"Does it matter? You did."

"For the first time, I'm beginning not to trust you," she said. "If you hadn't found it and you'd still insisted on wanting to hunt for your father, I'd have resisted," Misha said. Christopher squirmed in his sleep.

"Think about it," Misha said. "Prom my point of view. How do I know how soft you got in the desert?"

"You should try it some time," Erika said. "I'm allergic to sand."

"And to telling the truth?"

"I didn't lie. I merely tested you."

"Friends don't need to test each other."

"Professionals do. If you don't understand, you did get soft in the desert."

"Fine. So now we've found it." Saul's grip tightened around the notebook. 'Tell us the rest. What does the list of names mean?"

"They're not the names of Jewish patients the doctor hid in the war,"

Erika said. "The notebook's dusty, yes, but the paper's new. My father's name is included. The handwriting isn't his."

"Correct. The notebook belongs to me."

"What do the names on the list have to do with what happened to my father?"

"I have no idea."

"I don't believe that You wouldn't have made the list if there isn't a connection among them."

"Did I say there isn't a connection? We know their backgrounds, their addresses, their habits, their former occupations."

"Former?"

"These men are all ex-Mossad, all retired. But you asked how they related to what happened to your father, and that puzzle I haven't been able to solve yet"

"They claim they don't know my father? They won't answer your questions? What's the problem?"

"I haven't been able to ask them anything."

"You're doing it again. Evading," Erika said.

"I'm not. These men share two other factors. They survived the Nazi death camps..."

"And?"

"They've all disappeared." church militant

Despite the worsening heat of the desert, excitement overcame exhaustion, making Drew and Arlene stumble quickly toward the tire tracks in the sand at the far end of the pass. After their encounter with the two Arab assassins, they'd taken the small canvas sheet from

Arlene's knapsack and anchored it across a space between two rocks where, protected from the sun, they'd sipped water sparingly, then eaten some of the dates and figs the killers had carried with them. But the killers hadn't brought enough food to sustain them long out here. "What about their water supply?" Drew had wondered. "We searched the slopes from where they shot at us." He held up two canteens and shook them.

Water sloshed hollowly. "Not enough here for them to walk any distance.

So how did they hope to get back?" With a sudden thrill of understanding, they got to their feet, ignoring the hammer force of the sun. Reaching the end of the pass, they veered to the right, followed the indentations in the sand, and came to a clump of boulders behind which a jeep had been hidden. "Outsiders, for sure,"

Drew said. "No local villager has a jeep, let alone a new one. It even has air-conditioning. Those killers were used to traveling firstclass."

The jeep had a metal top. The angle of the sun cast a shadow over the driver's side. Arlene welcomed the slight relief from the scorching blaze as she peered through the open driver's window. "Small problem."

"What?" he asked. "No ignition key."

"But we searched both bodies and didn't find it on them."

"So logically they must have left it in the jeep." But fifteen minutes later, they still hadn't found the key. "In that case..." Drew climbed inside. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Waiting?"

"For what?"

"You to hotwire the ignition." She laughed and leaned beneath the dashboard. But after she started the engine, as they jolted across the bumpy desert, he lapsed into sober silence. He had many questions.

Though he didn't want to, he had to talk to the priest.

Cairo. The next afternoon. Sitting on the bed in the Westernstyle hotel room, Arlene listened to the spray of water from the bathroom as

Drew took a shower. But her attention was focused on the telephone.

She didn't know what to do. When the priest had contacted her in New

York, directing her to go after Drew, he'd given her a Cairo telephone number. "Call me as soon as you bring him out of the desert." At the time, she'd been so grateful to be told where Drew was, to have the chance to be with him again, that she'd readily agreed to the priest's condition. But now that she and Drew were together, she hesitated.

Whatever the Fraternity wanted from Drew, it would surely not be a dispensation. No, by definition, a summons from the Fraternity meant trouble. She'd lost Drew once when he entered the monastery. She'd lost him again when he fled to the desert. She didn't intend to lose him a third time. But what if the Fraternity's punishment for disobedience was... ? To kill Drew, whom they'd spared till now, and instead of killing her as well, leave her to grieve for the rest of her life. She decided to make the call. But her hand felt so heavy she couldn't raise it toward the phone on the bedside table. In the bathroom, the water stopped flowing. The door came open, and Drew stepped out, naked, drying himself with a large plush towel. She had to smile. After his six years in the monastery, after his monk's vow of celibacy, he had sexual inhibitions, true. But modesty? He was more comfortable with his body, naked or clothed, than any man she'd ever met. He grinned as he toweled himself. "Once a year, whether I need it or not" She touched her still damp hair. "I know. I feel like I lost a ton of sand." Drew had used her Egyptian money to buy shampoo, scissors, shaving soap, and a razor. His beard was gone now. He'd trimmed his hair. Tucked back behind his ears, it made his gaunt cheeks look even thinner. But the effect was attractive. He set down the towel. "I've had a lot of time

... too much... to think," he said.

"About...?"

"Some laws are God-made, others are human-made." She laughed. "What are you talking about?"

"My vow of chastity. If Adam and Eve weren't allowed to have sex. God wouldn't have made them man and woman."

"Is this your way of telling me sex is natural? I knew that already."

"But as you've probably noticed, I've been confused."

"Oh, that I've definitely noticed."

"So I've decided..."

"Yes?"