Pretzl was the director of the Qur'an Archives of the University of Munich, where three generations of Qur'anologists had collected the biggest collection in the world on Qur'an and its allied subjects

to fine gold

Stony-faced Zacharias Jones drummed his fingers on his desk top lost in a trance of invisible notes, chords. […] So vividly did he hear the notes in his head, he always heard a misstrike. When he made a mistake, he was obliged to return to the very beginning of the exercise and start over.

By the sound of it, the ever obliging Agent Barrett didn't really feel like obliging. Else he was too sleep-drunk to string two rational thoughts together.