contemporaries had ever even seen the Holy City, although it was the avowed goal of the Templars until their dissolution in 1307.
8. The name both crusaders and Templars gave to the Holy Land, which they viewed as simply another country under the reign of the Pope.
9. The Bible was read at all meals.
10. The last mass of the day, usually said right before bed.
11. It is assumed this Frankish word is the origin of the English bushel. The exact quantity denoted is lost to antiquity.
12. An early morning mass, usually around five A.M. The first masses of the day, Matins and Lauds, were said shortly after midnight. After Prime came Terce, then Nones, Sext, Vespers, etc., for a total of six a day.
13. Many monastic cells were intentionally constructed so the occupant was always bowed when in it, thereby enforcing the virtue of humility.
Part Two
CHAPTER ONE
1
Dallas, Texas
The next day
Lang hated flying. He felt helpless and out of control belted into an airline seat.
Gloomily, he sat in the waiting area for gate twenty-two of the American Airlines terminal at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and watched the man with the little boy.
The guy, mid-forties, mousey gray hair retreating from front and top, slightly paunchy, was the sort who would be the last to be noticed in a room full of people, just the sort of person Lang had been trained to watch first. The child was blond, four or five, and didn't look enough like the man to be related. Having the kid along, though, was good cover. Somebody had been clever.
Lang had paid them minimal attention when the man had puffed his way to the Delta counter in Atlanta and bought the tickets, explaining he had to make the flight, a family emergency.
An emergency where?
Lang had booked the ticket to Dallas, paid by credit card, gone to the American counter and used cash and a false, if expired, passport from his past as ID to buy a seat from Dallas to Fort Lauderdale. He planned to cab from Lauderdale to Miami International, then catch a plane to Rome via JFK. The circuitous routing had paid off in shaking the tail out of the crowd of travelers.
In Atlanta, there had been no reason to consider the pair to be anything other than what they seemed. When they had gotten on the same tram in Dallas to go from the Delta terminal to the American terminal, Lang became suspicious. They had not had time to collect the single bag they had checked in Atlanta, although the boy had the same bright yellow backpack he had carried on board. Seeing them at the gate for the flight to Lauderdale got Lang's attention.
Even with the airlines' price wars, Atlanta-Lauderdale via Dallas was a bit unusual.
Lang watched the guy go to the bank of pay phones, no doubt to alert someone to be on standby in Florida. The fact that he chose a land line rather than a cellular denoted that he was either one of the few people in America without a mobile unit or wanted security for his call. Lang pretended interest in the view of the tarmac from a window next to the pay phones, a position from which he could hear every word. The man glared and hung up without saying good-bye.
When the man took the little boy to the men's room, Lang went to a newsstand and bought a USA Today. He browsed the candy, selecting three foil-wrapped Peppermint Patties. Then he followed the guy into the toilet and shut himself into a stall. From the outside, it would look as though Lang was reading the paper as he did his business.
Lang only needed a little luck for the guy not to have time to make another call before he got back.
Returning to the waiting area, Lang glanced around as though trying to find a seat. He selected one next to the kid, who was engrossed in a Game Boy. Moving the child's backpack slightly with his foot, Lang sat so that the little boy was between Lang and the boy's companion. Lang swiveled in the seat so that the yellow pack was partially obscured by his legs.
'Whatcha playin'?' Lang asked the child.
He wasn't shy of strangers. 'In-ig-ma,' he said without looking up.
Lang watched the blips scramble across the tiny screen. He could feel the adult's question: Did Lang know? But there wasn't a whole lot Lang's shadow could do without attracting attention.
'How d'you play?' Lang asked innocently.
He listened to an explanation surprising in its detail for a child that age.
'Sounds like it would be more fun for two,' Lang suggested.
'That's mighty nice of you, mister,' the man said, 'but you don't have to…'
Lang couldn't place the accent but it certainly didn't come from Atlanta.
'But I want to,' Lang said.'Reminds me of my own son.' He managed a pained expression. 'He was about this age when he died of leukemia.'
The eyes of the white haired woman in the seat across from Lang instantly glistened. There was no way the man could gracefully get Lang to leave the little boy alone. From the expression on his face, that had occurred to the minder, too.
'May I?' Lang held out a hand.
The child looked at the man for approval and handed the game over.
'Oops!' Lang dropped it.
As he reached under the seat to retrieve the little electronic box, Lang slid something out of his pants leg and into his hand.
Lang suddenly jerked erect and pointed down the concourse. 'Isn't that Mel Gibson?'
Heads snapped around in unison. Lang slipped the object into the backpack and retrieved the Game Boy.
'Guess I was mistaken,' Lang admitted sheepishly. 'Show me one more time how this works.'
Lang was getting soundly thrashed when the flight was called a few minutes later.
As a first-class passenger, Lang went to the head of the boarding line, noting the table that, since 9/11, always stood ready for random searches. When he handed his ticket to the gate attendant, he also leaned forward and spoke in low tones. From her reaction, he might have made a lewd proposition.
She hurriedly turned her duties over to one of the ticket agents and scurried away.
Lang waved to the little boy and boarded.
He was sipping Scotch and trying to find his place in a paperback novel when a woman slipped a thin bag into the overhead bin and slid into the seat beside him. She wore a business suit, a matching gray jacket and skirt. Lipstick and a slight blush were her only makeup. Her ash-blond hair was gathered into a chignon by a tortoiseshell comb. The important finger sported a diamond that anywhere other than Texas would have been vulgar. She was young, twenty-something, but puffing like an octogenarian climbing his third flight of stairs.
Lang smiled at her as he put down the drink glass. 'Sounds like you ran the whole way.'
She gulped a lungful of air. 'I thought they were gonna cancel the flight and I have to, absolutely have to, get to Fort Lauderdale.'
