not even talked to Goodman since the fall of 1981 when the Shroud team had formalized the findings of their 140,000 hours of work in a published report. In short, the report said that the image on the Shroud is clearly not the result of a painting or any other known method of image transfer. Based on thirteen different test measures and procedures, the scourge marks and blood around the nail holes and side wound are, indeed, the result of human blood. Fibrils beneath the blood show no evidence of oxidation, indicating that the blood was on the cloth prior to whatever process caused the image. Finally, the report said that while the material of the Shroud may be old enough to be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth, it is impossible to even guess at its age without carbon 14 dating, and that could not be done without destroying a large portion of the cloth.
But that was in 1981. By 1987 six labs around the world had equipment that could perform accurate carbon 14 dating using a sample the size of a postage stamp. And in early 1988 the Catholic Church announced that Pope John Paul II would permit the Shroud to be carbon 14 dated by three laboratories. In October 1988 the Church announced the findings. The labs found that, with a combined certainty of 95%, the Shroud was made of flax grown sometime between 1260 and 1390, and therefore, the cloth is simply not old enough to have been the burial cloth of Christ.
'What was it that Professor Goodman said?' Elizabeth asked. 'That it was the most important discovery since Columbus discovered America?'
'Yeah,' Decker responded, shaking his head.
'Well, if the Shroud has been proven a forgery, what else could he be talking about?'
'I don't know,' Decker shrugged. 'The only thing I can think of is that Goodman has discovered how the image was made. After all, even though we know it's a forgery we still have no idea how the image was transferred to the cloth,' Decker explained. 'But if that's all he's found, he's blowing this way out of proportion. It could hardly be compared with Columbus discovering America.'
'Well, then he must have discovered some way to prove that it's real,' Elizabeth concluded.
Decker shook his head. 'No, that's crazy,' he concluded. 'The carbon 14 dating was conclusive, and besides, it's axiomatic that you can't prove the existence of God in the laboratory. So even if the dating was wrong, how could Goodman prove the authenticity of the Shroud? Proving the Shroud is a forgery is something science can do, but trying to prove it's authentic would be nuts.' Decker paused and then added, 'Not to mention totally out of character for someone like Goodman who's not even sure of his own existence, much less the existence of God.' Elizabeth and Decker laughed, kissed, and ended their conversation for the night.
Los Angeles, California
Harry Goodman met Decker at the Los Angeles airport. Once they reached his car, Goodman wasted no time getting to the subject at hand. 'You remember, no doubt,' Goodman said, 'the effect it had on me when we discovered the minute particles of dirt in the heel area of the Shroud image.' Goodman presumed too much; ten years had passed since Turin, but Decker politely nodded recollection. 'It made no sense,' Goodman continued. 'No medieval forger would have gone to the trouble of rubbing dirt into the Shroud unless it could be seen by the naked eye. It was then that I began to question my assumption that the Shroud was a forgery.'
Decker shook his head, certain he must have misunderstood. Could Goodman really be suggesting he thought the Shroud was real?
'You, of course, recall that some of the most conclusive work on the Shroud was done by Dr. John Heller using the samples gathered on the strips of Mylar tape.' Decker did recall. Heller and Dr. Allan Adler had proven that the stains were human blood and had also determined that the images were the result of oxidation.8
8 Dr. John H. Heller, Report on the Shroud of Turin, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983).
'Yeah,' Decker replied. 'But how can any of that matter now that we know the Shroud's not old enough to be authentic?'
'I wanted to examine the tape samples taken from the heel and foot area more closely,' Goodman continued, ignoring Decker's question, 'so I arranged to get the samples sent here. You will recall that the samples were placed in a specially built case, and they took great care to guarantee that no foreign materials got onto the samples. Each sample was catalogued by where it had come from on the Shroud and then the case was sealed hermetically for shipping. Unfortunately, that was like closing the gate after the horses have already gone.
'In Turin, I personally counted more than a dozen different contaminated articles that came in contact with the Shroud. At least two team members and three priests kissed it. Hell, as far as kissing and touching the thing, it seems that's been going on for as long as it's been around. And don't forget the rust stains from those old thumbtacks. Even our procedures to prevent contamination introduced some contaminants. The cotton gloves we wore surely carried American pollen that, no doubt, got onto the Shroud material. And while we're talking about other materials, let's not forget the plywood, or the backing material, or the red silk covering.
'The point of all this is that the tape samples picked up all sorts of garbage that had nothing to do with the origin of the Shroud or the creation of the image. In his published report on the Shroud, Dr. Heller noted finding both natural and synthetic fibers, fly ash, animal hairs, insect parts, beeswax from church candles, and a couple of dozen other assorted materials, not to mention spores and pollen.9 Because of all this clutter, Heller decided that most of his examination should employ levels of magnification just powerful enough to examine substances that could have been used to create a visible image, and to ignore the smaller, irrelevant materials.
'For his purposes, Heller did exactly what he should have done, but his procedures would have missed the kind of evidence that I was looking for. That's why I decided to have a second look. I was interested in what might ordinarily have been missed among all the microscopic clutter.
'I believe that what I found will explain the whole Shroud mystery.' Goodman paused. 'But there's more.'
9 ibid., pp. 126 and 163.
Decker waited but Goodman was silent. 'Well, what is it?' Decker asked.
'Where's your sense of drama, Hawthorne?' asked Goodman. 'You'll see, soon enough.'
At the University, Goodman drove to the William G. Young Science building on the east side of the U.C.L.A. campus and parked in the tenured faculty parking lot. Goodman's office was on the fourth floor and looked out over a courtyard westward to the Engineering building. It was arranged very much the same as the office he had at U.T., including the ragged but now framed 'I think, therefore, I'am. I think' poster and a laser-printed version of Goodman's first law of achievement. 'Before we go any further,' Goodman began, as they settled into his office, 'I must confess that I have brought you here under slightly false pretenses.' Decker didn't like the sound of that but he let Goodman continue. 'What I am going to show you – you may not reveal to anyone. At least not yet.'
'Then why was it so important that I come out here right away?' Decker asked, both puzzled and a little perturbed at having been misled.
'Because,' Goodman answered, 'I need a witness. And the way I figure it, you owe me. You could have gotten me in a lot of trouble with my colleagues when you ran your story on the Turin project. The only reporter that was supposed to be there was Weaver from National Geographic. We weren't even supposed to talk-to anyone from the press. And then a week after we got back, the whole world reads wire reports of a copyrighted story in a Knoxville paper by some damned reporter who managed to pass himself off as a member of the team. And that damned reporter just happened to decide to pass himself off as my damned assistant!
'I went through no end of scrutiny over that, but it could have been much worse. You could have cost me the trust of a lot of my professional colleagues. Fortunately you did make yourself useful while you were there and you made a good impression on the rest of the team members. But still, it might not have worked out so well. If anyone had thought that I knowingly helped a reporter get onto the team, I'd have been blackballed as a security risk on all kinds of future projects. So the way I figure it, you owe me, and you owe me big.'
