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he did so, palms flat on the desk. He lumbered over to the filing cabinets, opened one of the drawers and withdrew a buff-colored file. He brought the file to his desk, sat down again with a little sigh and pulled an eight- by-ten photograph out of the folder. He slid it across the desk to Holliday.
    The photograph showed a young man in sunglasses wearing shorts and a black T- shirt that read I Was There: Solar Eclipse 2006-03-29 . Directly behind him two turbaned men were talking beside a battered Toyota Land Cruiser. On the right edge of the picture Holliday could see some pale-colored ruins of what might have once been stone huts.
    “This photograph was taken by a Canadian tourist chasing the 2006 eclipse. It was taken at the ruins at the small oasis of Tazirbu in the central Sahara. The two men talking in the background are Sulaiman al-Barouni on the left and Mahmoud Tekbali on the right.” Holliday looked closely. Al-Barouni looked much older than his companion. His face was drawn and deeply lined, skin drawn tightly over his bladelike cheekbones. Tekbali was younger, his face darker, his eyes covered by expensive Serengeti Driver sunglasses.
    “Exactly who are they?” Rafi asked, looking over Holliday’s shoulder.
    “Tekbali is a senior officer in the Brotherhood, second in command to Mustafa Ahmed Ben Halim, the founder and leader of the group.”
    “So what’s the significance of the photograph?” Holliday asked.
    “It is significant because Sulaiman al-Barouni is the chief go-between for a man named Antonio Neri. Neri is the boss of an Italian criminal organization known as La Santa. Neri’s specialty is smuggling women, drugs and valuable artifacts. Contrary to the Great Leader’s press releases concerning the satanic evil of the American drug culture, Libya has long been an alternative location for the Marseilles morphine labs. As well there is always a supply of village women looking for broader horizons, and Libya and Egypt have been doing a thriving business in tomb raiding and artifact smuggling for thousands of years.” The old man lifted his sagging shoulders in a Gallic shrug. “The Vatican. La Santa. The Brotherhood.”
    “Oil and water,” said Rafi.
    “A common cause,” said Holliday.
    “Indeed,” said Ducos, and smiled.

5
    It was like stepping into a Humphrey Bogart movie; any minute now you expected a sloe-eyed Lauren Bacall to appear with a cigarette in her hand, looking for someone to light her up. The interior of the Bar Maritime in the Vieux Port of Marseilles was all brown wood and thirties- style, down-at-the-heels and I-don’t-give-a-damn décor complete with a sleepy bartender and just as sleepy patrons nodding on their high stools over their pastis and Stella Artois, with hungrier patrons chowing down on escargots or petit quiche or a big bowl of local steamed mussels, the coquillage that formed the mainstay of the bouillabaisse that was the foundation of every menu on the Azure Coast.
    Holliday and Rafi Wanounou were sitting at a small round table at the front window, soaking up the atmosphere. The remains of lunch were still on the table as well as their coffee cups. Seated with them was Louis Japrisot, a captain in the Police Nationale de France, formerly known as the Sûreté. Japrisot was short and stocky with a broad, jowled face, a lot of gray-stubbled five o’clock shadow and a bristling salt-and-pepper Stalin mustache, of the soup strainer variety. He appeared to be in his late fifties.
    He had fierce black eyes, eyebrows like his mustache and a military-style short back and sides crew cut. Somewhere along the line he’d had his nose broken and he had a bull neck. Underneath the wrinkled brown suit the muscles of his arms and shoulders flexed like a boxer’s. Sitting still was something he didn’t do very well. He smoked Gitanes continuously, the harsh cigarettes disappearing into his big butcher’s hands.
    “Been a cop long?” Holliday asked, looking for