range down current and then across the river. The lights along this opposite shore glinted coldly. He plodded from mud to a concrete ramp, passed a boathouse, and finally reached a narrow street beyond a warehouse. No one had pursued him across the river. For a moment, he felt safe. But questions tortured his mind. Who'd tried to kill him?

Had his former network decided to punish him after all? He shook his head, not believing it. The pockmarked man wouldn't have put himself in the line of fire. Then had the mock-assassination become too realistic?

Or had his as yet-unknown enemies been waiting for an opportunity to make another attempt against him? If he'd been killed back there in the park, his former employers would have seemed responsible. They'd never convince other networks of their innocence. And the actual assailants would go undetected. Shivering, Saul mustered strength from an even more distressing concern. Erika and Christopher.

His wife, having seen the attack against him, realizing she was powerless to help, would have gone to protect their son. He counted on her doing so, that reassuring thought his only consolation. Erika's mandatory first step would have been to contact Misha Pletz and warn him to rush Christopher to safety. He trudged ahead with greater determination. For a moment, a single goal obsessed him--the fall-back site he and Erika had agreed upon. He had to get there.

Christopher's eyes still ached from his abrupt awakening. His blue pajamas were covered by a sweater that the stoop- shouldered man named

Misha Pletz had made him put on.

His nostrils felt pinched by thick clouds of tobacco smoke, but his mouth watered from the sweet cocoa smell in this room of many tables and red-cheeked, laughing men. He recalled the urgency with which Misha had carried him down the stairs. The rush of the taxi ride. The scurry into this "coffee house," as Misha called it. His mother suddenly appearing, her eyes red with tears as she hugged him. All bewildering.

He sat on a bench against a wall, his mother on one side, Misha on the other. Their conversation confused him. "If he isn't here in fifteen minutes," his mother said, "we can't risk staying any longer." A hefty man wearing a white apron leaned his head down toward his mother. "Come into the kitchen. We've just received a rare form of coffee." More confusion. His mother carrying him through a swinging door, Misha leading them. Glinting metal counters. Steaming pots. His father, clothes wet, stepping out of a room. Misha laughing. His mother sobbing, embracing his father. "Thank God."

Quickly. We have to go," Misha said. "Where?" Saul asked. "Back to

Israel."

"No," Erika said. "Not us."

"I don't understand."

"Just you and Christopher. Take him with you. Protect him."

"But what about you! Misha asked. "Christopher won't be safe till Saul and I are. If something happens to us, put Christopher in a kibbutz.

Give him a new identity."

"I don't believe the Agency tried to kill me," Saul said. "It was someone else. The people we're after."

"Even so, can you trust your former network?"

"I have to. But I had to make a deal with them. In exchange for their letting me come back from exile, I promised I wouldn't take help. We have to do this on our own."

"But..."

"No. We have the information you gave us. We've got to accept the risk. But if we fail, take over for us. Don't let the bastards win."

"You're sure there's no other way?"

"For us to survive?" Saul shook his head. "To get back to Christopher?

No."

10.

His father kissed him. Why was his father crying? "Goodbye, son. Misha, take care of him."

"Always remember, Christopher..." Why was his mother crying too? More kisses. Her tears wet on his cheek. "We love you." Shouts from beyond the swinging doors. "You can't go back there!"

"They've found you! Hurry!" Misha said. A rush toward another door, this time into darkness, an alley, never-ending, into the night. But when he looked in terror behind him, he saw that he and Misha had gone one way, his parents another. Eyes brimming with tears, he couldn't see them any longer. eternal city

Dressed as a priest and a nun among many actual priests and nuns. Drew and Arlene walked along Rome's crowded Via della Conciliazione. Though the street wasn't narrow, it seemed constricted when compared with the vista ahead of them. The eastern edge of Vatican City... St. Peter's

Piazza... Like the head of a funnel, the street opened out to the right and left, melding with the four curved rows of Doric columns that flanked the piazza's right and left side. "I've heard this called St.

Peter's Square," Arlene said. "But it isn't square. It's oval." They reached the piazza's center. An Egyptian obelisk stood between two widely spaced fountains. Though impressive in themselves, the obelisk, fountains, and surrounding columns seemed dwarfed by the majesty of St.

Peter's Basilica, which rose beyond the piazza, its massive dome haloed with radiance from the mid-afternoon sun. Renaissance buildings stretched to the right and left of the basilica and the huge tiers of steps leading up to it. "I didn't realize how big this place is,"

Arlene said. "It all depends on your perspective," Drew said. "The piazza, the basilica, and everything else in Vatican City would fill less than a seventh of New York's Central Park." She turned to him in disbelief. "It's true," he said. "The whole thing's only a fifth of a square mile."

"Now I know why they call this the world's smallest city state."

"And it hasn't even been a city-state very long," Drew said.

"It wasn't until 1929--believe it or not, thanks to Mussolini, who wanted the Church to give him political support--that Vatican City was established and granted independence as a state."

"I thought you told me you hadn't been here before."

"I haven't."

"Then how come you know so much about it?"

"While you were asleep on the plane from Cairo, I read a guidebook."

"Devious," she said as he grinned. "Since you're such an expert, how do we get to the rendezvous?"

"Just follow me. Sister." He guided her to the left, along a walkway next to the steps leading toward the basilica. Showing Vatican passports, they walked by Swiss guards, the Pope's traditional bodyguards, whose long-handled battle-axes and striped uniforms with billowy sleeves looked more theatrical than threatening, and proceeded beneath the Arch of the Bells, finally within the capital of the

Catholic Church. Though the Vatican's permanent population was only slightly more than one thousand, the crowd of clergy and tourists was considerable. Guides supervised the laity. They crossed a small rectangular open area, the Piazza of the First Roman Martyrs. On its right, the basilica loomed. But on the left, at the end of a narrow street, cypresses canopied a tiny cemetery. "Important sponsors of the

Church used to have the honor of being buried here," Drew said. 'To add to the honor, the Vatican brought in dirt from the hill in Jerusalem where Christ was crucified."

They passed beneath two further arches, reached the Vatican courthouse, rounded the back of St. Peter's Basilica, and followed a maze of wooded lanes till they came to their destination, the Vatican gardens.

Fountains and hedges, ponds and flowers surrounded them, creating a sense of peace. One of the fountains was shaped like a Spanish galleon.

Cannons on each side spouted water, as did the horn in the mouth of a child on the bow. "I thought you'd appreciate these gardens," a voice said behind them. "They make Rome--and indeed the world--seem far away." Though sudden, the voice wasn't startling. Drew had been expecting contact soon. He turned toward Father Sebastian.

"Is this where he died?"

"Father Victor?" The priest wore a white collar, black bib, and suit.

His eyes were bleak. "At two o'clock in the morning. Over there, by that lily pond. Beside that marble angel.