The Confessor

screamed. Her grip on his pelvis weakened. "Hold on!" Lange said, but there was little conviction in his voice.
    He left the park and entered Trastevere, racing along a street lined with faded tenement houses. Then he turned into a smaller street, narrow and cobblestoned, cars parked on both sides. At the head of the street rose the spire of a Romanesque church, a cross on top, like the site of a rifle. Lange made for it.
    Katrine's grip was slackening. Lange glanced over his shoulder. There was blood in her mouth and her face was the color of chalk. He looked into the mirror. The Israeli was about thirty meters behind, no more, and making up ground quickly.
    Lange murmured, "Forgive me, Katrine."
    He grabbed her wrist and twisted it until he could feel the bones cracking. Katrine screamed and tried to grab hold of his torso, but with only one hand it was futile.
    Lange felt the weight of her body tumbling helplessly off the back
    of the bike. The sound of her body striking cobblestones was something he would never forget. He did not look back.
    The woman fell diagonally across the street. Gabriel had less than a second to react. He squeezed the brakes in a vise-grip but realized that the powerful motorcycle was not going to stop in time. He leaned hard to the left and laid the bike on the cobblestones. His head slammed to the pavement. As he slid along the street, skin was torn from his body. At some point he saw the bike cartwheel into the air.
    He came to rest atop the body of the woman and found himself staring into a pair of beautiful lifeless eyes. He lifted his head and saw the Leopard roar up the street and vanish into a church steeple.
    Then he blacked out.
    IN THE turmoil of St. Peter's Square, no one took notice of the old man making-his way slowly across the timeworn paving stones. He glanced at a dying Swiss Guard, his vibrant uniform stained with blood. He paused briefly near the body of a young carabiniere. He saw a young American girl, screaming in the arms of her mother. In a few minutes, the horror would be amplified when news of the cardinal's assassination was made public. The stones of St. Peter's, awash in blood. A nightmare. Worse than that day in 1981, when the Pole was nearly killed. I have wrought this, thought Casagrande. It is my doing.
    He slipped through the colonnade and made for St. Anne's Gate. He thought of what lay ahead. The inevitable exposure of the
    conspiracy. The unmasking of Crux Vera. How could Casagrande explain that he had actually saved the life of the Pope? Indeed, that he had saved the life of the Church itself by killing Cardinal Brindisi? The blood in St. Peter's was necessary, he thought. It was a cleansing blood. But no one would believe him. He would die in shame, a disgraced man. A murderer.
    He stopped outside the door of the Church of St. Anne. A Swiss Guard was standing watch. He had been hastily called to duty and was dressed in jeans and a windbreaker. He seemed surprised to see Casagrande climbing slowly up the steps.
    "Is there anyone inside?" Casagrande asked.
    "No, General. We cleared the church as soon as the shooting began. The doors are locked."
    "Unlock them, please. I need to pray."
    The tiny nave was in darkness. The Swiss Guard remained near the door, watching curiously as Casagrande made his way forward and fell to his knees in front of the altar. He prayed feverishly for a moment, then reached into his coat pocket.
    The Swiss Guard sprinted forward up the center aisle, screaming, "No, General! Stop!" But Casagrande seemed not to hear him. He placed the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. A single shot echoed throughout the empty church. He remained balanced upon his knees for a few seconds, long enough for the Swiss Guard to hope that the general had somehow missed. Then the body slumped forward and collapsed onto the altar. Carlo Casagrande, savior of Italy, was dead.
    PART FIVE
    ACHURCH IN VENICE
    ROME
    THERE ARE ROOMS on the eleventh floor of the Gemelli Clinic that few people know. Spare and spartan, they are the rooms of a priest. In one there is a hospital bed. In another there are couches and chairs. The third contains a private chapel. In the hallway outside the entrance is a desk for the guards. Someone stands watch always, even when the rooms are empty.
    In the days following the shootings at the Vatican, the rooms were occupied by a patient with no name. His injuries were severe: a fractured skull, a cracked vertebra, four broken