“What we came for, I hope.”
SIXTY-FOUR
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7
9:15 AM
MALONE LEANED BACK AGAINST THE BULKHEAD IN THE CAVERNOUS C130H transport. Brent Green had worked fast, hitching them a ride on an air force supply flight out of England bound for Afghanistan. A stop in Lisbon at the Montijo Air Base, supposedly for a minor repair, had allowed them to board with little fanfare. A change of clothes had awaited them; Malone, Pam, and McCollum now sported army combat uniforms in varying shades of beige, green, and brown, along with desert boots and parachutes. Pam had been apprehensive about the chute, but accepted his explanation that it was standard equipment.
The flight time from Lisbon to the Sinai was eight hours and he’d managed a little sleep. He recalled with no affection other flights on other transports, and the pall of oily jet fuel that hung in the air brought back memories of when he was younger. Staying away far more than being home. Making mistakes that hurt him even now.
Pam had clearly not liked the first three hours of the flight. Understandable, given that comfort was the least of the air force’s concerns. But finally she’d settled down and fallen asleep.
McCollum was another matter.
He’d seemed right at home, donning his parachute with expert precision. Perhaps he
He stared out the window.
Dusty, barren soil stretched in every direction, an irregular tableland, tilting ever upward as the Sinai Peninsula narrowed and erupted into craggy brown, gray, and red granite mountains. The Burning Bush and the theophany of Jehovah all supposedly occurred down there. The great and terrible wilderness of Exodus. Monks and hermits for centuries had chosen it as their refuge, as if being alone brought them closer to heaven. Perhaps it did. He was curiously reminded of Sartre’s
He turned from the window and watched McCollum leave the loadmaster and walk toward him, taking a seat on the aluminum frame that stretched across the bulkhead. Pam lay ten feet away, on the opposite side, still sleeping. Malone was eating one of the meals ready to eat-beefsteak with mushrooms-and drinking bottled water.
“You eat?” he asked McCollum.
“While you were sleeping. Chicken fajitas. Not bad. I remember MREs all too well.”
“You do look at home.”
“Been here, done this.”
They’d both removed their earplugs, which provided only minor insulation from the constant drone of the engines. The aircraft was loaded with pallets of vehicle parts destined for Afghanistan. Malone imagined that there were many similar flights each week. Where once supply routes depended on horses, wagons, and trucks, now the sky and sea offered the fastest and safest routes.
“You look like you’ve been here, too,” McCollum said.
“Does bring back some things.”
He was watching his words. Didn’t matter that McCollum had helped get them out of Belem in one piece. He remained an unknown. And he killed with expert precision and no remorse. His redeeming quality? He held the hero’s quest.
“You’ve got some pretty good connections,” McCollum said. “The attorney general himself arranged this?”
“I do have friends.”
“You’re either CIA, military intelligence, or something along that line.”
“None of the above. I’m actually retired.”
McCollum chuckled. “You keep that story. I like it. Retired. Right. You’re up to your eyeballs in something.”
He finished the meal and noticed the loadmaster eyeing him. He recalled that they could get touchy as to how MREs were trashed. The man motioned and Malone understood. The container at the far end of the bench.
The loadmaster then flashed his open palm four times.
Twenty minutes.
He nodded.
SIXTY-FIVE
VIENNA
8:30 AM
THORVALDSEN SAT INSIDE THE
Morning was free time for the members, as the next gathering of the Assembly was not scheduled until late afternoon. He’d kept the parchments inside the atlas beneath his bed all night. Now he was anxious to learn more. Though he could read Latin, his Greek was minimal, and his knowledge of Old Greek, which surely would be the language of Jerome and Augustine, was nonexistent. He was thankful that Hermann had commissioned the translations.
Gary sat across from him in another chair. “You said last night these may be what we came for.”
He decided the boy deserved the truth. “You were kidnapped so as to force your father to find something he hid away years ago. I think that and these papers are linked.”
“What are they?”
“Letters between two learned men. Augustine and Jerome. They lived in the fourth and fifth centuries and helped formulate the Christian religion.”
“History. I’m starting to like it and all, but there’s so much to it.”
Henrik smiled. “And the problem today is we have so few documents from that time. Wars, politics, time, and abuse have devastated the record. But here are writings straight from the minds of two learned men.”
He knew something about both. Augustine was born in Africa to a Christian mother and a pagan father. Eventually, as an adult, he converted to Christianity and recorded his youthful excesses in
Jerome, too, was born to a pagan family and misspent his youth. He was also learned, and came to be regarded as the most intellectual of all the church fathers. He lived as a hermit and devoted thirty years of his life to translating the Bible. Ever since, he’d been associated with libraries, so much so that he became their patron saint.
From the little that Thorvaldsen had overheard last night, these two men, who lived in differing parts of the ancient world, apparently communicated with each other during a time when Jerome was fashioning his lifework. Hermann had made his point to the vice president about biblical manipulation, but he needed to understand the situation fully. So he found the translation pages and started perusing them, reading the English passages out loud.
