The Confessor (43 page)

The rest of the detail had formed a protective cocoon around the Pope and was hustling him down the corridor. He ordered them to release him, then hurried to Karl Brunner’s side. Brunner pushed the Pope away and shouted at him to get back.

“Let him up, Karl,” the Pope said.

Brunner got to his feet while his two men kept Gabriel pinned to the floor. He reached into his pocket and produced a copy of the security alert with Gabriel’s photograph and held it up for the Pope to see.

“He’s an assassin, Holiness. He’s come here to kill you.”

“He’s a friend, and he’s come here to protect me. It’s all a misunderstanding. Father Donati will explain everything. Trust me, Karl. Let him up.”

THE MOTORCADE
sped through St. Anne’s Gate, then turned into the Via della Conciliazione for the run to the river. The Pope closed his eyes. Gabriel looked at Father Donati, who leaned over and whispered into Gabriel’s ear that His Holiness always passed the time in motorcades by praying.

A motorcycle outrider moved into position a few feet from the Pope’s window. Gabriel looked carefully at his face, at the hinge of his jaw and the shape of the cheekbones showing beneath the visor. Mentally, he compared the features to those of the man in the photographs, as if he were authenticating a painting, comparing the brushstrokes of a master to those in a newly discovered work. The faces were similar enough to make Gabriel reach into his jacket and put his hand on the butt of his Beretta. Father Donati noticed this. The Pope, who was still praying with his eyes tightly closed, was oblivious.

As the motorcade turned onto the Lungotevere, the outrider dropped back a few meters. Gabriel felt his tension subside. The street had been cleared of traffic, and there were only a few knots of onlookers here and there along the river. Evidently, the sight of a papal motorcade in this part of Rome did not arouse much interest.

The journey passed quickly: three minutes by Gabriel’s calculation. The dome of the synagogue appeared before them, and soon they were rushing past the mob of protesters. The motorcade stopped in the front courtyard. Gabriel stepped out of the car first, blocking the half-open door with his body. The chief rabbi stood on the steps of the synagogue, flanked by a delegation from Rome’s Jewish community. Around the limousine stood the security men: Italian and Vatican, some plainclothes, some in uniform. To the right of the steps, the Vatican press corps strained against a yellow rope. The air was filled with the rumble of the motorcycles.

Gabriel scanned the faces of the security men, then the reporters and photographers. A dozen might have been the assassin in disguise. He poked his head into the back of the car and looked at Father Donati. “This is the part that worries me most. Let’s be quick about it.” When he stood upright, he found himself staring into the bluff face of Karl Brunner.

“This part is my job,” Brunner said. “Step out of the way.”

Gabriel did as he was told. Brunner helped the Pope out of the car. The rest of the Swiss Guard detail closed in. Gabriel found himself in a sea of dark suits, the Pope, clad in his sparkling white cassock, clearly visible in the center.

The motorcycles went silent. On the steps of the synagogue, the Pope embraced the chief rabbi and a few of the delegates. It was quiet, except for the distant chanting of the protesters and the cicadalike whirring of the news cameras. Gabriel stood behind Karl Brunner, whose left hand was resting on the small of the Pope’s back. Gabriel looked around him, eyes alert, searching for anything out of the ordinary. A man pushing his way forward. An arm swinging upward.

There was a commotion behind them. Gabriel turned in time to see a trio of
carabinieri
wrestling a man to the ground, but it was only a protester carrying a sign that read
FREE CHINESE CATHOLICS
!

The Pope turned around as well. At that instant Gabriel caught his eye. “Please go inside, Holiness,” Gabriel murmured. “There are too many people out here.”

The Pope nodded and turned to his host. “Well, Rabbi, shall we get on with it?”

“Yes, Your Holiness. Please, come inside. Let me show you
our
place of worship.”

The rabbi led the Pope up the stairs. A moment later, much to the relief of Gabriel and Father Donati, the leader of the world’s one billion Catholics was safely inside the synagogue.

AT THE
entrance to St. Peter’s Square, Eric Lange climbed off the motorbike. Katrine slid forward, taking hold of the handlebars. Lange turned and started walking.

The square was filled with pilgrims and tourists.
Carabinieri
paced the edge of the colonnade. Lange headed toward the Apostolic Palace, his walk crisp and purposeful, his pace quick but controlled. Passing the towering Egyptian obelisk, he drew several long breaths to slow his heart rate.

A few paces from the palace, a
carabiniere
stepped in his path.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked Lange in Italian, staring at him with a pair of stubborn brown eyes.

“
Portone di Bronzo,”
Lange replied.

“You have an appointment inside?”

Lange removed his wallet and flashed the identification badge. The
carabiniere
took a step backward. “I’m sorry, Father Beck. I didn’t realize.”

Lange put the wallet away. “Tell me your name, young man.”

“It’s Mateo Galeazzi.”

Lange looked directly into the policeman’s eyes. “I’ll be sure to put in a good word for you inside. I know General Casagrande will be pleased to know that the
carabinieri
are maintaining good order out here in the square.”

“Thank you, Father.”

The
carabiniere
actually dipped his head and held out his hand for Father Beck to proceed. Lange almost felt sorry for the boy. In a few minutes, he would be on his knees, begging forgiveness for allowing an assassin to enter the palace.

At the Bronze Doors, Lange was stopped again, this time by a Swiss Guard in full Renaissance regalia, a dark blue cloak draped over his shoulders. Once again, Lange produced the ID badge. The Swiss Guard ordered Lange to register with the officer at the permission desk, just inside the door to the right. There, Lange presented his identification to another Swiss Guard.

“Who are you here to see?”

“That’s none of your business,” Lange said coldly. “This is a security review. If you feel it’s necessary, you may tell Casagrande that I have entered the palace. If you tell anyone else—such as your friends who are standing watch at the moment—I’ll deal with you personally.”

The Swiss Guard swallowed hard and nodded. Lange turned around. The Scala Regia rose grandly before him, lit by vast iron lamps. Lange climbed the stairs slowly, like a man performing a job he secretly loathed. He paused once to look down at the permission desk, where the Swiss Guard was eyeing him intently. At the top of the stairs, he came to a set of glass doors and was challenged again. Before the Swiss Guard could say a word, Lange had his badge out. The guard took one look at it and nearly tripped over himself to get out of the way.

Amazing,
Lange thought. Casagrande’s scheme was working better than he imagined possible.

Next he found himself in a gloomy interior courtyard known as the Cortile di San Damaso. Above him soared the loggias of the Apostolic Palace itself. He passed beneath a stone archway, came to a staircase, and climbed quickly upward, footsteps echoing on the marble. Along the way, he passed three more Swiss Guards, but there were no more challenges. This deep inside the palace, Lange’s clerical suit and Roman collar were identification enough.

On the top floor, he came to the entrance of the papal apartments. A Swiss Guard stood there, halberd in hand, blocking Lange’s path. Lange held the ID badge in front of his face.

“I need to see Father Donati.”

“He’s not here at the moment.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s with the Holy Father.” He hesitated, then added: “At the synagogue.”

“Ah, yes, of course. I’m sure Father Donati would appreciate knowing that you told a complete stranger his whereabouts.”

“I’m sorry, Father, but you—”

Lange cut him off. “I need to leave something for Father Donati. Can you take me to his office?”

“As you know, Father Beck, I’m not allowed to leave this post under any circumstances.”

“Very good,” Lange said with a conciliatory smile. “At least you got
something
right. Please point me in the direction of the good father’s office.”

The Swiss Guard hesitated for a moment, unsure of himself, then told Lange the way. The papal apartments were deserted but for a single nun in gray habit, busy with a feather duster. She smiled at Lange as he walked past the entrance to Father Donati’s office and entered the next room.

He closed the door behind him and stood for a moment while his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The heavy curtains were drawn, obscuring the view of St. Peter’s Square, and the room was in deep shadow. Lange moved forward, across the simple Oriental carpet, toward the wooden desk. He stood next to the high-backed chair and ran his palm over the pale plush covering while he surveyed the desk. It was too simple for so powerful a man. Too severe. A blotter, a cylindrical container for his pens, a pad of lined paper for jotting down his thoughts. A white telephone with an old-fashioned rotary dial. Looking up, he noticed a painting of the Madonna. She seemed to be peering at Lange through the shadows.

He reached into the breast pocket of his clerical suit, removed an envelope, and dropped it on the blotter. It landed with a muffled metallic thump. He took one last look around the study, turned, and walked quickly out.

At the entrance of the
appartamento,
he paused to glare sternly at the Swiss Guard. “You’ll be hearing from me,” Lange snapped, then he turned and disappeared down the corridor.

THE DESK
in the office of Secretary of State Marco Brindisi was quite different from the austere one in the papal study. It was a large Renaissance affair with carved legs and gold inlay. Those who stood before it tended to be uncomfortable, which suited Brindisi’s purposes nicely.

At the moment, he sat alone, fingers formed into a bridge, eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance. A few minutes earlier, from his window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, he had seen the Pope’s motorcade speeding toward the river along the Via della Conciliazione. By now he was probably inside the synagogue.

The cardinal’s gaze settled on the bank of television screens on the wall opposite his desk. His goal was to restore the Church to the power it had enjoyed during the Middle Ages, but Marco Brindisi was very much a man of the modern age. Gone were the days when Vatican bureaucrats wrote their memoranda on parchment with quill and ink. Brindisi had spent untold millions upgrading the machinery of the Vatican Secretariat of State in order to make the bureaucracy of the Church run more like the nerve center of a modern nation. He tuned the television to BBC International. A flood in Bangladesh, thousands killed, hundreds of thousands homeless. He jotted a minute to himself to make a suitable donation through Vatican charitable organizations to ease the suffering in any way possible. He switched on a second television and tuned it to RAI, the main Italian network. The third television he set to CNN International.

He had made good on his threat not to accompany the Pope on this disgraceful journey. As a result he was now supposed to be working on a benign-sounding letter of resignation, one that would cause the Holy See no embarrassment and raise no uncomfortable questions for the rabble in the Vatican press corps to ponder in their infantile columns. Had he any intention of resigning, his letter would have stressed a deep desire to return to pastoral duties, to tend to a flock, to baptize the young and anoint the sick. Any
Vaticanisti
with a bit of intelligence would recognize such a letter as deception on a grand scale. Marco Brindisi had been raised, educated, and nurtured to wield bureaucratic power within the Curia. The notion that he would willingly yield his authority was patently absurd. No one would believe such a letter, and the cardinal had no intention of writing it. Besides, he thought, the man who had ordered him to write it did not have long to live.

Had he started a letter of resignation, it would have raised uncomfortable questions in the days after the Pope’s assassination. Had the two most powerful men in the Church experienced a falling-out in recent weeks? Did the Cardinal Secretary of State have something to gain by the Pope’s death? No letter of resignation, no questions. Indeed, thanks to a series of well-placed leaks, Cardinal Brindisi would be portrayed as the Pope’s closest friend and confidant in the Curia, a man who admired the Pope immensely and was much beloved in return. These press clippings would capture the attention of the cardinals when they gathered for the next conclave. So would Marco Brindisi’s smooth and adept handling of Church affairs in the traumatic days after the Pope’s assassination. At such a time, the conclave would be reluctant to turn to an outsider. A man of the Curia would be the next pope, and the Curial candidate of choice would be Secretary of State Marco Brindisi.