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The other members of the Art Crimes Department had all been under relentless surveillance as well-all their telephone calls, both landline and cellular, had been intercepted, and each of them had been followed around the clock.
"So?" the older man insisted.
"I hesitate to-"
"I understand," the older man interrupted the Italian, "I understand. Say no more. You need not take part in the decision."
"Do you think that lightens my conscience?"
"No, I know it doesn't. But it can help. I think you need that help, spiritual help. We have all passed through moments like this in our lives. It has not been easy, but we have not chosen the easy road-we have chosen the impossible. It is in circumstances such as these that the nobility of our mission becomes the measure of ourselves."
'After dedicating my entire life… do you think that I still have to prove that I am worthy of our mission?"
"Of course not. You need not prove anything," his master replied. "But you are suffering. We can all see that. You must look within yourself, and to God, for the strength you have always had. For now, please, trust in our judgment and let us act as we must."
"No, I ca
"I can suspend you temporarily, until you are yourself again."
"You can do that. What else will you do?"
As other guests began to glance toward them, the military man interrupted.' "That's enough. They're looking at us. Let's leave this for another moment."
"There is no time," the older man replied. "I must ask for your consent now."
"So be it," said all the men but one, who, lips tight with anger and frustration, turned on his heel and strode away.
Sofia and Minerva were at carabinieri headquarters in Turin. It was two minutes till nine, and through the microphone hidden under the lapel of his jacket, Marco had notified them that the gates of the prison were opening. He watched the mute come out, walking slowly, looking straight ahead, even as the gate closed behind him. His calm was surprising, Marco thought. There was no emotion, no sign that he welcomed freedom after years of confinement.
Mendib told himself that he was being watched. He didn't see them, but he knew they were there, watching. He was going to have to throw them off his trail, lose them, but how? He would try to follow the plan he had made in prison. He would go to the center of the city, wander about, sleep on a bench in some park. He didn't have much money; he could pay for a room in a pensione for three or four days at the most and eat only panini. He would also get rid of these clothes and shoes; although he had gone over them carefully and found nothing, he was instinctively uncomfortable about them since they had been in the possession of the guards for laundering.
He knew Turin. Addaio had sent him and his brothers here a year before their attempt to steal the shroud, precisely so that they could become familiar with the city. He had followed the pastor's instructions: walk and walk and walk, all over the city. It was the best way to come to know it. He'd also learned the bus routes.
He was approaching the center of Turin, walking through the Crocetta district. The moment of truth had come-the moment to escape the people who were surely following him.
"I think we've got company."
Marco's voice came over the transmitter in their operations center.
"Who are they?" asked Minerva.
"No idea-but they look like Turks."
"Turks or Italians," they heard Giuseppe say. "Black hair, olive skin."
"How many are there?" Sofia asked.
"Two, for the moment," Marco said, "but there may be more. They're young. The mute seems oblivious. He's wandering around, looking at the windows-as out to lunch as usual."
They heard Marco give the carabinieri instructions not to lose sight of the two unknown tails.
Neither Marco nor the other police officers focused on a limping old man who was selling lottery tickets. Neither tall nor short, neither heavyset nor thin, dressed anonymously and impersonally, the old man was just part of the landscape of the neighborhood.
But the old man had seen them. The killer hired by Addaio missed nothing, and so far he had identified half a dozen cops, plus four of the men sent by Bakkalbasi.
He was irritated-the man who'd hired him hadn't told him that the cops would be swarming all over the place or that there were other killers like him after his target. He'd have to take his time, develop a new plan.
Another man made him suspicious, too, at first, but he'd shaken it off after a while. No, that one was no cop, and he didn't look Turkish either-he didn't have anything to do with this, although the way he moved… Then he was gone, and the killer breathed easy. The guy was nothing.
All day, Mendib wandered through the city. He had rejected the idea of sleeping on a bench; it would be a mistake. If someone wanted to kill him, he would be making it too easy if he slept out in the open in a park. So at dusk he made his way to a homeless shelter that he'd seen that morning, run by the Sisters of Charity. He would be safer there.
Once they established that the mute had eaten and settled himself on a thin mattress near the dormitory entrance, where one of the nuns sat to prevent fights among the inmates, Marco felt confident their subject wouldn't be moving again that night. He decided to go to the hotel and get a little sleep, and he ordered his team to do the same thing, except for Pietro, whom he left in charge with a relief team of three fresh carabinieri-enough to follow the mute if he emerged again unexpectedly.
Ana Jimenez was waiting in the Paris airport for a night flight to Rome. From there she'd continue on to Turin. She was nervous and disturbed by what she'd been reading in Elisabeth's file. If just a fraction of what was in it was true, it would be terrible. There were dimensions to this story she'd never imagined when she began, things that seemed to relate to the shroud-or some great secret-yet had nothing to do with France or Turin. But the reason she'd decided to go back to Turin anyway was that she'd seen one of the names that appeared in the file in another report-the one that Marco Valoni had given her brother to read. And if what Elisabeth said was true, that name belonged to one of the masters of the new Temple and related directly to the shroud.
She had made two decisions: one, to talk to Sofia, and two, to go to the cathedral and surprise Padre Yves. She'd spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon trying to contact Sofia, but the desk at the Alexandra had informed her that she'd left very early, and Ana had yet to get any reply from the several voice-mail messages she'd left for her. There seemed to be no way to get in touch with the dottoressa at this moment. As for Padre Yves, she'd see him the next day, one way or the other.
Elisabeth was right-she was getting close to something, although to what she wasn't sure.
Bakkalbasi's men had managed to lose the carabinieri. One of them stayed outside the Sisters of Charity shelter, watching to be sure Mendib didn't leave; the others dispersed. By the time they reached the cemetery, it was nightfall and the guard was waiting for them nervously.
"Hurry, hurry, I have to leave," he hissed as he motioned them inside. "I will give you a key to the gate, in case you come too late one night and I have had to go."
The entrance of the mausoleum he led them to was protected by an angel with a sword raised high in one hand. The four men went inside, lighting their way with a flashlight, and disappeared into the bowels of the earth.
Ismet was waiting for them in the underground room. He had brought water for them to wash with, and food. They were hungry and tired, and all they wanted was to sleep.
"Where is Mehmet?"