"Why?"

"Once, religion was the law, the supreme power in the world, but gradually that power eroded, ceded to kings, warlords, parliaments and presidents. As religion's power waned, the Order moved with the times, into the power centers of the secular world. We became businessmen and politicians.

"And all the while, we followed the Knights, whose mission it was to keep power concentrated in as few hands as possible: the Kaiser, Hitler, Mussolini, you get the picture."

"Are you telling me that the Knights of St. Clement were behind-"

"They certainly played their part, they greased the wheels, and we-the Order-did our part to stop them, to ensure the democratization of power. This is the essence of the clandestine world-we still call it by its ancient name, the Voire Dei, the Truth of God-in which we operate, Bravo."

"But if the Order is no longer religious in nature, what has it become?"

"Through the 1940s, we kept Hitler mesmerized with a blizzard of astrological charts from which he made every wrong decision he could make, overextending his army in Russia and Western Europe. We kept the Nazis from learning about the Manhattan Project, despite Werner Heisenberg's work as Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin. In 1945, members of the Order spoke to Harry Truman to ensure the atomic bombing stopped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then, we have strived to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In 1962, one of us met with Nikita Khrushchev in a dacha outside Moscow and persuaded him to back off his stand on Cuba.

"Through economic means, we spent a decade ensuring the fall of Communism and the breakup of the USSR. Today, we work continuously in Africa to stop the spread of disease, in Eastern Europe to keep governments stable, in Western Europe and Asia to educate Mamies, to try to protect them from the desperate measures of terrorism. Extremism catches hold when all hope is gone, when a human being has been stripped of everything except hatred. We do all this behind the scenes, otherwise we'd continuously be under attack by the Knights. Sometimes we're not successful or only partially successful-the onrush of world events is sometimes overwhelming. But with the original mission St. Francis gave us to travel the world to do good, to keep nothing for ourselves, we have persevered. Until now, when the entire world is threatened, when at any moment it might come under the thumb of the Knights of St. Clement."

She turned, and together they hurried down the path, a narrow aisle between the granite gravestones and polished marble mausoleum walls.

"The secrets in the cache are our power," she continued. "At first, they were the schemes of kings, merchant-princes, cardinals to murder their rivals, to corner the Dutch commodities markets that we ourselves created in the seventeenth century. Later on, plots by governments to back this dictator, assassinate that one, to wage war and then, afterward, award the plum contracts for infrastructure rebuilding to companies who contributed to their election; backdoor politics that distributed aid sent to poor countries into the hands of political leaders who needed it least. Embezzlement, coercion, treason, shall I keep going? The under-the-table deals between businesses to wipe out rivals, the embezzlement of funds, the breaches of fiduciary trusts, the venality of those at the top of the ladder of power. All the injustices man commits against his fellow man.

"Used judiciously, our knowledge of all these and more gives us a unique wedge, opening doors otherwise closed to all outsiders. It allows us to influence leaders, politicians, businessmen into making decisions beneficial to the world, and to the prospect of peace."

"And the Knights want war?"

"The Knights want our secrets-our power. I assure you they would not use them so judiciously. They seek to consolidate their power, to at long last break free of the Vatican's yoke. They want to influence governments and business to their own ends."

It seemed odd to him now, but he had always suspected there was more to history than could be read in any library book or doctoral thesis. And why not? His father had trained him to intuitively understand the nature of secrets, to not only accept their existence but learn to unearth and unravel them.

"The secret history of the world," he said, repeating the phrase she had used.

She nodded. "And up until now we've managed to thwart all their efforts. Just so you understand the stakes: what happens in the next week will be crucial not only to the survival of the Order but to the world itself."

"But why now?" Bravo said. "The Knights have been trying to steal the cache for centuries."

"The pope is gravely ill."

"There's been no news-"

"Of course there hasn't-not yet, anyway. The Vatican has seen to that. But his illness has thrown the Vatican into chaos-especially the cabal of cardinals who back the Knights. The Knights have used the panic to galvanize the cardinals' full power behind them once and for all-lengths to which even these cardinals had been afraid to go until the pope was incapacitated. The Knights have come after us as never before. This is the Order's last stand, Bravo. Here we survive, or die."

"How many of you are there?"

"Five hundred, give or take."

"Not so many."

"We're strewn around the globe, in every major country and a smattering of minor ones, but of members like myself there are less than fifty. I'm a Guardian. Have you come across word of us in your studies?"

Bravo shook his head.

"I'm not surprised. The Guardians were deliberately undocumented, a closely held secret. It was-and is-our job to keep the others, especially members of the Haute Cour, safe from harm."

He felt suddenly angry. "And yet you and your fellow Guardians allowed five of the Haute Cour to die. Where were you when my father was killed?"

"Remember I told you that one of the Haute Cour drowned while boating? He was my father. I was in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay when your father was killed. I was in a wet suit, searching for my own father's body."

Her words momentarily took the edge off his rage. "Did you find him?"

"No. The tides were strong and a two-day storm offshore had churned the water to murk. It was impossible to see anything clearly, let alone find a body."

"I'm sorry," Bravo said.

"So am I."

His anger fought to reassert itself. "If it wasn't you, then who was assigned to protect my father?"

The knifepoint of his voice pricked her. "Are you out for revenge, Bravo?" she said shortly. "If so, I suggest you save it for those who murdered him."

Racked by his own tragedies, he hardened his heart against hers. "You didn't answer my question."

They had come to the end of the necropolis, though there was a scattering of other mausoleums in the near distance. They stood facing one another, glaring.

"Your father ditched his Guardian some time before he met you. He also disabled a Knight of the Field who was shadowing him. He was an expert at losing himself whether he was in a crowd or not, and, in retrospect, it's clear he wanted to be alone with you-completely alone."

Bravo took some moments to digest this as they continued down the path she had chosen, then he slowly let out his breath. "You seem to have all the answers, and you're resourceful. Is that why my father led me to you?"

"I wish I did have all the answers." She cocked her head. "Why did your father ditch his Guardian, why did he want to be alone with you?"

I want to make you an offer. Remember your old training?

"I don't know," he said, but there was another clutch in his stomach and he had to fight the urge to hit something. He knew what his father had meant for him, all right. The only question was whether he'd accept it. "No," he said after a moment's thought. "He asked if I remembered my old training. Of course he knew I did, he was simply preparing me. I'm certain he was going to ask me to join the Order."