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fries, stuffing them in his mouth.
    Romano motioned to the waiter for the check. “You look much better now, Father.” The middle-aged man smiled as he handed the priest the addition . “A meal is just what you needed.” Romano offered his credit card, and the waiter swiped the magnetic strip on a hand-held bank card processor.
    A Carabinieri lieutenant burst into Del Carlo’s office waving a computer printout and shouted, “We have him!”
    “Where is he?”
    “In Paris. He used his credit card in the Place des Vosges , a bistro in the square.”
    The GIS colonel clenched his jaw. “Find out everywhere this priest has been for the last two years: every plane, train, hotel, and restaurant. Who does he know in Paris? And I want it all in an hour.”
    “ Si, Colonelo ,” the lieutenant saluted and rushed back out the door.
    Del Carlo pressed the intercom on his desk. “ Prego ?” a female voice from the speaker said.
    “Call Alitalia. Get me on the next flight to Paris!”
    Cardinal Keller was engrossed in a treatise published by a rogue French priest who continued to hold the Tridentine Mass in Latin without permission. Something had to be done, yet the cleric was popular among his parishioners, especially conservatives. The Grand Inquisitor was on the verge of choosing the appropriate rebuke and threat when a rap came from the thick door of his office in the Palazzo del Sant’Uffizio . “Yes,” he said, frustrated by the interruption.
    A Swiss Guard officer garbed in a blue work uniform with a black beret entered the room. The cardinal didn’t look up. “Captain?”
    “We’ve found Father Romano, Eminence.”
    The Grand Inquisitor bolted out of his chair. “Where?”
    “Paris. We located him through his credit card. Shall I send the Swiss Guard to find him?”
    “No. Notify the Archbishop there. Find out where Father Romano goes and who he meets. Most of all, I want to know if he’s coming back.”
    “Are you sure, Eminence? He may not wish to return, in which case…”
    “Captain, Father Romano is a priest!”
    “Forgive me, Eminence. My place is not to question or provoke, only advise. I simply wish to point out that as Vice-Prefect of the Secret Archives, Father Romano has access to the church’s oldest and deepest secrets. Do you want him roaming the streets…unattended?”
    The Grand Inquisitor pondered the captain’s observation and replied more deftly. “As I said, Romano’s a priest and feels the full weight of his vows. Nevertheless, find out everyone he has spoken with in Paris and what he has said verbatim, understood?”
    “Of course, Eminence.”
    Doctor Isabelle Héber waited for the unkempt priest at the entrance to the French National Archives. As he walked with long easy strides through the courtyard, she pictured the American cleric more on a ranch in Montana than hovering over musty manuscripts. That was her province. The priest wasn’t classically handsome. Life had lined and scraped his face into battered good looks.
    She unlocked the glass double doors and opened one side so Romano could slip in. “The equipment is ready. Follow me,” she said, leading him up the stairs. “I hope you’re not in a hurry,” she spoke over her shoulder, “because this is a slow process, although a great deal faster than what’s used in the States. We call it IsyReADeT .”
    “Come again?”
    “It’s an acronym for Integrated System for Recovering and Archiving Degraded Texts— IsyReADeT . The program isn’t perfected yet. We’re still testing, but I have one of the prototypes.” Isabelle unlocked one of the doors in the corridor and led the priest into a photography studio. A bulky camera that resembled a 1950s Bell & Howell movie projector stood on a tripod. Doctor Héber removed the side cover, exposing a wheel behind the lens that spun different-colored filters into place. “What do you remember from the Archimedes Palimpsest seminar?”
    “I am ashamed to say that a lot