He turned to the screen on which the remaining identification codes were posted. V/I, M/S, and J/I. Circe’s face looked at him from an adjoining screen.

Lilith had been staring at these for minutes now.

“This doesn’t make senses,” she said. “In the previous codes, the I in A/I had been Iran. But J doesn’t fit with Iran’s other refineries, nor does V. And there is no M refinery in Saudi Arabia. Why change the code in the middle of a single list?”

“It’s not LaRoque’s handwriting,” said Circe. “Bug checked it against samples he found in the computer records at the foundation for which LaRoque sits on the board. He has a clunky style in print and a scrawling cursive. This is elegant. Toomey in handwriting says that the style and grace is indicative of a highly trained person, probably with Catholic school education. Someone who has spent much of his life writing in cursive. LaRoque’s young enough to have grown up with computers and e-mail.”

“LaRoque’s father is out,” said Lilith. “He would have been alive when the Order first tried to buy the nukes, but he’s long dead now.”

“It’s not Hugo’s,” Circe said. “Grigor?”

“No. I’ve seen his handwriting. It’s as terse and brutal as he is.”

Church said, “Nicodemus.”

Lilith and Circe stared at him. And nodded.

“Knowing that doesn’t help us understand the code.” He paused and grunted. “On the other hand, we might be overthinking this again.”

“What do you mean?” asked Circe.

“What if the list is not a code but a simple uncomplicated shorthand?” He tapped a key on his console and Bug’s face appeared on one of the screens. “Bug, initiate a search. Listen first. If the first letter in each pair is the name of the target—A for Aghajari and so on—and the second letter is the first of the location, I for Iran, we missed a clue right there. I was used to indicate both Iran and Iraq. The answer is right there and we looked through it.”

“But there’s no J or V refinery in Iraq, either,” insisted Circe.

“Stop thinking about specifics and go general. The additional targets may not be refineries. They could be anything. And remember, these were written by two different people. The code, and even the order of the letters might not match. Allow for flexible thinking.”

“If they aren’t matches, how will we ever find them?” asked Rudy.

“The second letter. Bug, let’s start there. Make a list of all oil producing countries beginning with the letters I and S. No, give me J as well, in case the order is skewed. Then get me a general alphabetized list of all countries. Run both through MindReader’s counterterrorism assessment package and cross-reference with significant potential targets beginning with V, J, and M. Do it now.”