The Confessor

panic on his face.
    Gabriel climbed inside, rammed the keys into the ignition, and started the engine. He dropped the car into gear and pulled away
    from the curb, then turned hard to the right and vanished into the
    evening
    traffic.
    Detective Axel Weiss had leapt out of his car so quickly that he had left his cellular phone behind. He ran all the way back, then paused to catch his breath before dialing the number. A moment later, he broke the news to the man in Rome that the Israeli called Landau was gone.
    "How?"
    Embarrassed, Weiss told him.
    "Did you get a photograph at least?"
    "Earlier today--at the Olympic Village."
    "The village? What on earth was he doing there?"
    "Staring at the apartment house at Connollystrasse Thirty-one."
    "Wasn't that where it happened?"
    "Yes, that's right. It's not unusual for Jews to make a pilgrimage there."
    "Is it usual for Jews to detect surveillance and execute a perfect escape?"
    "Point taken."
    "Send me the photograph--tonight."
    Then the man in Rome severed the connection.
    7
    NEAR RIETI. ITALY
    There is an unsettling beauty about the Villa Galatina. A former Benedictine abbey, it stands atop a column of granite in the hills of Lazio and stares disapprovingly down at the village on the floor of the wooded valley. In the seventeenth century an important cardinal purchased the abbey and converted it into a lavish summer residence, a place where His Eminence could escape the broiling heat of Rome in August. His architect had possessed the good sense to preserve the exterior, and its tawny-colored facade remains to this day, along with the teeth of the battlements. On a morning in early March, a man was visible high on the windswept parapet. It was not a bow over his shoulder but a high-powered Beretta sniper's rifle. The current owner was a man who took his security seriously. His name was Roberto Pucci, a financier and industrialist whose power over modern Italy rivaled that of even a Renaissance prince of the Church.
    An armored Mercedes sedan stopped at the steel gate, where it was greeted by a pair of tan-suited security guards. The man seated in the back compartment lowered his window. One of the guards examined his face, then glanced at the distinctive SVC license plates on the Mercedes. Vatican plates. Roberto Pucci's gate swung open and an asphalt drive lined with cypresses stretched before them. A quarter mile up the hillside was the villa itself.
    The Mercedes eased up the drive and pulled into a gravel forecourt shaded by umbrella pine and eucalyptus. Two dozen other cars were already there, surrounded by a small army of security men and chauffeurs. The man in the backseat climbed out, leaving his own bodyguard behind, and walked across the courtyard toward the bell tower of the chapel.
    His name was Carlo Casagrande. For a brief time in Italy, his name had been a household word, for it was General Carlo Casagrande, chief of the antiterrorist unit of L'arma dei Carabinieri, who had crushed the Communist Red Brigades. For reasons of personal security, he was notoriously camera shy, and few people outside the Rome intelligence community would have recognized his face.
    Casagrande no longer worked for the Carabinieri. In 1981, a week after the attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II, he resigned his commission and vanished behind the walls of the Vatican. In a way, Casagrande had been working for the men of the Holy See all along. He took control of the Security Office, vowing that no pope would ever again leave St. Peter's Square in the back of an ambulance praying to the Virgin Mary for his life. One of his first acts was to launch a massive investigation into the shooting, so that the conspirators could be identified and neutralized before they were able to mount a second attempt on the Pope's life. The findings of
    the inquiry were so sensitive that Casagrande shared them with no one but the Holy Father himself.
    Casagrande was no longer directly responsible for protecting the life of the pope. For the last three years, he had been engaged in another task for his beloved Church. He remained attached to the Vatican Security Office, but it was only a flag of convenience to give him standing in certain quarters. He was now the head of the vaguely named Special Investigations Division. So secret was Casagrande's assignment, only a handful of men within the Vatican knew the true nature of his work.
    Casagrande entered the chapel. Cool air, scented with candle wax and