Kate pretended to consult her city map. “You're sure?” she said softly.

The priest rubbed his beard. “I think so. I saw him catch a cab behind us at the Novotel. He rushed to get in the car next to ours on the funicular.”

Kate walked to the broad railing and leaned on it. The autumn wind brought the scent of the river. and dying leaves and auto exhaust up to her. “Are there any others?”

O'Rourke shrugged. “I don't know. I'm a priest, not a spy. “ He inclined his head toward an elderly couple walking a dachshund near the palace. “They may be following us, too . . . I dunno.”

Kate smiled. “The dog too?”

A tug pushing a long barge .up the river saluted the city with three long hoots. Traffic whirled around Clark Adam Ter below with a cacophony of horns, then swept across the Chain Bridge, fail lights blending with the red neon on the buildings across the river.

Kate's smile faded. “What do we do?”

O'Rourke leaned on the railing with her and rubbed his hands. “Go on, I guess. Do you have any idea who might be following you?” .

Kate chewed a loose piece of skin on her lip. Her head ached less this evening, but her left arm itched under the short cast. She was so tired that concentrating was like driving a car on dark icea slow and skittish process. “Romanian Securitate?” she whispered. “The Gypsies? American FBI? Some Hungarian thug waiting to mug us? Why don't we go ask him?”

O'Rourke shrugged, smiled, and led her back toward the upper terrace. The man in black leather moved away from them slightly and continued to be absorbed by the view of Pest and the river.

They continued strolling, arminarmjust another tourist couple, Kate thought giddilypast the funicular station, across a wide space labeled Disz ter by the street sign, and down a street that O'Rourke said was named Tarnok utca. Small shops lined the cobble stoned way; most were closed on this Sunday evening, but a few showed yellow light through ornate panes. The gas streetlamps cast a soft glow.

“Here,” said O'Rourke, leading her to the right. Kate glanced over her shoulder, but if the man in black leather was following, he was concealed by shadows. Carriages were lined along the small square here and the sound of horses chewing on their bits and shifting their hooves seemed very clear in the chill air. Kate looked up at the neoGothic tower of the small cathedral as O'Rourke led her to a side door.

“Technically this place is named Buda St. Mary's Church,” he said, holding the massive door for her, “but everyone calls it the Matthias Church. Old King Matthias is more popular in legend than he probably ever was in real life. Shhh . . . “

Kate stepped into the nave of the cathedral as the organ music suddenly rose from silence to nearcrescendo. She paused and her breathing stopped for a second as the opening chords of Bach's “Tocatta and Fugue in Dminor” filled the incenserich darkness.

The interior of the old Matthias Church was illuminated only by a rack of votive candles to the right of the door and one large, redglowing candle on the altar. Kate had an impression of great age: sootstreaked stonealthough the soot may have been only shadowson the massive columns, a neoGothic stained glass window over the altar, its colors illuminated only by the bloodred candlelight, dark tapestries hanging vertically above the aisles, a massive pulpit to the left of the altar, and no more than ten or twelve people sitting silently in the shadowed pews as the music soared and echoed.

O'Rourke led the way across the open area in the rear of the church, down several stone steps, and stopped at the last row of pews in the shadows to the left and behind the seating area in the nave. Kate merely sat down; O'Rourke genuflected with practiced ease, crossed himself, and then sat next to her.

Bach's organ music continued to vibrate in the warm, incense laden air. After a moment, the priest leaned closer to her. “Do you know why Bach wrote `Tocatta and Fugue'?”

Kate shook her head. She assumed it was for the greater glory of God.

“It was a piece to test the pipes in new organs,” whispered O'Rourke.

Kate could see his smile in the dim, red light.

“Or old organs for that matter,” he went on. “If a bird had built a nest in one of the pipes, Bach knew that this piece would blast it out. “

At that second the music rose to the point that Kate could feel the vibrations in her teeth and bones. When it ended, she could only sit for a moment in the dimness, trying to catch her breath. The few others who had been there, all older people, rose, genuflected, and left by the side door. Kate watched over her shoulder as a whitebearded priest in a long, black cassock locked the door with the sliding of a heavy bolt.

O'Rourke touched her arm and they walked back to the rear of the nave. The whitebearded priest opened his arms, he and O'Rourke embraced, and Kate blinked at the two, the modem priest still in his bomber jacket and jeans, the older priest in a cassock that came to his shoetops, a heavy crucifix dangling around his neck.

“Father Janos,” said O'Rourke, “this is my dear friend Doctor Kate Neuman. Doctor Neuman, my old friend Father Janos Petofi.”

“Father,” said Kate.

Father Janos Petofi looked a bit like Santa Claus to Kate, with his trimmed white beard, pink cheeks, and bright eyes, but there was little of Santa Claus in the way the older man took her hand and bent over to kiss it. “Charmed to meet you, Mademoiselle.” His accent sounded more French than Hungarian.

Kate smiled, both at the kiss and the honorific that gave her the status of a young unmarried woman.

Father Janos clapped O'Rourke on the back. “Michael, our . . . ah . . . Romany friend is waiting.”

They followed Father Janos to the rear of the cathedral, through a heavy curtain that passed for a door, and up a winding stone staircase.

“Your playing was magnificent, as always,” O'Rourke said to the other priest.

Father Janos smiled back over his shoulder. His cassock made rustling sounds on the stone steps. “Ah . . . rehearsal for tomorrow's concert for the tourists. The tourists love Bach. More than we organists, I think.”

They emerged onto a choir loft thirty feet above the darkened vault of the church. A large man sat at the end of one pew. Kate glimpsed a sharp face and heavy mustache under a wool cap pulled low and a sheepskin coat buttoned high.

“I will stay if you need me,” offered Father Janos.

O'Rourke touched his friend on the shoulder. “No need, Janos. I will talk to you later.”

The older priest nodded, bowed toward Kate, and disappeared down the stairway.

Kate followed O'Rourke to the pew where the swarthy man waited. Even with her eyes adapted to the candlelight in the church, it was very dark up here.

“Dobroy, Doctor Newman?” said the man to O'Rourke in a voice as sharpedged as his face. His teeth gleamed strangely. He looked at Kate. “Oh . . . rerk?”

“I'm Doctor Neuman,” said Kate. The echo of Bach's music still vibrated in her bones through layers of fatigue. She had to concentrate on reality. “You are Nikolo Cioaba?”

The Gypsy smiled and Kate realized that all of the man's visible teeth were capped in gold. “Voivoda Cioaba,” he said roughly.

Kate glanced at O'Rourke. Voivoda. The same word that had been under the Vienna portrait of Vlad Tepes.

“Beszed Romany?” asked Voivoda Cioaba. “Magyarul?”

“Nem,” replied O'Rourke. “Sajnalom. Kerem . . . beszel angolul?”

The gold teeth flashed. “Yesss . . . yesss, I speak the English . . . Dobroy. Velcome.” Voivoda Cioaba's dialect made Kate think of an old Bela Lugosi movie. She rubbed her cheek to wake up.

“Voivoda Cioaba,” said Kate, “Father Janos has explained to you what we want?”

The Gypsy frowned at her for a moment and then the gold teeth glimmered. “Vant? Igen! Yes . . . you vant to go Romania. You come from . . . Egyesult Allamokba . . . United. States . . . and you go to Romania. Nem?”