Trey Hartwell was a calligrapher, a cartographer, an illuminator of medieval manuscripts, as well as an antiquarian bookseller. His two main pleasures were ferreting out rare books and sharpening his cryptography. His shop, above which he lived in three-story splendor, was a well-known lair for like-minded individuals—wealthy men of impeccable breeding. It was located in a discreet town house on Dupont Circle. The town house was composed of limestone and was designed by Stanford White; it had a history all its own, which was why Hartwell had bought it twenty years ago, when such town houses could be had for something less than a Saudi prince’s fortune.

Over the years Hartwell had amassed a fortune that rivaled that of any Saudi prince. His money, however, did not come from the antiquarian book business, which was not only a niche market but a variable one, as both books and their authors rose in and out of favor like a series of incoming waves. But he had no reason for concern. Other avenues of revenue had opened their arms to him. Like Aladdin in the cave of secrets, he kept finding openings, as he had ever since he had met Preach.

Hartwell had been a sickly boy—pale and weak. He was also short and overweight—the perfect prey for bullies tormented by their own inadequacies. Of course, as bullies will with uncanny accuracy, they found the perfect name for him: Humpty Dumpy. He knew them, intimately, but he could never figure out how to deal with them. Until the tall thin man with the shock of white hair and the piercing blue eyes happened along during the last of his regular street beat downs, ugly encounters that began with his tormentors surrounding him, quick-marching him to a deserted section of the railway yards. Then the taunts would start, proceed to filthy epithets, and end with a barrage of clenched fists striking him over and over. “You go to anyone, Humpty Dumpy, even your mama,” he’d be reminded by Cary, the biggest and meanest, always the instigator, as he lay bruised and half-conscious, “and you’re a dead fucking duck. My promise to you, dick-face.” Laughter, receding across the gleaming tracks while the wind rustled the leaves in the trees on the other side of the dilapidated fence.

This particular afternoon, however, was different. High school had let out for the steamy Mississippi summer. The leaden air was filled with barrages of insects, loud as Piper Cub engines.

He was on his back, his ribs and kidneys aching, when he heard a commanding voice say, “Get up.”

He looked between his tormentors’ legs and saw a tall, thin man with a shock of white hair and piercing blue eyes. The man was looking right at him and addressed him directly: “Get up, you fool!”