Peretti hadn’t needed the reminder, the halls even now alive with talk, his private secretary having brought him updates on two separate occasions as to the already-vigorous “campaigning”-none of it permitted by canon law, all of it greedily devoured by the Vatican’s inner circles. No more than three hours since Ezio’s death, and the politicking was well under way. The thought sickened him.

He stared at the ashen face, the high forehead dusted with tufts of gray-white hair, lips with a tinge of blue that matched the veins in his ears. The once-lined face seemed somehow smoother, even the neck taut under a stifling collar. The perfect facade for a spiritless body. Insignificant amid the self-serving swirl of motion all around him.

Peretti knew he had limited time with his old friend. The Cardinal Camerlengo-representing one of the more macabre offices within the church-would be arriving within the hour to lock up the private apartments, break the papal seal, and start the preparations for the novemdieles, the nine days of mourning. He had already announced that the conclave would meet on the ninth day, much sooner than was usual, but certainly within his authority to decide. Most thought it was because the current Camerlengo, Antonio Cardinal Fabrizzi, was in his late seventies, eager to make his interregnum stewardship as short as possible. Peretti had other ideas. Fabrizzi was one of von Neurath’s longtime allies.

“I need all of you to leave,” Peretti said quietly, loudly enough, though, to bring a sudden silence to the room. One of the security men started to answer, but Peretti raised his hand. “Just a few minutes. I’m sure he’ll still be here when you get back.” He remained seated, eyes fixed on the body, face devoid of expression.

The nuns were the first to go, crossing themselves as they stood, each turning to Peretti with a gentle nod before heading for the door-Carmelite sisters, ever mindful of a cardinal’s wishes. A slow trickle of lawyers and doctors soon followed, the two or three security men the last to leave. Finally alone, Peretti stood and walked to the bed. Again, he stared into the lifeless face, hoping for some reassurance. He half-expected the eyes to open, a naughty smile to creep across the lips. “Gone at last,” Ezio would say, a wink, spindly legs springing to the floor.

Peretti knelt at his side, his head drooped in prayer.

“What were you so concerned with on Athos, Itzi?” He looked up and gazed at the serene face. “And why did you go without telling me?”

Angeli moved to the kitchen table, two cups of coffee in hand. She passed one to Pearse, then sat, the tale of the Austrian having required another pot.

“On the other hand,” she said, doing her best to convince both him and herself, “the men from security might simply have been that-men from security. They might actually have been trying to recover something they thought could be a threat to the church. A bit more aggressively than one would have expected, but still-”

“No.” Pearse shook his head, staring into the coal black of his cup. “Even if you dismiss Cesare and Ruini-and I’m not saying you can-think about who would want the scroll.” He placed the cup on the table and looked at her. “There are two possibilities. One, someone who hears about its discovery, tracks it down, and then does what you did-decodes the map and uncovers the link to Athos. At that point, he’d realize the prayer is only a first step, not the ultimate prize. He’d also realize that he doesn’t need it anymore-he’d already have the information necessary to get him to Athos, before anyone else, and retrieve whatever is there. So even if he were to lose the scroll, there’d be no reason for him to hunt it down.”

“True,” she conceded.

“Or two,” he continued, “someone who hears about it, but who never gets his hands on it, and therefore never has a chance to decode it. No decoding, no map. No map, and the prayer-in his eyes-would fall into the category of intriguing pieces of parchment rumored to exist, but lost to the ages. At best, he might do a little academic poking around to see if it wasn’t all a hoax.

“Neither possibility, however, would prompt the kind of zeal our Vatican friends have displayed. Unless”-he leaned in over the table-“they knew it was a map before they’d heard about the discovery, a map to something worth a great deal to them. The question is, given what you’ve told me, how would anyone, except a Manichaean, know that?”

“I see.” She let the words sink in before responding further. “No, you’re right. No one has ever thought of the ‘Perfect Light’ as a map. No one could have, given that there’s never been a written copy of it before.”

“So the only person who would go to such lengths for the scroll,” he concluded, “is someone who would have known it’s a map before the written version had ever been found.”

“And that,” she admitted, “limits the field considerably.”

The silence that followed only brought home the enormity of what they were saying. After a few moments, she spoke. “It would mean that those men from the Vatican are a part of something that dates back over seventeen hundred years.”

“It would also mean,” he added, “that, considering they’re still after the scroll, they have no idea where it leads. That’s why they’re so eager to get their hands on it.” Again, silence. Pearse took a long sip of coffee. “I suppose that gives me something of a head start.”

“What?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “You can’t be serious. If what you say is true about Ruini and this monk friend of yours, we have to take this-”

“To whom?” His conversation with Dante-had it really only been yesterday? — flooded back. “No one outside this room is likely to see a link between the confirmed heart attack of a priest and a fifteen-hundred-year-old acrostic, much less the unconfirmed disappearance of a monk and the promise of something older than the Gospels somewhere in Greece. Even the church would be hard-pressed-” He stopped, the sudden recollection of the television image storming back. “If von Neurath is involved”-the thought far more unsettling aloud-“who’s to say how deep this goes? Or how mysterious the Pope’s illness really was?”

“You’re making a very big jump there.”

“Am I? If we both agree these men are tied to the Manichaeans, you know better than I do what they had in mind for the Catholic church all those centuries ago. I can only imagine how their ‘hyperasceticism’ has evolved, their need for ‘one, pure church.’ Not the most pleasant place to be if they succeed. Plus, they’d have to destroy the current church to do it.” He waited. “Given what’s happened to Ruini and Cesare, not to mention my little run-in with security, are you willing to take the chance I’m wrong?” Her silence was answer enough. “The only way to find out is to get to Athos first.”

What she said next took him completely by surprise. “We could destroy it.”

“What?”

“The scroll, my notes, everything. Let whatever is on Athos stay on Athos. I can hardly believe I’m saying it, but it seems the only way.”

“To do what? Leave these men totally unaccountable? Athos is the only thing that might explain what they’ve been waiting to do all this time.”

“And with no way to find it,” she insisted,“they won’t have that chance.”

“Of course they have a way to find it. They have you and me.”

It was an obvious point, but one Angeli clearly hadn’t grasped until this moment.

She started to say something, then stopped. Instead, she looked at Pearse; she then picked up her cup and slowly began to drink.

After several seconds, he said, “I … didn’t mean to say it that way.”

“No, no,” she replied evenly, cup still clasped in her hands. “You’re right. Of course.” It was clear she was doing her best to stifle a growing unease. “They found your monk, you, no reason to think they won’t track me down, get the name of the monastery.”