Shadow Ritual

14

Marcas awoke with a start, the image of Sophie Dawes’s body sprawled on the embassy floor in his mind. He got up and stretched, trying to shake the sadness he felt for his sister Freemason. The chain that united them had lost a link.

Marcas skipped breakfast and headed straight to the temple on the Via Condotti. A white-haired man who had to be at least ninety held the job of overseeing the archives at the Alessendro di Cagliostro Lodge. When Marcas asked for the records of violence against Roman Freemasons, the man brought out a faded green box filled with papers that had seen better days.

Marcas sat down in a deep leather chair and delved into the contents. The three blows to the body were too close to the legend of Hiram’s death to be a coincidence. He made his way through open-meeting reports and press clippings about fascist groups ransacking lodges during Mussolini’s reign. Then nothing at all until the Allies liberated Italy.

Frustrated, Marcas asked the old librarian about unexplained Freemason murders.

“My memory is not so good anymore,” the librarian said, scratching his head. He shuffled over to a chair and settled in. “I do recall that right before the Allies arrived, three lodge officers from Rome and Milan were found murdered in a mansion not far from the Coliseum. Their faces were smashed in.”

“Do you think it might have been the Blackshirts or the SS?” Marcas asked.

“A brother who was in the police told me he didn’t think either of them was responsible. The Blackshirts used other methods, and Hitler’s strongmen tortured their victims before executing them or just shot them and threw them in common graves.”

The old man was choosing his words carefully. He seemed to recover some deeply held energy as he talked about that dark time in history. No doubt it was a remnant of the courage and daring he had needed to survive.

The librarian handed Marcas another file that was even dustier. It was filled with press clippings from the nineteen thirties. One of the articles gave an account of the 1934 murder of a researcher, a Freemason who had been beaten to death. His skull was crushed. Next to the story, someone had written “Hiram?” in purple ink. Marcas made photocopies and opened his red notebook to jot down a list of similar murders.

1934. Florence, a brother.

1944. Rome, three brothers.

2005. Rome, a sister.

He thanked the old man and left the Roman lodge.

15

Bashir was driving a pickup he had borrowed from someone who owed him a favor. He had chosen his cover with care: Jordanian excavation-equipment sales rep. The bed of the truck was filled with rubble from a construction site. Among the rocks was the stone he had stolen from the institute.

When he reached the Allanby Bridge border crossing, a zealous Jewish border guard wanted him to unload the truck.

He’d expected this. At that moment, an associate who was following him in a car pulled out of the line of traffic and started honking. A swarm of Israeli army officers descended on the man, fingers on their triggers.

The border guard turned to see the commotion and then yelled at Bashir. “Get out of here. Go back to your country of dirty nomads.”

One obstacle down. When he arrived in Amman, he’d ditch the truck, change his clothes, and pick up his new identity: Vittorio Cavalcanti, a Milanese tourist going home after seeing the marvels of Jordan. He would have a large suitcase full of souvenirs, including the Tebah Stone.

16

“So, do we agree? Ms. Dawes experienced an unfortunate fall at the embassy in Rome. The administration will not comment on the incident.”

The French diplomatic system was working at full tilt the day after Sophie Dawes’s murder. Zewinski had brought the body back to France. The coroner’s office had contacted the family to come and identify her.

Three witnesses — all members of the embassy security team — had provided signed affidavits stating that Sophie seemed to have had too much to drink. She had lost her balance while going down the marble steps and had hit her head. None of the guests had seen anything, and no reporters had gotten wind of the accident. A life had been erased, a death touched up.

Sophie’s father was an elderly man with Alzheimer’s disease. He did not come to identify the body. A distant cousin was brought in at the last minute to sign the papers and then disappeared as just as quickly.

The body would be buried in two days without any ceremony in a cemetery in the suburbs of Paris.

Meanwhile, intelligence services were piecing together the victim’s short life. At the same time, agents were contacting the Grand Orient de France Freemason Lodge to let them know that one of their archivists had died in an unfortunate accident. The minister of the interior had already scheduled a meeting with a Grand Orient advisor, who was also a high-level civil servant.

The foreign office representative shot Pierre Darsan of the interior ministry a questioning look.

Darsan continued. “We need to make sure everyone keeps this under wraps. The gendarmes who witnessed the accident will be transferred to other embassies tomorrow.”

“What about Zewinski?”

“She did an expert job of handling things. We’ll debrief her and keep her on to investigate what really happened.”

“And the police inspector, Antoine Marcas? What was he doing there?”

“A coincidence,” Darsan said. “Apparently he was taking a few days off in Rome. He and our man Jaigu are friends. Since Marcas was at the reception, Jaigu pulled him in on the preliminary investigation. He could be useful. He’s a Freemason. Marcas should be boarding a plane back to Paris as we speak.”

“Can we count on him staying quiet?”

“I can make that happen.”

“Fine,” the foreign office representative said as he stood up. “Darsan, it’s your investigation now — unofficially, that is.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, Darsan went to the window. The room was silent, except for the muffled sound of traffic outside. He smoothed his mustache, a habit he had picked up in Algeria forty years earlier, and returned to his desk.

He lit a cigarette and opened Antoine Marcas’s file: forty years old, a homicide detective, a short stint in the anti-gang unit, commendations from his superiors, on the fast track toward becoming chief, then an unexpected spell in police intelligence services before suddenly requesting a transfer to a simple Parisian precinct. An additional page specified that during his stint in intelligence, he attended a certain Freemason lodge that also had several members who were involved in a money-laundering scheme. He was divorced, had a ten-year-old son, paid his child support every month, and spent his spare time writing articles about Freemason history.

Darsan closed that file and opened Jade Zewinski’s. She boasted a remarkable career for someone her age with no family connections. She ranked in the top ten of her class at the military academy and did commando training, foreign intelligence, and two operations in the Middle East, followed by security in Afghanistan for visiting media and politicians. After that, she had been sent to Rome.

He went through another ten or so pages before a press clipping caught his attention. Her father had committed suicide after his business failed. Smiling, Darsan read the article twice. Apparently Jade Zewinski had at least one good reason to dislike the Freemasons. He closed the file and called his secretary.

17

A breeze carried the scent of the sea, which mingled with the fragrance of the pine trees. Five men and two women walked slowly, taking time to contemplate the beauty of the Croatian landscape just below the Hvar fortress. The tallest of them, a gray-haired man with a buzz cut, pointed to a small headland jutting out toward the sea, flanked by two crumbling stone walls rising from the rocky soil. To the left, near the cliff, a small chapel surrounded by three majestic yew trees bore a pale mineral sheen in the bright sunlight.

The group headed in the indicated direction, following an uphill path lined with aromatic herbs. It ended at a natural belvedere.

They sat down on a wooden bench facing the Adriatic Sea, which shimmered in the bright morning light.

One of them, a short sweaty man with a red face, turned to his neighbor and nodded toward the chapel, which was padlocked. “What a fabulous view. I’d love to live here. It’s perfect, an ode to the glory of nature. Why, then, did you leave that Christian building? We’ve owned this land forever and can do what we want with it.”

The gray-haired man sitting next to him smiled and patted his shoulder. His steely eyes were bright. “Patience. I assure you it is no longer in use, and I have set it aside for a rather special purpose. You will see, but first, let’s talk about what has brought us together. We now have the Tebah Stone, or at least it is in good hands. Sol should pick it up in Paris shortly. Unfortunately, the Rome operation was a failure. We don’t have the documents.”

Nobody reacted. Finally, a thin balding man with light brown eyes spoke up. “That’s regrettable. I remind you that we need three things to solve this mystery. The first has always been in our possession. The second is engraved on that Jewish stone, and the third, which you failed to get, remains in enemy hands. And now they will be on guard. The murders in Jerusalem and Rome bear our signature. That was your idea.”

“We will get them. I’ve already given the orders.”

“He’s right,” the short man chimed in. “I told you this operation could be dangerous and draw attention to us. What for? You and Sol have been leading us on a ghost hunt. Don’t forget that our enemies are powerful and have a sprawling network.”

“Enough. Let me remind you that the ritual surrounding their deaths fulfills a promise made by our ancestors.”

“I still think we are losing our focus with this folklore. We have more important goals. This is a minor operation.”

The man with the buzz cut glanced at the chapel, stood up, and softened his tone. “You’re right. I don’t know what came over me. The weather is excellent. Let’s not argue. I suggest we go commune in the chapel.”

The others stared at him, as if he had gone mad. He burst out laughing.

“Come with me. Let’s enter the house of Christ and his mother. It was once called the Chapel of Our Mother of the Passion.”

The group walked over to the chapel. The man with the buzz cut unlocked the door and opened it. The smell of wet stone and something indefinable struck them. The gray-haired man flipped a small switch, and three lights went on.

The inside of the church was simple, with whitewashed walls and restored stained-glass windows. A large wooden crucifix with Jesus wearing a crown of thorns reigned over the altar. It would have been a classic religious setting, were it not for the metal structure planted in front of the altar, a sarcophagus over six feet tall and shaped like a woman. Her body had generous breasts and hips, and flowing hair graced her serene face. The group immediately recognized what it was.

“The Iron Maiden!” they exclaimed, almost in unison.

Their guide led them to the strange object.

“Yes, my friends. One of our companions found this in the cellar of a castle near Munich. It was built in the fifteenth century and has been fully restored.”

A man with a British accent interrupted. “I saw something like that in a horror movie. I thought the filmmaker made it up.”

“Not at all. The maiden dates from medieval times in Germany, when Sainte Vehme’s courts were responsible for executing bad Christians and criminals. The jurisdiction behaved like a secret society with strange rites, a remnant of which stands before you.”

He pressed a hidden button on the side of the sarcophagus. With a click, the front, with the woman’s face and body, opened slowly, revealing rows of iron spikes.

“Amazing, isn’t it? The judges would place the sentenced soul in the sarcophagus and shut it, and the spikes would pierce the victim in precise places, including his vital organs. As you can see, two of the spikes are positioned to penetrate the eyes. The name ‘Iron Maiden’ pays homage to the Virgin Mother. These were very religious people.”

“Ingenious.”

“Does someone want to try it, just to see?”

They tittered. As hardened as they were to other people’s pain, they were sensitive when it came to their own.

The leader turned to the red-faced man. “You, perhaps?”

“No, thank you. I think I’ll pass. Let’s get out of this dreary place.”

“I don’t think we will. At least you won’t.”

There was the sound of footsteps in the entryway. Two strongmen appeared. In a matter of seconds, they swooped down on the small man, immobilizing his arms. He seemed tiny next to the square-jawed giants.

“Are you out of your mind? Let me go!”

“Shut up.”

The leader’s voice rang out. “Sol checked the accounts for our activities in northern Europe. You cooked Orden’s books, and you’ve been stealing from us.”

“That’s not true.”

“Quiet. You embezzled more than a million euros. What for? To build a villa in Andalusia! That was a big mistake!”

The accused tried to fight back but was helpless.

“Put him in the maiden.”

“No!” the man shouted, still trying to free himself from the clutches of the giants. One of the strongmen struck him in the head with a club and shoved him into the metallic structure, partially closing the front. The spikes were just inches from him.

“Please, have pity on me. I’ll give it all back. I have a family. Children.”

“Now, now. You know full well that to enter our order you abjure pity and compassion. At least try to die like a man of the Thule. Fear is foreign to us.”

The man’s sobs bounced off the wooden crucifix — Christ suffering for humanity — and filled the chapel.

The man with the buzz cut and steel-colored eyes pressed another button camouflaged in the maiden’s eye. The whirr of a small motor resonated.

“I added a motorized system with a timer to control the speed. If I set it at ten, your agony will last ten minutes. It can go as long as two hours.”

“I’ll give the money back.”

“You’ll have to forgive me, but I’ve only tested this contraption on a few guinea pigs. Weight and height also play a role. Perfection is not of this world.”

The front closed a bit more, and the iron stakes tickled the victim’s eyes, stomach, knees, and genitals.

“I am too kind. I set it for a mere fifteen minutes. Adieu, my friend,” the man said, turning to the others and adding, “How about lunch? An excellent meal awaits us.”

18

Marcas’s phone rang as soon as he entered the terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

“Zewinski here. I need to see you right away.”

“I’m not your subordinate,” Marcas said, ready to hang up. “I don’t take orders from you.”

“These don’t come from me. They come from the ministry, so you’re out of luck.”

“Then meet me at the Bibliothèque François Mitterand in an hour,” Marcas said. As much as that woman irritated him, he couldn’t shake Sophie Dawes’s murder.

“Why there? Is that one of your Freemason haunts?”

“I just like the place. The cafeteria is good for private conversations.”

“Hey, didn’t President Mitterand get himself elected with the help of his Freemason connections and appoint some of your brothers to his cabinet?”

“So they say, but he distanced himself later. You know how good he was at calculated ambiguity.” Why was he even discussing this with her? “In an hour,” he concluded, ending the call.

If only she knew how much he hated influence peddling, even though he’d applied to be a Freemason in 1990 as much out of opportunism as curiosity. He was still a rookie cop when Freemasons in high places singled him out. After a dinner with quite a bit of drinking, a superior officer asked him if he wanted to be a Freemason, as if it were like joining a tennis club. Marcas didn’t know how to answer at first but quickly realized that it was idiotic to refuse the invitation.

Freemasons had been numerous in the French police system since World War II, and as one climbed the ranks, the number of brothers rose.

A month after the invitation was extended, three people he didn’t know came to see him — at his apartment — to discuss his commitment. They asked questions about his lifestyle and tastes and tried to dissuade him from joining the Masons.

A month after that, Marcas was summoned to a Freemason temple in the fifteenth arrondissement. He waited in a small black room full of alchemical symbols, where he meditated and wrote a philosophical testament. Then, blindfolded and stripped of some of his clothing, he underwent tests symbolizing a perilous journey across water, air, and fire to finally reach the light, the crucial moment of rebirth.

There was nothing really secret about the rite, and anyone could read about it in one of the thousands of books about freemasonry. But Marcas understood on this night that going through the ritual had added a new dimension to his being and had changed him. He had felt something indescribable, as though he were frozen in a moment of eternity. It was hard to articulate. This wasn’t magic. It was an alternative awareness that he had never before experienced.

After his initiation, Marcas met the other brothers in the lodge, none of whom held influential positions. He was almost disappointed: no well-known politicians, no emblematic judges, no celebrities. Just ordinary people: cops like him, teachers, some business owners, a handful of craftsmen, a few retired academics, and a cook who had received some attention for getting a Michelin star.

But Marcas applied himself and rose from apprentice to fellow craft and master mason.

When he was preparing for the police chief’s exam, he was invited to join a group of a hundred or so police officials from different lodges. Marcas never knew if being one of them had earned him points, but he did build a solid network of connections.

That was history. He didn’t need to explain any of it to the snide Embassy Security Chief Jade Zewinski.

A chilly rain had started falling, and precipitation always threatened to transform the Bibliothèque Nationale de France’s outdoor plaza into an ersatz skating rink. It was because of the hardwood decking the building’s architect had insisted on. The unintended consequence was a high incidence of slips, falls, sprains, and breaks. Shortly after the library opened, some anti-slip decking strips were added to partially mitigate the problem. Still, Marcas almost lost his footing on an unprotected set of steps. He grabbed the railing. Righting himself, he continued toward the library. The wind had picked up, and the towers — shaped like books for those with an active imagination — were standing like fortresses against the sheets of rain.

He pulled his raincoat tighter. The large yet frail tropical trees that adorned the immense central patio were whipping back and forth in the wind, tugging the lines that moored them. Finally reaching the entryway, he saw that the escalator, as usual, wasn’t working.

A small group of people was waiting patiently as two bored-looking guards inspected their bags. A dozen or so umbrellas were the only bright spots of colors in this metal and dark-wood interior.

Marcas made his way up a floor, crossing the metal footbridge that led to the library cafeteria. He pushed open a heavy door and scanned the large room. Four students were huddled around their notebooks and whispering. A Japanese couple who looked like tourists were people-watching, and an elderly woman was reading an antiques magazine. No Zewinski yet. Marcas ordered a coffee and sat down.

He was fiddling with a brochure advertising vacations in Cuba and Santo Domingo with seductive photos of palm trees and white sand beaches when he heard a coat rustling. He looked up and saw Special Agent Zewinski walking purposefully toward him — tall, blonde, chiseled features, determined eyes. She was a shrew, he thought, but a damned good-looking shrew.

She sat down across from him without taking off her coat.

“Hey, brother.”

Marcas tightened his jaw. Her tone pissed him off, just as it had in Rome. He started to get up to leave, but she reached for his arm.

“Wait, I was just joking. You Freemasons have no sense of humor. I won’t do it again.”

She brought her hands together to give him the namaste sign. Marcas settled into his chair again.

“It might surprise you that I do have a sense of humor. But I don’t think it’s necessary to make a joke at someone else’s expense. That said, maybe you can tell me why I’m here.”

Her face became serious, and the look in her eyes darkened. For the first time, he noted their color: light brown speckled with green.

“I know why Sophie was killed.”

19

Marcas ordered another coffee and folded his hands on the table. Some more students had sat down at a nearby table and were staring at Jade.

She lowered her voice. “Someone’s after a bunch of damned papers that belong to your Freemason buddies. Sophie told me she was on an assignment for the Grand Orient. She was taking the documents to Jerusalem. She didn’t tell me what they were — some big historical deal apparently. She asked me to put them in the embassy safe.”

“So she was being careful with some historical documents. How do you know her killer wanted them?”

“She was all paranoid about them, making sure that I put them under lock and key, and then, after she was murdered, I went to her hotel room to pick up her personal effects, and someone had sacked the place.”

“Do you have the papers?”

“Of course. I brought them back to Paris with me.”

So that was why Zewinski wanted to see him. She had his attention now. Historical masonic documents in the hands of the profane could be dangerous.

“Have you read them?”

“I didn’t understand a thing. You’d have to be a historian or a member of your cult to understand that crap. It’s something about rituals, geometric constructions, and Bible references. I’d say the papers date back to the eighteenth or nineteenth century.”

“You should return them to their rightful owners. They are the only ones who can explain why someone would kill for them.”

Jade glared at him. “I know what I have to do, but for now, they are evidence in a murder investigation that doesn’t exist. They’ll get back to your friends in due time.”

“So, why are you telling me this?”

Zewinski ran her hands through her hair and waited a minute. “You don’t know it yet, but we’ll be working together after all. There was a meeting at the Interior Ministry earlier today, and we’ve been officially assigned to this entirely unofficial case.”

Marcas took a slow sip of his coffee to give himself some time to think.

“In case you don’t know it, I’m on vacation. I’m supposed to be off for another two weeks, and I have lots of fun activities planned, none of which include you. I’m really very sorry about your friend’s death, but I will not, under any circumstances, be involved in this case.”

Zewinski smiled. “But you don’t have a choice. Apparently one of the higher-ups is a fellow of the light — that’s what you call it, don’t you? And he wants you to illuminate this case. I’m no psychic, but I predict you’ll be getting a call from your superiors in no time at all.”

“Well, in that case, thanks for the heads up.”

“Look, I came to get things straight between us. If we’re going to work together, we need to be clear. I’m going to have to stick my nose into your apron-wearing clown act, and I’m not happy about it.”

Marcas set down his coffee.

“I’ll wait until I get my orders. In the meantime, I just have one question.”

“Shoot.”

“Why do you hate Freemasons so much?”

Her eyes hardened. She stood up abruptly and adjusted her coat.

“You’re right. I don’t like what you represent, and I know that Sophie died because of some scheming done by your devious little brothers, adepts of the Great Architect of the Universe. This meeting is over. We’ll see each other in a setting that’s more official before the day is out.”

Marcas stared at her as she turned her back and stomped out, slamming the cafeteria door. There was no way he would team up with that Valkyrie. He paid for the coffees and left, swearing under his breath. Why had he accepted that invitation to the embassy? Besides, he was supposed to fly to Washington next week to meet with American Freemasons at Georgetown University. They’d been planning the meeting for months to share information on alchemical iconography in eighteenth-century rituals.

As he left the library, though, he admitted that his plans were already ruined — a sister had died, after all.

20

His client was not going to be happy. His connection to Paris had been canceled — some anomalies in the plane’s hydraulic system. All the passengers en route to Paris had been asked to disembark at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

Bashir picked up his luggage — which held the precious Tebah Stone — without any grousing. He left that to the other travelers, most of them French, who were having a go at the airline employee trying to get them on other flights. He opted to take the train to Paris after spending a night in Amsterdam for the pleasure of it. After all, he wasn’t Bashir the feared Palestinian hit man now. He was Vittorio, a fun-loving Milanese Italian who liked wine and pretty women.

A little delay wouldn’t make any difference. What was so urgent about some archeological artifact? He knew practically nothing about his client, a certain Sol. Their contact was limited to e-mails sent through a series of addresses. “Meeting in Paris ASAP,” the most recent one read. “Contact Tuzet at the Plaza Athénée. Ask for the keys to his Daimler.”

He didn’t know who Tuzet was, but as long as he got paid, he couldn’t care less. Before leaving the airport, he swapped his suitcase full of travel souvenirs for a small carry-on for the stone and the accompanying documents. He also sent an encrypted e-mail to Sol, advising him of the delay and saying he would take a bullet train in the morning. He would arrive in the early afternoon.

Now he had some time to kill. He headed downtown. Perhaps he would visit the red-light district. He had heard of some fine restaurants, too. So maybe he would satisfy both appetites tonight: first a little food, then a little sex. Maybe more than a little of each. Strolling the streets and considering his options, he passed a Muslim mother in a niqab. The contrast between the exposed prostitutes in the windows of the red-light district and this mother, entirely covered to protect her from the eyes of men, was striking. Yet weren’t they the same? The prostitute exposed herself to please her male customers. The religious woman might say that she was covering to please God, but wasn’t she also doing it to please her husband — the man in her life who desired her? Bashir couldn’t help thinking how odd it was that Europeans were more shocked by a veil than a thong.

Secular and Islamic tensions had risen in this country since the slaying of a controversial movie producer, Theo Van Gogh. He had made a film focusing on the oppression of women in Islam, and in retaliation, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim had shot him to death. The slaying had fed the flames of anti-Islamic sentiment, and the people of the Netherlands, who liked to think of themselves as so open and tolerant, were witnessing the same growth of sectarianism that was affecting the rest of Europe. The extreme-right presence of the Vlaams Blok, along with its hateful nostalgia for the supremacy of the white race, was evidence of that.

Bashir didn’t like Jews, but he had no affection for contemporary fascists either. He had gone into a rage when he found a portrait of Adolph Hitler in the room of one of his young cousins who overflowed with admiration for the Führer.

This wasn’t an isolated incident. A certain portion of the Arab world saw Hitler as a dictator, yes, but also as a standard bearer for the fight against the Jewish peril. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabricated text first published in 1903 in Russia, could still be bought in souks all over the Middle East. In the nineteen twenties, Henry Ford had underwritten a half million copies of the publication, which described a Jewish plot to dominate the world.

Bashir found this grotesque admiration to be pitiful. The Germans had recruited the Arabs as partners during World War II to fight the British. Egypt’s Anwar el Sadat, who signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, had spied for German Field Marshal Edwin Rommel during the war. The grand mufti of Jerusalem, whom Hitler hosted with full honors in 1941, had blessed three Muslim SS divisions: Handschar, Kama, and Skandenberg. “The crescent and the swastika have the same enemy: the Star of David,” the mufti had said.

But Bashir knew that Nazi ideology classified Muslims as inferiors, not much better than Slavs or Latins.

He had met European neo-Nazis in training camps in Syria, Lebanon, and Libya. He knew these skinheads, who gave lip service to the Palestinian cause, would go home and organize racist attacks there.

Bashir had second thoughts about his evening plans. His taste for a tempting nightcap had waned. Instead, he turned toward the city center to find an Indonesian restaurant and order a rijsttafel, an assortment of small, tasty dishes the Dutch loved so much.

A bicycle bell rang out behind him, and he barely had time to jump out of the way to avoid being run over. Collecting himself, Bashir saw that he had landed in front of a shop with a window bearing a huge florescent-red mushroom on a dark purple background. The man who had almost hit him parked his bike in front of the same shop, smiled, and walked in. Bashir decided to follow and take a look around. Shelves holding hundreds of small bags containing mushrooms and spores lined the walls. It was like a garden center for potheads.

The young Dutch man at the counter looked as serious as a theology student. He was giving a German couple expert advice on growing magic mushrooms. “It’s all about the soil,” he said, sounding sententious. The couple had chosen twenty or so bags of spores, enough to fill an entire greenhouse.

Bashir picked a bag containing five specimens of a white-fringed mushroom with a phallic cap: Psilocybe semilanceata. He felt their texture and made a face. Not good enough. He waited for the salesman to finish with his customers and asked in English if he didn’t have something better. The employee came around the counter and pointed to another display of multicolored bags decorated with laughing elves. Bashir shook his head.

“I want the best quality. Money is not an issue.”

The salesman smiled and retreated to the back of the store. Bashir could see him removing a box from a refrigerator. There were no comic gnomes, just sturdy, bright-colored plastic boxes containing mushrooms that might have been collected the day before. The salesman returned, took out four mushrooms, and set them delicately on a brushed-aluminum tray.

“The nectar of the Gods, man. Takeoff guaranteed with no hard landing. But you have to be lying down.”

“How much?”

The young man put on a contrite look and said, “I don’t have many left, and you can’t grow these jewels just anywhere.”

“How much?”

“Three hundred euros, and I’m taking a loss, man.”

“Fine.”

Bashir paid and on his way out held the door for an elderly woman with snow-white hair and a fox terrier.

A strange country, he thought as he headed toward Dam Square, in front of the royal palace, where the queen never went. He thought about Sol and the macabre staging of the murder. He would probably never get an explanation.

21

The supple wooden bar sagged under the weight of her leg as she stretched over her thigh, reaching for her calf and making a final effort to grab her ankle. Sweat trickled down her forehead to her cheek, which was now pressed against the leg.

The pain shot up her leg and through her hips as she pushed her flexibility to the limit.

“Pain gives birth to dreams,” the French poet Louis Aragon had written, and for Helen, the more intense it was, the clearer her thoughts became. She had many techniques for emptying her mind, but nothing worked as well as torturing her body with extreme stretches.

Hvar’s neo-medieval building had twenty-five rooms, three meeting rooms, relaxation rooms, a Jacuzzi, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a heliport, and a pier that could host large ships. It was Orden’s second-largest estate after the one in Asunción, Paraguay, which had a ranch and a golf course, as well. Orden had similar estates in Munich, Cannes, London, and five other cities in the Americas. Two palaces were under construction in Asia. Members used them for retreats and meetings far from prying eyes.

The castle, entirely renovated by the state in 1942, had served as offices for the German diplomatic delegation and had also housed an outpost of the Ahnenerbe, the Riech’s institute for archeological and cultural studies of the Aryan race. When Yugoslavia was liberated, the castle became a people’s palace under Josip Tito and was used solely by the aged statesman’s bodyguards.

After the fall of communism, a consortium of German and Croatian businessmen quietly bought the building to house the Adriatic Institute of Culture Research, one of Orden’s many retreats.

Surviving members of the Ahnenerbe, all with the Thule, chose the name Orden following the demise of Nazi Germany. “Before Hitler, we existed. After his death, we will continue to exist.”

Anyone looking for the owners of the castle would find a Zagreb-based real estate company held by a Cyprian trust and managed by three phantom foundations in Liechtenstein. The same setup was used for other properties the organization owned. Only the most astute observer would notice that all these luxury residences were cultural institutes whose focus varied from one location to the next: artistic symbolism in London, for example, or the working-class culture in Munich, or pre-Colombian musical instruments in Paraguay.

Unfolding from her position, Helen felt a rush as her body released the tension. She had the sensation of being weightless. She picked up the wall phone and called the front desk to schedule a massage. Grabbing a towel, Helen gazed at the sea outside the gym’s large window. The waves glistened in the moonlight. Three lit-up yachts passed in the distance, and a fishing boat was leaving the shore.

“Tired?”

She turned to see a man in the doorway. She felt his steel-gray eyes giving her a once-over.

“A bit. And you?”

“Same old routine. You must succeed this time. We are counting on you.”

“Yes. I won’t fail again.”

“I should hope not. Will you be joining us for dinner?”

“No. It’ll be an early night for me.”

“Good night, then,” the man said. After a moment, he added, “You bear such a resemblance to your mother. It’s like I’m seeing her all over again in you.”

“Good night, Father.”

He looked thoughtful, then turned and left.

Helen wiped her forehead and looked at herself in the mirror. The mention of her mother catapulted her back to a time when she wasn’t called Helen or any of the other names she used for her missions, a time when she was simply Joana, a child lost in a civil war. The last image she had of her mother was a Serbian officer shooting her between the eyes. Her skull had exploded before her body crumpled to the ground. The officer then put a gun to Helen’s head. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old. He leaned in, and she felt the heat of his breath on her ear. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “I’m not a pig like your father, who massacred my village and killed my twelve-year-old sister. You’ll live to tell him that I’ll wring his neck with my own hands. Nod if you understand.”

She had nodded.

The man holstered his gun. It was over. Five minutes later, the Serbs were gone. Helen had fallen to her knees next to her mother’s body, howling in hatred and pain. But when her father returned, she was done crying. Without emotion, she gave him the message.

A year later, her commando unit captured a small band of Serbians. She recognized her mother’s murderer. Her father let him loose in an abandoned village and offered her a manhunt. She took half an hour to kill the man, first lodging bullets in his knees, then taking a knife to each part of his body. His shrieks echoed off the crumbling walls of the houses. “You made me the person I am today,” she whispered calmly in his ear. “You gave me a gift, that of granting death.” Then she shot him between the eyes. She was sixteen.

It took her only a few years to build her reputation as an efficient and ruthless killer. At the end of the war, she transitioned to working as a contract killer and brokering traffic of all kinds. There were few women in the field.

Croatia gained its independence, and her father became a respectable businessman who specialized in international tourism. But in the background, he stayed close to many former members of Ustaše. He made frequent trips to Germany for business and politics. Croatia maintained strong ties with Germany, and the Germans, in fact, had secretly underwritten the heavy artillery that the Croatians used against the more powerful Serbs.

Joana’s father had connections in a number of far-right groups in addition to Ustaše, and he introduced her to powerful people, initiates who had revealed to him both political and sacred secrets. The Orden brotherhood had for centuries guarded the secrets of Thule, the cradle of the pure Aryan race. Joana knew why fate had chosen her. Revenge and violence were nothing, compared with the feelings of potency and control they conveyed.

Joana headed toward the showers. An intense sensation spread over her skin under the burning-hot water, as if she were fusing with some incandescent wave. The heat relaxed her muscles, and a welcome feeling of languor took over.

Just as she was about to succumb to the sensation, she turned the faucet to cold, and icy water chased away the calming heat. Her body began to tremble. Her arteries and veins constricted.

She cut the flow and stepped out of the shower, glowing.

She picked up a rough terry towel to dry herself off, and her mind drifted back to Sophie Dawes’s execution. She slipped her hand between her thighs, then stopped. No, she wouldn’t allow herself that pleasure until she had gotten the documents.

Her next destination: Paris. Her next prey: Sophie Dawes’s friend.

22

Zewinski stood in Darsan’s office, feeling encouraged by the meeting. Finally: a ministry official who didn’t beat around the bush and took full responsibility. He had perfectly understood her pain and had put her in charge of the investigation, which meant that Marcas would work for her. His role would be limited to shedding light on the Masonic issues — if the murder was at all related to that world — and smoothing relations with the police if it was necessary.

“I’m not a Freemason, if that reassures you,” Darsan said, looking her in the eye for a long moment. “There will be no pressure.”

Zewinski had carte blanche for a month. She would get an office in the seventeenth arrondissement, along with an assistant from special ops who was used to working off the grid.

“Show Marcas in,” Darsan said.

She stepped into the hall and moitioned to Marcas.

Zewinski had been right. His boss had called, cutting his vacation short and ordering him to lend a hand. He hadn’t known how to react. The specific nature of the murder was the only reason he was involved. So here he was, heading into the office of an important ministry official — technically his boss’s boss’s boss, or something like that. He wasn’t entirely sure of the hierarchy.

He didn’t find Zewinski’s grin at all reassuring — it was more of a threat. He closed the door behind him.

Pierre Darsan was fingering a metal ruler.

“Inspector, I’m going to get straight to the point. We need to solve this case quickly and quietly. This embassy murder raises two important issues. The first, and the most important, is the breach in security in one of our diplomatic posts. We can’t have just anybody getting into an embassy and doing what they please. It can’t happen again. Because this is an issue of diplomatic security, Special Agent Jade Zewinski, the embassy security chief, will lead the investigation.”

Darsan was watching Marcas for a reaction, but the inspector remained impassive.

“And what is the second issue?” he asked.

“It turns out that the victim worked for the Grand Orient, and one theory, as you know, is that her elimination may have been related to your group.”

Darsan had carefully articulated each word. “That’s where you come in. You’ll have a twofold role: cop and Freemason. Being a Freemason is nothing out of the ordinary. There are at least five just like you working in the offices here and as many in every other department. That doesn’t bother me, as long as it doesn’t interfere with business as usual. Do you follow me, Inspector?”

Marcas knew where the judge was going with this.

“No, sir, I don’t.”

Darsan pursed his lips until there was almost nothing left of his mouth.

“Don’t play the wise guy, Marcas. I’m expecting you to conduct a serious investigation and to tell me everything. Your duty as a police officer comes above and beyond your commitment to freemasonry. I’m sure your group is doing its own investigation. I don’t want the lines blurred. Is that clear?”

Darsan was quiet for a long moment. “You will be working under Special Agent Zewinski. That’s an order. I expect you to cooperate with her, advise her, and provide anything she needs for the investigation.” Darsan gave him a pleasant smile.

The man’s expression could change in a flash, Marcas thought. Threatening one second, friendly the next.

“Between us, Inspector, let’s forget freemasonry for a moment. We are both members of the national police force. Ms. Zewinski received her training in the army. Sure, she’s from the elite forces, but she’s still a military officer — disciplined but not particularly adept at subtlety and nuance. You’re skilled in those areas. I think you’ll be able to smooth the way for her.”

Marcas didn’t like Darsan’s insinuations or his attitude but remained impassive.

Darsan smiled. “Perfect. We understand each other. You will keep me in the loop. Now let’s get the others in here for a briefing.” He picked up the phone. “Send them in.”

Marcas turned to the door. Zewinski and a man he hadn’t seen in months walked in — Anselme de Mareuil, special envoy from the Grand Orient Lodge.

Darsan began. “Let me introduce Mr. de Mareuil, the ministry’s Freemason liaison. Mr. Mareuil, this is Special Agent Jade Zewinski, who’s leading the investigation, and I believe you know Inspector Antoine Marcas, who’s with the police.”

There were nods all around, and everyone took a seat at Darsan’s worktable. Darsan turned to Mareuil.

“So, Mr. Grand Envoy — is that what I’m supposed to call you? — can you explain what your employee was doing in Rome?”

Anselme de Mareuil’s face was drawn. He looked at both men at the table before locking eyes with Jade. “Sophie Dawes worked in the Grand Orient’s archives. She was on a research assignment and stopped in Rome to see her friend at the embassy, Ms. Zewinski.”

“What was the nature of her research?” Darsan asked.

Marcas watched Mareuil size up Darsan. He knew that Darsan wasn’t especially receptive to Masonic ideas.

“Just something related to Masonic history,” Mareuil said. “Tell me, did anyone find the documents she was carrying? They are the property of the Grand Orient.”

Marcas shot a look at Zewinski.

Darsan ignored the question. “Tell me more,” he said.

Mareuil rubbed his face and began. “In June 1940, the Nazis pillaged French Freemason temples, particularly in Paris and seized tons of archives. Truckloads were sent to Berlin to be studied in detail. At the end of the war, the Soviets made off with the documents. Two years ago, we recovered the last of our archives, which had been in Moscow since 1945.”

“Why were the Germans so interested in Masonic history?” Darsan asked, smoothing his moustache.

“First, they wanted to know the extent of Freemason influence. The Nazis thought Freemason and Jewish schemes were behind every bad turn of events. They wanted names and addresses. And they wanted information on so-called subversive activities.”

Mareuil paused and looked at Darsan. “They had the same kind of paranoia about the Masons as you see today.”

Darsan scowled. “We’re not here to judge.”

Mareuil continued. “Their second motivation was more esoteric. It was related to occult influences in Nazi ideology.”

Zewinski cleared her throat. “I’m lost here.”

“Do you know where Hitler got the idea to use the swastika as a symbol? From a racist secret society called the Thule Gesellschaft, which used it as its emblem,” Mareuil said.

“The Thule what?”

“It was a sect that existed before Hitler joined the National Socialist Party, and it grew in power with the rise of the Nazis. The Thule originated in 1918 in Bavaria. It was started by a faux aristocrat named Rudolf von Sebottendorf. After World War I, the organization drew from the ranks of German intellectuals, industrialists, and the army. Its members went through initiations, met secretly, and used special signs of recognition.”

Zewinski sneered. “That sounds just like the Freemasons.”

Mareuil ignored her. “The Thule wanted to build a pure Germanic society devoid of Judaism and Christianity and heir to the ancient kingdom of Thule. That was the mythical cradle of the Aryan race somewhere in the icy North. It was said to have disappeared after a natural disaster.”

“Something like the legend of Atlantis,” Marcas interjected.

“Yes, an Atlantis composed of fervent anti-Semites with blond hair and blue eyes.”

“That’s grotesque,” Darsan said.

“Yes. We all know what that led to. Many dignitaries and influential people in Hitler’s circle belonged to the Thule, including Himmler, the head of the SS; Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess; and Alfred Rosenberg, who was the party’s theoretician. In fact, Rosenberg was the man who had our archives pillaged. He was after our esoteric documents.”

“I’ve heard that name before,” Marcas said. “Wasn’t he condemned at the Nuremberg Trials?”

“Yes, sentenced to death and executed. He was a crank who wanted to wipe out the three major Abrahamic faiths. He was convinced that the Aryan race had the Tables of the Law — the commandments given to Moses. This divine revelation wasn’t intended for Christians, Jews, or Muslims, but instead for the Aryans and was meant to ensure their supremacy over all other races and religions.”

“I don’t see the connection with freemasonry,” Marcas said.

“For the Thule, the stakes were high. They wanted to reestablish Nordic paganism.”

“So they were wackos,” Zewinski said. “I don’t see the connection either.”

“The Thule latched onto a long-standing fantasy about Freemasons — that they were responsible for the French Revolution. As far as the Thule was concerned, the Freemasons were the first to hack away at Christianity once it had become dominant in Europe.”

Zewinski sat back and crossed her arms. “Still lost here.”

“To make a long story short, they thought the Freemasons held some absolute secret.”

“A secret?”

“Yes, and those fanatics believed it enough to pillage Masonic temples all over Europe. They took everything back to Germany to be studied.”

Darsan stood up and walked to the window. “Okay. So what? The Nazis were dangerous madmen, and the craziest ones belonged to the Thule. What good does that do us? We have a murder to solve.”

Marcas leaned forward. “So Dawes was working on the recovered archives?”

“Yes,” Mareuil said, looking directly at Marcas.

Marcas knew there was more. He turned to Darsan, who had walked over to his desk.

“We have Sophie Dawes’s documents,” Darsan said. “If that’s what the killer was after, she failed in her mission. To be honest, I read them. They’re completely incomprehensible. We’ll get them back to you when the investigation is over. You’re lucky. Marcas is, well, one of yours.”

Mareuil stood up. The others followed suit.

“Before you go,” Darsan said, “Inspector Marcas, you noted that Ms. Dawes’s murder had some Freemason implications.”

“She was struck three times: on the shoulder blade, on the neck, and on the forehead,” Marcas said.

“Hiram’s death,” Mareuil said in barely a whisper.

Darsan opened the door for them. “We got a report from our ambassador in Jerusalem. There was an unusual slaying in an archeological institute. The victim, a scholar, had been beaten. He had taken blows to the shoulder, neck, and forehead.”

The blood drained from Mareuil’s face.

“Didn’t you say that Ms. Dawes was headed abroad?” Darsan asked.

“Israel was not on her itinerary,” Mareuil said.

“It’s a strange murder. But there’s something that makes it even stranger,” Darsan said. “The researcher in Jerusalem was killed the same night as Sophie Dawes. I wish you a good day, Mr. Mareuil. Marcas, Zewinski, keep me updated.”

23

Once in the hallway, Marcas made plans to meet with Zewinski in the morning. Then he caught up with Mareuil.

“Anselme, it’s been a while,” he said. “What a surprise to see you here.”

“Yes, it comes with my duties as special envoy,” Mareuil said. They had known each other for years.

“Do your duties include withholding information?”

“What makes you ask that, Antoine?” Mareuil said as the two of them neared the front entrance. “It looks like you’ll have your hands full with that woman partner of yours.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m just saying. You never know. Maybe you could soften her up. She’s a looker, and you need to get over that damned divorce.”

Marcas glared at him. “Where was Dawes going? She was headed to Jerusalem, wasn’t she?”

Mareuil stopped walking and turned to Marcas. He was silent for a moment and then cleared his throat. “Let’s grab a bite to eat,” he said. “I’ll explain.”

“I suggest we go to the Left Bank. I know a place.”

They exited the building and started walking toward the Rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie. Marcas liked to frequent a Catalan restaurant there. From the outside, it looked like a bookstore.

“Good choice,” Mareuil said shortly after they were seated at their table. Factoids on the history of Catalonia were printed on the paper tablecloth. “I’ve never been here before.”

Marcas dispensed with pleasantries and got straight to the point. “So, Anselme, tell me what you know,” he said.

“Do you come here often?” Mareuil asked, apparently in no hurry to answer. He opened the menu.

“Every so often. Excellent tapas. You should try the blood sausage too.”

“Was your father Catalan?”

Marcas scowled. “No, but he lived in Barcelona a long time. Let’s get down to business.”

Mareuil, however, was still ignoring him. He was examining the wine display that filled an entire wall. “What kind of wine do they produce in Catalonia?” Without waiting for an answer, he changed the subject. “See Le Procope across the street?”

“I mostly see the line of tourists waiting to get in.”

“Oh yes, Paris and its famous sites. Le Procope has been there since the eighteenth century. It was one of the first places in town where you could get coffee and hot chocolate — but not too much, because it was considered an inflamer at the time of Voltaire. That was another way of saying an aphrodisiac.”

“Are we really going to spend our time here talking about beverages in the Age of Enlightenment?”

The waitress, a flat-chested woman with an angular face, walked over to their table. Marcas and Mareuil placed their orders, and Mareuil asked for a glass of tempranillo.

“She shouldn’t pull her hair back like that,” Mareuil said as she headed to the kitchen. “Her face isn’t right for it.” He sighed and took a blue folder out of his leather briefcase. He opened it to a yellowed typewritten page. “In the nineteen fifties, a historian wrote up a report about the documents that were stolen during the war. Here, take a look.”

Marcas took the report and started reading.

Part of our archives, like those of the Grande Loge de France, remained in France in the hands of the Vichy government’s Secret Societies Department. The majority of the documents, however, were sent by train to Berlin, where Nazi scholars picked through them. Political documents ended up with the Gestapo, which used them to identify people who opposed fascism during the period between the two wars.

The documents of a more esoteric nature were shipped to a special institute called the Ahnenerbe, founded in 1935 by Heinrich Himmler to look for traces of Aryan influence around the world. The institute had considerable means and employed up to three hundred specialists — the elite of the Nazi scientific community, including archeologists, physicians, historians, and chemists.

Ahnenerbe’s research was under the control of a secret society called the Thule, which had infiltrated the centers of Nazi power, including the upper echelons of the SS.

We have few documents on this dangerous sect, but we know that two members of the Thule were in charge of the Freemason archives. One of them, a certain Wolfram Sievers, general secretary of the Ahnenerbe and a dignitary in the Thule, was sentenced at Nuremberg. During his trial, one of our Freemason brothers, a captain in charge of interrogations, learned that Ahnenerbe researchers were on the verge of making a breakthrough that would be key to the future of the Aryan race, one that would be more important than the V-2 rockets. Our brother took down Sievers’s statement but observed that he seemed to have lost his mind.

Marcas stopped reading and looked at Mareuil. “So what if Sievers seemed nuts? The Nazis were a bunch of crazies, as Zewinski would say.”

“We know that economic, social, political, and cultural factors all contributed to the rise of Nazism. Hitler was probably not a puppet of the Thule, and he was entirely responsible for the regime’s atrocities, but it is clear that there was a time in his life when the Thule influenced him. Read on. The key to Sophie’s murder is perhaps connected to those archives.”

Marcas shrugged and focused again on the dog-eared pages.

When the Germans sensed that the tide was turning after the defeat of Stalingrad in 1943, they took precautions. The Masonic archives were split up and sent to several destinations — mostly castles and salt mines — where they could not be easily seized.

In April 1944, with Germany losing the war, SS high command intensified its operation to hide the stolen archives. Whole trains were commissioned to move tons of documents from place to place.

When the Soviets invaded Germany in 1945, Russian intelligence units tracked down everything that the Nazis had stolen. At the end of the war, more than forty train cars full of recovered documents were sent to Moscow. Ultimately, all the Masonic documents stolen from France ended up in the hands of Russian intelligence.

Our grand master has requested the return of those documents. The Soviet Union, however, claims that none of them are in their possession.

The text stopped there. Marcas looked up and gave the papers back to Mareuil. “Someone clearly thought the documents were important. What happened after that?”

“Nothing for forty years, until the fall of communism, when the issue surfaced again. The Russians admitted that they had our archives, and negotiations for the return of the documents got under way. We received the first batch in 1995, with the rest coming in installments through 2002. In theory, they have now gotten everything back to us.”

“In theory?”

“That’s where Sophie Dawes comes in.”

Mareuil sipped his wine before continuing. “The documents were inventoried twice: once by the Germans and once by the Russians. It became clear that the Germans had listed more documents than the Russians. Some were missing.”

“Are you saying that Moscow deliberately kept part of the collection?”

“That’s what we thought at first, but then Sophie found this.”

Mareuil pulled out an envelope. “It’s a copy of an interrogation led by the French Army in April 1945 in a small German village. A man named Le Guermand was arrested when he tried to return to France. He was an SS officer in the Charlemagne Division, a unit composed of French soldiers. They were defending Berlin at the end.”

“You’re giving me a history lesson here. What’s the connection to the lost archives?”

“I’m getting there. A little before the Reich fell, Le Guermand and other SS officers were pulled off the front for a final assignment: to lead a convoy west, no matter what it took. Russian troops took down Le Guermand’s truck a few miles from Berlin, but he managed to escape. A French patrol caught him a week later. He was delirious, going on about priceless documents on letterhead with a square and a compass.”

“Why did he say all that?”

“He was facing a firing squad for treason. In exchange for his life, he offered to lead the investigators to the last truck, which was somewhere in the forest.”

“So what did they find?”

“Nothing. Three French soldiers went off with Le Guermand. The next day, a patrol found four bodies in an abandoned barn.”

“No more Le Guermand, no more papers. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Not exactly. The Russians actually did find the truck. Sophie had been working on that part of the archives, but key documents were incomplete. She had them with her.”

“And you’re suggesting someone wants them enough to kill for them?”

“Not someone. The Thule.”

Marcas listened as he sliced into his cod with honey sauce.

Mareuil continued, slipping a leather-bound notebook across the table. “They hated us as much as they coveted our knowledge, brother. Here’s a diary kept by one of us — Henri Jouhanneau — in 1940 and 1941. He was a neurologist before he was deported. Read it sometime. It’s edifying.”

“Seriously, I’m having a hard time seeing the relationship between these stories and the murder. As remarkable as the archives are, they’re just history, and the Nazis vanished sixty years ago, except for a small minority who are nostalgic for those days. So unless some old SS geezers have decided to leave the nursing home and take up arms again, I don’t think this is much of a lead.”

Mareuil sighed. “In 1993, the German police discovered an extensive network of extreme-right activists. They were exchanging plans for building bombs. They had the blueprints for Masonic lodges and Jewish synagogues. And some of them were bold enough to share their personal addresses. What were these people calling themselves? The Thule. And if you think they were just a bunch of retired Third Reich lovers and low-life skinheads, you’re wrong. They were computer engineers right out of the university, along with highly successful stockbrokers and financial analysts.

“A few extremists. And we’re not in Germany. It’s a big step from that to a huge conspiracy against the Freemasons.”

Mareuil set down his knife and fork and pulled another paper from his briefcase. He read the passage slowly. “What a shame the Führer did not have sufficient time to eradicate your brotherhood from the surface of the earth. Your members deserve to be burned at the stake as a public hygiene measure. Freemasons, the hour of your expiation is near, and this time, we will let none of you escape. Heil Hitler.”

Mareuil paused. “That dates from last year. It’s from an online message found on a number of anti-Freemason sites. I’m telling you, the three blows are a message.”

“In that case, the murder in Jerusalem is connected. But how? What was Sophie going to do there?”

“I don’t know,” Mareuil said.

They sat in silence.

After a few seconds, Mareuil continued. “Did you know that Freemason scholars met at Le Procope before the French Revolution to discuss philosophy? The place is nothing more than a tourist trap these days, but here we are, you and I, just across the street, talking about similar issues two centuries later. That’s what counts. People are dying. Be vigilant — and mindful of the chain that unites us over time and space.”

“I find you very philosophical today,” Marcas said, getting up.

“No coffee?”

“No, not now.”

“I think I’ll stay a little. I’d like to become more familiar with Catalonia,” Mareuil said, winking at Marcas and giving the waitress a look.

Marcas headed toward the door.

“Antoine?”

“Yes?”

“Jade is a pretty name.”

24

Joana groaned as she put down Jade Zewinski’s file. Why was it that beauty was always a chief factor in a man’s description of a woman? Zewinski’s biography was exhaustive, and Orden’s quick response was commendable. But the man who had put it together couldn’t restrain himself. “An attractive, athletic body and a pleasant face,” he had written.

Males could be such cavemen. When a man was describing another man, looks were never considered. A recent target — a Danish arms dealer — was on the verge of obesity, with a face as ugly as they came, and his file never mentioned either of those things. Unimportant details, apparently.

Sol had been very clear on the phone.

“Get the papers. If possible, don’t harm the woman. We don’t want to ruffle any feathers in the French government. But remember, those documents are the key to a new future for the Orden and for the pure race as a whole. If physical elimination is necessary, so be it. Do you understand?”

“I won’t fail you again,” she had answered.

Joana gazed at the waters of the bay outside the window. She respected Sol but didn’t trust him. He was one of a handful of men behind the renewal of the Thule and a survivor of an earlier day. In a month and a half, the solstice would be celebrated in Hvar, and Sol had promised an unforgettable event. What exactly was he planning? And just how strong was his hold on the organization?

But for now, she needed to sleep. She would leave the castle at six in the morning, taking an Orden helicopter to Zagreb, where she would grab a flight to Paris. Her hotel room was already reserved. She thought about Zewinski and the fun it would be to take her on. Sophie’s murder had been a formality, but Zewinski seemed tougher. She fell asleep right away, her mind and body emptied, dreaming of another prey.