The Confessor

square.
    Rounding the end of the colonnade, he turned right, as the assassin had done, and was immediately confronted with a decision. He
    could continue along the perimeter of the city state or turn to the left, toward the southern end of the sprawling Janiculum Park. As Gabriel slowed to make his decision, a tourist with a camera around his neck stepped forward and shouted at him in French: "Are you looking for the priest with a gun?"
    The Frenchman pointed down the Borgo Santo Spirito, a narrow cobbled street lined with Vatican office buildings and souvenir shops selling religious articles. Gabriel turned left and opened the throttle. It made sense. If the assassin followed this route of escape, he could disappear into the open spaces of the park. From there he could make his way to the tangled streets of Trastevere in a matter of minutes. From Trastevere he could cross the river to the residential districts of the Aventine Hill.
    After a hundred meters, Gabriel banked to the right and sped along the facade of a dusty palazzo. He came to a busy piazza near the river, swerved to the right, and headed up an access ramp leading into the park. At the top of the ramp was a traffic circle outside the entrance of an underground bus terminal. Gabriel thought he saw the assassin for the first time, a motorcyclist dressed in black, with a female passenger on the back. The bike accelerated around the circle and disappeared into the park. Gabriel sped after it.
    The roadway was lined with broad gravel walkways and towering umbrella pine. It ran along the spine of the hill and rose gradually, so that after a few seconds Gabriel felt as though he was floating above the city. As he neared the Piazzale Garibaldi, he saw a flash in the heavy traffic, a motorcycle knifing dangerously between cars, a man in black at the handlebars. Entering the chaos of the massive piazzale, Gabriel briefly lost sight of the bike; then he spotted it again, turning onto a smaller road that led down the hill toward Trastevere. Gabriel leaned the bike hard and fought his way through the traffic, ignoring the symphony of horns and curses, and followed after him.
    The descent out of the park was a steep series of switchbacks and hairpin turns. The carabinieri motorcycle had more power than the assassin's, and Gabriel did not have the added weight and balance problems of a passenger. He closed the distance quickly, and was soon about thirty meters behind.
    Gabriel reached inside his coat and drew the Beretta. He maneuvered the weapon into his left hand and twisted hard on the throttle with his right. The bike roared forward. The woman glanced over her shoulder, then turned and took awkward aim at him with an automatic pistol.
    Gabriel barely heard the sound of the shots over the drone of the motorcycles. One of the rounds pierced the windscreen. The bike bucked from the impact. Gabriel's hand slipped from the throttle. The Leopard began to pull away. Gabriel managed to get his hand back on the throttle. With agonizing slowness, he gradually closed the gap.
    Lange took his eyes off the street long enough to glance into his rearview mirror at the man pursuing him. Dark hair, olive skin, narrow features, a look of sheer determination in his eyes. Was he Gabriel Allon? The agent codenamed Sword who had coldly walked into a villa in Tunis and assassinated one of the most heavily protected men on the planet? The man whom Casagrande had promised would not be a problem? Lange hoped someday to repay the favor.
    For now he focused his thoughts on the task at hand: finding some avenue of escape. A car was waiting across the river on the
    Aventine Hill. To get there, he needed to navigate the maze of
    Trastevere. He was confident he could lose the Israeli there--if
    they survived that long.
    He thought of his home in Grindelwald, of skiing beneath the face of the Eiger and bringing women home to his enormous bed. Then he pictured the alternative: rotting in an Italian jail, subsisting on rancid food, never touching a woman again for the rest of his life. Anything was better--even death.
    He opened the throttle full and drove perilously fast. The streets of Trastevere lay before him. Freedom. He glanced into the rearview mirror and saw that the Israeli had closed the gap and was preparing to fire. Lange tried to increase his speed, but couldn't. It was Katrine. Her weight was slowing him down.
    Then he heard the gunshots, felt the rounds shearing past him. Katrine