He looked over at her. “Ribadeneyra. He explains why we found those pieces of parchment eight years ago in Slitna.” Before she could ask, he continued. “According to this, before he died, he sent a handful of men out with packets of pressed vellum, each filled with messages written in Eastern Syriac, not Latin. Something about the purity of the original tongue.”
“Eastern what?”
“It’s not important. The point is, the men were told to hide the pieces in churches throughout Europe. That’s what we found. Each of the packets had a clue to where the ‘Perfect Light’ scroll was hidden. In other words, he basically had them replant the clues that he’d found himself during his twenty-year search. He’d already reburied the ‘Perfect Light’ scroll back in Istanbul before heading west, and he was banking on the fact that someone, at some point in time-depending on Mani’s will-would piece the packets together and find his way to the ‘Perfect Light.’”
“The scroll your monk friend gave you in Rome.”
“Cesare. Exactly. His friend, a man named Ruini, actually found the ‘Perfect Light’ scroll in Istanbul. He then gave it to Cesare, who gave it to me. The ‘Perfect Light’ was what lead me to Photinus, where, instead of finding the real prize, I found Ribadeneyra’s own little book-the one with all the cryptograms-which was simply meant to add one more step to the hunt for the ever-elusive ‘Hagia Hodoporia.’”
“This,” she said, holding up the recently unearthed scroll.
“Right. Before he died, Ribadeneyra hid the ‘Hodoporia’ inside this fountain, and then sent his last helper back to Photinus to hide the little book of cryptograms in the Vault of the Paraclete. End of story.”
“Cautious man,” she said.
“Or terribly devout. The two seem to go hand in hand with these people. At least when they’re dealing with their ‘Hodoporia.’”
She thought about it, then said, “Don’t you think it’s a little strange that you happened to be there when one of those packets was found outside of Slitna, and now you’re here?”
Pearse looked up from the page. It took him a moment to respond. “We gave those pages to Salko, didn’t we?”
She nodded.
Again, he waited. He turned to her. “I can’t worry about that now. I need to find out what this thing is. There’s a woman in Rome who’s depending on that.”
She placed the sheet back in the box, then looked at him. “Things have gotten a little more complicated, I think.” She held his gaze, then looked past him to Ivo, whose head was resting up against Pearse’s shoulder. “How are you doing, sweetie? You holding up okay?”
Ivo nodded quickly. He then looked at Pearse. “How are you doing, Ian?”
“Fine, Ivi. Fine.”
Ivo pulled in even closer, and, in a whisper, said, “Can I have one of those gold coins?”
Pearse smiled. “Sure. Take as many as you want.”
Petra reached into the box and handed him several of the coins. “Why don’t you go play with them over there, sweetie. We still need to read some more of this.”
Ivo skipped off, hands cupped around the coins. He picked a spot about twenty feet from them and sat down.
Petra continued to watch him. “Much more complicated.”
Pearse watched the boy, as well. And he nodded.
Without warning the sound of an explosion rocked the courtyard, followed by a violent tremor. Ivo quickly got to his feet. At the same instant, the children playing soccer darted into the middle of the courtyard and lay flat on the ground. Within seconds, others were emerging from the buildings-the old and the young-the courtyard’s center their focus, as well. Petra handed Pearse the box and ran toward Ivo, who had already run out into the open area and was now lying facedown with the rest. Pearse followed, all of them flat on the ground when the sound of sirens began to blare.
“That didn’t sound like an artillery shot,” he said.
“It wasn’t,” she answered.
“Then why are we all lying out in the open like this?”
She looked over at him. “Because some habits die hard, Ian.”
He remembered his days in Slitna, the first rule of survival: get out of the buildings. He peered around at the old women and children, all of them facedown in the grass and dirt. Slowly, the heads began to rise. Each one listened intently for the sound of another blast. As the minutes passed and the sirens grew louder, they began to get to their feet. En masse, they headed for the passageway.
Pearse, Petra, and Ivo fell in behind, close enough to hear snippets of conversations, the word
Pearse leaned into Petra as they walked. “What church are they talking about?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
The maze of alleyways took them back toward the marketplace, more and more people on the streets as they neared the open area. Pearse felt the heat of the explosion before he saw it, that once-familiar tang of gasoline and sulfur. With the rest, he stopped at the edge of the marketplace, far enough out, though, to see a building rising in flames no more than a hundred yards from them.
The scene was mayhem, people lying in the street, two cars on their sides, undercarriages on fire. Storefront glass lay scattered everywhere; a few larger shards had landed with such force that they looked liked great crystal teeth imbedded in the pavement. Nothing was more harrowing, though, than the sight of the bloodied survivors screaming their way down the street, one woman carrying a child who was clearly no longer alive. Others had raced out to help them, some from an unseen ambulance corps, still more from the growing crowds, the area a haze of zigzagging bodies.
Pearse pushed his way through, unaware that he was still toting the iron box in his hands. He never felt the tug from Petra as he raced out and headed for the first person he could reach.
She was a woman in her twenties, seated almost serenely on the ground, staring mindlessly at her leg. Somehow, something metal had twisted its way into her calf. Pearse pulled off his coat and draped it around her shoulders; she didn’t seem to notice he was there. He looked up to see if there was anyone even remotely medical nearby, but there were too many people to make out anything clearly.
“And the fish,” she said, now looking up at him. “Before he runs out of it.”
Pearse looked down. There was hardly any focus in her eyes. He nodded. “You’re going to be fine,” he said.
He noticed an area across the way where they were beginning to bring the wounded. He looked back at the woman. “I’m going to pick you up now. Is that all right?”
The woman said nothing.
As carefully as he could, he placed one arm under her leg, the other around her back, and began to lift. At once, she started screaming. Moving as quickly as he could across the street, he arrived at the makeshift triage area, a voice somewhere in front of him telling him where to put her. Pearse set her down.
“That’s great. Thank you. Now you need to clear this area,” the man said. “No more heroics today.”
Pearse began to answer, but the man was gone.
It was then that he realized he had left the box in the middle of the street. He spun around to try to find it, only to see Petra and Ivo standing with it. She no longer had the “baby”; Ivo had lost his kerchief. More than that, his skirt remained up around his waist, his muddied pants in full view. Pearse started toward them. He was barely out into the street when he saw a man in a dark suit converging on them.
Pearse began to run. Ducking through the mayhem, he watched as Petra began to make her way into the crowds at the edge of the marketplace, the black box in hand. It was clear from her body language that she was fully aware of the man trailing after her. She and Ivo slipped into the mass of people, the man-speaking into a radio-ten yards behind them. Within seconds, he, too, was moving through the crowds. Pearse fell in behind all three.
At once, he realized Petra was trying to use the crowd to get herself around the perimeter of the marketplace. With Ivo in tow, though, she had no hope of losing the man; the spacing between them began to close. Pearse drew nearer as well, the man so intent on his prey that he never considered the possibility that he
