But after my ascension, when I have returned to Him, I will send one of my disciples, who will cure your disease and give life to you and all that are with you.
"My king, the Jew will heal you."
"How can you be sure?"
"You must believe. We must believe and have faith and wait."
"Wait? Do you not see how this disease is eating at me? Every day I feel weaker, and soon I will not be able to show myself even to you. I know that my subjects are whispering and that my enemies await, and that there are even those who whisper to Maanu, our son, that he shall soon be king."
"Your hour has not yet come, Abgar. I know it."
4
SITTING AT A DESK AT THE ART CRIMES office in the Turin carabinieri station, Sofia Galloni was on the line to Rome with the unit's computer specialist.
"Marco's not here, Minerva. He got up early and went to the cathedral. He said he'd be spending most of the day over there."
"His cell phone's off-all I get is his voice mail."
"He's totally wrapped up in the case. You know he's been saying for years that somebody wants to destroy the shroud. Sometimes I even think he's right. With all the cathedrals and churches in Italy, the only one that anything ever seems to happen to is Turin's-there are so many 'accidents' that it'd make anybody suspicious. And then these guys with their tongues cut out. I mean, it's horrible, right?"
"Giuseppe asked me to do some digging into religious sects, to see if there are any that are into that kind of thing. Marco called me about it too. Tell them I haven't come up with anything yet. The only thing I've been able to find out so far is that the company hired to do the restoration has been operating in Turin for years-over forty-and they've always had plenty of work. Their biggest client is the Church. Recently they've redone the electrical system in most of the monasteries and convents and churches in the area, and they even remodeled the cardinal's residence. It's a corporation, but one of the stockholders is a pretty big fish-he owns aircraft companies, chemical companies… This restoration business is peccato minuto for him."
"Who is he?"
"I'm sure you've heard of him. Umberto D'Alaqua. He's always on the business pages. A real shark at finance who-get this-also owns a big chunk of that company that installs electrical cables and water pipes, big-bore plumbing stuff. But it doesn't stop there; he's also been a stockholder in other companies that have come and gone, that at one time or another had some relationship to the cathedral in Turin. Remember those other fires before '97-September of '83, for one, just before the House of Savoy signed the shroud over to the Vatican? That summer the Church had started cleaning the cathedral facade, and the tower was covered with scaffolding. Nobody knows how it happened, but a fire started. D'Alaqua was part owner of that cleaning company. And remember when the pipes broke in the cathedral plaza because of some repaving that was going on, and all the surrounding streets flooded? Well, D'Alaqua had a large percentage of stock in the paving company too."
"Let's not jump to conclusions," Sofia said. "There's nothing strange about a man having stock in several different companies that do work in Turin. There are probably a lot like him."
"I'm not jumping anywhere," Minerva protested. "I'm just laying out the facts. Marco wants to know everything, and in that 'everything,' D'Alaqua's name has turned up several times. This guy must be very well connected to the cardinal in Turin, which means also to the Vatican. And by the way, he's single. Tell Marco I'll e-mail him everything I've got so far. How long are you guys staying in Turin?"
"No idea. Marco hasn't said. He wants to talk to the cathedral workers and the staff in the episcopal offices himself, and he's also decided to go see the guy from the robbery two years ago. I figure we'll be here three or four more days, but we'll call you."
Sofia decided to go over to the cathedral to talk to Marco. She wanted to have a look around for herself, to get more of a feel for what was on her boss's mind. She would have asked Pietro, Giuseppe, or Antonino to come along, but they were all absorbed in their own assignments. They'd been working with Marco for years, and he trusted them implicidy
Pietro and Giuseppe were members of the Italian police force, the carabinieri, incorruptible and like bloodhounds on a case. They, along with Antonino and Sofia, who had doctorates in art, and Minerva, their computer genius, made up the core of Marco's team. There were more, of course, but Marco trusted and relied on the five of them most. Their years together had made them all friends.
Sofia was well aware that she spent more time at work than at home. She'd never married, and she told herself that she hadn't had time-her first priority had been her career, the doctorate, her position with the Art Crimes Department, the travel that came with the job. She'd just turned forty, and she knew-she didn't lie to herself-that her love life was a disaster.
Over the years, perhaps just because of all the time they spent together, she and Pietro had drifted into something more than friendship, falling into a low-key routine of sharing a room when they traveled, spending time together some nights after work. He would go back home with her, they'd have a drink, have dinner, go to bed, and around two or three in the morning he'd quietly get up and leave. But although she and Pietro slept together once in a while, he was never going to leave his wife, nor was Sofia so sure that she wanted him to. It was okay the way it was.
At the office they tried to keep the whole thing under wraps, but Antonino, Giuseppe, and Minerva knew, and Marco had finally taken them aside and brusquely told them that they were old enough to do what they wanted, but he hoped their personal lives wouldn't interfere with their work or with the functioning of the team.
Pietro and she had agreed that whatever happened between them, they had to keep it to themselves; it couldn't be talked about to their colleagues-no airing of clean or dirty laundry So far it had worked, although they'd never really put it to the test. They had very few arguments, and those were only minor, nothing they hadn't been able to fix. They both knew the relationship wasn't going anywhere, so neither of them had any particular expectations.
Marco was deep in thought, sitting only a few yards from the display case that held the shroud. He looked up, startled, when Sofia gently touched his shoulder, then smiled and patted the pew beside him.
"Impressive, isn't it?" he said, as she sat down next to him.
"Yes, it really is-fake, but impressive nonetheless."
"Fake? I wouldn't be quite so unqualified in my judgment. There's something mysterious in the shroud, something scientists haven't ever been able to explain. NASA determined that the image is three-dimensional. There are scientists who are convinced it's the result of some radiation unknown to science and others who will swear that the prints are blood."
"Marco, you know as well as I do that radiocarbon dating doesn't lie. Doctor Tite and the laboratories that worked on the tests couldn't possibly allow any errors. The cloth is from the thirteenth or fourteenth century, between 1260 and 1390, and three different labs have said so. The probability of error is something like five percent. And the Church has accepted the carbon-fourteen results."