“Where?”

“In a painting of Sedlec in the fifteenth century. It was in Claudia Stern’s workshop. It’s going to be auctioned this week, along with the box from Sedlec.”

I expected Reid to scoff at my mention of a similarity to Brightwell, but he didn’t.

“There’s a lot that is interesting about Mr. Brightwell. If nothing else, he-or ancestors who looked startlingly like him-has been around for a long, long time.”

He nodded to his companion, and Bartek began spreading upon the table pictures and photographs from a file by his feet. We were right at the rear of the Bear, and the waitress had been told that we were okay for the present, so we would be left undisturbed. I drew the first picture toward me with my finger. It was a black-and-white photograph of a group of men, most of them in Nazi uniforms. Interspersed with them were civilians. There were about twelve men in all, and they were seated outdoors at a long wooden table littered with empty wine bottles and the remains of food.

“The man at the back, on the left, is Mathias Stuckler,” said Bartek. “The other men in uniform are members of the Special SS group. The civilians are members of the Ahnenerbe, the Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Society, incorporated into the SS in 1940. Effectively, it was Himmler’s research institute, and it was far from benign in its methods. Berger, its race expert, saw the potential for experimentation in the concentration camps as early as 1943. He spent eight days at Auschwitz that year, selecting over a hundred prisoners to measure and assess, then had them all gassed and shipped to the anatomy department at Strasbourg.

“All Ahnenerbe staff held SS rank. These are the men who died at Fontfroide. This photograph was taken only a few days before they were killed. By this point, many of Stuckler’s comrades from Der Führer Regiment had died trying to halt the Allied advance after D-day. The soldiers with him in this picture were all that remained of his most loyal cadre. The rest ended up in Hungary and Austria, fighting alongside the flotsam of the Third Reich until the last day of the war. They were committed men, albeit ones committed to the wrong cause.”

There was nothing very distinctive about any of the figures in the group, although Stuckler was taller and bulkier than the rest, and a little younger. His features, though, were harsh, and the light in his eyes was long spent. I was about to lay the photograph to one side when Bartek stopped me.

“Look beyond them, to the people behind.”

I examined the background. There were military men at some of the other tables, sometimes accompanied by women but more often surrounded by others of their kind. In one corner, a man sat drinking alone, a half-empty glass of wine before him. He was discreetly looking at the SS group while the photograph was being taken, so his face was partially visible.

It was Brightwell. He was marginally slimmer, and with slightly more hair, but his tumorous neck and the slightly feminine tilt to his features dispelled any doubts as to his identity.

“But this photograph was taken nearly sixty years ago,” I said. “It must have been doctored.”

Reid looked dubious. “It’s always possible, but we think it’s authentic. And even if this one is not, there are others about which there can be no doubt.”

I drew the rest of the images nearer to me. Most were black-and-white, some sepia-tinted. Many were dated, the oldest being from 1871. Frequently they depicted churches or monasteries, often with groups of pilgrims in front of them. In each photograph the specter of a man lurked, a strange, obese figure with full lips and pale, almost luminous skin.

In addition to the photographs, there was a high-quality copy of a painting, similar to the one Claudia Stern had shown to me, possibly even by the same artist. Once again, it depicted a group of men on horseback, surrounded by the clamor and violence of war. There were flames on the horizon, and all around them men were fighting and dying, their sufferings depicted in intricate detail. The men on horseback were rendered distinctive by the symbol on their saddles: a red grapnel. They were led by a man with long dark hair and dressed in a cloak, beneath which his armor could be seen. The artist had painted his eyes slightly out of scale, so that they were too large for his head. One had a white cast to it, as though the paint had been scratched to reveal the blank canvas beneath. To his right, the figure of Brightwell held a banner marked with a red grapnel in one hand. The other held the severed head of a woman by its hair.

“This is like the painting that I saw,” I said. “It’s smaller, and the horsemen in this one are the focus, and not just an element, but it’s very similar.”

“This painting shows the military action at Sedlec,” said Bartek. “Sedlec is now part of the Czech Republic, and we know that, as the myth has it, this was the site of the confrontation between Immael and the monk Erdric. After some discussion, it was decided that it was too dangerous to keep the statue at Sedlec, and that it should be hidden. The fragments of vellum were dispersed, in each case entrusted only to the abbot of the monastery in question, who would share this knowledge with just one other of his community as death neared. The abbot of Sedlec was the only member of the order who knew where each box had been sent, and once they had been distributed he sent the statue on its journey to its new hiding place.

“Unfortunately, while the statue was in the process of being moved, Sedlec was attacked by the men in the painting. The abbot had succeeded in hiding the Black Angel, but the knowledge of its whereabouts was lost, because only he knew the monasteries to which the map fragments had been entrusted, and the abbots in question were sworn to secrecy under threat of excommunication and perpetual damnation.”

“So the statue remains lost, if it ever existed?” I said.

“The boxes exist,” said Reid. “We know that each contains a fragment of some kind of map. True, it may all be a great ruse, an elaborate joke on the part of the abbot of Sedlec. But if it is a joke, then he was killed for it, and a great many others have died for it since.”

“Why not just let them look for it?” I said. “If it exists, they can have it. If it doesn’t, they’ve wasted their time.”

“It exists,” said Reid simply. “That much, in the end, I do believe. It is its nature that I dispute, not its existence. It is a magnet for evil, but evil is reflected in it, not contained within. All of this”-he indicated the material on the table with a sweep of his hand-“is incidental. I have no explanation as to how Brightwell, or someone who resembles him to an extraordinary degree, came to be in these images. Perhaps he is part of a line, and these are all his dead kin. Whatever is the case, the Believers have killed for centuries, and now is the time to put a stop to them. They’ve grown careless, largely because circumstances have forced their hand. For the first time, they think they are drawing close to securing all of the fragments. If we watch them, the order can identify them and take steps against them.”

“What kind of steps?”

“If we find evidence linking them to crimes, we can hand that information over to the authorities and have them tried.”

“And if you don’t find evidence?”

“Then it will be enough to make their identities known, and there will be others who will do what we cannot do.”

“Kill them?”

Reid shrugged.

“Imprison them, perhaps, or worse. It’s not for me to say.”

“I thought you said they couldn’t be killed.”

“I said that they are convinced that they can’t be destroyed. It’s not the same thing.”

I closed my eyes. This was madness.

“Now you know what we know,” said Reid. “All we can ask is that you share with us any knowledge that might help us against these people. If you meet with Stuckler, I would be interested to hear from you what he had to say. Similarly, if you succeed in finding the FBI agent, Bosworth, you should tell us. In all of this, he remains an unknown.”