“What was the big hurry with Bosworth, if it was going to take you half a day to call back?” he asked.

“I’ve been distracted,” I said. “Sorry.”

The apology seemed to throw Ross.

“I’d ask if you were doing okay,” he said, “but I wouldn’t want you to start thinking that I cared.”

“It’s fine. I’d just view it as a moment of weakness.”

“So, you still interested in this thing?”

It took me a while to reply.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m still interested.”

“Bosworth wasn’t my responsibility. He wasn’t a field agent, so he fell under the remit of one of my colleagues.”

“Which one?”

“Mr. ‘That Doesn’t Concern You.’ Don’t push it. It doesn’t matter. Under the circumstances, I might have dealt with Bosworth the same way that he did. They put him through the process.”

“The process” was the name given to the Feds’ unofficial method for dealing with agents who stepped out of line. In serious cases, like whistleblowing, efforts were first made to discredit the agent involved. Fellow agents would be given access to the personnel file for the individual involved. Colleagues would be questioned about the agent’s habits. If the agent had gone public with something, potentially damaging personal information might in turn be leaked to the press. The FBI had a policy of not firing whistleblowers, as there was a danger that by doing so the Bureau might lend credence to the individual’s accusations. Hounding a recalcitrant agent, and smearing his or her name, was far more effective.

“What did he do?” I asked Ross.

“Bosworth was a computer guy, specializing in codes and cryptography. I can’t tell you much more than that, partly because I’d have to kill you if I did, but mostly because I can’t explain it to you anyway since I don’t understand it. It seems he was doing a little personal work on the side, something to do with maps and manuscripts. It earned him a reprimand from OPR”-the Office of Professional Responsibility was responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct within the FBI-“but it didn’t go to a disciplinary hearing. That was about a year ago. Anyway, Bosworth took some leave after that, and next thing he popped up in Europe, in a French jail. He was arrested for desecrating a church.”

“A church?”

“Technically, a monastery: Sept-Fons Abbey. He was caught digging up the floor of a vault in the dead of night. The legate in Paris got involved and managed to keep Bosworth’s background out of the papers. He was suspended with pay when he returned and ordered to seek professional help, but he wasn’t monitored. He came back to work in the same week that an interview with an ‘unnamed FBI agent’ appeared in some UFO magazine alleging that the Bureau was preventing a proper investigation of cult activities in the United States. It was clearly Bosworth again, burbling some nonsense about linked map references. The Bureau decided that it wanted him gone, so he was put through the process. His security clearance was downgraded, then pretty much removed entirely, apart from allowing him to switch on his computer and play with Google. He was shifted to duties beneath his abilities, given a desk beside a men’s room in the basement, and virtually cut off from contact with his colleagues, but he still wouldn’t break.”

“And?”

“In the end, he was given the option of a ‘fitness for duty’ examination at the Pearl Heights Center in Colorado.”

Fitness for duty examinations were the kiss of death for an agent’s career. If the agent refused to submit to one, he or she was automatically fired. If the agent submitted, then a diagnosis of mental instability was frequently the outcome, decided long before the agent even arrived at the testing center. The evaluations were carried out in medical facilities with special contracts to examine federal employees, and usually stretched over three or four days. Subjects were kept isolated, apart from their interactions with medical personnel, and required to answer up to six hundred yes-or-no questions. If they weren’t already crazy when they went in, the process was designed to make them crazy by the time they left.

“Did he take the test?”

“He traveled to Colorado, but he never made it to the center. He was automatically dismissed.”

“So where is he now?”

“Officially, I have no idea. Unofficially, he’s in New York. It seems that his parents have money, and they own an apartment up on First and Seventieth in a place called the Woodrow. Bosworth lives there, as far as anyone can tell, but he’s probably a basket case. We haven’t been in contact with him since his dismissal. So now you know, right?”

“I know not to join the FBI, then start dismantling churches.”

“I don’t even like you walking by the building, so recruitment is hardly a concern for you. This stuff didn’t come for free. If Bosworth is tied in with this thing in Williamsburg, then I want a heads-up.”

“That’s fair.”

“Fair? You don’t know from fair. Just remember: I want to be informed first if Bosworth smells bad on this.”

I promised to get back to him if I found out anything he should know. It seemed to satisfy him. He didn’t say good-bye before he hung up, but he didn’t say anything hurtful either.

The most recent call was from a man named Matheson. Matheson was a former client of mine. Last year, I’d looked into a case involving the house in which his daughter had died. I couldn’t say that it had ended well, but Matheson had been satisfied with the outcome.

His message said that someone was making inquiries about me and had approached him for a recommendation, or so they claimed. The visitor, a man named Alexis Murnos, said he was calling on behalf of his employer, who wished to remain anonymous for the present. Matheson had a highly developed sense of suspicion, and he gave Murnos as little to go on as possible. All he could get out of Murnos, who declined to leave a contact number, was that his employer was wealthy and appreciated discretion. Matheson asked me to call him back when I got the message.

“I wasn’t aware that you’d added discretion to your list of accomplishments,” Matheson said, once his secretary had put me through to him. “That’s what made me suspicious.”

“And he gave you nothing?”

“Zilch. I suggested that he contact you himself, if he had any concerns. He told me that he would, but then said that he’d appreciate it if I kept his visit strictly between the two of us. Naturally, I called you as soon as he left.”

I thanked Matheson for the warning, and he told me to let him know if there was anything more that he could do. As soon as we were done, I called the offices of the Press Herald and left a message there for Phil Isaacson, the paper’s art critic, once they’d confirmed that he was due in later that day. It was a long shot, but Phil’s expertise extended from law to architecture and beyond, and I wanted to talk to him about House of Stern and the auction that was due to take place there. That reminded me that I had not yet heard back from Angel or Louis. It was a situation that was unlikely to last very much longer.

I decided to drive into Portland to kill some time until I heard from Phil Isaacson. Maybe tomorrow I would leave Walter with my neighbors and return to New York, in the hope that I might be able to get in touch with former special agent Bosworth. I set the alarm system in the house and left Walter half-asleep in his basket. I knew that as soon as I was gone he would make a beeline for the couch in my office, but I didn’t care. I was grateful to have him around, and his hairs on the furniture seemed like a small return for the company.

“They all have names.”

My grandfather’s words came back to me as I drove, now echoing not only Neddo but also Claudia Stern.

“Two hundred angels rebelled…Enoch gives the names of nineteen.”

Names. There was a Christian bookstore in South Portland. I was pretty certain that they’d have a section on the apocrypha. It was time to take a look at Enoch.