The Confessor (13 page)

“You asked me to call if anyone came to the convent to ask questions about the professor.” She hesitated, waiting for him to speak, but he said nothing. “Someone came this afternoon.”

“What did he call himself?”

“Landau,” she said. “Ehud Landau, from Tel Aviv. He said he was the man’s brother.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he’s staying at the old hotel.”

“Can you find out?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“Find out—then call me back.”

The connection went dead.

Mother Vincenza placed the telephone back in its hiding place and quietly closed the drawer.

GABRIEL DECIDED
to spend the night in Brenzone and return to Venice first thing in the morning. After leaving the convent, he walked back to the hotel and took a room. The prospect of eating supper in the dreary hotel dining room depressed him, so he walked down to the lakeshore through the chill March evening and ate fish in a cheerful restaurant filled with townspeople. The white wine was local and very cold.

The images of the case flashed through his mind while he ate: The Odin Rune and the Three-Bladed Swastika painted on Benjamin’s wall; the blood on the floor where Benjamin had died; Detective Weiss tailing him through the streets of Munich; Mother Vincenza leading him down the stairs to the dank cellar of the convent by the lake.

Gabriel was convinced Benjamin had been killed by someone who wished to silence him. Only that would explain why his computer was missing and why his apartment contained no evidence at all that he was writing a book. If Gabriel could re-create Benjamin’s book—or at least the subject matter—he might be able to identify who killed him and why. Unfortunately, he had next to nothing—only an elderly nun who claimed Benjamin was working on a book about Jews taking refuge in Church properties during the war. Generally speaking, it was not the type of subject matter that could get a man killed.

He paid his check and started back to the hotel. He took his time, wandering the quiet streets of the old town, paying little attention to where he was going, following the narrow passageways wherever they happened to lead him. His thoughts mirrored his path through Brenzone. Instinctively, he approached the problem as though it were a restoration, as though Benjamin’s book were a painting that had suffered such heavy losses that it was little more than a bare canvas with a few swaths of color and a fragment of an underdrawing. If Benjamin were an Old Master painter, Gabriel would study all his similar works. He would analyze his technique and his influences at the time the work was painted. In short, he would absorb every possible detail about the artist, no matter how seemingly mundane, before setting to work on the canvas.

Thus far Gabriel had very little on which to base his restoration, but now, as he wandered the streets of Brenzone, he became aware of another salient detail.

For the second time in two days, he was being followed.

He turned a corner and walked past a row of shuttered shops. Glancing once over his shoulder, he spotted a man rounding the corner after him. He performed the same maneuver, and once again spotted his pursuer, a mere shadow in the darkened streets, thin and stooped, agile as an alley cat.

Gabriel slipped into the darkened foyer of a small apartment house and listened as the footfalls grew fainter, then ceased altogether. A moment later, he stepped back into the street and started back toward the hotel. His shadow was gone.

WHEN GABRIEL
returned to the hotel, the concierge named Giancomo was still on duty behind his dais. He slid the key across the counter as though it were a priceless relic and asked about Gabriel’s meal.

“It was wonderful, thank you.”

“Perhaps tomorrow night you’ll try our own dining room.”

“Perhaps,” said Gabriel noncommittally, pocketing the key. “I’d like to see Benjamin’s bill from his stay here—especially the record of his telephone calls. It might be helpful.”

“Yes, I see your point, Signor Landau, but I’m afraid that would be a violation of the hotel’s strict privacy policy. I’m sure a man like you can understand that.”

Gabriel pointed out that since Benjamin was no longer living, concerns about his privacy were surely misplaced.

“I’m sorry, but the rules apply to the dead as well,” the concierge said. “Now, if the police requested such information, we would be obliged to hand it over.”

“The information is important to me,” Gabriel said. “I’d be willing to pay a surcharge in order to obtain it.”

“A surcharge? I see.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I believe the charge would be five hundred euros.” A pause to allow Gabriel to digest the sum. “A processing fee. In advance, of course.”

“Yes, of course.”

Gabriel counted out the euro notes and laid them on the counter. Giancomo’s hand passed over the surface and the money disappeared.

“Go to your room, Signor Landau. I’ll print out the bill and bring it to you.”

Gabriel climbed the stairs to his room. He locked and chained the door, then walked to the window and peered out. The lake was shimmering in the moonlight. There was no one outside—at least no one he could see. He sat on the bed and began to undress.

An envelope appeared beneath the door and slid across the terra-cotta floor. Gabriel picked it up, lifted the flap, and removed the contents. He switched on the bedside lamp and examined the bill. During his two-day stay at the hotel, Benjamin had made only three telephone calls. Two were placed to his own apartment in Munich—to check messages on his answering machine, Gabriel reckoned—and the third to a number in London.

Gabriel lifted the receiver and dialed the number.

An answering machine picked up.

“You’ve reached the office of Peter Malone. I’m sorry, but I’m not available to take your call. If you’d like to leave a—”

Gabriel placed the receiver back in the cradle.

Peter Malone? The British investigative reporter? Why would Benjamin be calling a man like him?
Gabriel folded the bill and slipped it back into the envelope. He was about to drop it into Ehud Landau’s briefcase when the telephone rang.

He reached out, but hesitated. No one knew he was here—no one but the concierge and the man who’d followed Gabriel after dinner. Perhaps Malone had captured his number and was calling back. Better to know than remain ignorant, he thought. He snatched up the receiver and held it to his ear for a moment without speaking.

Finally: “Yes?”

“Mother Vincenza is lying to you, the same way she lied to your friend. Find Sister Regina and Martin Luther. Then you’ll know the truth about what happened at the convent.”

“Who is this?”

“Don’t come back. It’s not safe for you here.”

C
LICK
.

T
HE MAN WHO LIVED
in the large chalet in the shadow of the Eiger was a private person, even by the exacting standards of the mountains of Inner Switzerland. He made it his business to learn what was being said about him and knew that in the bars and cafés of Grindelwald there was constant speculation about his occupation. Some thought him a successful private banker from Zurich; others believed him to be the owner of a large chemical concern headquartered in Zug. There was a theory he was born to wealth and had no career at all. There was baseless gossip he was an arms dealer or a money launderer. The girl who cleaned his chalet told of a kitchen filled with expensive copper pots and cooking implements of every kind. A rumor circulated that he was a chef or restaurateur. He liked that one the best. He always thought he might have enjoyed cooking for a living, had he not fallen into his current profession.

The limited amount of mail that arrived daily at his chalet bore the name Eric Lange. He spoke German with the accent of a Zuricher but with the sing-song cadence of those native to the valleys of Inner Switzerland. He did his shopping at the Migros supermarket in town and always paid in cash. He received no visitors and, despite his good looks, was never seen in the company of a woman. He was prone to long periods of absence. When asked for an explanation, he would murmur something about a business venture. When pressed to elaborate, his gray eyes would grow so suddenly cold that few possessed the courage to pursue the matter further.

Mostly, he seemed a man with too much time on his hands. From December to March, when the snow was good, he spent most days on the slopes. He was an expert skier, fast but never reckless, with the size and strength of a downhiller and the quickness and agility of a slalom racer. His outfits were costly but reserved, carefully chosen to deflect attention rather than attract it. On chairlifts, he was notorious for his silence. In summer, when all but the permanent glaciers melted, he set out from the chalet each morning and hiked up the steep slope of the valley. His body seemed to have been constructed for this very purpose: tall and powerful, narrow hips and broad shoulders, heavily muscled thighs, and calves shaped like diamonds. He moved along the rocky footpaths with the agility of a large cat and seemed never to tire.

Usually, he would pause at the base of the Eiger for a drink from his canteen and to squint upward toward the windswept face. He never climbed—indeed, he thought men who hurled themselves against the Eiger were some of nature’s greatest fools. Some afternoons, from the terrace of his chalet, he could hear the beating of rescue helicopters, and sometimes, with the aid of his Zeiss telescope, he could see dead climbers hanging by their lines, twisting in the
föhn,
the famed Eiger wind. He had the utmost respect for the mountain. The Eiger, like the man known as Eric Lange, was a perfect killer.

SHORTLY BEFORE
noon, Lange slid off the chairlift for his final run of the day. At the bottom of the trail, he disappeared into a grove of pine and glided through the shadows until he arrived at the back door of his chalet. He removed his skis and gloves and punched a series of numbers into the keypad on the wall next to the door. He stepped inside, stripped off his jacket and powder pants, and hung the skis on a professional-style rack. Upstairs, he showered and changed into traveling clothes: corduroy trousers, a dark-gray cashmere sweater, suede brogues. His overnight bag was already packed.

He paused in front of the bathroom mirror and examined his appearance. The hair was a combination of sun-streaked blond and gray. The eyes were naturally colorless and took well to contact lenses. The features were altered periodically by a plastic surgeon at a discreet clinic located outside Geneva. He slipped on a pair of tortoise-shell eyeglasses, then added gel to his hair and combed it straight back. The change in his appearance was remarkable.

He walked into his bedroom. Concealed inside the large walk-in closet was a combination safe. He worked the tumbler and pulled open the heavy door. Inside were the tools of his trade: false passports, a large amount of cash in various currencies, a collection of handguns. He filled his wallet with Swiss francs and selected a Stechkin nine-millimeter pistol, his favorite weapon. He nestled the gun into his overnight bag and closed the door of the safe. Five minutes later, he climbed into his Audi sedan and set out for Zurich.

IN THE
violent history of European political extremism, no terrorist was suspected of shedding more blood than the man dubbed the Leopard. A freelance assassin-for-hire, he had plied his trade across the continent and left a trail of bodies and bomb damage stretching from Athens to London and Madrid to Stockholm. He had worked for the Red Army Faction in West Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy, and
Action Directe
in France. He had killed a British army officer for the Irish Republican Army and a Spanish minister for the Basque separatist group ETA. His relationship with Palestinian terrorists had been long and fruitful. He had committed a string of kidnappings and assassinations for Abu Jihad, the second-in-command of the PLO, and he had killed for the fanatical Palestinian dissident Abu Nidal. Indeed, the Leopard was believed to have been the mastermind behind the simultaneous attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports in December 1985 that left nineteen people dead and 120 wounded. It had been nine years since his last suspected attack, the murder of a French industrialist in Paris. Some within the Western European security and intelligence community believed that the Leopard was dead—that he had been killed in a dispute with one of his old employers. Some doubted he had ever existed at all.