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accent of Languedoc in the south.
    “Yes? And now it’s well after nine.”
    The Prior General’s name was Gabriel Lacatuchi. Back in Rumania when he was a boy it had been
Mestere
-Lacatuchi, but his family had dropped the ‘Mestere’ when they emigrated to America. The name meant ‘makers of locks,’ revealing an ancient family profession. He often felt it was more than appropriate, and that it was one of the reasons he was so scrupulously organized, so punctual, so impatient.
    He turned back from the window. “Who is she and why did it take so long?”
    “There were some technical problems, nothing serious, but there was some delay. Now we know she is Lisa Emmer, an American, one of Foix’s students a few years ago. She does research at the Institut de Papyrologie de la Sorbonne, reading
ostraka
from the Egyptian desert, Greek stuff, yes, but nothing threatening. She’s written articles on daily life in a Roman military camp. I have someone looking into it, but the odds are she’s harmless.”
    “Odds!” Lacatuchi stared once more out the window, idly scratching his neck under his double chin. Rain swept across the water and rattled the glass again, then moved on, leaving shreds of fog and cloud. The village appeared in the gaps. “No one in this affair is harmless,” he added, more thoughtfully. “We can’t afford loose ends. Find out where she lives, who she sees, what she knows. If Foix communicated anything to her, anything at all, about the Order, she must be neutralized.”
    “Yes, Prior General.” Defago hesitated. “There’s something else.”
    With a sigh Lacatuchi walked to the desk, a massive, if anonymous, modern monster. “This was supposed to be clean, Brother Defago.” He placed his palms on the empty surface and leaned forward. “A simple burglary, a man surprised at his desk.”
    “It appears Foix may have left some kind of message. Not for the girl, someone else.” Defago looked yearningly at the couch, then straightened. No time for weakness. They were so close.
    Lacatuchi merely lifted an eyebrow. The effect was terrifying.
    “We can’t be certain.” Defago added, wondering where the Prior General got his power. He himself had never commanded such fear, except from Sister Teresa. Of course, though few knew it, Lacatuchi was a powerful man. The very secrecy of his influence made it all the more appalling. “The apartment is well shielded, better than we anticipated. The transmission from our bug is distorted and fragmentary but Cedric caught a few words. Does Rossignol mean anything?”
    The Prior General’s eyes vanished for a moment in their folds of fat. “Nightingale.”
    “It’s a name.”
    “Whose name?”
    “A banker.”
    “Banker?” Lacatuchi sat down with a grunt and leaned his elbows on the surface of the desk. After a long moment of contemplation he mused, as if thinking out loud, “Bankers are money men, Defago. Bean counters. People who oversee investments.”
    “We believe he has another name, one better known, perhaps.”
    “No doubt,” the Prior General said dryly. “Perhaps you should learn it. Bankers are sometimes confidants, and then they’re like doctors, or lawyers, Brother Defago. They know things. Sometimes those are things they should not know. Dangerous things.” He looked up at the plain white acoustic tiles of the ceiling without really seeing them, rubbing his jowls thoughtfully. “These, this banker and this woman, look more and more like loose ends.” He slapped his palms on the blank surface of the desk. “Loose ends!”
    “I’ll take care of it,” Defago murmured, retreating from the room to call Sister Teresa, code name Tisiphone.

7.
    Antoine Rossignol strode purposefully up the Rue des St. Pères and over the Carrousel Bridge, passing between the Louvre and the garden. He scarcely glanced at the glass pyramid with its mobs of tourists waiting to get into the museum. He preferred instead to contemplate the rose colored