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broadcasting identical CCTV images of the suicides. It’s difficult to deny the evidence of your own eyes, of course. No one wants to believe it. The reporters are playing down any connection, for now, but it is obvious for anyone to see.
    “The actual content of the telephone calls hasn’t been broken yet, but that is only a matter of time. And when it does—and people hear that promise of forty days and forty nights of terror—then as the Americans like to say, everyone will just be waiting for the other shoe to drop. That is the kind of world we live in, I am afraid.”
    “Thankfully, no one seems to have picked up on the fact that the victims are all British. But that only puts us a few hours in front of the press. Some enterprising soul will put two and two together soon enough.”
    “We can’t worry about that,” the old man said. “Right now the only thing we need to concern ourselves with is the facts. What we know from monitoring the newswires is that the major broadcast networks in each respective country received a call precisely one minute before the suicides. In all but two the message was the same.”
    “And the others?”
    “This was the message in Rome.” Lethe triggered another audio file. The voice was male. Taut. Barely held together. This wasn’t the voice of a man who wanted to die. This wasn’t a religious fanatic or some crazed zealot sacrificing himself for a cause. There wasn’t a trace of resignation in it. This was an ordinary man, still hoping against hope that somehow he would be saved. “Roman Pontiff beware of your approaching, of the city where two rivers water, your blood you will come to spit in that place, both you and yours when blooms the Rose.” And then, after almost thirty seconds of silence, “ell Isla I love her. Please. Tell her that.”
    Jude Lethe didn’t wait before playing the final message. Questions could come later. “This call was made to Das Erste in Germany.” Again it was a man’s voice. This one was more composed than the last. He spoke slowly and calmly, as though reciting a script. Each word was enunciated clearly: “The Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big cross he was killed by a group of soldiers.”
    “The first message was quatrain 2.97 from the prophecies of Michel de Nostredame. The second is an excerpt from the third secret of Fatima. Both are believed to foretell the assassination of the Pope,” the old man put in.
    “Okay, so let me get this straight, we are talking crackpot sects and a healthy dose of make believe?” Noah asked. It still didn’t make the logistics of this kind of mass sacrifice any less complicated, but fanaticism would go some way to explaining it. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. No, that didn’t jibe with the first man’s voice or his plea to tell some woman he loved her. That wasn’t in the fanatic’s genetic makeup. They were too fired up with the righteousness of their cause to worry about earthly crap like the people they left behind.
    “If only that were the case. What we appear to be dealing with here is at the very least systematic and well thought out. You don’t burn thirteen people alive like this, with such military precision, without having planned for all of the contingencies. This is a very public opening gambit, Noah. It was designed to be seen, and there’s only one reason for that—because whoever is behind it wanted it to be seen,” the old man said. Sir Charles changed the display, bringing up the passport photographs of the suicides. As with every passport photo Noah had ever seen, the victims looked somehow less human than they had when the flames had burned away their faces. “With that in mind, Mister Lethe, please continue.”
    Jude Lethe manipulated the