Mendib, go to the university. My son believes that there is a traitor among us, someone who has access to your plans even as you are plotting them out and knows each move we intend to make before we even begin.
"The failure is here, Addaio, inside, and you must find the traitor who lives among us. Betrayal has lived in our community down through time. That is the only way to explain the fact that so far every attempt to rescue what is ours has failed."
Addaio listened without moving a muscle, but his eyes filled with fury.
Zafarin's father stepped forward, up to the table, and placed a sheaf of more than fifty pages, covered front and back with handwriting, on its polished surface.
"This is the report my son has prepared on what happened. His suspicions are there too."
Addaio ignored the papers. He stood up and began to pace silently back and forth. Then he rounded on Zafarin, looming over the younger man as though he were about to strike him.
"Do you know what this failure means? Months, perhaps years before we can try again! The police are investigating, they've begun to connect your failure to your brother's and all the others and they are determined this time to get to the bottom of it. Some of our men may be arrested. If they talk, what then?"
"But these others know nothing of the truth… why they were sent-" Zafarin's father interrupted.
"Quiet! What do you know? Our people in Italy, in Germany, in other countries, know what they need to know, and if they fall into the hands of the police, they'll be made to talk, which means the trail may lead to us. Then what do we do? Do we all cut out our tongues so that we will be unable to betray our Lord?"
"Whatever happens, it shall be the will of God," Zafarin's father said.
"No! It will not be the will of God at all! It will be the result of the failure and stupidity of people who cannot fulfill His will! It will be my fault for not being able to choose better people to do what Jesus asks of us, people worthy of his sacred mission."
The door opened, and two more young men were shown in, accompanied like Zafarin by their fathers.
Rasit, the second man who had been with Zafarin in Turin, and Dermisat, the third, embraced him, as Addaio looked on in contempt. Zafarin had not known that his companions had arrived in Urfa. Addaio had imposed a vow of silence on families and friends so that the three would not learn of one another's presence in the city.
The fathers of Rasit and Dermisat spoke on behalf of their sons, pleading for understanding and clemency.
Addaio seemed not to be listening; he seemed distracted, lost in his own frustration and despair. Silence prevailed in the chamber for a time. Then the pastor raised his head, his eyes cold.
"The three of you will pay for your failure, which is a sin against our Lord."
'Are the sacrifices our sons have already made not enough for you? They have allowed themselves to be mutilated, and one has died. What further punishment would you have them suffer?" Rasit's father burst out.
"You dare defy me?" asked Addaio ominously.
"No. God forbid! You know that our faith in our Lord is unswerving and that we obey you in all things. I ask only compassion for our sons, who have given so much for us, for our mission," the father replied.
Dermisat's father, more contrite, distanced himself from the others. "You are our pastor," he said, "and your word is law. Do what you will with them, for you represent our Lord on earth."
All six of the men fell to their knees then and, heads bowed, began to pray. All they could do was await Addaio's judgment.
None of the eight men who surrounded Addaio had yet spoken. At a sign from him, they filed out of the room. Addaio followed without another glance at the kneeling men.
"Well?" asked Addaio, when they had gathered in an adjoining room. "Is there a traitor among us?"
The group's continued silence enraged him. "You have nothing to say? Nothing, after all that has happened?"
'Addaio, you are our pastor, our Lord's chosen one; we look to you for guidance in this," ventured one of them at last.
"You eight were the only people who knew the entire plan. You eight know who our contacts are. Who is the traitor?"
The men looked at one another nervously, unsure whether Addaio was, in fact, accusing them. They were, after him, the highest leaders of the community.
Their families could be traced back to the earliest history of their people, and they and their forebears had always been faithful to Jesus, faithful to their city, faithful to their vow.
"If there is a traitor, he shall die."
Each of the eight knew Addaio was capable of killing anyone who betrayed the cause. Their pastor was a good man who lived modestly and who fasted for forty days each year in memory of Jesus' fasting in the desert. He helped all those who came to him in need, whether of work, money, or mediation in a family dispute. His word was law to all his followers, but even more, it was counsel in difficult times. He was a respected man in Urfa, where the non-Christians took him to be a lawyer and recognized and respected him as such. But all of them had seen the terrible forces that simmered just beneath his devout surface.
Like the members of the council, Addaio had lived a clandestine life since childhood, praying in the shadows, where neighbors and friends would not see him, because he was the repository of a secret that would define their lives as it had denned the lives of their fathers and their fathers' fathers.
They knew he would have preferred not to have been called upon to be their pastor, that he had longed to live a life free of the all-consuming responsibility required by his role. But when he was chosen, he accepted the sacred honor and sacrifice and swore what others before him had sworn, that he would do the will of Jesus and dedicate his time on earth to the well-being of the community and the restoration of the Holy Shroud to its ordained place among them.
Another of the council members cleared his throat. Gray hair covered his head like a mantle; his lined face was wise and venerable.
"Speak, Talat," Addaio commanded.
"We must not let suspicions destroy the trust we have in one another. I do not believe there is a traitor among us. We are facing powerful and intelligent forces; that is what keeps us from recovering what has belonged to us since the beginning. We must go back to work and formulate a new plan, and if we fail, we must try yet again. The Lord will decide when we are worthy of succeeding in our mission."
Talat fell silent then, waiting for the others to speak.
"Show compassion to the three chosen ones," another, Bakkalbasi, pleaded. "Have they not suffered enough?"
"Compassion? Do you think, Bakkalbasi, that we will survive by our compassion? That has not helped us in the past."
Addaio clenched his hands together in frustration. His voice was tormented. "Sometimes I think you made a mistake when you chose me to be your pastor-I am not the man that Jesus needs for these times and circumstances. I fast, I do penitence, and I pray to God to give me strength, to enlighten me, and to show me the path, but Jesus does not answer my prayers, or send me a sign…"