Pavlos sat back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the tabletop. Then he started rummaging through his jacket pocket for a cigarette. Only when he had one lit did he get up and start to pace.

“I see two possibilities,” he began. “The building may be modern, in which case it could have been prefabricated and taken to the peak by helicopter. The question then would be why? And who would do such a thing? How did they keep it secret?”

Pavlos turned to look at Frank. “That is the possibility that interests you, is it not? Things like this make intelligence officers sleep poorly.”

Frank nodded, but said, “I tried to interest my superiors but they didn’t care. They even forbade me to ask the Greek government about it. Our allies are already touchy about the extent we can peer down at them. I’m stuck with following this up on my own.”

Pavlos nodded. “Ah. To be expected from politicians and soldiers, present company excepted. Well, there is a second possibility. If the structure is more than fifty years old, it would have taken fanaticism to build it on that site… a brand of fanaticism that has not been seen in this land for many centuries.”

“And that’s the possibility that interests you, isn’t it?” Frank suggested. “You’d just love to find an untouched Roman temple, or a pristine Nestorian monastery or hermitage, wouldn’t you?”

Pavlos stopped pacing again, took a deep drag from his cigarette, then waved it at his friend. “I have a feeling I am being persuaded to do something. Is this so?”

Frank had smiled.

Pavlos put away the photos and shouldered his backpack. Pain resumed at once, spreading from chafed shoulders down his spine and arms. For the ten-thousandth time he wondered what masochism could drive a man who wasn’t in the army to put forty pounds on his back and go places a donkey would refuse.