"Mugged him, you mean?"

"Not sure. There could have been a bit more to it than that."

"Tell me about it."

Which Dillon did, and afterwards Roper said, "Very strange, especially the prayer card. You've got a point, Sean, I'll check it online. Okay, talk things over and let me know what you decide."

Dillon handed the Codex back. "What do you want to do?"

"Let's go back to the hotel and talk."

But just as soon as they got back to the Plaza and reached the suite, the room telephone sounded. It was Clancy Smith.

"I heard you were in town."

"Good to hear from you," Dillon said, and put the phone on speaker.

"Not this time, Sean. I believe you and Major Miller were expecting to see Blake?"

"We certainly were. He missed quite a speech."

"He's in a hospital on Long Island, suffering from a gunshot wound. I'm with him now, but he's just had surgery so he's not exactly in top shape. The police recovered the body of his assailant, a man named Jack Flynn."

"An Irish name," Dillon said, his voice grim.

"We've recovered his Social Security card and driver's license, and an American passport, and they look kosher to me. Place of birth: New York. We'll check to see if he's got a record, which I expect he has. Something's odd about all this. Blake rambled a lot to the receiving doctor and said the guy started to fire at him the moment he got on the boat. He seemed intent on killing him from the word go."

"I see." Dillon frowned. "Anything else? Anything about this Flynn character that would help with his background?"

"Not really," Clancy said. "Except for one thing. He appears to have been of a religious turn of mind. There was a sort of prayer card in his wallet."

Dillon said, "'Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, we who are ourselves alone'?"

"How in hell do you know that?" Clancy was truly shocked.