Lang stretched his legs as far as the limited space allowed, an unending quest for comfort. "You said that was the end of the story. What became of James?"

Francis made no effort to suppress a yawn. "Martyred. He was stoned by a mob outside the Jerusalem temple and then thrown from the highest part of the building. Or vice versa."

Lang sat straight up, legroom forgotten. "Stoned and thrown from a building? That was the way Eon was murdered."

"Now there's a coincidence."

Lang shook his head. "I don't think so. A bullet would have been quicker and easier. Besides, when's the last time you heard of death by stoning?"

Francis's lips tightened. "You're saying someone killed your friend in the same manner as James? Why would they go to that much trouble?"

"If I knew that, I might have a good idea who these people are." Lang thought for a moment. "Were any of the saints martyred by having their throats cut?"

Francis was silent a moment, reviewing the ever-ingenious ways in which early Christians were dispatched to meet their God. "I suppose that could be said of Matthew. He was hacked to death with a halberd. But why…?"

Lang was thinking, calling up details of the murder scene in Prague. "Does a purse mean anything to you?"

The priest was clearly puzzled. But then, his friend frequently asked questions that made no sense at the moment. "A purse?"

"Like an old-fashioned woman's change parse."

Francis ran the palm of a hand across his jaw. "As perhaps related to St. Matthew?"

Now it was Lang's turn to be baffled. "A purse would be related to a particular saint?"

"All saints have symbols; most, several. In medieval times, the clergy were the only people who could read and, of course, no one knew what the various saints looked like. So, they were identified to the common person by symbols. Matthew's was a purse, since he had been a toll collector. But he is also symbolized by a winged man or a lance."

But neither a lance nor a winged man had been in Klaus's home.

Something else was emerging from Lang's memory, something he had read. From experience, he knew no amount of effort was going to make it clear. It would come in its own sweet time.

The newspaper, the Times account of Eon's death. It had mentioned something that at the time seemed a non sequitur, a totally irrelevant fact.

A seashell? No, a specific kind of shell… a scallop shell!

If the purse hadn't belonged to the old man, if the killer had left it behind as a symbol of the saint whose death resembled his…

"What was the symbol for James?"

"A shell, the sort of shell the oil company uses as its logo. I can understand your interest in James, since it was supposedly his gospel that was stolen, but why the sudden curiosity about saints in general? I'm not optimistic enough to think a conversion of the heathen is taking place. Even God recognizes the futility of some of his miracles."

"Just thinking."

Francis removed the pitifully small pillow from behind his head and gave it a couple of emphatic thumps as though it were capable of being fluffed. "Think on. I'm going to try to get some sleep."

In minutes, Lang was left alone with his thoughts and the sound of soft snores.

III.

Leonardo da Vinci International Airport

Fiumicino

The Next Morning

Lang felt as wrinkled as his clothes when the 757's engines spooled down and he stood to retrieve his single bag from the overhead rack. Francis stretched and yawned, looking disgustingly rested. Sleep of the innocent, Lang supposed. In minutes, they were immersed in the up-and-down ramps, twisting corridors and general confusion of Rome's international airport. An indifferent woman in uniform slid their passports through a scanner and impressed the documents with a barely legible stamp. As in most European Union countries, customs consisted of merely walking through the gate marked nothing to declare.

Then the real task began: navigating from one terminal to the next to the rail station, a structure resembling a huge Quonset hut housing four tracks. The trains ran only north to the city and there were no reserved seats. Lang and Francis boarded along with a group of American college students whose chatter seemed far too cheerful for the morning's early hour.

Francis checked his ticket for the fourth time. "Remember, we're getting off at Trastevere, not Termini."

Termini was the main Rome rail station, the ultimate destination of all trains from the airport. Trastevere was one stop short, the station nearest the Vatican.

Lang shoved his bag into the overhead rack and sat in one of the two-by-two seats underneath. "How could I forget?" he asked good-naturedly. "You've been reminding me ever since we landed."

Francis slid into the seat beside him. "How will we know when we're there? I mean, neither of us speak Italian."

Lang rubbed his eyes, still stinging from lack of sleep. "Look out the window. There'll be a sign announcing the name of each stop."

Patience, Lang told himself as the train groaned to life and began to pick up speed. Francis had never been to Rome, let alone the Vatican. The priest was as excited as a child the night before Christmas.

Lang's eyes saw uncut grass between rusty rails, discarded rolling stock and the rear of shabby buildings. His memory painted Dawn, his wife, with cruel realism as she squealed in delight at every crumbling structure, certain she was viewing temple ruins rather than storage sheds displaying years of deferred maintenance. It had been their only trip together, their sole excursion before the doctors had found the death sentence she carried within her. Two years later, it had been here in Rome that Lang had renewed a relationship with Gurt. This local train might be passengers only but, for Lang, it carried a lot of freight.

They were the only passengers disembarking at Trastevere.

Just as well There was only one vehicle available, a small and nearly shabby Fiat with a Vatican license plate. Lang was forever surprised at the lengths to which the world's wealthiest organization went to comply with the Christian dictates of humility.

Outside the Holy City, that is.

Inside St. Peter's, wealth equal to the gross national product of most of the third world's countries was displayed to anyone with the price of a ticket to that part of the Vatican's treasures open to the public. Only an imagination uninhibited by lengthy digits could encompass what was not on display.

The docility evidenced by the church's choice of transportation was not reflected in its operation. The man was definitely a grand prix aspirant. Lang marveled at the calmness with which Francis chatted with the driver as the Fiat charged down the narrow alleys of what had been Renaissance Rome's working district. Last night's wash flapped overhead in the morning's gentle breeze that would later become a listless wall of heat. Although Rome itself was a city of neighborhoods, Trastevere was even more independent, viewing with distrust anyone from as far away as the next piazza over. It was this attitude that had convinced Lang to choose lodging here while he was investigating what would later be revealed as the Pegasus organization.

The Fiat squeezed through an intersection to a cacophony of protesting horns, reminding Lang that Roman drivers took traffic directions such as stop signs as advisory only. Seemingly unaware of their imminent peril, Francis continued his chat with the Italian version of a kamikaze.

If Lang had ever had questions about the depth of his friend's faith, they were dispelled now.

The testosterone-charged competition that is Rome traffic continued as Lang found a handhold and gripped it for dear life while trying to ignore the blasts of angry horns, used far more often than brakes.