"Do as he says," answered Holliday. At the path they turned off and headed for the marshy area. As they left the road it began to rain, a light hard spit with promise of a harder downfall in the low dark clouds overhead.

"Where are you taking us?" Meg asked.

"Shut up!" snarled the boy with the MAC 11.

"Boro Bacheh Kooni," said Holliday quietly. "Khar Kos seh, maadar jendeh." There was no response from the young man behind them. Considering what he'd just said to the kid in Farsi, it was unlikely that he'd ever been in Afghanistan or Iraq. "Madar-e-to Gayidam," he added, just to be sure. No reaction from the boy in the windbreaker. A hired gun. A mercenary, but one without much experience. It began to rain harder, gusting sheets rolling across the marshland. The visibility was only a few feet ahead, so presumably they were now invisible from the road as well.

"You haven't been doing this very long, have you?"

"Long enough," the young man answered briefly, his voice tense.

"How old are you, seventeen, eighteen?"

"I'm twenty-one!"

"Sure you are," snorted Holliday, his voice dripping with derision.

"I told you! Shut the h.e.l.l up!"

Holliday slowed. It was time to play soldier. He took a deep breath; the young man with the submachine gun was way out of his depth. Holliday blinked the rain out of his eyes and spoke.

"One thing you should know if you want to live to see tomorrow, kid: the slide safety in front of the trigger on a MAC 11 should be in the rear position when you're so close behind your prisoner."

Holliday heard the sudden indrawn breath and the faltering step as the young man hesitated. His eyes would have dropped and his right hand would be coming out of his pocket to check the safety. Perhaps a three-second advantage.

Holliday pivoted on his left foot and brought the right around in a side kick to the boy's thigh, pushing him off balance and making him stumble. He lashed out with his left hand, palm outward under the young man's chin, snapping his head back brutally, sending the kid backward. Without even thinking about it he bent his knee and dropped down with all his weight on the boy's chest.

The sound of breaking ribs was audible, bone splintering, as Holliday's knee forced the shattered end of the third rib into the pulmonary artery, rupturing it. The young man gagged, blood spurting from his mouth and nose. He was dead almost before he knew he was on the ground. The boy's bright blue eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp. Holliday stood up.

"Is he dead?" Meg asked in a dull voice.

"Yes," answered Holliday.

"Couldn't you have just . . . disarmed him?"

"No," said Holliday without any more explanation or justification. Kid or not the young man with the submachine gun had threatened their lives. The boy was supposedly some kind of soldier, and thus had automatically entered into the contract that had existed between enemies since Cain battled Abel: t.i.t for tat, no quarter asked and none given. Kill or be killed.

"So now what?"

"Roll him over and get his jacket off," instructed Holliday.

Meg did as he asked. Holliday looked around. They were well out of sight of the road and no shots had been fired. The only potential problem was someone rushing along the pathway from the other side of the island, anxious to get out of the cold, stinging rain.

Meg finished taking off the kid's jacket and stood up. Holliday squatted down beside the body and stripped off the King Arms Bungee sling and holster, then went through the dead boy's pockets. Keys, a few coins, English and American mixed, a fat Swiss Army knife with all the bells and whistles. A wallet identified him as Ian Andrew Mitch.e.l.l, twenty-one years old and a resident of Wilmington, Delaware. He also had a Delaware concealed-carry permit, a Beretta .380-caliber mousegun in an in-the-pants holster against his spine. The permit was made out to Mitch.e.l.l under the authority of Blackhawk Security Systems of Odessa, Delaware. The pa.s.sport was made out to Andrew Mitch.e.l.l and listed him as a security consultant.

There was three hundred euros in cash and several credit cards, all of which Holliday took. He stood up and threw the wallet and the rest of its contents as far into the marsh as he could. He put the mousegun and its holster against his own spine, slipped into the gun sling and reattached the MAC 11 to the straps. Finally he shrugged on the black windbreaker and slung the binoculars over his shoulder.

"Help me drag the body behind that patch of gorse," said Holliday, pointing toward a mound of low shrubbery a few yards away to the right. Meg took one of the boy's wrists and Holliday took the other, and together they dragged the body facedown through the spongy mud and turf, then made their way back to the path. They were both soaking wet, but the steady downpour would hide any evidence of a struggle within a moment or two.

"You seem so calm," said Meg, a note of bitterness in her voice. "As though killing children comes naturally to you."

Holliday gritted his teeth, her words unlocking a memory so vivid and fresh it could have been yesterday. "I happened to be at the a.s.sa.s.sin's Gate in Baghdad one morning when a nine-year-old girl came through the checkpoint. The Iraqi soldier with me said it was rare for kids that young to wear the full burqa, complete with a veil. The Iraqi soldier told the kid to stop where she was but the kid began to run right at us. The Iraqi soldier shouted at her again but the little girl kept on coming. I was carrying an old .45-caliber automatic as a sidearm. The Iraqi soldier was hesitating so I shot the kid in the chest."

"Did it make you feel better?" Meg said coldly.

He could almost feel the talc.u.m powder sand on his skin, the kind that had made him feel grimy ten minutes after he showered.

"The kid was maybe fifty feet away when I hit her. The suicide vest she was wearing under the burqa blew a crater in the road ten feet across and three feet deep. Bits and pieces of shrapnel from the vest killed the Iraqi soldier. Two women running a fruit stall outside the gate were killed by the explosion, as well. I was blown out of my combat boots by the blast. So don't tell me about killing children, sweetheart."

For a second it looked as though the red-haired nun was going to say something in reply but then she thought better of it.

"So what do we do now?" Meg said finally, standing there in the rain, her long hair hanging in stringy tangles around her face.

"The kid wasn't a killer," said Holliday. "He was a delivery boy."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He was taking us to someone," answered Holliday. "I intend to find out where and to whom."

20.

"I knew it," said Holliday angrily. He was looking through the big Steiner military binoculars he had taken off the dead kid. He and Sister Meg were lying on the stony bluffs above the Bay at the Back of the Ocean, the rough, curving beach that ran along the western sh.o.r.e of Iona.

He handed the binoculars to Meg, pointing and keeping his head low just in case someone was watching. It was still raining and they'd both given up any thought of drying out a long time ago. Drawn up on the beach itself was an old red-painted dory, its bow turned toward the flat, featureless ocean, the stern pulled up on the sand, a big old Mercury outboard flipped up on the transom.

An unidentified man was huddled in the back of the boat, protected by a small tarpaulin that was probably meant for the motor. From their vantage point Holliday could see that the man in the dory was wearing a black windbreaker that was a mate to the one they'd taken off the body in the swamp. Presumably another employee of Blackhawk Security, which was something else to think about: Who the h.e.l.l was Blackhawk Security and why were they trying to kill him?

"Sean," said Meg, surprise in her voice as she looked through the binoculars. "That's the Mary Deare."

Holliday nodded, his jaw set in anger. "If Sean is his real name," he said, looking out to sea. Without the binoculars the little ship was nothing more than an indistinct blob on the rain-filled horizon. With the Steiners he could make out individual patches of rust and primer paint on the hull. The Mary Deare was lying about a mile from sh.o.r.e anch.o.r.ed fore and aft, waiting. For what? The only logical answer was that O'Keefe's old ship had left the little port on the east sh.o.r.e of Iona and come around to the west sh.o.r.e for a rendezvous with the red dory.

The red dory, on the other hand, was waiting in the pouring rain for Ian Andrew Mitch.e.l.l to arrive with his freshly captured prisoners. Somebody had it all neatly planned out. But why go to all the trouble? Why not simply wait until they returned to the ship on their own? It wasn't as though they had anyplace else to go.

"I don't understand any of this," said Meg, pa.s.sing back the binoculars. Holliday took them from her and slipped them back into their case.

"Somebody's trying to stop us any way they can," said Holliday. "Your boyfriend O'Keefe is working for whoever's got us targeted. Odds are we were supposed to go back aboard the Mary Deare without anyone seeing us. Whoever was waiting on board would torture us to find out what we know and then drop us into the ocean."

"Sean is not my boyfriend, and I find it hard to believe he'd do a thing like that," said Meg.

"You can have whatever the h.e.l.l kind of fantasy you want," said Holliday. "The harsh reality is sitting in that red dory wearing the same Blackhawk Security windbreaker as I am," he added. "And he already has done a thing like that."

"All right," answered Meg. "What are we supposed to do about your so-called harsh reality?"

"Fake it," said Holliday.

They argued back and forth for five minutes and then Holliday and Meg stood up in full view and walked slowly down the shallow-sided dune below the higher bluff, Meg in the lead, Holliday close behind her. Seeing movement on the bluff, the man in the red dory looked up and peered into the gray curtain of rain. He stood, the tarpaulin around his shoulders, one hand shielding his eyes. Holliday and Meg reached the bottom of the sloping dune and walked toward the boat drawn up on the sh.o.r.e. As they walked both Meg and Holliday kept their heads down.

"You promised you wouldn't hurt him," reminded Meg, keeping her voice low as they stepped toward the boat, their feet digging into the wet, gritty sand.

"Not unless he tries to hurt me first," said Holliday, wishing the nun would shut up and let him concentrate on the next few seconds.

"You really are some kind of b.a.s.t.a.r.d," said Meg bitterly.

"Hey!" the man in the dory called out. "There was supposed to be two of them! Where's the other one?!"

Holliday and Meg kept on walking toward the boat. All he needed was another ten feet or so.

"Hey!" the man in the dory yelled again. He swept back the tarpaulin and reached for the sling under his windbreaker. He was armed just like the first one.

Holliday used his left arm to sweep Meg out of the way. She stumbled and fell to her knees. He fired the little Beretta .380 through the slit he'd made in the pocket of the windbreaker with the Swiss Army knife, trying for the left shoulder and arm, hoping to immobilize the shooter. The Beretta had an eight- round, single-stack magazine and one in the chamber, nine rounds in all. Holliday kept firing until the man fell down, dropping forward over the transom of the dory and flopping out of the boat and onto the beach. Any blood was invisible against the black of the windbreaker. The man was writhing on the sand, his left hand clutching his right elbow. He wouldn't be signing any contracts for a while but he'd live if they got him to a hospital within the next half hour. Holliday had fired seven rounds and hit the man with four, one in the elbow, one in the meat of the upper arm and two in the shoulder. Three out of the four were through and through; the fourth was still lodged in his biceps. His face was pale and his teeth were chattering. He was going into shock.

"What have you done?" Sister Meg groaned, stooping down over the wounded man. Holliday pushed her aside and removed the sling and the submachine gun. He laid the MAC 11 on the sand and rolled the man over, none too gently. The man screamed.

"You're hurting him!" Meg said furiously.

"Good," said Holliday blandly. The man was carrying a Beretta identical to the one Holliday had shot him with. "Push the boat into the water. I'm going to drag this one up beyond the tide line." Holliday grabbed the man by his collar and started hauling him up the beach.

"We can't just leave him here!"

"We're sure as h.e.l.l not taking him with us," said Holliday. He reached the tide line, marked by a line of drying kelp and driftwood, and let the man drop. He walked back to the boat, ignoring Meg, and heaved on the transom. As the boat slipped into the water Holliday levered himself over the gunwale and dropped down onto the flat wooden bench. He eased the outboard over the transom and started looking for the starter.

"What are you doing?" Meg asked, staring at him, a little wild-eyed.

"Leaving before your friend Sean figures out what's going on and calls in the cavalry," said Holliday. "If you're coming, you'd better get in."

Holliday found the electric starter and punched it, one hand on the throttle arm. Small waves were already moving the old clinker-built fishing boat into deeper water. Meg hesitated for a second longer, then waded out into the water and threw her backpack into the boat. She grabbed the gunwale and boosted herself up and in. The engine caught with a coughing roar. Holliday twisted the tiller arm and pointed the dory out to sea.

Katherine Franklin Sinclair, widow of the late Angus Pierce Sinclair, the onetime amba.s.sador to the Court of St. James in London, and mother to Senator Richard Pierce Sinclair, sat at a corner table in the Senate Dining Room having lunch with her son. Katherine was enjoying the bacon-wrapped scallops and her son was having a tuna sandwich, toasted on white with a side of fries.

The Senate majority leader was at a table behind them and the head of the Armed Services Committee was eating a cheeseburger one table over. Heady stuff, but if Kate Sinclair had her way it was going to get a lot better on November 8 next year, the date of the next federal election.

Katherine was adorned in a red Nancy Reagan dress, her white hair done in a sprayed and brittle- looking perm. She looked like a once-beautiful, dried-up Palm Beach matriarch, which was exactly what she was. Her son was dressed like a senator: dark chalk-stripe suit, dark Florsheims, white shirt with gold and cobalt blue presidential cuff links given to him by G.W. himself to commemorate his Senate appointment, and a burgundy and silver Phillips Exeter Academy Alumni tie.

"There's nothing to discuss, Richard. The immigration bill is key to your election."

"The Latino vote in California was one of the keys to Obama being elected; I'll lose it if I vote for a bill that requires all Mexicans to register with Homeland Security and carry a special photo ID card. It's like putting yellow stars on Jews."

"It will play in every state in the union except California. It will win you back all the Bush states that Mc-Cain lost. It will also show that you can stand firm for the principles that made this country what it is."

"Your principles, Mother."

"Who cares whose principles they are? They've worked in the past and they'll work now. The country's a mess; you can clean it up and the first step is to throw out the trash."

"It won't do too much for my status in the party," said the handsome forty-something senator. He took a bite out of the oozing sandwich and put it down on his plate again. He chewed and sighed simultaneously. Kate Sinclair looked at her son and wished he had a little more spine. On the other hand, she knew where the soft side of his nature came from; growing up as Angus Sinclair's only son and in the amba.s.sador's long shadow hadn't been easy. Most of Richard Sinclair's life had been ordained without him having any choice in the matter. Schools: Exeter and Yale. Discipline: law. Career: public service, followed by a strategic and well-thought-out jump to the Senate. Next logical step: a run at the White House. It had been Angus Sinclair's plan even before his son's birth, the banner eagerly taken up by Katherine upon her husband's death.

"To h.e.l.l with the party," the aging woman said at last. "You have real power on your side."

"You mean your so-called friends in high places?" Senator Sinclair said, his lip curling. He knew exactly what his mother was talking about.

"Your friends, too," answered Katherine. "They've helped you along the way, helped pave the road to your success."

"You mean they paid for it," said the senator. "Which makes me beholden to them, right?"

"They only want what's best for the country," said Katherine. She sliced a scallop in half with her knife, added a daub of creamed spinach and popped the morsel neatly between her thin lips. She chewed without appearing to move her jaw, a trick she'd learned at Miss Porter's School in Framingham many years before.

"That's what Hitler told the Poles just before he invaded," her son answered sourly. He took another bite of his toasted tuna.

"Don't be irritating," snapped his mother. "You know exactly what I'm talking about and who. There's no choice in the matter. You are the next in line; simple history makes you heir if nothing else. You'll be the de facto head of the order and all its resources. Electing you president will be easy after that."

"You really believe Rex Deus still has that kind of power?" Senator Sinclair scoffed, popping a French fry into his mouth. He chewed.

"I know they do," his mother answered. "And you know it, too."

She was right, of course. The senator let out a long breath. Rex Deus and his place in it had been part of his life for as long as he could remember. Rex Deus, once also known as the Desposyni, supposedly the bloodline of Jesus Christ through Mary, his mother, leading all the way to the Merovingian royal families of Europe, was historical fact, at least insofar as its historical existence was concerned.

At one time the Desposyni had been regarded as the aristocracy of the early Church, but over the centuries Rex Deus had become an underground secret society with money and power at its core. Like the Masons, Rex Deus was attractive to the early colonizers of America, especially during the prerevolutionary 1700s, and there were as many Rex Deus signers of the Declaration of Independence as there were Freemasons, including, among others, Benjamin Franklin, of whom Katherine Sinclair was a direct descendant, and Robert Payne, an ancestor of Angus Sinclair.

By 1776 the battle lines had been clearly drawn; American diplomacy with their colonial masters was at an impa.s.se. It was clear that the British would eventually ban slavery, if for no other reason than stopping the growth of the American cotton industry. Added to this was the tax imposed on the colonists by the crown to pay for the French and Indian War, plus the increased prices for manufactured goods imported into the colonies.

The Masons and the members of Rex Deus were either wealthy landowners or equally wealthy merchants, and it was no coincidence that a third of the signers of the Declaration were slave owners. The Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence were established to fuel an American financial revolution just as much as a political one. Then, as now, it had been all about wealth and power.

"There are other people who want to be elected head of the order," said Senator Sinclair. "It's not as though I'm the only one."

"The Magdalene Conclave is in less than two weeks," insisted Katherine, her voice low as she leaned across the table. "We will win the election and you will become the new head of the order."

Senator Sinclair sighed; he'd seen his mother in this mood before. He remembered an embarra.s.sing incident at basketball tryouts that had made him the punch line of a hundred jokes at Exeter. He sighed again and fingered his alumni tie. It was remarkable how easy it was for his mother to get under his skin.

"Why in G.o.d's name is this so important to you, Mother? Don't you think I can become president on my own?"

"Not without the help of the order, dear. With the order at our backs we can get the best of everything; we can bring the whole world over to our way of thinking. The order has unlimited resources; with you at the head we would be unbeatable."

"I'm not even sure I want to run, let alone win," said the senator, feeling the tuna sandwich making its mayonnaise-heavy way through his digestive system.

"Of course you want to be president, Richard," said his mother, looking up and staring around the lavishly decorated dining room. "Everyone wants to become president of the United States. It's the fulfillment of a lifetime dream. It was your father's dream. And mine."

Not my dream, thought Richard Sinclair.

"Yes, Mother," he said.

"Good," said Katherine. "That's settled then. Let's have dessert, shall we? Perhaps the peach cobbler with a little ice cream?"

"Yes, Mother."