The Quest: A Novel

sat on the distant horizon.
    Vivian was awake now, and she glanced in the rear to see Mercado still asleep. She said to Purcell, “I had a dream…”
    He didn’t respond.
    “You and I were in Rome, and I was the happiest I’ve ever been.”
    “Did we have the Grail with us?”
    “We had each other.”
    “That’s good enough.”
    He throttled back and began his descent.

Chapter 40
    V ivian came out of the Reuters news office carrying three thick manila envelopes in her canvas tote, which contained a total of ninety-two eight-by-ten photographs.
    Purcell and Mercado met her outside and they walked toward Ristorante Vesuvio, which claimed to be the best Italian restaurant in Africa, and probably the only one named after an Italian volcano.
    To add to the surreal and almost comic quality of Addis Ababa, the street was lined with Swiss Alpine structures, which seemed to fit the mountainous terrain, but which Mercado thought were grotesque parodies of the real thing. He explained, “The Emperor Menelik II, who founded Addis, commissioned a Swiss architect to design the city, and I think the Swiss chap had a bit of fun with the emperor.”
    “You get what you pay for,” Purcell said.
    They went into Vesuvio and took a table in the back. Mercado said, “This place has been here since the Italian Army conquered the city.”
    Purcell observed, “The décor has not changed.”
    “They took down the portrait of Mussolini. It used to be right above your head.”
    “Where was the portrait of the emperor?”
    “Also above your head.”
    “What’s above my head now?”
    “Nothing. The proprietor is waiting to see who survives the Derg purges.”
    “The Italians are very practical.”
    Vivian gave an envelope to Purcell and one to Mercado, and they slid out the enlarged photographs. They all sat silently, flipping through the matte-finish color prints.
    A few of the photos showed part of the wing, and some were almost straight-down shots, showing only a green carpet of junglewithout wing or horizon, and these were not easy to orient, but they did penetrate into the jungle. All in all, Vivian had done a good job, and Purcell said, “You could work for the Italian cartography office.”
    “And you could work for the Italian Air Force.”
    Purcell looked closely at a few photos, studying the sizes, shapes, tones, and shadows of the terrain features. He said, “We’ll look at these with a magnifier and good light in one of our rooms.”
    Mercado looked up from his photos and said, “We did not see anything that could be a man-made structure when we were in the air, and I don’t think we will see anything more in these photographs than the Italian cartographers did forty years ago.” He pointed out, “The monastery is
hidden
. By overhanging trees.”
    Purcell reminded him, “Father Armano said that sunlight came through the opaque substance used in the roof of the church. If sunlight came through, then the roof can be seen from the air.”
    Mercado nodded reluctantly, but then said, “That was forty years ago. Those trees have grown.”
    “Or died.”
    Vivian was looking closely at the photos in her hands. “Father Armano also mentioned green gardens, and gardens do not grow well under a triple-canopy jungle. So what I think is that the monastery is hidden by palms—palm fronds move in the breeze and block the sun, but they also let in some sunlight.”
    Purcell observed, “We’re back to palms.”
    “Makes sense.”
    “All right. But I don’t remember Father Armano saying anything about palms.”
    Vivian reminded him, “He did say that on the doors of the church were the symbols of the early Christians—fish, lambs, palms.”
    “That’s not actually the same as palm trees overhead.”
    “I know that, Frank, but…” She studied a photo in her hand.
    Purcell thought, then said, “All right… in Southeast Asia, from the air, or in aerial photographs, palm fronds were a good camouflage. They create a sort of illusion because of their shape, movement, and the shadows they cast. They break up the image on the ground and fool the eye. Photographs, though, capture and freeze the image,and if you’re a good aerial photo analyst, you might be able to separate the reality from the optical illusion.”
    Vivian looked at him. “Did you make that up?”
    “Some of it.” He said. “Okay, let’s concentrate on clusters of palms. Also, there is something called glint.”
    Vivian asked, “What is