The Book of Q

two

Pearse took the steps two at a time, his hand chafing against the banister, Cesare’s words ringing in his ears: Still safe. Reaching the ground floor, he bolted out the door, nearly knocking over an ancient monk-a Jesuit, given his robes-the old man trying to make his way in. No time for apologies. Pearse sped off through the archway.

He had waited a good five minutes for Dante to call back, staring at the phone, convincing himself that it was nothing more than a wiring miscue. It had taken his full concentration not to let go entirely, his mind as yet unwilling to accept the obvious. They will change everything. They.

Once outside the Vatican walls, Pearse glanced longingly at the taxi rank just off of St. Peter’s Square. Not a cab in sight. The emergence of a bus rolling to a stop at the center of Piazza Risorgimento-its route taking it out toward Labicano-was enough, however, to propel him into high gear, his legs slipping along the pavement as he darted in and out of the tourists still making their way toward the basilica.

The last of the passengers was on board when Pearse sprang through the rear door, half the crowd within staring disapprovingly as he steadied himself against a near pole. The door slid shut, people continuing to look at him as the bus pulled out, Pearse only now aware that he had left without his collar. Instinctively, he brought his hand to his neck, smiling as best he could at the staring few.

Twenty-five minutes later, the bus pulled up across from Trajan’s Park; Pearse stepped to the curb. Trying to draw as little attention as possible, he hurried across the intersection before sidling his way along the raised median as cars barreled past him in both directions. Hopping the metal fence that separated the two sides, he slipped through a gap in the traffic and settled into a resolute pace along San Giovanni in Laterano, San Clemente quickly in his sights.

Inside, the empty nave stretched to the altar, cavernous without the afternoon’s chairs, strangely cool in the dank light, illuminated only by one or two overhead lamps. The permanent pews stood beyond the choir, thick black wood on stone, a single figure bent in prayer, another by the candles, eyes closed, peering up. Stillness, save for the sound of Pearse’s own footsteps as he moved across the open expanse toward the stairs he had climbed less than five hours ago; neither of the men seemed to notice him.

At the steps, he suddenly realized he had no light-understandable in all the excitement-but how could he expect to find his way through the tunnels without one? He was about to go back for an offering candle, when he noticed the lantern-his lantern-still on the second step. He took it as a good sign, picked it up, and started down.

Dante’s map was a far cry from clarity. Several times, Pearse found himself at dead ends, forced to retrace his steps, only to realize that an almost imperceptible curve in the drawing had indicated a ninety-degree turn. So be it. At least he was alone, no sound but that of his own breath amid the backdrop of rushing water; there was something comforting in that. By the time he reached the catacombs, he had grown accustomed to the monk’s notation, taking less than five minutes to locate the room, dig through the pile of rocks, and retrieve the metal cylinder. When he reemerged in the church some ten minutes later, he tried his best at nonchalance as he strode across the empty nave, tube in hand. Once again, he went unobserved.

Outside, his shirt clung mercilessly to his back. He wasn’t sure if the perspiration was due to the humidity or to his sudden possession of the scroll; regardless, the rain had returned, more mist than drops-a lifeless air, thick with moisture. The road remained serene, even under the keen gaze of the Colosseum lights some three to four blocks beyond. The glow continued to rise as he neared a fruit stand; he stopped and began to examine the apples, knowing he needed more than just the few pieces of cheese at his apartment to survive. It was an odd sensation, the realization that appetite could so easily detour the mind.

As he handed two of the larger apples to the woman behind the cart, his appreciation for the last forty minutes also came into slow focus, the first time since Dante’s call that he’d actually had a moment alone to consider what he was doing. The manic reflex that had brought him to San Clemente was losing its edge. He had the tube; the question remained: What now? Any speculation about Ruini, Dante, the abrupt end to the phone conversation-even the cryptic warning-was just that: speculation. The recovery of the scroll changed none of it. And the police, regardless of the presence of Vatican security, would be the first to point that out.

Which left him only one choice-the prayer itself. Dante had known the truth: Somewhere within the scroll lay a clue to piecing together the disparate strands.

Pearse pocketed the change, took the small paper bag with the apples, and checked his watch. Five to ten. Mania might have lost its sway, but urgency remained a constant; he decided to make the call. Probably not too late, he reasoned, for a typical Roman. After all, hadn’t she been the one to admonish him: “Never sit down to dinner before nine-thirty; they’ll spot you as a tourist for certain like that”?

With the sound of her snap in his ears, Pearse moved toward the public phones across from the Colosseum. The first apple was all but core by the time he picked up the receiver.

“Attendere, prego.” The operator retrieved the number in less than a minute. Another thirty seconds, and a phone somewhere in the Trastevere began to ring.

“Pronto.” The voice sounded fully awake.

“Buona sera,” answered Pearse, continuing in Italian. “Professor Angeli?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Ian Pearse, from the Vatican. We spoke about the Ambrose papers a few months ago.”

“Ambrose?” A moment’s hesitation, then: “Ah, Father Pearse.” The voice at once sounded more animated. “Of course. More questions on the old Milanese? Another one of those puzzles you were so good at?”

“Actually, not this time. I hope I’m not calling too late.”

A laugh on the other end. “Yes, now I remember. Father Pearse, the American. Weren’t we supposed to have dinner … something about eating too late for you?” Another laugh.

“I’ve gotten better. At least eight-thirty now.”

“Thank goodness. Although anything before-”

“Nine-thirty. Yes. I remember. I’ll take it, then, that I’m not calling too late.”

“Absolutely not,” she answered. “Now, what is it that I can do for you?”

Pearse did his best to concoct a story both reasonable and vague-few details, with emphasis on the extraordinary find-hoping that the possibility of seeing the prayer would allow curiosity to supersede skepticism.

“And no one has had a chance to do any kind of authentication? I would be the first?” Her response told him he had succeeded.

“As far as I know, yes.”

“I see.” There was a pause on the line. “And how, again, did you say this friend of yours located it?” Without waiting for a response, she continued. “San Clemente is, of course, the ideal place to have found it, but still-”

“Dumb luck,” interjected Pearse, hoping to sidetrack any sustained inquiry. “I suppose he knew it was the sort of thing I was interested in. As soon as I got my hands on it, I wanted to find out as much as I could immediately.”

“No, no, quite understandable.” He could hear the childlike eagerness in her voice, even as the line again fell silent. “‘Perfect Light.’” A certain wistfulness had crept in. “You know, they thought they’d found it at Nag Hammadi in one of the Berlin codices. It was ’46, ’47. Somewhere in there. I think it was Klausner who made the first breakthrough in the early fifties.”

“I haven’t really had a chance to look at it. I’m not all that sure-”

“Do you think you could bring it by tonight?”

He had been hoping for just that response; still, it came as something of a surprise. “I … certainly, if you’re sure it’s not too late.”

“Enough with the ‘too late.’” Another short laugh. “Father, how often do you get the chance to play with a seventeen-hundred-year-old piece of parchment? I imagine you’re as intrigued as I am.”

“Of course.”

“Excellent. Then let me give you the address.”

Forty-five minutes later, he pressed buzzer number 2 at 145 Piazza Santa Cecilia, a four-story building overlooking the courtyard of a fifth-century church and its convent. The narrow square had room enough for a few cars. The only signs of life came from a hole-in-the-wall restaurant-cutlery on plates colliding with the sounds of conversation-just off to the left. He had never been to her home before, their previous meetings always having taken place at the Vatican Library or a nearby cafe. The setting, however, fit Angeli perfectly.

A barely audible voice, crackling from an intercom, broke through to add to the din.

“Second floor,” the voice said.

“Hello, it’s-”

Before he could finish, a muted buzzing began to emanate from the lock. Pearse was quick to push through the ten-foot oaken door, a single bulb flashing on as he stepped into a corridor in need of several coats of paint. At the end, on his left, a curve of stairs swept upward. The sound of a bolt releasing echoed above, a door being pulled back. Light on the second landing. Halfway up the steps, he saw a familiar face peering down at him, a broad smile hidden within two ample cheeks. The eyes lit up at the sight of him.

“Father Pearse,” she said, stepping back into the apartment as he reached the top, one hand inviting him in, the other at her side, smoke trailing from a cigarette.

“Professor Angeli.” He nodded and stepped inside.

Immediately, she latched the door behind him. “Welcome, welcome,” she said with a smile, then moved past him through the foyer and into a sitting room; he followed.

Inside, a desk sat at the center of the room, stacks of books piled high from one end to the other, a small empty square in the middle, one lone ashtray manning the border. It was clear why the desk was so overburdened. Ceiling-high bookshelves covered every inch of wall, each shelf packed to the gills with everything from ancient tomes to recent mass-market paperbacks. A yellowed sheen crept across the room from the far end, two standing lamps shadowing the few open paths that crisscrossed through the books on the floor, hints of a faded Oriental rug peeking through from below. Most of the weblike channels spun out from the desk, all leading to one long shelf across the back wall. No doubt her current project.

“This is exactly what I imagined,” he said, still near the doorway.

“I think I’ll take that as a compliment,” she replied, and pointed to a chair not too far from one of the paths. Pearse sat. “A bit of a mess. You’ll have to forgive me. An article I’ve been writing for an English journal. You know how the English can be about deadlines.”

No more than five feet tall, with a tangle of gray-black hair, Angeli was at least sixty-though one could never tell with Italian women-and no doubt a bit more cicciotella than she had been twenty years earlier. The weight had done little to discourage a rather beguiling air, an easy wiggle in her walk as she moved to the only other chair that remained free of books. It was also the one closest to a second ashtray. “And it’s Cecilia, please,” she said with a smile as she sat, taking a long drag on the cigarette. “Don’t you remember, ‘Cecilia on Santa Cecilia’?”

A smile. “How could I forget?” he answered. “And I’m Ian from the … Vatic-ian.”

She laughed out loud. “Yes. Yes, you are. Never did quite rhyme, did it?” Another quick puff before laying the cigarette in the ashtray. “And now for the scroll.” Her hand was already extended, no request, simply a sudden jab into the air, fingers outstretched, impatiently waiting. Without a thought, Pearse leaned over and placed the tube in her hand. She sat back and opened the top. “Good, you’ve kept it sealed.” Waiting for her to pull the scroll out, he watched as she did something completely unexpected; she sniffed at the opening. Several times. “It has the right oil base,” she said, nodding as she pulled her nose from the tube. “Was it found in a jar?” When he didn’t answer, she clarified. “An amphora? You know, the sort they found at Qumran or Nag Hammadi?”

He shook his head. “All I know is that it was in the tube the first time I saw it.”

She nodded, said nothing, then slid her hand into the opening and pulled out the scroll; the tube found the floor. With tremendous concentration, she began to examine the sheaths wrapped around the parchment. Two pieces of leather string-tied about a third of the way down-hung loose, the only barrier between her agile fingers and the text underneath, but she didn’t seem interested in them at all, or in what lay beyond. Instead, she continued to slide her thumb along the leather skin. It was clear she knew exactly what she was looking for, even if Pearse had no idea what the strange ritual was meant to unearth.

“The texture,” she said, as if aware of his puzzlement, “the moisture of the leather, it’s … something you become very attuned to if you’ve spent time with scrolls like these. If it went directly from jar to tube, you’d still be able to feel a springiness in the sheath.” Her eyes remained transfixed on the leather as she spoke. “Klausner was extraordinary with such things. Managed to place two of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran within a hundred years of their actual dating just by the feel.” She looked over at Pearse, her eyes wide with excitement. “Wonderful fingers.” Then standing, she headed for the desk; he followed immediately behind. He watched as she set the scroll on the empty square, which, no doubt, had been made available since his phone call. It was remarkable how well she knew her field; the scroll fit perfectly.

Setting it down, she deftly untied the leather cover, then slowly began to roll back the parchment. It must have taken her twenty minutes to lay out a section of no more than eight inches square, but her meticulous care kept Pearse rapt. Every so often, a word or two would escape her lips, pursed in concentration; her eyes would light up at those moments, her fingers, though, ever serene, precise, never giving in to the excitement. When she was fully satisfied that she had placed the parchment just right, she produced what looked to be four velvet sacks filled with sand and placed them at the corners. Then, with the section of scroll laid as flat as caution would allow, she pulled a large glass dome-an odd metal knob at its far side-from one of the desk drawers and set it over the scroll. In one fluid movement, she turned the knob and watched as the dome clamped itself to the top of the desk with a sudden hiss of air.

“Clever device,” she said. “Not a vacuum seal, but close enough. Let’s me spend some time with the scroll without damaging it.” She pulled the last cigarette from the pack on the desk, produced a lighter from her pocket, and lit up.

“Handy to have around,” he answered, craning his neck so as to try to scan the topmost portion of the text. “Glad to see you’ve cut down.” He smiled.

“My one indulgence, Father.”

Still staring at the text, he said, “If you think I believe that-”

A loud cackle rose from behind the cigarette. “Really, Father, you’ll make me blush.”

“Somehow,” he said, his own smile wider, “I doubt that.”

Another burst of laughter. “What a shame you’re a priest. …” Without finishing the thought, she took a long drag and said, “Do you read Syriac, Father?” He shook his head; she continued. “Well, that’s what’s staring up at you. It’s rather surprising. I would have thought-”

“Latin or Greek,” he cut in.

“Latin or Greek?” She looked genuinely puzzled.

“Well,” he explained, now a little less confident, “the few Manichaean texts I’ve seen were written in either one or the other.”

“Really? That’s odd. I was about to say Chinese. The only Latin text we have is the Rule for Auditores, the one they found just outside Tebessa, in Algeria. As for Greek-well, that’s only in the later tracts. I assume you’re referring to a specific collection?” No time to answer as she turned back to the scroll, a pair of half glasses emerging from a pocket; she spoke somewhat offhandedly, eyes scanning the words. “Actually, the fullest texts we have come from a group of seventh- and eighth-century sects who managed to survive on the fringes of the Chinese Empire.” She glanced up at him. “Can you imagine that? China?” Just as quickly, she turned back to the scroll. “There are even references to a Manichaean community as far east as-”

“Fu-Kien?” he said, unable to mask a rather coy smile. “Thirteenth century?”

She stopped and looked up, her surprise once again all too obvious. “Very good.”

“Well, I had to make up for the Latin bungle. Show you I’m more than just a pretty face.”

“True.” She waited, then added, “I’d forgotten I have to be on my toes with you.”

“Hardly. That was my best shot. I’ll be lucky if I can keep up.”

Her smile told him he had hit the mark. “Oh, I know that’s not true. As I remember, you’re very, very good at all these ancient puzzles.” She took another quick drag. Evidently, Angeli could be equally coy when she wanted; Pearse couldn’t be sure, but he thought he might just have shared a moment’s flirtation with her, willingly or not. Another reminder of why he’d always enjoyed working with Cecilia Angeli so much.

She turned back to the scroll, once again caught up in the text.

“So, as I was saying, you’d expect Chinese, and if not Chinese, then Pahlavi, Soghdian, or Middle Persian. But Syriac”-she stooped even lower over the dome so as to peer at the words, smoke streaming from her nose-“that makes this a very strange document. A very strange document indeed.”

She pulled her glasses from her face and stood upright. “And one considerably older than any of its Chinese relatives.” Turning to him, she asked, “Would you like some coffee? I think I’m going to make a pot.” Without waiting, she began to wend her way through the piles of books, the glasses quickly back in her pocket, a trail of gray smoke settling on the room behind her.

Pearse smiled to himself. It wasn’t the fact that he was thirty years her junior that was holding her back. Just the collar, which, as he now recalled, he wasn’t even wearing. She had been nice not to mention it. Or maybe that was what was egging her on. Pearse started to laugh as he edged closer to the desk.

He stared down at the strange script through the glass. The thick curve of letters melded easily into one another, yet each was distinct, a line of indecipherable signs linked only by the common touch of a single scribe’s hand. In and among the letters, tiny sticklike figures littered the parchment-little men carrying daggers, what looked to be a lion poised in attack. Likewise, wrinkles and tears peppered the almost hypnotic flow of words and illustrations, choice bits lost forever, left to the reasoned imagination of the modern reader. Pearse knew Angeli would have no trouble filling in the gaps, offering up her own vision of continuity with intricate explanations, as if perhaps she had been there, peering over the shoulder of the ancient scribe as he had inked the original. She had done as much with Ambrose; somehow he sensed she’d be more at home here, more comfortable with the renegades and heretics.

“I was thinking,” she said as she reappeared at the doorway, “there might be a link to the Mandaeans, given the little pictures. Mani’s father was a Mandaean. It’s a natural connection. Did any of your research with Ambrose take you as far afield as them?” She was reclaiming the glasses from her pocket as she neared the desk.

“The Mandaeans?” Pearse replied. “Actually … no. I can’t say that it did.”

“You know Fu-Kien, but you don’t know the Mandaeans?” She was clearly having a bit of fun. “Really?”

“Shocking as it sounds, I know.”

Her smile grew. “Actually, they’re more of a strictly Gnostic group. Individual responsibility, hidden knowledge-the ‘gnosis’-that sort of thing. There’s certainly a link, but they’re much earlier than Mani and Manichaeanism.”

Leaving the banter aside for the moment, he asked, “So, if they were earlier, that means they would have died out by the time ‘Perfect Light’ was written?”

“Oh, no,” she answered. “Most of the silver and gold markets in Basra and Baghdad today are run by Mandaeans. In fact, I once spent a very wonderful afternoon with one of their nasuraiyi, a ‘guardian’ of the secret rites and knowledge.” Her eyes stopped momentarily on a spot on the rug. “Fascinating man. Tried to explain the five realms of light. Absolutely incomprehensible.” She looked up with a smile. “It’s just that seeing the Syriac with illustrations-well, it’s a very odd choice. Naturally it makes one think of the Mandaeans.” She drew up next to him and again began to scrutinize the scroll.

“Naturally.” He now remembered how essential such digressions were to her work-essential, if equally incomprehensible. It was best to let her mind range as it saw fit. “So you don’t think it’s linked to the Mandaeans?” he asked.

“Of course not.” She looked up. “Why do you ask?”

Now Pearse smiled. “No reason.”

She turned again to the parchment. It was time to get down to business. Within seconds, she was translating as she read: “‘It is from the perfect light, the true ascent that I am found in those who seek me. …’” She let the words trail off as she seemed to reread the section to herself. “That’s some sort of preamble,” she continued. “There’s a section missing here, and then it goes on: ‘It is I who am the riches of the light; it is I who am the memory of the fullness. And I traveled in the-’” She stopped and bent closer in to get a better look, her eyes now scanning the next few lines, lips always moving silently. Pearse noticed another large tear just below her finger on the glass. “That’s odd. This bit comes right out of the ‘Secret Book of John,’ the ‘Poem of Deliverance,’ at least in these first few lines.” She read on. “There’s another section missing here, and then it runs, ‘And I traveled in the darkness …’ something about a prison, and then picks up again here with ‘And the foundations of chaos moved.’”

She stood upright, her eyes still on the scroll. “That’s the Book of John all right. A Syriac version of the Gnostic Greek, but definitely John.” She turned to Pearse. “I’m sure I could find a better translation of it; wouldn’t be much help, though, I don’t think. My guess is that the writer used it to set the tone, establish a link-although why he connects ‘Perfect Light’ with John …” Her words once again trailed off as she leaned in over the glass. “That isn’t clear at all.”

“Right,” said Pearse hesitantly. “Actually, the Manichaeans might not be the only ones traveling in darkness here.”

“What?” She looked up, clearly having been listening with only half an ear.

He smiled. “I think I missed class that day.”

“Oh … I would have thought with Ambrose, you would have-” She cut herself off. “Or maybe not.” She smiled, the teacher trying to find the right words. “I suppose it’s all rather … obscure, isn’t it?”

“A little earlier than my period, that’s all.”

“Always a good excuse.”

“Then I guess I’ll stick with it.”

“Fair enough”-a cigarette back in her fingers-“No reason you should be familiar with any of this.” She looked up at him, the smile in her eyes growing to a twinkle. “Well, is it to be the introductory lecture, or just the highlights, Father?” Once again, she left him no time to answer. “I suspect just the highlights.”

She stepped away from the glass, turned, and sat on the lip of the desk. “Let’s see,” she began, taking a long drag, gesticulating with the cigarette to emphasize each point. “Dating. … John is written sometime in the first or second century, so it’s a contemporary of the canonical Gospels; it’s a Gnostic tract and therefore a threat to what would become orthodox Catholicism; it recasts the Genesis myth with God as a mother-cum-father entity prior to the God of the Hebrew Bible. …” Another long draw on the cigarette, her eyes now searching the air, the delivery no less staccato. “It focuses on self-knowledge and condemns the institutionalization of faith; it’s supposedly written by one of Jesus’ original disciples-John, the son of Zebedee-and purports to record the words of Christ Himself; and it’s done in the narrative style of what was called an ‘apocryphal act of the apostles,’ a sort of Christianized novel.” One last puff before she turned to crush the butt into the ashtray, speaking as she drove the cigarette deeper into the ash. “The poem is simply one section of the book, an explanation of how one might be able to achieve deliverance by reclaiming uncontaminated, or perfect, light.” She looked up. “So there you have a link to the Manichaean prayer. A tenuous one, but a link.”

Still trying to piece everything together, he asked, “And all of that makes John and its poem a typical Gnostic tract?”

“On a very fundamental level,” she replied, “yes. It’s one that conveys a secret knowledge-directly from Christ-which the initiated elite access in order to achieve an enlightened existence. Gnosticism at its most basic.”

Feeling a bit bolder, he added, “And once the four Gospels are canonized, it slips into obscurity, along with the rest of the Gnostic scriptures.”

“Well, shoved might be a better choice of words. Remember, at the end of the second century, the followers of Jesus-in all their myriad sects-were fighting for their lives. They needed to put up a unified front, rather difficult, given the number of gospels and apostolic letters making the rounds. Which meant internal debates among them ultimately amounted to a matter of survival, rather than theology.”

“Expedience over spirit.” Pearse nodded. “Kind of takes the sheen off of things, doesn’t it?”

“Reality has a way of doing that, yes,” she said.

“Glad to see you’re not sugarcoating it on my account.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He smiled. “I could hide all the ashtrays.”

Another little chuckle. “I have them in places you wouldn’t begin to think of.”

He started to respond, then thought better of it. “So they needed one interpretation to stand supreme against the common Roman enemy, is that it?”

“Yes … but not just an interpretation. The early Catholic church needed a structure that could bring the faithful together. Something to turn the ‘followers of Jesus’ into ‘Christians.’ The ‘Jesus movement’ into ‘Christianity.’ Gnosticism defied any kind of structure and therefore made its believers difficult to control. No control, no unified front. You see where I’m leading?”

“To the end of Gnosticism.”

“Exactly. Anti-Gnostic writings became one of the standards of the new orthodoxy, most famously from the pen of the Bishop of Lyons, a man named Irenaeus. He wrote several books. …” She stopped for a moment, her eyes again searching the air. “What was the big one? The Overthrow? The Destruction? Something about ‘false knowledge.’” She looked back at him. “Whatever it was. It condemned all Gnostic gospels as heresy, and in so doing, helped to root out any internal squabbling. You had a common front.” She seemed to have expected a bigger response from him; he obliged with an exaggerated nod.

“Thank you. At the same time, though,” she continued, “that standard asserted an image of Christ that may very well have been different from the figure of Jesus His earliest followers had known. A shift. We, of course, will never really know.”

“A different image of Christ?” For the first time, Pearse responded not as student. “I’m not sure I understand that.”

Angeli smiled. “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, Father.”

“Yes, you do.” He smiled. “What shift?”

“Oh, I didn’t say there was a shift. I said there might have been a shift. No one’s absolutely certain how people understood Jesus in those first few centuries. Too many versions of the Word floating around. There’s Paul, the Gospels, the Gnostics, any number of Jesus sects-”

“Right, right,” he cut in. “But there has to be a way to distinguish Catholic orthodoxy from Gnosticism? One Christ from another?”

“Naturally. We’re just not sure which one is the authentic Christ.”

“I understand. But the differences-”

“Are there. Yes.” Evidently, this part of the discussion required a fresh cigarette. She fished through her pocket and produced yet one more from a seemingly endless supply. “I say all of this purely as an academic, Father, sugarcoating or not. As a Catholic-”

“Don’t worry, you’re absolved.”

Angeli returned the smile, then lit up before diving back in. “Well then, two basic distinctions separate an orthodox and a Gnostic image of Christ. First, orthodox Catholics view God as a completely separate entity. Primal Other. We can venerate Him, attempt to mirror His life and piety, but we can never achieve a synthesis with Him. The Gnostics, on the other hand, claim that self-knowledge-the highest form of attainment-is actually knowledge of God. So, self and Divine become identical at a certain point of self-awareness.”

“That’s sounds like a very Eastern view of spiritual growth,” he said.

“On some level, it is.”

“And the second point?”

“Also somewhat Eastern. And politically far more explosive. For orthodox Christians, the ‘living Jesus’ speaks of sin and repentance. At His core, Christ is Savior, hence the need for His death, our sins, and His Resurrection. And that Resurrection is a literal one, confirmed by Peter. Without that doctrine, without Peter standing there saying, ‘I was the first, I can vouch for His return, He gave me the keys and told me to tend to the sheep, and so forth and so on,’ there’s no need to have a group of men-the leaders of the church-sustaining that confirmation. In other words, without the doctrine of bodily resurrection, there’s no way to validate the apostolic succession of bishops. No way to lay claim to the papacy.”

“That’s a little troubling, isn’t it?”

“You might say that. For Gnostics, on the other hand, Jesus speaks of illusion and enlightenment. They reject a literal Resurrection altogether. So Christ becomes guide. Once again, a dramatic shift in the relationship occurs when the disciple achieves enlightenment. Jesus is no longer spiritual master. Instead, the two become equals through their knowledge. Self and Divine are identical. Hence, there’s no need for a resurrection or a papal authority, with its subsequent structure. Even the few Gnostic tracts that hint at a Resurrection have Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene first, not Peter. Imagine what that would have done for the papal succession? Pretty powerful stuff.”

“So Gnosticism humanizes Christ?”

“No.” Angeli shook her head. “It elevates human self-awareness to a deified status, and places the responsibility to achieve that status on the individual’s shoulders. Jesus remains elevated. It’s just now, He might not be alone.”

“So we all become God?” Pearse asked somewhat skeptically.

“No, I don’t think that’s right,” she said, this time a bit more thought before answering. “We all attain the knowledge, but Christ remains Christ. It’s just that our relationship with Him is … not so distant. I can’t think of a better way to put it.”

“It sounds like you’re saying we don’t need a church.”

For the first time, she hesitated. “On a concrete level, I suppose … yes.” She seemed unsure of her answer, needing to convince herself. “Yes, I think that would be right. On a spiritual level, though, it’s far more complex.”

“Self-awareness was the only guide a Gnostic needed.” Pearse was getting caught up in the idea. “No structure. Nothing to get in the way. An individually impassioned link to Christ. Pretty nice setup.”

“As I said, to a greater or lesser extent. But don’t forget, they never abandoned their commitment to faith. Or to Christ as the Messiah.”

“Right, right. But it was a pure, unfettered faith.” His eyes began to drift to a distant point.

“Yes.” She noticed his expression. “Father?” She waited until she had his attention. “I’m sure some of this offends you. I don’t mean to-”

“Not to worry.”

“You’re sure?”

“When I start humming and covering my ears, you’ll know I’ve had enough.”

“Anyway, you can see why orthodox Christianity needed to suppress it. It was their need for control. …” She stopped herself; best to leave the thought unfinished with a priest in the room, no matter what he might have said to the contrary. After several moments, she stood and turned back to the scroll. “None of that, however, helps to answer the question: Why put the Gnostic John at the beginning of a Manichaean prayer? Mani might have started out as a type of Gnostic, but he didn’t end there.” She turned to Pearse. “There are significant differences.”

“Maybe it had something to do with the oral tradition. Something the scribe’s own congregation said before chanting the prayer?”

A dismissive snort of air accompanied a quick shake of her head.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“Unless he went counter to everything we know about liturgical transcription,” said Angeli, “of course not.”

“I preferred the snort.”

“I thought you might.” Within seconds, she was back with the parchment, her lips once again moving silently. “Here, you see, it goes off onto something entirely new.” Without warning, she suddenly stepped away from the desk and headed for one of the bookshelves. Pearse was left to watch as she began to scan row after row, her plump little finger moving anxiously through the air, until, with a jab, she turned to him. “You’re tall enough. It’s the green one on the fourth shelf, two in from the end.” Half a minute later, they had the book at the desk. She flipped through several pages, a little hum to accompany her wanderings; each time, she returned to the parchment with a short “No” before moving on. After six or seven such dismissals, the hum almost a constant, she closed the book and laid it distractedly on a pile behind her. “Odd,” she said, as she made her way back to the shelf; another retrieval by Pearse, another few minutes rejecting theories, one more on the growing pile of discarded texts. The next time at the shelf, she decided to take six books at once, with Pearse left to stand silently by while she hummed through each of them, her expression never drifting beyond the slightly intrigued. He guessed she would have made an excellent poker player. Finally, after nearly ten minutes, her eyes shot up. The look on her face was one of genuine shock. Pearse moved closer.

“The coffee!” she blurted out, and scurried along the central path and out of the room before he could respond. Only then did he fully recall what it was like to work with Cecilia Angeli. Always best to give her a wide berth. In fact, he’d begun to think it might be equally smart to let her spend some time alone with the parchment. There was very little he could add to her investigation, except as a distraction.

A day or so would also give him the chance to bone up on his Gnostic and Manichaean literature. A chance to feel more comfortable with the scroll before following its lead, whatever that might entail. A different image of Christ. Something so tempting in that.

More than that, it would give him time to try to find out what had happened to Dante.

Before she had returned with the coffee, Pearse decided he would leave the scroll with her, tell her nothing of Ruini or Dante, nothing of the monk’s warning, and ask her only to keep the scroll’s discovery to herself. He knew she wasn’t someone to weather a visit from Vatican security all that well. Best to keep her out of range.

He also knew it was an unnecessary request. Angeli was famous for keeping everything close to the chest until she had pieced together the details. Hers was a professional insecurity at its most charming, if extreme. She’d insisted he approach Ambrose that way; it would be no different here.

She reappeared at the door, a tray of coffee and biscotti in hand, an empty chair serving as surrogate table. She began to pour.

“Just a quick cup,” he said, “and then I should probably let you get some sleep.”

“Sleep?” She laughed. “You think I’m going to get any sleep tonight? Why do you think I made the coffee? No, Father, we both know that’s not the way I work. You’ve brought me a new toy; I want to play with it.”

“And we also know that I’d only be getting in the way.”

She handed him a cup, then took one of the cookies. With a little smile, she said, “Yes, that’s probably true.” After a healthy bite, she added, “Your friend won’t mind if I spend some time with it?”

“Absolutely not.” Pearse took a sip of the piping espresso. “Of course, if you find anything more than just odd-”

“I’ll get in touch with you at once. Of course.” She had taken her cup and another biscotti back to the desk, a tiny space between dome and edge all that was left for both. “You, after all, were the one to bring it to me.” Another bite of the cookie. “I suspect I’ll have something in the next few days. As you know, I like to work … alone, so I take a bit longer.”

“I’ll try and remember the access codes from last time,” he said with a smile.

“It wasn’t that bad, was it?”

“The results are always worth it.”

“You’re such a nice priest. Still, it’s a shame. …”

Half a cup of espresso later, they stood at the door, Angeli clearly eager to get back to her “toy.” The good-byes were brief.

By quarter past twelve, he stood on the Ponte Garibaldi, a starry sky having all but swept away the mist and rain, a hint of cool air off the water a belated apology for the day. He let the breeze sift through his hair and clothes as he walked, the sound of the Tiber constant as his own pace. He stopped for a few moments at the apex of the bridge, lights from each bank streaming onto the edge of the water, never, though, infringing more than a few yards, a narrow strip of deep velvet at center. Pearse stared out at the abyss, caught up in its imagined emptiness.

Light and darkness, he thought. The simplicity in contrast somehow so comforting.

The vigilanza at the gate seemed surprised by his late return. Priests-even those without collars-were usually in bed at this hour. Pearse didn’t recognize a single face as the guards gave both him and his identification a thorough examination before letting him through. The unfamiliarity evidently mutual, they continued to watch him as he made his way to the archway.

The change in weather had somehow eluded the Vatican, a dusty drizzle pressing at him as he walked up to his entryway. With no Jesuit to evade this time around, he managed the door with ease, the light from the foyer slipping into dim haze as he mounted the steps; the third-floor corridor waited silently. Trying to mirror its stillness, he tiptoed toward his room, gingerly pulling the key from his pocket before easing it into the lock. Inside, he slowly pressed the door shut, then placed the key on a side table.

“Quarter to one,” came a voice from somewhere behind him. Pearse spun round, his eyes as yet unaccustomed to the dark, the striped shadows streaming in from the windows as he tried to pinpoint the unseen speaker. “That’s rather late, isn’t it?” His first inclination was to reach back for the door handle, but a figure suddenly appeared at his right, a large hand spread wide across the center of the door. Pearse turned back into the room, his eyes now clearer, the outline of a figure seated by the far window, another at its side. From his chair, the man flicked on a nearby table lamp. “Why don’t you have a seat, Father?”

One by one, Pearse stared at the men, all three in dark suits. “How did you get in here?” he asked.

Stefan Kleist, still seated, reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small wallet. He flipped it open to reveal an identification card. “Vatican security,” he answered.

The man in the chair was smaller than the others, far less overpowering, yet clearly more menacing. Or perhaps it was the accent, thought Pearse. The precision of an Austrian German as he articulated English; he couldn’t tell. “I wasn’t aware that gave you permission to enter a priest’s private apartments in the middle of the night.”

“Only under certain circumstances, Father.” Kleist seemed strangely deferential, far less snide than with his initial quip.

“And that usually entails waiting around for one of them to return?”

“Why don’t you have a seat?”

Pearse remained by the door, aware that the room had changed subtly since he’d last seen it. The books were back on the shelves, no longer on the floor by the sofa, the plate of cheese altogether gone. The ball was back in his glove. Someone had decided to clean up-perhaps too well-after what had no doubt been a painstaking overhaul of the apartment. He glanced once more at the man nearest to him-at least six foot seven, eyes vacant, no need to threaten, his frame imposing enough. Pearse slowly moved to the sofa and sat. A vicarious sense of deja vu swept over him.

“Where’s the scroll, Father?” asked Kleist.

The man’s candor momentarily caught him off guard. Not that he had any idea what they thought they would find in it; still, given Dante’s experience, he had expected a bit more finesse. “Scroll?” he replied.

“Tonight’s not the night to play games.” Kleist’s expression remained unchanged, his tone enough to convey his impatience. “You saw the monk at Ruini’s funeral.”

“How did you know-”

“Do you often go out without your collar?” Kleist continued, producing the thin strip of white material from the tabletop. “Or is that only when you’re in a rush?” Pearse said nothing. “What were you in such a hurry to find?” He waited, then asked again. “The scroll, Father-where is it?”

Pearse kept his eyes locked on the small man, trying not to display any of the panic mounting in his chest. He became acutely aware of the silence, second after second slipping by, until he heard the sound of a distant voice break through. “Don’t you mean statuette?” Pearse was still staring, amazed that the words had come from his own mouth. He watched as a hint of uncertainty crept across the Austrian’s eyes.

“What?” asked Kleist.

“Dante said there was some question of provenance,” Pearse continued, no less stunned at the ease with which he let the words slip out. “That the monastery’s claim was prior to the Vatican’s.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The fertility god he found in the catacombs. The statuette.” He seemed to be gaining momentum. “He said you’d be eager to get your hands on it, although I’m not sure he thought you’d go to these lengths. Isn’t that what this is all about?”

Kleist said nothing for several seconds, his gaze fixed on Pearse. When he finally spoke, precision once again laced his words. “This is much simpler than you seem to understand, Father.” He paused, then continued. “We both know the monk never mentioned a statuette. Or any questions of provenance. He told you about a scroll.”

Again, Pearse said nothing, the Austrian evidently willing to wait.

After nearly a minute, however, his patience had grown thin. He began to nod. “All right,” he said, getting to his feet and buttoning his jacket, “then let’s go and see this statuette of yours.”

“What?” blurted out Pearse, trying to maintain some semblance of calm. “Now?”

“Yes, now, Father,” he replied, standing patiently in front of his chair. “If it’s where you say it is, then we’ve made a terrible mistake, and you have our apologies.” The delivery was devoid of any emotion. “If not, then we’ll have to start all over again.”

Nothing in the words approximated what Pearse saw in the eyes staring back at him. Eyes that made it abundantly clear why the smallest of the three was issuing the commands. And it had very little to do with the accent. Remember the monk; remember the terror in his voice. With only a glance, the man had said as much.

Pearse’s tone was far less controlled when he spoke. “Look, I’m a priest-”

“A Vatican priest,” Kleist reminded firmly, without raising his voice. “Which places you under our jurisdiction.”

“I’m also an American-”

“In an independent nation-state that houses no embassies.” He let the well-practiced words sink in. “Vatican City recognizes no claims by foreign states to infringe upon the sovereignty of His Holiness, the Pope. As representatives of that sovereignty, we are equally unrestricted in our handling of those who claim citizenship within its walls.” He waited, then continued. “The statuette, Father.”

A nervous courage surged to the fore. “And what if I refuse to show you where it is?”

“Why would you do that?” he asked, again with no trace of emotion. “As I said, we’re interested in a scroll. You show us this statuette of yours, and we’ll have nothing more to talk about.”

Pearse suddenly realized how well the man from security had played him. He tried to maintain his edge. “Except your apology.”

For some reason, Kleist allowed himself a grin. “Yes, Father. Except that.”

“This can’t wait?”

“No.” The grin was gone. “It can’t.”

With a nod from Kleist, the man across the room opened the door and stepped outside, waiting in the hall for the others to emerge. At the same time, the second man moved behind the sofa, again no need to threaten, his size more than enough to prompt Pearse to his feet. Kleist took a step closer to his quarry, then motioned for Pearse to join the man in the corridor.

No choice. No options. Whatever strands of reasoned argument Pearse had clung to now began to swirl in his head at a feverish pace. Vatican priest. The attribution had never sounded so threatening. He felt an overwhelming wave of panic sweep through him as he started for the door.

The closer he got to the corridor, however, the more his panic seemed to surrender to a feeling of supreme isolation, a sense that he was somehow removed, floating above it all, monitoring the entire episode from some distant point-its effect numbing. Under its ever-deepening sway, Pearse began to experience a kind of detached lucidity, his mind suddenly uncluttered by the frantic search for escape of only moments ago. His legs simply moved.

At the door, he watched himself as he calmly stopped and turned back to his captor. “I’ll need the map,” he said, the voice clearly his own. “Dante drew one up so I could find it.”

Kleist, growing impatient with the ongoing charade, seemed unaware of the almost mesmeric quality in Pearse’s voice and body. “So you could find the statuette?” he asked, the first tinge of anger in his voice.

“No,” answered Pearse. “The scroll.”

For an instant, Kleist didn’t know how to respond. He’d expected the priest to play it out, maintain the ruse until its futility prompted the all-too-familiar lapse into hysteria-more often than not, once inside the car. He’d seen that sort of captivity work wonders in the past. And yet, this priest had done neither. He had admitted the truth without the usual ranting. “A map of San Clemente?”

Pearse nodded, his eyes fixed on the far wall. “Yes.”

“Where?”

Pearse pointed to the bookshelf.

A twinge of frustration creased Kleist’s lips. “We didn’t find any map in there.” Pearse started toward the shelf, Kleist’s powerful hand quick to rein him in. “I told you, we didn’t find anything.”

The pressure on his chest seemed to release Pearse from his stupor. His mind, however, was still focused, rising above the panic. He kept absolutely still, his eyes trained on the far wall. Something was telling him he needed to piece together the last thirty seconds. Something in his subconscious. What aren’t I seeing? “It’s in a compartment in the back panel,” he said. “You wouldn’t have found it.”

Kleist kept his arm on Pearse’s chest. Neither said a word. After several seconds, the smaller man slowly released him, motioning for Pearse to find the map. Doing as he was told, Pearse moved to the bookshelf, his eyes still fixed on the wall. As he stepped to the side of the shelf, reality and subconscious began to collide, image into image-a moment of perfect fusion. Not the wall … the window … the fire escape. … I’ve been looking at the fire escape. He knelt down, now between shelf and window, careful to keep his movements slow, even, as if he were searching for something. He could sense the panes of glass directly behind him, both slightly ajar, a hint of air through the gap at the center. Ten seconds into the phantom probe, he saw Kleist begin to step toward him.

On pure impulse, Pearse launched the shelf out into the room, the wooden case scraping along the floor before crashing to a stop at Kleist’s feet. An instant later, he swung his hand up against the lamp, it, too, tossed from its perch, wire plucked from socket, all light extinguished in a blinding instant. Pearse heard the movement, felt the rush of bodies within the room, amazed to feel his own back thrusting against the window, the two panes parting behind him as he tumbled out and onto the fire escape. A harsh glare hammered from above, a wild hand reaching after him, but he was already on his feet, hands grasping at the rails, rust grinding against his palms as he found the steps and began to hurtle his way down. No thought to the men above, to the sound of emphatic pursuit, only the stairs, the final row taken in a single vault, his feet landing on the ground, hands to the gravel so as to break his fall. The clatter from behind grew louder as he struggled to his feet, the alley far narrower than he had imagined from his third-floor roost.

He began to run, the path cutting to his left no more than twenty feet from the stairs, at once pitch-black as he continued on, hands now sliding along smooth stone, eyes squinting for any hint of a distance. He had no idea where he was, no sense of the buildings, only the need to keep moving. He was sure the Austrian was behind him, a pair of grasping hands ready to clamp down on his shoulder at any moment, throw him to the ground.

Without warning, the alley suddenly opened to a small courtyard, a single lamp at the far corner its only source of light. Delivery vans stood in a row by what looked to be a loading dock, beyond them a small entrance arch. To his right, a wedge of shadow clung to the walls. Pearse darted under its mantle, his eyes fixed on the entryway no more than thirty yards from him. The place was deserted, lights glowing in one or two windows from the adjoining buildings, the vans a desolate collection of black-visored sentries asleep at their posts. As he neared the arch, the sound of footsteps began to echo in the courtyard. Pearse froze. He planted himself against the wall and vainly tried to stifle his breath.

The small man appeared, a powerful physique in clear evidence as he ran out into the courtyard, stride compact, arms pumping in fluid motion, his chest straining against the confines of his suit. He stopped and began to scan the open space, no indication that he was even mildly winded. For an instant, Pearse thought the man had spotted him, his eyes pausing on the area of shadow now shrouding the priest. But just as quickly, he moved on, locating the arch and bolting toward it at full stride. Pearse held his breath as the sound of footsteps raced past him, no sign that the Austrian had sensed the figure no more than fifteen feet from him. In a matter of seconds, Pearse stood alone.

He was unable to move, certain that at least one more of the security men would appear at any second to drag him away. But the courtyard remained empty.

They weren’t coming.

For a brief moment, he thought about returning to his rooms-the alley, the fire escape-the last place they would look for him. But the Austrian’s words flooded back: A Vatican priest … under our jurisdiction. Again, no choice. No options. He had to get out of the City, easy prey within its walls. Prey? Another piece of absurdity, this one, though, all too real.

He pulled himself from the wall and, still in shadow, moved to the archway, its squat arc amplifying the echo of his footsteps. Beyond it, he came to a second courtyard-this one larger, mercifully empty-a partial view of the museum’s rooftops in the distance. Again, he tried to orient himself. The trouble was, the two exits out of the square led away from the Santa Anna Gate, which, as he now thought about it, might not be such a bad idea. If security meant to keep him within its “jurisdiction,” the guards would have been told to keep an eye out for a collarless priest. Hold him inside. Gates designed to ward off the overly eager tourist now called on to restrain a priest.

More absurdity. He had to find another way out.

Ducking through the closer of the two exits, he emerged to a part of the Vatican where the alleys snake from courtyard to courtyard, clinging to the sides of St. Peter’s and the Sistine Chapel. Somewhere beyond, an expanse of gardens waited-the Governor’s Palace, the Church of Santa Marta, the fountain of the Virgin-until tonight sacrosanct in his mind, now nothing more than a cage. It was an odd sensation, losing touch with the one place in Rome he had always felt most secure, protected. A stiff price to pay for something he still knew so little about.

Seeking out shadows wherever he could, Pearse edged his way along the narrow lanes, choosing what he thought were the most arbitrary routes, hoping in so doing to avoid any further confrontation. He knew that the Austrian would have a small legion at his disposal. It wouldn’t be long before illogic met its match in sheer numbers. Which meant he had to find his means of escape now.

At every turn, though, the outer walls seemed to find him, endless sheets of brick and stone disappearing into a slate sky. No way through, no way over. The thought battered at him as he slipped from one courtyard to the next, alleys spinning him deeper and deeper into the private world of the Vatican, until, with a sudden upsweep of air, he sped out into the grasp of trees, several lamps casting insignificant beams on a carpet of cobblestone. Pausing to catch his breath, he realized he had arrived at the Governor’s Palace gardens, the dome of St. Peter’s hovering above him to his left.

The wide piazza lay deserted, the palace facade a series of icy black windows-four, five stories high-staring back at him. He kept to the grass, relieved to slip under the widening cluster of branches, ears cocked for any sound around him. Silence. No way through, no way over. A deafening mantra.

At the edge of the trees, he stopped again, resting up against a trunk to survey the area. The shadows shifted from a swirl of leaves, his eyes drawn upward to the dome, the cross atop peering out on an unseen Tiber, the world of Rome beyond. Ironic sanctuary, he thought, for one trapped behind these walls. How many, he wondered, had ever viewed it as such-St. Peter’s, its two great arms of colonnades stretching around the square, grasping its faithful to its chest? Its intention to embrace. But also to insulate.

More so than he had ever imagined before.

Just then he noticed an isolated area blanketed in dim light. Unsure, he inched his way out to the edge of the shadow. As he continued to stare, a building came into sight.

The railway station. Of course.

He had completely forgotten about the single line that ran through the Vatican, the tracks some twenty yards beyond the station. Tracing them with his eyes, he watched as the rails disappeared into a tunnel. No way through, no way over.

So what about under?

He had no idea where the tracks led, or even if they remained unguarded farther on; still, they were his best bet, given the alternatives.

Of all the places he might choose for escape, though, the tracks were clearly the most exposed. He’d be out in the open for fifteen, twenty seconds. Again, he checked the area around him. No one. Steeping his lungs with air, he bolted out.

It was maddening to be so vulnerable, darting out in full view from a thousand different angles, the glow from the lamps almost painful to his skin. All he could feel was the utter stillness around him, an almost airless funnel from trees to station. Reaching the platform, he leapt onto the wooden boards that lay at the center of the rails. Everything seemed brighter still, more static, his only choice to duck down, plant his back against the low wall. He all but expected to hear the echo of vigilanza footsteps bearing down on him.

Nothing.

Another breath, and he propelled himself toward the tunnel, the twenty yards a final naked sprint before he felt the cover of darkness wash over him.

It seemed to go on indefinitely, tracks with narrow platforms on either side disappearing deeper and deeper underground. Still, it was better than what he had just left. He hopped up onto the platform to his left and started in. Twice, he looked over his shoulder, each time the light dipping farther from sight. On the third try, it vanished altogether. Only then did he notice the blue fluorescent lights evenly spaced along the wall. Dim to the point of futility, they seemed to grow brighter as his eyes became more accustomed to the dark. All the while, he tried to picture his whereabouts above ground, unsure if he had yet moved beyond the Vatican walls.

His answer came far quicker than he expected. No more than five feet from it, he began to make out what looked to be an immense door rising from track to roof, sealing the tunnel behind. No wonder there had been no guard at the station: Who could possibly find their way through this? Drawing up to within half a foot of the thing, Pearse confirmed his first impressions. Solid steel, all the way up.

Hoping to find a smaller door within, he began to glide his hands across it. Nothing. Undaunted, he dropped to the tracks and did the same with the door as a whole. Again nothing. He hoisted himself up onto the second platform and began to probe in the dark, when his elbow suddenly knocked against something jutting from the wall. Within seconds, he had the object, a piece of iron-as best as he could tell-rectangular, perhaps two inches thick, ten inches across. A few inches above, he found another, then another, all at regular intervals.

Rungs of a ladder. A minor miracle.

Ten or eleven up, he suddenly became aware of a landing no more than three feet above him, wrought iron, much like a fire escape’s balcony. Continuing to climb, he grabbed ahold of its side and swung his legs over.

The perch lay open except for a glassed-in booth, large enough for perhaps two men, no doubt the operations room for the immense door. Stepping toward it, Pearse pressed his face against the glass-at least three inches thick-and discovered a console at the far end, buttons glowing in an amber hue, enough to reflect an inside door handle halfway down the wall. But no outside handle. Instead, a large metal box protruded from the glass. Fixed to its side was a long rectangular bar extending out toward the steel door.

Pearse dropped to his knees and began to fiddle with the box. It was totally unmanageable, even with a keyhole at the center. The bar, however, seemed strangely familiar. He ran his fingers along it, its texture that of a license plate, thin metal with raised lettering across it. He began to trace the letters, piecing together the text, SICUREZZA the first word to make itself known.

Within a few minutes, he had the entire message: TO BE USED ONLY IN THE EVENT OF A TRACK FIRE. An emergency exit, the warning of an alarm bell should the bar be pushed to open the door.

He could hardly contain his smile; modern technology had come to the Vatican.

At first, it seemed odd that this small lever was all that stood between him and his freedom. As he thought about it, though, he realized it was odder still that anyone should need to go to such lengths to leave the Vatican. Security throughout the City was minimal, because its sole purpose was to keep people out, not in. Another reason why the station had been deserted.

Why should it be any different here?

The thought was only moderately reassuring. With an alarm blaring, he knew everything would accelerate; the men from security would find their way inside the tunnel within seconds, still more of them to the spot where the mysterious escape route would deposit him. Inside the walls? Beyond them? He didn’t know. Questions flooded his mind as he stood, his grip tightening on the bar. One last glance along the tunnel.

He pushed through.

The sound was deafening, but no more intrusive than the eruption of light that poured down at him from every direction. He stood in the middle of the cabin, his eyes adjusting as he tried to locate a second door. There. Just to the right of the console. Again, no handle, only box and bar. Without hesitation, he pushed through, this time arriving in a brightly lit corridor, narrow walls painted white, the ceiling lined with pipes less than three inches from his head. Processed air permeated the place, antiseptic, leaving a metallic taste in his mouth as he sped off.

It was impossible to concentrate on anything except the movement of his legs, the relentless sound of the blaring behind him, deeper and deeper, until, with a sudden choked cough, the Klaxon stopped. Its abrupt cessation felt like a blow to his gut. Still he ran, straining for the sound of steps, voices, anything behind him, his ears incapable of such focus-only the echo of his own feet on the bare cement floor.

Half-expecting to see a figure careering toward him-trapping him among those who were by now within the tunnel-Pearse noticed the pipes take a sharp turn to the left some thirty yards in front of him. Slowing, he managed the corner, at once barreling through yet one more door, his feet suddenly taken out from under him, his body wild as he slipped off a cement ledge, only to come crashing down onto a narrow strip of grass.

Everything seemed to stop. He lay prone on his back, completely disoriented.

Stars.

He was gazing up at stars. Outside. Glancing back, he watched as the door slammed shut, from this side, a rusted metal postern-no handle, no lock-nestled within the Vatican wall, a few scrawls of graffiti decorating its weathered facade. Otherwise, it remained completely nondescript. He spun around and propped himself on an elbow. A wide road-his best guess the Viale Vaticano-stood no more than ten feet from him. The pain in his back notwithstanding, Pearse felt an overpowering sense of exuberance, a nervous laugh erupting in his throat. He turned once again to the wall and stood. St. Peter’s loomed directly beyond it.

Under our jurisdiction.

For several moments, he simply stared.

Not anymore.

The sound of a siren somewhere off to his left told him he had no time for victory celebrations. They would be coming, this only a momentary reprieve. Slipping into a web of pedestrian lanes across the road, he came face-to-face with a far more unwelcome truth: The Vatican was no longer his, its refuge lost.

What victory in that?

Pearse had stopped running twenty minutes earlier, the furtive looks over his shoulder perhaps ten minutes after that. Since then, he’d caught himself letting up only once or twice, allowing the easy rhythm of a resolute pace to take his mind off of the last few hours. Those moments had passed quickly, a muted anxiety resurfacing to keep him alert. He’d thought about a hotel-the late hour notwithstanding-but realized a credit card could be traced. That the idea had even entered his mind stunned him. Angeli, of course, was out of the question-at least for the time being. Best to keep her isolated.

He’d crossed the river at the Aosta Bridge, opting for the Via Giulia, the summer lamps billowing against the high walls as he moved past the shops. One or two couples walked arm in arm along the lane, too few, though, to put him at ease; somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he needed to find a more populated area.

He headed up through the Campo dei Fiori, passing by a favorite restaurant on the northeast corner, dark for the night, a momentary taste of Gorgonzola on his tongue. He’d eaten there two, three nights ago, a few friends from the library, now strangely foreign, a connection severed by the last eight hours.

For forty minutes, he walked, careful to keep himself situated within large groups-Piazza Navona, the Trevi Fountain, up to the Spanish Steps-the crowds growing younger and younger along the improvised route. Packs of students littered the steps and fountain, some camped around a single guitar strummed in adolescent serenade, others happy to gaze out at the spectacle of Roman summer. Still more couples wandered, while a few well-soused tourists snapped flashed shots of the bell towers looming above, pictures destined for blackened obscurity.

The refuge he sought, however, remained distant. Instead, he felt his own detachment like a spyglass tracing his every move, caught in the lens, all else a blur. Whatever sanctuary he had conjured beyond the Vatican walls during his flight quickly dissolved into a heightened sense of isolation, magnified against the backdrop of late-night revelry. The city itself seemed to goad him, his every turn met with an increasing sense of loss, even disorientation, all that was familiar somehow taken from him.

Even in the Piazza Barberini-its sudden collision of streets alive with cabs and cars-he felt as if he’d never seen the place before, everything starker, colder to the eye.

He was about to move on when he suddenly realized why he had come this way. Of course there was another refuge for him in the city. Of course there was a place where he could make sense of the last twelve hours. John J.’s. Just north of the Giardini del Quirinale. The priest’s apartment. He couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to think of it. Granted, he hadn’t been there more than three or four times in the last two years-Blaney was always jetting back and forth to the States-but long periods without contact had never altered their relationship. Given what Pearse had been through tonight, he knew a two A.M. knock at the door wouldn’t raise so much as an eyebrow, no matter how much in need of a good clipping it might be.

With renewed purpose, he made his way back the few blocks to Via Avigonesi, number 31, indistinguishable from every other building along the narrow street, endless walls of chipped russet stone visible in the shadowed lamplight. Pearse scanned the front windows, hoping on the off chance to see a light somewhere on the fifth floor. No such luck. He stepped to the door and rang the bell.

On the sixth ring, he again stepped back into the empty street and saw a light come on up above. A moment later, the crackle from an ancient intercom filled the air.

“Si?” barked a woman’s voice. “Sa che ore sono?”

“Yes, it’s late. … I’m sorry,” Pearse answered in Italian, “but I need to see Father Blaney.”

“At this hour? Who is this?”

“Father Pearse. Father Ian Pearse from the Vatican. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“Father …”

Pearse waited.

“The American?” Her tone was far less strident.

“Yes.”

“I see.” Another pause. “Well, Father, I’m sure he would, but he’s not here. He’s away for another few days. Is there something I can do for you … at two in the morning?”

The possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind. “Not here?”

“I’m sorry, no. Was he expecting you?”

Pearse needed a few moments to respond.

“No. No, he wasn’t.”

“Well, he does call in from time to time. Shall I give him a message?”

“No … no. That’s okay.”

“You’re sure, Father?” She waited. “Would you … like to come up? You’re quite sure everything is all right?”

Another long moment. “Good night.”

“Father …”

The voice trailed off as Pearse stepped away from the doorway, his sense of isolation now even more intense. The prospect of seeing Blaney had allowed him to drop his guard. Another few days. Pearse didn’t have that kind of time.

Not sure where he was meant to go, he began to walk-back to the piazza, to the cabs, the lights, up along the Via Barberini-the city again cold and unforgiving. Why he felt the need for forgiveness, though, he didn’t know.

It was only as he reached the top of the Barberini hill that he understood. There, across from the wide avenue, and tucked in at the end of a tiny cobbled piazza, waited the church of San Bernardo. It had always been a favorite of his, in appearance like a half-pint Pantheon, modest dome atop stocky walls-the troll on the hill-far less prepossessing than its more famous neighbors. It might have lacked the regal facade of Santa Susanna, or the Bernini treasure of Santa Maria della Vittoria, but Bernardo always managed its own quiet dignity, an almost medieval piety in its inelegance. More than that, its simplicity reminded him that, amid all the confusion, one thing remained constant and his own. Nothing so intangible as faith-although he knew he could find strength in that-but the far more patterned expression of prayer. What had Blaney always said? Sanctuary in the mantra of repetition. Another kind of refuge.

Why forgiveness? Because he had taken no time for it today, no time for the Mass he had abandoned, no time to quiet his mind. He slipped across the road, down along the uneven cobblestones, and through the door into the vaulted church.

Inside, the light was spare, enough to cast angular shadows from the statues of saints who filled the raised niches along the circular wall. Hard plaster faces stared down at him, cheeks and hands chipped here and there, pleated robes too rigid at the edges, the caress of Bernini nowhere in evidence on the austere figures. Yet all he felt was their serenity. He dipped his hand into the holy water, crossed himself, and moved to the wooden benches that stood in front of the altar. Sitting, he let the strain of the last ten hours seep from his muscles, a sudden sense of exhaustion overwhelming him. On the verge of sleep, he allowed his head to slip back.

Caught in that honeyed mist between conscious and unconscious, he found himself drifting. For little more than an instant, Slitna, Prjac, the countless other towns he had long ago forgotten, all seemed to rise up in wild assault around him-sounds, smells, tastes, nothing distinct, all of it trapped in dissonant haze, yet so palpable, it forced him to bolt upright, its grasp almost too much.

His heart was racing, his mind lost to an endless array of sensations. One, however, stood out as he tried to reclaim focus. A quiet resolve, strangely familiar, an echo from his days with Petra. Even then, he had understood it as an imperfect reflection of hers, a naive courage that had all too often bordered on the reckless. Still, it had kept him alive on more than one occasion. Now, as he stared at the grained wood of the pew in front of him, Pearse allowed it to wash over him, resonate within. A moment with her. There might have been more to it than that, but he let it pass.

It wasn’t difficult to understand why it had come to the surface now; he only hoped he could sustain it.

Lips moving silently, he began to pray.

Cardinal von Neurath held the large velvet drape back, his gaze drawn to the lights of Rome as they spread out in front of him. Half past four, still so alive. How many times, he wondered, had he allowed himself to stand in robe and slippers, peering out, the chill from the hour and the lure of sleep both forgotten? Too many to recall. The endless twists and turns of streets disappeared into the labyrinth of the city, landmarks dotting the landscape to give his meditation some bearing-the ivory cream of the Colosseum, the garish white of Il Vittoriano, and always the silent dome, crisp against a blackened sky, beckoning him, calling him. Only him. Perhaps tonight.

The sound of a taxi broke through, fatigue and chill suddenly more intrusive. Still he stared. Rome. It was almost too much to pull himself away.

“Why don’t you get some sleep.” Blaney sat in an armchair at the far corner of the large bedroom, lamp at his side, legs extending to a cushioned footstool. “I can wake you if any news comes in.”

Von Neurath continued to stare out. “No, this is fine.” After a few moments, he turned. “If you want to get some-” The shake of the head across the room told him there was no reason to finish the thought. They had known each other for the better part of forty years, tied together by what had once been so clear a path. In fact, it had been Blaney who had administered von Neurath’s Rite of Illumination all those years ago. All so clear.

Things change. The priest, so devoted to his Manichaean faith, had never wanted more, content to be a spiritual beacon. Keep the teachings of Mani pure. Keep the Word alive. Blaney had always believed that the Word itself was all they needed to bring about the one true and holy church.

Von Neurath had recognized the weakness early on. Faith and teaching could take one only so far. There had to be a practical side to Mani’s vision. And the more that pragmatism had asserted itself, the more Blaney had kept his blinders on, an attitude that made him appear all the more pathetic in von Neurath’s eyes.

A relationship built on mutual mistrust. It was why they would both wait up for the call.

Von Neurath moved back to the bed and sat. “Any confirmation from Arturo on the transfers?” he asked, more to pass the time than anything else.

“About an hour ago,” answered Blaney. “Our Pentecostal, Baptist, and Methodist friends were all very appreciative.”

“I don’t care how much they appreciate it,” replied von Neurath, scratching away at a small stain on the bedspread. “I want to know that they understand what it’s for.” He brushed a few crumbs away and looked over at Blaney. “I can’t start consolidating the fold without grassroots support.”

“I’m sure they’re getting the message out, Erich.”

A quizzical look crossed von Neurath’s face before he turned to the stain again. “‘Message’? That’s a rather precious way of putting it, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps. It’s what you would call the ‘soft sell,’ I think.”

Von Neurath laughed to himself; it seemed to catch Blaney by surprise. “I didn’t realize you were so good at it.”

“Hardly.”

“Oh, don’t underestimate yourself, John.”

“No, I’ll leave that to you.”

Von Neurath looked up from the stain. “Have I struck a nerve?”

Blaney said nothing.

Again, von Neurath waited. “You’ve really grown to dislike me, haven’t you?”

“Not at all.”

“Don’t tell me that you’re disappointed?”

“Disappointment implies expectation.”

A smile. “Touche.”

“We see things differently,” said Blaney.

“Yes, we do. I know the message isn’t enough. One has to be certain that they understand it.”

“Well, then, I’m sure you have the people in place for that.”

“We, John. We have the people in place.” He began to scrape away again. “Painting the world in black and white isn’t that easy with all those other colors out there. One pure church won’t just suddenly appear because you hope it will. You have to lead them to it. And the only way to do that is-”

“To manipulate them?” said Blaney.

Von Neurath didn’t bother to look up. “A little crude, but, yes, that sounds about right.”

Blaney nodded to himself. “‘And when the light descends, and the darkness recedes, who shall be worthy of the mystery that has been hidden since eternities?’”

“‘He who can make the world whole,’” answered von Neurath. “Epistle of Seth.”

“I don’t recall all that much about ‘manipulation’ in the epistle.”

Von Neurath now looked up. “And what would you propose? Unless we have a willing constituency among our Protestant friends, no amount of papal encyclicals will make anything whole again, infallibility or not. The olive branch goes only so far.”

“If, in fact, you’re the one holding it,” reminded Blaney.

“I don’t think that will be much of a problem.” The cardinal turned back to the bedspread, the stain clearly getting the better of him. “Sometimes the Word isn’t sufficient to motivate people to action.”

“I’m not sure Mani would agree with you.”

“Mani wasn’t dealing with such a complicated world.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot. Poor, naive little Mani.”

Again, von Neurath laughed. “Sarcasm doesn’t really suit you, John. You’re much better when self-effacing. I’d stick with that.” Von Neurath stood, stepped to a small washbasin on a nearby table, and began to dip a washcloth in the water. Wringing it out, he returned to the bed and went back to work on the stain. “Nobody’s quite sure who or what the agents of darkness are nowadays. Too many would-be demons to choose from. If I can simplify that-”

“If we, Erich. We.”

Von Neurath waited before continuing. “If we can simplify that, all the better. One clear threat. One ultimate demon to send them back into the arms of the true church.”

“Even if that demon doesn’t exist?”

A wry smile crossed his lips. “The last I checked, Islamic fundamentalism was alive and well.”

“Playing on people’s irrational fears isn’t what Mani had in mind.”

“We’ve been through this. And it’s a little late to be questioning the method.”

“I’m not questioning it. I’m simply interpreting its emphasis.”

“Nothing brings people together like ignorance, John.” Von Neurath seemed satisfied with his work and tossed the cloth back onto the table.

Now Blaney waited before answering. “‘And nothing but ignorance can make the light-’”

“‘Wither and die.’ Yes. I know the verse. Shahpuhrakan, three-five. You might also recall Book of Giants, chapter six: ‘And through the darkness He will conceive a light so worthy that it will say-I am born of the darkness, and yet I am the light itself!’ Ignorance bearing wisdom. Not much to interpret there. Whether these fundamentalists actually pose a threat or not-whether Mr. Bin Laden and his ilk have more in mind for us than just some senseless bombings-we both know we can use their presence to create a genuine unity. Fear of a common enemy is a powerful incentive. We simply have to make sure that that incentive is strong enough. From there, it’s a small step to the true church. Then you’ll see the power of the Word.” He paused. “If that isn’t light born of darkness, I don’t know what is.”

“It all depends on how you use that enemy.”

“Yes. Yes, it does. I wasn’t aware you were so interested in the more mundane workings of all of this.” He waited for a response. “No, I didn’t think so.” He stood and returned to the window. “Keep the faith pure, John. That’s what you’ve always been so good at. All to make the church whole again.” He waited. “Sometimes I wonder what you think that really means.”

“Light set free. Triumph over darkness. It’s not all that complex, Erich. ‘The vain garment of this flesh put off, safe and pure; the clean feet of my soul free to trample confidently upon it.’”

Again, von Neurath laughed to himself. “Abstractions are so easy, aren’t they? Especially when you can hide behind them.”

“And what does that mean?”

Again von Neurath waited. “We make the church whole, John, and it’s our turn to build from the ashes. Our turn to set doctrine, tend a flock, not just quote from a psalmbook. We’re not exactly a feel-good bunch, now are we?”

Blaney said nothing.

“Two, three hundred elect among us? The rest, told to obey for a life of perfect asceticism? That requires a good deal of control. Limitations. How many of them, do you think, will be that keen to let their ‘souls trample on the world of the flesh’? We’ll have to take a lot of things away from them so that they can see how the Light can be set free. The triumph over darkness demands a great deal of discipline, a healthy dose of … reeducation. Not everyone’s going to understand what we’re doing for them.” Again, von Neurath waited. “So don’t tell me you’re uncomfortable with how we’ll be dealing with our enemies, real or not. You know as well as I do that it pales in comparison to what we have in store for our own followers. That kind of ascetic ideal requires sacrifice. And we don’t have the luxury to pick and choose which ones we make.”

Neither said a word for nearly a minute. Blaney stared at the phone, willing it to ring. Von Neurath suddenly turned to him. “It’s defense, isn’t it?”

“What?” asked Blaney.

“Defense,” he repeated. “‘Satisfied slave turns up in armor.’”

It took Blaney a few seconds to realize what he was saying. “Oh … Yes.” He now recalled the cryptic he’d given him earlier in the day. The word game they’d been playing for years, like all good Manichaeans. The mysteries hidden within language. There might have been a great deal of mistrust and disrespect in their relationship, but at least they had the cryptics to keep them on common ground. “That didn’t take long.”

“Satisfied, fed. Slave, esne. Turn them upside down,” said von Neurath, “and you get defense, armor. Clever.” Perfunctory praise.

“I do what I can,” said Blaney. The phone rang; he picked up. “Yes. … I see. When? … No, that won’t be necessary. … All right. Keep me informed.” He replaced the receiver.

“Well?” the cardinal asked.

Blaney looked up; it took him a moment to focus on von Neurath. “What? Oh. No, that wasn’t about His Holiness. We have a bit of a problem. The priest at San Clemente has disappeared.”

“I thought Kleist was taking care of that?”

“As you said, I’m not very good with the mundane, but obviously he hasn’t.”

“And the monk?”

“I can take care of that. The priest should be Herr Kleist’s focus now.”

“Agreed.” Von Neurath waited before continuing. “Do we know he has the scroll?” Blaney remained silent. “Do we know if he even understands what it is?” Again, no answer. Von Neurath stared out into the lights. “Then we do have a problem.”

Pearse felt a tap on his shoulder, his first sensation a grinding stiffness in his neck. For several seconds, he had no idea where he was, his eyes as yet unwilling to open to more than slits. He lay on his side, legs drawn to his chest, hands wedged between cheek and the hard wooden surface below. Trying to sit up, he nearly toppled from his perch. He placed a hand on the bench in front of him to steady himself. As his eyes strained against sleep, he noticed the church had grown brighter, a hint of sun peeking through the opening at the apex of the dome. Streaks of light cascaded across the top third of the walls. The saints, however, remained in dusky gray.

“Scusi,” said a voice to his left. “Ma non si puo dormire qui, giovane.”

Pearse turned to see a priest standing over his shoulder, a man easily in his late seventies, thick black-rimmed glasses covering most of his face. His eyes refracted to enormous proportions through the lenses, giant brown balls filling the weighted glass. Still, there was a pleasantness to the face, thin lips drawn up in an expression of concern and understanding. When he noticed Pearse’s clothes, his eyes seemed to grow even larger behind the frames.

“Oh,” he continued in Italian, “I didn’t realize you were a priest.” The revelation, however, granted only a momentary reprieve, the slow realization that a priest had been lying asleep in his church even more troubling. He didn’t seem to know how to respond. “Were you … in prayer, Father?” An odd question, but the best he could do.

“I … Yes. I came in to pray,” answered Pearse. “I didn’t mean to …” For some reason, his hand rose to his neck.

Again, the old priest appeared to be at a loss, the gentle face etched with confusion. A priest asleep, with no collar. How could one explain that? “I have some extra ones,” he nodded, eager to move beyond his misgivings, or at least to distance himself from them; he started toward a set of stairs at the far end of the altar.

Pearse looked around; the church was empty. “Do you know what time it is, Father?” he asked.

“Just after five,” the old man answered without turning around. “When I always come in.” A wavering hand appeared, pointing to the top of the steps. “It’s just up there. The collar.” Pearse stood and followed, his legs tight from the cramped position of a lengthy nap.

The office was austerity itself, two straight-backed wooden chairs, no cushions, each standing guard before an equally uninviting desk, another chair stationed behind, all of them under the watchful gaze of a crucifix holding firm against the decay of crumbling walls. The domed ceiling of the small enclosure rose to perhaps eight feet at its height, the room clearly an afterthought, as if the space had been grudgingly ceded by a miserly sanctuary. The old priest shuffled to the desk, opened one of its drawers, and pulled out a new collar. “I always seem to forget if I have enough. Whenever I pass by Gammarelli’s, I think I should stop and get one.” Pearse nodded, recalling the sartoria ecclesiastica just off the Piazza Minerva. “An old man.” He smiled. “I must have twenty of them tucked away in here.” Pearse stepped across, took the collar, and fitted it into his shirt.

“Thank you.”

“You’re not Italian,” said the priest.

“No. American.”

“You have no place to stay?” he asked, continuing before Pearse could answer. “We once had a father from Albuquerque,” the pronunciation thoroughly mangled. “He said he had lost all of his baggage, his papers. He had no collar, either. We gave him a hot meal.”

“Albuquerque. Really?” Pearse smoothed out the collar, at the same time rubbing the cramp from his neck. “Actually, I have rooms at the-” He cut himself short. “Not far from here.” He smiled. “I come from Boston … a small parish.” He had no idea what had provoked the impromptu confession, but it seemed to have the desired effect. The man listened intently. “I came in to pray early this morning. I must have been more tired than I realized.”

“Of course.” A sudden gleam filled the old man’s eyes. “Would you like to take the Mass?” he asked, an eagerness in his voice, eyes wider still.

Pearse began to shake his head, then stopped. Why else had he come in? When else would he have the opportunity? Given the last twelve hours, he had no idea what to expect beyond the doors of the church. If last night had been any indication-save for a momentary flash of distant resolve-certainly nothing of the familiar. He needed to reclaim something of his own. Something to take away with him. “Yes.” He nodded, moving toward the old man. “Yes, I’d like that very much.”

“I thought you might.” The priest reached into a second drawer and pulled out all the necessary accoutrements-linens, chalice, wine, wafers. He moved slowly but with great care, the tarnished silver and weathered pieces of linen reclaiming a lost splendor in his hands. Setting them on the desk, he then turned to the small closet by the door and removed an equally ancient alb, then a lace stole, the cincture hanging on a hook at the side. Pearse moved toward him and helped him into the vestments, a bit of smoothing necessary on the wrinkled fabric; together, they retrieved the items on the desk and headed back to the sanctuary, taking labored steps, Pearse more and more relaxed in the old man’s presence. The priest said nothing as he draped the corporal across the altar table, Pearse waiting until he had cast it just so before carefully setting down the pieces he had brought himself, all in neat order. A look of genuine delight rose on the old man’s face as he turned to pour a healthy swig of wine into the chalice, a few drops of water.

“I prefer the Latin,” he said. “When I’m alone. Old habits. I hope that’s all right with you.”

Pearse nodded, ever more at ease. Old habits. A sense of place, belonging.

“Good.” The old priest smiled. Then, with a long breath-a moment of quiet thought-he began to chant, eyes somehow smaller behind the frames, concentrated, his body swaying back and forth, hands holding on to the table for support. An image of perfect serenity.

Pearse let go, as well. And for a few minutes, he seemed to forget everything that had brought him to the refuge of San Bernardo. Everything that lay beyond its doors.

The second-floor lights told him she was awake; the shadow scurrying past the window confirmed she was still at work on the scroll. Pearse pressed the bell and waited.

As much as he hated to admit it, there really had been no other choice. The scroll was all he had to go on. More than that, it was his only leverage; at some point, he knew they would track him down. Better to understand what it was they wanted before facing the inevitable.

Another quick lesson from Angeli.

A hesitant voice answered. “Hello?”

“It’s Ian Pearse,” he said. “I saw the light-” The buzzer cut him off; he pushed through and stepped into the hallway.

Upstairs, the apartment lay under a veil of smoke, the smell of cigarettes thick on her breath as he followed her in. No word of hello, not even the expected smile, only the glass dome peeking out from over the barricade of books as they made their way through. Nearing the desk, he noticed she had managed to get to the end of the scroll, the right-hand side now laden with rolled parchment. He also saw how tired she looked, the red of her cheeks having faded to gray, her hair matted in odd clumps, obvious signs of long hours spent in deep concentration. A few crumbs of biscotti were all that remained from the once-full plate.

Her voice was hoarse when she spoke. “This is a surprise.” She seemed distracted. “Or perhaps not.”

He wasn’t sure how to respond.

Whatever strain he thought he had seen in her face now showed itself to be something far more unsettling. Concern. Perhaps even apprehension. She returned his gaze, intensity, not fatigue, staring back. “Why don’t you have a seat, Father.” A disconcerting echo from last night. He did as he was told, taking the nearer of the two chairs, watching as she gathered up the various pieces of paper that lay scattered around the dome. She glanced at each page, trying, it seemed, to divine some sort of order out of them. “I see you’ve recovered your collar,” she said, not bothering to look up, eyes darting from one passage to the next. Pearse said nothing. No reason to bring her up-to-date on the night’s events.

Reaching for her cup, she moved around the desk and sat on the front lip of the second chair. She took a sip; her expression told him the coffee had long since lost its edge.

“Why didn’t you tell me what the scroll was?” she asked.

Her tone surprised him. “I … didn’t know what it was. I still don’t.”

“It wasn’t found in San Clemente, was it?” Her response was no less accusatory.

“I was told it was.”

“Then you were misinformed.” She continued to stare at him. When he didn’t answer, she elaborated. “The prayer by itself, I could accept. Even that bizarre preamble from John. But not this,” she said, raising the papers in her hands.

Pearse followed the swirl of pages, unsure what she wanted to hear. After everything he’d been through last night, a grilling from Angeli was the last thing he needed. More than that, the attitude wasn’t like her at all. He found it hard to imagine that she could actually believe he had purposely misled her. What could he gain by that? If he had known what the scroll was, why would he have brought it to her in the first place? Why the charade?

When she finally spoke, her tone was far less severe.

“You really have no idea what it is, do you?”

“No, I really have no idea.” He was doing his best not to allow the last few hours to color his tone.

“Well, I suppose that’s a relief.”

When it was clear she was happy to leave it at that, Pearse prodded. “Any chance you might tell me what it is?”

She looked over at him.

He picked up the ashtray nearest him and placed it on the arm of her chair. “Does that help?”

At last a smile. “Ah, the art of seduction.”

“If I’d known it was that easy, I’d never have taken the cloth.”

Another tired smile.

“So what’s in the scroll?” he said.

“‘The scroll,’” she repeated. Looking across at him, she said, “Something I’ve never seen before.”

“That sounds promising.”

“Perhaps.” A long breath. She eased herself back into the chair, then began to speak: “Well … to start … it’s not a continuous scroll, which is what one would have expected. It’s a series of unsewn single sheets, rolled together. That, by itself, is strange, but not unheard of.” Before he could ask, she clarified. “Fire, decay, those sorts of things did, at times, leave groups of arbitrary single sheets lying about, which would then have been put together in a codex or scroll simply for storage’s sake.”

“And that’s what this is,” he asked. “One of those collections?”

“No. Which is even more surprising. In this case, each independent sheet is linked to the others in a very purposeful way, something, as I said, I’ve never seen. It starts out with a full text of ‘Perfect Light’-which, by itself, makes it unique-but then becomes a series of epistles. Letters.”

An image of Saint Paul wandering through Asia Minor fixed in his mind. “Apostolic?”

“Not at all.”

“So Augustine got it wrong? It’s not a collection of Jesus’ sayings?”

“Evidently.”

He allowed himself only a moment’s disappointment before asking, “So whom are they written to?”

“That’s a very good question.”

“Thank you.”

A smile. “To the ‘Brothers of the Light.’” She was almost flip in her response.

“Manichaeans?”

“Yes, Manichaeans.”

Silence. She seemed to be retreating again.

“How many ashtrays am I going to need?” he asked.

She peered over at him. “I’m not sure you’re going to want to hear this.”

“Now who’s teasing?” He waited. “So the epistles … can I assume they’re all written by the same scribe?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But they’re not. They’re actually fifteen separate letters-not in Syriac, but Greek-that span a period of almost four hundred years.” She stopped, her eyes fixed on his.

“Four hundred years?” he said. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“No, it doesn’t, does it? But given the references to various emperors, Popes, and patriarchs, you can pretty much date the letters from somewhere in the middle of the sixth century, up through the end of the tenth. Considering that western Manichaeanism was supposedly wiped out by the end of the fifth, those are rather remarkable dates.” Again, she held his gaze. “Added to that, all of the letters are connected to the prayer-they all begin with their own transcription of it. Another odd distinction.”

“So where are they from?”

“All over. As far west as Lyons, northern Germany, Rome, Milan, Constantinople, Acre. The known world at the time.”

“That’s … incredible. There’s nothing like that in the canon.”

“I think I just said that.”

“So what do these letters say?”

Her eyebrows rose in anticipation. “Ah, now that’s where it gets interesting.”

“Good. For a minute there, I thought it was going to be as dull as last night.”

“Oh, really?” It was clear she was beginning to loosen up. “Well, compared to this, last night was-what did you always call it?” Pearse had no idea what she was talking about. “Minor-level? Minor-”

“Minor-league.” He smiled.

She nodded. “Yes. Minor-league. Last night, we were playing in the ‘bonies.’”

“Boonies,” he said, correcting her.

“Boonies. Whatever.”

“So what makes these letters so interesting?”

Again, she drew forward to the edge of the chair. “Each one is an apparent description of the writer’s personal ‘heavenly ascent.’”

“His what?”

“His tour of the divine realm, his ascent, where he’s made privy to esoteric knowledge. All very Manichaean. Except that each one of these is written as if from the pen of one of the five prophets. Now, that’s very strange.”

Happy as he was to see Angeli back in full swing, Pearse needed clarification. “Prophets? I’m not … Which prophets?”

“Adam, Seth, Enosh, Shem, and Enoch,” she answered, as if citing nothing more obscure than her own name. “The Manichaean prophets.” It was now time for the cigarettes to reappear. “You’ll also find Noah, Buddha, Zoroaster, and, of course, Jesus slotted into the list, but it’s primarily the other five. Each appearing in cycles, and each bringing us one step closer to redemption.” She lit one up. “Mani himself is the last of them, the Paraclete, ‘the seal’ promised by Christ.”

“Right,” he said, just to slow her down. “Why don’t you take a few puffs.” She was beginning to fly off; he needed to tie her down to something more tangible. “Let’s hold off on the prophets for a minute. What do the letters actually say?”

Looking over at him, she, too, realized she was getting ahead of herself. She nodded. “They begin with the basics. Foretelling the end of the world, when all evil will be burned in a final fire, light set free, full knowledge attained-that sort of thing.”

Slowly, he said, “Okay. So that would be … typical apocalyptic warnings. The light of Christ rooting out evil. Right?”

“Oh, it’s not the light of Christ. That isn’t it at all. That wouldn’t make it Manichaean.”

“No, of course it wouldn’t.” So much for the tangible.

“They’re an easy bunch to get muddled with.”

“Remember, I’m easily muddled.”

“I’ll try to dumb it down.”

“Very kind.”

She crushed out the cigarette and settled back into the chair. Waiting until she’d found the right approach, she began: “All right. You have to remember that the battle between light and darkness isn’t a metaphor for them. It’s real, manifested in the very way they chanted their prayers, the way they performed their rituals, even in the way they chose their foods. Unlike your basic Christians, or even Gnostics, the Manichaeans believed that light and darkness were substances scattered within the material world. For instance, they actually thought that melons and cucumbers held a great deal of light, meats and wine the dark elements. Eat a melon, promote good. Eat a chicken, foment evil.”

“And that was what Mani developed out of Gnosticism? Evil foods?”

“It’s not as silly as it sounds. How much sillier is the idea of separating spirit and matter-spirit good, matter evil? The Greeks got a great deal of mileage out of that one. And it’s not as if Mani didn’t find the material world as abhorrent as the orthodox Christians did; it’s just that he managed to make it an essential part of salvation.”

“Right, right.” Pearse slowly remembered his brief foray into the world of “Light and Darkness.” “And that’s why Augustine and the church were so uneasy.”

“Exactly. More than that, because Mani believed human beings are fashioned by demonic forces-bent on keeping the light trapped for eternity-he also thought that men had to play an active role in their own salvation: find those things that help to free the light, avoid those that don’t. Melons versus meat. Augustine had said the will was free only when choosing God. With Mani, you’ve got something that grants a sort of cosmic feeling of responsibility to the individual, because he might be a bearer of the light. Catholicism never gave its faithful that kind of autonomy.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“I told you you weren’t going to like it.”

“I might surprise you.”

“Anyway, a prophet’s ‘heavenly ascent’ was simply the highest form of that responsibility, all of it geared to bringing the gnosis back to his followers and thus freeing sufficient light so that the last of the prophets-Mani himself-could return and bring about the final purification of the world.”

“And that’s what the epistles are all about.”

“No.”

“No,” Pearse repeated. “Great.” He was doing his best not to get frustrated. “So these ‘heavenly ascents’-”

“Are where the epistles begin. Yes. What you might call Manichaeanism at its most attractive.”

“I see.” He had no idea what she was talking about, but he decided to press on anyway. “But it’s not where they end.”

“No.”

Again, he had to hold back his frustration. “So where do they end?”

“With the not so attractive.” She shifted in her chair.

“Meaning?”

“Well …” Again, she hesitated. “You have to remember that Mani’s followers thought that theirs was the one true and holy Christian church.”

“As did every other renegade sect at the time,” he countered. “What’s so unattractive?”

“Yes, but the Manichaeans were after a kind of hyperasceticism. They professed to be purer than the other churches, their scriptures more comprehensive and unambiguous, their methods of describing the world through their knowledge more quasi-scientific-something very appealing at the time-and their preparation for the return of the Messiah more complete.” She began to sift through a pile of books, picking out one as she spoke. “That preparation, though, demanded that there be only one church standing when the Messiah returned.” She scanned the pages, talking offhandedly. “All others had to be rooted out, or at least subsumed within the Manichaean system. Evangelicalism taken to its extreme. Even the Romans thought of them as some sort of ‘superior Christians,’ more pious, more devout than the rest.”

“So the Persian dualism had unity as its goal? That doesn’t sound right.”

She nodded. “It’s known as ‘the Manichaean paradox.’ Light and darkness waging war, but only to a point. The ultimate aim: one pure church in a world beset by darkness.” She found the page she had been looking for. “Here it is. This is the catchphrase they used to summarize the whole theology: ‘of the two principles and the three moments.’ The two principles are, of course, light and darkness. The three moments are the beginning, the middle, and the end.”

“That’s innovative.”

She continued, ignoring the comment. “In the beginning, light and darkness are separate; in the middle, they’re mingled-that’s where we are now, in that middle moment; and at the end, they resolve themselves in an eternal triumph of life and light over death. It’s really quite simple.”

Pearse did his best to nod. “Simple. I’m still not sure what makes that so ‘unattractive.’ It’s not all that different from what the Catholic church was trying to do at the same time. You called it ‘a unified front.’”

“Yes,” she said, retrieving the cigarette, “but the Manichaeans were also seen as zealots, far too willing to brand those incapable of attaining the gnosis-that is, the vast majority-as threats to salvation. Only gnosis granted freedom; those without it, they felt, had to be controlled, maybe even manipulated. A sort of tough love. It was their methods for achieving that control that were unattractive and thought of as somewhat … suspect.”

“Melons were actually evil?” he said.

“Very funny. No. Certain early Christian writers suggested-albeit in completely unsubstantiated ways-that the Manichaeans had more in mind for the material world than simply its purification. Or at least that their methods weren’t as noble as they preached. Most scholars today reject those claims as another clever way the Catholic church managed to turn a rival group into pariahs.”

“Right, right. Not only were their teachings heretical but they were deceivers and manipulators, as well. That part, I know. The church was very good at that for a while.”

“Precisely.” Smoke streamed from the cigarette. “And, from time to time, dating back as far as the third and fourth centuries, there’s been speculation that they were … infiltrators-for want of a better word.”

“Infiltrators?” His eyebrows lifted as he smiled over at her. “That sounds pretty racy. Into what?”

“I’m not sure I’d use the word racy, but”-she took a long drag-“infiltrators into other churches, where they would rise to positions of power, and then take those congregations in very specific directions. A sort of cancer within the Catholic hierarchy. Bolsheviks of the fourth century, if you will. And all in the hope of creating their one, pure church. There is, of course, no proof for any of that.”

“Of course.” His smile grew. “It still sounds pretty racy … Bolsheviks, infiltrators. In a purely academic way, of course.”

“Yes. Very … racy.” For all her playing, Angeli clearly had her limits. Still, Pearse was enjoying pressing at them. “Anyway,” she said, “most of us believe that the Catholic church eventually became too powerful and well entrenched, and no amount of covert manipulation could have changed that.”

“You make the Manichaeans sound like some sort of secret society.”

“Oh, they were that,” she insisted. “There, I can show you plenty of proof.” She smiled up at him. “Very racy proof. Any number of documents describe how they developed a network of cells-a la the French Resistance-within the Roman Empire both to spread their own interpretation of the Word and also to avoid detection. Most scholars claim that the sect wanted to avoid detection by the Romans. As I said, though, there have been those who’ve suggested that the Manichaeans might have wanted to avoid detection by other Christians, as well.” Angeli creased her lips around the cigarette and inhaled deeply. “And given what your scroll contains, I’m now somewhat inclined to agree with them.”

Pearse knew there was more to her admission than merely an academic’s reassessment. His encounter with the Austrian had been proof enough of that. The question remained: What? “So fifteen letters, describing some kind of transcendent experience, will change the way we view the Manichaeans? I can’t see how that would be earth-shattering for more than a handful of people.”

“Then you would be wrong.” Nothing hostile in her tone, simply a statement of fact. Without waiting for a response, she bent over and began to lay the pages on the carpet, one by one. Whenever she needed more room, she would push the encroaching pile of books as far as her short arms would allow, eventually forced to drop to her knees so as to gain added leverage. Every so often, a few books would topple; she continued, undeterred, until the area from desk to Pearse lay hidden under a blanket of yellow paper. “Remember, it was a prayer passed down orally,” she said at last, still fiddling with the order of the sheets. “Somehow, I forgot that little piece of information for nearly an hour. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Pearse gazed out over the sea of yellow, the scrawl only slightly less daunting than the wild arrows that ran from one sheet to the next, exclamation points circled in red ink, whole paragraphs written vertically in the margins, the letters almost too small to make out. He watched as she twisted her head once or twice so as to follow the mean-derings of several of the linked pages, the red pen emerging from one of her pockets to solidify the routing. When she was fully satisfied, she pulled herself up to the chair and sat.

“So, what do you think they are?” There was almost a giddiness in her tone.

Pearse looked across the pages. After almost a minute, he shook his head and turned to her.

“Oh, come on. You were wonderful on this stuff. Remember those bits from Porphyrius Optatianus, the poet-courtier of Constantine? All that wordplay? You were the one who figured those out, not me.” She nodded again at the pages. “So come on. What do you think they are? It’s right there in front of you.”

The gauntlet had been thrown. Pearse moved to the edge of his seat and again began to scan the yellow sheets. Another long minute.

“Transposition of lines?” he said. Fatigue, lack of practice-either way, he knew it was a weak attempt, but he had to go with something.

“Too obvious.”

“Thank you.” He looked again. “Reverse sequencing?”

“Before the twelfth century? Oh, come on. You’re not even trying.”

He couldn’t help but smile. “I promise. I’m trying.”

“Think Hebrew scripture.”

“Okay. It’s … actually a pillar of salt.”

“Ha-ha. I’m telling you, you’re going to hate yourself.” When he shook his head again, she conceded, “Oh, all right. It’s a series of acrostics.” She looked out at her handiwork. “Such a common device in prayers, and Hebrew literature is full of them. Took me an age to get that that’s what they were doing here, but I thought you’d … well, anyway. They’re acrostics.”

He saw it at once. Following each of the lines, he confirmed it for himself. “The first letters of each line placed together spell out something else.”

“And these are ingenious. Those pages there,” she continued, pointing to the sheets closest to Pearse, “are the fifteen transcriptions of the prayer. Notice anything strange about them?”

He inched out farther on his chair. This time, he saw it immediately. “The lengths of the lines are all different,” he answered.

“Exactly. Given that they’re all the same prayer, you’d expect them to be identical, or at least close enough, perhaps a few words altered here and there. But in each one of these, the lines begin and end at entirely different points, while the individual words remain identical. Why?” He could tell she was enjoying this.

“The oral tradition,” he nodded.

“Exactly. I knew you’d get it. There wouldn’t necessarily have been established designations of lines and stanzas, because they would have recited it as a continuous flow of words-with a few pauses here and there-but with nothing absolutely fixed. An obvious explanation for the discrepancies. But was it?”

“I’m guessing no,” he answered, eyes still glued to the pages.

“I began to ask myself, Why, given that tradition, did they find it necessary on these occasions-most of them separated by thirty years or so-to write down the prayer along with the letters? Plus, you would have thought that a natural cadence for reciting the prayer would have emerged over time, giving it some sort of shape. There should at least be some similarities among the copies. And yet, there’s none. Why? And why include the prayer with each of the prophetic letters?”

“And that’s when you thought of the acrostics.” He nodded, getting caught up in her excitement.

“Of course. It ties in perfectly with the very thing that lies at the heart of any type of Gnosticism, Manichaean or not-secret knowledge. The gnosis. That’s why they all start with that bit from John. An alarm bell, if you will. ‘Remember the gnosis,’ it’s saying. In this case, the knowledge is literally hidden within the text.” Her enthusiasm continued to mount. “Why the different line lengths? Because each transcription has a specific message of its own, thus requiring different first letters in each of the lines.”

“So what’s the message?”

Her cigarette now found the ashtray. “Unfortunately, none of my first fiddlings came up with anything that made sense. More than that, I began to realize how oddly constructed the prayer itself is. One would expect a prayer called ‘Perfect Light, True Ascent’ to be uplifting, begin with the mundane and progress to the divine. In fact, it works in precisely the opposite way. Sublime at the start, commonplace at the end. That’s when I turned to the letters.” She pointed to the sheets closest to the desk. “They were also about ‘heavenly ascents.’ Why include them? And why keep them all together?”

Pearse stared at the pattern Angeli had created on the floor, following the arrows, trying to make sense of it all. He became aware of her growing impatience. “I’m all ears,” he said.

“Oh, come on, you must see it this time,” she said, the childlike eagerness once again in her voice. When he shook his head, a smile crossed her lips; she quickly leaned over and began to sweep her hand through the air just above the pages, three or four times-desk to him, desk to him-before nodding in encouragement.

“Pillar of salt?” he said with a smile.

With a burst of energy, she threw both her hands into the air. “Up. It goes up. True ascent. You have to read the transcriptions from bottom to top. That’s where the acrostics are.”

He looked at the sheets; it was staring right up at him. “Form following content.” He nodded.

“Exactly. The message is in the ascent. It’s really quite marvelous.”

“Granted, but I still don’t see what’s-”

“So earth-shattering?” she cut in, nodding to herself as she focused on the pages near the desk. “Neither did I for nearly an hour. Each acrostic produced coherent sentences, but their overall meaning wasn’t clear-nothing more than unconnected catchphrases. I can’t tell you how frustrating that was.”

“I’ve worked with you before, remember? No broken plates this time?”

“That was an accident.” She waited. “And no. Just a few snapped pencils.”

“Then it couldn’t have been that long before you figured it out.”

“You know,” she said, “I’m beginning to like you less and less.”

He laughed. “I’m sure you are. You found the answer in the epistles, didn’t you?”

Her eyebrows rose. “You are a clever boy.”

“Each one was ascribed to one of the five Old Testament prophets.” He nodded, “Which, of course, was impossible.”

“Exactly. Oh, I wish you’d been here a few hours ago. Would have saved me an immense amount of time.”

“Not to mention pencils.” He smiled. “So why did the writers choose those names?”

“Why indeed?” she nodded, another cigarette emerging to fuel the fire. “To give the letters an added force, a certain sanctity? Maybe, but the very fact that each one included the written prayer was more than enough to set it apart. There had to be something else, didn’t there? It was then that I began to think that the entire scroll might be based around the idea of ascent, or at least of looking at things from bottom to top. More of the gnosis. It had worked with the acrostics, so why not with the prophets, who just happen to be the most sacred within the Manichaean system?” A long drag. “Maybe their names were meant to focus our attention not on the sacred, but on the profane.”

“Another way of flipping everything on its head. That’s very good.”

“Yes. I thought so.” She nodded, smoke pouring from her nose. “So that’s what I did. And that’s when the acrostics finally made sense. I noticed that anytime there was a reference to a metaphoric path taken as part of the ‘heavenly ascent’ in one of the epistles, there was a line from the acrostic that directly corresponded to it and, in a very real sense, brought it down to earth. For example, in that one there,” she said, pointing to a page a few rows up from the desk, “the letter describes the moment when the writer, calling himself Enosh, ‘followed the hand of the Paraclete into a garden of scented chestnut trees and found sustenance.’ In the acrostic that precedes the letter, there’s a sentence that reads, ‘In Trypiti, chestnuts grow lush.’ Now Trypiti, as you know, is a town on the northeasternmost peninsula of Greece.” Pearse didn’t know, but, naturally, he let it pass. “I also saw that the word chestnut appears nowhere else in the acrostic or the letter. So it went. With each new allusion in the letter, the acrostic provided a real-world connection. And the further along I read, the greater the detail-location, direction, even distances. Between eight and ten such references in each twosome throughout the entire scroll.” She waited before continuing. “The prayer and epistles aren’t about ethereal quests for knowledge; they’re about one very specific quest. Here. In the world of the material.” She seemed to be on the verge of giggling. “What makes the scroll so earth-shattering is that it turns out to be an ingeniously coded map.”

Dona Marcella placed the ring on the white linen tablecloth, then laid the napkin across her lap. Three silver-domed dishes stared up at her. She removed the first to find egg whites, fruit, and a perfect square of clear gelatin; the second, wheat toast; the third, that awful concoction her doctors insisted on, grainy gray lumps peppered with some sort of chalky crystal. Her fight against cholesterol. Better now than later, they’d said. Take a stand against those evil foods. If only they knew.

She placed the lid back on the third and started in on the eggs. Dry and bland. She scanned the table for salt. None. They were making this difficult.

The train ride had just over an hour before Barcelona, four private cars hurtling through the Spanish countryside. She preferred it to flying, something about the numbing suspension of an airplane. At least on the train, she could feel the movement. That she was forced to use commercial carriers, unlike her father and grandfather before her, never seemed to bother the contessa in the least. The railway men were courteous, efficient, and accommodating. What more could she ask? None of her family understood. Even her youngest niece-already at work on her first marriage-had encouraged her to “join them in the modern age.” There was enough in Dona Marcella’s life that screamed of the late twentieth century; she certainly wasn’t going to give up her one link to a simpler time. Half past ten, Rome. Good night’s sleep. Barcelona by morning. Quaint, but ideal.

An idiosyncrasy to keep everyone guessing. A lesson she had learned from her father. With no sons of his own, he had brought her into the Manichaean fold early on, something virtually unheard of within the brotherhood. At most, a handful of women had ever been made privy to the inner workings, but the count had known his daughter was more than capable. He had also known it would set her apart. The amount of money she had funneled out of Spain on Franco’s death alone had indicated her special talents. So unexpected from a woman. Keep them guessing. Keep them on their toes.

It was the role her father had trained her for, the role he himself had played before her. A watchdog, of sorts, someone to maintain their focus, keep their sights on the prize. So fitting a role for a woman among men.

She had left the sitting room car much as he had designed it, cutting-edge furnishings for the mid-1960s, sleek, straight lines of Danish craftsmanship, sofa, chairs, a card table bolted to the floor. A few pictures hung in what little space had been left between the windows, snatches of her extended family, no children of her own, but enough nephews, nieces, and even a few grand-nieces-parties, hunts, someone windsurfing-to give it that neatly cluttered look. She liked to take her breakfast here rather than in the more elegant dining car. Brighter, less formal. The hint of her father.

It was also far less intimidating to those she brought along as her guests.

“You’re sure you won’t give me a small piece of your yolk?” she asked, a naughty glint in her eyes. “I won’t tell if you won’t.” The man began to respond. “No, I won’t put you in that position,” she continued. “After all, you were nice enough to meet the train this early, and on such short notice.” A forkful of fruit now hovered above her plate as she spoke. “I’m sure it must be something of an inconvenience for you.”

“Not at all,” he replied. In his late forties, and wearing a suit to rival her own tastes, Col. Nigel Harris looked the perfect product of Eton and Sandhurst, wide face and high forehead below a neatly combed crop of ash blond hair. It was clear he’d spent time in the field, his skin a leathery red; what was so often that blotchy pink with Englishmen was smooth yet rugged here. A scar just below his left eye was a reminder of his final foray during the NATO mop-up in Bosnia, the explosion of a land mine sending him off after twenty-five years of service. They’d told him the eye would go sometime in the next five years. Complete blindness within ten. Not much time, then, to make a lasting impression.

“I don’t think that’s entirely true, Colonel, but you’re very nice to say so.” She brought the fruit to her mouth, chewing slowly, aware that he was showing no signs of impatience. Promising. “I’d imagine your schedule is now quite full, both in England and the United States.”

“There’s a bit of a demand, if that’s what you mean.”

One would have been hard-pressed to describe any of his individual features as handsome, and yet his bearing, along with a highly fit body-posture firm, though far from rigid-made him a very attractive man, as easy with power as without it. Except for the eyes, ironically enough. There, if one were to strip away the soldier’s veneer, lay the subtle shadings of an unfettered ambition. Dona Marcella had seen the signs too often not to recognize them. It made him all the more desirable.

She let a practiced smile crease her lips. “You’re not on Nightline now, Colonel. False modesty doesn’t play so well here.” Again, his reaction was what she had hoped for. A momentary grin, a single bob of the head. “I will tell you that I found your sudden departure from the Testament Council rather odd.”

“How so?”

“A heretofore minor organization becomes the new image of Christian politics, with you at its helm. No doubt a few feathers were ruffled, but they must have realized you were the one responsible for their newfound legion of followers. That must have put you in a position of considerable influence.”

“Or made me the poster boy for ‘one more shameful abuse of the cult of personality.’ The Mirror was never one to stint on its appraisals.”

“Still”-she stabbed at a piece of fruit-“the Christian voice was being heard.”

“Evidently not loud enough, given the results of the last parliamentary elections.”

“Your membership was growing every day. Given time-”

“We would have been marginalized.” He showed no hesitation in challenging her, a measured deference as he spoke. “I really had no interest in being a gadfly for the next forty years, Contessa. The army taught me the futility of that. The council has influence now, but it has no idea how to use it.”

“Christian leadership doesn’t have quite the same cachet as political leadership?” It was time to see how well she understood her guest.

“They’re not mutually exclusive.”

“I think Tony Blair might have something to say about that.”

“Yes, and that’s the problem.” A dusting of sugar for his strawberries as he spoke. “He’s a rather limited target, wouldn’t you agree? The British Protestant doesn’t have quite the same zeal as one finds elsewhere.”

“As I said, I’ve noticed your widening scope, Colonel. You’ve become very popular in the States.”

“For the moment, yes. They seem … intrigued. Or it might just be the accent.” Another smile.

“Or the charm,” she countered.

He waited. “As I see it, they appear to have a genuine yearning for something beyond the cold manipulations of partisan politics, beyond the arbitrary whims of market economies. It’s beginning to show in the rest of Europe, as well. Unfortunately, we English are always just a few steps behind on these sorts of things. People want something more stable, perhaps, if I may say, eternal.” He placed the spoon back in the bowl. “Faith has become rather attractive again, and the Americans seem to be leading the way. Difficult not to make them a focus.”

“Then your choice to leave the council,” she answered, “seems even more perplexing.”

“Not at all,” he said, adding a touch of cream. “The TC was always a bit too parochial. We fell into the same trap that snared the Christian Coalition in the States. We became a tool of the radical right. One can’t expect the voice of a fringe element to be the lodestone for mainstream Christians. Never really a chance for political change there. No, my choice to leave the council was not the least bit perplexing.”

“But you still believe there’s a large constituency out there eager for your kind of leadership.” She let the phrase sit for a moment before continuing. “That’s why you’re here.”

“Yes.”

“And you think I can help.”

“Yes.”

For several seconds, Dona Marcella peered at the face across from her. She then slowly speared another piece of fruit, brought the fork to her mouth, and stopped, the melon tantalizingly close to her lips. Again, she stared at her guest. “But I’m a Catholic, Colonel Harris.”

He held her gaze for a moment, then turned to his strawberries. “So they tell me.”

The contessa watched him as he ate-healthy mouthfuls, though never more than he could manage. A refined precision, tipping the bowl ever so slightly away from himself so as to spoon out the last of the cream. “Faith isn’t a tool for political gain, Colonel. Neither are the structures that guide it. As I understand it, they serve nothing other than themselves. I’m not sure we agree on that.”

For several seconds, he remained perfectly still. Then, very slowly, he slid the bowl to the side and placed his hands flat on the table. He seemed content to smooth out the cloth, eyes fixed on the receding waves of white linen as he formulated his response, no doubt a well-worn tactic. When he was ready, he looked up, an unexpected severity in his expression. “Complacency, Contessa, is what tore the church apart five hundred years ago. Nothing more. I imagine a thousand years of certainty will do that to a monolith. And what began as a much-needed period of reassessment became that tool against which you’ve just warned me. Matters of faith placed a distant second to political expedience; a debate about rituals and hierarchy became the seed of our own demise. With each step away from one another, we eroded the one thing that had permitted us to define the boundaries of an uncertain world-cohesion. And yet, remarkably, the Christian faith survived despite that upheaval. Or perhaps because of it. I’m really no scholar. More likely than not, though, it maintained itself because nothing much stood up to challenge it. We were the only game in town, as the Americans like to say.” His gaze seemed to intensify. “We don’t have that luxury anymore. There are far more dangerous threats to us now than our own self-recriminations.”

She had expected more of the politician, less of the pedagogue. Another point in his favor. Fully aware he was testing the waters, she pushed further. “Such as?”

“Growing pains.” Before she could ask, he explained. “Fifteen hundred years ago, more or less, Mr. Mohammed leapt from his rock. Fifteen hundred years after the birth of Jesus Christ, our Mr. Luther emerged to challenge the existing authority. Growing pains,” he repeated. “This time, however, those coming of age aren’t aiming their recriminations at themselves. This time, it’s a godless world they’re after, and our Luther has become an Islamic fundamentalist. The trouble is, this go-round, there’s nothing strong enough to rein them in. And they’ve much deadlier toys than we ever did.”

“So you’re proposing a Tenth Crusade, Colonel?” she said somewhat sardonically.

“Holy war cuts both ways, Contessa.”

For a moment, she wasn’t certain just how seriously he was taking himself. “And you really believe they pose that kind of threat?”

“It’s not what I believe that matters. The threat is simply a tool. We didn’t go into Iraq because Saddam was killing innocent Kurds. We went in because we needed to protect Kuwaiti oil. Not likely that NATO would have garnered much public support for the latter. Saddam was the threat. Saddam was enough. You want to bring a disjointed Christian voice together, give them something to rally around.”

“I see.” The politician had emerged.

“And the best guide, I’ve always thought, is the cinema.” He had expected her surprise. “Oh, yes. Twenty years ago, the villain came in the form of the onetime Nazi; ten years ago, he was the renegade Communist. Now, he’s the Arab gone mad. If that’s what the public is buying, why not sell it to them wholesale? Does it really matter how genuine the threat is?”

“So what separates us becomes far less important than what connects us?” When he didn’t answer, she asked, “Is that what you’re saying, Colonel?”

His expression softened. “I believe what I’m saying is that we would be foolish not to use everything at our disposal, given the situation. As long as we can strengthen our position, does it really matter how we manage it?”

Watching him, she still couldn’t be sure if what he said had come from the heart of a zealot or from the mind of a practiced politician. Whatever the answer, she realized Stefan had been right. Col. Nigel Harris would be useful in the months to come.

The question was, Who would be helping whom?

“And, of course, you’ve already started managing it.”

“Of course.”

She waited. “Well,” she said, bringing the napkin to her lips, then laying it on the table. “You’ve given me so much to think about.” She stood, then Harris. “Please, sit down. Finish your breakfast. If you need anything else, just ring for it. I have some things I need to finish up before we arrive. I believe we’ll have a car waiting for you in Barcelona.”

“Very kind.”

She nodded and stepped out from behind the table. At the door, she turned. “So nice to have met you.”

“The pleasure was all mine.”

Another nod; she stepped out into the corridor and immediately into the adjoining room.

Stefan Kleist was standing in front of a two-way mirror, watching the colonel, who was now buttering a piece of toast.

“Well?” she said, kicking off her heels and moving toward him.

“Hard to know how easily we’ll be able to control him.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“There’s always one way.”

“Jealous?” She pressed up against his back; even without her shoes, she was a good inch taller than Kleist. She reached around his waist and unzipped his fly. Both of them continued to gaze at Harris as she probed within, the familiar thickness soon in her hand, his arousal growing as she began to stroke him with her fingers. She turned Kleist toward her, all the while her eyes fixed on Harris, who had pulled a cell phone from his pocket and was now making a call.

“Can we monitor that?” she asked as Kleist pulled up her skirt, leaving only a garter belt, never any panties, for him to deal with.

“It’s taken care of,” he said as he leaned back against the glass and hoisted her onto his thighs. He reached for his belt, but she stopped him.

“The zipper will scrape,” he said.

“I know,” she answered, and pulled him inside of her.

His thick hands clutched at her thighs, driving her up and down, momentary twinges of air from him each time he got caught on the zipper. It only made her buck harder.

“Quiet,” she whispered, her eyes staring at the scar on Harris’s face, watching it move as he talked. She could imagine licking at it, running her tongue along its narrow groove. She came, an instant later the feel of Kleist releasing inside of her. He continued to shudder, always a final few waves before he began to breathe again.

She wondered if it would be that easy with Harris.

“‘Map’?” The word seemed to catch Pearse by surprise. “To where?”

“To what might be a better question,” replied Angeli.

“Fine. But they obviously meant to hide it from everyone except a very select few. I can’t imagine too many Manichaeans would have been able to transcribe the prayer correctly.”

“Given the oral tradition, none. And even if they had, the transcriptions would have been meaningless without the letters. You needed all of the parts together, which, as it turns out,” she explained, “divide quite neatly into three subsections.”

“How appropriate.”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Anyway, each of the subsections contains five letters-one each from Adam, Seth, Enosh, Shem, and Enoch. The first set-the earliest chronologically-gives general geography. Whatever they were hiding, it moved around quite a bit during those first few centuries. They even had it in the Taurus Mountains and Armenia-wild and woolly places, to be sure-for several hundred years. By the end of the eighth century, however, it finds its permanent home at the tip of the Greek peninsula, on Mount Athos. I had always thought that the first Athos settlements didn’t pop up until the tenth. Obviously, the Manichaeans were there far earlier.

“Athos then becomes the focus of the next five letters, highlighted by scads of detail about a once-vibrant Manichaean monastery called St. Photinus. According to the Athos directory on the Internet, Photinus became a Greek Orthodox monastery sometime in the eleventh century.”

“So you think there’s a link between these Manichaeans and the Greek church?”

“The Greeks?” It took her a moment to understand what he was saying. “Oh, I see what you mean. No. Nothing like that. The Greek monasteries appeared on Athos only toward the end of the tenth century, before the Eastern church split with Rome.”

“And Photinus predates the other monasteries on the mountain?”

“Oh, yes. According to this, by a good five hundred years. Clever, these Manichaeans. They picked a very appropriate saint, wouldn’t you say?” When Pearse didn’t answer, she said, “Photinus? From phos … the Greek word for ‘light.’ It all seems to work, doesn’t it?”

Pearse’s expression was enough to get her back on track. “Anyway, the Athos monastery must have been built around 380. According to the directory, the Photinus monks chose the spot because it was ‘as close to heaven’ as they thought they could get. The Manichaeans evidently infiltrated the place sometime during the eighth century. And given what the letters say, there were several such infiltrated monasteries scattered throughout Greece and Macedonia from the sixth century on.”

“The unattractive side of Manichaeanism.”

“Exactly.”

“And the last cycle of letters?”

“That’s the one they reserved for the ‘what.’” She looked over at him. “Unfortunately, they’re not as forthcoming-even in code-about the very thing they went to such lengths to protect. But there’s enough there to suggest it was something rather extraordinary.”

“In more than academic terms?” he asked.

The exuberance of the last ten minutes seemed to slip from her face, her earlier apprehension resurfacing. “If something that could undermine the legitimacy of the Catholic church is more than just academic fancy, then yes.” Again, she waited. “They claim to have something that could pave the way for their own true church to emerge. Something very real to them, of ‘highest authority,’ higher even than Mani himself.”

“Something like what?”

“I don’t know. The language is very vague. As far as I can tell, it’s something that predates Mani, even the Gospels. A parchment written in Greek. That’s the most specific I can get. What’s most unsettling, though, is that it’s clear they had a substantial number of cells scattered throughout the empire with which to unleash its power.”

“Even as late as the tenth century?”

“Yes. The ‘mapping’ of the last two letters charts the locations of large groups of very powerful officials within the Catholic hierarchy who were tied to the Manichaeans. Names even I recognize, and it’s not my period.”

“Nice excuse.”

“All of it suggests,” she said, ignoring the barb, “that they never abandoned Photinus, and instead simply blended in, as was their wont. The same evidently held true throughout the rest of Europe. Whatever they had hidden away in Athos, they clearly had the resources to make the most of it. The question is, Why didn’t they use it when their network was so well established?”

“Maybe they did, and found out it wasn’t as powerful as they’d thought.”

She shook her head. “No. The letters are explicit in their warning that those listed remain prepared for ‘the great awakening,’ whatever that’s supposed to mean. There’s no battle cry to action, no sense that the Messiah’s return is imminent, even with the millennium approaching. More than that, had they invoked whatever they were hiding on Athos, there would have been mention of a Manichaean heresy, or at least something like it, at some point in the history of the church. As I said, the Manichaeans disappear in the West after the fifth century-no mention of them, save for some false attributions to the Cathars, Bogomils, and Albigensians.”

“And you think they survived.” Statement, not question. An image of the Austrian flashed into his mind.

“Who knows how long they tucked themselves away? It’s clear from the letters that they were extremely well entrenched, and had been for centuries. Who’s to say they weren’t able to maintain the subterfuge indefinitely? For all we know, they may still be waiting. I’d say that’s more than just a little earth-shattering.” Only then did she notice the change in his expression. “And from the look on your face, I might think you agree with me.” Staring into his eyes, however, she realized it was more than that. When she spoke again, her tone was far less inviting. “Why did you come back this morning?”

The question caught him by surprise. Not sure how to answer, he hesitated. “I wanted to find out what was in the scroll.”

“Yes, but why so early?” It was the first time it had occurred to her to ask. “If you had no idea what it was … I told you I needed time, that I’d-” She stopped abruptly. For several seconds, she said nothing. “You’ve come in contact with them, haven’t you?” When he didn’t answer, she pushed further. “You know they’ve managed to survive. And they know you have the scroll.” Again, he said nothing. “That’s why you made up all that rubbish about San Clemente.”

“It wasn’t rubbish,” he insisted. “The person who gave me the scroll said it had been found in the fourth-century church.”

“Which we both know is impossible; it could never have been found there.”

“I realize that now.”

“Who?” she pressed. “Who gave you the scroll?”

Again, he waited before answering. “Someone I trust.”

“You might want to reconsider that.”

He was about to respond, when the sound of three chimes, followed by a swirl of martial music, interrupted. Momentarily disoriented, Pearse tried to locate its source.

Without any reaction, Angeli checked her watch, then reached behind a pile of books at the foot of the desk. With her back still to him, she said, “The early news. Must be six-thirty.” A moment later, she returned with a portable clock radio in her hands, the blue neon digits confirming the hour. “I sometimes fall asleep in here. Never can find the button to-” The first words out of the commentator’s mouth stopped any further searching.

“A month of disbelief and prayers comes to its somber conclusion. Good morning, this is Paolo Tonini. Ezio Palazzini, the supreme Pontiff of the Catholic church, ordained Pope Boniface the Tenth, has died at the age of sixty-seven. The news of his sudden illness sent shock waves throughout the Catholic community when it was announced twenty-six days ago. Sources at the Vatican have confirmed that His Holiness passed away in his sleep. …”

In rote response, Pearse quietly crossed himself, offered a few words of prayer. Angeli jumped up, placed the clock on her seat, and strode to the far corner of the room. There, nestled among various pieces of furniture, she located a small television set behind a music stand laden with clothes and papers. Pulling the mess to the side, she took a handkerchief from one of her pockets and, with three or four quick flicks of the wrist, dusted the screen. She then began to examine the knobs on the console, lighting on the one farthest to the left. The black void came to life, showing old footage of the Pope in St. Peter’s, a voice detailing the accomplishments of his six-year papacy.

“Turn that off, will you,” she said, motioning back to Pearse, not once taking her eyes from the set. He switched off the radio and joined her. The Manichaeans would have to wait a bit longer.

“… a scholar, many have argued, the likes of whom hasn’t been seen in the Vatican since the fifteenth-century Pope, Pius the Second. The question now,” intoned the voice, “is naturally one of succession. Rumors have already begun to circulate within the Vatican of two prominent candidates. The first, a longtime confidant of the late Boniface, and an equally accomplished scholar, is Giacomo Cardinal Peretti, Archbishop of Ravenna.” A photo of the Italian, taken during an audience with the Pope, filled the screen. “At fifty-two, Peretti is one of the younger members of the Sacred College, and is considered by many its most outspoken liberal voice. The other”-a second picture now split the screen with Peretti’s, revealing a crisp Alpine background somewhere in the Tyrol-“is Erich Cardinal von Neurath, Archbishop Emeritus of Linz, and, at sixty-eight, a champion of the Vatican’s most recent attempts at reconciliation with European Protestants through his work with the encyclicals on faith. Both have strong support in the conclave, although Peretti …”

The words seemed to trail off as Pearse stared at the images. Something familiar about them, something that had little to do with either of the candidates. He stepped closer to the screen, his eyes settling on a third figure, a man directly to the left of von Neurath. He stood behind the cardinal’s shoulder, his face, though, obscured in shadow. Pearse bent over, trying to make it out, Angeli aware of his sudden interest.

As the picture came clearer, Pearse felt a tightening in his chest.

There, staring back at him, was the man from the Vatican. The Austrian who had chased him from his home. Remember the monk.

Unable to take his eyes from the screen, Pearse felt the blood slowly drain from his face.