The Magic Circle by Katherine Neville (top 10 books of all time txt) 📕

access to their archive, however, since his family in Trieste donated a large portion of their rare book collection. Their money pays for many restorations now under way on the monastery.”

None of this was surprising. But I was soon grateful for the covering sounds of waiters clattering dishes and some laughing ribaldries in raucous French wafting from a nearby table, for I was hardly prepared to swallow what came next.

“Virgilio Santorini’s family,” Wolfgang went on, “are also among the largest arms dealers in Eastern Europe, specifically Yugoslavia and Hungary, which is how they’ve made their money for generations. What your uncle may have meant when he spoke of danger is the fact that Virgilio’s family is also widely reputed to be connected with a mafia group called Star, a consortium believed to have traffic in weapons-grade nuclear materials. So you see, as I mentioned earlier, people themselves, as well as situations, can be more complex than a simple talk over supper can express.”

Okay, I was surprised by this revelation about Father Virgilio, who seemed a charming if somewhat bumbling medievalist scholar. Before pursuing that, though, I tried to harness my attention long enough to hear the rest of my question answered.

“Pastor Dart’s role is even more complex,” Wolfgang went on. “It requires a bit more background. On first arriving in Idaho, I was worried to learn that your colleague Olivier Maxfield was also your landlord, and so in a convenient position to tap your phone and spy on you virtually twenty-four hours a day. How could I be sure he wasn’t someone’s agent? For that reason, as soon as you’d returned from the funeral, I had Pastor Dart send Maxfield to intercept you at the post office, while I myself followed by car. It was apparent from your behavior there that Maxfield, arriving before you, had done something to arouse your suspicion. Once you had picked up your package, I saw you drive away from Maxfield and race off from town. So I followed you myself to Jackson Hole.

“Though I knew that a rune manuscript had been sent to you by your mother, your attitude of fear and suspicion from the moment we met up on the mountain made it clear you believed the document in your possession was your inheritance from your cousin instead. I had the opportunity to verify that these were your mother’s runes later that night when you slept. I also knew that this must be the only document you’d received so far, which meant you didn’t have your cousin’s inheritance yet, but were still expecting it. This was very dangerous if what I strongly believed was true—that Maxfield was trying to get hold of the documents, too.

“Though our Russian trip was planned, Pastor Dart and I decided to accelerate the schedule of our departure to take you from Maxfield’s position of constant surveillance. Dart himself would remain behind to intercept the second parcel when it arrived, to be certain it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. But after all these careful arrangements, you were late for our connecting flight to Salt Lake. I was in shock when you finally arrived. From the look of your bag—three times as heavy as it was the day before—and also from the fact you said you’d ‘run an errand’ between office and airport, I was certain you had again been to the post office, and this time you had collected the real thing!

“So what must I do,” he went on, “but arrange by phone from Salt Lake airport, while you were off at the women’s room, that Pastor Dart purchase a ticket for himself at once, on the very next airline headed to Vienna? I gave directions to where we could meet below my house at Krems, the one place I thought was safe from prying ears, the one time you and I might be completely alone. All the while, I prayed I could find a way to get you to leave the manuscripts in Austria, rather than run the risk of taking them into Russia, where they’d surely be confiscated. I contacted Dacian Bassarides, and asked him to come from France and meet us at the restaurant in Vienna. I hinted you’d received your inheritance and needed help understanding what to do with it. At the restaurant, I hadn’t expected him to send me away so he could be alone with you. But at least Virgilio watched so he didn’t take you off somewhere and fail to meet me on the corner he’d designated.…”

Wolfgang paused for the first time, and shook his head. “Ariel, if you could know how insane I’ve been these past two weeks, merely trying to protect you from yourself.”

From myself? I nearly screamed.

With thousands of gongs clanging in my brain, I wrestled myself back to reason. Let’s see if I’d got it right: this guy had just confessed that ever since meeting me he’d been embroidering on the truth until it looked like a Gobelin tapestry; that he’d had me watched all afternoon by a priest who was a possible arms dealer with mafia connections; and that he’d gotten my own grandfather to convince me to abandon my inheritance in a public library. Had I left anything out?

Well, actually, yes: there was one small thing.

“Wolfgang, why do you and Pastor Dart and everyone else in the world want these manuscripts?” I asked. “I know they’re valuable—but what’s so important about them that the Pod had to fly halfway around the world at the drop of a hat just to meet you for a few minutes at night in that vineyard? What did you two need to speak about that you felt you could only discuss right then and there?”

Wolfgang looked at me as if the answer were ridiculously obvious. Then for the second time, he motioned to the waiter for our check.

“With respect to the contents, I only know a portion—not all—and even that will take some explaining,” he said. “But as for Pastor