The Coptic Secret

I.

The Rectory

Immaculate Conception Catholic Church

48 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive

Atlanta, Georgia

8:34 p.m., Two Days Later

Lang waited until Francis's housekeeper removed the last of the dinner dishes. An expectant Grumps followed her into the kitchen.

"You sure you won't have any trouble with the diocese, letting us, me and the dog, stay here?"

Francis was halfway to a sideboard and the bottle of single malt scotch it contained. "I'm sure the bishop would agree it is better to have the apostate where the church can keep an eye on them. If we had watched Luther a little more closely, it would be a better world." "Only if you happened to be a papist." Francis snorted and lifted the bottle to show the label to Lang. "Precisely."

Lang followed the priest and the bottle into a small study. Books lined the three windowless walls. "I'll have to admit, this is one of the last places anyone would look for me."

Francis was tinkling ice cubes from a silver bucket into glasses. "No argument there." He handed one of the tumblers to Lang. "And you are sure someone is after you? This isn't a manifestation of paranoia produced by a troubled mind?"

Lang sank into a leather club chair. "Want to go down to my country place and count the bullet holes? And you should see the burned hole in the sky that was my condo."

Francis sat and took a sip, shaking his head. "In the vulgate, your ass is always in one crack or another. I gather that's why Gurt left?"

Lang nodded. "Pretty much. Neither of us want to take chances with Manfred."

Francis thought this over a moment. In the years of his close friendship with Lang, he had learned Lang would tell him all he wanted known in his own time. "From what you said before supper, it has something to do with scripture or one of the apostles."

"I think so. Specifically, James. Was he the brother of Jesus?"

The priest stared into his drink for a moment before rising to pull a well-worn Bible from the shelves. "That's been the subject of debate. Matthew 13:53-56 says"-he opened the book-"after the young Jesus astonished the various priests at the synagogue, it was asked, Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?' Mark has almost the identical language at 6:6." He thumbed the pages. "Plus, Luke 2:7 speaks of Jesus as Mary's firstborn son, an implication she had others later. In Galatians 1:19, Paul tells us, when he traveled to Jerusalem, he 'saw none of the apostles except James, the Lord's brother.'"

Lang took a drink. "I understand that poses a problem to you bead slingers, both from the point of view of having the siblings of the Son of God unaccounted for and the doctrine of the continuing virginity of Mary. I also understand the church contends all those siblings were from a previous marriage of Joseph."

Francis sighed as he returned the Bible to the shelf and sat. "Vexata quaestio, a vexing question. It is certainly possible they were half brothers and sisters. St. Jerome taught in the fourth century that they were only cousins."

"Veritatem dies aperit." Lang grinned as he lifted his glass.

Francis rattled ice cubes, a melodic chime against the crystal. "Time may reveal the truth but two millennia haven't shed a lot of light on this one. It is also possible that the writers of those gospels meant brothers and sisters in the sense we are all children of God."

Lang left his seat for a refill. "The Gospels were written in Greek originally, were they not?"

"So I understand."

"I don't know the language, but I seem to recall it has a very specific word for 'brother,' adelphos. Anepsios for cousin. If the writer had meant cousin or half brother, he had the words to use."

Francis's faith and Lang's lack of it had been the cause of endless spirited but friendly arguments. In fact, religious debate was second only to Latin aphorisms as an entertainment medium. Both men respected the other's intellect; both practiced a profession involving logical advocacy and argument. Nonetheless, Lang was careful never to demean his friend's beliefs or go past that ill-defined point where Francis might perceive insult or threat. Conversely, the priest never tried to convert Lang to anything that could be described as organized religion and managed to keep his mouth shut about aspects of his friend's life of which neither the priest nor the church approved. The boundaries made the friendship both interesting and pleasurable.

Francis waited until Lang had finished pouring before refilling his own glass. "I'm not sure I understand what all this has to do with your present problem. It's an old dispute, one that I'm sure sent any number of heretics to the stake. But we don't do that anymore. I'd be surprised if anyone, even the most devout, were trying to kill you over the James-brother-of-Jesus thing."

Lang was back in his chair, legs crossed. "Someone sure didn't mind killing my friend Eon."

Francis nodded his agreement, sending the light dancing on the beads of the rosary he wore around his neck. "True, but that involved rare documents, something of actual cash value. Have you ever considered the fact that he and that man in Prague…"

"Klaus."

"… Klaus. That they both were killed because of what was in those old papers?"

"That was why I wanted a copy. I figured if someone was willing to kill anyone who had access to them, there must be something the killers don't want known. If I can find out what that is, I may be able to find out who they are."

It had worked before. The secret of the enigmatic painting by Poussin, a seventeenth-century French artist, had led him to the shadowy Pegasus organization.

"If you live long enough."

"Spare me your optimism."

Francis was looking into his glass, debating a third scotch. "And you have this copy of the book?"

"In my safe-deposit box until I can find someone to translate. I made yet another copy."

Francis had decided another wee libation might do no harm. "I'm sure there's someone at Emory…"

"There is, but he's on sabbatical until the end of the summer. I don't intend to let it out of my sight when it's not in the lockbox."

"You could make another copy, send it to someone."

"And risk their life? Remember, two people who had that book are dead. That's why I'm keeping it close at hand."

Francis gestured toward the bottle; Lang shook his head. "So, you don't plan to find out who these people are for some time?"

Lang had thought of that but couldn't come up with an alternative. "If you have any suggestions, don't let your priestly humility keep you from speaking up."

"Humility's the Dominicans' shtick. Come with me to Rome. Like I told you, I'm leaving next week. Sunday, actually."

Lang started to protest but the priest raised a silencing hand. "It works." He held up a finger. "First, you can bet your heathen soul there'll be someone at the Vatican who can read that book of yours, Coptic Greek." He held up a second digit. "Second, you can share my room in the Vatican. You don't get much more secure than that even if your pals figure out where you've gone."

Lang wasn't wild about the idea but he didn't have a better one.

Half an hour later, he was staring at the ceiling of the rectory's small guest room. He would be glad to get out of Atlanta. Being here without the warmth of Gurt's body next to him made his hometown an alien and lonely place. Worse was knowing that Manfred would not be exploding through the door at the first hint of morning, ready for the day's adventures. Even Grumps, stretched out beside the bed, was staring morosely into space. Lang was sure he was thinking of his missing playmate.

Gurt and Manfred had just entered his life, what, a couple of weeks ago? Far too short a time to miss them as much as he did, he told himself unconvincingly. He intentionally replaced growing self-pity with anger. Who were these people that made it necessary to be apart from his son and lover? What was it in that ancient text that made it necessary to kill any who possessed it?

Well, Francis was right about one thing: if any place on the face of the planet would be sure to have scholars of ancient Greek-Egyptian, the Vatican would be it. Lang hoped he would learn the secret of the Book of James before his pursuers discovered where he had gone.

He hoped.

II.

Delta Flight 1023

Sunday Night

Lang's dislike of flying was enhanced by the stingy dimensions of a tourist-class seat. They hadn't expanded any since his agency days when travel was always by the most economical means possible. Apparently the Catholic Church subscribed to the same idea. The only difference was that now the airlines no longer served complimentary drinks to economy international passengers, but charged five bucks for those beverages that could only be sold to adults. He had offered to pay for an upgrade for Francis rather than suffer the discomforts of tourist-class travel, but the priest had pointed out that it would be bad politics for any of his fellow clergy to see him luxuriating in accommodations designed for adult-size passengers. The same reason excluded use of the foundation's Gulfstream.

There had been some small comfort in having Francis confirm that politics played as large a role in the clerical world as the secular.

Both men finished a meal of what had been charitably described by the flight attendant as chicken marsala, the only alternative to the mystery meat Lang had seen being served to other, possibly less perceptive, passengers. Lang and Francis put down the post-9/11 plastic utensils that had been largely ineffective in dismantling the rubbery fowl. They reclined the few millimeters allotted each tourist- class seat. Lang opened the novel he had bought at the airport bookstore only to realize he had read it years ago. The publisher had reissued it with a different cover. Now he was stuck with futile attempts to sleep sitting inches away from perpendicular or the in-flight movie, a G-rated animation suitable for small children and the easily amused simpleminded.

He had forgotten how dismal economy travel could be.

He turned to Francis, who looked disgustingly comfortable. "So, tell me about James."

Francis blinked and shook his head as though he had been asleep, a possibility Lang hadn't considered given the circumstances. "James? James who?"

"Jesus's brother, James the Just, I think he's called."

Francis was unsuccessful in stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. "What do you want to know specifically? The Catholic Church and you heretics differ on a number of details."

"Try the truth."

The priest smiled. "You really know how to put a fella between an ecclesiastical rock and a hard place. As you know, we believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, which by definition excludes the possibility of Jesus having any full siblings."

"Who came up with that idea?" Lang asked.

Francis shrugged as much as possible in the cramped confines of his seat. "I'm not sure. The idea probably originated in an obscure second-century text called Proto-Evangelium of James. Like the Jews, the early Christians felt anything sexual was unclean. It would be impossible for the mother of the Savior to be defiled. Since she was perpetually a virgin, she could not be the mother of Jesus's so-called siblings."

"Convoluted reasoning, I'd say."

Francis nodded. "Perhaps, but then how reasonable is it that a man would rise from the dead?"

Exactly what Lang had been thinking. How could a religious devotee also do the Vulcan mind-meld? Star Trek or witchcraft? "OK, but what about James the man?"

Francis was on firmer ground. "There were two Jameses who were the original disciples. But they are always designated as James the son of Zebedee, brother of the apostle John, and James the son of Alphaeus, also known as James the Lesser."

"James the Just wasn't an apostle?"

"Someone literally had to stay home and mind the store. If Jesus was pursuing his ministry and Joseph, husband of Mary, had, in fact, died by then, who was to support the family?"

A question of such practicality, Lang was surprised he had never considered it.

"In fact…" Francis produced a pocket-size Bible and quickly thumbed the pages. "Ah, here, John 7:2-5 makes it clear than none of Jesus's brothers seemed to believe in him. In fact"-he flipped the pages again-"Mark 3:20, 31-35 tells us that, when his family heard of his healing the sick and casting out demons, they went to restrain him. People were saying Jesus was out of his mind. I'd say it would be a fair guess that the family was less than pleased to have an itinerant preacher for a brother. In fact, you may recall it was his inner circle of disciples that buried him, not family, although his mother may have been present according to the Gospel of John. I'd also guess that having a family member crucified, a death reserved for traitors to Rome, was a bit of a humiliation."

"James wasn't a disciple, but he became the first bishop of Jerusalem?"

Francis put the little book back wherever it had come from. "True. How did James go from alienated brother-or half brother-to ardent apostle? I'd speculate it took something pretty dramatic. Like, maybe, Jesus's post-crucifixion appearance to James, which Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8."

"But why James? I mean, why not one of the original twelve disciples?"

Francis shook his head. "Part of some divine plan, I'm sure."

"Unsatisfactory response, but a safe haven. C'mon, Francis, you can do better than that!"

Francis pursed his lips. "I'm sure the church has an answer, but if I had to speculate… well, the Gospels tell us Christ selected Peter to continue his ministry, his church, as it were…"

"Upon this rock…?" Lang interjected.

Francis rolled his eyes. "They say even the devil can quote scripture, but, yeah. Anyway, I'd postulate that Peter, at least at the beginning, pretty well had his hands full spreading the word. He needed someone to handle things at home in Judea and who better than a… a close relative of Jesus himself."

"OK. What else can you tell me?"

"It will please you to know there is no rest of the story, at least not in the Bible. The time line of the New Testament ends just about there with Acts 15. We do, however, have a historical reference by Josephus."

"The Jew historian turned Roman citizen?"

"The same. He tells us James was reputed to be so pious, to pray so much that his knees were like those of a camel. He also refers to James as 'the brother of him that was crucified, held by some to be the Messiah.' I believe this is the closest thing to a contemporary mention of Christ that exists."

Lang stretched his legs as far as the limited space allowed, an unending quest for comfort. "You said that was the end of the story. What became of James?"

Francis made no effort to suppress a yawn. "Martyred. He was stoned by a mob outside the Jerusalem temple and then thrown from the highest part of the building. Or vice versa."

Lang sat straight up, legroom forgotten. "Stoned and thrown from a building? That was the way Eon was murdered."

"Now there's a coincidence."

Lang shook his head. "I don't think so. A bullet would have been quicker and easier. Besides, when's the last time you heard of death by stoning?"

Francis's lips tightened. "You're saying someone killed your friend in the same manner as James? Why would they go to that much trouble?"

"If I knew that, I might have a good idea who these people are." Lang thought for a moment. "Were any of the saints martyred by having their throats cut?"

Francis was silent a moment, reviewing the ever-ingenious ways in which early Christians were dispatched to meet their God. "I suppose that could be said of Matthew. He was hacked to death with a halberd. But why…?"

Lang was thinking, calling up details of the murder scene in Prague. "Does a purse mean anything to you?"

The priest was clearly puzzled. But then, his friend frequently asked questions that made no sense at the moment. "A purse?"

"Like an old-fashioned woman's change parse."

Francis ran the palm of a hand across his jaw. "As perhaps related to St. Matthew?"

Now it was Lang's turn to be baffled. "A purse would be related to a particular saint?"

"All saints have symbols; most, several. In medieval times, the clergy were the only people who could read and, of course, no one knew what the various saints looked like. So, they were identified to the common person by symbols. Matthew's was a purse, since he had been a toll collector. But he is also symbolized by a winged man or a lance."

But neither a lance nor a winged man had been in Klaus's home.

Something else was emerging from Lang's memory, something he had read. From experience, he knew no amount of effort was going to make it clear. It would come in its own sweet time.

The newspaper, the Times account of Eon's death. It had mentioned something that at the time seemed a non sequitur, a totally irrelevant fact.

A seashell? No, a specific kind of shell… a scallop shell!

If the purse hadn't belonged to the old man, if the killer had left it behind as a symbol of the saint whose death resembled his…

"What was the symbol for James?"

"A shell, the sort of shell the oil company uses as its logo. I can understand your interest in James, since it was supposedly his gospel that was stolen, but why the sudden curiosity about saints in general? I'm not optimistic enough to think a conversion of the heathen is taking place. Even God recognizes the futility of some of his miracles."

"Just thinking."

Francis removed the pitifully small pillow from behind his head and gave it a couple of emphatic thumps as though it were capable of being fluffed. "Think on. I'm going to try to get some sleep."

In minutes, Lang was left alone with his thoughts and the sound of soft snores.

III.

Leonardo da Vinci International Airport

Fiumicino

The Next Morning

Lang felt as wrinkled as his clothes when the 757's engines spooled down and he stood to retrieve his single bag from the overhead rack. Francis stretched and yawned, looking disgustingly rested. Sleep of the innocent, Lang supposed. In minutes, they were immersed in the up-and-down ramps, twisting corridors and general confusion of Rome's international airport. An indifferent woman in uniform slid their passports through a scanner and impressed the documents with a barely legible stamp. As in most European Union countries, customs consisted of merely walking through the gate marked nothing to declare.

Then the real task began: navigating from one terminal to the next to the rail station, a structure resembling a huge Quonset hut housing four tracks. The trains ran only north to the city and there were no reserved seats. Lang and Francis boarded along with a group of American college students whose chatter seemed far too cheerful for the morning's early hour.

Francis checked his ticket for the fourth time. "Remember, we're getting off at Trastevere, not Termini."

Termini was the main Rome rail station, the ultimate destination of all trains from the airport. Trastevere was one stop short, the station nearest the Vatican.

Lang shoved his bag into the overhead rack and sat in one of the two-by-two seats underneath. "How could I forget?" he asked good-naturedly. "You've been reminding me ever since we landed."

Francis slid into the seat beside him. "How will we know when we're there? I mean, neither of us speak Italian."

Lang rubbed his eyes, still stinging from lack of sleep. "Look out the window. There'll be a sign announcing the name of each stop."

Patience, Lang told himself as the train groaned to life and began to pick up speed. Francis had never been to Rome, let alone the Vatican. The priest was as excited as a child the night before Christmas.

Lang's eyes saw uncut grass between rusty rails, discarded rolling stock and the rear of shabby buildings. His memory painted Dawn, his wife, with cruel realism as she squealed in delight at every crumbling structure, certain she was viewing temple ruins rather than storage sheds displaying years of deferred maintenance. It had been their only trip together, their sole excursion before the doctors had found the death sentence she carried within her. Two years later, it had been here in Rome that Lang had renewed a relationship with Gurt. This local train might be passengers only but, for Lang, it carried a lot of freight.

They were the only passengers disembarking at Trastevere.

Just as well There was only one vehicle available, a small and nearly shabby Fiat with a Vatican license plate. Lang was forever surprised at the lengths to which the world's wealthiest organization went to comply with the Christian dictates of humility.

Outside the Holy City, that is.

Inside St. Peter's, wealth equal to the gross national product of most of the third world's countries was displayed to anyone with the price of a ticket to that part of the Vatican's treasures open to the public. Only an imagination uninhibited by lengthy digits could encompass what was not on display.

The docility evidenced by the church's choice of transportation was not reflected in its operation. The man was definitely a grand prix aspirant. Lang marveled at the calmness with which Francis chatted with the driver as the Fiat charged down the narrow alleys of what had been Renaissance Rome's working district. Last night's wash flapped overhead in the morning's gentle breeze that would later become a listless wall of heat. Although Rome itself was a city of neighborhoods, Trastevere was even more independent, viewing with distrust anyone from as far away as the next piazza over. It was this attitude that had convinced Lang to choose lodging here while he was investigating what would later be revealed as the Pegasus organization.

The Fiat squeezed through an intersection to a cacophony of protesting horns, reminding Lang that Roman drivers took traffic directions such as stop signs as advisory only. Seemingly unaware of their imminent peril, Francis continued his chat with the Italian version of a kamikaze.

If Lang had ever had questions about the depth of his friend's faith, they were dispelled now.

The testosterone-charged competition that is Rome traffic continued as Lang found a handhold and gripped it for dear life while trying to ignore the blasts of angry horns, used far more often than brakes.

He felt a wave of relief as the little car careened around a bus, missing its massive front by inches, and turned onto Via del Conciliazone, the divided boulevard that ends in the circular embrace of St. Peter's Square directly in front of the basilica. This would be the first time Lang had been in the Papal States since the Julian affair, a near-disastrous venture that took place in the little-known necropolis upon which the Vatican itself had been built.

Scattering pilgrim and tourist alike, the Fiat plunged across the square, stopping only at a barricade along the left or south side of the cathedral. A Swiss guard in full purple and gold sixteenth-century regalia carefully checked Lang's and Francis's passports against a printed list on a clipboard.

Satisfied he was dealing with legitimate visitors, he stepped into a booth beside the entrance and returned with two laminated badges.

"Be sure you wear these at all times," he cautioned in stiff English before waving them past.

Minutes later, Lang and Francis were shown into second- story dormitory-style rooms located the equivalent of two or three city blocks east of the basilica with a view of St. Catherine's Gate. Below, Swiss guards came and went.

"Must be close to their barracks," Lang observed.

Francis joined him at the window. "Barracks, mess hall, parade ground and armory, according to the official guidebook. Celebrated their five-hundredth anniversary in oh six. That's a long time protecting popes."

Lang stepped back from the window. "Who are the Swiss Guard, anyway?".

Francis chuckled. "If you're looking for a job, forget it. You have to be between nineteen and twenty-five, single, of good moral character, a Swiss citizen and a practicing Catholic."

Lang tsk-tsked, shaking his head. "Too bad. Those unies are real chick bait. Do they actually guard the pope or is their function ceremonial?"

"They really do guard him like our Secret Service does the president. A lot of them died when Charles V of Spain sacked Rome in 1527. Clement II really pissed him off. The pope barely managed to escape. Three days of the customary burning, looting and raping."

"Ah, the good old days when the winner didn't have to worry about political correctness."

A gentle tap at the open door interrupted the conversation. "Father Narumba?"

A young black man in a cassock stood in the doorway. "Excuse me, Father, but the meetings are about to begin."

Francis glanced at Lang. "Just as well. The conversation was rapidly degenerating. Lang, are you…?"

"I'll be fine," Lang assured him. "I've got something to do here, too, remember?"

Lang took the time to douse his face in water as cold as the small bathroom's basin could provide. On the way back out, he slipped, a towel rack being the only thing that prevented what could have been a nasty fall. Puzzled, he glanced around the bathroom for the source of the water he now saw on the tile floor. A drop on his cheek directed his gaze upward to a brown, soggy stain on the ceiling. The plumbing probably hadn't been checked since running water had been installed to update what Lang guessed was a very old building.

Minding his step, he went back into the bedroom. He changed into a clean shirt, decided his rumpled pants could go another day and stepped into the hallway. Only then did he realize he had no key to the room. And the door had no lock.

Lang didn't know whether to feel stupid or embarrassed. This was, after all, the Vatican, where saving of souls took precedence over material objects.

Nonetheless, Lang went back into the room to make sure he had left no valuables. Practicality was hardly a sin.

Rather than risk getting lost in miles of hallways, Lang retraced his route. His memory from the Julian affair proved correct: the scavo archaelogica was almost directly across from the point he and Francis had checked in with the Swiss guard minutes ago.

Keeping a lookout against the possibility some irresponsible soul had again entrusted the morning's driver with a car or other potentially lethal device, he crossed the narrow passage and opened the door.

He entered a small room divided by a counter bearing colored brochures of the Vatican, the necropolis underneath and several of the Vatican's museums.

A white-haired man in a short-sleeve shirt, the first person Lang had seen without a uniform or clerical adornment, looked up from what appeared to be the sport pages of La Repubblica. "The last English tour of the necropolis has already left," he said.

"I'm not here for the tour, but thanks for the information."

The man frowned as if Lang's disinterest in being shown through the ancient Roman cemetery was a disappointment. His eyes came to rest on the visitor's badge. "Then, how may I be of service?"

His tone said he had no such intent but Lang smiled pleasantly; "I was sent to this office to find someone who can translate Coptic Greek."

It was clear the old man was weighing the possible position in the Vatican hierarchy of the person who had sent this American against the bother of interrupting his perusal of the soccer scores.

The unknown prevailed.

"That would be Father Strentenoplis." He pointed the way Lang had come. "Archives, across the way."

Lang thanked him and left.

The next person Lang met escorted him down a short corridor to an open door. Inside was a desk supporting neat stacks of paper beside a computer screen, behind which sat a man with a chest-length beard. He wore a simple black cassock adorned only with a gold cross on a chain around his neck.

He looked up and smiled with tobacco-yellowed teeth. "Come in," he motioned. "Come in, sit." He pointed to a single wooden chair.

Again, Lang was amazed at how easily Europeans recognized Americans.

Or they automatically addressed anyone who looked like they had just gotten off an airplane in English.

"Father Strentenoplis?" Lang asked.

The man stood. He was well over six feet. The beard, Lang saw, was streaked with silver, hiding the entire lower part of his face. The beaklike nose was striped by threads of red, those tattletale burst capillaries of the heavy drinker.

"Is me!" He was still gesturing for Lang to sit.

"B-But," Lang stammered, noting the cross had two cross members "You're…"

"Greek church, one you call 'orthodox.' Is true! Who read ancient Greek better than another Greek, no? You are surprised I am here at center of Western church, no?"

Lang sat. "Well, yes."

Father Strentenoplis also sat. "Is age of ecumenicalism! No longer argue over number of angels dancing on head of a pin. Your pope need expert in ancient and Coptic Greek, my patriarch in Istanbul want expert on medieval German, read heretic Luther. Even swap, yes?"

Lang nodded, the man's enthusiasm contagious. "Sounds fair to me."

The priest gave the doorway a surreptitious glance before he reached under the desk and produced a small pouch and a stack of rolling papers. For an instant, Lang thought he was about to roll a joint. He was relieved to see he was only preparing a cigarette. He rolled it with one hand, using the other to extend the tobacco and paper across the desk.

Lang shook his head… "No thanks."

The father lit up, instantly dispelling Lang's long-held belief that his friend Jacob smoked the foulest tobacco in the world.

"You come see me about ancient Greek, yes?"

Lang reached inside his shirt, producing the sheaf of papers. He peeled off one of the two copies. "I was hoping you could translate."

The priest held the cigarette between his lips, squinting through the rising column of smoke. Lang wondered how many times he had set his beard ablaze. He held the papers flat with one hand, producing a pair of half-moon glasses with the other. He scanned the first couple of pages.

"I have not seen before. Is gospel I read about, the one where man get killed in England, no?"

"Sir Eon, yes. The Gospel of James."

The priest looked up from the papers, staring at Lang.

"I found where Sir Eon got that. The man who sold it to him made copies."

Father Strentenoplis nodded slowly as though answering a question only he had heard. He exhaled, sending smoke into his beard where tendrils wafted upward as though from a brushfire. "St. James first bishop of Jerusalem, first Eastern bishop. Is liked, esteemed, more by Eastern church than by Western."

Lang resisted the temptation to fan away the smell of the cigarette. "You can translate, read Egyptian with Greek letters?"

He was happy to see the butt finally stubbed out into a small ceramic dish. "Is Greek, no? Should have by tomorrow morning."

Lang left, certain he wouldn't get the smell of whatever tobacco the good father smoked out of his clothes for days.

If it was tobacco.

Lang was on his way to his room when a familiar buzz came from a pocket. Sara.

"Lang? The people at your condo are really getting annoyed."

Why not? His unit had been a hole in the side of the building and now the interior hall was filling up with unwanted kitchen appliances.

"You did what I suggested?"

"Of course. I placed the charges in dispute with the credit card company. Just like you said, that got Home Depot's attention. They called yesterday and promised to come get the stove and hood. And deliver your oven."

Why did he think the matter didn't end there? "And?"

"Now there's a stove, a hood and a bidet sitting in your hall."

IV.

The Vatican

Lang returned to his room the way he had come. After a sleepless night, the single beds looked inviting. But first…

He took out his BlackBerry and punched in Gurt's number. He was aware of Echelon, but what were the odds of this particular call being selected for a closer look or listen? Even less were the chances that whoever had killed Eon had a way to hack into that system.

He realized he was simply rationalizing a chance to speak to his son.

Manfred had spent the morning with his mother and grandfather, hiking in the nearby Schwartzwald, Black Forest. Lang smiled, recalling how much the Germans loved to tramp through the woods for no other reason than being there. He had often theorized two world wars might have started accidentally by what began as an overzealous stroll through the Ardennes.

Yes, he had had fun, but when was Daddy coming to take him back to Grumps?

Soon, Lang assured him.

With a child's insight, Manfred insisted on a specificity Lang was unable to give.

Gurt rescued Lang by taking the phone. "I also would like to know when you will be able to come."

Lang told her what had happened since their last conversation.

"You are without a clue," she observed.

"I should know something more when I get the translation back tomorrow," he said with an optimism he did not entirely feel.

The conversation ended with more promises to Manfred than Lang felt he could keep.

When he hit the end button, he sat morosely on the bed. When would he see his son again? Would Gurt legitimize the child by marrying him? With his home destroyed, where would they live? All of these seemed far more important than some ancient gospel the collators of the Bible had decided not to include. Lang wanted nothing more than a peaceful life with the family he had found so suddenly.

But there could be no peace as long as someone wanted him dead. Anger at these unknowns who had threatened not only him but his son began to grow, a rage made greater by lack of a specific target. The only real clue was the murders of Eon and Klaus, each with biblical overtones. Who but some fanatical religious group would take the pains to relate cold-blooded killings to the martyrdom of saints?

If only…

He forgot everything he had been thinking of and stared at one of the two small chests of drawers against the far wall. The pulls were plain, round copper or brass disks.

But one was slightly larger than the others.

Intrigued, he sat on the floor, staring at what, moments before, had been a mundane, ordinary piece of metal. He opened the drawer. Each pull was secured to the inside by a bracket and a screw. He fumbled in his pocket for a moment before he came up with a dime. It fitted the screw head well enough to turn it.

Moments later, he was looking closely at the bit of metal in his hand, a fine mesh rather than solid like the others. Using a thumbnail, Lang pried up part of the tiny screen. He was not surprised to see a miniaturized listening device.

He instinctively glanced around the room. The thing could have been installed at any time but the battery life on something that small would only be a day or so. It was a safe guess the very unknowns against whom he had been raging had put it there. He resisted the impulse to grind the tiny thing under his heel. To do so would only alert its installers it had been found and encourage replacement with one he might not locate.

Instead, he carefully reinstalled it.

Then he began a meticulous sweep of the room. The phone was dis- and reassembled. The plates on all three electrical sockets were removed and replaced. Even the overhead light fixture received attention. There are only a limited number of places a bug can be placed and escape notice.

Satisfied, he took another longing look at the beds. No nap now. With doors without locks and his unidentified enemies aware of his location, sleep could be suicidal. He yawned. One of the little bureaus could be placed in front of the door and… and what? Without a weapon, it mattered little whether he heard a potential assassin or not.

Then he remembered something Francis had said just before he left.

Lang went back out, this time turning east toward St. Catherine's Gate. He crossed the area where he had seen the guards from his window and entered a building distinguishable from its neighbors only by a flat roof rather than the sloping red tiles common to the Vatican's buildings. Long wooden tables ran the length of a beamed room, reminiscent of a medieval banqueting hall. Clearly the mess. Across a hall was a smaller room, one stocked with the sort of general wares one would expect in an American drugstore, the commissary. Lang selected a baseball cap emblazoned with a helmet and what he guessed was a Swiss Guard logo. It was the smallest one he could find, one he hoped would fit a certain three-year-old head.

As he paid for his purchase, he asked the young, crew- cut man behind the counter, "Where's the armory?"

The kid didn't even look up from counting change. "Outside, turn left. Second door, first room on the right."

The armory was perhaps fifty feet long, its walls hung with halberds, swords and shields. An open gun rack ran down the middle containing enough rifles to start a small war.

As long as that war was fought in the first half of the last century. The rifles were bolt-action Mausers, the standard weapon of Germany's World War II infantryman.

A lone Schmeisser, automatic pistol, of the same vintage lay on top of the rack.

Lang stared stupidly at the far wall where a rack held both matchlock blunderbusses and flintlock muskets. The modern-day Swiss Guard must keep their own weapons instead of drawing them as needed from the armory. It made sense: The contemporary guard was unlikely to find itself opposing a siege by an enraged European monarch. These days, even royalty had to contend with budgetary constraints. A war of aggression would have to compete with national health care, an increasing dole and a parliament unlikely to reduce a litany of benefits to which voters had become accustomed. Rifles and heavier small arms weren't needed for the required duty, guarding the person of the pope rather than the bulk of the Papal States that had finally succumbed to the unification of Italy in the nineteenth century. Easily carried and concealed weapons would be all the modern guard required. The very sort of weapon Lang had planned on "borrowing."

Short of mugging one of the men in uniform, he clearly wasn't going to succeed.

With a sigh, he left the room and walked out into the increasing heat, which seemed to aggravate healing muscles already cramped by the long flight.

Outside the Vatican's walls, he stopped to buy a bottle of water. He all but emptied it before covering two blocks. He stuffed it into a back pocket. Since Rome was connected to a series of aquifers, even the little fountains, those consisting of no more than a pipe a foot or so above the street, provided sweet, cool and potable water.

The crowd around St. Peter's made it impossible to notice a possible tail.

Crossing the turgid green Tiber by the bridges over the Isola Tiberina, he could see the ruins of the massive Theater of Marcellus in the ghetto, the area in which medieval Rome's Jews were required to live and be locked in each night. There was much less foot traffic and he took his time, pretending to marvel at the old buildings. He even doubled back a couple of times without revealing anyone interested in his destination.

He hoped his memory held up because he knew his destination would be difficult to find. He turned left onto the Via del Portico, a convoluted route but one that would reveal anyone following him.

Navigating largely by the sight of the synagogue, one of the area's tallest buildings, he turned south, back toward the river. Every time he visited this part of Rome, he was impressed with the diminishing number of Jews. The narrow, winding streets, some of the oldest habitable quarters

and location had made the neighborhood desirable to the city's young and affluent. He could only hope the man he had come to see still lived at the same address. He would be well past ninety by now.

He turned north on the broad Lungotevere dei Cenci and walked two blocks along the river before stopping to admire an apartment building that had maintained its ancient facade while the interior had been renovated. Still nobody paid him attention. Two quick steps carried him into a narrow alley. At the end stood a three-story structure he remembered from years ago.

Lang was relieved to see the name still beside the list of doorbells, faded but legible: benscare. Lang pushed the button and waited. He tried again with the same result.

He was about to make one more attempt when a voice crackled from the speaker. The words were unintelligible, but the tone indicated a question.

"Viktor, it's Lang Reilly," he said, his mouth close to the speaker to avoid having to shout. "You and I did business years ago."

There was a heavy metallic thump as a bolt slid back and Lang stepped inside. The marble foyer was only large enough to contain doors to the two lower apartments and a staircase. There was no elevator. Renovation had not reached this far yet.

Leaning heavily on the stair rail to take as much weight as possible off protesting muscles and joints, Lang climbed to the top, the third floor, and knocked on a worn wooden door.

The door swung open and Lang was looking at an elfin little man whose long white hair reached below his slumped shoulders. Inside, klieg lights, lamps, reflective umbrellas, tripods and camera gear occupied every horizontal surface.

The man was still working, although he had to be well into his nineties. Even more amazing than handheld worldwide communication.

Lang knew Viktor Benscare had lived and worked as a professional photographer in this same apartment since 1922, the same year a certain lantern-jawed Fascist named Benito Mussolini had come to power. During the war years, Viktor had developed a profitable sideline: forgery. He had created passports for partisans as well as for Jews seeking to escape deportation to the death camps while the nearby Vatican inexplicably had not even murmured a protest. Due to the Italians' lack of fervor in enforcing their German comrades' racial edicts, his semicelebrity status as Rome's most famous portrait photographer, a non-Semitic name and, no doubt, well-placed bribes allowing him to tinker with birth records, Viktor had survived the Holocaust. With the fall of the Axis powers, his sideline boomed. He provided identities for those displaced persons who had lost theirs and for those who could not afford to retain their own in view of the Allied war crimes tribunals. When Europe settled down to its usual semipeaceful bickering, he had worked for the Camorra, the Neopolitan crime families, a loosely knit organization far exceeding in size, power and wealth its Sicilian counterpart.

During the Cold War, Viktor had been steadfastly neutral, equally happy to create a Russian driver's license or a British national health card. Several times, Lang had arranged for passports and supporting documents for a recent refugee from one of the workers' paradises when, for whatever reason, the agency was unable to do so.

Lang pushed the door closed behind him. "Viktor! You haven't aged a bit!"

The Italian smiled with teeth far too perfect and white to have originated in a mouth that old. "The quality of your sheet of the bool has no diminished, either." He led the way to a pair of chairs and began removing camera lenses from the seat of one. "An' you no come here causa you wanna you pi'ture made. Still, good to see one mora ol' frien' not dead." He motioned to the now empty chair. "Come, seet an' hava a glass a Barolo."

Lang was far too tired to be drinking anything alcoholic, but he acceded rather than wound feelings. When Viktor returned with a bottle and two glasses, he cleared another chair, sat and lit a cigarette. The smell was slightly better than the caustic odor of chemicals that pervaded the apartment. Lang watched the cigarette as he and his host discussed the relative merits of the wines of Tuscany versus those of Piemonte. Once the tobacco was stubbed out, the appropriate amount of time would have passed for the banter that precedes business in Italy.

As anticipated, Viktor cleared his throat as he ground out the butt. "So, you wanna what?"

"A passport."

The forger nodded. "OK."

"How much?"

The forger shrugged, a matter of such little consequence it was hardly worth discussing. "Thousand euro."

The old fox had raised his prices quite a bit since Lang had done business with him. "I'll pay when I pick it up."

Viktor shook his head. "Same as usual. Half now, half when you get."

Lang pretended to consider. "All right, but only if you can do one more thing."

The Italian waited, making no commitment.

"A gun. With ammo."

The old man's eyes widened, sending thick white brows into a single arch. "A gun? Canna do! You know-"

"I know you have connections and I'm willing to pay well."

That put a different complexion on the matter.

"How well?"

"Depends on the gun. A pistol, preferably an automatic I can carry in my belt."

"You coma back tomorrow, meybbe…"

Lang didn't even consider returning to the Vatican unarmed. "Today for the gun or we have no deal, Viktor. Of course, if you don't want the business…" Lang stood as* if to leave.

Viktor was on his feet with an agility surprising for his age. "No, no! You go outside, meybbe see a church, old temple. The Colosseum. You come back…"

"In two hours," Lang finished for him.

Outside, Lang's stomach growled loudly, a reminder it had been a long time since his last meal. At the same time, he caught the aroma of a nearby restaurant. An hour and a half later, he had enjoyed zucchini blossoms, stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies and fried in yeast batter. He hadn't had the peculiarly Roman/Jewish dish in years. Tired or not, he had permitted himself a beer, piccolo, small.

Now he needed cash, probably more than his limit at an ATM.

Crossing a little piazza, he looked around. An old woman pushing a baby pram, two priests. He entered a bank just before it closed for the afternoon hours when most businesses, museums, even churches in Rome, and most of Italy, shut down until four o'clock. It took a few minutes with personnel irritated at being detained from lunch to work his way up to someone with authority to phone the States and arrange for a cash transfer. Lang was aware the transaction was likely to be picked up by Echelon. It was unlikely, though, that a transfer this small would draw notice. Pocketing a roll of Euros, less fees, Lang checked his watch, noted that two hours and sixteen minutes had elapsed and returned to Viktor's apartment.

This time he was buzzed in on the first try.

Viktor was grinning as he handed Lang a paper bag. "Eet is as you weesh!"

Lang nearly dropped it from the unanticipated weight. He peered inside and blinked, uncertain he was really seeing what he thought: an M1911.45 Colt, the standard US military sidearm for nearly sixty years.

"Ees automatic as you weesh!" Viktor was beaming. He held up an extra magazine. "An' have extra boolits!"

"Yeah, but I didn't want something used by George Custer."

"Who Custer?"

"Man who couldn't count Indians."

The gun was as heavy as it was notoriously inaccurate. With its box clip holding only seven rounds, it was also short on firepower. On the positive side, the Colt's large caliber reputedly could stop an elephant. If the shooter could hit it. The gun was much sought by collectors but hardly by anyone whose life might depend on it.

Lang pulled the slide back, checking the barrel. At least the grooves were distinct, unworn. The thing must have been left over from the occupation of Rome in 1944 when some GI traded it for booze or sex, the two major incentives of soldiers in all wars.

"Untraceable, also," Viktor noted.

"I don't care if it's registered to the pope," Lang replied, knowing that touting the weapon's few attributes was a means of gaining advantage in the oncoming haggle about price. "How much?"

"Onlies two thousand euro."

Lang shrugged and handed the gun back to Viktor. "Too much."

Happily, the forger had no idea of how badly Lang needed a weapon immediately. Also in Lang's favor was the fact that Viktor's supplier would expect immediate payment, not a return. An anonymous tip to the police by the gun's former owner that Viktor possessed a prohibited firearm would be certain if the.45 wasn't sold as promised.

Viktor crossed his arms. "I stretch my neck for you, Lang."

"OK, fifteen hundred including the passport."

Lang was more than willing to pay the two thousand. That was not the point. Like most Italians, Viktor admired the art of bargaining. Lang would have lost face had he simply paid the first price offered.

Fifteen minutes later, Lang felt the reassuring weight of the Colt in his belt under his shirt as he left Viktor's apartment. He had had his picture taken for a passport that would be ready about this time tomorrow.

He was returning to the Vatican by the most direct route possible. This included crossing the multilaned Lungotevere dei Tebaldi.

Even during the afternoon recess, automobiles, buses and scooters clogged the boulevard. There are unwritten rules of crossing a street in Rome: If a driver knows a pedestrian has seen him, the vehicle continues, insane speed undiminished. The wary street-crosser stays in the crosswalk, eyes down, pretending to see nothing but the pavement in front of him.

Observing the rule, Lang was about to step off the curb when an alarm went off in his head. Agency training, intuition, blind luck. Something was out of place, an aberration like an open front door in an affluent neighborhood.

There was no one behind him, nothing…

He saw them.

Two workmen, one approaching from his left, the other from his right, their gait timed so that each would reach him simultaneously. Restoration and construction is always in progress in Rome, but work sites, like businesses, closed for the first part of the afternoon and it was not likely that the two were out for a stroll in the midday heat. And their clothes, though worn, were clean, none of the city's yellow dust or grainy grime that came from working with old stone.

Street crime in Rome tends to limit itself to picking pockets or snatching purses. Neither of these two looked the

type. They lacked the furtive movements. Besides, pickpockets and purse snatchers rarely operated in tandem.

Lang's hand went to the heavy weight in his belt. No, that wouldn't work. Shots would draw the carabinieri or polizia that were never far away. Just having the gun was a serious crime, and Lang didn't enjoy the thought of being imprisoned where his enemies could easily reach him. The two workmen knew that, too. A quick stab with a knife and they would continue on their way before anyone knew what had happened.

Where the hell had they come from? A picture of the two priests flashed across Lang's mind. Like most people, when he saw a priest, a cop, a soldier, he tended to see the uniform, not the face. He had failed to notice the two priests outside the bank, two clerics dressed in full cassocks that could easily conceal the clothes he now saw.

He took a look up and down the street, busy no matter what the hour. Of course there wasn't a taxi to be seen and the nearest bus stop was a block away. A dash across the street could prove as fatal as not moving.

In Rome, there were two types of jaywalkers: the quick and the dead.

Turning slowly, the moves of a man uncertain where he was going, Lang began to limp back toward the ghetto. There, if he had to use the.45, he had a better chance of getting lost in the winding streets.

The two workmen peeled off in unison, making no effort to conceal their intent to follow.

As Lang would have said during his years with the agency, he had a tactical situation.

v.

Schlossberg

Baden-Baden, Germany

At the Same Time

Gurt had thought the hike would have tired Manfred. Perhaps it had been the conversation with Lang. For whatever reason, the child had been cross all morning. He had complained about the same breakfast he had eaten without comment every day. He grew tired of his favorite toys.

Gurt had even allowed her son a rare interlude with the television. She usually forbade more than a few minutes of sitting in front of a device she suspected rotted brain cells, as witness the women she had met in the States who sat in front of the thing all day while their husbands pursued cardiac arrest at jobs that allowed them to meet the women's demands. Usually trophy second wives who shared Lang's condo building could speak only of the morning dramas that never seemed to reach conclusions.

What were they called? Something to do with washing, although Gurt had never seen anyone bathing the two times she watched the mindless action. Laundry shows? No. Never mind.

The same women spent afternoons with cooking demonstrations on TV when the only thing they made for dinner were reservations.

Even the magic box had not calmed Manfred.

Gurt was a loving mother, but she did not subscribe to the irrational thought that a child should be given a choice between obedience and "time out." When discipline was called for, she applied it, usually to the seat of Manfred's pants. It was old-fashioned but effective to make markets, airlines and other public places more enjoyable. Unfortunately it had gone out of style in America.

Gurt's father looked up from his Süddeutsche Zeitung, speaking in English as Gurt insisted whenever Manfred was present. "Why not take the automobile into town? You may find something to amuse him there."

Not one to cater to irritable children, even her own, Gurt gave the idea consideration. Inflicting a whining child on someone else, even a grandparent, was selfish, another concept long dead in America. But it might work. Baden-Baden liked to call itself Europe's vacation spot, as indeed it had been when crowned heads from Portugal to Russia had visited in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to partake of the mineral baths that supposedly had curative powers. The custom dated back to the first-century Romans who had founded the town.

European royalty was notably lacking these days, but tourists still came to take the baths, lounge in the Belle Epoch hotels and gamble in the Rococo casino that sat like a gem on green velvet in the narrow meadow that was the valley of the river Oos. The river, though scenic, would hardly rate the status of a creek in the US.

Gamble.

Also horse racing.

Horses.

Manfred loved to watch the horses as they were put through their morning exercises.

Gurt took her son by the hand. "Come, Manfred, we will go see the horses."

That suggestion, along with the hint they might have lunch in whatever American junk food spot had recently opened, brightened the child's disposition to the extent he forgot his usual complaints when buckled into the child seat that occupied most of the backseat of the ancient but pristine Volkswagen.

The road, a snake of pavement, wound around steep hills. Gurt had driven enough here that she knew every bend well enough to reduce driving to an almost subconscious level.

Certainly her mind was not completely on the task at hand.

Why was it, she asked herself, that women are ultimately stuck with the job of nurturing the children?

Because if men did it, no one would ever grow up.

Still, it wasn't fair that Lang was doing something exciting in Rome while she was reduced to taking a tot to watch horses. Of course, she admitted, she had not given Lang the chance to experience his son's early days, his first step, his first word. Perhaps she had been a bit overly independent, too fearful her freedom would be compromised.

That was when she noticed the big Mercedes in the rearview mirror.

Rich people were fairly common in the area, so expensive cars were no surprise.

But this one was flashing its lights and blowing its horn as though to pass.

"Car make noise," Manfred observed, twisting his neck to look out of the rear window.

In itself, again no surprise. The wealthy were frequently in a hurry.

But pass?

The ribbon of asphalt had few straight stretches and fewer shoulders. The outside of each turn was lined with flimsy-looking Armco barrier and the inside tended to climb vertically.

There was a bump from behind that nearly tore the steering wheel from her hands.

Manfred began to cry.

Who is this maniac? Gurt wondered, fighting to regain control.

Then she remembered the hail of bullets at Lang's country place and the fiery ruin that was his condo. The man at the Atlanta airport. Whoever wanted Lang dead was perfectly willing to use his son to get to him. And her.

But how…?

She mentally kicked herself. Airline reservations were easily hacked. All someone had done was ascertain she had flown into Frankfurt. Her passport would have been registered at customs and immigration, a passport that listed Baden-Baden as her address. Dumkopf! Working and living in Frankfurt, she could have listed it instead. For that matter, her employer could have provided her with papers with any address in the world, rules notwithstanding.

Now these people had her actual address and were trying to either run her off the road or get her to stop.

Another not-so-gentle tap on her rear bumper emphasized her problem.

Reaching to the floor, she retrieved her purse with the agency-issued Glock she had stopped to pick up upon her arrival in Frankfurt to replace the one airport security mandated she leave in Atlanta. The people in the Mercedes wouldn't expect her to be armed. If they pulled out to push her to the edge…

No, that would only invite return fire. No gunplay, not with Manfred in the car.

The BlackBerry? Doubtful she could take her eyes off the road long enough to dial. And the hilly terrain made the use of cell phones an iffy proposition.

Think.

Her agency training had taught her any number of mundane objects could be used for self-defense. She opened the glove box. Only insurance documents and a couple of road maps. Tire tools? In the trunk. The people in the Mercedes would be on her before she could even get to them.

She took her eyes off the road long enough to glance around the interior of the VW.

Then she had an idea.

VI.

Rome

It was obvious Lang's pursuers were gaining on him even if they were taking their time about it. He turned a corner and spied a trattoria, a small, usually single-family-operated eatery specializing more in home-type cooking than the formal fare of a ristorante. Outside, a waiter in an apron stained with tomato sauce was bussing the five tables with paper tablecloths.

Lang remembered his own lunch. It gave him an inspiration.

"Dove il cabinetto?" he asked.

The waiter was still protesting that the restrooms were reserved for paying customers as Lang stepped around him and went inside.

Now Lang had to rely on luck. If this place was like a thousand others, the single-sex toilet, the kitchen and a few more tables would all be in the back. There might even be an exit to another street.

The downside lay in the local knowledge of the two behind him. If they knew there was no other exit, all they had to do was wait for him to come out.

His plan was to draw them in.

Sweeping aside a curtain, Lang was in the tiny kitchen. The chef, in grease-splattered white, looked up from a four- eyed gas stove on which artichokes were frying. He started to say something but then gaped as the waiter and the two workmen charged in behind Lang. Everyone was close enough to touch everybody else.

In a single motion, Lang snatched the wooden-handled skillet from the stove and heaved its sizzling contents into the face of the first man.

He screamed, clutching his face as though tearing away the frying skin would end his agony.

Lang continued a swing. The huge iron pan slammed against the head of the second man, who dropped to his knees with a moan, then collapsed to the floor and lay still.

The chef and waiter stared openmouthedly as Lang walked back to the front of the place where an older man stood behind a butlers' desk on which were several credit card machines.

"You might want to rethink your menu," Lang said as he went through the door to the outside. "Some people just can't tolerate fried food."

VII.

Baden-Baden

It was difficult to keep one eye on the tortuous road and the other on the rearview mirror but somehow Gurt managed.

"Manfred," she said as calmly as she could above the clatter of the VW's four cylinders at full rpm, "unbuckle your seat, get out of it and lay down on the floor."

"But Mommy…" the terrified child protested.

"And do it now."

Gurt was using that I-am-about-to-turn-you-over-my- knee tone that the little boy had learned meant the time for negotiation was over. She could only hope that small three-year-old fingers were equal to the task.

The Mercedes moved toward the left-hand lane, a position from which it could easily utilize its superior weight to push her into and perhaps over the Armco. She twitched the wheel to the left to block the move and took another jolt on her bumper. At the same time, she saw Manfred slip out of his seat and disappear onto the floor.

Just ahead was a sharp right hairpin around a hill, a turn so acute the Mercedes would lose sight of her for an instant.

Beyond that was a short straightaway at the end of which two driveways led to houses hidden from the road by conifers. If she could just slow the larger car a bit, she might make it to those driveways and someone might be home, someone with a landline telephone to summon the authorities. Or, if not, at least she and her child might find a place to hide in the woods.

It was a big if.

One hand on the wheel as she entered the turn, she reached back and grasped the child seat. Manufactured to provide protection in case of a crash, the thing must have weighed a ton. The thought of what her pursuers might have in mind for her and her son gave her an extra boost of adrenaline and she tugged the seat free.

At that moment, the angle of the hairpin blocked her view of the Mercedes. She frantically rolled down her window. It seemed to move with glacial speed. Once open, she shoved the child seat through it, watching it hit the pavement and bounce just as the larger car exited the curve.

The result was far more spectacular than she had dared hope. The hood of the big auto dipped in a sudden application of brakes to avoid the object coming through the windshield. The violent locking of those brakes along with the centrifugal force of the corner broke whatever adhesion had existed between tires and pavement.

Gurt exhaled in relief as the front of the sedan spun to its right, too far over for the driver to correct in time. Panicked to stop the skid, he followed instinct rather than physics. He fought the wheel in the opposite direction instead of applying gas to regain lost traction. The car, already as loose on the pavement as a raindrop on a windowpane, simply swung the other way and planted its radiator into the Armco with a protesting shriek of metal that Gurt could clearly hear.

As she lost sight of the Mercedes behind the next rise in the road, a cloud of steam obscured the front end.

She was going to have to take the long way home and make an immediate departure, but, at least for the moment, she and Manfred were safe.

What was it she had been thinking? That she envied Lang the excitement? He always said to be careful what you wish for; you might get it.

VIII.

The Vatican

A Few Minutes Later

When Lang reached the top of the stairs on his way to the room he shared with Francis, the hall was packed with priests. They were excitedly chattering in at least four languages Lang recognized. As far as he could tell, the center of attention was in the direction of his room. Fearing something might have happened to Francis, Lang easily shouldered his way forward. He was somewhat more aggressive than your average priests.

When he reached, the front of the crowd, he almost slipped again. More water. The Vatican plumbing had struck again.

But water wasn't what had drawn all the attention. It flowed from the open doorway of the room next to Lang and Francis's. Standing on tiptoe, Lang could see it coursing down the far wall. The sheet of water had washed away the white plaster, revealing a painting, a fresco.

A large bearded man in biblical dress stood, poised to throw a rock. His face was twisted in rage. Hatred, pure and simple. His other hand held a large key. Around him, other men were in the process of throwing rocks, stones or anything else at hand.

Their object was another man who cowered against the walls of what Lang guessed was a palace or castle. One hand was raised in supplication while the other arm dangled at an angle indicating it was badly broken. His face was streaked with blood, yet he wore an expression of serenity hardly in sync with his situation. He was surrounded not only by rocks but also what could have been the contents of a nearby trash dump: pottery shards, sticks and even a seashell.

Lang was about to ask the man next to him a question when the entire hallway went silent as though some cosmic switch had been flipped off. Lang's eyes followed the turning of heads to the left. At the end of the hall stood a figure in a cardinal's red robes. Priests parted like a black sea as the newcomer approached the spot where Lang stood.

"Cardinal Benetti," Francis whispered at Lang's elbow. "The Holy Father's personal secretary."

Lang had not noticed his friend's arrival. "What…?"

Francis put a finger to his lips as the cardinal spoke.

"There will be no word of this outside these walls," the man announced before repeating the message in French, Italian, German and Spanish and again in Latin. "I speak for the Holy Father," he added before closing the door to the room and disappearing in the direction from which he had come.

"What was all that about?" Lang asked.

"I'd say it was about letting what's here stay here," Francis said.

"Playing dumb doesn't become you," Lang observed. "You know what I meant."

Francis nodded toward their room as the priests began to disperse like spectators after the game is over.

Inside, Lang and Francis sat on opposite beds.

"Well?" Lang demanded.

Francis drew a breath and shook his head slowly. "I'm not really sure. A challenge to church dogma at best, heresy at worst."

Neither possibility particularly worried Lang. The Inquisition, indulgences, insistence the universe revolved around the earth had all come and gone, the greatest damage being a tad of soon-forgotten ecclesiastical egg on the church's face. It was obvious, though, that Francis took what they had seen seriously. The endless if friendly debate of the church might not be wise here.

"OK," Lang said, "let's start with the mural, fresco, whatever. What's so amazing about it?"

Francis gathered his thoughts and began. "You recall the discussion we had on the plane about saints and their symbols?"

"Sure. After all, it was just last night."

"Think about what you just saw."

"Looked like an old-fashioned lynch mob to me."

Francis nodded slowly. "Yes, yes I'm afraid it did."

Lang was taking off his shoes. "I still don't get it."

"The symbols, Lang. Remember what the symbol for James was?"

"A seashell, a scallop shell. Like the one next to the poor bastard being stoned." Lang's face lit up with recognition. "St. James! But he was martyred by stoning, right? What's blasphemous about that?"

Francis was staring at the floor. "The other man, did you see what he was holding?"

"A key, a big one. He was going to throw that, too?"

Francis managed a weak smile. "Hardly. The key is the symbol for St. Peter."

Lang paused, shoelace in hand. "St. Peter led the mob against James the Just? They were both Christians. That makes no sense."

Francis nodded slowly. "It does in a way, I suppose. See, at the beginning, right after the Crucifixion, Jesus's followers took up his ministry. Most believed Christianity was a sect, a subspecies of Judaism. That meant to be a Christian, you had to be a Jew, be circumcised, follow the dietary and other laws. James the Just opposed that idea, saying anyone, Gentile or Jew, could be a Christian as long as they ate no meat that had been bled out, sacrificed and avoided fornication."

"Clearly he won out. With the possible exception of the last part."

Francis nodded. "Clearly. As the first bishop of Jerusalem, James gave Peter his orders. Like any good soldier, Peter died obeying those orders not two hundred yards from where we sit."

"Then, someone just made up the bit about Peter leading a lynch mob."

Francis stood and went into the bathroom. Lang could hear him over the running water. "It's hard to believe someone just imagined that."

Lang raised his voice to be heard. "Go down to the Sis- tine Chapel. I doubt Michelangelo ever saw people falling into hell."

"At least there was some theological basis for the idea."

"But none for the fresco?"

Francis emerged from the bathroom, toweling his face. He reached to his throat and began to remove the studs attaching his clerical collar to his shirt. "That is what worries the church. That fresco could very well date back to the time of the rebuilding of St. Peter's. Who knows what heresies might have been around then?"

"And for every heresy, the possibility of truth."

Lang propped a pillow behind his back and stretched out. "Someone faced the problem before. They plastered right over it. Why not just do it again?"

"I'd guess when that painting was obscured, there weren't newspapers and television. Word gets around pretty fast these days, and, will of the Holy Father or not, news of the discovery of an unknown fresco will get out, particularly if it's dated back to the rebuilding of the basilica. Could be attributed to Raphael or Michelangelo, far too big for a cover-up. Besides, the church is no longer in the business of concealing things."

"Right. Tell me what day the Vatican's secret archives will be open."

"It already is open to accredited scholars."

"Accredited scholars" being defined as those whose loyalty to the church is unquestioned.

But Lang felt this wasn't a time for argument. Instead he said, half joking, "You could always just give it an acceptable twist."

Francis looked at him blankly.

"You know, like how the church defaced or tried to destroy nearly every Roman monument in this town. The marble and steel support rods were stripped from the Colosseum to build the 'new' St. Peter's and I doubt Trajan was the one who put a statue of St. Peter on the top of his column."

"I doubt we'd have the Colosseum today if it hadn't been preserved for use as a church at one time. And as for Trajan… One of the early popes, Gregory I, I think, was so taken with the depiction of the emperor comforting the widow of one of his fallen soldiers, he ordered not only the column be preserved but prayed Trajan's soul be released from hell where all pagan souls went."

Lang had never heard this before. "And?"

"And we still have Trajan's column and Gregory had a dream in which God told him he had released the emperor's soul but please not pray any more heathens out of hell."

Lang sensed the dark mood the fresco had inspired in his friend was lifting. "Just for the sake of argument, what if there really were some truth to the painting?"

"Peter is the founder of the church. It would change more than I can imagine. Christianity's premier saint exposed as a murderer. It could tear the church apart, something the more conservative members would never permit" Francis carefully placed his collar and studs on the top of one of the dressers. "Word of that fresco gets out, there'll be a brief stir among the usual skeptics. The faithful will continue. It would take more than a fanciful painting to convince anyone Peter killed James. Did you have anyplace in particular in mind for dinner?"

Even if his curiosity was far from satisfied, Lang was glad to drop the subject that had so bothered his friend. "I understand there's a really good seafood restaurant near the Pantheon, La Rossetta. Do you get priest discounts in this town?"

His BlackBerry buzzed.

He felt uneasy when he saw it was Gurt calling. She wouldn't be phoning after speaking with him only a few hours ago unless something had come up.

"Yes?" he said curtly.

Then he listened for the next two minutes before saying, "I agree."

He ended the call.

Francis was studying his face. "Trouble?"

"Yeah, sort of."

Had it been any woman but Gurt, Lang would have been overcome with anxiety. Gurt was not exactly your typical damsel in distress. The description fit her worse than a double-A bra. A deadly shot, she had run out of fellow agency partners with whom to practice martial arts, men and women. She had caused too many injuries.

And, as she was quick to point out, she had saved Lang's ass more than once.

She certainly hadn't called to worry him, to distract him from what he was doing. That wasn't the way they both had been trained.

But the training hadn't included a small child, his child.

"What sort of trouble?" Francis asked.

"Er, a car accident, nothing serious."

"Then why do you look worried?"

Because I am, Lang said only to himself.

Real worried.

"You need to leave Rome?"

"As soon as I finish some business."

IX.

Piazza dei Calvalleri di Malta

Aventine Hill

Three Hours Later

Late every afternoon, a phenomenon takes place in Rome: As the sun edges westward, it tints otherwise ordinary buildings a color somewhere between sienna and ochre. There is no hue exactly like it elsewhere, a fact disputed by Sienna, Florence and several Tuscan and Umbrian hill towns. Their afternoons are dismissed as either too red or containing not enough yellow by any native of Rome whose opinion is sought on the subject.

Dispute notwithstanding, the two men who had one of the city's best views from the window next to them paid no attention. Instead, they listened closely to the hissing of a recording device, interrupted by voices.

"The fresco has been found," the younger man said. "I had come to believe it existed only in rumor."

The older man shook his head. "An unfortunate time. It will only encourage the American to get whatever copy he has translated if he has not already done so."

"Why else would he have gone to see the Greek priest, Strentenoplis, other than seek a translation?"

The older man thought for a moment. "See to it. See to the Greek, also. But do so without leaving a trail for the police."

"And what of the Jew, the forger?"

"See to him also. We want no path for the authorities to follow. The American no doubt wanted papers of some sort. Watch the place against the possibility the American returns there. He must be eliminated quickly by any means other than violence in the Holy City. We cannot risk the gospel's message becoming known."

"We have located the German woman and the American's bastard child. I should know shortly. If we can take them captive, we may have this Reilly come to us."

The old man stood. "You are doing God's work. In his name, bless you."

"Thank you, Grand Master," the man said, trying to suppress the resentment bubbling in his chest.

Today he had lost two good knights, one with burns that might cost him an eye, the other with a fractured skull. It had been bad enough to lose the hired help in Prague and the men in the United States who had mysteriously disappeared after finding Reilly's place south of Atlanta. But he had only a limited number of soldiers, knights, who were even remotely competent to deal with the American. Or who, for that matter, had even fired a gun.

It was easy enough to give orders; not always so simple to carry them out.

God's work or not.

X.

The Vatican The Next Morning

Notwithstanding taking the middle of the day off, offices in Rome generally open between 9:00 and 9:30 a.m. As far as Lang could tell, the Vatican was no exception.

After showing his pass to the Swiss guard still dressed in the uniform designed by Michelangelo, he was admitted to the scavi and walked a short way down the hall to Father Strentenoplis's office. The door was closed. Lang knocked briskly, waited a moment or two and knocked again without result.

He pushed gently. Like most of the doors here, it had no lock. It swung open. The space looked the same as it had the day before. Smelled the same, too. Whatever the good father smoked, it clung to the walls like paint.

Lang considered looking through the papers on the desk and decided against it. He had the remaining copy of the gospel, so there was no need to try to retrieve the one given to the priest and the priest hadn't expected to have a translation until now.

The problem, of course, was, where was the priest?

Lang shut the door behind him, went down the hall and stopped in front of an open office where a very short nun sat on a very tall swivel chair. Her feet barely touched the floor as she pecked at a keyboard with the hesitancy of someone not entirely comfortable with the machine.

Lang stepped across the threshold. "Mi scusi, parlal' inglese?"

She spun around in the chair, bathing him in the most radiant smile he had ever gotten from a seventy-year-old. "Of course I speak English, but thank you for asking! Most of your countrymen take it for granted that everything and everybody speaks English, and, if not, the problem can be cured by progressively raising the voice. How may I be of service?"

"Father Strentenoplis, I had an appointment with him…"

She sniffed disdainfully. "You are early. He rarely is in his office before ten thirty."

Lang's suspicions about the priest's drinking habits were confirmed.

"It's really important I see him. I'm leaving Rome this afternoon…"

She turned the chair to face the monitor. "He is a visiting priest, staying in one of the apartments the Holy See keeps for such purposes. We have no phone number." She scowled at the screen as though the omission were its fault. "He must use a cell phone."

Lang shifted his weight back and forth. "Do you have an address?"

"Of course! We keep the scoop on all our visitors. Is not that what you say in America, 'the scoop'?"

Not in the last thirty years.

"Ah, here! Do you know the Via de Porta?"

"'Fraid not."

She pointed. "As you leave St. Peter's Square, turn right on Porta Cavalleggeri. It's a main drag. Then left on Via del Crocifisso. De Porta will be on your left." She wrote something down on a piece of paper. "Here. You want apartment nine at number thirty-seven. A piece of cake, as you would say!"

Lang thanked her and left, wondering how she had acquired so many outdated American idioms.

There was nothing wrong with her directions, though. Father Strentenoplis's street was one of those Roman alleys so narrow Lang doubted the sun touched it more than a few minutes each day. The building was a former palazzo converted into apartments by the high taxes of the Socialist state. A massive arched wooden door could easily have accommodated a carriage and mounted outriders. A more human-scale Judas gate had been cut into one side.

Lang surveyed the list of doorbells mounted beside the entrance. He pressed number nine with no result.

The good father was probably sleeping off the night before, in no shape to hear the buzzer. And Lang had a plane to catch.

He pushed all the buttons.

He got two garbled responses he could not have understood even if he had spoken Italian.

"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party," he said.

The door's latch buzzed open. Someone had been expecting a visitor and the electronics were as unintelligible inside as they were out.

Lang stood in a vaulted stone vestibule even taller than the door. To his right was a shallow set of marble stairs that wound around an old birdcage elevator before disappearing into darkness above. In front of him was the private interior piazza that had once contained a garden secluded from the noise and smell of the street. Rather than fountains and flowers, it was now a parking lot for tenants' cars. Over a field of Fiats and Volkswagens, Lang watched a man in coveralls emerge across the courtyard, no doubt the servants' entrance in better days.

He acceded to joints already aching and took the elevator. He feared he might have made a poor choice as the contraption groaned its way to the third floor, the fourth in the US. The door creaked open and he could see the number nine in the dim light of low-watt bulbs in sconces.

A series of knocks were fruitless. Lang inhaled deeply as he tried the lock, remembering the blood-soaked apartment in Prague. He stepped back and visually checked the lock, its bolt visible where the door had shrunk from its frame. Less than a minute's application of a credit card and there was a gratifying click. He pushed the door open.

"Father Strentenoplis?" he called.

No response other than the wheezing of an overworked window air-conditioning unit.

A sagging curtain leaked enough light from the room's only window to see two weary club chairs facing a short sofa across a plain wooden table on which rested a Compaq laptop and a stack of papers. A crucifix over the sofa was the only effort at decoration. Two steps down a short hallway a door opened into the bedroom: a single bed, a small bureau resting on three legs on which a clean clerical collar and studs waited and a curtained alcove. If the priest had slept here last night, he hadn't made up the bed. Beyond the rumpled sheets was a doorless entrance to a small bath. On the sink was an open tube of Grecian Formula.

Father Strentenoplis cared about his appearance.

And Lang was feeling more and more like a burglar.

Recrossing the room, Lang slid the curtain back. Behind it was a single rod on which several cassocks hung beside two black suits, a pair of jeans and two golf shirts. Two pair of black wingtips, one each of brown loafers and Nikes paraded across the floor in a neat line.

Lang started to close the curtain when something on the floor gleamed in the dim light. He stooped and scooped up a cross on a gold chain, a cross with a third cross member. A Greek cross. He frowned. Not something Father Strentenoplis would leave behind. With it in his hand, he walked over to the apartment's second window, one across from the bed. Closer examination showed the catch on the cross's chain still closed. The chain was broken.

Lang carefully placed the cross and chain on the bureau and crossed the short hall into a minuscule kitchen. The heel of a baguette lay on the counter next to the sink along with a chunk of hard pecorino, cheese made from ewe's milk, and a sliced pear, its edges already turning brown, a typical Italian breakfast. A coffeepot sat on one of the stove's two gas burners. It was still warm to the touch.

Father Strentenoplis hadn't impressed Lang as a man who would leave a meal prepared but uneaten and he certainly wouldn't leave a gold cross.

Lang went back into the living room and turned the computer on. Nothing but a blank screen. He tried several booting-up procedures but the screen never wavered from its unrelenting blue. Had its main drive been removed?

He was leafing through the papers when he jerked his head up. Footsteps in the hall. He slipped the.45 from his belt and cocked it. The sound receded and he eased the hammer to half cock and made certain the safety was on. Cocked and locked.

He returned to the papers, but found nothing he could read.

A broken chain, opened hair dye, unfinished breakfast. It was beginning to look like Father Strentenoplis had made an unplanned departure.

Why?

Perhaps the priest had taken another route between his apartment and the Vatican and Lang had simply missed him. Possible but Lang didn't think so. He would certainly go by the office again. There was nothing further here.

At least nothing tangible. Lang had a feeling, a gut vibe that if someone had made the good father disappear that person could still be around.

He took the stairs rather than making himself a stationary target on the elevator.

They came for him there.

Between two floors, two men were waiting on the landing. Each looked as though he might have had a career as a professional wrestler. Each carried a gun with a very visible silencer. Each held his weapon at arm's length as though fearing it might bite.

Amateurs, Lang guessed.

But it doesn't take a professional assassin's bullet.

And there wasn't anything amateurish about the footsteps Lang heard behind him. Get your quarry in a cross fire, as professional as you please.

"Ah, Mr. Reilly," said one of the men below him, speaking in accented English, "we need to speak with you."

"Throw the guns over the bannister and we'll chat all day."

The man who had spoken smiled. It wasn't a nice smile, either. "Just put up your hands where I can see them."

Lang sensed, rather than heard, whoever was at his back upstairs getting closer, closer than anyone who knew what he was doing would be if he planned to shoot. The plan was to distract him while someone grabbed him from behind. Then dispose of him in some manner honoring a saint.

Was a saint ever shot?

He was thankful he had cocked the.45. There was no time to do so now. He raised his left hand, his right brushing his back a little slower. His only defense was they had no way to know he was armed.

A soon as he felt the Colt clear his belt, he whirled as he lifted it. Over its muzzle he saw two astonished faces. One turned to crimson mush as the big gun bucked in Lang's grasp. The impact knocked the man into a spin and over the railing. There was a wet-sounding impact as he hit the floor below.

The roar of the.45, rolling up and down the stairwell like a departing thunderstorm, momentarily transfixed the men below. Someone yelled and a door slammed.

A spitting sound and something unpleasant buzzed past Lang's ear.

Using his other hand, Lang grabbed the gun arm of the remaining assailant above him on the steps and yanked him to the side as he stepped behind him.

Now he had a shield. Or so he thought.

There were the coughs of two silencers and the man went limp.

Lang was holding a lifeless body, one that had taken bullets meant for him.

The dead weight was pulling Lang off balance. He had the right gun for bluff and bluster but not marksmanship. All he could do was fill the air with lead and hope. He pointed the automatic in the general direction of the two remaining men and emptied the clip. Chips of plaster and stone filled the staircase like shrapnel. One man cursed and dropped his weapon to try to staunch a river of red coursing down his arm.

Lang would have bet the wound was inflicted by flying debris rather than accuracy with the heavy pistol.

The remaining man fled.

Lang looked around him. A stinking fog of gun smoke filled the staircase. Shell casings glittered on the stairs like a field of gold nuggets. The man he had held was stretched out headfirst, his arms reaching for a discarded weapon, a Beretta 9mm. Another dead at the bottom of the stairs. Blood made abstract patterns against the gray stone walls and stairs.

It wouldn't take the police force's resident rocket scientist to figure out what had happened and Lang was the only person left to question. He started down the steps as fast as his gimpy legs would go. The bottom was in sight when he heard the pulsating wail of sirens. From the sound of them, they would arrive at the front door about the same time he did.

Time for Plan B.

He turned and fled back upstairs.

Minutes later, the stairs became a busy place very quickly. A photographer was firing off a flash from every angle. Two men in uniform picked up shell casings, using a grease pencil to mark the location of each. A man in a suit was kneeling beside a body with its head pointing downstairs. Another put on latex gloves before picking up a Beretta.

Several more uniforms were standing to the side doing little but observing.

Inspector Manicci, in charge for the present, watched from the top of the staircase.

The assembly stopped as one as a priest came down the steps. No one observed that his cassock swept the steps rather than ended at the ankles or that the clerical collar was a size too big. The absence of the usual rosary was not noted. Instead, all of the men nodded politely with the courtesy toward the church shown by all Italians, whether churchgoing or not.

The priest stopped, shocked, at the sight of the dead man. Kneeling, he began reciting in Latin. No doubt a prayer for the dead. At first the men on the stairs exchanged uncertain glances. Then, one by one, they decided it was time for a cigarette break outside.

A few minutes later Deputy Chief Police Inspector Fredrico Hanaratti arrived, blue lights flashing on his dark blue Alfa Romeo. His driver parked squarely in front of the massive doors. No matter. No one was going to be leaving anytime soon. One of the uniforms escorted him inside, explaining what had been found so far.

And that some priest was slowing up the investigation.

The inspector hunched his shoulders and started up the stairs. He would put an end to this interference, priest or not.

Except there was no priest.

"Interview everyone in the building," Hanaratti ordered, "including the priest."

But he was not to be found.

Twenty minutes later, a deputy inspector reported the discovery of another, much smaller entrance/exit across the piazza. It lead onto another street.

Just inside the doorway were a clerical collar and a cassock.