“You seem to have thought this through.”

“I’ve thought of little else the past few months. I’ve tried to get Daniels to shift, but he won’t bend when it comes to Israel. That damn nation the size of some American counties will be the ruin of all of us. And I don’t plan to let that happen.”

“The next time we meet,” Hermann said, “you’ll be president of the United States.”

“Alfred, besides the terrorists who’ll actually do it, you and I are the only two people on this planet that know what’s coming. I made sure of that.”

“As have I.”

“So let’s make it happen and both enjoy the reward.”

SIXTY-THREE

HERMANN TRIED TO GAUGE THE MAN SITTING ACROSS FROM him. He was indeed the vice president of the United States, but he was no different from the myriad of other politicos he’d bought and sold from around the world, men and women eager for power and lacking in conscience. The Americans liked to portray themselves as above that type of reproach, but ambition was irresistible to anyone who’d tasted its potential. The man here, in his library, on the night of the winter Assembly, was no exception. He talked of lofty political goals and shifts in foreign policy, but he’d been willing from the start to betray his country, his president, and himself.

Thank heaven.

The Order of the Golden Fleece thrived off the moral deficiencies of others.

“Alfred,” the vice president was saying. “Level with me. Is it really possible there’s evidence Israel has no biblical claim to the Holy Land?”

“Of course. The Old Testament was a major source of study at the Library of Alexandria. The emerging New Testament, toward the end of the library’s existence, also was analyzed in detail. We know that from surviving manuscripts. It’s reasonable to assume that both texts and analyses of the Bible, in its original Old Hebrew, still exist.”

He recalled what Sabre had reported from Rothenburg. Three others had been killed by Israel. Each visited by a Guardian. Each involved in Old Testament study. Haddad himself had received an invitation. Why else had he been extended such an honor? And why had Israel moved to kill the Palestinian?

There had to be a link.

“I was in England recently,” the vice president said, “and was shown the Sinai Bible. They told me it was from the fourth century, one of the earliest Old Testaments still around. Written in Greek.”

“There’s a perfect example,” he said. “Do you know the story?”

“Bits and pieces.”

Hermann told his guest about a German scholar, Tischendorf, who in 1844 was touring the East in search of old manuscripts. He visited the monastery of St. Catherine, in the Sinai, and noticed a basket filled with forty-three old pages written in ancient Greek. The monks told him they were to be burned for fuel, as others had been. Tischendorf determined that the pages were from the Bible, and the monks allowed him to keep them. Fifteen years later he returned to St. Catherine’s on behalf of the Russian tsar. He was shown the remainder of the biblical pages and managed to return them to Russia. Eventually, after the revolution, the communists sold the manuscript to the British, who display it to this day.

“The Sinai Bible,” Hermann said, “is one of the earliest surviving manuscripts. Some have speculated Constantine himself commissioned its preparation. But remember, it’s written in Greek, so it was translated from Hebrew by someone utterly unknown to us, from an original manuscript that is equally unknown. So what does it really tell us?”

“That the monks at St. Catherine’s are still ticked off, more than a hundred years later, that their Bible was never returned. For decades they’ve petitioned the United States to intervene with the British. That’s why I went to see the thing. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.”

“I applaud Tischendorf for taking it. Those monks would have either burned it or just let it decay. Unfortunately much of our knowledge has met a similar fate. We can only hope that the Guardians have been more careful.”

“You really believe this stuff, don’t you?”

He debated whether he should say more. Things were progressing rapidly, and this man, who would soon be president, needed to understand the situation.

He stood.

“Let me show you something.”

THORVALDSEN BECAME INSTANTLY CONCERNED AS ALFRED Hermann rose from his chair and tabled his drink. He risked another peek below and saw the Austrian leading the vice president across the hardwood floor toward the spiral staircase. He quickly surveyed the upper catwalk and saw that there was no other way down. More window alcoves broke the shelves on the remaining three walls, but there’d be no way he and Gary could seek refuge within any of them.

They’d be spotted in an instant.

Hermann and the vice president bypassed the stairway, however, and stopped before a glass case.

HERMANN MOTIONED AT THE LIGHTED CASE. INSIDE RESTED AN ancient codex, its wooden cover pitted, as if attacked by insects.

“It’s a fourth-century manuscript, too. A treatise on early church teachings, written by Augustine himself. My father bought it decades ago. It carries no historical significance-copies of it exist-but it looks impressive.”

He reached beneath the podium and depressed a button disguised as one of the stainless-steel screws. From an axis at one corner, he swung the top third of the case away from the remainder. Inside the bottom two-thirds rested nine sheets of brittle papyrus.

“These, on the other hand, are quite precious. My father also bought them, decades ago, from the same person who sold him the codex. Some were written by Eusebius Hieronymus Sophronius, who lived in the fourth and fifth centuries. A great church father. He translated the Bible from Hebrew into Latin, creating a work known as the Vulgate that ultimately became definitive. History calls him by another name. Jerome.”

“You’re a strange man, Alfred. The oddest things excite you. How could those wrinkly old sheets have any bearing today?”

“I assure you, these have great relevance. Enough to perhaps change our thinking. Some of these were also written by Augustine. These are letters between Jerome and Augustine.” He saw that the American still was not impressed.

“They had mail in those days?”

“A crude form. Travelers heading in the right direction would take messages back and forth. Some of our best records from that time are correspondence.”

“Now, that is interesting.”

Hermann came to the point. “Have you ever wondered how the Bible came to be?”

“Not particularly.”

“What if it was all a lie?”

“It’s a matter of faith, Alfred. What does it matter?”

“It matters a great deal. What if the early church fathers-men like Jerome and Augustine who shaped the course of religious thinking-decided to change things? Remember their time. Four hundred years after Christ, long after Constantine sanctioned the new Christian religion, at a time when the church was emerging and eliminating philosophies contrary to its teachings. The New Testament was just then coming into being. Various Gospels assimilated and arranged into a unified message. Mainly that God was gentle and forgiving, and that Christ had come. But then there was the Old Testament. What the Jews used. Christians wanted it to be part of their religion, too. Luckily for those early church fathers, Old Testament texts were few, and all were written in Old Hebrew.”

“But you said this Jerome translated the Bible into Latin.”

“Exactly my point.” He reached into the case and lifted out one of the tanned sheets. “These are written in Greek, the language of Jerome’s time.” Beneath the parchments lay typed pages. He lifted them out. “I had the letters translated. By three different experts to be sure of the work. I want to read you something, then I think you’ll see what I’m referring to.”