The Quest: A Novel

the heavens, and it gave life and light. The religion of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims, however, was more complex. They asked people to believe in things that could not be seen or felt like the sun on his face. They asked for faith. They asked that you believe it because it was impossible.
    And on this basis, he was going back to Ethiopia.

Chapter 18
    T hey walked the short distance to the commissary, where they got coffee and biscotti that they took outside to a bench. The barracks of the Swiss Guard was across the lane, and Purcell watched them forming up for some occasion. The Vatican post office, too, was run by the Swiss, and he said to Henry, “Swiss efficiency and Italian biscotti. Truly a blessed place.”
    Mercado responded, “The Italians are the only people on earth who have monumental egos
and
an inferiority complex.” He added, “I find it charming.”
    “So you’re staying here?”
    “I will die here or in Ethiopia.”
    “Can I ask… do you have a lady here?”
    He hesitated before replying, “I… have a lady of my own age whom I see whenever I’m in Rome.”
    Purcell didn’t pursue that. He lit a cigarette and watched the people.
    There were no tourists in this part of Vatican City, and everyone on the streets here was employed by the Vatican in one way or another or they were official visitors like himself. There were, he knew, about a thousand actual residents of this sovereign city-state, mostly clergy, including the pope’s staff or retinue, or whatever they were called. The art and the architecture here were without parallel in the world, and he understood, sitting there, why the popes and the cardinals and the hierarchy believed that this was the one true church of Jesus Christ. This was where the bones of Peter, the first pope, were buried somewhere beneath the basilica that bore his name, and Peter had taken the cup from Jesus’s hand and drunk his Lord’s blood. And so, the argument would go, this was where that same Holy Grail, if it existed, belonged. Case closed.
    But even Father Armano had second thoughts about that. And so did Frank Purcell.
    Mercado asked, “Are you thinking about what you’ve just learned?”
    “No. I’m thinking about Father Armano and the black monastery.”
    “We will get to the black monastery.”
    Purcell didn’t know if Henry meant get to it in the next library seminar or get to it in Ethiopia. Hopefully the latter. He said, “Good coffee.”
    “Made from holy water.”
    Purcell smiled.
    “And Ethiopian coffee beans.”
    “Really?”
    “The Italians still own and run some coffee plantations in Ethiopia. Though they’ve probably been seized by the bloody stupid Marxists.”
    “Right.”
    “There’s a chap lives in Addis. Signore Bocaccio. Owns coffee plantations around the country. Visits them with his airplane.”
    Purcell nodded.
    “They may have kicked him out, of course, or put him in jail, but if he’s still in Addis, we may want to look him up when we get there.”
    “What’s he fly?”
    “I don’t know. Never been up with him, but a few journalists have.”
    “Would he rent the plane without him in it?”
    “Ask.”
    Purcell nodded. His piloting skills were not great, but he thought he could fly nearly any single-engine aircraft if someone gave him an hour or so of dual flying instructions.
    Also, he realized that Henry had already thought some of this out. They couldn’t just head off into the jungle and expect to run into the black monastery. Few people had been so lucky, and those who had, like Father Armano and his army patrol, had discovered that their luck had run out at the monastery—or before then, when they met the Gallas. And now General Getachu was also interested in the monastery.
    So, yes, they should do aerial recon to see if they spotted anything that looked like a black monastery—or like something they didn’t want to run into on the ground.
    Mercado glanced at his watch and said, “We’ll go back to the library, then over to the Ethiopian College.”
    “Are you taking the day off?”
    “No. I’m working. And so are you.”
    “Right. I work here.” Purcell asked, “When do I get my creds?”
    “In a week or two. Or three.” He smiled. “This is not Switzerland.” He said, “After you left my office the other night, I sent a telex to the British Foreign Office, who have taken responsibility for the repatriation of Colonel Sir Edmund Gann. I asked them to have Gann call or telex me