The Fallen Angel

47 JERUSALEM

WITHIN AN HOUR OF THE Israeli incursion onto the Temple Mount plateau, the third intifada erupted in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Initially, the heavily armed security forces of the Palestinian Authority tried to control the violence. But as images of Israeli troops in the Haram al-Sharif spread like wildfire across the Arab world, the militiamen joined the rioters and engaged Israeli troops in running gun battles. Ramallah, Jericho, Nablus, Jenin, and Hebron all saw heavy fighting, but the worst of the clashes occurred in East Jerusalem, where several thousand Arabs tried but failed to retake the Temple Mount. By sunset, as sirens announced the arrival of the Jewish Sabbath, Islam’s third-holiest shrine was under Israeli control, and the Middle East seemed precariously close to war.

The king of Jordan, himself a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, demanded the Israelis leave the Noble Sanctuary at once, but he stopped short of calling for violence to expel them. That was not the case, however, in Cairo, where the Muslim Brotherhood, the new leaders of the Arab world’s most populous nation, called for a pan-Islamic jihad to avenge the outrage. Hamas, a branch of the Brotherhood’s Islamist tree, immediately pummeled Beersheba and several other Israeli towns with a barrage of rockets that left ten Israelis dead. In Lebanon, however, Hezbollah remained curiously silent, as did its Shiite masters in Tehran.

Among the many challenges faced by Israeli officials during those explosive first hours was the presence of His Holiness Pope Paul VII. With the Old City of Jerusalem now a war zone, he took shelter in a monastery in Ein Kerem, the former Arab village just west of downtown Jerusalem that, according to Christian tradition, was the birthplace of John the Baptist. At the request of the Israeli prime minister, the pope agreed, albeit reluctantly, to cancel a planned Holy Saturday mass on the Mount of Beatitudes, along with Easter Sunday services at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Regrettably, the Holy Father had little choice in the matter. The Sepulchre, the sacred Christian shrine that Saladin had wanted to raze, was one of the main targets of Muslim rage.

There were many in the papal entourage who pleaded with the Holy Father to return to the safety of the Vatican, but he insisted on staying in the misplaced hope his presence might help to calm the situation. He spent much of his time at the Hadassah Medical Center, located not far from the monastery. Needless to say, the pope’s frequent appearances at the hospital generated speculation that he was ill or had been injured in the violence. It wasn’t true; he was simply ministering to a soul in need.

The patient in question had arrived at the hospital in the first minutes of the uprising, a bullet in his chest, more dead than alive. The staff was told that his name was Weiss, but was given no other information except for his approximate age and his medical history, which included numerous disorders related to stress. The blinds over his window, which looked east toward the walls of the Old City, remained tightly drawn. Two armed guards stood watch outside his door, one to its right and one to its left.

The pope was not the only dignitary to visit the wounded man. The prime minister came to see him, as did the chief of staff of the IDF, the heads of the various Israeli intelligence services, and, for reasons never made clear to the hospital staff, a large delegation of archaeologists from Hebrew University and the Israel Antiquities Authority. There was one man, however, who never moved from the patient’s bedside. He made no attempt to conceal his identity, for it wouldn’t have been possible—not with those distinctive gray temples and unforgettable eyes.

He drank little, ate less, and slept not at all. When one of the doctors offered him a bed and a mild sedative, he was met by a glare of disapproval. After that, no one dared to ask him to leave—even on the second night, when, for two terrible minutes, the patient’s heart stopped beating. For the next twenty-four hours, the visitor remained motionless at the foot of the bed, his face illuminated by the glow of the ventilator, as if he were a figure in a painting by Caravaggio. Occasionally, the nurses could hear the figure speaking softly. His words never varied. “Don’t die, Eli. Damn you, Eli, please don’t die.”

On Easter morning, the tolling of Jerusalem’s church bells was scarcely audible over the sound of gunfire. At noon, a crude Palestinian rocket fell into the Garden of Gethsemane, and at mid-afternoon bullets raked the exterior of the Church of the Dormition. That evening, a distraught Holy Father paid one final visit to the unconscious patient before boarding his plane to return home. When he was gone, another elderly man took his place. He, too, was known to the staff of the trauma center. He was the one they spoke of only in whispers. The one who had stolen the secrets that led to Israel’s lightning victory in the Six-Day War. The one who had plucked Adolf Eichmann, managing director of the Holocaust, from an Argentine street corner. Shamron . . .

“You need to go home and get some rest, my son.”

“I will.”

“When?”

“When he opens his eyes.”

Shamron twirled his Zippo between his fingertips. Two turns to the left, two turns to the right.

“Must you, Ari?”

Shamron’s fingers went still. “You have to prepare yourself for the possibility he’s not going to make it.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because it is the likely outcome. He’d lost nearly all his blood by the time they got him onto the table. His heart—”

“Is fine.”

“But it’s not as young as it once was,” Shamron said. “And neither is yours, my son. And I’m afraid of what will happen if it gets broken again.”

“I deserve it.”

“Why would you say such a thing?”

“I should have heard Darwish coming.”

“You both were distracted, which was understandable. It’s not every day that one has a chance to walk through the heikhal of the First Temple of Jerusalem.”

“Do you think the pillars truly are from the First Temple?”

“We know they are,” Shamron said. “We’re just waiting for the right moment to show them to the world.”

“Why wait?”

“Because we don’t want to do anything to make the situation any worse.”

“How much worse could it get?”

“There are ninety million Egyptians. Imagine what would happen if the Muslim Brotherhood convinced just ten percent of them to march on our borders. If that bomb had actually gone off . . .” Shamron’s voice trailed off. “It’s frightening to think how close we came—or how tenuous our existence is in this land.”

“How long are we planning to stay on the Temple Mount?”

“If it were up to me, we’d never leave. But the prime minister intends to hand it back to the Waqf as soon as all the archaeological material has been safely removed.”

“So we go back to the status quo?”

“Until the Islamic world is ready to accept our right to exist, I’m afraid the status quo is the best we can hope for.”

“I’d like to make one change to it, if it’s all right with you.”

“What’s that?”

“Massoud.”

Shamron smiled. “The next time a bomb goes off under his car, it won’t be a small one.”

Gabriel took hold of Lavon’s hand.

“If he dies, Ari, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I should have made him leave.”

“There’s no way Eli would have ever left that mountain without knowing those pillars were safe.”

“They’re just stones, Ari.”

“They’re Eli’s stones,” Shamron said. “And now they’re soaked in his blood.”

48 JERUSALEM

IT WOULD BE ANOTHER SEVENTY-TWO hours before sufficient order had been restored to allow the government of Israel to fully explain to the world why it had entered the Temple Mount and what it had discovered there. To do so, it assembled a pool of journalists and camera crews from the world’s most authoritative news organizations and took them down through the network of aqueducts and cisterns, to the newly dug chamber 167 feet beneath the surface. There the chief of staff of the IDF showed them the massive bomb, while the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority walked them through the remarkable collection of artifacts that had been unearthed by the Waqf during years of reckless digging. The highlight of the tour were the two rows of limestone pillars, twenty-two in all, that had been part of the heikhal of King Solomon’s First Temple of Jerusalem.

As expected, the reaction to the news was mixed at best. The video of the ancient pillars electrified the Israeli public and sent a tremor of anticipation through the global community of archaeologists and ancient historians. Most scholars immediately accepted the pillars as authentic, but in Germany the leader of a discipline of archaeology known as biblical minimalism dismissed them as “twenty-two hunks of wishful thinking.” Not surprisingly, the leadership of the Palestinian Authority seized on that statement when issuing its own response to the news. The pillars were an Israeli hoax, it said. And so was the “so-called bomb.”

But what had led the Israelis to enter the Temple Mount in the first place? And who had been the ultimate mastermind of the plot to bring it down? The Israeli government, citing its long-standing refusal to comment on matters related to intelligence gathering, declined to go into specifics. But as the pillars emerged slowly from the earth, a series of stories appeared in the press that began to shed a diffuse light on the mysterious chain of events that had led to their discovery.

There was the exposé in Le Monde about a Sorbonne graduate named David Girard, aka Daoud Ghandour, who had advised the Waqf on archaeological matters, and who, according to unnamed law enforcement officials, was a member of a criminal antiquities smuggling network with links to Hezbollah. And the story in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung about an Iranian connection to the bombing of Galleria Naxos in St. Moritz. And the investigative follow-up in Der Spiegel that linked David Girard to one Massoud Rahimi, the Iranian terrorist mastermind who had been briefly kidnapped in Germany. Which made it all the more interesting when, just twelve days later, that same Massoud Rahimi was killed in Tehran by a limpet-style bomb planted beneath his car. The television terrorism analysts had little doubt about who was behind the assassination or what it meant. Massoud had been the mastermind of the Temple Mount plot, they proclaimed, and the Israelis had just returned the favor.

But there were many aspects of the story the press would never learn, including the fact that the affair had begun when Gabriel Allon, the wayward son of Israeli intelligence, had been summoned to St. Peter’s Basilica to view the corpse of a fallen angel. Or that Gabriel had spent the last two weeks sitting beside the hospital bed of the archaeologist whose blood stained the pillars of Solomon’s Temple. As a result, he was present when the archaeologist finally opened his eyes. “Rivka,” Eli Lavon murmured. “Make sure someone looks after Rivka.”

That same evening, a tense calm fell over Jerusalem for the first time since the beginning of the Temple Mount crisis. Gabriel went to the Mount Herzl Psychiatric Hospital to spend a few minutes with Leah before meeting Chiara for dinner at a restaurant located in the original campus of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Afterward, he took her for ice cream and a walk in Ben Yehuda Street.

“Donati called this afternoon,” she said suddenly, as though it had slipped her mind. “He was wondering when you were coming back to Rome to finish the Caravaggio and deal with Carlo.”

“I’d almost forgotten about them both.”

“That’s understandable, darling. After all, you did save Israel and the world from Armageddon and find twenty-two pillars from the First Temple of Jerusalem.”

Gabriel smiled. “I’ll leave the day after tomorrow.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t. Besides,” he added quickly, “I have a job for you. Two jobs, actually.”

“What are they?”

“I need someone to look after Eli until I get back.”

“And the other?”

“The government has decided to put the pillars in a special wing at the Israel Museum. You’re going to be part of the team that will design the interior of the building and the overall exhibit.”

“Gabriel!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. “How on earth did you manage that?”

“As one of the co-discoverers of the pillars, I have a certain amount of sway. In fact, they wanted to name the exhibit in my honor.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That it should be called the Eli Lavon Wing,” he said. “I’m just thankful it’s not going to be the Eli Lavon Memorial Wing.”

“Will they change anything?”

“The pillars?”

Chiara nodded.

“Did you hear what the Palestinians said about them?”

“Zionist lies.”

“Temple Denial,” said Gabriel. “They can’t admit that we were here before them because that would mean we have a right to be here now. In their eyes, we have to remain foreign invaders, something to be driven out, like the Crusaders.”

“Blood never sleeps,” Chiara said softly.

“Nor is it in short supply,” Gabriel added. “Our friends in the West like to think the Arab-Israeli conflict can be solved by drawing a line on a map. But they don’t understand history. This city has existed in a state of almost perpetual warfare for three thousand years. And the Palestinians are going to keep fighting until we’re gone.”

“So what do we do?”

“Hold fast,” said Gabriel. “Because the next time we lose Jerusalem, it will be for good. And then where will we go?”

“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”

The air had turned suddenly cooler. Chiara pulled her coat tightly around her and studied a group of Israeli teenagers laughing on the other side of the street. They were sixteen or seventeen. In a year or two, they would all be in the army, soldiers in the war without end.

“It’s not so easy, is it, Gabriel?”

“What’s that?”

“To think about leaving at a time like this.”

“It’s the other form of Jerusalem Syndrome. The worse it gets, the more you love it.”

“You do love it, don’t you?”

“I love it dearly,” he said. “I love the color of the limestone and the sky. I love the smell of the pine and the eucalyptus. I love it when the air turns cold at night. I even love the haredim who shout at me when I drive my car on Shabbat.”

“But do you love it enough to stay?”

“His Holiness thinks I have no choice.”

“What are you talking about?”

Gabriel told her about the conversation with the pope on the parapet of the Vatican walls, when the leader of a billion Catholics confessed he was having visions of the Apocalypse. “He thinks we’ve been wandering too long,” he said. “He thinks the country needs me.”

“The pope doesn’t have to wait in hotel rooms wondering whether you’re going to come back from an operation alive.”

“But he is infallible.”

“Not when it comes to matters of the heart.” Chiara looked at Gabriel for a moment. “Do you know what it’s going to be like if we live here? Every time we come home, Ari is going to be sitting in our living room.”

“As long as he doesn’t smoke, that’s fine with me.”

“Do you mean that?”

“He’s like a father to me, Chiara. I need to take care of him.”

“And when Uzi asks you to run an errand for the Office?”

“I suppose I’ll just have to learn those three little words.”

“Which words?”

“Find someone else.”

“What will you do for work?”

“I’ll find work.”

“It gets claustrophobic here.”

“Tell me about it.”

“We’ll need to travel, Gabriel.”

“I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

“I’ve always wanted to spend an autumn in Provence.”

“I know just the village.”

“Have you ever been to Scotland?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“Will you take me skiing just once?”

“Anywhere but St. Moritz or Gstaad.”

“I miss Venice.”

“So do I.”

“Maybe Francesco Tiepolo can give you a bit of work.”

“He pays me peanuts.”

“I adore peanuts.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. Her hair smelled of vanilla. “Do you think it will hold?” she asked.

“The quiet?”

She nodded.

“For a little while,” said Gabriel, “if we’re lucky.”

“How long will you be in Rome?”

“I suppose that depends entirely on Carlo.”

“Just don’t go anywhere near him without a gun in your pocket.”

“Actually,” he said, “I was planning on having Carlo come to me.”

Chiara shivered.

“We should be going,” said Gabriel. “You’ll catch your death.”

“No,” she said, “I love it, too.”

“The cold at night?”

“And the smell of the pine and eucalyptus,” she said. “It smells like . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Like what, Chiara?”

“Like home,” she said. “It feels good to finally be home.”

49 PIAZZA DI SANT’IGNAZIO, ROME

WHEN GABRIEL ENTERED THE PIAZZA DI Sant’Ignazio two days later, the sun shone brightly from a cloudless Roman sky, and the tables of Le Cave stood in neat rows across the paving stones. At one, shaded by a white umbrella, sat General Ferrari of the Art Squad. Near his elbow was a copy of that morning’s edition of Corriere della Sera, which he placed in front of Gabriel. It was open to a story from Paris about the unexpected recovery of two stolen works of art. The Cézanne was the main attraction; the Greek vase, a lovely hydria by the Amykos Painter, a mere afterthought.

“I was right about one thing,” the general said. “You certainly do know how to think like a criminal.”

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“And I still have a perfectly good right hand.” The general appraised Gabriel for a moment with his one good eye before asking whether he had stolen the painting and the vase himself.

“Operational verisimilitude required me to utilize the services of a professional.”

“So it was a commissioned theft?”

“You might say that.”

“Does this thief ever practice his trade in Italy?”

“Every chance he gets.”

“How much would I have to pay for his name?”

“I’m afraid it’s not for sale.”

Gabriel returned the paper to the general, who used it to wave away an approaching waiter.

“I’ve been reading the recent news from your country with great interest,” he said, as though Gabriel’s country was some place hard to find on a map. “Do you believe those pillars are truly from Solomon’s First Temple?”

Gabriel nodded.

“You’ve seen them?”

“And the bomb they were going to use to blow them to pieces.”

“Madness,” said the general, shaking his head slowly. “I suppose it puts my efforts to protect Italy’s cultural patrimony in a whole new light. I only have to contend with thieves and smugglers, not religious maniacs who are trying to plunge the Middle East into war.”

“Sometimes the religious maniacs actually get help from the thieves and smugglers.” Gabriel paused, then added, “But then, you already knew that, didn’t you, General Ferrari?”

Ferrari fixed Gabriel with a glassy stare from his prosthetic eye but said nothing.

“That’s why you sent me to Veronica Marchese,” Gabriel continued. “Because you already knew that her husband controlled the global trade in looted antiquities. You also knew he was working with the criminal funding arm of Hezbollah. You knew all this,” Gabriel concluded, “because my service told you it was so.”

“Actually,” the general responded, “I knew about Carlo long before your chief brought us his dossier.”

“Why didn’t you do anything about it?”

“Because it would have destroyed the career of a woman I admire greatly, not to mention a close friend of hers who lives next door to His Holiness on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace.”

“You knew that Donati and Veronica were lovers once?”

“And so does Carlo,” the general said, nodding. “He also knows that the monsignor left his order after a pair of killings in El Salvador. Which is why he wanted to be on the supervisory council of the Vatican Bank so badly.”

“He knew it would be a perfect safe harbor to launder his money because Donati would never dare move against him.”

The general nodded thoughtfully. “The monsignor’s past made him vulnerable,” he said after a moment. “That is the last thing one should be in a place like the Vatican.”

“And when you heard that Claudia Andreatti had been found in the Basilica?”

“I had no doubt as to who was behind her death.”

“Because your informant Roberto Falcone told you that she’d been to Cerveteri to see him,” Gabriel said. “And when I found Falcone’s body in the acid bath, you realized that you had a perfect solution to your Carlo problem. An Italian solution.”

“Not in the strictest sense of the term, but, yes, I suppose I did.” The unblinking eye scrutinized Gabriel for a moment. “And now it seems we have arrived at the place where we began. What do we do about Carlo?”

“I know what I’d like to do.”

“How much hard evidence do you have?”

“Enough to tie a cordata around his scrawny neck.”

“How do you want to handle it?”

“I’m going to tell him to resign his post at the Vatican Bank immediately. But first, I’m going to offer him a chance to confess his sins.”

The general smiled. “I’ve always found that confession can be good for the soul.”

After lunch, Gabriel hiked across the river, to the faded old palazzo in Trastevere that had been turned into a faded old apartment building. He still had the key. Entering the foyer, he once again checked the postbox. This time, it was empty.

He headed upstairs and let himself into the flat. It was exactly as he had left it nearly four months ago, with one exception: the electricity had been cut off. And so he sat alone at her desk, watching as the creeping afternoon shadows slowly reclaimed her possessions. Finally, a few minutes after six, he heard the scrape of a key entering the lock. Then the door swung open, and Dr. Claudia Andreatti came floating toward him through the darkness.

Her sister’s death had spared the world a cataclysm, which meant that Paola Andreatti deserved to know nothing less than the complete truth about what had happened. Not the Office’s version of the truth, thought Gabriel, and surely not the Vatican’s. It had to be truth without evasion and without regard to the sensitivities of powerful individuals or institutions. A truth she could take to the grave of her sister and, one day, to her own.

And so Gabriel told her the entire story of his remarkable journey from the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica to the hole in the heart of the Holy Mountain, where he had found the twenty-two pillars of Solomon’s First Temple and the bomb that could have caused a conflict of biblical proportions. She remained silent throughout, her hands folded neatly on her lap. The eyes that watched him from the evening shadows were identical to the ones that had gazed up at him from the floor of the Basilica. The voice, when finally she spoke, was the same voice that had spoken to him briefly in the stairwell of the Vatican Museum the night of her death.

“What are you going to do about Carlo?”

Gabriel’s answer seemed to cause her physical pain.

“Is that all?” she asked.

“If the Italian prosecutors bring charges against him—”

“I know how the justice system works in Italy, Mr. Allon,” she said, cutting him off. “The case will drag on for years, and the chances are good he’ll never see the inside of a jail.”

“What do you want, Dr. Andreatti?”

“Justice for my sister.”

“It’s not something I can give you.”

“Then why did you bring me to Rome?”

“For the truth,” he said. “I wanted you to hear the truth. And not just from me. From him as well.”

“When?” she asked.

“Tomorrow night.”

She was silent for a moment. “If there was a God,” she said finally, “he would die the same death as my sister.”

Yes, thought Gabriel. If there was a God.

50 VATICAN CITY

DONATI RANG CARLO MARCHESE LATE the following afternoon and said the Vicar of Christ wanted a word.

“When?” asked Carlo.

“Tonight.”

“I have something.”

“Cancel it.”

“What time?”

“Nine o’clock,” said Donati. “The Bronze Doors.”

The time had not been chosen at random, but Carlo appeared not to notice. Nor did he seem to think it was odd when he found Father Mark waiting to greet him. Carlo was the kind of man who didn’t have to stop at the Permissions Desk on his way into the building. Carlo could find his own way from the Bronze Doors to the papal apartments.

“This way,” said Father Mark, taking Carlo’s elbow with a grip that indicated he had been lifting more than just a communion chalice. He led him up the Scala Regia and into the Sistine Chapel. There they passed beneath Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, with its swirling vision of the Apocalypse and the Second Coming of Christ, before heading down the gray-green tube to the Basilica. As they crossed to the other side of the soaring nave, Carlo began to show his first signs of agitation. It increased sharply when Father Mark informed him they would be taking the stairs to the dome rather than the elevator. The stairs were General Ferrari’s idea. He wanted Carlo to suffer, even in a small way, on his way to absolution.

The climb took slightly more than five minutes. As they reached the landing at the top of the stairs, Carlo tried to pause in order to catch his breath, but Father Mark nudged him into the gallery of the dome. A raincoated figure stood at the balustrade, peering downward toward the floor of the Basilica. As Carlo entered, the figure turned and regarded him without a word. Carlo froze and then recoiled.

“Something wrong, Carlo? You look as though you just saw a ghost.”

Carlo spun round and saw Gabriel standing where Father Mark had been.

“What is this, Allon?”

“Judgment, Carlo.”

Gabriel went to Paola’s side. She was staring downward again, as though oblivious to Gabriel’s presence.

“This is where Claudia was standing when she died. Whoever murdered her approached her from behind and broke her neck before throwing her over the barrier to make it look like a suicide. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting her up to the gallery in the first place.” Gabriel paused. “But you managed to figure that out, didn’t you, Carlo?”

“I had nothing to do with her death, Allon.”

Carlo’s declaration of innocence echoed high in the dome before dying the death it deserved. His gaze was now fixed on Paola’s neck. Gabriel placed a hand gently on her shoulder.

“She was scheduled to meet with Donati that night to tell him you were running your criminal empire from the Vatican Bank. But she canceled the meeting without explanation. She canceled it,” Gabriel added pointedly, “because someone told her to come to the dome of the Basilica. That person was going to give her the information she needed to destroy you. It was someone she trusted, someone she used to work with.” Gabriel paused again. “Someone like your wife.”

Carlo seemed to be trying to regain his composure, but Paola’s presence wouldn’t permit it. He was still staring at her neck. As a result, he didn’t notice General Ferrari standing a few feet behind him.

“Sometime that evening,” Gabriel resumed, “Claudia received a text message from Veronica asking her to come here. She called Veronica’s cell a few minutes before nine, but there was no answer. That’s because Veronica didn’t have her cell. You did, Carlo.”

“You can’t prove any of this, Allon.”

“Remember where you’re standing, Carlo.”

Paola gave Carlo an accusatory glare before setting off on a slow tour of the gallery.

“But who to trust with the job of actually killing your wife’s best friend?” Gabriel asked. “It had to be someone who could get inside the Vatican without much trouble, someone who didn’t have to stop at the Permissions Desk before entering the palace.” Gabriel smiled. “Know anyone like that, Carlo?”

“You don’t really believe I killed that poor girl with my own hands.”

“I know you did. And so does she,” Gabriel added with a glance at Paola. “Help her soul find peace, Carlo. Tell her that you killed her sister to protect your position at the Vatican Bank. Confess your sins.”

Paola’s presence had clearly lost its hold over Carlo. He was now staring at Gabriel with the same arrogant smile he had worn the night he tried to have Gabriel and Chiara killed. He was once again Carlo the untouchable, Carlo the man without physical fear.

“You are a member of a very small club,” Gabriel said. “You are the only person who ever tried to kill my wife who is still walking this earth. If you would like to remain here with us, I would advise you to tender your resignation at the Vatican Bank immediately. But first,” he added, glancing again toward Paola, “I want you to tell her why you murdered her sister.”

“You can have my resignation but—”

“Your wife already knows,” Gabriel said, cutting him off. “I told her everything before the Holy Father left for Jerusalem. She believed me, because she remembered that on the night of Claudia’s death she couldn’t find her mobile.”

To bring an opponent’s wife into play violated Gabriel’s personal code of ethics, but the tactic had its intended effect. Carlo’s face was now crimson with rage. Gabriel pressed his advantage.

“She’s going to leave you, Carlo. In fact, if I had to guess, she’s probably been thinking about it for some time. After all, she never loved you the way she loved Donati.”

That was enough to push Carlo’s anger past the point of control. He blundered toward Gabriel in a blind fury, his face unrecognizable with rage, his arms outstretched. Gabriel took a lightning step to one side, leaving Carlo to careen over the balustrade. A hand reached out, flailing. Too late, Gabriel tried to grasp it. Then he seized Paola and covered her ears tightly so she couldn’t hear the sound of Carlo’s body colliding with the marble below. Only when General Ferrari had taken her out onto the roof terrace did Gabriel look over the side. There he saw the pope’s private secretary kneeling on the floor of the Basilica, his fingertips moving gently over Carlo’s forehead. Ego te absolvo. And then it was done.

For the next two days, Gabriel remained a prisoner of his curtained little tomb at the far end of the restoration lab. The other members of the staff saw him rarely. He was there when they arrived in the morning, and he remained there, surrounded by a corona of brilliant halogen light, long after they left for the night. There were rumors of a disaster of some sort behind the shroud—an unexpected loss of Caravaggio’s original work, or perhaps a botched retouching. Enrico Bacci, still seething over his failure to secure the assignment, demanded a staff intervention, but Antonio Calvesi refused. Calvesi had heard the stories about the endless sessions before the canvas when the end was in sight. In fact, he had personally witnessed such an ordeal in Florence many years earlier, when Gabriel, then working under an assumed identity, had labored for twenty hours without a break to complete a Masaccio before his deadline. “There’s no problem,” Calvesi assured his faithless staff. “He’s just closing in on his target. Just be thankful it’s a painting and not a man.”

And so it came to pass that on the morning of the third day, when the staff came trickling into the lab, they found the curtain of his workspace hanging open and the painting propped on an easel, looking as though it had just been completed by Caravaggio himself. The only thing missing was the man who had restored it. Calvesi spent an hour fruitlessly searching for him before heading up to the palace to personally deliver the news to Monsignor Donati. The Caravaggio was finally finished, he reported. And Gabriel Allon, renowned restorer of Old Master paintings, retired Israeli spy and assassin, and savior of the Holy Father, had vanished without a trace.