Contents ( 44)
- DAUGHTER OF GOD
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- CONTENTS
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
“Would you like me to take it back to the viewing room for you?”
Seth nodded his assent. As he and Zoe followed Mutters back out of the vaults, Seth looked at the rows on rows of boxes and wondered what other evils were stored within. Were there people being killed right now for the boxes’ contents? The thought made him shiver.
THIRTY
The viewing room still smelled faintly of turpentine. Mutters had brought them the contents of the safe deposit box and left them alone. Impatiently they had torn at the seals of the box, and found, inside, a metal briefcase of the sort used to protect cameras and electronic instruments. It had an elaborate combination lock that yielded when the numbers were set in accordance with the numbers in the bank account number.
The contents of the briefcase now covered the coffee table: papers—many with seals—documents from the Reichschancellery and the Vatican; bound instruction books relating to a fortified installation; the blueprint of that installation identified only as “Habersam Facility,” microfilm labeled “historic testimony originals at Habersam Facility,” and photographs, scores of photographs.
Seth nervously handed one of the photographs to Zoe. “No wonder they are still willing to kill for the painting,” he said.
Zoe took the photograph. Printed on expensive sulfurfree paper, a fine-grained image of a face stared back at her. The face was the shadowy image of a young woman or girl in death, the expression a peaceful one of relief, as if a great suffering had just ended.
“I can’t believe it,” Zoe said. “Hitler blackmailed the Pope into silence on the Nazi atrocities.”
“Believe it,” Seth said. “Here’s the document that proves it.”
He fished through the mess on the table and pulled out a document, the agreement that guaranteed the Catholic Church’s silence, in exchange for which Hitler guaranteed the safety of the Vatican and agreed not to make public any of the evidence relating to Sophia’s Shroud. At the bottom, verified by the seals of the Vatican and the Third Reich, were the signatures of Pope Pius XII and Adolf Hitler.
Zoe laid the photograph back on the table on top of the other images of the shroud.
They both stared at the material on the table. It seemed overwhelming: the cover-up of a female Messiah by an emperor and a Pope, the discovery of the shroud and all the supporting documents—the Sophia Passion—by Hermann Goering. Hundreds had died in the original coverup; millions more had been killed in the resulting silence.
“What do we do now?” Zoe asked.
“Go to Alt Aussee, I suppose,” Seth said “That’s what Yost said we should do. Go see Morgen. Besides, we can’t stay here for very long. The police would like to nail us. Maybe a little town in Austria is a good place to hide out until we can figure out exactly how to get out of this mess.”
“It would also give us a chance to look at this material more closely. We’ve only scratched the surface.”