So what else could he do?

His mind was flooded with thoughts like these as the soil of Spain rose to meet his arriving flight. He glanced downward through his window and saw that the flight was above the grassy terrain leading to the runway.

Then the grass was replaced by a stream of runway lights and then a blur of numbered panels, white on gray-black asphalt. Then came the welcome thump and bump of the tires. There followed the roar of the brakes and the lifting of the wing flaps, and then the deceleration on the runway.

Sun had actually been hoping to go home to his special lady, but at least he had had a few hours in Switzerland to pick up a piece of jewelry for her, a beautiful diamond and gold bracelet. This he carried with him, though it was the least of his concerns right now. There were others to deal with first and an assignment that started to appear open-ended. So be it. Life had its strange twists and turns. Even the cultural icon of his grandfather’s generation, Confucius, would not have disagreed with that.

The plane rolled smoothly to a halt. It taxied to a gate.

John Sun was traveling light as always. He passed easily through immigration. He spoke fluent Spanish with the agents while also keeping an eye on the uniformed Spanish police who patrolled the airport with automatic weapons. He also easily spotted the plainclothes people. In his peripheral view, he also checked the surveillance cameras, both the obvious ones and the hidden ones. It was almost a game to him to find them without looking directly at them.

Then he passed through customs with equal ease. A trio of uniformed customs officers, two men and a woman, waved him through to the concourse.

Now he was officially in Spain.

MADRID, SEPTEMBER 9, MORNING

The Museo de Arqueológico is perhaps Madrid’s finest museum, after the immense Prado. The museum stands like a mid-nineteenth-century fortress on the Calle Serrano, not far from the Ritz and not far from the American Embassy. Founded by Queen Isabel II in 1867, the building houses archeological treasures excavated from Spanish soil from prehistoric times to the present. Key attractions have for years included religious art from countless centuries, including seventh-century votive crowns from Toledo, ceramics from the ancient civilization at El Argar, a carved ivory crucifix that had been carved for King Fernando I and Queen Sancha in 1063, which included within it a space for a sliver of wood from the True Cross and an extensive collection of Roman mosaics and Islamic pottery. It was by no coincidence that The Pietà of Malta had been on display here.

Alex met Rizzo at the front of the museum the next morning, an hour before the institution would open to the public. They were joined by Rolland Fitzpatrick, the young Englishman, and LeMaitre, from the French SNDCE. A private guard took them to the office of José Rivera, the curator.

Floyd Connelly, the unpredictable representative of US Customs, had also expressed interest in joining them, Rivera announced, so they waited for him for several minutes. After a quarter hour, however, Connelly was officially labeled a no-show.

Thereafter, the brief tour started.

Two weeks earlier, Rivera explained in Spanish as they walked the first floor together, three nimble thieves armed with automatic weapons had tunneled under the three-story Museo Arqueológico late at night, penetrated the museum through a basement wall, and then emerged in the uniforms of the Policía Municipal. They had bound the four guards on duty and sabotaged the alarm system that would have alerted Madrid municipal police of a robbery in progress.

The thieves had ignored the vast collection of seventh-century gold crowns from Toledo province, the priceless Islamic pottery, and the Roman mosaics to find The Pietà of Malta.

They knew exactly what they wanted and exactly where it was located. Conveniently, since the museum was arranged chronologically, their target had been on the first floor, easily visible and accessible. The leader smashed its glass case, grabbed it, and the gang of them were out the door with it within five minutes.

As Rivera guided his visitors from the site of the penetration to the actual site of the theft, he engaged in a back-and-forth of questions from the four detectives. LeMaitre and Fitzpatrick had an old-school style about them, despite their comparative youth, and made handwritten notes in their notebooks. Rizzo followed with arms folded much of the time, but held a small recorder that took in every word for later review. Alex trusted her memory and frequently found note taking a distraction, so she listened, tried to sort out the most salient details, and wrote down nothing. She knew she could always consult back with Rivera or any of the others present.

The tour concluded in front of the broken display case, which had been emptied of other antiquities by the museum staff and put on display elsewhere. The case had been taped up and cordoned off, though there was still an air of ignominy about it. It stood in shame on the main floor like a cat with a broken tail.

“Fingerprints, there were none,” Rivera said in conclusion. “DNA tests haven’t helped. Our security cameras have no good pictures of the thieves, as I’m sure the local police explained to you in your meetings yesterday. These thieves were very good and very careful.”

“Something I’ve been wondering,” Alex pressed, continuing in Spanish, “many of these other pieces would have an infinitely higher value on the black market. So I’m trying to understand their mindset. What is it about this piece that is completely different from any other object here or, say, in the Louvre or in one of the great museums in London or New York?”

Rivera thought for a moment, then smiled slightly. “Very perceptive question,” he said. “You’ve read all the material I gave you?”

“Yes, I have,” she said.

“Nothing stands out?” he asked.

“Many things stand out. But nothing is sobresaliente. There is no single feature that dominates all others. So again, I’m trying to put my mind inside an expert’s.”

Rivera smiled. “All right, since you asked, there is perhaps one aspect to this piece that I find particularly engaging,” Rivera said. “It’s something I note as a good Christian and as a Roman Catholic. It’s in the material I gave you, but to some degree it’s buried. Do you know where I might be going with this?”

“No tengo la menor idea,” she answered. Not in the slightest.

“There was a young Italian of the twelfth century named Giovanni di Bernadone,” Rivera said. “I’m sure my distinguished guest from Rome, Gian Antonio Rizzo, can tell us the name under which Bernadone is better remembered.”

Rizzo nodded slightly.

“As anyone who survived fourteen years of Catholic education could tell you,” Rizzo said, “Giovanni di Bernadone later became known as Saint Francis of Assisi. He was the founder of the Franciscan order, patron saint of animals, birds, anything that creeps or crawls, and more recently the blasted Green Party and our soon-to-be-completely-ruined environment.”

“And for what is St. Francis best remembered?” Rivera pressed.

“Aside from the crows and the jackasses?”

“Aside from los cuervos and los asnos, yes.”

“St. Francis was an early evangelist,” Rizzo said. “When St. Francis lived, Christianity had been established in Europe for many centuries, but Francis sought to spread it into Islamic territories. At great personal risks, I might add.”

“That is correct.”

“Not too much different from today,” Fitzgerald added.

Rivera smiled. “St. Francis of Assisi went to Egypt on a mission of peace about eight hundred years ago,” Rivera said. “This was at the time of the Fifth Crusade, launched by Pope Innocent III. In 1219, Francis left, together with a few companions, on a pilgrimage of nonviolence to Egypt. Crossing the lines between the Sultan Malek-el-Kemel and the Crusaders in Damietta, he was received by the caliph, whose Islamic army was defending the Holy Land from the Christian armies. Francis challenged the Muslim scholars to a trial of true religion by fire. But they refused. So Francis proposed that he would enter a blazing fire first and, if Francis left the fire unharmed, the sultan would have to recognize Christ as the Savior of mankind. The sultan didn’t take Francis up on his offer. But he was so impressed that he allowed Francis to preach to his Islamic subjects. He didn’t succeed in converting the sultan or very many of his subjects. But the last words of the sultan to Francis of Assisi were, ‘Pray for me that God may deign to reveal to me that law and faith that is most pleasing to him.’”