Pale morning light filtered through the curtains. Peter lay on the bed studying the cracks in the ceiling, their fractal geometry, the way the mildew thrived at certain intersections. Davila paced the room, her glance vacillating between her wristwatch and the sheet of paper in her hand—the transcription of the Vindolanda Tablet Adriana Fitzimmin had given to Peter.

"Vetus rebellio iudaicum," she read. "Old Jewish rebel."

Peter spoke to the ceiling. "Why can't you admit that it might have been Simon the Apostle?"

"Because something isn't right."

He looked at her. "Isn't right, or just doesn't fit your beliefs."

She paced right on by. "Why use semina sinapis, not granum sinapis, like we find in Latin versions of the New Testament?"

Peter propped himself up on an elbow. "That's exactly what my dad said to Adriana Fitzimmin."

She stopped and turned. "It's the same usage pattern in the Ramallah Ossuary inscription, khardla bazra instead of khardla zeraona, the form found in early Aramaic translations of the New Testament. The term bazra, like the Latin semina, is a biological term not used in metaphorical speech. If the Mustard Seeds truly symbolize Christianity, then why use such a technical term?" She glanced at her watch for the umpteenth time. It was bulky, digital, something a soldier might wear. "I have to see the Vindolanda Tablet for myself. Do you really think Adriana Fitzimmin will let me?"

"Like I said, if I vouch for you."

"Will you?"

That was the question. What did he really know about Davila? She was not just an archaeologist. That much he knew. She could pick locks, handle a gun, and disarm assassins. Yet one thing was clear in Peter's mind: she did not want to hurt him. "Let's see what Adriana has to say."

The bold lines of her eyes narrowed, resentful, mysterious. Beautiful. Then she reached down, swept her black watch cap off the floor, and hung it on the coat rack. Looking at herself in the mirror, she tugged down the collar of her black T-shirt to expose the nasty red scratches on her throat and upper chest.

"Did I do that?"

She turned around and kicked aside the towel Peter had used to staunch his bloody nose. "You paid for it." Then she put on her jacket and pulled out her phone, checking something.

"You're not going to use that, are you?"

"It's clean. I replaced the SIM card and had the physical ID number changed."

Peter glanced at the remains of his phone gathered into a pile on the nightstand. "Why not just use a burner phone?"

"Because I need the information stored on this." She powered down her phone and put it away. "Do you have the rendezvous?"

Peter held up his tourist map. "Got it. Twenty minutes."

Gryphus slung the now empty courier's bag over his shoulder and exited the British Museum onto Montague Place. Two and a half kilos of Sprengkörper DM12 was probably overkill, he decided, but he could not risk squibbing this one. His orders were clear: destroy all evidence of the Mustard Seeds.

Unlocking his bike from the rack, he pedaled off through the light rain, south on Bloomsbury Street toward the covered garage where he had parked his car. By the time he reached it, the rain was coming down hard, fat drops splattering the pavement. He walked his bike up the ramp, leaned it against the wall, and slipped inside the silver Acura sedan. Dripping wet, he took out his phone and entered the fifteen-digit code. A moment later he heard it, a deep boom echoing through the garage, shaking his seat, setting off a car alarm a few bays over. Definitely not a squib.

Then he noticed the alert on his phone. It was already twelve minutes old. The Israeli had been pinged again, this time just west of the British Museum at a hotel near Goodge Street Station.

Jumping on his bike, he coasted down the ramp and out into the pouring rain. Sirens wailed from all directions. He pedaled hard, dodging cars, trucks, emergency vehicles, and pedestrians, until he came to the hotel. It was an old Georgian painted black with garish white trim. Stashing his bike behind a hedge, he sprang up the steps. The lobby was empty, but behind the check-in desk sat a clerk looking down at his phone. He was young, just a teenager, pallid and spotted.

Gryphus approached slowly, smoothing down his jet ponytail. "Excuse me, I was wondering if you might help."

The clerk raised his head, his watery blue eyes lingering on the sodden collar of Gryphus's jacket. "Would you like to hire a room?" he said in a supple English accent.

"No, no," said Gryphus, pulling out his phone. With a few taps and a swipe, he called up the surveillance photo of the Israeli and held it out for the clerk to see. "I'm looking for my friend here. She's gone missing. Have you seen her?"

The clerk frowned at the photo, shaking his head. "No, I've not seen her. Sorry."

"Are you sure?"

"I scan everyone's ID. And I'd remember a face like that."

With a muted scoff, Gryphus swiped the Israeli's image away and replaced it with the surveillance photo of Peter Barshman. It was worth a try. "How about this person?"

The clerk tilted his head. "Yeah . . . I've seen him."

"When?"

"Yesterday. No, the night before. Why do you want to know?"

"Is he a guest here?"

"I'm not allowed to say."

Glancing over both shoulders, Gryphus peeled back his jacket to reveal the SIG Sauer P220 in its shoulder holster. "Tell me what room he's in, or I'll put a bullet through your spotted face."

The clerk's watery eyes locked onto the weapon.

"Tell me!"

The clerk looked down, fumbling with the computer mouse, clicking frantically. "Um . . . here it is. Third floor, room eleven."

Gryphus reached over the counter and took the clerk by the collar of his T-shirt. "You're coming with me."

He dragged him up the stairs to the third floor and down a creaky hallway to the last door on the right. He drew his SIG Sauer and released the safety. Then he kicked in the door and shoved the clerk into the darkened room.

It was empty, abandoned.

Gryphus shut the door behind them. Binding the clerk's wrists and ankles with nylon zip ties, he forced him to sit on the bed. Then he covered his mouth with duct tape from the little roll he kept in his jacket pocket.

As the clerk whimpered on the bed, Gryphus searched the room. An open suitcase full of men's clothing lay in the corner. On the nightstand, someone had gathered the fragmentary remains of a phone, probably a burner. But whoever had destroyed it had neglected to remove the SIM card or its tray. Taking out his hand lens, he plucking up the tiny SIM card tray, read the miniscule IMEI number, and entered the number into his phone.

While he waited for the data to be retrieved, he moved to the sink. Someone had left a bloody towel on the floor beneath it. On the coat rack nearby hung a black watch cap. Gryphus took it in his hands, turning it inside out to find a clump of silky black hair.

The burner phone had been activated thirty-six hours earlier, well before the Israeli arrived in London. Its log indicated four outgoing calls, three to King County Hospital in Seattle and one to the British Museum. Gryphus holstered his pistol and turned to leave.

Barshman and the Israeli were working together.

Davila was waiting for Peter when he arrived at the bus shelter on Gower Street, a short walk north of the hotel. The rain was coming down hard now, slapping the plexiglass roof. She hailed a taxi, and as they scrambled into the little black car, a peal of thunder rolled up the streets from the southeast.

"British Museum," said Davila to the cabbie.

The cabbie was a lanky and handsome Black man wearing a burgundy sweater. "Lovely day for the museum," he said through the bulletproof security screen. Then he turned to his dash-mounted phone and rattled of a fusillade of unintelligible lingo.

As they rolled along, Peter rubbed a little circle in his fogged-up window and watched the buildings passing by, high, noble, and venerable. They reminded him of the University of Washington campus, of Seattle. Anna.

Without warning, the cabbie brought them to a lurching stop. Just ahead, idling charter buses blocked the narrow street. Wrenching the steering wheel hard right, the cabbie brought the taxi up and over a low divide, then down into what appeared to be a bike lane.

They had made it only twenty yards before they stopped again, tires crunching over what sounded like loose gravel. The cabbie flung open his door, ducked outside and gaped at something high to his right. In poured the wail of sirens, the steady rush of rain, and the acrid stench of fire. He fell back into his seat, slammed the door, and stared blankly ahead, water rolling off his wooly hair and sweater. "Na'uzo'billah!"

Peter rolled down his window, and Davila leaned over to share the view. Yellow leaves and bits of broken glass and stone littered the wet pavement. The charter bus next to them listed at a concerning angle, its windows blown out. Beyond it, high on the British Museum's eastern façade, oily smoke roiled out of a gaping hole where Adriana Fitzimmin's office used to be.

Peter gripped the window frame. "She was in there! The Vindolanda Tablet too!"

Davila fell back into her seat with a stunned look on her face. "It's Gryphus."

Peter gaped at her. "What? How do you know?"

She stared at the plexiglass security screen between them and the cabbie, shaking her head. "That's why he stole the Ramallah Ossuary."

"What?"

"The Mustard Seeds. He doesn't want anyone finding them."

"Why not?"

On the other side of the screen, the cabbie was talking into his phone.

"I don't know," said Davila.

"Jesus. If that's true, then we have to warn Adriana's parents. Give me your phone."

She took it out and tried to power it up.

"What's wrong?" said Peter.

She shook the phone in obvious frustration. "It's dead. The bloody battery keeps dying. I don't know what's wrong with it."

At the same moment, a shadow loomed outside her window, a man standing under an umbrella. He leaned close, knocking on the glass, shouting, the words drowned out by the din of rain on the taxi's roof.

Davila leaned forward and pounded on the security screen with her fist. "Get us out of here!"

The man outside knocked even harder, yelling now.

Peter ripped a wad of twenty-pound notes from his pocket and slapped it against the bulletproof glass. "Come on, let's go!"

With a nod, the cabbie began backing down the bike lane. They could see through the windshield the man with the umbrella trying to keep up, but he was too slow. The cabbie brought them to an abrupt stop and wrenched the steering wheel hard left. He stomped on the accelerator, and they shot down a narrow side street.

A minute later, they sat idling at the intersection of a busy thoroughfare. "Where to, ma'am?" said the cabbie.

It was Peter who answered. "Hampstead Gardens suburb. As fast as you can!"

________________