Quest for the Holy Shroud

Book excerpt: The theft of the Holy Shroud from the Royal Chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, baffled the Italian police. Their investigation failed to develop any useful information or leads in spite of the assistance of the United States Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment which conducted polygraph tests on all of the suspects in the case. The Vatican, in a desperate attempt to recover the Holy Shroud, considered the Holy Grail of Christendom, summoned Alex Petrov, a leading member of the Secret Society of Jesuits and personal friend of the Cardinal General to assist the Vatican and the Italian police in its recovery. Alex Petrov's position as the Director of Clandestine Operations of the Central Intelligence Agency, placed him in the unique position of having unparalleled resources at his disposal but only one man came to mind that was capable of solving the mystery and that was his old friend and colleague, James Markham, recognized internationally as a polygraph expert, and by the Vatican as the biblical Truthseeker. But first he had to locate Markham and he assigned that task to one of his female agents, Teri Flanigan, who found Markham in a Paris bistro drinking away his grief for the loss of his deceased wife. Sober and on the CIA payroll, Markham and Flanigan followed the trail of suspects in five countries and three continents, resulting in the recovery of the miraculous Holy Shroud, but at the expense of a courageous disciple whose life was surrendered to liberate it.