Punctual as always, Monsignor Kevin Sullivan was in the chandeliered lobby of the Hilton at 7:05 p.m., when Jon and Shannon stepped off the elevator. This time nattily attired in clerical grays, the dark-haired, ruddy-faced son of Ireland gracefully kissed Shannon’s hand and then squeezed Jon’s.

“We really wanted to take you over to the Sultan’s Table on the Golden Horn, Kev,” Jon said, “but the CIA vetoed it—especially tonight—so we’ll have to make do with the hotel restaurant.”

“The Bosphorus Terrace? Not a bad alternate! Hey, kabobs and beer would do. This time it’s the company, not the food.”

The maître d’ seated them next to a sliding-glass door overlooking the city, and the conversation lagged not a moment from that time on. In fact, they hurried their drink order for one bottle of local merlot so they could get on with it. The three had been through several extraordinary adventures together recently that could massively have affected the Christian faith, and they wondered if this would be another.

“You turned in a virtuoso performance today, Jon,” Kevin observed. “The Holy Father was particularly pleased—I was on the phone with him an hour ago—and if only you were a good Catholic, I really think he’d give you a red hat!”

“Hmm . . . Jonathan Cardinal Weber,” Shannon said. “It does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“Ah, but then I’d have to give you up, Shannon,” Jon said, “and become a solitary celibate like Kevin!”

“And you’d never want that, Jon!” Kevin played along. “The beautiful Shannon alone is worth your staying Lutheran.” After smiles and chuckles, Kevin grew serious. “I’ll say again, this was an important day in the fourteen-century interface between Christianity and Islam, and you did our faith proud.”

Jon shook his head. “Both you and I know that I could have hauled out some really heavy artillery against Islam, but I had to limit myself to a handgun. And you know why.”

Kevin nodded, pensively.

Shannon said, “I think when the debate comes out on DVD and especially in printed form, it may pack even more power. Any word on how it was received in Rome, Kevin, apart from Benedict XVI, that is?”

“Well, I also spoke with Cardinal Buchbinder, the Vatican Secretary of State, and he told me business nearly ground to a halt today, with everyone hooked to a TV screen. Same for the general public in Italy, I understand, since Radiotelevisione Italiana covered everything. But, thank God, no riots anywhere so far.”

“And you can thank Jon’s pulled punches for that,” Shannon commented.

When they had ordered the main course, Jon shifted the conversation. “Okay, team, enough about the debate. Frankly, I’m debated out. But now,” he said grandly, “let us tell you, Kevin, about the fabulous thing that happened this week, and it’s not the debate. . . .”

Kevin looked at him quizzically. Shannon had a slight smile on her lips.

“But before we tell you, we’ll need your pledge to keep this absolutely confidential for now, okay?”

At Sullivan’s emphatic nod, Jon said, “Do you see that lovely proof for God’s existence sitting at our table?” All eyes focused on Shannon, a slight flush tinting her cheeks. “That woman with the face of an angel also has the mind of a Solomon and the luck of the Irish. Please start off, Shannon. Begin with Pella.”

Hardly needing any persuasion, Shannon eagerly unpacked her discovery in Jordan, capping it off with her find in the basement of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate. In the telling, Kevin’s eyes grew wide, and when she told of the title page identifying the codex as one of the fifty copies of Scripture ordered by Constantine, his jaw dropped open.

“My . . . my goodness,” he stammered. “That could revolutionize New Testament scholarship! Up to now, among the great uncials, our earliest are the Vaticanus, the Sinaiticus, and the Alexandrinus. But this version—authorized by Constantine and prepared by Eusebius, no less—would easily trump them all. This is a . . . a scholar’s dream!”

Kevin pushed what was left of his juicy filet to one side of the plate and seemed to grow incandescent with excitement. “Okay, we have the title page, but what about the rest of the text? What’s the format? How many columns per page? How many lines per column? What books are inclu—”
“We don’t know, Kevin,” Shannon said. “Or rather, we don’t know yet—except for four columns per page.”

“What in very blazes do you mean?”

Jon explained. “Just as we were ready to get into the text, the curator of the archives returned, and we instinctively ‘covered our tracks,’ as it were. Maybe we should have been open about it from the start, but then, I think, the patriarch would have invited his Greek scholars by the dozens to pore over the codex, and we could have been last in line.”

Kevin nodded. “I think you did the right thing.”

“But now you’ll start to understand that, ever since Shannon found that codex a couple days ago, my mind has been there and not on the debate.”

“Well, your mind on autopilot doesn’t do a bad job. But when are you going back to examine that codex and photograph its pages?”

“Tomorrow morning, of course.”

“Great! I have to fly back to Rome tomorrow, but do keep me informed, Jon, and let me know when I can tell the Holy Father.”

“Right, but only if you keep a buttoned lip in the meantime.”

As Jon leaned over to refill Shannon’s wine glass, they heard a sharp crack from outside. The bottle of merlot shattered in his hands, gushing crimson all over the tablecloth and onto their laps.

“Get under the table!” someone yelled.

As the three dove for cover, another shot demolished Jon’s plate into shards of crockery that spattered off the walls. Shrieking and panic filled the restaurant.

Several men from adjacent tables ran to the sliding-glass door that had been ten inches ajar, permitting a breeze—and two bullets—easy admission. Guns drawn, they stormed through the door while Turkish police rushed into the room and surrounded Jon, Shannon, and Kevin. For some moments, a surrealistic scene of bedlam transformed the Bosphorus Terrace into a chamber of horror. Commands were barked, only adding to the cacophony of shouting and screaming that filled the place.

Shannon, Jon, and Kevin were hustled out of the restaurant and onto the first available elevator. As its brass door was closing, Jon saw that the other diners were being similarly herded out. But who will pick up all their tabs? he wondered, then worried about his own sanity for posing such an inane question in such an emergency.

Safely inside their suite, Shannon sat on the edge of their bed trembling, trying with only limited success to put on a brave front. The men took turns pacing the floor and glancing at the door. Jon tried to redeem the situation, without really knowing how, except to say that a small army of police now controlled the hall leading to their suite.

Presently, Richard Ferris and Osman al-Ghazali appeared with Click and Clack, who explained that the men at nearby tables in the restaurant were from the CIA and the Turkish government police. They had just recovered the weapon at the edge of the broad lawn in back of the hotel, an old U.S. Army Garand rifle with telescopic sight. The perpetrator, evidently, didn’t believe in suicide bombing, although simple murder was fine. Had it been the other way around, or if he had simply shown up with a firearm at point-blank range just outside the open glass door, Jon would be no more.

The phone rang. It was Adnan Yilmaz, the Turkish minister of culture who had met them at the airport. He explained—with official regrets on the part of the Republic of Turkey—that they were doing ballistic tests on the bullets and checking the rifle for fingerprints. Meanwhile, however, Jon and his party were not to leave the Hilton—advice they found quite unnecessary.

Minutes passed, yet time dragged. Although he was not supposed to, Jon briefly parted the opaque sleep curtains in their suite to look below. He saw a long column of police cars with flashing red and blue lights and heard the alternating dual wail of European emergency vehicles. And of course, right behind them were the news trucks and television vans.

Reaching into the suite’s mini refrigerator that was stocked full of overpriced goodies, Jon pulled out several mini bottles of cabernet and poured glasses for all who wished. “You’ll recall that there was an unfortunate accident with our original bottle,” he added, trying hard to add a bit of levity to the general mood that had all the gaiety of a séance in Transylvania.

Again the phone rang. It was Morton Dillingham of the CIA. After several remarks in the I-told-you-so category, his comments quickly focused on a predictable theme. “Now, how are we going to get you out of there?”

“But we’re not ready to go back yet,” Jon advised.

“So here’s what we’ve arranged,” Dillingham continued, brushing off Jon’s comments as those of a madman. “We’re text messaging your homeward itinerary, flights, and times over our high-security line, since we don’t trust the phones—”

Jon chose his words carefully. “With all due respect, Mr. Dillingham—and with gratitude for all your efforts on our behalf—Shannon and I have no intention of leaving Istanbul for at least a week.”

A long silence ensued. “Are you out of your mind?” Dillingham finally responded.

“Ordinarily, we’d be glad to go, but something of phenomenal importance has just come up here that we simply have to deal with. It’ll require about a week—well, maybe only five days—after which we’ll be delighted to have you arrange our transportation.”

“Nothing could be that important, sir!”

“Oh, but it is.”

“More important than your life? And that of your wife?”

Jon pondered for a moment, then replied, “Yes . . . that’s exactly the case.”

Dillingham lost all control of his tongue, blurting out, “Listen, Weber, whatever your ding-dong, dad-blasted reason may be, we’re sick and tired of tryin’ to keep you outta trouble when all you do is go out of your dag-blamed way to find trouble! You don’t stay in touch; you don’t follow the rules—what are you, some kind of suicidal jerk? Hey, maybe we should just wash our hands of you and let the terrorists use your blessed body for target practice! Yeah, that’d be a lot less expensive for us, and never mind that you’d be toast!”

Jon cringed but made no reply. Better to let Dillingham’s steam get vented.

Finally Dillingham cleared his throat. “Well . . . sorry, Dr. Weber. That was . . . that was rather unprofessional of me.”

“No apologies necessary, Mr. Dillingham. I realize I’ve been an exasperating case for all of you. I’m very sorry about that.”

Dillingham sighed. “Don’t mention it. I still feel bad about how I blew off. Let me try to show you that I’m not some pompous federal idiot. And please call me Mort rather than Mr. Dillingham, all right?”

“Fine—if you call me Jon.”

“All right, then. But what detains you, Jon? What’s so blasted important?”

“It involves a manuscript . . .”

“A manuscript, you say? What sort of manuscript?”

“Awfully sorry, but that’s all I can say at this point.”

Dillingham released another sigh of frustration. Then he said softly, “One last time, Jon; if they don’t catch the gunman, he’ll try again. And there may well be more than one out there. After that debate today, you’re not exactly a hero in the Muslim world.”

As Jon pondered the point, Dillingham asked again, “So—this manuscript of yours—is it really worth your life?”

“It really is, Mr. Dill—er, Mort. You’ll understand when I can finally explain it all.”

After a few moments of silence, Dillingham finally said, “Well . . . have it your way, then. We’ll postpone your return arrangements for exactly one week. But only if you follow the added security measures I’m going to text message to our people.”

“We’ll do exactly that . . . Mort.”

When he hung up, Shannon observed, “Sounds like you were speaking for both of us, Jon.”

“Uh-oh, you’re right.” Jon looked at her. For a time, the room was silent. Then he asked, “Do you really want us to go back immediately?”

“Yes, I’d really want to—if we hadn’t come across that manuscript!”

Relief washing over him, Jon gave her a big hug. Ferris and al-Ghazali wanted to know all about “that manuscript,” whatever it was.

Swearing them all to total secrecy, Jon and Shannon launched into the story for the second time that evening, Kevin Sullivan adding further comment with the sort of enthusiasm only the Irish can generate. The Vatican ace didn’t even have to change his plans for the flight back to Rome the next morning. He rather served as guinea pig for the escape route from the hotel that Jon and Shannon would use on a daily basis that week.

Several hours after Sullivan’s jet had left Turkish airspace, Jon, Shannon, and their security took the service elevator down to the Hilton’s basement parking garage. They climbed into a special Citroën that looked like a surviving specimen from the 1970s, but in fact had armor-plated sides and bulletproof glass. Anyone peering inside would have seen not the Webers but a Turkish couple, the husband with tanned skin and Muslim headdress and the woman veiled. The cars preceding and following them were equally nondescript, but they all had a common destination: the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate.