The Book of Q

“Well … if someone tells him where it is.”

“That wouldn’t make any difference. It can’t be handled by anyone but a cardinal. Am I now making myself clear?”

“No. I mean, yes, of course, Eminence.” The man glanced at the two other guards. Both stared straight ahead. No help there. He looked back at Peretti. “You mean he isn’t Pope yet?”

Peretti waited, then responded. “I can stand here and have this conversation with you for as long as you like. But at some point, you’re going to have to open that door and let me get the Ritus.”

“But His Holiness-I mean His Eminence …” The guard leaned over the table; in a whisper, he said, “Cardinal von Neurath said that no one was to leave. He gave an express order.”

Peretti leaned in, as well. “Well, until he’s Pope, that order carries no more weight than my own, now does it?”

The guard needed a moment for that one. With a newfound resilience, he walked to the door, punched a few numbers into a keypad, and watched as the air lock released. “You,” he said to the man nearest him. “Go with His Eminence. Gun cocked at all times. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

The guard turned back to Peretti. “And if you could, Eminence, come back as quickly as possible.”

“Of course,” said Peretti. “I want to keep myself as safe as I can.”

The bookshop had all the tourist trappings: picture books on the bridge, postcards, even a few coffee mugs. Ivo had been particularly interested in a scale model of the bridge, the dust on the box saying more about the region’s recent history than any number of news stories could have. The man at the cash register had virtually beamed at the sight of the three of them perusing the stacks, less enthusiastic when Petra had pulled a map from one of the shelves and moved them to the back of the store. No need to be by the windows. Not that she expected Salko’s friends to be prowling the outskirts of town-less so a bookstore-but she’d done too much to make their arrival as inconspicuous as possible to jeopardize those efforts now.

They had stopped in Ustipraca-a town halfway between Rogatica and Visegrad-Petra friendly enough with the shopkeepers to rummage for something a little more provincial: long skirt and kerchief for her, coat, brimless cap, and a new pair of boots for him, along with a bundle of cloth put together to look like an infant in her arms. Three became four with a small blanket and a few pages of newspaper crumpled up inside. Most bizarre was her insistence that Ivo don a girl’s long skirt and kerchief of his own. He’d giggled his way through it all, Pearse thinking it a bit much, until he’d looked at all of them in a mirror. By then, she’d applied some stipple from a child’s makeup kit to his face, five days’ growth of beard to add to the image of the nondescript Bosnian family. Pearse had had trouble recognizing them himself.

Now, gazing at a map of the town, and acutely aware of the few other customers in the shop, he was grateful for the camouflage.

“There,” whispered Petra, pointing to a spot on the map. “The old inn would have been there.”

Pearse pulled a sheet from his jacket and placed it above the map. Tracing the inn, bridge, and hills, he marked an X for Mani’s location in the original triangle. He then peeled the page back.

“That can’t be right,” he said as he stared down at the area.

“That’s where the inn-”

“It puts him in the middle of the river,” he said, trying it again so as to make sure he hadn’t miscalculated.

“Let me see,” she said, taking the map.

Pulling the tracing away, Pearse pinpointed the three landmarks. “There, there, and there,” he said. “Which puts Mani there,” he added, his finger in the middle of the Drina.

“That can’t be right.”

“I just said that.”

Her eyes still on the page, she asked, “Which are your three landmarks?”

Trying not to show his frustration, he said, “The bridge, the hills, and your inn, which obviously wasn’t where you thought it was.”

When she looked up, the expression on her face only served to annoy him further.

“What?” he said.

“I’ll give you the inn and the hills, but you’ve got the wrong bridge.”

“What?”

“1521, Ian. The great bridge wasn’t built until fifty years later. Remember the song?”

Pearse didn’t answer.

“It’s the bridge over the Rzav River, not the Drina,” she said. “That’s the one your Manichaean was referring to.” She placed her finger on the map. “The Rzav is the other river in town, which happens to be there.”

Pearse brought the tracing up to the map. Angling it so as to accommodate the new landmark, he saw where Mani’s X had come to rest. Nowhere near the Drina. Luckily, there was only one site of interest in the vicinity, the name all too obvious as Pearse thought about it.

“‘Izvor za Spanski,’” he read. “Ribadeneyra was obviously more homesick than he let on.” He turned to Petra. “What’s a Spanish fountain doing in Visegrad?”

She looked more closely at the map. “It’s in the Cetvrt za Jevrejin, the old Jewish Quarter.”

Pearse began to nod. “Makes sense. A lot of Jews came east after the Spanish Expulsion. It’s the right time frame. They must have built it as some sort of memorial.”

Before he could ask, she said, “About fifteen minutes from here.”

He carried Ivo, she the “baby,” the streets relatively quiet for the late afternoon. The farther on they walked into town, however, the more the place began to fill, stores reopening after the protracted midday nap, more bodies on the streets to make Pearse feel a bit more comfortable.

It was when they reached the old marketplace that he recognized the first of the outsiders, men flaunting their conspicuousness-receivers with wires attached to their ears, handheld radios, not to mention the telltale dark suits of Vatican security. None of them seemed to notice the stares from the locals.

Pearse started to turn down a side street so as to avoid them, when he felt Petra slip her arm through his. She began to lead him directly toward one of the Vatican men.

Instinctively, he began to tug her back the other way. Almost at once, he stopped, aware that the movement would only draw more attention.

A numbing sensation began to course through his legs and torso as they drew closer to the man. In that instant, he knew only the betrayal: I’m no good with Latin … You’re frightening me. He had shown her where the “Hodoporia” was. There was no need to keep up the pretense any longer, no need to lead him around by the nose. Of course she had known what Salko was teaching her son. Of course she had been a part of it all along. How could I have been so stupid?

They were within a few feet of the man, Pearse ready for the final Judas kiss, when Petra simply glanced at the man, then continued moving on. With his heart pounding, Pearse moved on, as well.

“It’s only if you look like you’re trying to avoid them that they’ll notice you,” she said when they were out of earshot. “They’re not looking for a family of four with a seven-year-old girl, remember? If we’d gone down that side street, we’d be running for our lives right now.”

The best Pearse could do was nod.

He was still breathing heavily when she led them up into an area of town where the houses were packed in tighter together, narrow streets making it difficult for the sun to break through.

“I though for a minute back there-”

“I know,” she answered without looking at him. “Remember, you have to trust me.”

The moment in the village repaid in full.

They walked along the cobbled shadows for several minutes until she turned down a short alley-no sign of the Vatican faithful this far off the beaten path. Following the curve of the passageway, they came into a small courtyard of dirt and grass.

“‘Izvor za Spanski,’” she said.