The King reached the Volvo, leaned down, and looked in through the driver’s window.

“Well, how you doin to-”

The pitch died on his lips. Larry Crane grinned up at him, all yellow teeth, unwashed hair, and dirt-encrusted wrinkles.

“Why, I’m doin fine, King, just fine.”

“You lookin at buyin a car there, Larry?”

“I’m lookin, King, that’s for sure, but I ain’t buyin yet. Bet you could do me a favor, though, we bein old war buddies and all.”

“I can cut you a deal, sure,” said the King.

“Yeah,” said Larry. “Bet you could cut me one, and I could cut you one right back.”

He lifted one mangy buttock from the seat and broke wind loudly. The King nodded, even the false warmth he had managed to generate now fading rapidly.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Uh-huh. You ain’t here to buy no car, Larry. What do you want?”

Larry Crane leaned over and opened the passenger door.

“Sit in with me, King,” he said. “You can roll the windows down, the smell gets too much for you. I got a proposition to make.”

The King didn’t take the seat.

“You ain’t gettin no money from me, Larry. I told you that before. We’re all done on that score.”

“I ain’t askin for money. Sit in, boy. Ain’t gonna cost you nothin to listen.”

The King exhaled a wheezy breath. He looked over at the office, wishing he’d never left his coffee, then lowered himself into the Volvo.

“You got the keys for this piece of shit?” asked Larry.

“I got ’em.”

“Then let’s you and me go for a ride. We got some talkin to do.”

The French Cistercians were used to hiding secrets. From 1164 to 1166, the monastery at Pontigny, in Burgundy, gave shelter to Thomas Becket, the English prelate exiled for opposing Henry II, until he decided to return to his diocese and was murdered for his troubles. Loc-Dieu, at Martiel in the Midi-Pyrenees, provided a refuge for the Mona Lisa during World War II, its combination of a fortress’s high walls and the grandeur of a country manor rendering it most appropriate for such a lady’s enforced retreat. It is true that other monasteries farther afield held treasures of their own: the Cistercians of Dulce Cor, or “Sweetheart,” at Loch Kindar in Scotland, were entrusted with the embalmed heart of John, Lord Balliol, in 1269, and of his wife, the Lady Devorgilla, who followed him to the grave two decades later; and Zlata Koruna in the Czech Republic held a spine reputed to have come from the crown of thorns placed upon the head of Christ, purchased from King Louis himself by Premysl Otakar II. Yet these were relics known to be retained, and while they were guarded by the monks there were few concerns by the twentieth century that an awareness of their presence might lead to the monasteries themselves being targeted.

No, it was those artifacts retained in silence, hidden behind cellar walls or within great altars, that placed at risk the monasteries and their inhabitants. The knowledge of their presence was passed on from abbot to abbot, so that few knew what lay beneath the library at Salem in Germany, or under the ornate church paving at Byland in Yorkshire’s North Riding.

Or in Fontfroide.

There had been monks at Fontfroide since 1093, although the first formal community, probably made up of former hermits from the Benedictine order, was established in 1118. The abbey of Fontfroide itself appeared in 1148 or 1149 and quickly became a frontline fortress in the fight against heresy. When Pope Innocent III moved against the Manicheans, his legates were two monks from Fontfroide, one of whom, Pierre de Castelnau, was subsequently assassinated. A former abbot of Fontfroide led the bloody crusade against the Albigensians, and the monastery aligned itself staunchly against the Catharist forces of Montsegur and Queribus otherwise tolerated by the liberals of Aragon. It was perhaps no surprise that Fontfroide should eventually seize the greatest of prizes, and so the abbey was finally rewarded for its steadfastness when its former abbot, Jacques Fournier, became Pope Benedict XII.

Fontfroide was wealthy to boot, its prosperity based upon the twenty-five farmsteads that it owned and its grazing herds of over twenty thousand cattle, but gradually the monks grew fewer and fewer, and during the French Revolution Fontfroide was turned into a hospice by the city of Narbonne. In a way, this was Fontfroide’s salvation, for it led to the preservation of the abbey when so many others fell into ruin, and a Cistercian community flourished once again at the abbey from 1858 until 1901, when the state put Fontfroide up for sale, and it was bought and preserved by a pair of French art lovers from the Languedoc.

But in all that time, even during periods when no monks graced its cloisters, Fontfroide remained under the close scrutiny of the Cistercians. They were there when it was a hospice, taking care of the sick and injured in the guise of laymen, and they returned to its environs when the wealthy benefactors, Gustave Fayet and his wife, Madeleine d’Andoque, purchased it to prevent it from being shipped, brick by brick, to the United States. There is a little church that lies less than a mile from Fontfroide, a far humbler offering to God than its great neighbor. It is called, in English, the Vigil Church, and from there the Cistercians kept watch over Fontfroide and its secrets. For almost five hundred years, its treasures remained undisturbed, until World War II entered its final phase, the Germans began to retreat, and the American soldiers came to Fontfroide.

“No,” said the King. “Uh-uh. I got one of those letters too, and I threw it in the trash.”

Mark Hall knew that times had changed, even if Larry Crane didn’t. In those months after the war the world was still in chaos, and a man could get away with a great deal once he took even a little care about it. It wasn’t like that now. He had kept a watchful eye on the newspapers, and had followed the case of the Meadors with particular interest and concern. Joe Tom Meador, while serving with the U.S. Army during World War II, had stolen manuscripts and reliquaries from a cave outside Quedlinburg in central Germany, where the city’s cathedral had placed them for safekeeping during the conflict. Joe Tom mailed the treasures to his mother in May 1945, and once he returned home he took to showing them to women in return for sexual favors. Joe Tom died in 1980, and his brother Jack and sister Jane decided to sell the treasures, making a futile effort to disguise their origins along the way. The haul was valued at about $200 million, but the Meadors got only $3 million, minus legal fees, from the German government. Furthermore, by selling the items they attracted the interest of the U.S. Attorney for eastern Texas, Carol Johnson, who initiated an international investigation in 1990. Six years later, a grand jury indicted Jack, Jane, and their lawyer, John Torigan, on charges of illegally conspiring to sell stolen treasures, charges that carried with them a penalty of ten years in prison and fines of up to $250,000. That they got away with paying $135,000 to the IRS was beside the point for Mark Hall. It was clear to him that the smart thing would be to take to the grave the knowledge of what he and Larry had done in France during the war, but now here was dumb and greedy Larry Crane about to draw them into a whole world of potential hurt. Hall was already troubled by the appearance of the letter. It meant that someone was making connections, and drawing conclusions from them. If they stayed quiet and refused to take the bait, then maybe Hall would be able to go to his grave without spending his children’s inheritance on legal fees.

They were parked in the driveway outside the King’s house. His wife was away visiting Jeanie, so theirs was the only car present. Larry laid a shaky hand on the King’s arm. The King tried to shake it off, but Larry responded by turning the resting hand into a claw and gripping the King tightly.