"What exigency drove you to request this urgent conference, Father Godin?" He tried to force an element of lightness. "Or should I say, Father Bob?"

Godin smiled. But briefly. He was sixty-two years of age, the same height as Benigni, but half the weight. He looked like an extremely fit man a decade younger and moved, the monsignor had to admit resentfully to himself, like a fine athlete. His hair was gray, buzzed to white sidewalls and a silvery flattop. His face was oblong and deeply creased, the only sign of age he showed aside from the hue of his hair.

His eyes, behind circular wire-rimmed spectacles, were the palest, most piercing green Benigni could conceive. He made himself not shiver when they looked into his.

"I have come to discuss retirement," the Jesuit said.

"You? The last knight in armor? Or should I say the last inquisitor? Are you ready to hang up the spurs? Or perhaps the scourge." Benigni laughed in vast appreciation of his own wit.

" Yours,Monsignor."

The laughter died. "Mind your manners, priest," Benigni said.

"I don't care about your peculations or your secular crimes, Monsignor. I don't care about your involvement in the murder of Roberto Calvi in 1982, nor your dealings with the outlawed Propaganda Due Masonic Lodge. I don't care what deals you worked with the late Archbishop Marcinkus."

Benigni had gone very pale. His breath hissed forth between rubbery lips. "Old man, you overreach yourself!"

"But when your self-indulgence leads you to invoke demons," Godin continued implacably, "entailing the sacrifice of a human life – then, Monsignor Benigni, you fall within my bailiwick."

"You have no proof!"

The creases of the bloodhound face deepened in a grin. "All the proof I need, I have in here," Godin said, tapping first temple, then heart. "And if I am satisfied, the church is satisfied."

"Absurd. You hurl accusations at random. You are a madman," the monsignor replied.

"Brother Luigi confessed, Monsignor. In Verona. He is now in custody. Your agents will prove unable to locate him and silence him. He will live out his years in silent repentance. His testimony, however, has been duly recorded and notarized. Should it prove necessary, I don't doubt several other of your confederates can be prevailed upon to testify. But with the videotapes in our possession – "

Benigni felt his lower lip quivering. He shut his mouth tightly, then barked, "My attorneys will laugh these accusations out of court!"

"Unlikely, were it to go to trial – especially in some of the nations that have jurisdiction in the case. But there will be no trial, Monsignor. I am authorized to offer you the opportunity to resign your offices and rank and retire to a monastery outside Addis Ababa."

"Ethiopia? But they are Copts!"

"No longer – they call their schismatic church Ethiopian Orthodox now. But as you would know were you properly attentive to your duties, Monsignor Benigni, the Ethiopian Catholic Church remains communicant with our Holy Father. They are holy men. They'll ensure you are cared for. And protect you diligently from the temptations of this world."

Benigni stared at Godin with eyes like boiled eggs. Then he looked down at the gray stone beneath the mirror-polished black toes of his Gucci shoes. It was polished almost smooth by generations of tourist feet, slicked by mist from below and snow from above.

"She was just a whore," he said.

"Even a whore has a right to live her life," Godin said, "and not be tortured out of it. Even a whore has an immortal soul. Or do you speak of what you tried to make of our mother, the church?"

Benigni brought his head up. His eyes blazed. "You dare to speak so to me, who bathed your arms in the gore of innocents in the Congo?"

"Anyone whose blood I may have bathed in, Monsignor, was hardly an innocent. But the sins that stain my soul are not under discussion here."

Benigni laughed heartily.

"I anticipated you might attempt some such quixotry, Father Godin," he said. "So I came prepared."

He gestured to the two huge bodyguards who stood flanking them. "As I said before, Father, you will be retiring this day. Volker and Semo will assist you. In the mist and the snow these steps up the precipice are so treacherous. Alas, you insisted on climbing alone despite the conditions – "

The two bodyguards stepped forward. Godin moved to meet Semo, who approached from his right. Volker reached for him from behind. Godin stopped, spun back and seized the German's thick wrist with his right hand. He dropped his left elbow over the elbow of the trapped arm and pivoted clockwise.

Volker's right elbow broke with a snap.

Godin stepped behind the huge German, twisting the broken arm. Volker, who had initially been too shocked to respond, bellowed in agony as parted bone ends scraped each other.

"Kill him! Kill him now!" the prelate roared.

Semo's bronze face had gone ashen at the brutal abruptness with which his partner's arm was snapped. From beneath his jacket he produced an MP-5K, a stubby pistol barely longer than a handgun, with a foregrip like a miniature table leg. He yanked back on the trigger and held it down.

The pistol bucked and rose left to right. Not even the Samoan's vast strength could control such a weapon firing full-auto. The muzzle flame, pale yellow and orange and dazzlingly bright in the drifting snow, set the front of Volker's black greatcoat smoldering. The burly German's Kevlar vest kept the 9 mm bullets from penetrating. But it only reduced their substantial impact. Ribs cracked and the breath was forced from Volker's lungs straining to draw in air against the blinding pain of his elbow.

Then a bullet hit the German in the throat. Blood spurted in a single thick stream. It gleamed almost black in the faint light.

HoldingVolker propped against him, with his own legs braced, Father Godin thrust a CZ-75 under the mortally wounded man's arm and shot Semo twice in his broad chest. The Samoan's vest stopped the slugs.

The Jesuit's third shot struck Semo in the center of the forehead. The huge man emptied the MP-5K into the ground as he sank to his knees. Then he fell to the side like a sack of rocks.

Godin stepped back. Volker simply slumped and pitched forward on his face.

Snow began to fall in earnest. Fat white flakes filled the air, thick as flies on a midsummer evening.

"And now, Monsignor – " the Jesuit said, tucking his Czech handgun back inside his coat.

"You devil!" Benigni put his head down and charged.

He was out of shape, his muscles deconditioned to the point his flesh felt like pudding to the touch. He could barely walk across a room without panting. But he weighed over three hundred pounds, and a supercharge of adrenaline lent strength to watery muscles. His momentum drove the older, lighter man back to slam his lower back cruelly against the metal rail.

Benigni's arms held Godin's trapped to his sides in a bear hug. His own strength surprised him. Ha! And so I best the vaunted mercenary and counterterrorism expert, he thought.

Godin snapped his head forward. His forehead smeared the monsignor's broad nose across much of his pie-plate face.

Benigni squealed as agony shot through his brain and eyes like an inquisitor's red-hot pokers. Tears streamed down his cheeks, hot as the blood that poured across and into his mouth and down his chin.

He felt the smaller man's body like a bundle of wire and steel rods, stooping down. Felt hard hands dig into the backs of his thighs.