Gregg Loomis - The Pegasus Secret

"At least Captain Kidd isn't killing people."

"And the Templars are just as dead, although the Masons and Rosicrucians claim some relationship with the Order. They both have secrets supposedly guarded by members' lives."

Lang snorted in derision. "I don't think I'm up against guys in funny hats or nutcases upset about Prozac and I haven't read about throats slit at your neighborhood Masonic Temple. No, these Pegasus guys are serious. They very much have something they're willing to kill to keep to themselves. I'd bet it has something to do with the money from the Vatican. And that just might be related somehow to this place in France where this guy…"

"Saunière."

"Saunière. Where Saunière hit the local lotto."

"Maybe," Francis agreed, "but what about the picture, the shepherds? That's supposed to be in Arcadia, Greece, not France." He paused for a moment. "But then, Arcadia's also used in poetry as a synonym for any place of pastoral beauty and peace. Could be metaphoric rather than geographic."

Lang knew from the intelligence business that only in fiction do all the pieces of a puzzle fit. There was almost always some bit of information that turned out to be unrelated to the problem at hand, perhaps to another, perhaps useless. But here? The Poussin had tripped whatever wire was set to guard a secret Pegasus wanted to protect.

"Could be anywhere," Lang agreed, "but that Templar, Pietro, and what you're telling me now both point to the Languedoc. I'm not sure how the painting fits in, although it must have some connection. Otherwise, Pegasus wouldn't kill to prevent anyone from understanding whatever the hell it means."

Francis grunted affirmatively. "Yeah, but what?"

"Think maybe it has something to do with the Gnostic heresy, Joseph of Arimathea being Jesus's brother and Mary Magdalene His wife?"

"That's two questions," Francis said. "First, the Scriptures, at least the ones the Church recognizes as gospels, are silent about Jesus's brothers and sisters. Since Jews of biblical times tended to have large families, it's more likely than not that He had siblings. There's always been speculation about a wife. Hebrew law required young men, particularly a rabbi as Jesus must have been, to marry. Some scholars speculate the wedding in Cana, the one where He turned water into wine, to be his own. Problem with siblings and a spouse is that they raise troubling questions about lateral and direct descendants, questions the Church had rather not deal with. That professor Wolffe who did the translation is correct about the Merovingian dynasty who ruled that area of France for a century or two after the collapse of Rome. They claimed to be descendants of Christ, no small problem for the papacy back then.

"The Gnostics were a group of heretics who believed God created Christ mortal, that after His death; His spirit, not his body, ascended into heaven, contrary to Jewish Messianic prophecy. No physical resurrection, no Messiah. The Gnostic view had been specifically rejected by the Council of Nicea along with proposed gospels supporting it, hence the heresy in proclaiming the doctrine."

Lang nodded to the priest on the other side of the ocean as he struggled against weariness to understand what he was hearing. His jaws stretched in a monumental yawn. "Interesting church history, but I don't see how it fits whatever the painting portrays. If it means anything at all. Pegasus seems to think it does. Whatever. I intend to solve the puzzle of the picture, or at least find out what Pegasus is trying to protect. Only way to get even for what they did."

There was an audible sigh, the sound of disapproval. "Lang, revenge can backfire. I wish you'd let the police handle it."

"Francis, you dream," Lang snapped back. "The Paris police are clueless. I want results, not a murder case gone cold. You seem to forget those people, Pegasus, tried to kill me in Atlanta and I'm fairly certain it wasn't friendly conversation they wanted this evening. And let's not forget they managed to get me accused of a couple or murders. I'd say l owe 'em big time."

"You know you should give yourself up to the authorities before you have to kill someone else, before anyone else dies. God will see you through."

"Rumor has it He helps those who help themselves, Padre."

"How about advice from a friend, forget the Padre business?"

"I am, as they say, all ears."

"Illigitimi non carborundum."

"Francis, you can do better than some sort of liberated Latin for 'don't let the bastards wear you down: "

"Then watch your ass."

Despite his problems, Lang was grinning when he hung up the phone. He was waging a losing battle with sleep but found enough reserves to take the Polaroid of the painting from his wallet. Crumpled from wear, the figures were still as enigmatic as the Latin inscription.

He yawned again, wondering when he might be sleeping in his own bed again. The thought of home triggered a seemingly unrelated thought. He wanted to sit out on his balcony with his morning coffee, looking out over the city and reading the paper.

The paper.

Lang routinely worked a syndicated puzzle where letters were scrambled. If solved, a familiar phrase appeared. What if the Latin inscription were like the puzzle in the paper, an anagram in which a seemingly superfluous word supplied letters necessary for the message?

ETINARCADIAEGOSUM.

ETINARCADIAEGO (SUM).

His exhausted body and mind protested as he got up from the bed to rummage through the chest of drawers until he found a sales receipt from Harrods. Further search located the stub of an eyebrow pencil on the vanity. Using the blank back of the sales slip, he began rearranging letters. He started with the one the shepherd's finger was touching, so that each version began with the letter A.

Twenty minutes later, Lang was staring at what he had written, sleep forgotten. Could he be reading this correctly? His Latin was good enough for competitive aphorisms but he had to be sure he had this right.

He snatched the door open so fast he startled a young woman walking the hall in a fire-engine-red teddy.

"Where can I find Nellie?" he asked as if the world depended on the answer.

Recovering with the aplomb demanded by her profession, she pointed, speaking with an accent Lang didn't recognize. "The office, end of the hall."

Nellie's face had an unhealthy pallor, a reflection of the blue of the computer screen inches from her eyes. The world's latest technology was now in the service of its oldest profession.

She swiveled around, the casters on her chair squeaking. "Change your mind about… Bloody hell! Look like you seen a ghost, you do."

Lang guessed the office had previously been a closet.

There wasn't room for both of them, so he stood in the doorway. "In a way, I suppose I have. I've got a really strange request."

She gave him a lopsided smile, a conspiratorial nod and said, "Strange requests are part of the business, luv. Leather, chains?"

"Even stranger. Any place you could put your hands on a Latin-English dictionary this time of night?'

She was shocked, quite possibly for the first time in her professional career. "Latin? I'm running a university now, am I?" She thought for a moment. "There's a bookstore down by the university, though it's not likely open this hour."

Lang was too excited to wait. If he was right… The prospect overcame his better judgment. ''I'll go see. Keep the room open for me."

She put a restraining hand on his arm. "Don't bother, luv.

I've got a girl visiting a customer in Bloomsbury. She'll ring in shortly 'n' I'll have her pop over to Museum Street. No need you riskin' bumpin' into the law, now is there?"

Museum Street was a collection of cafes and small shops selling old books and prints. Many of them kept hours as eclectic as their inventory.