Minerva found her sobbing, cell phone in hand. She put her arms around her and shook her gently. "Sofia, please! What's happening? Calm down!"
Sofia was barely coherent, able to blurt out only a small part of what she had heard.
Minerva led her outside. "Let's go to the cemetery-we can't do anything here."
There were no official cars in sight. The two women waved down a passing taxi. Tears continued to stream down Sofia's face as Ana's cries rang in her mind.
The taxi stopped at a light. Just as it started up again, the driver shouted. They looked up to see a massive truck headed straight at them. The noise of the crash shattered the silence of the night.
54
ADDAIO WEPT IN SILENCE.
He had locked himself in his office and would allow no one-not even Guner-to enter.
He had been closeted for more than ten hours, sitting, pacing, staring into space, allowing himself to be swept along by a wave of contradictory emotions.
He had failed, and many men had died because of his obstinacy. There was nothing in the newspapers about what had happened, just that a collapse had occurred in the tunnels below Turin and that a number of workers had been killed, among them several Turks.
Mendib, Turgut, Ismet, and other brothers had been buried alive under the rubble-their bodies would never be recovered. He had borne the harsh gaze of Mendib's and Ismet's mothers. They did not forgive him; they would never forgive him. Neither would the mothers of the other young men he had asked to sacrifice themselves on the altar of an impossible mission.
God had turned against him. The community now had to resign itself to never recovering the grave cloth of Christ, for that was God's will. Addaio could not believe that so many failures were simply tests that God put them to in order to confirm their strength.
Perhaps this, the simple acceptance of God's will, was the true legacy of the shroud, a legacy that had always been theirs to embrace. Addaio had learned that too late. He wondered if his old adversaries, those who guarded the shroud so fiercely, might someday embrace it as well.
He finished writing his will. Overriding his previous orders, he was leaving precise instructions about the man to be his successor-a good man of clean heart, with no ambition, and who loved life as he, Addaio, had not. Guner would become their leader, their pastor. He folded the letter and sealed it. It was addressed to the community's eight pastors; it would be they who would see that his last wishes were carried out. He would not be denied, he knew: The pastor of the flock selected the next leader. Thus it had been down through the centuries, and thus it would always be.
He took out a bottle of pills he kept in his desk drawer and took them all. Then he sat in the wingback chair and let himself be overcome by sleep.
Eternity awaited.
55
A.D. 1314
Beltran de Santillana had carefully folded the Holy Shroud and placed it in a shoulder bag that was never out of his sight. He was waiting for the tide to rise on a boat out in the river, so that he might reach the sea and the ship that was to bear him off to Scotland. Of all the nations of Christendom, Scotland was the only one where news of the order to dissolve the Temple had not yet reached-or would ever reach. The king of Scotland, Robert Bruce, had been excommunicated, and he paid no mind to the Church, nor the Church to Scotland.
Thus, the Knights Templar had naught to fear from Robert Bruce, and Scotland had become the only land in which the Temple might preserve its great power.
Jose Sa Beiro knew that in order to fulfill the final instructions of the last Grand Master, the great, murdered Jacques de Molay, he must send the sacred shroud to Scotland, to ensure its safety forever. He had made arrangements for Beltran de Santillana to travel with the treasure to the Temple house in Arbroath, accompanied by Joao de Tomar, Wilfred de Payens, and other knights, all of whom were sworn to protect the shroud, to the death if need be.
The master of Castro Marim had given de Santillana a letter for the Scottish master and also the original letter sent by Jacques de Molay, which set forth the reasons for keeping the Temple's possession of the shroud of Jesus a zealously guarded secret. The Scottish master would determine where to hide the relic. It would be his responsibility never to allow the shroud to pass into other than Templar hands, and to preserve the secret of its possession for all time.
The boat doubled the bend in the Guadiana on its way down to the sea, where a ship lay waiting. The knights did not look back; they did not wish to be overcome by emotion as they left Portugal forever.
The knights' ship was about to founder, so great was the tempest that had come upon them in their voyage to Scotland. The wind and rain tossed the boat about like a nutshell, but thus far it had withstood the storm.
At last, the cliffs of the Scottish coast heralded the end of their voyage. They made their way through the wild hills to Arbroath and to sanctuary.
The brothers of the Scottish Temple had heard of and mourned the terror the pope and the king of France had sown among the Templars. Here they and their brothers would be safe, thanks to their good relations with Robert Bruce, alongside whom they fought to defend Scotland from its enemies.
After a time, the master called the entire company into the chapter meeting hall, together with the brothers who had voyaged from Portugal. There, before the astonished eyes of the assembled knights, he unfolded the full length of the sacred cloth. It bore a great resemblance to the painting they worshipped in the chapter's private chapel-the true face and figure of Christ that had been copied from this holy relic so that the Templars might always have the image of their Savior before them.
The sun was rising over the sea when the knights went forth from the hall where, all through the night, they had prayed together before the singular visage of Christ, imprinted upon the shroud that had held his body within its folds.
Beltran de Santillana remained behind with the master of the Scottish Templars. The two men talked for a time and then, carefully folding the sacred cloth, they put away the Temple's most precious treasure-a treasure that, with the passing of the centuries and as commanded by the last Grand Master, only a few of the elect would now view.
Here it would lie in a consecrated sanctuary, safe forever from the machinations of those who would seek to corrupt its holy essence for their own ends, or use it to sow discord among the kingdoms of the earth. Those who attempted to disturb it would do so at their peril.