The Confessor (27 page)

“Yes, they are,” said Lange. “In fact, I’d say the Rome station of the Israeli secret service is very busy tonight. They’ve got quite a crisis on their hands.”

“Indeed, they do.”

“Have you identified any of their personnel in Rome?”

“Two or three that we’re sure of,” Husseini said.

“It might be wise to follow them. With a bit of luck, they’ll lead you straight to him.”

“You remind me of Abu Jihad,” Husseini said. “He was brilliant too.”

“I’m coming to Rome in the morning.”

“Give me your flight information. I’ll have a man meet you.”

GABRIEL SPENT
a long time in the shower washing his wound and scrubbing the blood from his hair. When he emerged, wrapped in a white towel, Chiara was waiting for him. She cleaned his wounds carefully and bound his abdomen in a heavy dressing. Lastly she gave him a shot of antibiotics and handed him a pair of yellow capsules.

“What’s this?”

“Something for the pain. Take them. You’ll sleep better.”

Gabriel washed down the tablets with a swig of mineral water from a plastic bottle.

“I laid some clean clothes for you on the bed. Are you hungry?”

Gabriel shook his head and walked into the bedroom to change. He was suddenly unsteady on his feet. While he was on the run, being fed by nerves and adrenaline, he had not felt the pain. Now his side felt as though it had a knife in it.

Chiara had left a blue sweatsuit on the bed. Gabriel carefully pulled it on. It was for a man several inches taller, and he had to roll up the sleeves and cuff the pant legs. When he came out again, she was sitting in the living room watching a bulletin on the television. She took her eyes from the screen long enough to glance at him and frown at his appearance.

“I’ll get you some proper clothes in the morning.”

“How many dead?”

“Five,” she said. “Several more wounded.”

Five dead . . .
Gabriel closed his eyes and fought off a wave of nausea. A burst of pain shot through his side. Chiara, sensing his distress, laid a hand on his face.

“You’re burning,” she said. “You need to sleep.”

“I’ve always found sleep difficult at times like this.”

“I understand—I think. How about a glass of wine?”

“With the painkillers?”

“It might help you.”

“A small one.”

She went into the kitchen. Gabriel aimed the remote at the television and the screen went black. Chiara returned and handed him a glass of red wine.

“Nothing for you?”

She shook her head. “It’s my job to make sure you stay safe.”

Gabriel swallowed some of the wine. “Is your name really Chiara Zolli?”

She nodded.

“And are you really the rabbi’s daughter?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Where are you posted?”

“Officially, I’m attached to Rome station, but I do a fair amount of traveling.”

“What sort of work?”

“Oh, you know—a little of this, a little of that.”

“And that routine the other night?”

“Shamron asked me to keep an eye on you while you were in Venice. Imagine my surprise when you walked into the community center to see my father.”

“What did he tell you about our conversation?”

“That you were asking him a lot of questions about the Italian Jews during the war—and about the Convent of the Sacred Heart on the
Lago di Garda.
Why don’t you tell me the rest?”

Because I don’t have the strength,
he thought. Then he said, “How long do I have to stay here?”

“Pazner will tell you everything in the morning.”

“Who’s Pazner?”

Chiara smiled. “You
have
been out of the game for a while. Shimon Pazner is the head of Rome station. At the moment, he’s trying to figure out how to get you out of Italy and back to Israel.”

“I’m not going back to Israel.”

“Well, you can’t stay here. Shall I turn on the television again? Every policeman in Italy is looking for you. But that’s not my decision. I’m just a lowly field hand. Pazner will make the call in the morning.”

Gabriel was too weak to argue with her. The combination of the painkillers and the wine had left him feeling heavy-lidded and numb. Perhaps it was for the best. Chiara helped him to his feet and guided him into the bedroom. As he lay down, pain shot through his side. He settled his head carefully on the pillow. Chiara switched off the light and sat in an armchair at the side of the bed, a Beretta in her lap.

“I can’t sleep with you there.”

“You’ll sleep.”

“Go into the other room.”

“I’m not allowed to leave you.”

Gabriel closed his eyes. The girl was right. After a few minutes, he slipped into unconsciousness. His sleep was aflame with nightmares. He fought the gun battle in the courtyard for a second time and saw
carabinieri
drenched in blood. Alessio Rossi appeared in his room, but in Gabriel’s dream he was dressed as a priest, and instead of a Beretta it was a crucifix he aimed at Gabriel’s head. Rossi’s death, with his arms flung wide and his side pierced by a bullet, Gabriel saw as a Caravaggio.

Leah came to him. She stepped down from her altarpiece and shed her robes. Gabriel stroked her skin and found that her scars had been healed. Her mouth tasted of olives; her nipples, pressed against his chest, were firm and cool. She took him inside her body and brought him slowly to climax. As Gabriel released inside her, she asked him why he had fallen in love with Anna Rolfe.
It’s you I love, Leah,
he told her.
It’s you I’ll always love.

He awakened briefly; the dream was so real he expected to find Leah in the room with him. But when he opened his eyes, it was the face of Chiara he saw, sitting in her chair, watching over him, a gun in her hand.

S
HIMON
P
AZNER ARRIVED
at the safe flat at eight o’clock the next morning. He was a squat and powerfully built man, with hair like steel wool and acne scars on his broad cheeks. Judging from his unshaven face and the red rims around his eyes, it was a safe assumption that he had not slept. Wordlessly he poured himself a cup of coffee and dropped the morning newspapers on the kitchen table. The shootout in the San Lorenzo Quarter was the lead of each paper. Gabriel, still groggy from the painkillers, looked down at them but was powerless to summon an expression.

“You made quite a mess in my town.” Pazner tipped half a cup of coffee down his throat and pulled a face. “Imagine my surprise when I get the flash that the great Gabriel Allon is on the run and needs to be pulled in. You’d think someone at King Saul Boulevard would have the common sense to inform the local station chief when Gabriel Allon is in town to take someone down.”

“I didn’t come to Rome to take anyone down.”

“Bullshit!” Pazner snapped. “That’s what you do.”

Pazner looked up as Chiara entered the kitchen. She wore a toweling robe. Her hair, still wet from the shower, was combed straight back. She poured herself some coffee and sat down next to Gabriel at the table.

Pazner said, “Do you know what’s going to happen if the Italians ever figure out who you are? It will destroy our relationship. They’ll never work with us again.”

“I know,” Gabriel said. “But I didn’t come here to kill anyone. They tried to kill
me.”

Pazner pulled out a chair and sat down, his thick forearms resting on the table. “What were you doing in Rome, Gabriel? And don’t bullshit me.”

When Gabriel informed Pazner that he was in Rome on a job for Shamron, the station chief tilted his round head back and emptied his lungs toward the ceiling.
“Shamron?
That’s why no one at King Saul Boulevard knows what you’re working on. For Christ’s sake! I should have known the old man was behind this.”

Gabriel pushed away the newspapers. He supposed he did owe Pazner an explanation. It had been reckless to come to Rome after the murder of Peter Malone. He’d underestimated the capabilities of his enemies and left Pazner with a colossal mess to clean up. He drank a cup of coffee to clear his head and told Pazner the story from the beginning. Chiara’s gaze remained fixed on him the entire time. Pazner managed to remain calm for the first half of Gabriel’s account, but by the end of the story he was smoking nervously.

“Sounds as if they were following Rossi,” Pazner said. “And Rossi led them to you.”

“He seemed to know he was under surveillance. He never left the window while he was in my room. He saw them coming for us, but it was too late.”

“Was there anything in that room that could link you to the Office?”

Gabriel shook his head, then asked Pazner whether he’d ever heard of a group called Crux Vera.

“One hears all sorts of rumors about secret societies and Vatican intrigue in Italy,” Pazner said. “Remember the P2 scandal back in the eighties?”

Vaguely,
thought Gabriel. Quite by chance the Italian police had come across a document revealing the existence of a secret right-wing society that had wormed its way into the highest reaches of the government, military, and intelligence community. And the Vatican, apparently.

“I’ve heard the name Crux Vera,” Pazner continued, “but I’ve never put much stock into it. Until
now,
that is.”

“When do I get to leave?”

“We’ll move you tonight.”

“Where?”

Pazner inclined his head toward the east, and by the look of finality in his dark eyes, it was clear to Gabriel that he was referring to Israel.

“I don’t want to go to Israel. I want to find out who killed Benjamin.”

“You can’t move anywhere in Europe now. You’re blown. You’re going home—
period.
Shamron isn’t the chief anymore. Lev is the chief, and he’s not going to be brought down by one of the old man’s adventures.”

“How are you going to get me out of the country?”

“The same way we got Vanunu out. By boat.”

“If I remember correctly, that was one of Shamron’s
adventures
too.”

Mordechai Vanunu had been a disgruntled worker at the Dimona atomic facility who revealed the existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal to a London newspaper. A female agent named Cheryl Ben-Tov lured Vanunu from London to Rome, where he was kidnapped and taken by small boat to an Israeli naval vessel lying in wait off the Italian coast. Few people outside the Office knew the truth about the episode: that Vanunu’s defection and betrayal of Israeli secrets had been choreographed and manipulated by Ari Shamron as a way to warn Israel’s enemies that they had no hope of ever bridging the nuclear gap, while at the same time leaving Israel with the ability to deny publicly that it possessed nuclear weapons.

“Vanunu left Italy in chains and under heavy sedation,” Pazner said. “You’ll be spared that indignity as long as you behave yourself.”

“Where do we set sail?”

“There’s a beach near Fiumicino that’s perfect. You’ll take a motor launch from there at nine o’clock. Five miles offshore, you’ll meet an oceangoing motor yacht, crew of one. He’s Office now, but for many years he captained a navy gunboat. He’ll take you back to Tel Aviv. A few days at sea will be good for you.”

“Who’s taking me to the yacht?”

Pazner looked at Chiara. “She grew up in Venice. She’s damned good with a boat.”

“She
does
handle a motorcycle well,” Gabriel said.

Pazner leaned forward across the table. “You should see her with a Beretta.”

ERIC LANGE
arrived at Fiumicino airport at nine o’clock that morning. After clearing customs and passport control, he spotted Rashid Husseini’s man standing in the terminal hall, clutching a brown cardboard sign that read
TRANSEURO TECHNOLOGIES
—
MR
.
BOWMAN
. He had a car waiting outside in the covered parking lot, a battered beige Lancia that he piloted with unwarranted caution. He called himself Aziz and spoke English with a faint British accent. Like Husseini, he had the air of an academic.