Preoccupied with the thought, he stepped back into the bedroom, still toweling at his hair, when the scene struck him like a fist.

The Greek manuscript was missing along with Zoe’s notes and the minicassette recorder. Her purse lay on the floor, the contents scattered around it Zoe was nowhere to be found.

Seth lunged for the telephone.

THREE

The tall, fair-haired American strode from the side-street shadows into the withering brightness of the Piazza Venezia. A brutal September sun welded the square’s snarled traffic into a lava field of gas fumes and scorching metal. Stepping off the curb, he tacked a ragged diagonal across the square toward the Via del Corso.

The American was a lean young man in his thirties with the sort of New England skin that burned too easily in the Roman sun. As he waded through the swamp of Fiats and Vespas, he held one hand on his new summer hat while the other securely gripped his thin shiny aluminum briefcase. He wore cordovan loafers with tassels, a khaki poplin suit, a blue pinpoint oxford cloth button-down, and a Yale school tie.

Gaining the far curb, he checked his Rolex and cursed silently as he headed toward the Piazza Colonna. Damn! It just would not do to be late for his appointment with the Holy Inquisition.

He had assumed that the man who had summoned him would be found at the Vatican. But no, it was in some out-of-the-way location way the hell on the other side of the Tiber.

The Holy Inquisition had never died, he had learned to his surprise, it just changed its name: Vatican spin doctors changed it to “the Holy Office” in 1542 and then, in 1965 to “the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”

A business associate, a man who had once been a Jesuit priest, had told the American, “The CDF is indisputably the most powerful department of the Curia and carries far more weight and wields more power within the Vatican than the KGB ever did in the Kremlin even at the peak of Soviet power.”

The American stopped now at the intersection of a small street that had no sign. This has to be it, he thought as he turned right and followed the narrow way, remembering the former Jesuit’s comments: “The KGB metaphor is apt, particularly for you. Because today the CDF operates more like an intelligence agency than an army of God and prefers to destroy lives and careers behind the scenes rather than in the light of critical public scrutiny. The head of the CDF is always the reigning Pope, but the inquisitorial apparatus is run by an executive simply known as ‘the Secretary.’ This job tide, like the agency itself, dates back to the thirteenth century; back then it was called ‘Grand Inquisitor.’

“The CDF has its own investigators and a network of snitches that puts the former East German Stasi to shame. You need to remember this and never let down your guard. These folks ain’t Friar Tuck; they’re dangerous and deadly serious. They gather incriminating evidence, then present it to a four-person tribunal consisting of the chief judge, known as ‘the Assessor,’ who is assisted by two Dominican monks and a ‘Commissar.’ ”