the carabinieri and had been in the secret room for several hours, waiting. The rest of Bakkalbasi's men should be coming in at any minute. The pastor had warned them that Mendib might, against all odds, make his way there, too, and that they should calm him down and wait for the other brothers to come back. After that, they knew what they had to do.

None of them ventured far into the shadows that enveloped the tunnel. If they had, they might have seen the three men crouched in a nearby alcove, who had been listening to them for some time. Their collars hidden, their faces grim, Yves, David, and Joseph had abandoned any trappings of the priesthood.

They heard halting footsteps, and Turgut felt a shiver run down his spine. His nephew gave him a pat on the back to try to raise his spirits.

"Calm down. We have our orders, we know what to do."

"Something terrible is going to happen," the porter muttered.

"Uncle, stop worrying! It will be okay."

"No. Something is going to happen. I know it."

"Quiet, uncle, please!"

Ismet's grip tightened on the old man's shoulder as Mendib staggered into the room. His burning eyes held Turgut's for just a moment, and then he collapsed senseless to the floor. Ismet knelt beside him to take his pulse.

"He's bleeding. He's got a wound near the lung-I don't think it's punctured or he'd be dead by now. Bring me water and something to clean the wound with."

Old Turgut, his eyes as wide as saucers, scurried over with a bottle of water and a towel. Ismet ripped the filthy shirt off Mendib's body and washed the wound carefully.

"Wasn't there a first-aid kit down here?"

Turgut nodded, unable to speak. He went for the first-aid kit and handed it to his nephew.

Ismet cleaned the wound again with hydrogen peroxide, then swabbed it with gauze soaked in disinfectant. It was all he could do for Mendib, whom he had looked up to as a child in Urfa. None of the others made a move to stop him, although they all knew he was only temporarily fending off fate.

"No need for that." One of Bakkalbasi's men stepped out of the shadows of the tunnel-one of the policemen from Urfa, who had waited behind to trail the mute from the piazza. Another man followed him. For several minutes they filled the others in on the pursuit. Their conversation masked subtle new sounds from the dark passageway.

Suddenly Marco, accompanied by Pietro and a clutch of carabinieri, burst into the room, pistols drawn.

"Don't move! Don't move! You're all under arrest!" Marco shouted.

MARCO HAD NO TIME TO SAY MORE. A BUL-let from out of the shadows hissed past his head. Other shots hit two of his men. Bakkalbasi's men seized advantage of the sudden chaos to take cover and open fire themselves.

The carabinieri took cover as best they could. Marco crawled along the floor, attempting to get behind the Turks, but he was cut off when someone shot at him again from the shadows. He twisted around, trying to spot where the shots were coming from. Then, almost immediately, he heard a woman shouting: "Watch out, Marco, they're up here! Watch out!"

Ana had come out of hiding. For what had seemed forever, she'd concealed herself, almost unmoving, from the three priests, whom she'd seen-with the grace of God and St. Gemma-before they saw her, after following the tunnel from Turgut's rooms. Padre Yves whirled around, his eyes wide: 'Ana!"

The young woman tried to run, but Padre Joseph caught her. The last thing she saw was a fist aimed at her head. He hit her so hard she lost consciousness.

"What are you doing?!" exclaimed Yves de Charny.

There was no answer. There couldn't be. Shots were coming from every direction, and the priests turned back to their targets, pouring gunfire into the chamber beyond.

It was only minutes before yet more men-those who had pursued the pursuers all along-burst onto the scene. They soon killed old Turgut, his nephew Ismet, and two of Bakkalbasi's men; they did not intend to stop until all their adversaries were dead.

The echoing reports of the gunfire were so loud that pebbles and rubble began to fall from the ceiling and walls, but the firing continued unabated from all sides.

Ana began to regain consciousness. Her head felt as though it had been split open. She staggered up and saw the three priests right in front of her, still shooting. Picking up a good-size rock, she crept forward toward them, and when she was close enough she lifted the rock over her head and brought it down hard on the head of one of Yves's comrades. She had no time to do anything else-the other turned to shoot her. But as he did, stones rained down from the ceiling and knocked him to his knees.

Yves de Charny had rounded on Ana with unconcealed rage, and now he, too, was hit by falling rocks. The reporter started stumbling, running, trying to put distance between herself and the priest and also get out from under the debris falling now in terrifyingly huge clumps and boulders. The blasts of the gunshots and the growing rumble and crash of the collapsing roqf disoriented her-she couldn't tell which way she'd come in. She felt panic rising, threatening to engulf her, as she heard Padre Yves right behind her, shouting, and Marco's voice, too, but their words were drowned out by a deafening roar as a whole section of the tunnel came down.

She stumbled and fell. Darkness overtook her.

Ana shrieked as she felt fingers close on her arm.

"Ana?"

"My God!"

She didn't know where she was, but the absence of light was total, all-encompassing. Terrifying. Her head hurt and her body felt bruised all over, as though she'd been beaten. She knew that the hand grasping her arm belonged to Yves de Charny; he offered no resistance as she pulled away. She could no longer hear Marco's voice or the sound of shooting; the silence was absolute. What was happening? Where was she? She screamed, and screamed again, louder, and then sobbed.

"We're lost, Ana, we'll never get out of here."

Yves de Charny's voice broke, and Ana realized that he was hurt.

"I lost the flashlight following you," the priest said. "We're going to die in darkness."

"Shut up! Shut up!"

"I'm sorry, Ana, truly sorry. You didn't deserve to die, you didn't have to die."

"You people are killing me! You're killing us all! So just shut up!"

De Charny was silent. Ana groped in her purse, miraculously still strapped across her body, and pulled out the penlight and box of matches. She was overjoyed to find them, and then her fingers touched her cell phone. She turned on the small light and saw the handsome face of Padre Yves contorted in pain. He was badly injured.