The Magic Circle Katherine Neville (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📖

busboy, keeping an eye on me all afternoon with Dacian Bassarides. Seeing Virgilio as a fleeting busboy might explain why, later, he would have seemed familiar to me—but not that familiar. Then I recalled Wolfgang’s evasive replies to my questions about his mysterious servant Hans Claus, whose name kept changing. It was there that I found the lie.

How relieved he must have been when I believed it was Father Virgilio I had recognized from the back that night in the vineyard. But I realized now that the figure I’d seen moving away from me in the moonlight was not Virgilio but a figure I had often followed through the corridors of the nuclear site back in Idaho—a wiry figure that moved with the spry step of a trained boxer and Vietnam vet. I knew, with not the shadow of a doubt, that the man who’d met Wolfgang so clandestinely in the vineyard above Krems had been none other than my own boss, Pastor Owen Dart.

In the wake of that came a flood of thoughts about just what such a connection might mean. For starters, I couldn’t overlook that it was Dart who’d hired me into the nuclear field right out of college, with no experience, then put me on this assignment with Wolfgang just after my return from Sam’s funeral. Now in hindsight, given everything else in the picture, that seemed more than exceptional timing.

Then it was again Dart who’d supposedly spoken with the Washington Post about my “inheritance,” and whose idea it had been to send Olivier quickly to the post office to retrieve my package. It was Pastor Dart, too, who’d sent Wolfgang chasing after me across two states to Jackson Hole, and who’d gone up against even federal security to make sure I was on that plane with Wolfgang. What else could it possibly mean, if the Pod himself had jumped on the very next flight to Vienna? Furthermore, his secret night meeting with Wolfgang, just after we’d hidden the manuscripts, coupled with Olivier’s message that the Pod was still there in Vienna seemed to have obvious implications—though there was bloody little I could do about them by myself, tonight.

As we boarded the plane to Paris, something strong and cold was forming inside me. I tried to swallow what bitterness I might feel over the depth of Wolfgang’s treachery, until I could wade to the bottom of this quagmire of lies. But there was something more important I really couldn’t bear to think of, though I knew I must. I was terrified to learn what the rest of Olivier’s message meant, the part at the very end, since it might prove the most dangerous of all.

For the man who’d been killed in San Francisco in place of my cousin Sam was named Theron, like Olivier’s “boss.” His name had been Theron Vane.

FIRE AND ICE

DISCIPLE:

Lama, about the Great Stone we have many legends.… From the old Druidic times many nations remember these legends of truth about the natural energies concealed in this strange visitor to our planet.

LAMA:

Lapis Exilis … the stone which is mentioned among the old Meistersingers. One sees that the West and East are working together on many principles. We do not need to go to the deserts to hear of the Stone.… Everything has been indicated in the Kalachakra, but only few have grasped it.

The teaching of Kalachakra, the utilization of the primary energy, has been called the Teaching of Fire. The Hindu people know the great Agni

—

ancient teaching though it be

—

shall be the new teaching for the New Era. We must think of the future

.

—Nicholas Roerich,

Shambhala

Some say the world will end in fire

,

Some say in ice

.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire

.

But if it had to perish twice

,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice

.

—Robert Frost,

Fire and Ice

It was not yet midnight when we arrived, but Charles de Gaulle airport was pretty deserted. The money changers had locked up their booths and gone home, and the moving escalator tracks inside their clear glass tubes had been shut off for the night. Luckily, we hadn’t arranged to meet with Zoe until tomorrow morning.

But midnight here meant it was before six P.M. at Jersey’s elegant New York penthouse—early enough in the cocktail hour that she might still be able to focus if I phoned her right away. It had also occurred to me that it would be better to call from a public phone at the airport than wait to try from whatever hotel accommodations Wolfgang had arranged for us. Back then, a week ago, my principal thought had been when and where we could spend another long, liquid night of lust before a castle fire—but now I tried to push all that from my mind.

I figured out how to use my calling card at the pay phone. Wolfgang waited for our bags to arrive at the nearby international carousel, where I could see him through the glass wall. After a few rings, Jersey came on the line. Her voice was as crystal clear as if she were only two feet away, and she sounded uncharacteristically sober.

“Bonsoir from Paris, Mother,” I greeted her politely—but not too warmly. “Laf insisted I phone you as soon as I got here from Vienna. I’m standing in a phone booth in the middle of Charles de Gaulle, it’s past midnight, and I’m not alone. But you’ve probably guessed what brought me here—a little family matter it seems you forgot to mention these past twenty-five years. Maybe you’d be willing to save us time and hassles, and let me know what you think I need to know?”

Jersey was silent for so long that I thought maybe she’d dropped the phone.

“Mother?” I said at last.

“Oh, Ariel honey, I’m so sorry,” she answered in a tone that seemed genuinely contrite—though naturally I hadn’t forgotten for a moment that divas are also actresses. “Sweetheart,