There was something else tiptoeing around the perimeter of his mind, like a man wary of stepping onto a floor of rotted wood. What…?

"No one inside heard the shots, Inspector."

Hanaratti had not noticed that Manicci was standing beside him. "It seems those old walls deafen a lot of sound," the junior inspector said.

It would take walls a lot thicker to prevent the sound of so much gunfire, Hanaratti thought sourly. The precinct had gotten telephone calls from as far as nearly a kilometer away. The priestly members of the order should set a better example than trying to evade cooperating with an investigation, no matter how important their meeting.

The priests.

The thought stirred something, an idea a little less reticent to step forward.

"From the license plate, we have learned the car was rented," Manicci continued.

We? Hanaratti thought. The inspector was a master of claiming credit due others, equally adept at passing along blame like a soup bowl too hot to hold. The perfect bureaucrat but not someone Hanaratti would have chosen for this particularly brazen crime. But he didn't get to choose with whom he worked. Manicci was married to the daughter of the chief inspector's wife's first cousin.

In Italy, nepotism was a matter of family pride.

"We have already located the Hertz office and the manager will meet one of my men there to ascertain the name of the person renting it."

Opportunity knocked.

"One of your men? It is too important to entrust to an underling. Go yourself."

Hanaratti tried not to smile as he savored the disappointment on Manicci's face at being banished from the crime scene where he might seize the accolades for someone's discovery of an important bit of evidence. It was only as he was watching Manicci reluctantly climb into the blue and white Fiat that the idea he had been toying with solidified.

Priests.

A religious order.

It had been only a few weeks since that Greek Orthodox priest had been fished out of the Tiber after Hanaratti had investigated some sort of gun battle at his apartment near the Vatican.

Connection?

Tenuous at best, but priests were not the type one would ordinarily connect with violent acts, certainly not as perpetrators and usually not as victims.

Coincidences.

"Inspector?"

One of the uniforms was at his elbow.

"We have just received a report that the car, the Alfa there, was stolen from near the Pantheon."

Hanaratti felt his gut clinch as he saw the most obvious clue in this shooting begin to fade. "Stolen?"

"Yes, sir. It was rented to an American who is staying at a hotel near there."

"When?"

The officer looked confused. "

"'When'?"

The deputy chief inspector swallowed the urge to scream at the man. "When was it stolen?"

The policeman shrugged. "The American doesn't know. He went into a restaurant and when he came out, the car was gone."

Perfect.

At least Hanaratti would have the pleasure of assigning Manicci to a mundane car theft. After all, it was connected to a shooting, and interviewing the American would keep the junior inspector out of the main investigation for at least half of tomorrow.

Even misfortune had its bright side.

VI.

Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta

Aventine Hill

The Next Morning

It had taken most of the morning for Lang and Jacob to find a truck from the electrician they had seen entering the piazza yesterday. A few euro liberally spread among the two-man crew and Lang and Jacob were dressed in the same coveralls as the two legitimate workers. A little more money and the van was in front of the wooden gates, honking for admission.

The one electrician who spoke English was explaining in Italian that they were here to check on yesterday's job and, no, there would be no additional costs involved for the service. Once inside, Lang and Jacob, toolboxes in hand, split up to explore the multiwindowed gray stone building.

Their hopes the uniforms would give them the invisibility of anonymity proved to be correct. Cooks, serving personnel as well as a few workmen filled the hallways with good-natured confusion. The five-year meeting of the council had the air of a country fair. No one gave the two electricians a second look.

The larger offices were deserted, leaving only what Lang guessed was salaried administrative staff. Members and officials would be attending the meeting of the grand council in the church next door.

Jacob peered around the corner of the largest office either he or Lang had found. "Boss's digs, I'd bet."

Standing in the hall, Lang nervously looked both ways. "So?"

"So, we take a look."

Jacob was inside while Lang stood sentry in the hall.

Jacob picked up the phone on the desk, pushing all four buttons on its base one by one. Nodding as though confirming an undivulged theory, he followed the line to the wall plug, where he inserted an instrument resembling a thermometer.

"Got it."

"Got what?" Lang asked.

"The private line."

"But why…?"

"Later, lad. Let's go. Right after…"

Jacob produced a package about the size of a bar of soap and stuck it to the bottom of the desktop with a wad of putty. "We're done."

Outside, Lang learned his friend's reconnaissance revealed the upper floors were residential. From the clothing Jacob had noted in the closets, almost all rooms were occupied by priests, the hospitaliers and chaplains of the Rome priory, no doubt.

The two collected the real electricians and left.

On the way back to the hotel, Jacob produced what looked like some sort of schedule or program printed in Italian, English, German and some language Lang did not recognize. "Tonight is the time," he said. "The visiting members of the council have a special dinner at the Vatican."

Lang looked at him. "So?"

"So, the professionals, the full-time people, should still be at the priory. Reduce the chance of collateral damage."

A euphemism for civilian casualties.

Lang thought of the terror on Manfred's face as bullets tore through the thin wooden walls of a farmhouse in Georgia, of his son's frightened face in Atlanta.

"Vatti, I was so scared!"

For just an instant, Lang couldn't have cared less about collateral damage.

VII.

Piazza delta Rotonda

Sole al Pantheon

Fifteen Minutes Later

Lang and Jacob entered their hotel and stopped just inside the doorway. The man sitting in one of the two ornately carved, silver-painted chairs in the microscopic lobby reeked of police.

The man rose, exhibiting a police badge. "Which one of you is Mr. Langford Reilly?" he asked in English.

Lang studied the badge before answering. "I am."

The policeman favored him with a humorless smile. "I am Inspector Antonio Manicci and am here to inquire about the car you reported stolen."

He didn't offer a hand.

An inspector chasing down stolen cars? In Italy where few European insurance companies would write car theft coverage because the crime was endemic to the country? The fact the vehicle had been recovered looking like it had been used by Bonnie and Clyde was the likely explanation.

Lang became uncomfortably aware both of the weight of the Browning in the small of his back and the severe penalties meted out for possession of firearms in Italy.

The inspector looked around, searching for a place to talk. The two carved chairs were it.

The desk clerk said something in Italian and Manicci gave that same dead smile. "Grazie. He tells me we may use the bar."

Like most rooms here, the bar was not level with the lobby but two or three steps down to the left. A single table with four chairs sat in front of a wooden bar whose shelves were largely bare. The dim light created atmosphere, but