“They want the scroll. They know I have it. They’ll want me.” He could see his efforts to placate were having little effect. “But if I get to Athos first …”

“Yes? And then what?”

He tried a smile, a shake of the head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe it’ll force them out into the open.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” For nearly half a minute, she sat there, staring at the table. Finally, she placed the cup down, swept a few crumbs onto the floor, and stood. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

Again, Cesare’s voice echoed in his head. “I’m sorry I involved you in this.”

It took her a moment to respond. Finally, she began to nod to herself. “I involved myself in this a long time ago.” She turned to him. “You don’t dream of finding a scroll like yours for an entire career and then run away from it when it’s right in your hands.”

“This is more than just a scroll.”

“They’re all more than just scrolls, Ian. That’s what I’ve been telling my students for thirty years. Wouldn’t make much sense not to take my chance to prove it, now would it?”

He knew she was grasping at anything to stem the anxiety. Who was he to argue with the method?

“There’s a phone call I need to make,” she said as she moved to the door. “And I’ll have to transcribe my notes so you can read them.” She needed to focus on the hunt, not on its implications. A map. Nothing more. She stopped and turned to him. “And some new clothes. A Catholic priest on Athos … now that wouldn’t make much sense, would it?”

An hour later, she handed him a large manila envelope filled with yellow pages. Two hours after that, she returned to the apartment with numerous packages under each arm. He had used the time to catch a quick nap, then to acquaint himself with the envelope’s contents. Even given the little he had read, he was astounded at how simple it all became when focused through an expert’s lens.

She had done well. Pants, shirts, backpack-all the necessities. It had been a long time since he’d forgone the customary clericals. While he was trying on a green pullover, she removed one of the last items from the bag. A wad of cash. He looked at her quizzically. Before he could respond, she took his hand and placed the money in it.

“Lire, drachma, even some American dollars. They seem to like those wherever you go.”

“I can’t take-”

“Yes, you can.” She smiled. “You probably won’t need all of it, but best to be safe.” He tried to hand it back, but she stepped away. “And how, exactly, were you going to get to Greece and back? On a credit card?” She shook her head. “That can be traced. So, too, can withdrawals from a bank machine.” She was showing a great deal more savvy than he was himself. How had he planned to get to Athos and back? He realized he had no choice but to pocket the money.

“The man in Salonika is a former student of mine, Dominic Andrakos,” she continued, now folding the bag. “I’ve told him you’re a colleague. I gave you the name Peter Seldon.”

“What?” Pearse was genuinely surprised.

“Well, I had to make up something. I don’t want to get Dominic involved in all of this. Peter’s a winegrower I know in California. Excellent Chardonnay. It was the first thing that popped into my head.”

Again, best to let her handle it in her own way. Come to think of it, the alias actually made sense. More than protecting Andrakos-admirable in itself-he knew his own name might draw attention on Athos. She really was better at this than he was.

“You’re interested in Ambrose and his possible link to St. Photinus,” she continued.

“There is no link.”

“Yes, but Dominic doesn’t know that.” She deposited the folded bags in a drawer. “His interests have always been somewhat later-ninth century, Photius’s split with Nicholas the First, that sort of thing. Makes him very well connected on Athos. He said he’d be delighted to arrange things. He’s expecting you sometime tomorrow, late afternoon.”

She had obviously managed to put their earlier conversation from her mind. His was a research junket. Perhaps even something of a game. A wad of cash. A new name. A former student. Access to Athos. That he would have to use his Vatican passport at the border-something else easily traced-hadn’t penetrated her defenses. He would get to Greece. That was as much as she cared to discuss.

He slipped his priest’s shirt, jacket, and collar into the backpack. From experience, he knew how persuasive they could be at the borders. Together with the Vatican seal on his identification papers, they’d be enough to impress an indifferent guard. The manila envelope was the next to go inside.

“You know,” she said, busying herself with something at the counter, “what you find might be more than you expect.”

Her sudden willingness to revisit the real issue surprised him. “I realize that. Whatever the Manichaeans have-”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said firmly, her back still to him. He stopped loading the pack and waited for her to explain. “What if it is older than the Gospels? What if it does alter the way we understand Christ’s message, the church?” She turned to him. “I know you’ve always had trouble with the structure, but this goes a good deal beyond that. They think it could actually tear down the church. Regardless of how the Manichaeans would want to use it, as a Catholic, Ian, how much are you willing to find?”

For the first time in hours, Pearse recalled his first reaction to the scroll. Not apprehension. Not fear. Only wonder. The possibility of Christ untethered. The purity, the connection that he’d always craved. Sola Scriptura. How much more powerful could it be than that? And if no longer in the scroll, then in whatever awaited him on Athos. Disentangled from the Manichaeans, it posed none of the threat Angeli was investing it with. At least not to him.

Maybe that was why he was so eager to go after it, why he had so quickly taken the task as his own. For the Manichaean threat? For himself? In all the excitement, he hadn’t really bothered to ask. Nor could he have. The two were now inexorably tied together. The questions would have to wait.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“You might want to figure that one out.” She stared at him for a moment longer, then opened her purse and pulled a baseball from it. She tossed it to him. Without thinking, he reached out and caught it. “I found it in the Rinascente,” she said. “Amazing what they have there these days.”

Tracing his fingers across the seams, he smiled. “You remembered.”

“A priest tossing a little ball in a cafe so he can figure out an ancient picture grid? Yes, that’s not something one forgets.” Now she smiled. “Just make sure the monks don’t catch you. They’d probably confiscate it.”

The surreal quality of their last hours together remained with Pearse for much of the train trip to Brindisi, sleep an impossibility. She had insisted on taking him to lunch, along with giving him a brief summary of Athos’s history, all in a vain effort to lend some normalcy to the situation. More than not, though, they had eaten in silence. There was enough conversation around to relieve them of the burden. As one might have expected, talk of the Pope had monopolized every table. More like touts than a grieving flock, the clientele of the cafe had been placing odds: Peretti at two to three, von Neurath at even. Other names had entered the mix, as well, Pearse amazed by the familiarity the lunchtime crowd displayed with the inner workings of the Sacred College. Silvestrini at four to one (too old); Mongeluzzi at six to one (too young); Iniguez, Daly, and Tatzric all at ten to one (too foreign). Enough of a distraction, though, for both of them.

The good-byes had been brief, awkward at best, both trying to downplay the events of the last day. He had made it to the station by 1:30.