The Turin Shroud Secret (39 page)

He looks around the room at the pools of blood and mutilated bodies.

NOUREDDINE
(cont.)

He must be wounded and cannot have got far.

His eyes fall on bloody hand prints on the wall, near an open shutter the Sultan’s bed.
FIQAR
can tell that the General thinks this is the escape route the assassin took.

FIQAR

I will send my best men to capture him.

FIQAR
starts to the door.

NOUREDDINE

Wait. Do
not
do that.

FIQAR
stops and turns.

NOUREDDINE

There is a matter of
greater
urgency.

He paces before he speaks.

NOUREDDINE

We must feign an illness of our master. The Christians cannot know he is dead. The world must not know. Bring Salahuddin’s
physician – we need his complicity to add face to our deception.

FIQAR
leaves.
NOUREDDINE
picks up a sword and prises out the nails pinning Salahuddin to the crucifix. He lays the great sultan on the floor and pulls
a sheet from the bed to cover the corpse. Then he kneels and prays.

FIQAR
returns with physician
ADHAM BAHIR.
The Commander once more shuts the door to the chambers. Having done so, he pulls a dagger from behind his robe and holds
it to the doctor’s throat.

FIQAR

You will do as General
NOUREDDINE
commands or I will cut any unwillingness from your insolent body. Do you understand me?

BAHIR
tentatively nods over the blade of the knife.

FIQAR

Good.

DHUL
pushes him through to where
NOUREDDINE
is knelt beside the corpse of
SALAHUDDIN.

NOUREDDINE

Physician, bring proper linen, attend to our master’s body personally, see he is treated fittingly.

He stands aside and lets the doctor inspect
SALAHUDDIN.

NOUREDDINE
(cont.)

He is with God already, I know he is. I only pray I live long enough to wreak vengeance on all those who orchestrated this
evil.

DHUL strides over to the body of the dead scribe, spits on him and then kicks at his head.
NOUREDDINE
pulls him away.

NOUREDDINE

Vent your rage another day – I need your calmness of mind this very moment. There is much work to be done.

He looks towards the doctor.

NOUREDDINE
(cont.)

What say you about our Sultan? How shall we make his courtiers believe he is alive but so ill he need be confined to rest?

BAHIR

Some years ago the master was struck with afflictions of the heart. We may say with sadness that the same malady has surfaced.
To avoid infection, only I must enter his chamber.

NOUREDDINE
(looking pleased)

How long can this pretence be perpetrated?

BAHIR

Ten days. No more. Salahuddin is known of old to be a poor patient. Beyond such time, it is not conceivable he would not seek
to rule from his chamber even if I forbade it.

NOUREDDINE

This will have to be sufficient.

He moves close to
FIQAR
and talks in hushed and confidential tones behind a cupped hand held to the ear of the Commander.

NOUREDDINE
(cont.)

I will need to ride to Salahuddin’s wife and speak with his brothers. Their complicity must be secured as a matter of urgency.

FIQAR

I will have my most trusted men ride with you.

NOUREDDINE
nods.

NOUREDDINE

And the unworthy body of this treacherous scribe?

BAHIR

I will personally see to his disposal.

NOUREDDINE

Make sure you cut his stinking soul from his body. He must spend eternity without it, burning in the fires of eternal damnation.

Mitzi’s desk phone rings. Reluctantly, she looks away from the script and hits the hands-free button.

‘Fallon.’

‘Detective, it’s Officer Fisher – Andy Fisher. I found your suspect’s car around the corner. There was a licence inside and
he matches the photo ID. We have a name and address for your guy. You want me to give it you over the phone?’

‘No. Great job, Andy. I’m coming straight down.’

COINTRIN AIRPORT, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

Nic’s badge is enough to swing a ride in a Swiss police car to the airport and another to take Ursula safely to the home of
her diplomat friend in Geneva.

After collecting tickets from the Lufthansa desk, the detective goes straight to the restroom. He locks himself in a cubicle,
lifts the ceramic toilet lid and reluctantly drops the emptied Beretta into the tank. As much as he’d like to hang on to the
weapon there’s no way he can get it through the scanners. He adjusts the floating ball, checks the toilet still flushes, then
heads out to the concourse.

He and Edouard barely have time to speak as they rush through check-in and then get processed in the security, customs and
passport areas. They reach the departure gate and join the hundreds of passengers on the thirteen-hour flight to LA, via a
connection at JFK in New York. Eventually, the 747 lumbers down the runway and levers itself into the evening sky. Once the
flight has levelled out and the seatbelt signs go off, Nic will find the chief steward and get a copy of the passenger list.
He wants to walk the plane and check names against faces. Only then will he feel safe and be able to think about going home
and the new life awaiting him. He’s going to sail north first, up to San Francisco, then past Fort Bragg
and skirt along the forest edges of Crescent City, Gold Beach and Florence. Maybe he’ll scoot across to Neah Bay and do Victoria,
Richmond and Vancouver. He’ll pick up work along the way. Lose himself. Reinvent himself. Who knows?

Broussard touches his arm and brings him back to the present. ‘Do you think you will ever catch the man who murdered your
writer and tried to kill us?’

Normally, Nic would be upbeat and positive. He’d toe the standard detective line and say in the end the bad guys always fall.
But those days are almost all behind him. ‘Probably not. This guy kills in both the US and Europe – he’s a professional assassin.
Pros vanish in the way that street gangsters don’t. You cross borders, you throw police off your trail – you cross continents,
the trail itself gets lost.’

‘But you have clues, forensic evidence, days and dates of movement. These things all help, no?’

‘They do, but they mean a whole lot more if you have a really good description of the guy – and we don’t. He’s a ghost.’

77TH STREET STATION, LOS ANGELES

Mitzi collects the driver’s licence from Andy the traffic cop and heads back upstairs knowing they’ve got a break.

There’s a hot crackle of electricity jumping in her head, lighting up all kinds of possibilities, making connections. She
also knows this is the time to keep cool and go slow. You have to treasure a breakthrough, position it right and build on
it carefully. If you don’t, it turns to sand in your hand.

‘We got something,’ she says, throwing open the door to Tyler Carter’s office and slapping the ID on his desk. ‘Deliverance
is John James and unless I’m mistaken he’s Jenny Harrison’s boss – Kim Bass’s former employer.’

Carter’s eyes drift from his spread of case papers to the licence. ‘John James. The name of a nobody.’

‘I know, but I got bells going off on this guy.’ She flips open her notebook. ‘When I interviewed Jenny, she mentioned the
factory being run by a supervisor called James. She said he even rang a local precinct to find out if Kim was in trouble and
needed bail.’ She flips the book closed. ‘What do you think about that?’

Carter muses on it. ‘Could be he was trying to divert Harrison from calling in the local cops – then again, he might just
have genuinely been helping out.’

‘Sure he was.’

‘Get someone to pull his home and cell numbers and see if any of the stations received a call.’

She nods.

‘Harrison’s on her way in, isn’t she?’

‘We couldn’t raise her. I’ve got uniforms trawling the neighbourhood, won’t be long before they find her.’

‘Okay. Let me know when you’ve spoken to her and had her ID James.’

‘Will do.’

‘Meantime, I’m gonna send Libowicz to check out his home.’

‘You got a warrant?’

Carter gives her a
don’t ask
look.

She heads for the door. ‘I need an hour of personal time – I’ll be back ASAP to interview Harrison.’

‘You’ve got it.’

‘I’m on my cell if you need me.’

BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES

Matthias Svenson rushes down the stairs of his rented mansion. Some idiot’s been pressing the bell for the past five minutes
and he’s going to tear their head off. He fastens the belt of the short white towelling robe that does little to hide his
tanned body and yanks open the door.

‘Detective Fallon?’ The Swede looks startled.

Mitzi slaps the final draft of
The Shroud
in the middle of the director’s broad chest. ‘I’m coming in. We need to talk about this.’

‘I’m not sure I—’

‘Believe me, you’re sure.’ Mitzi pushes her way into a cool reception area of dazzling white and grey veined marble. Sunlight
pours into an airy reception room to her right and she wanders in and looks around. ‘Nice place. Much snazzier than the cell
I’ve got on hold for you.’

‘What’s this about, Lieutenant? I’ve told you everything I know.’

‘Just so you know, I don’t have the time or patience for you to lie to me.’ She sits on a plush white sofa and slaps her hands
on the rich cushions. ‘I should get one of these. Wouldn’t cost more than my year’s pay, I guess.’

Svenson picks a phone off a glass table. ‘I’m calling my lawyer.’

‘Feel free. Only, have him meet us downtown. Tell him you’ve been arrested in connection with perverting the course of justice
in a homicide.’

The director slots the phone back into its base station and takes the seat opposite her.

‘Good decision. That script I gave you, it shows you’ve been holding out on me. You never mentioned the DNA samples taken
of the Shroud, the Muslim links, the storyline about Saladin or the Maronite monks. Now why would you forget all that, Mr
Svenson?’

‘Why is this relevant?’

‘Because it’s why Tamara got killed. But you’ve known that all along, haven’t you?’ She points at the script he put on the
arm of the chair. ‘Tell me the end of the movie. The scenes that are not in there.’

He picks up the draft and looks thoughtfully at it. ‘Tamara was a remarkable writer. Her passion for the written or spoken
word was only matched by her love of history and its mysteries. Before
The Shroud
she’d been researching an ancient group of warrior monks, crusaders who fought the Muslims in the Holy Land.’

‘Hang on – I feel complicated coming along and I’m not good with complicated. I’m going to need to write this down.’ Mitzi
pulls a notebook and pen from her bag. ‘Okay. Fire away.’

‘You have heard of the Knights Templar?’

‘Sure. An ancient order of fighting monks, right?’

‘Right. Well, the Knights of the Mountain are the same, but more secretive and ruthless. They began back in Lebanon in the
fifth century, disciples of Saint Maroun, the hermit monk who founded the Maronite Church.’

She remembers Hix’s forensic report and his insistence that Tamara’s killer had been in the Lebanon. ‘What’s the Maronite
Church?’

‘Catholicism by another name. It operates parallel to the Church of Rome. The Knights of the Mountain are its ultimate protectors.
Suicide warriors. A bloodline of highly trained soldiers who fought secret crusades.’

‘Black ops assassins in the Holy Wars?’

‘If you like. But they were also devout monks. When they weren’t killing, they fasted and prayed on a saintly scale.’

‘And these are the knights in
The Shroud,
the ones responsible for killing Saladin?’

‘The same.’ He puts a hand on the script. ‘We printed off scenes only as far as the cover-up of Saladin’s death. What happened
next was that the assassin – a monk called Ephrem, wounded by Saladin’s guards – fell from his horse crossing the mountains
and died. As a result, for many years the Maronites didn’t know that the assassination had been successful.’

Mitzi is intrigued. ‘Then how did they ever find out?’

‘Rumours spread around the Muslim camps. Somehow their great leader just didn’t seem the same. He was less decisive. Different.
Unusually uncertain. Spies picked up on this and when Muslim soldiers were captured some even volunteered the information
in attempts to stop the Christians executing them.’

‘So just hearsay?’

‘Isn’t most of history? I mean, what proof is there of Jesus Christ’s
miracles
outside of any religious writings?’

‘I’m not a historian, but I get your drift. How’s all this connected to Christ’s shroud?’

‘Saladin’s
shroud.’ He lets the words sink in. ‘The imprint on the linen is that of Christianity’s nemesis.’

77TH STREET STATION, LOS ANGELES

Force press officer Adam Geagea sits at Mitzi Fallon’s empty desk and writes a polite note asking her to call him when she
gets a chance.

He knows she’ll ignore it, all the cops do. He casually swings her swivel chair left and right, then takes advantage of the
fact that there’s no one else nearby. He opens the bottom drawers first and works his way up. There’s not much of interest.
A faxed contract from a lawyer engaging the firm to handle her divorce. Good luck to him, he’ll earn every dime representing
a ballbreaker like Fallon. There are pictures of her daughters, a hidden stash of candy, hand cream, spare tampons, a celebrity
gossip magazine, cup of loose change and a couple of stacks of old notebooks.