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tried to kill me isn’t important now; we have to find Peggy. Quickly,” replied Holliday.
    “Tell me everything you know,” said Ducos.
    In the end it wasn’t very much. The Frenchman listened to what there was, leaning back in his chair and puffing on his pipe. When Rafi was finished, Ducos asked Holliday a few questions about the attack at West Point, then fell silent, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. Finally he spoke, the words measured and precise.
    “The man who attempted to kill you was almost certainly a member of La Sapinière, the French arm of Sodalitium Pianum, the Vatican Secret Service. They were first written about in fiction by the late Thomas Gifford and more recently by your Mr. Dan Brown in his Da Vinci Code . The tattoo is sure evidence of this—it is the sigil, or crest of Pope Pius X, who instituted the original group in the early nineteen hundreds. They are also known as the Assassini and sometimes as the Instrument of God. They are willing to sacrifice their very souls as martyrs to a higher cause.”
    “But why try and kill me?” Holliday asked. “What’s their motive?”
    “And what does it have to do with Peggy’s disappearance?” Rafi asked angrily. “We’re sitting here talking about theological voodoo and she’s in danger. What possible connection is there?”
    “I suggest that the shared motive is a sense of imminent danger. The Vatican obviously sees Colonel Holliday as a threat. I would say the same holds true for Miss Blackstock. Either she alone or the expedition as a whole discovered something that the Brotherhood of Isis perceives to be a threat as well. The connection is quite clear. Brasseur must have triggered La Sapinière’s interest while he was doing his research at the Vatican and whatever he found in the Templar documents in the Secret Archives led to the kidnapping of the group in the desert.”
    “That’s insane,” argued Rafi. “It’s oil and water. Islamic terrorists and the Vatican?”
    “Oil and water indeed,” said Ducos calmly. He paused for a moment, took a kitchen match from the pocket of his ancient suit jacket and scratched it alight on one yellowed thumbnail. He relit his pipe, sucking noisily and blowing clouds of smoke into the air, swirling into the broad sunbeams coming through the shutters. “Oil and water indeed,” he repeated. “And since oil and water do not usually mix, Doctor, as a scientist I would suggest that you search for an emulsifier, some common cause.”
    “Could it be something as simple as territory?” Holliday asked. “The expedition crossed into the Brotherhood’s turf?” He shrugged. “Maybe they were affronted by a bunch of Catholic priests defiling their sacred land or something.”
    “Possible but unlikely, Colonel. I was born much closer to the nineteenth century than the twenty-first but I have kept up with events, I think. There are few true believers anymore. Terrorist organizations are like political campaigns—they’re always in need of money and volunteers. There are the cynical among us who believe, with good reason, that 9/11 was nothing more than a publicity stunt by bin Laden to raise his stature among his peers. In the nineties all he could be blamed for was a failed assassination attempt and some complicity in the Dar es Salaam and Nairobi embassy bombings. Instead of being the rich, favored son of an Arab sheik he was a nobody and a poor one at that. Just prior to 9/11 his family had cut off his seven-million-dollar-a-year allowance. He needed a fund-raiser. The Brotherhood are no different.”
    “Then Doc is right—it’s really all about money,” Rafi said.
    “The Brotherhood is a small group and it has no real backer,” Ducos said. “With Qaddafi in America’s bed once more they have been cast adrift. The Brotherhood’s territory ranges from Qare on the edge of the Qattara Depression to Jaghbub on the far side of the border.”
    The old man levered himself upright, wincing as