“How is this possible?” he said in utter wonder. “Are you otaku?”

“I have their skills,” the elf said. “though they aggregate with this deck. It works on paraoplical principles. It interfaces with the mind more or less at the speed of light.”

“Impossible,” Michael said, knowing he was wrong.

“You seem to be saying that a great deal, Michael Sutherland. Do you not believe your own senses? No matter. I will go into the details with you later,” the elf promised. “However, unless my information is much mistaken, we have some rather urgent business at the moment which is more pressing. In about eight minutes a missile is due to hit this building and, unless I am much mistaken, it will probably bear a tactical nuclear warhead.”

“What?” Geraint almost exploded. This was all too much to take.

“Oh, there’s plenty of time,” the elf said calmly. “It will be shot down automatically. However, one of the reasons I wanted you here was to witness the event. You can go and take a look at the wreckage and verify the details for me. Actually, it means that the military men who accompany you will be useful additions to your number. I hadn’t expected them, but the unexpected can be rewarding.”

“Whose missile is it? And why?”

“The nuclear missile belongs to the Vatican,” the elf said. “And they hope to prevent me letting the world know a great many things they don’t want anyone to know.”

“I simply do not believe this,” Geraint protested. “This must be some kind of illusion or lie.”

“Which is why I very much want you to go and see what’s left of the wreckage when it’s shot down,” the elf said very earnestly. “I want independent witnesses to prove to the world that the Vatican took what I knew seriously enough to try to murder several thousand helpless, innocent people around this place in order to keep it all from reaching the ears of this hungry world.”

“I’ll scan it out,” Streak said, “And I’ll find out where it was manufactured and whose it was. He can’t con me on that kind of thing.”

“That’s what I hoped,” the elf said, really in earnest now. It struck home. He needed them for this, and they had to take him seriously.

“But why? What do you know? How can it possibly be worth a nuke? And what does it have to do with your running the Matrix and threatening every corp out there?” Michael asked in a flurry of queries.

“As to that, I just want the money. I need it. I have work to do on a scale beyond what I can manage to earn from what I do quietly here and there. Such funds got this place built, but now I need much more.”

“Twenty billion each from eight megacorps?”

“Well, I didn’t think I’d get it From all of them. Actually, twenty billion would be a good start. I think I can persuade Renraku to accommodate me,” the elf said. “On balance, I deemed them the best option for negotiations. They’d get a lot in return.”

“They’d bloody well have to,” Michael said, amazed.

“Well, there is this,” the elf said, indicating the deck. “Is this worth twenty billion?”

Michael was stopped in his tracks. He stared wildly at the elf, his breath coming hard.

“Frag me, it is. I reckon it is.”

“Well, it’s only a toy,” the elf said, “so perhaps I can hold out for more than that.”

“Isn’t this eight minutes getting a bit, well, shorter?” Streak suddenly asked. He ignored Michael’s expression of sheer disbelief at the elf’s comment that the deck was only a toy.

“Yes, yes. Salai will deal with it,” the elf said impatiently.

“Antimissile rockets can’t be counted on with a nuke if it’s smart,” Streak insisted.

“It won’t be done with such primitive things,” the elf told him.

“So, how?”

“Well, as I think they put it these days,” the elf said with a slightly sad smile but a smile nonetheless, “it’s all done with mirrors. Focused lasers. The warhead will be vaporized. The man casing will remain intact, though, for you to inspect and identify. There will also be sufficient radioactive material for you to collect a sample of and trace. I have suitable protective clothing available, I believe. That’s the kind of thing Salai handles.”

“Who is Salai?” Kristen asked suddenly, her tongue working at last.

“You’ll have to forgive the name,” the elf said. “An affectation when I adopted him. He’s oraku, but a very versatile young fellow and far less antisocial than most of them. He does, however, have some of the more negative traits of his historical antecedent.”

“He gambles, spends too much, and is rude to his master,” Serrin said, almost smiling. He’d studied the biographies carefully.

“Yes, all of that,” the elf said. “You have done some homework. I expected that of you from the reports. I could not be certain that Mr. Sutherland would recruit you, but when he did. I was pleased. Merlin thinks well of you, I know.”

“You know Hessler.”

“Oh, very well. We have known each other for, shall we say, some years. I must add, though, that he did not tell me anything of what passed between you. He simply allowed me to know that you were someone who could be worked with. That was important knowledge. I very much hope he is right. We shall all have to.”

“Look,” Serrin said, “we’re almost totally in the dark. We have to know what’s going on. You say too much we can’t understand.”

“You had to start from the icon in the Matrix,” the elf told him.

“Yes. It identified Leonardo. It’s also heretical, and in some sense fraudulent. The Shroud is a fake.”

“Of course it is,” the elf said. “Pope Innocent wanted it done. Innocent! Hah! It had a history, entirely superstitious and unconfirmed, but he thought it would make an excellent inspiration for the gullible. He really was an unprincipled old bastard, even by the standards of the times, and that’s saying something. Since it seems some, many, still believe in that ridiculous cloth, it’s plain that he knew what he was doing.”

They all realized the elf was talking as if he’d dealt with a Catholic pope dead for more than half a millennium, but Serrin didn’t seem fazed at all. He continued with his line of thought, each question marking another faltering but significant step in his reasoning.

“The Shroud’s face is Leonardo’s. So is that of the Mona Lisa, and you put her on the Shroud icon, except that you made her black.”

“Forgive me,” the elf said. “I never could resist a little self-advertisement.”

“You’ve come among a heretical cult that believes John the Baptist is the true son of God. Why?”

“They’re wrong, of course,” the elf said evenly, apparently unaware that he wasn’t answering Serrin’s question. “But they’re one step closer to the truth.”

“Why is the Magdalene the real focus of the Last Supper?” Serrin suddenly shot at the elf. Gray eyes met him firm and full, and the elf looked as if some weight had fallen from his shoulders. Serrin was suddenly shot through with a chill, a realization and understanding that hit him full in the heart and guts.

He is Leonardo.

And that is not all he is.

“So, now we come to the truth,” Leonardo said, rising to his feet. He had a sweep of grandeur about him that impressed itself even on the samurai, who stood stock-still looking at him with near-awe on their faces.

“You must understand, the Mandaeans were not taken in by the Pauline propaganda. They knew all the reasons why the older stories were true; the significance of Paul arriving in Corinth and Ephesus claiming himself to be the first Christian missionary and finding churches already there, as the Acts of the Apostles so foolishly gives away, and the churches were those of John. They also grasped the deep significance of baptism, and the Muslim people hereabouts regard their long adherence to that practice as very, very strange. The central significance, of course, is that the baptizer always initiates the baptized. He is senior to him, more initiated, more acquainted with the mysteries. He is no follower. He is the bearer of the knowledge, not the acolyte in search of it. How that managed to turn into a tale of John being little more than a spiritual warm-up act is one of history’s more endearing little tales.