The Book of Names (3 page)

They'd exchanged e-mails, and to his surprise, the statesman had accepted his invitation to speak at Georgetown.

The visit had been a huge success but this morning had been pure hell. He'd floundered, sleepless, until four in the morning, snored through the alarm, and then rushed in late
to deliver his 8
A.M
. lecture. There hadn't even been time to gulp some Tylenol, much less grab a power drink from the fridge. He hadn't even shaved, he'd only taken time to jump in the shower and to slick back his thick dark hair.

“Dave, what gives?” He recognized Tom McIntyre's nasal voice above the din. Tom waved him over from two tables away.

“For Myer's golden boy, you sure look down in the mouth. Did your pal Tony have you contemplating the state of the world a little too deeply last night?”

The balding assistant professor with whom David shared an office in the poli-sci department signaled to the waitress across the room. Also single and in his mid-thirties, Tom was a brilliant sparring partner and one of the most popular professors on campus. Each semester Tom kept a running check on which of them filled up their classes first. David sensed more than friendly competition in the way Tom tried to needle him, but as the son of a U.S. senator, David had grown up surrounded by politics and was immune to it.

He usually shrugged off Tom's need to be top dog—except when the two of them took their annual rock-climbing trip out west. Tom was a good guy and a hell of a climber and excelled in the one area where David enjoyed competition—pitting himself against man and nature, testing himself against the cliffs.

With a groan, David folded his long muscular body into a hardbacked chair opposite Tom.

His office mate hoisted a beer. “One of these might cure what ails you.”

“And a sledgehammer might knock this headache loose.” David forced a smile. “You happen to have one of those handy?”

Tom's attention had already shifted away, his gaze
fastened on the TV screen above the bar. “Chicken Little was right, my friend. The end is near.”

“No argument from me.” David ordered a hamburger, chili with onions, and a Heineken. He slouched back in his seat, rubbing his temples. His gaze automatically followed Tom's to CNN.
Another terrorist attack in Melbourne.
He grimaced. Disasters were erupting all over the world with the regularity of Old Faithful.

 

He'd been teaching political science for nearly ten years now, the last four here at Georgetown, but nothing in his career had been as challenging as this past semester. The words of Plato, Thoreau, Churchill, and other great political thinkers didn't come close to explaining the current turmoil storming through the world. Hurricanes, tsunamis, war, assassinations, terror—an amalgam of nature's caprice and man's violence against man. His students had more questions than he—or even Tony Blair—had answers.

By the time the waitress slid his beer in front of him, David was almost relieved to look away from the screen. Tom leaned forward and dropped his voice.

“Okay, my friend, this is your lucky day. Kate Wallace just parked her beautiful blond self two tables away. Get over there and invite her to the dean's Labor Day barbecue.”

David resisted the urge to turn around. Kate Wallace was a thirty-one-year-old English professor who was writing a racy novel about Ferdinand and Isabella's court. And she was the first woman he'd seriously lusted after since Meredith filed for divorce. They'd had coffee in the staff lounge a couple of times, and so far he hadn't scared her off.

Hell, why not?

He quirked an eyebrow at Tom and wheeled out of his chair. Two minutes later he was scribbling down Kate's phone number and the directions to her town house.

When he got back to the table, Tom chuckled. “I'm impressed. It only took you a semester and a half to make your move.”

“I hear timing is everything.” David took a bite out of his hamburger and stared down at the scrap of paper.

He stopped chewing.
What the hell?

Instead of “Kate Wallace,” he'd written down something else.

Beverly Panagoupolos.

Oh, no, not again
, he thought. The headache, which had receded slightly as he'd eaten, now suddenly pounded with renewed vigor. Another random name. There were so many. Where did they come from?

“Hey, Dave, you all right? Seriously—all of a sudden you look like the walking dead.”

David tensed. Tom had no idea how close it was to the truth. But he never talked about the fall that had almost killed him when he was a kid. He'd never even shared it with Meredith.

“It's just this damned headache.” He forced down another bite of his burger but he was no longer thinking about his food, or Tom, or Kate. He was thinking about Beverly Panagoupolos.

And he didn't want to.

 

An hour later, David drove past Eastern Market, doing a little over the speed limit for Capitol Hill. By the time he swung into the alley to park his Mazda6 at the rear of his town house, David could barely wait to see if Beverly
Panagoupolos' name was in his journal. He was about to turn off his ignition when the CBS hourly news update began.

We have breaking news out of Athens: Police have surrounded the residence of Greek Prime Minister Nicholas Agnastou after his sister, Beverly Panagoupolos, was discovered brutally murdered there just hours ago. . . .

David's hand froze on the ignition key. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but he felt icy cold inside.
Why is her name in my head today
—
on the day she died? This has never happened before.
He yanked the scrap of paper from his pocket and stared at it, his mind racing.
Or had it?

He ran up the front steps and jammed his key into the lock. He shot across the short hallway to his office as the door slammed shut behind him. His desk was in controlled chaos, strewn with the pieces of his life: partially graded papers, binders and books, a box of Sharpie fine-point pens, a framed photo of himself and Stacy on their last ski trip to Vail, and the milky gray-blue gemstone he kept perched in the hand of the red ceramic monkey that Judd Wanamaker, his father's best friend, had brought him from Thailand when he was eight.

Yanking open the center drawer of his rolltop desk, he fumbled under bank statements and bills until his fingers closed around the thick red notebook. Heart pounding, he scanned the pages where all the names were written.

One hundred forty-five pages, filled with names. Thousands and thousands of names.

And then he saw it. Right there in the middle of page forty-two.

Beverly Panagoupolos.

He'd written it on October seventh, 1994. He always marked down the dates when the names found him. Beverly's had found him when he was twenty-two.

All those years ago, he'd written her name. And today he'd written it again. On the day she died.

He looked at the names. A United Nations of names. Encompassing, he was certain, every nationality on earth.

Throughout his teens, he'd thumbed through phone books in every city his family vacationed, trying to find the names he was writing.

He never had, and after a while he'd given up.

But today he knew for certain one of the names belonged to a murdered woman. A chill came over him as he wondered if there were more.

VILLA CASA DELLA FALCONARA, SICILY

Irina was in darkness. Cold. Afraid. Naked.

Holy Virgin, how long will they keep me here, waiting? For what?

The silk blindfold was soft against her eyelids, but she had no idea how long it had been on. Even when they brought her food and unbound her hands so she could eat and use the toilet, she was never permitted to remove the blindfold.

She wanted to go home, to sit by the front window and embroider her wedding pillowcases. She had five more to finish before she married Mario.

Would she marry Mario? Was he looking for her? Weeping for her? Would she ever see his face again?

Warm tears soaked the silk that bound her eyes. She
shivered and sent up a silent prayer. The same one she said every day, over and over.

Where are you, God?

 

On moonlit nights in August, the Italian prime minister liked to sit in the garden of his hilltop villa and smoke the Cuban cigars his father had first let him smoke there on his eighth birthday. Casa della Falconara, which overlooked the age-old amphitheater at Segesta, had belonged to his family for over four generations. His parents had chosen its grand terrace with its spectacular views for their sunset wedding reception seventy years ago, but the garden was his own favorite sanctuary, where no one dared disturb him.

There, on hot August nights, he could close his eyes and savor the fragrance of the lemon groves wafting up from the valley while he listened to the ancient Greek and Latin plays reenacted in the amphitheater below.

Tonight the amphitheater was quiet and the garden deserted, but within the weathered walls of his villa, Eduardo DiStefano presided over a select group of guests, twenty men conversing in muted and dignified tones.

The prime minister's butler moved silently around the long table where they sat, refilling their goblets with thirty-five-year-old port. No one spoke of anything beyond the broiling weather, or the six-course meal they'd just enjoyed, until Silvio had slipped from the room and they heard the intricately carved mahogany door click closed behind him. Then Eduardo DiStefano stood, locked the door, and began to speak with the charm and elegance for which he was known.

“Tonight, my faithful friends, we have reached a turning point. Thirty-three obstacles have been eliminated.”
DiStefano paused, appreciation shimmering in his penetrating eyes as vigorous applause broke out. He was a man of striking good looks, with an intelligent high forehead, a strong jaw, and a smile that could melt gold. Though he was nearing sixty, his dark hair was only slightly flecked with silver, which added a degree of elan as commanding as his Armani tuxedo. As his guests applauded, he twisted the gold ring of intertwined snakes on his middle finger and waited for silence.

“And, even more importantly,” DiStefano continued, “our own Serpent is on the verge of a final breakthrough.”

He turned with a smile toward the distinguished golden-haired banker, the man whose family had been entrusted with safeguarding their vast holdings since the sixteenth century. It was his son who had proved so invaluable in identifying the targets for the Dark Angels, his son whose brilliance made their long-sought triumph imminent.

Applause broke out and the banker bowed his head in acknowledgement.

“I'm told,” DiStefano continued, “that again, your son hasn't left his computer in three days. Gentlemen, at this very moment, he could be seconds from unlocking the ultimate knowledge—the final three names.”

The men at the table started, looking from one to the other with a combination of excitement and awe. For more than a hundred generations, they and their predecessors had struggled to attain this knowledge, to achieve this goal. The notion of imminent success, of total spiritual enlightenment, was nearly overwhelming, it was erotic—an enticing flame to scorch the flesh and free the soul.

“Salut
, my friends.” DiStefano raised his goblet, his gaze meeting that of his second-in-command, Alberto
Ortega. The former secretary general of the United Nations smiled widely and raised his glass in response as DiStefano offered a toast.

“Let us prepare ourselves for the rest of the journey.” He drank a sip of the dark rich port, savoring it, as did all the men assembled. The familiarity of this ritual soothed and exhilarated him.

He remembered the first time he'd been allowed to participate. He hadn't slept for a moment the night before, nor had he eaten anything throughout the day.

His father had never given him a hint of what went on in this room during the special meetings he hosted twice every year. All he knew as a child was that it took the staff days to prepare the banquet and that even his mother was not allowed to attend.

Sometimes, he would awaken at five in the morning to the sound of tires crunching the gravel driveway leading down the hillside as the dignitaries slipped away like stars blinking out before the dawn.

What were they doing all those hours, far into the night? He'd known his father was an important man—and all the men who attended twice a year were important men as well, many of them famous leaders and heads of state.

It was as if the UN was meeting in Sicily, in his home.

From the time he first saw the paneled double doors close, shutting him out in the marble tiled foyer, he'd longed to be a part of it, to sit by his father's side and listen, to soak up the power that was in that room.

But not until he was eighteen did he receive his own talisman—the gold ring he never took off—and his own invitation to the ceremonies.

He'd been revolted by what he'd seen.

Odd how he'd come to relish this ritual that crowned
the evening. Fortunately, his father had been an intuitive and patient man, who had explained the necessity of what they did, and its grander purpose. The women they initiated would play a key role once the world was theirs. Hand-selected, isolated—the unwilling vessels would be needed. And used.

Now when he couldn't sleep the night before the ritual, it had nothing to do with anxiety.

He reached out a well-tanned hand, and with the press of a button the paneled wall behind him slid away.

She was waiting there in the shadows, raven-haired, blindfolded, naked.

Some of the men began to shift in their seats, thinking of the divine ecstasy to follow. Others remained perfectly still, their gazes hawk-like on the girl.

They were all intelligent men, dedicated and powerful. Like those who'd come before them, each had been handpicked at an early age for this honor, for this challenge, for this most bold and dangerous quest.