Jumper left the Shroud room and found team member Sam Pellicori, who was trying to sleep on a cot in another room. "Sam! Wake up!" he said. "I need you and your macroscope in the Shroud room right away!"
Pellicori and Jumper positioned the macroscope over the Shroud and lowered it until it was just above the heel. Pellicori focused, changed lenses, focused again, and looked, without saying a word, at the heel image on the Shroud. After a long pause, he said dryly, "It's dirt."
"Dirt?" asked Jumper. "Letmelook." Jumper looked through the macroscope and refocused. "It is dirt," he said. "But why?"
Decker watched as Professor Goodman, too, examined the heel and reached the same conclusion.
As the next shift of scientists came on everyone met for a review and brainstorming session to determine the direction and priorities for the next set of tests. "Okay," Juniper started. "Here's what we know. The body images are straw yellow, not sepia, as all previous accounts indicated. The color is only on the crowns of the microfibers of the threads and does not vary significantly anywhere on the Shroud in either shade or depth. Where one fiber crosses another the underlying fiber is unaffected by the color.
"The yellow microfibers show no sign of capillarity or blotting, which indicates that no liquid was used to create the image, which rules out paint. Further there is no adherence, meniscus effect, or matting between the threads, also ruling out any type of liquid paint. In the areas of the apparent blood stains, the fibers are clearly matted and there are signs of capillarity, as would be the case with blood."
"What about the feet?" asked one of the scientists. For those who had just come on duty, Jumper explained what had happened with the reflectance spectroscopy test.
"Of course there's dirt," one of the female team members said after Jumper's explanation. "What could be more natural than dirt on the bottom of the feet?"
"Yes," said Jumper, "but that assumes that this is indeed an authentic image of a crucified man, somehow transferred to the cloth." Personally, Jumper did not discount the possibility, but he knew that it was bad science to start from an assumption.
Still, the obvious became harder and harder to deny, for not only was there dirt on the heel, but the amount of dirt was so minute that it was not visible to the naked eye. Why, they wondered, if the Shroud was a forgery, would the forger go to the trouble to put on the image dirt which no one could see? No one had an answer.
As the meeting broke up, Goodman, who continued to be the greatest skeptic, remarked, "Well, if it is a forgery, it's a damned good one." Decker was struck by the tremendous allowance that Goodman had made in that little word 'if.'
It had now been three and a half days since Decker had slept. Finally he resolved to return to the hotel. Before retiring, though, he sat in the lobby with team members Roger Harris, Susan Chon, and Joshua Rosen, unwinding with a slowly stirred cup of coffee heavily laced with Irish cream liqueur. Decker entertained little thought of interviewing anyone. Over the past three days, he had begun to see himself much less as a reporter and much more as a member of the team. Habitually, though, he continued making mental notes.
One of his companions, Dr. Joshua Rosen, was a nuclear physicist from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory working on laser and particle beam research for the Pentagon. Rosen was one of the four Jewish members of the team and Decker could not resist the opportunity to ask him about his feelings on examining a Christian relic.
Rosen smiled. "If I weren't so tired I'd lead you on a bit," he said. "But if you really want an answer on that you'll have to ask one of the other Jewish members of the team."
"You don't have an opinion?" Decker queried.
"I have an opinion, but I'm not qualified to answer your question." Rosen paused and Decker's brow tightened in puzzlement.
"I'm Messianic," Rosen added in response. Decker didn't catch his meaning. "A Christian Jew," Rosen explained.
"Oh," said Decker. "This isn't something that happened in the last few days, is it?"
Rosen laughed.
Roger Harris, too tired to even talk, barely managed to force down a mouthful of coffee as he began to laugh with Rosen. Decker's remark had not been that funny, but the pained look on Roger's face set Susan Chon to laughing and soon the four overtired, punch-drunk team members were laughing uncontrollably, with each member's inability to control himself fueling the others' laughter.
On the other side of the dining room, a woman had been sitting since before Decker and the others came in. On the table before her were the remnants of a long-finished cup of tea and a half-eaten hard roll. She held a red hotel napkin, pulling it in one direction and then the other. She had been watching Decker and the other team members as they talked, building up her courage to go over to their table. Their laughter made them seem somehow more approachable and human, while its infectious nature seemed to brighten her own dark mood. She rose from her seat and walked slowly but decisively toward them.
"You are Americans?" she asked when their laughter began to pass.
"Yes," Joshua Rosen responded.
"You're with the scientists examining the Shroud?"
On the woman's face Decker saw lines of worry; in her eyes, the evidence of recently blotted tears.
'Yes," he answered. "We're working with the Shroud. Is there something we can we do for you?"
"My son – he's four – is very ill. The doctors say he may not live more than a few months. All that I ask is that you allow me to bring flowers to the Shroud as a gift to Jesus."
No one at the table had gotten more than twelve hours sleep in the previous four days and it seemed to Decker that the tears of laughter were joined by tears of sympathy for the woman's plight and her modest request. All agreed to help but Rosen was the first to offer a plan. It would be impossible for the woman to bring flowers to the Shroud herself. However, Rosen told her that if she would bring the flowers to the palace the next day around one o'clock, he would bring them to the Shroud himself.
In his room, Decker fell quickly to sleep and felt totally rested when he awoke fourteen hours later, at noon the next day. When he arrived at the palace an hour later, Rosen was talking with the woman from the hotel. Decker noticed that the cloud of depression which had covered her the night before had been replaced by a peaceful look of hope. She smiled in recognition at Decker as she started to leave.
Rosen started up the stairs with the vase of cut flowers but, spotting Decker, turned and waited.
"Pretty neat, huh?" Rosen said.
"Pretty neat," Decker responded. But to himself he wondered what would happen to the woman if her son died.
Chapter 3
Body of Christ
Ten years later – Knoxville, Tennessee
It was cold outside. The usual warm autumn weather of East Tennessee had given way to a cold snap that sent the local residents scurrying to their wood piles for added warmth and atmosphere. Decker and his wife Elizabeth lay a bit more than half asleep, snuggled together before a waning fire, dreaming to the sound of the crackling hardwood embers. The fire's warmth and glow offered more than enough reason for not getting up when the phone rang. One-year-old Hope Hawthorne lay sleeping soundly in her crib in the bedroom. Though he knew she wouldn't likely be awakened by it, on the third ring Decker finally lifted himself slowly from the floor and moved toward the offending instrument. On the eighth ring he answered.
"Hello."
"Decker Hawthorne?" responded the voice from the other end of the phone.
"Yes," Decker answered.
"This is Harry Goodman. I have something you'll want to see." Goodman's voice was excited but controlled. "It's a story for your newspaper. Can you come to Los Angeles right away?"
"Professor?" Decker said, a little dumbfounded and not yet fully awake. "This is quite a surprise. It's been… " Decker paused to count the years, "seven or eight years. How are you?"