She had expected more of the politician, less of the pedagogue. Another point in his favor. Fully aware he was testing the waters, she pushed further. “Such as?”

“Growing pains.” Before she could ask, he explained. “Fifteen hundred years ago, more or less, Mr. Mohammed leapt from his rock. Fifteen hundred years after the birth of Jesus Christ, our Mr. Luther emerged to challenge the existing authority. Growing pains,” he repeated. “This time, however, those coming of age aren’t aiming their recriminations at themselves. This time, it’s a godless world they’re after, and our Luther has become an Islamic fundamentalist. The trouble is, this go-round, there’s nothing strong enough to rein them in. And they’ve much deadlier toys than we ever did.”

“So you’re proposing a Tenth Crusade, Colonel?” she said somewhat sardonically.

“Holy war cuts both ways, Contessa.”

For a moment, she wasn’t certain just how seriously he was taking himself. “And you really believe they pose that kind of threat?”

“It’s not what I believe that matters. The threat is simply a tool. We didn’t go into Iraq because Saddam was killing innocent Kurds. We went in because we needed to protect Kuwaiti oil. Not likely that NATO would have garnered much public support for the latter. Saddam was the threat. Saddam was enough. You want to bring a disjointed Christian voice together, give them something to rally around.”

“I see.” The politician had emerged.

“And the best guide, I’ve always thought, is the cinema.” He had expected her surprise. “Oh, yes. Twenty years ago, the villain came in the form of the onetime Nazi; ten years ago, he was the renegade Communist. Now, he’s the Arab gone mad. If that’s what the public is buying, why not sell it to them wholesale? Does it really matter how genuine the threat is?”

“So what separates us becomes far less important than what connects us?” When he didn’t answer, she asked, “Is that what you’re saying, Colonel?”

His expression softened. “I believe what I’m saying is that we would be foolish not to use everything at our disposal, given the situation. As long as we can strengthen our position, does it really matter how we manage it?”

Watching him, she still couldn’t be sure if what he said had come from the heart of a zealot or from the mind of a practiced politician. Whatever the answer, she realized Stefan had been right. Col. Nigel Harris would be useful in the months to come.

The question was, Who would be helping whom?

“And, of course, you’ve already started managing it.”

“Of course.”

She waited. “Well,” she said, bringing the napkin to her lips, then laying it on the table. “You’ve given me so much to think about.” She stood, then Harris. “Please, sit down. Finish your breakfast. If you need anything else, just ring for it. I have some things I need to finish up before we arrive. I believe we’ll have a car waiting for you in Barcelona.”

“Very kind.”

She nodded and stepped out from behind the table. At the door, she turned. “So nice to have met you.”

“The pleasure was all mine.”

Another nod; she stepped out into the corridor and immediately into the adjoining room.

Stefan Kleist was standing in front of a two-way mirror, watching the colonel, who was now buttering a piece of toast.

“Well?” she said, kicking off her heels and moving toward him.

“Hard to know how easily we’ll be able to control him.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“There’s always one way.”

“Jealous?” She pressed up against his back; even without her shoes, she was a good inch taller than Kleist. She reached around his waist and unzipped his fly. Both of them continued to gaze at Harris as she probed within, the familiar thickness soon in her hand, his arousal growing as she began to stroke him with her fingers. She turned Kleist toward her, all the while her eyes fixed on Harris, who had pulled a cell phone from his pocket and was now making a call.

“Can we monitor that?” she asked as Kleist pulled up her skirt, leaving only a garter belt, never any panties, for him to deal with.

“It’s taken care of,” he said as he leaned back against the glass and hoisted her onto his thighs. He reached for his belt, but she stopped him.

“The zipper will scrape,” he said.

“I know,” she answered, and pulled him inside of her.

His thick hands clutched at her thighs, driving her up and down, momentary twinges of air from him each time he got caught on the zipper. It only made her buck harder.

“Quiet,” she whispered, her eyes staring at the scar on Harris’s face, watching it move as he talked. She could imagine licking at it, running her tongue along its narrow groove. She came, an instant later the feel of Kleist releasing inside of her. He continued to shudder, always a final few waves before he began to breathe again.

She wondered if it would be that easy with Harris.

“‘Map’?” The word seemed to catch Pearse by surprise. “To where?”

“To what might be a better question,” replied Angeli.

“Fine. But they obviously meant to hide it from everyone except a very select few. I can’t imagine too many Manichaeans would have been able to transcribe the prayer correctly.”

“Given the oral tradition, none. And even if they had, the transcriptions would have been meaningless without the letters. You needed all of the parts together, which, as it turns out,” she explained, “divide quite neatly into three subsections.”

“How appropriate.”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Anyway, each of the subsections contains five letters-one each from Adam, Seth, Enosh, Shem, and Enoch. The first set-the earliest chronologically-gives general geography. Whatever they were hiding, it moved around quite a bit during those first few centuries. They even had it in the Taurus Mountains and Armenia-wild and woolly places, to be sure-for several hundred years. By the end of the eighth century, however, it finds its permanent home at the tip of the Greek peninsula, on Mount Athos. I had always thought that the first Athos settlements didn’t pop up until the tenth. Obviously, the Manichaeans were there far earlier.

“Athos then becomes the focus of the next five letters, highlighted by scads of detail about a once-vibrant Manichaean monastery called St. Photinus. According to the Athos directory on the Internet, Photinus became a Greek Orthodox monastery sometime in the eleventh century.”

“So you think there’s a link between these Manichaeans and the Greek church?”

“The Greeks?” It took her a moment to understand what he was saying. “Oh, I see what you mean. No. Nothing like that. The Greek monasteries appeared on Athos only toward the end of the tenth century, before the Eastern church split with Rome.”

“And Photinus predates the other monasteries on the mountain?”

“Oh, yes. According to this, by a good five hundred years. Clever, these Manichaeans. They picked a very appropriate saint, wouldn’t you say?” When Pearse didn’t answer, she said, “Photinus? From phos … the Greek word for ‘light.’ It all seems to work, doesn’t it?”

Pearse’s expression was enough to get her back on track. “Anyway, the Athos monastery must have been built around 380. According to the directory, the Photinus monks chose the spot because it was ‘as close to heaven’ as they thought they could get. The Manichaeans evidently infiltrated the place sometime during the eighth century. And given what the letters say, there were several such infiltrated monasteries scattered throughout Greece and Macedonia from the sixth century on.”

“The unattractive side of Manichaeanism.”

“Exactly.”

“And the last cycle of letters?”

“That’s the one they reserved for the ‘what.’” She looked over at him. “Unfortunately, they’re not as forthcoming-even in code-about the very thing they went to such lengths to protect. But there’s enough there to suggest it was something rather extraordinary.”