The Coptic Secret

I.

Over the North Atlantic

That Night

For once, Lang's flight-induced insomnia was a benefit. He had left Gurt snoring gently in the Gulfstream's stateroom. As is so often the case, proximity to sudden and violent death had stirred a passion that had resulted in wild and noisy lovemaking shortly after the stewardess cleared the dinner dishes. In fact, it had taken some restraint to wait until the woman had discreetly retreated to the galley before both made a dash for the plane's bedroom as they undressed en route. Now Lang looked around in case some of Gurt's more intimate garments might, yet be decorating the seating area.

Occasionally Lang wondered if he and Gurt were the

subject of gossip among the crews of the world's biz jets. He didn't necessarily care, he just wondered. But not tonight.

He was far too engrossed in the translation he held in his lap. He was surprised at its length, only a few pages. It seemed very little to have cost the lives lost since its discovery. He reread the first lines. It seemed to be a letter.

Since you asked me to send thee a secret book which was revealed unto me and Peter by the Lord, I could not refuse thee. I send this with wishes. Peace be with thee, Love from love, Grace from grace, Faith from faith, life from Holy Life. But inasmuch as thou art a minister of the Salvation of Saints, endeavor earnestly and take care not to recount this book to many-this which the Savior did not desire to recount to all of us.

Us? Who was "Us," Lang wondered. The disciples? No, hadn't Francis suggested James, this James, Jesus's brother, had not been a disciple, that he had probably stayed at home to run the family business?

The ever-annoying indefinite antecedent. But he read on.

This book was revealed only to Peter and me, James, brother of Our Lord.

Now we were sitting altogether at the same time, and remembering what the Savior had said to each of them, whether secretly or openly, they were setting it down in books. And I was writing what was in my book-lo the Savior appeared after he had departed from us and five hundred and fifty days after He arose from the dead. And we said unto Him, "Have you gone and departed from us?"

And Jesus said, "No, but I shall go to the place from which I have come. If thou desirest to come with me, come."

They all answered and said, "If Thou biddest us we will come" He said, "Truly I say to you, no one will ever enter the Kingdom of Heaven if I bid him but rather because you yourselves desire it. Let me have James and Peter that I might speak with them privately."

"Coffee?"

Lang was jolted back into the present. The stewardess was standing in front of him, holding a tray with a pot and a cup and saucer with the foundation's logo on it.

Coffee would ensure he didn't get even a few minutes sleep but the woman had clearly made fresh brew just for him.

"It's decaf," she chirped.

Tell my nerves that. They can't distinguish. And how can anyone be that perky at this hour of the night? But no sense being churlish.

"Sure. Thanks for going to the trouble." He had hoped she would pour a cup he could leave ignored on the coffee table before him. Instead, she hovered like a sommelier uncertain of his wine selection.

He took a sip. "Thanks. I really appreciate your going to the trouble."

She flashed him a megawatt smile. "That's what you pay me for."

True, he mused as he watched her retreat to the galley, but how many employees ever gave it a thought? Setting the steaming cup down once she was out of view, he resumed reading.

And when He called us two, He took us aside and commanded the rest of them to busy themselves with that with which they had been endeavoring.

When we were alone, the Savior said,…

Lang noted the next twelve lines were highlighted in yellow, the missing lines, he assumed.

"It is time that James lead my church."

And Peter protested, saying, "Lord, didst thou not say, 'Upon this rock I shall build my church,' meaning me? Hast thou not called my name as Cephus, the rock?"

And the Savior answered unto him, "Didst thou not thrice deny me as was prophesied? Would a master have a servant that denied him?"

And Peter grew wroth, saying, "Lord, who would serve you better?"

And the Savior answered, "James," whereupon Peter became even more angry, demeaning James as a coward and one who had not forsaken his family to follow the Savior as had Peter.

Lang reread the lines before continuing. The rest contained homilies on reaching heaven, the duty to spread the word and assurances the unknown "they" would reach heaven. Nothing to really distinguish it from the known quotes attributed to Jesus.

On the last page, the patriarch had also highlighted several lines with a note in the margin:

Shifting in his seat, Lang read the final paragraph and jerked up straight with surprise.

And after the Savior departed, Peter considered these words and his anger increased so that by the second day his anger could no longer be contained. And he went forth, seeking James. And when he had found him in the temple in Jerusalem at prayer, he threw him from the temple to the ground below. And Peter accused James of stealing the Savior's affection from him, saying to those who had gathered, "Look upon the face of a man who has betrayed our Savior." Whereupon they stoned the Lord's brother.

Lang reread the paragraph to make sure there was no mistake. Peter, the supposed anointed leader of the early church as usurper and murderer? He recalled the expression of rage on the saint's face as depicted by the mysterious fresco. No wonder the spectators had been ordered into silence. That an early gospel had noted James, not Peter, had been chosen, let alone what amounted to a theological coup…

And the missing lines… well, they could set the church back on its velvet-slippered heels! Since the pope claimed his title through Peter by apostolic succession, the pontiff and all before him would be no more than pretenders. Apparently someone already knew of those lines, someone like whoever had painted that picture in the Vatican, someone like… like the people who wanted him dead. The papers in his lap might have been the first the patriarch had seen that included those lines but they existed somewhere else, too. Or had existed. The question was, where? If he could ascertain who knew of Peter's wrath at being essentially demoted, he would have the answers he needed. There was, he supposed, a way to find out. But first, he had business back home. More important, he had a son he felt he hadn't seen in forever.

II.

United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia

Macon, Georgia

Two Days Later

Courthouses, hospitals, prisons and other institutions trafficking in human suffering have a certain intimidating air about them. In the case of the former, this is not by accident. To induce apprehension if not outright fear is the first commandment of government. That is why judges wear black robes, like priests of some somber but powerful religion whose acolytes speak in mystical tongues, words like "hereinafter," "alleged" or "tort feasor." The courthouse lobby might be marred with some form that is "art" by the loosest of definitions, smears of color chosen by the lowest bid. An alternative might be a plaque commemorating someone or some event in most cases otherwise forgotten.

The courtrooms themselves are interchangeable. This is particularly true with the federal judiciary because the taxpayers who fund the cheerless decor are spread from Alaska to Florida rather than concentrated in a single county where local voters are likely to note and complain about excess.

Lang sat alone at counsel table, pondering who had decided the apricot carpeting went with the dark-stained wooden paneling. Who had been responsible for choosing the slime green plastic cushions that did little to mollify the painfully hard wooden chairs? He was convinced that somewhere in Washington, D.C. was a Bureau of Vile Taste, a permanent board that furnished federal courts and other places where justice was dispensed, or, just as often, dispensed with.

He turned at the sound of an opening door behind him.

A young man was wheeling into the room a small cart loaded with files, each of which was stuffed to the limit with papers. An assistant US attorney, no doubt. And a very junior one. Lang glanced back at the slim attaché case he had brought. Lawyers who worked for the government equated quantity with quality. Of course, so did many of their private-practice counterparts. If you generated enough paper, there was bound to be something good in there somewhere, right?

The young man parked his cart at the other counsel table and walked over, hand extended. "Sam Roads."

Lang stood and shook. "I bet they call you Dusty."

The assistant US attorney stopped in midshake. "How'd you know?"

"Same way I'd guess if your last name was Waters, you'd be called Muddy. I'm Lang Reilly."

The assistant US attorney smiled. "Coulda been 'Country.'"

Lang nodded. "Or 'State' or 'Federal' but it's always 'Dusty."'

Dusty eyed Lang's single attaché case and his grin faded into suspicion. "You have a reputation even this far from Atlanta."

Lang's turn to smile. "Calumnious lies, I swear."

Dusty wasn't so certain. "You ready?"

Before Lang could reply, the door opened again, this time admitting Larry Henderson with a burly US marshal on either side. Detention life didn't look like it agreed with him The man had lost a dozen or more pounds. His color was that ashlike complexion Lang associated with inmates of much longer duration. It was as if the gray of prisons' concrete walls rubbed off on those they contained. He wore a Day-Glo orange jumpsuit and a pair of leg shackles.

He smiled when he saw Lang, probably the first friendly face he had seen since Darleen's last visit. Lang felt a twinge of guilt. He guessed those visits had been limited during the time Manfred had been staying with her.

Larry's escorts moved to the courtroom's door and Larry hobbled toward counsel table.

Lang spoke cooly to the marshals. "The leg irons need to come off."

"Not till the judge comes in," growled one of them.

It was hardly a major issue, but Lang knew the importance of not acceding to the slightest infringement of clients' rights. Likewise, he was aware of jailers' tendency to intimidate their charges whenever possible. "The rules say restraints come off in the courtroom without a specific order to the contrary. Don't make me file a formal complaint."

The guard who had spoken before shot Lang a poisonous glare before producing a key and removing the shackles. Lang caught a satisfying whiff of a muttered, "Goddamn smart-ass Atlanta lawyer."

From her private entrance, the judge appeared on the bench like magic. Short blunt-cut steel gray hair, little if any makeup. Before sitting, she fluffed her robe, the sole feminine gesture she would make. Although he had never seen her in person, Lang had done his homework on Judge Linda Carver. Like all federal judges, she was a political appointee, this one from the Reagan administration. She had served as one of the then rare Republicans in both the state senate and house as well as vice chair of the Georgia Republican Party. Although never as important in the appointment process as the politics, her legal abilities were reflected in the fact she had been a partner in a major mid-Georgia law firm when female associates, let alone partners, had been rare. Even though her experience had been more in the boardroom than the courtroom, she had surprised a number of unwary lawyers with a knowledge of evidence, procedure and the other arcanum of the trial practice. She had a reputation of being fair but hard-assed, the description usually given to a judge who suffered fools poorly and the unprepared worse.

Judge Carver lowered half-moon glasses from her forehead and studied the papers in front of her before looking up. "You are Mr. Langford Reilly?"

Lang, still standing, nodded. "Guilty, Your Honor."

A trace of a smile flickered and disappeared across the judicial countenance. Score one small point for the good guys.

"Welcome to the middle district, Mr. Reilly. I understand you practice mainly in Atlanta."

Lang wasn't the only one who had done their homework.

"You have already met Mr. Roads, I see."

"Yes, ma'am."

She was still scanning the papers in front of her. "We are here today for a formal arraignment, plea and scheduling. Is that you gentlemen's understanding?"

"And application for bond, Your Honor," Lang added.

Roads was on his feet. "Your Honor, the defendant is charged with trafficking in narcotics, a serious felony…"

She silenced him with a frown and a cocked eyebrow. "Have a seat, Mr. Roads. It's customary to hear the defendant's plea before a bond application."

Flustered, the assistant US attorney sat back down and began thumbing through one of the file folders.

Judge Carver began reading the charges, a long, repetitious list of misdeeds and offenses. When she finished, she looked up. "How does the defendant plead?"

Lang was still standing. "Not guilty, Your Honor."

There was a tug at the back of his suit jacket. Larry had a question.

"May I confer with my client?" he asked the judge.

After receiving an affirmative nod, he knelt beside Larry.

"I done it, done what they said. I unnerstan' from the

folks down to the jail you get a lighter sentence, you admit what you done"

"I didn't say you didn't do what they charge," Lang whispered. "I said you were not guilty. Believe me, there's a difference. Besides, if we have to, we can change our plea."

"But how-?"

Lang held out a hand for him to be quiet. He understood Larry's discomfort. His fate in the hands of a system he did not comprehend, he understandably relied on what he knew usually worked: honesty and candor, two traits virtually unknown to the judicial system.

"Do we still have a 'not guilty'?" the judge asked impatiently.

"We do, Your Honor. Now, if I may, I'd like to ask the court to set bond. Mr. Henderson is a lifelong resident of Lamar County, where he was born and grew up as did both his father and grandfather. He owns considerable real estate and has family there. As far as I know, this is his first brush with the criminal justice system. He has been incarcerated since his arrest. I don't understand why he wasn't promptly brought before a magistrate a week or so ago."

It never hurt to point out your client's rights had already been compromised.

Judge Carver was scanning the file in front of her, presumably verifying what Lang had said. "It says here your office informed the clerk you were out of the country. For once the glitch wasn't in the system."

Whoever kept the file on this case did a more meticulous job than Lang was used to. He made a mental note to go easy on the righteous indignation in the future.

"Mr. Roads?"

Dusty was already on his feet. "The government opposes, Your Honor. Mr. Henderson was using his 'considerable property' to grow marijuana. Under the law, he stands to forfeit every square foot of it as contraband. He has no incentive not to flee."

Lang started to reply but the judge silenced him with a wave of the hand. "Bail is set at one million dollars, cash or property. Does Mr. Henderson possess a passport?"

Lang looked at Larry, who shook his head.

"No, Your Honor."

"Very well, then. He may bond out anytime after this hearing."

Dusty half stood. "But-"

"And, Mr. Roads, don't even think about the government interfering with Mr. Henderson putting his real estate up as collateral. You might be able to condemn it as contraband under the law, but not unless and until he's convicted. Understood?"

A hangdog. "Yes, ma'am."

Judge Carver glanced at her watch, seemed satisfied the time so far had been well spent and said, "Now, then, scheduling. Mr. Reilly, what do you propose?"

With his client about to be freed on bond, there was little incentive for a speedy trial. In fact, just the opposite. "Motions in ninety days, trial in six months?"

Again, Dusty was about to stand. The judge waved him back into his seat. "A little prolonged, Mr. Reilly. All motions will be filed not later than sixty days of today." She consulted a computer terminal on the right corner of the bench. "We will begin striking a jury sixty days thereafter."

"That's mighty quick, Your Honor," Lang complained mildly.

"We move a little faster here in the middle district, Mr. Reilly. We don't have the caseloads judges have where you practice. Anything eke gentlemen? No?" She stood. "Good. I'm glad we're all in agreement."

Then she disappeared.

Dusty intercepted Lang in the hallway. "Don't suppose you're interested in discussing savin' the taxpayers the cost of a trial, seein' if we can make a deal?"

Lang shifted his briefcase from his right hand to his left and punched the elevator's "down" button. "You're right, I'm not."

Dusty studied his face a moment as if trying to ascertain if he were serious. "You shittin' me? Your man was growing marijuana, acres of it. We got witnesses, photographs. He's guilty as hell."

The elevator door pinged open and Lang stepped inside. "Maybe. Question is, can you prove it?"

Dusty s expression of incredulity was erased by the closing door.

Lang was certain of the course his defense of Larry would take. There would be no point in challenging the government's case but every reason to prevent them from proving it. The bird-watcher was the obvious starting point.

III.

Piazza dei Cavalleri di Malta

Aventine Hill

Rome

Later that Day

There were perhaps a hundred seats in the priory chapel, Santa Maria del Priorato. Through the arched doorway, men draped in the black hooded robes of next door's Dominican church entered singly or in small groups. Inside, the ancient stone walls were decorated not with figures of saints but with coats of arms bearing the family names of European royalty as well as those of more contemporary princes of international commerce. Instead of large stained glass, the only windows were small and high up the walls as if the builder had wanted to limit not only access but light as well. The impression was that this place could be converted to a fortress in very little time. Through the open door could be seen the famous view of the Vatican. Closer, obelisks and other military trophies were placed around sculpted rose gardens and the tomb of Piranesi, the man whose name had become synonymous with detailed pen-and-ink architectural drawings and who had redesigned the church in the eighteenth century.

When the last man entered, the doors swung silently shut on well-oiled hinges. Overhead lights gave a dim, buttery illumination that softened the old stone walls and flooded corners with shadows. General conversation muted to a few murmurs, then went silent as a single figure proceeded down the center aisle toward the block of marble that was the altar. No doubt it was a combination of the light and his dark floor-length robe that gave the illusion he was floating rather than walking. Just before reaching the altar, he turned, pulling back his hood. A full head of silver hair reflected the light into a golden halo.

He looked around the small church like a man just now deciding what he was going to say before he spoke in Italian. "Brothers, welcome and thank you for obeying my summons on such short notice."

There was the sound of people shifting in their seats, the sound of impatience.

"We are faced today with a peril greater than any we have seen since the Ottoman Turks stood at the gates of Vienna four hundred years ago. It consists of heretical documents defaming our blessed St. Peter, holding the rock of our church up to scorn, opprobrium and ridicule, challenging his and subsequent popes' most holy position as head of the one true faith."

Angry mutters rippled through the assembly. "No!"

"We cannot permit it!"

"I will describe this calumny in more detail shortly," the speaker continued. "First, though, let me remind you of the nature of our order. Most of our brothers, over 95 percent, view their membership as a great honor with the responsibility only of generosity. They have no idea of what we do and lack the strength of will to do it themselves. Without them, though, we would not receive the funds necessary to exist as an order. I mention this because, in less than two weeks, the annual gathering of the entire order will take place. Bankers, stockbrokers, merchants will fill this place for the fellowship and pleasure the order gives them. Under no circumstances must the danger to which I allude still exist. Knowledge of that danger, and the means we must use to combat it, could mean not only the end of our order but also Christ's church as we know it."

He was silent for one, two seconds, letting the urgency of his message sink into the minds of his audience.

Then he continued. "As you know, nearly two millennia ago, the church fathers met at Nicaea to establish commonality of beliefs including the text of what would become the New Testament. The decisions were made and all texts and their copies not included were ordered destroyed as heretical. Until very recently, I had thought the only remaining copies were safely in the Vatican's most secret archives, preserved solely for study. Such is not the case; one has surfaced.

"I will not burden you with the content of this document but only the fact it presents a danger to Holy Mother Church. It and any who may become aware of its blasphemy must be destroyed. Regrettably, this has included some otherwise devout Christians such as one Greek Orthodox priest and, just hours ago, a patriarch of the same faith who somehow let Himself become ensnared in this hideous apostasy."

"Greek or not," someone in the back shouted, "they were fellow Christians!"

There were several more comments against a background of unhappy muttering.

The speaker held up his hands for quiet. "I tell you this, my brothers, only to emphasize the severity of the danger we face. My purpose today is to involve all of you in this most holy crusade to protect the very foundations of the church."

"We are not assassins," a voice protested.

"No," the speaker agreed, "but we all gave the oath of allegiance to the holy church, to oppose her enemies and to obey the orders of our superiors."

"We didn't give an oath to kill," another person said.

"Obedience to one's superiors includes anything that superior, with God's help, deems necessary for the good of the order."

No one could muster an argument against that logic.

Satisfied there would be no further disagreement, the speaker continued. "Here is what we must do…"

IV.

Park Place

2660 Peachtree Road Atlanta

Two Days Later

Lang had to do something about completing the restoration of the burned-out shell that had been his home. Letters from management imploring action had turned into pleas from the condominium association invoking sympathy for his fellow residents' property values. Now he was receiving angry demands citing association rules. Management had called his office almost daily as unwanted and unordered appliances arrived from Home Depot. Repeated calls from Lang's secretary, Sara, to the company had elicited promises to remove not only the bidet, dishwasher and huge stove but also two shower stalls, two sinks (one porcelain, the other stainless steel), the newest in minimum water usage toilet arid a giant gas barbeque "grill that would have been at home on any patio that included a football field. Instead, each arrival of the delivery truck heralded the appearance of more home furnishings that had already overflowed Lang's small unit and the building's basement storage area as well.

The company's explanation was always the same: a computer glitch, a gremlin in the system who had, so far, eluded whatever efforts Home Depot had exerted. Lang guessed that somewhere a contractor was sliding into bankruptcy as item after item failed to materialize at one job site after another while the supply company's posse chased fruitlessly through cyberspace. As is often the case, technology had replaced reality.

It had become clear the problem wasn't going to get solved by phone. Besides, Lang was eager to prepare the place for sale and look for more spacious quarters for his new family before the homeowners' association filed suit. He had an even greater incentive to find a new home: Now that Judge Carver had prohibited any forfeiture action by the government, the US Marshals Service had lost interest in surveillance. The farm was no longer secure.

He would have to at least begin making repairs to the condo to mollify his neighbors. He could hardly consult with a contractor without pointing out the work he wanted done. The problem, of course, was the condo was an obvious place to keep under observation by those who had tried to kill him.

Wearing jeans and a shirt, Gurt pulled the rented SUV under the porte cochere, surrendering the vehicle to an acne-faced young man in a white shirt and black clip-on bow tie who fidgeted impatiently while she released Manfred from the constraints of his kiddie seat. Hand in hand, mother and child entered the building.

Moments later, a man walking a very ugly dog turned in from the sidewalk. His stooped back and deliberate step gave a sense of age's infirmity, an impression difficult to verify since the pedestrian wore a cap pulled low on his forehead and the collar of his shirt turned up as if to ward off a chill despite the warmth of the day. Whatever his decrepitude, the greeting by the concierge at the desk evidenced he and the dog belonged in the building.

After an elevator ride, Lang and Grumps exited facing a rather poor reproduction Boule chest topped with a worse reproduction of a Ming vase. Even the flowers it contained were silk, not real. Lang knew the condo association's decorator was gay. Strange he had an affinity for reproduction of any sort.

The building's elevators opened onto a sort of foyer with a condominium unit around each corner. Two steps to his right brought Lang to his door where Gurt, Manfred in hand, was talking to a burly man in a sport shirt and slacks, no doubt the contractor the condo association had recommended.

"Mr. Haverly?"

Lang extended his hand to have it encased in a bear's paw. "Mr. Reilly. I was just describing to your missus here what our options might be. You understand we're pretty much starting from scratch."

"Pretty much, if that," Lang replied hurriedly, before Gurt could correct the man's perception of her marital status. "Even fixed up, the place is too small. I'd like to get it done on a reasonable budget as quickly as possible, put it on the market."

While Haverly seemed to be considering this new twist, Lang leaned over and unlocked the door. He shoved it open, releasing the odor of things burned.

Manfred made an exaggerated face, holding his nose. "Phew! Still stinks!"

Grumps snorted his disapproval before taking tentative steps inside.

Lang waited a second for Gurt to join in, grateful when she didn't.

Haverly's eyes were taking in the empty shell of what had been Lang's home when the contractor's cell phone beeped.

"Yeah?"

He turned to Lang. "One of my men's downstairs, says there's a delivery truck from Home Depot."

Lang's sigh was lost in the sound of his grinding teeth. At least this time he would meet face-to-face with a flesh-and-blood employee instead of a sympathetic but totally unhelpful telephone voice.

He handed Grumps's leash to Gurt. "I'll be back in a minute."

Seeing his expression, she shook her head. "Remember, the man is only doing his work. It will do no good to gnaw him."

"Chew him out."

"That either."

Lang used the elevator ride to try to cool off. Gurt was right: Blasting a mere truck deliveryman wasn't going to solve the problem. Maybe he could hold the truck hostage, maybe…

The elevator doors wheezed open and Lang stormed into the building's lobby. And stopped as though he had hit a brick wall. The cool marble was empty except for the doorman and the concierge who were staring at him as they might a man suddenly gone mad. There was no truck waiting on the other side of the glass doors, no one waiting for him here.

"Is there anything wrong, Mr. Reilly?" asked the doorman, whose expression said he thought, yes, there was something very wrong with Mr. Reilly.

"A delivery truck," Lang stammered, "And an associate of Mr. Haverly…"

"Mr. Haverly?" the concierge asked, a note of concern breaking through his professional calm like a rock jutting above the surface of an otherwise placid ocean. He looked out onto the empty circular driveway. "Delivery truck?"

Oh, shit!

Lang urged the gracefully smooth rise of the elevator to greater speed. It seemed to take hours to reach his floor. When he arrived, only Grumps was there to meet him. Gurt, Manfred and Haverly were gone.

V.

Park Place

Seconds Earlier

Gurt was never certain where they came from, the two men with guns. Two things were clear: they knew this Mr. Haverly and they had been waiting for Lang to leave the floor.

Her first thought was for Manfred's safety and her second the Glock. The latter dissolved when one of the men took her purse, emptied its contents and stuck the gun in his waistband.

Wordlessly, the second motioned her outside the condo and to the freight elevator where Haverly was holding the door open. Even as frightened as she was for her child's safety, her professional training did not desert her. She watched the two men as the elevator sank below the lobby toward the underground parking levels of the building. They were clearly tense, if not nervous. Each had his finger on the trigger of his weapon. A professional would have his trigger finger along the barrel of the pistol where it could be moved in an instant but not cause an accidental firing in the meantime. A professional would never have left her purse and its contents on the floor, a clear indication she had not left voluntarily. Someone experienced in this sort of thing would want to cause as much uncertainty as possible, delay any pursuit. Neither were accustomed to handling firearms; neither had experience in an abduction.

That was both the… What was it Americans said? Ach, ja, the good news and the bad news. Nervous amateurs were likely to overreact. Or act hastily. On the other side, these men might not be aware of what a person, a mere woman, could do with bare hands if given the opportunity.

And she was going to do her best to see they did just that.

"Where are we going?" she asked in a trembling voice. "Please, let the child go. I'll come peacefully. Please don't hurt him."

"Lady," one of them said as the elevator came to a stop, "you and the kid do as you're told and neither of you get hurt."

She recognized the line from an old movie she and Lang had watched on television. But these men were not Hollywood actors, and she didn't believe men abducted people without purpose. And she was pretty sure what that purpose was.

Drama had never been Gurt's forte, but she was going to play the part of a terrified female to the best of her ability. She might even manage a tear or two. No one would recognize the difference between tears of terror and those of. rage. In the meantime, she would access what assets she could muster.

Like the BlackBerry in the pocket of her jeans.

Haverly stood beside the open rear doors of an unmarked white van. All but the front seat had been removed. Gurt stopped until she was roughly shoved from behind.

"Remember, lady, you try something and the kid gets it."

She recognized the gun pressed against her son's head as one of the Heckler & Koch P9 "blowback" models. Its muzzle size suggested the.45-caliber version made fear the American market who found the European 9mm either suspect or too puny. The child's eyes were wide with fear and he was manfully fighting back tears. It took considerable effort for Gurt to restrain her rage at the terror inflicted on her son. These men might be amateurs, but that didn't mean they wouldn't do as they threatened.

She climbed into the back of the van, sitting splay-legged with her back against the side. Manfred huddled against her, momentarily shielding her left side from view. She reached into her jeans pocket, felt the BlackBerry and prayed the keys she was punching by touch alone were the right ones.

VI.

Park Place

Lang inhaled deeply, forcing himself to be calm. He knelt, ignoring the pain the move shot up his leg, an abrupt reminder his healing still had a way to go. Compact, lipstick, purse, stuff Gurt would never have left behind voluntarily. They had tried to grab her and Manfred once before, the episode in Baden-Baden.

Now they had succeeded.

They.

He had been gone, what, five minutes at the most? Perhaps not time for them to clear the building.

Leaving Grumps in the hollow shell of the condo, Lang was tempted to take the stairs. But no matter how quickly he moved, the elevator was going to be faster descending twenty-four floors. Even so, the trip seemed to last an eternity. When he finally burst out into the lobby, he made for the concierge.

"The contractor, Haverly, has he come through here?" The man gave him a look that clearly said he already thought Lang had gone nuts and this merely confirmed it. "Haverly? Haverly Construction? Haven't seen him in weeks."

"But he was just here, looking at my unit."

"I don't think so, Mr. Reilly."

"Then who the hell was…" Lang made himself pause, swallow hard. "There was a man on my floor, claimed to be Haverly. Just how the hell did he get in? He had to come right past here."

The concierge shrugged, unperturbed. "Not necessarily. The building can be accessed from the parking levels."

Lang was dumbstruck. It had never occurred to him that the security apparatus that represented a substantial portion of his condominium dues could be short-circuited so easily.

"You mean just anyone can drive down to parking and enter?"

"They would show up on the security cameras' tapes."

Swell.

By the time tapes were reviewed, someone could walk off with half the building. With any luck, that would include the faux Boule chest and Ming vase. Silk flowers, too.

"You're telling me no one watches the cameras?"

The man behind the desk was adroit in blame shifting. At some point in his life he clearly had been employed by some level of government. Or Home Depot's customer service. "You'll have to take that up with the security office, Mr. Reilly."

"Screw that. There's no time!" he spat.

He started to dash for the elevator and to the parking areas when he saw a white van drive from that direction and stop at the traffic light where the drive met Peachtree Street.

He yelled, over his shoulder, "Is there any work going on in any of the units today?"

All workmen had to check in and out with the concierge.

The concierge opened a desk drawer and took a brief look at a legal pad.

"Hurry up, dammit!" Lang exploded.

"No, not today."

Instead of the elevators, Lang charged outside where an elderly woman was being helped from her massive S-series Mercedes Panzer by one of the carhops. She fumbled with a cane while a second was opening the trunk. Only yards away, the traffic light turned green and the van turned right into traffic.

"Excuse me!"

Lang was in the Mercedes's driver seat, knocking the woman one way, her cane another. Before anyone could protest, rubber was shrieking against pavement and the two carhops diving out of the way, forgetting the poor woman. She sat on the pavement, middle finger extended. In the car's mirror Lang could read her lips as she shouted, "Fuck you, asshole!"

Not his grandmother.

The big car fishtailed onto the street just as the light turned red again. Lang was far too intent on the white van to hear the yells and curses of the carhops as they dusted themselves off and inspected minor abrasions caused by impact with concrete.

Granny had to get up herself.

Lang's impulse was to force the van over to the curb. He resisted. It was a fair assumption that Gurt had not gone with the occupant or occupants of that vehicle willingly. They had likely been armed and they certainly now had her Glock, too. Putting the kidnappers in a position where shooting would endanger not only Gurt but also Manfred. Instead, Lang dropped back, allowing one or two cars between him and the van. He only hoped he wasn't spotted.

Then his BlackBerry chirped. A quick glance showed Gurt's number.

He fumbled for the Bluetooth earpiece, and put it in place. At first he heard nothing, then, "This van is uncomfortable."

He started to reply before realizing she wasn't speaking to him. She was verifying that she was in the van.

He heard a man's voice, but the words were indistinguishable.

"Can't one of the three of you…"

He missed the rest, but he got the message.

The van continued with the normal flow of traffic. Lang could only hope that a series of turns didn't betray the tail. Instead, the van entered 175-85, heading south. A few exits later, it turned onto the ramp for I20 West. Lang was trying to guess where they might be going.

Birmingham?

His answer came a few minutes later when the van turned off the interstate. Lang knew the exit well. It was the one for Fulton County-Charlie Brown Field, the place the foundation kept the Gulfstream.

As if in confirmation, Gurt's voice said, "Why are we going to Charlie Brown Airport?"

Again, the unintelligible response.

At the terminal building, the car took a right turn. Lang knew the road led to only one place: Hill Aviation, the only fixed-base operator on this side of the field. The asphalt was slightly above the level of the airport itself, giving him a view of the ramp area in front of Hill. A stretch Lear was taxiing on the tarmac. Nothing unusual about that. Except the identification letters, what would have been the N number on an American plane. Foreign countries, including all of Europe, used letters only.

Lang felt a jolt of panic. They were going to try to get Gurt and his son out of the country. If he was going to stop them…

The van turned off the road and down a slope to the FBO. Lang followed.

His turn must have alerted someone the van had been followed, for it spurted ahead to the gate in the security chain-link fence. Not waiting for someone inside to verify their identity, the van smashed through the fence as though the steel links were made of paper.

By the time Lang followed, the Lear was already moving toward the van, its clamshell door yawning open like the mouth of a predator about to feed. Helpless, Lang watched three men hop out of the van and herd Gurt, holding Manfred's hand, aboard.

The door closed just as the Mercedes reached the plane, already in motion. Lang was tempted to ram the fragile hull but knew that such action could rupture an auxiliary fuel cell, engulfing the Lear in flames.

Instead, he watched the plane lumber away like a waddling goose, slow and clumsy on the ground but a picture of grace and speed in the air.

Well, sitting here wasn't going to do any good, and he doubted the two cars with the flashing yellow lights of the airport's hired security were going to be a lot of help, either. By the time he explained what had happened, the Lear would be in the air, miles away. He didn't think the plane had the fuel capacity to cross an ocean without at least one stop, but where? The flight plan mandatory for flights at jet altitudes would reveal that information, a plan from which no aircraft in US airspace could deviate without risking attention from air force F-18's. But how long would it take to secure the information? The very fact he had followed the van through the pitifully inadequate security fence would cause the rent-a-cops to hold him until police arrived.

A half a mile away, a small Cessna lifted into the air from runway nine and gave Lang an idea.

He stood on the Mercedes's accelerator, pleased to find power under the hood proportional to the car's bulk. He sped after the slow-moving Lear, trailing two light-flashing cars behind on the taxiway.

Inside the Lear, Gurt and Manfred had been forced into two of the four forward-facing seats, two and two separated by a narrow aisle. Behind them, a pair of small sofas faced each other across a small table of plastic faux wood, their backs molded into the curving hull of the airplane. The interior had no personal touches. It was as cold as a hotel lobby. One of the pilots stooped to enter the cabin from the cockpit. He whispered something Gurt could not hear to the man who had identified himself as Haverly. Both men were looking at her.

Not a good sign.

Haverly squatted beside her seat. "Ground control tells us some idiot is following this plane in a car. I think we both know who that idiot might be."

Gurt said nothing, trying to hide her satisfaction.

Haverly handed her a cell phone. "Now, you call Mr. Reilly, tell him if he doesn't call off this absurd chase, the little boy will be dead before takeoff."

Gurt made a decision. She shoved away Haverly and produced her BlackBerry. "This you have heard, Lang?"

"You bitch!" Haverly snarled, grabbing for the BlackBerry. "They were supposed to search you! No wonder he tracked us so easily. I should have killed you and taken the boy."

Gurt wasn't listening. Instead, she was staring at the tiny screen of the BlackBerry. She read the two lines and deleted them just as Haverly snatched it away. As she knew he would, Lang had a plan.

The taxiway was too narrow to pass the jet, blocking its way. Lang had considered driving off onto the unpaved shoulder but discarded the idea for fear the Mercedes's weight might mire him in soft soil or mud. Now that he had been able to communicate with Gurt, he had a slightly modified course of action in mind. He ground his teeth in impatience waiting for the Lear to reach the end of the taxiway, the place it would have to swing wide to the right to align itself with the runway.

Haverly, or whoever he was, was still standing over Gurt when the plane began a slow swing to the right, just as Lang

had predicted. She pushed Manfred down in his seat, a move that attracted Haverly's attention. He drew her Glock from his belt.

"What th' hell you think you're…?"

Lang saw the plane begin its slow turn and slammed the gas pedal to the floor.

The most vulnerable part of any modern aircraft is the nose wheel. It is lighter than the other two gears so it can easily be moved as a steering mechanism by pressing one rudder pedal or the other. The landing, or main, gear are hardy shock absorbers, designed to take the impact of the worst landings while the pilot holds the delicate nose gear off the round until it can be lowered somewhat more gently.

That was Lang's target.

With a whip of the wrists, the Mercedes was around the front of the Lear, describing a semicircle. The arc came to an abrupt end when the steel of the German car smashed into the nose wheel strut, snapping it as though it were a dry twig.

Haverly had reached out a hand to steady himself as the aircraft began its swing onto the runway in anticipation of takeoff. Suddenly the plane pitched forward and down, throwing him off balance.

Gurt moved.

Pushing up from her seat, her left hand grabbed his right wrist, swinging the Glock harmlessly upward. Her right fist impacted just below his sternum with all the force of her full body and legs behind it. With a whoosh, Haverly doubled over. Still holding his right wrist, she yanked down, her left foot on his, tumbling him onto the floor between her and the other two men seated behind on the sofas and effectively blocking their line of fire.

She had to hope the two pilots were unarmed.

"Mutter!" Manfred screamed from somewhere behind her.

She whirled in the narrow aisle just in time to see one of the pilots lunge for her.

He was met with a smashing blow. Its impact was not quite as loud as the crunch of nose cartilage. Nothing is more temporarily disabling than a sudden, unexpected and severe dose of pain. He sat suddenly, his face puzzled, perhaps contemplating his sudden and involuntary rhinomycosis as a flood of crimson dripped from his chin.

Now the aisle was blocked from the cockpit side, too.

The man who had called himself Haverly was on all fours, trying to get up. The Glock was still clutched in his right hand. Gurt brought the heel of her left shoe down on his wrist. Howling with the pain of a potentially shattered ulna, he let go of the gun only a split second before her right foot caught him under the chin at the end of a kick that would have done credit to an NFL punter.

She dived for the floor as a shot, magnified by the confines of the aircraft's cabin, rang in her ears. She had to divert any gunfire from where Manfred was wailing in fright. Glock now in her possession, she thumbed off the safety and she rolled behind a seat as the one next to it disintegrated under a hailstorm of bullets.

On her stomach, she pushed herself back into the aisle and aimed at an indistinct form blurred by a cloud of cordite-stinking smoke. The Glock jumped in her two-handed grip, her ears by now deaf to the gunfire. Somewhere toward the back of the Lear, she made out a face, its eyes crossed as if trying to focus on the neat red hole between them before it pitched forward and disappeared.

Now silence pealed in her ears, loud as the gunfire itself. Cautiously, she peered around the edge of one of the sofas. Not five feet away, Haverly and the other man who had been in the condo were looking back at her. The Glock came up and both men raised their hands. They had had enough.

But she had not. Alternating the Glock's muzzle from one man's chest to the other, she quickly stepped over to where Manfred's cries had become moans. If there was so much as a scratch on him…

Haverly read her mind. "We weren't going to hurt him, honest"

Gurt savored the fear that was emanating from her former captors as she might enjoy the bouquet of a fine wine. She had to battle the impulse that sought retribution for the ordeal her child had suffered both here and in Baden- Baden.

"Your weapons, throw them here. Left hands only!"

With shaky hands, they did as they were told.

Only then did she allow herself to move her eyes to where Manfred was on the floor, scrunched up behind a seat in a tight ball that seemed to deny the existence of a skeletal structure. He grabbed for her desperately and climbed into the open arm, the one not holding the Glock.

Other than understandably terrified, he was fine.

A sound behind her caused her to spin. The pilot, copilot, she was never sure which, with the broken nose still sat on the floor, his hands futilely trying to staunch the flow of blood. Behind him, the other crew member was reaching to open the cockpit door. His hands flew up in surrender the moment she faced him.

"Er, ma'am, someone is outside. Shall I open up?"

She heard it for the first time, a beating on the aircraft's hull along with muffled shouts.

"Ein augenblick, a moment, please." She motioned to Haverly and his man. "Your pockets, empty them there." She indicated the low table between the sofas. "Schnell, quickly!"

She allowed herself a tight smile as she watched them rush to comply. She had not been conscious of the German she tended to speak when excited.

Unlike any professional on a similar mission, these men had papers, perhaps identifying papers, on them. Even a pair of passports in a language she could not read.

She stuffed them into a pocket before turning to the crew member. "Open the door."

Lang waited nervously as the door opened. A man in a pilot's uniform was the first thing he saw, suddenly pushed aside as Manfred, a small missile, launched down the stairs and into Lang's arms.

He raised a tear-streaked face. "Vatti, I was so scared!"

VII.

Rectory

Church of the Immaculate Conception

48 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive

Atlanta

That Evening

Exhausted, Manfred slept where he had gone to sleep on the floor of the small library, his head resting against Grumps's flank as the dog continued his nearly perpetual nap. Lang and Gurt shared a leather settee. Across from them, Francis occupied a leather wing chair. All three held glasses of scotch, varying only in degrees of dilution by ice cubes. The two men puffed on Montecristo #2's, the fat pyramidos Lang had shipped from Cuba via the French West Indies on a regular basis. The ashtray in front of Gurt displayed filters, tombstones of Marlboros. A stratus cloud of tobacco smoke hung against the ceiling.

Francis puckered his lips, ejected a shimmering blue smoke ring and watched it expand. "Must have been some kind of a scene at Charlie Brown this afternoon. Local TV news even got most of it right: Attempted kidnapping by some kind of foreign agents, maybe Islamic terrorists, ritzy airplane, woman foils plot. Never did quite explain the why of it, though."

Lang took a long sip from his glass followed by a lazy puff on the cigar. "FBI sees a motive in it."

Francis chuckled, a low warm sound. "Let me guess." He held up both hands, two fingers of each extended to make quotation marks. "Son of wealthy local philanthropist object of kidnap. Child's mother, father foil plot with quick action. One dead. Film at eleven. That about it?"

"As far as the fibbies are concerned, yeah." Lang got up and crossed the room to a small bar, helped himself and tinkled ice cubes into his glass. "They'll spin a few wheels trying to ID the real owner of that Lear jet-or what's left of it." He looked at Gurt, eyebrows arched. "Next time, try not to trash the interior of expensive aircraft."

She was reaching for the cigarette pack on a small table. She shook it, frowned and fished in her suitcase-size purse for another pack. "And you did good to the entire front end and nose gear?"

"Anyway," Lang continued, "I'm sure the plane is registered to some untraceable shell corporation. They'll never find out who those bozos really are."

Gurt looked up as she shook a cigarette out of the new pack. "But we know."

Both men stared at her.

"We do?" Lang finally managed.

She took the unlit cigarette from between her lips. She was mining that huge purse again, this time producing two passports. "I relieved our Herr Haverly and his friend of these."

Lang took them in his hand, studying the front of each. "Some kidnappers, carrying ID like that! Hardly professionals; might as well have had name tags. I don't think I've ever seen…"

Francis set down his drink and came to look over Lang's shoulder. "Those are Vatican passports."

"The pope is trying to kill us?" Gurt asked incredulously.

Francis took the documents from Lang. "Let me have these. It's a bit late to be calling Rome right now, but I can promise you I'll be burning up the line to the Vatican foreign office first thing in the morning." He put them down on the bar and turned to face Lang. "Perhaps there's something you're not telling me?"

Lang inspected the tip of his cigar. He had intentionally not told his friend about the James translation just as he had kept secret several past theological discoveries, particularly what he referred to as the Pegasus matter. Francis was a good friend and devout in his faith. Such matters would only cause him pain and doubt.

He was also a good enough friend to know when Lang wasn't being entirely candid. "Well?"

Lang took a healthy swig from his glass as though that would anesthetize his discomfort. "The Gospel of James, the Nag Hammadi book I mentioned…"

Francis ignored the growing length of his cigar ash, letting it finally fall onto the floor. "And?"

"It states that Christ reappeared to the apostles, including James, for the purpose of removing Peter as the leader of the early church. Peter got angry and killed James."

"Like the fresco we saw at the Vatican that day," Francis said.

Lang was thankful the priest was so calm about something that contravened everything he had been taught.

"So, why does that mean people would want to harm our child?" Gurt asked.

Francis shook his head slowly, wearied by the things some do in the name of faith. "Peter was the rock upon which Christ founded his church. To make him into not only a petty political squabbler but a murderer… well, it would certainly rewrite the days of early Christianity as we know it, cast doubt on the validity of other gospels. It would be like… like discovering George Washington was actually in the pay of the British. Peter, his view of what the church should be, formed the very basis of the church we have today. The church, the papacy, the sacraments, a great deal of the ritual, all of it. There are some in the church, some of the ultraconservatives, who would deny there is any truth whatsoever to your book. And some who would do anything to suppress it."

"Including killing someone?" Lang asked.

"We're not proud of it, but that's what the Inquisition was all about: crushing heresy by killing heretics. Anyone who thinks that mentality doesn't still exist among some ultrareactionaries is kidding themselves." Francis gave a sad little smile. "You already have your answer. Find those who feel that violently about it and you have your assassins."

"Makes sense," Lang mused aloud. "Leaving clues at murder scenes that related to the martyrdom of various saints. Would have to be religious zealots. Problem is, who?" He turned to Francis. "And you?"

Francis gave a deep sigh. "Faith is not knowledge; it is belief in what we cannot know. What I believe is that Our Lord walked this earth and I intend to follow him, no matter who did so first, Peter or James. On an intellectual level, I know that all gospels were written after the Crucifixion, the closest perhaps seventy years later. There are discrepancies as there would be in any history after the fact. One gospel has Jesus born in a barn, another in a house and a third and fourth don't mention the birth at all. Who is to say your Nag Hammadi book is correct and Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are wrong?"

"But the fresco…?"

Francis shrugged. "The Vatican, like all of Rome, is full of fanciful art as we discussed about the Final Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. The imagination of some Renaissance artist, no matter how talented, is nothing more than that, imagination. Don't worry about my faith, my good friend; worry about who is trying to kill you."

VIII.

Atlanta Headquarters

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Richard Russell Federal

Building The Next Day

Lang and Gurt were at a table in a windowless conference room. Manfred sat quietly beside her, crayon in his fist as he obliterated the pictures in his coloring book in a maze of hues that were not greatly different from the contemporary art hanging in the building's lobby. She was unwilling to let him out of her sight and Lang had realized early the futility of trying to persuade her otherwise.

The incident at Charlie Brown yesterday involved an attempted kidnapping, clearly the turf of the federal government. The fact that an aircraft, an instrument of interstate, if not international, commerce was involved only strengthened their territorial claims. The local cops could do little but complain that a homicide, a state offense, had occurred. For the moment at least, the investigation would be conducted by the FBI, not the Atlanta police.

Before arrival in the US, the Lear had filed an international flight plan originating from Ciampino, Rome's other airport, used by private and charter aircraft. It had made two intermediate fueling stops. The registration had led to a dead end, a company based in the Chanel Islands where corporate secrecy was a major export.

In short, the FBI, so far, knew less that Lang and Gurt.

The matter would be handled in a professional, not an Inspector Clouseau-type, manner.

Lang got up and walked over to the window, taking in Atlanta's railroad gulch, a scar of empty space that had once been the locale of two rail terminals. The stations and tracks were long gone, leaving a spaghetti bowl of overpasses above kudzu-lined parking lots. At the far end, the Georgia Dome's canvas roof rose like a poisonous mushroom. If view were any criterion, the bureau did not rank high in the federal pecking order.

He turned as the door behind him opened and a chubby-faced young man entered with slender file under one arm.

He plopped his burden down on the table and extended a hand. "Special Agent Kurt Widner. I want to thank both of you for coming down here today."

He sat, opening his file. "Mr. Reilly, would you mind returning to the reception area?"

Lang would have been surprised if he had not been asked to retire. Basic interrogation procedure required each witness to be interviewed out of the hearing of another. In this case, the practice was reduced to form over function. He and Gurt had had plenty of time to decide what would and would not be said. Lang retraced his steps down a short corridor to the receptionist's area, a window- less room as bleak as the conference room. The picture of the president and the copy of the Constitution ubiquitous to federal offices were the only decorations. The room contained but two chairs separated by a small table of cheap laminate. Both chairs were occupied. The bureau was unusually popular this morning.

Lang looked around, uncertain of what to do.

"I can borrow a chair from the conference room," chirped the receptionist from behind her sliding plastic window.

Lang turned and saw a smiling black woman. "Thanks. If you'll unlock the door, I'll save you the trouble. I know the way."

There was a buzz as the dead bolt slid back and Lang reentered the hall he had just left. The receptionist was a new hire, he guessed. The few previous visits he had made here had been characterized by security measures far beyond what was necessary to protect whatever investigations were under way. Or Fort Knox. Locks on every door, every door locked, every visitor thoroughly vetted, scanned and escorted. The bureau either took itself very seriously or suffered mass paranoia. Or both.

One door was ajar. Not surprisingly, it bore the name of Special Agent Kurt Widner. He had not shut and locked his office, intending to go between here and the conference room as he checked facts on his computer while interviewing Gurt and Lang. A metal government-issue desk occupied most of the space, crowding a desk chair on one side and a small metal chair with a shiny vinyl seat on the other. There was hardly room for the squat iron safe in the far corner.

A small hinged frame contained picturers of an attractive woman and a child of undeterminable sex. Lang smiled. Ever since the Hoover days, the bureau had been big on just this sort of homey touch. So great had been the pressure on agents to enjoy familial bliss that Lang had heard of single or divorced agents who displayed pictures of strangers or other people's kids rather than risk the director's disfavor. Strange, considering Hoover himself had never married.

The photos shared the desktop with a computer and several files. Lang hefted the chair with the vinyl seat and was about to leave when his eye caught a label on one of the folders.

dea co-op. And in smaller letters: lamar co. ga.

Still holding the chair, Lang backed into the hall and looked both ways. Empty. He could get in big trouble, both with the fibbies and the state bar, for what he was about to do. The upside was that he was about to have some real fun.

He stepped back into the office, shut the door and began to skim the file, an outline of a joint investigation between the Drug Enforcement Agency in middle Georgia and the Atlanta FBI. Mere coincidence he had found this? No, not really. Bringing in agents both from Atlanta and a different branch of law enforcement whose faces would be unknown in Lamar County made sense. If there was luck involved, it was that Special Agent Widner had gotten careless. Lang would have liked to have taken notes, but there simply wasn't time. At some point, Agent Widner was going to come back here or the receptionist would come looking for him. He scanned the file a second time, making sure of the relevant details.

On the way back from the federal building, Gurt and Lang discussed their separate interviews. From the questions asked, it seemed clear the feds were clueless as to the identity of the would-be kidnappers. Lang gathered that, whoever they were, they were being less than cooperative when questioned. But they were in custody and would be indefinitely, hopefully long enough for Lang to discover who had sent them before they tried again.

In the meantime, Lang had to find the would-be assassins. Trying to kill him was real personal. Attempting to harm his new family was even more so.

But first, Lang would be busy with another matter.

IX.

United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia

Macon, Georgia

A Week Later

The drive to Macon had seemed endless even though only eighty miles of interstate separated it from Atlanta, where Lang and Grumps had become indefinite guests at Francis's rectory. No one followed Lang on a few aimless excursions from the interstate. Before leaving, he had verified his still-unknown enemies were still in the custody of the feds in Atlanta. Whoever they were, they apparently did not have endless reinforcements.

Surprisingly, Gurt had offered little argument when a European vacation-bound friend of Lang's had offered the use of a cottage on the grounds of the High Hampton Inn in the mountains near Cashiers, North Carolina. She would scrupulously avoid the use of credit cards, ATMs or anything else that might leave a record of her presence there. Happily, other than homemade quilts, tacky handicrafts and overpriced junk that every roadside stand proclaimed to be "genuine mountain antiques," there was nothing to buy. The accommodations were rustic at best, the hotel's food wholesome if unappetizing. But the view was magnificent, the climate temperate as compared to Atlanta from June until September. Best of all, a number of young mothers and their broods summered there while their husbands labored during the week in Charlotte, Atlanta, Birmingham or a dozen other southeastern cities. Manfred had more playmates than he ever had and Gurt could watch for strangers who would stand out like a missing plank in a picket fence.

Francis was still trying his Vatican contacts to learn more than the names of the men in the Lear jet but so far without success. Lang got the impression the delay was more attributable to red tape than stonewalling. Not even the Holy Father was immune to bureaucracy and this one had had two millennia to become entrenched, immovable and unhelpful.

Lang eased the Porsche into a parking lot, thankful he had mended enough to manage the car's manual transmission. His two-block stroll to the courthouse reminded him he had also healed enough to resume his regularly scheduled workouts.

Sam "Dusty" Roads, the youthful United States attorney, was already in the courtroom, accompanied by an older man whom Lang recognized as a senior US attorney from the northern division. His name eluded memory's grasp. Dusty's greeting was decidedly less enthusiastic than his previous one.

"What the hell are you trying to do, Reilly?"

Lang put his slim attaché case down on counsel table and smiled. "And a good morning to you, too. What I'm trying to do is to have my client acquitted."

"What you're going to do is get yourself sanctioned," the older man growled. "Subpoenaing a federal agent, demanding sensitive FBI files… In case you didn't know, the bureau isn't involved in this case. The DEA is."

The smile never left Lang's face. His experience was that the greater the government bluster, the better chance he was on track. And a senior US attorney hadn't driven down here for the ride. "Thanks for enlightening me."

"You may think this is some kind of a joke, Reilly, but-"

He was interrupted by the door opening. All three men turned to see Larry Henderson timidly peering into the courtroom like a mouse trying to decide if it was safe to leave its hole.

Lang motioned. "C'mon in, Larry. Us lawyers were just exchanging pleasantries."

Freed of leg irons since he was out of jail on bond, Larry nonetheless traversed the room with uncertain steps and sat next to Lang. He wore a suit with a tie narrow enough to serve as a shoestring, something Lang guessed had belonged to his father. Before the two could exchange greetings, the marshal appeared to herald Judge Carver's ascension to the bench. The judge nodded a no-nonsense "good morning," sat and began to thumb through the case file while the court reporter wound paper into her machine.

After a full minute, the judge looked up. "We are here today at the defendant's special request for an early hearing on the defendant's motion to suppress evidence, specifically any marijuana allegedly taken from the premises of the defendant. Do I have that right?"

Al Silverstein, that was the man's name, the US attorney from Atlanta, Lang recalled as he stood. "Yes, Your Honor."

Silverstein was on his feet before Lang could sit. "Before we begin that, Your Honor, the government has a motion to quash a subpoena served on an FBI agent and a subpoena duces tecum calling for the production of certain sensitive documents from the bureau."

Was that the ghost of a smile Lang saw around the judge's lips? "I am well aware all documents from the bureau are sensitive, Mr…"

"Forgive me, Your Honor, Silverstein."

"Yes, well, what's the connection between a Drug Enforcement Agency prosecution and the FBI, Mr. Reilly?"

Lang knew better than to give the government time to mount a defense by showing his cards before he had to. "The defendant believes that will become self-evident as this hearing progresses."

"But, Your Honor," Silverstein argued, "the very point of our opposition to letting Mr. Reilly proceed with this, this circus, is that both the witness he has subpoenaed and the records he seeks are both irrelevant and potentially harmful to ongoing investigations."

Judge Carver touched her lips with her pen, thinking. "This is a nonjury hearing, Mr. Silverstein. I determine what is or is not relevant. You may object at the appropriate places. If you like, I can order the transcript sealed."

A sealed transcript was not what Silverstein had in mind, but he knew better than to risk provoking the judge's impatience. He sat with a deflated, "Very well, Your Honor."

Round one to the defense.

The judge was looking at Lang. "Mr. Reilly, you have a statement?"

"No, Your Honor, but I would like to make one at the conclusion of this hearing."

"Very well. Proceed."

Lang placed a hand on Larry's shoulder. "We call Mr. Larry Henderson."

Larry went to the witness stand with nervous steps, shoulders slumped as he swore to tell the truth. He sat as if the chair contained thorns rather than a cushion.

After the preliminary questions as to his name and residence, Lang asked, "Do you recall any unusual incident the week before you were arrested?"

Larry nodded. "Uh huh."

"You'll have to give us a yes or no, Mr. Henderson," Lang said gently. "The court reporter can't get a nod or an uh huh."

"Sorry. Yes, I did."

"And that was?"

"Fella came onto the property, said he was lookin' f some kinda woodpecker."

"A bird-watcher?"

"I guess. Had binoculars and all."

"The binoculars would have allowed him a good look at your property, right?"

Lang paused a second and, as anticipated, Silverstein was on his feet. "Objection! Calls for a conclusion."

A point, if not a round, for the defense. The objection would serve only to emphasize those binoculars.

"Sustained. Mr. Reilly, try not to ask your client to speculate."

"Yes, Your Honor." Then, to Larry, "Ever seen him before?"

Larry shook his head.

Lang pointed to the court reporter.

Larry took in a breath. "Sorry. I ain't never spoke in court before. No, I never seen him before."

"Since?"

Larry looked at him quizzically, not understanding the game in which he was participating. "In the hall."

Lang's voice dripped incredulity. "In the hall? Here?"

"Right outside that door."

"Your Honor, we have Special Agent Kurt Widner under subpoena. Would you have the marshal ask him to step in here?"

She nodded to the marshal.

Silverstein stood, one last attempt. "Your Honor, I must renew my previous objection. As you noted earlier, this is a prosecution by the DEA, not the FBI…"

"And as I noted, Counselor, I will determine what is or is not relevant. Your continuing objection is noted."

Widner preceded the marshal into the room, somewhat less rosy cheeked and cheerful than when Lang last saw him.

"Thass him!" Larry was pointing. "Thass the same man."

"You certain?" Lang asked.

Larry nodded vigorously. "Absolutely."

"Let the record reflect the witness has identified Special Agent Widner of the Atlanta office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the man 'bird-watching' on the defendant's property two days before the defendant was arrested. Your witness, Mr. Silverstein."

The US attorney made a show of reviewing his notes before he said, "No questions at this time, Your Honor, but we reserve the right to cross-examine Mr. Henderson later."

"So noted. Another witness, Mr. Reilly?"

"The defense calls Special Agent Widner. As he is an employee of the government we ask we be allowed to cross-examine."

"Granted."

If Larry had been a nervous witness, Widner approached the witness stand with the reluctance of a man climbing steps to the gallows.

After the preliminary stating of his name and employment for the record, Lang got right down to business.

"You a bird-watcher, Agent Widner?"

The answer was sullen, almost hostile, just as Lang would have wanted it. "Sometimes."

"How long have you pursued that hobby? No, don't look at Mr. Silverstein. I want your answer."

Now a hangdog demeanor. The man knew what was coming. "Meybbe six months."

Lang turned to face Judge Carver. "Your Honor, I served a subpoena duces tecum on the government regarding a certain memo. I'd like it produced before we continue."

Silverstein rose slowly. "Again, Your Honor, we object as to relevance." Dusty Roads tugged at his sleeve and they exchanged whispers. "Plus as an interoffice communication, we contend it's privileged and not subject to production."

Agent Widner and Silverstein were not the only people who had a good idea where all this was headed. Judge Carver leaned forward, hand extended. "We need more, not less openness in government. The memo, Mr. Silverstein."

Silverstein made a show of digging in his litigation bag before asking, "May we have a brief recess, Your Honor? I'd like to confer with Mr. Reilly."

The judge gave a half glance, half glare at both lawyers. "For what purpose?"

This time it was Roads who responded. "We think we have a very attractive offer for Mr. Reilly's client."

The judge again looked from one lawyer to the other. "Fine. Mr. Reilly, I want to remind you this court is not bound by any agreement as to sentence upon entry of a plea of guilty. I'm sure the same is true in the northern district where you practice."

"Understood, Your Honor."

"Five minutes, then."

And she was gone.

It was almost surprising what a change the brief hearing had wrought in the dispositions of the government's lawyers. Both Silverstein and Roads were all smiles. Both extended their hands.

"Lang, we're prepared to reduce the charge from possession with intent to distribute to simple possession," Silverstein said. "Eighteen to twenty-four months, a reduction for participating in a rehab program, 10 percent off for good behavior and your man walks."

"You're kidding," Lang said. "Nice try, having your 'bird- watching' special agent stumble onto my client's property but it won't wash. The fact one agency makes a discovery and another prosecutes the crime won't work, fruit of the poisoned tree. A warrantless search is still illegal whether made by the FBI or the post office unless you can show probable cause, which you can't. If you think Judge Carver is going to swallow the bird-watching crap, you might try and sell her the state capitol building. Particularly in light of that memo suggesting, what was it? Oh, 'interagency cooperation.'"

A great deal of congeniality drained from Silverstein. "There's no way you could have known about that memo legally. How'd you find out?"

"A little bird I was watching on my own."

There was a chuckle, choked back to what sounded like a snort from Larry.

Silverstein began to flush red from the neck up. "You can't… If I find out you came by that memo in any way that's illegal…"

"By the time you find out how I learned about it, you'll be too busy denying it existed. Or too busy handling appeals when the news of the DEA's scheme is made public."

For a second, Lang thought the man was going to choke. "You can't…"

"Last time I looked, the First Amendment was still in effect. I'd guess the media would love the story."

Silverstein took a deep breath. "OK, OK! I'll make a deal: your man walks and you forget you ever saw the damned memo."

"How soon can you get the paperwork complete to release the bond and put my client on the street?" "I'll order his release immediately."

No one had noticed Judge Carver's return to the bench. "You can pick him up at the jail as soon as he changes out of his prison jumpsuit." She smiled. "The government can't afford to give them away as souvenirs to former inmates."

Both government lawyers began repacking their briefcases.

"Not so fast, Mr. Silverstein, Mr. Roads. The court wants a word with both of you."

Her tone indicated it would not be a pleasant word, either.

Outside the jail an hour later, Larry was jabbering joyfully like a child on Christmas morning. "I can't believe I'm really outta there!" He grasped Lang's hand. "We few, we happy few! We band of brothers!"

Lang was unsure his victory equaled that of King Henry at Agincourt nor that he wanted Larry, the classics-reading marijuana farmer, as a brother.

His enthusiasm undiminished, Larry continued. "Don't unnerstan' how you done it, Lang, I really don't."

"Do you care?"

"Guess not. All I know, next time I need a lawyer, I know who to call."

Lang suppressed a groan.

"If it's any comfort to you, I'd bet Judge Carver is still reaming Silverstein and Roads a new asshole, giving them a lesson in constitutional law they won't soon forget." He pointed. "Car's this way. I'll drive you back to the farm." Lang extended his BlackBerry. "Want to call your wife?"

"I done it from the jail. She says to give you a big kiss for her."

Now there was an unattractive picture. "Maybe we'll let her do that herself."

They were perhaps halfway to the parking lot when Larry asked, "One thing: You had a motion to depress the stuff they took from my place, the marijuana. What was that all about?"

"If the government came by evidence illegally, that is, trespassing without a warrant, then that evidence can't be used. If they couldn't use the marijuana, then they can't prove you grew it or even that there was any."

Larry nodded, no doubt agreeing with the wisdom of such a rule. "But it was the FBI…"

"That's what we call 'fruit of the poisoned tree.' Once evidence is obtained illegally, it can't be made legal no matter who wants to use it."

"But if-"

The BlackBerry chimed. With a little luck, the interruption would end the lecture on evidentiary jurisprudence.

An e-mail from Francis:

Got the information you wanted. Or at least all I'm

going to be getting.

X.

Piedmont Driving Club

1215 Piedmont Avenue

Atlanta

Three Hours Later

Until succumbing to an attack of political correctness in the 1990s, the Driving Club had been Atlanta's most exclusive men's social organization. Founded in the late nineteenth century, it had provided a place for the city's upper-crust gentlemen to drive their four-horse carriages outside the dusty and noisy town limits. Now midtown surrounded the property and views from its dining rooms were filled with high-rise condos and office towers. It was not unusual to see collared priests dining with members, although clerics were more numerous at the club's golf facility south of the airport. The food was mediocre on the chef's best days but small, private dining rooms, part of the original structure, were available on request.

It was the latter feature that had suggested the club to Lang. He was seated across an expanse of white linen, picking at a Cobb salad while Francis finished a short and disappointingly uninformative recital of what he had learned.

"… And both the men whose passports Gurt took were American but had been at the Vatican for twelve and eight years."

Lang turned half of a hard-boiled egg over before spearing it with his fork. "We knew they were Vatican passports. They were, are, priests?"

Francis used his knife to probe his broiled snapper for bones. "Seem to be important ones. Word was they were being recalled to Rome as soon as the diplomatic office can get the feds to release them."

"Recalled? I thought they'd be in custody until a trial was held. I mean, kidnapping isn't exactly a misdemeanor."

"They claimed they had held Vatican passports and as such were on a diplomatic mission at the time. The Vatican's foreign office confirmed it."

Lang put his fork down, egg untouched. "Diplomatic immunity?"

Satisfied the fish was safe for consumption, Francis took a tentative bite. "Apparently."

"You telling me the pope condones kidnapping, not to mention attempted murder?"

"Not at all. I'm sure the foreign office has apprised him of what's happened. I'd guess he has his own discipline in mind."

"Like what? I haven't heard of any renegade priests being burned at the stake lately."

Francis shrugged before taking a larger forkful of fish. "I'm afraid the Holy Father doesn't always confide in me."

Lang put his fork down, salad forgotten. "Is it possible the pope doesn't know what's going on here? I mean, maybe these guys, these priests, have friends in the Vatican foreign office, pals who could act in the pope's name without him ever knowing about it."

The prospect troubled Francis enough that he stopped chewing long enough to think that over. "Possible, I suppose."

"Possible but not likely, you mean."

The priest shook his head and swallowed. "The Vatican, like any country, could have bad people in its bureaucracy."

This, coming from Francis, was a big admission. "Careful, there, padre. I wouldn't want to see you cast out as a heretic."

Lang returned his attention to his salad, surprised to see the half egg still on his fork. "OK, what else did you find out?"

"Not much." Francis used the edge of his fork to sever another piece of snapper. "Both work with the Knights of Malta."

The name had a familiar ring. Lang searched his memory during two bites of salad including the half egg. "Isn't that an honorary society for the really big hitters, men who donate really big bucks to the church? They dress up in funny costumes with big hats with feathers?"

Francis smiled. "I take it your information comes from Godfather III?"

"Yeah, that's it. The movie starts by showing this guy, Michael Corleone, being initiated into this high order of the church and keeps flashing over to where across town his hit men are simultaneously taking out members of a rival gang."

"Hardly an evenhanded depiction of a very old order of the church."

"It's Hollywood. They don't have to be evenhanded, just sell tickets. But what would an honorary association…"

Francis held up the hand that didn't have the fork in it. "Whoa there! The Knights of Malta is not just an honorary association."

"I suppose you're going to tell me about it, homo multerum litterum."

"Only if you're interested. But remember, Davus sum, non Oedipus."

"I'm not asking you to solve the riddle of the Sphinx like Oedipus; just tell me about the Knights of Malta."

Francis was staring at someplace above Lang's head, his forehead wrinkled in thought. "Best I can recall, they were founded in the late eleventh century as a monastic order, Order of St. John, to minister to the sick of Jerusalem, then held by the crusaders. Their order was answerable only to the pope himself. The first religious order of chivalry. Only the sons of titled nobility need apply. As the Holy Land came under attack from the Saracens, the order morphed into a military organization. When the Muslims ejected them from the Holy Land, they occupied the island of Rhodes from the early fourteenth century until the sixteenth when the Turks successfully besieged it. The order wound up on Malta, which they made into an island fortress. That's how they came to be called Knights of Malta. Their real name is still Order of St. John."

Lang paused in his unsuccessful effort to cut a tomato wedge with his fork. A chime went off in his head as he recalled the stub of the boarding pass. "Rhodes? Do they still have any connection to the island?"

Francis shrugged, intent on renewing his assault on the snapper. "Quite possibly. When the Italian Fascists took the island from the Ottomans in the first part of the last century, they encouraged European powers to establish a presence there. With the order's political connections, I wouldn't be surprised if they were included."

Lang picked up his knife. "Very historically informative but what about today's version? I mean, you haven't told me why the order or whatever is anything but ceremonial, right?"

Francis shook his head. "Not necessarily. There are three types of Knights of Malta. First is the one you mentioned, the ones who are knighted because of some outstanding deed…"

"Like a major contribution to the church."

"That frequently is the case, yes. The other two types are described as 'chaplains' and 'hospitaliers.' The chaplains are priests and the hospitaliers still tend to the sick and are likely but not necessarily priests, too. The order is governed by the sovereign council, which meets every five years at the Rome priory to elect the grand master. In fact, I believe they'll be convening next week."

"You said something about political connections."

"Interestingly enough, some eighty nations, excluding the US and Great Britain, accord the knights diplomatic status. They even have observer status at the UN."

Lang was chewing slowly, thinking about medieval religious military orders. He had encountered the deadly Pegasus organization and was not eager to face another. But a religious group made sense: the murders that paralleled the martyrdom of saints, an effort to suppress a heretical gospel, the feet they clearly had access to the Vatican's guest quarters.

"That still doesn't explain why they are willing to kill to keep the James Gospel a secret."

Francis held up a cautionary finger. "If they are the guilty party. Just because two who might be of their number tried to kidnap Gurt and Manfred doesn't mean the entire order is behind it. "I'm not sure, but they number somewhere in excess of fifteen thousand scattered worldwide. For that matter, the two culprits who got arrested might well belong to any number of other organizations."

"You're right. But staging three murders to reflect martyrdom of three saints, trying to suppress the Book of James. Vere scire est causas scire."

"To know truly is to know causes; let's get to the bottom of this. First you're going to have to find out if the Knights of Malta are the ones behind your problems. As you can imagine, they are an extremely conservative bunch. Their priests, or chaplains, the ones who run the day-to-day operations, probably are somewhere to the right of the most conservative Jesuits. They wouldn't take kindly to having St. Peter, the first pope, depicted as a malcontent and murderer. Such a major change in the church wouldn't sit well at all. Whether they would go as far as murder and kidnapping, who knows?"

"Well, then," Lang said, "all I have to do is find out."

And he had a pretty good idea of how he was going to do just that.

XI.

High Hampton Inn

Cashiers, North Carolina

Two Days Later

Manfred shrieked in glee as the trout twisted on the hook like molten silver. The contagion of the child's joy had Lang laughing. Here with his son and Gurt, the uglier realities of the world had no place.

Manfred held up his wriggling trophy. "Can we keep him?"

Lang managed a serious face. "Are you going to eat him?"

The child's joy evaporated at the memory of bass from the pond in Lamar County. A lot of bass. "Ugh!"

"Then we better put him back."

"But I want to keep him!"

Lang knelt, bringing his face even with his son's. "Think how sad we would be if you were snatched up like that fish, snatched up and never came back. That little trout has a mommy and daddy, too."

The sociological implications of trout fishing had never occurred to Manfred. He shook his head slowly. "Then we better let him go."

Lang turned to where Gurt was smoking a Marlboro under an oak tree and rubbing Grumps's muzzle, to the dog's obvious delight. Lang winked.

"You could have explained he is too small to keep." She nodded toward a discreet sign the hotel had posted specifying anything under ten inches had to be thrown back. "Or told him it is forbidden to keep such a fish."

Verboten, forbidden, was something the youngest German understood.

Lang would prefer to shield his son against regulations and the arbitrary rules of the law as long as possible. There was already enough unpleasantness in the child's world, what with a kidnapping attempt still fresh in his young mind.

"I like it better my way."

Manfred had watched the exchange. "Does it hurt the fish when we catch him?"

Lang could have explained the difference between warm-and cold-blooded animals or related some arcane argument of the animal rights nuts but decided on another tack. He was ready to give the piscine population a rest for a while. "Would a sharp hook in your mouth hurt?"

Manfred looked at the trout still flopping on the line and then at his father. "Please let him go." He handed the light rod to Lang. "I don't think I want to fish anymore."

Gurt ground out her cigarette. "It is nap time anyway."

Manfred started his usual protest but stopped in midsentence with a look from his mother.

Manfred stopped on the way back to the cottage, hand behind his back. "Daddy?"

Lang leaned down. "Yes?"

With a puff, the little boy sent a cloud of dandelion seeds into his father's face and ran, laughing. In a couple of steps, Lang had him, tickling. Then Lang grabbed a pod of dandelion seeds himself, dusting his son's face with them. Then Manfred found yet another. Grumps knew only that someone was having fun without him. He barked furiously.

"It would perhaps be good for all of you children to take a nap," Gurt observed dryly.

They reached the cottage, Lang holding hands with both Gurt and his son. He could not remember the last time he had been so happy.

He had arrived yesterday. Putting the Porsche through its paces on both interstate and mountain roads had shaken anyone attempting to follow. He had just pulled the car up in front of the cottage when the door exploded open and Manfred ran out, arms outstretched to embrace… Grumps.

Trying not to show his annoyance at playing second fiddle to the dog, Lang said to Gurt, who had arrived in a somewhat more leisurely fashion than her son, "I'm delighted Manfred and Grumps get along so."

Gurt had smiled that slow, sexy smile and given him a kiss so long Manfred and Grumps were vying for attention. "And did Grumps enjoy the mountain roads as much as did you?"

The truth was the Porsche was designed for serpentine highways but the dog was not. Twice Grumps had whined so loudly at Lang's driving that Lang had had to stop to let the distressed animal get out and throw up.

Lang changed the subject. "How long till he takes a nap? We have some catching up to do."

She had rolled her eyes. "You are badly timed. He just got up. I fear we must wait a while longer."

Lang had sighed his disappointment. "I brought a few toys."

Gurt shook her head in mock disapproval. "More important you brought him Grumps. You cannot bring gifts every time you come. It will make him rotten."

"Spoiled."

"That, too."

So his arrival had gone, topped with lovemaking so vigorous that night that, upon reflection, Lang wondered they had not awakened the boy. Today had begun with a large breakfast, a walk along shaded mountain paths and a picnic lunch, which had included a few treats for the dog. The fishing idea had been inspired when Manfred noted the supplies available to hotel and cottage guests.

They entered a good imitation of a genuine log cabin, complete with hooked rugs on rough planked floors, beamed ceilings and bent wood furniture, uniformly uncomfortable.

Gurt pointed. "Manfred, go get undressed for your nap."

Obediently, he trudged into a room off the living room, reappearing with a book in his hand which he held out to Lang. "Will you read to me?"

Paternal instinct versus lust for Gurt.

Oh, well, too few kids had interest in books these days, their parents substituting TV for literature.

Lang looked at the volume in his hand. Brothers Grimm. Aptly named. Evil trolls, child-eating witches. Stuff that would be PG-13 if made into movies. No wonder the German people had a dark side.

"Don't suppose you have a copy of Hans Christian Andersen?" he called toward the master bedroom.

"Sissy!" Gurt was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, a bathrobe doing little to conceal the fact it was all she had on.

What was the Grimm brothers' shortest story?