The Confessor

planning session, a discussion of how the various departments of the Nazi Party and German government could work together to facilitate the Holocaust."
    Lavon handed the document to Gabriel. "Look at the list of participants. Recognize any of the names?"
    Gabriel cast his eyes down the attendees:
    Gauleiter Dr. Meyer and Reichsamtleiter Dr. Leibbrandt,
    Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories Staatssekretar Dr. Stuckart, Reich Ministry of the
    Interior Staatssekretar Neumann, Plenipotentiary for the Four
    Year Plan
    Staatssekretar Dr. Freisler, Reich Ministry of Justice Staatssekretar Dr. Buhler, Office of the General
    Government Unterstaatssekretar Dr. Luther, Foreign Office
    Gabriel looked up at Lavon. "Luther was at Wannsee?"
    "Indeed, he was. And he got exactly what he so desperately wanted. Heydritch mandated that the Foreign Office would play a pivotal role in facilitating deportations of Jews from countries allied with Nazi Germany and from German satellites such as Croatia and Slovakia."
    "I thought the SS handled the deportations."
    "Let me back up a moment." Lavon leaned over the coffee table and placed his hands on the surface, as though it were a map of Europe. "The vast majority of Holocaust victims were from Poland, the Baltics, and western Russia--places conquered and ruled directly by the Nazis. They rounded up Jews and slaughtered them
    without any interference from other governments, because there were no other governments."
    Lavon paused, one hand sliding over the imaginary map to the south, the other to the west. "But Heydrich and Eichmann weren't satisfied with murdering only the Jews under direct German rule. They wanted every Jew in Europe--eleven million in all." Lavon tapped his right forefinger on the table. "The Jews in the Balkans"-- he tapped his left forefinger--"and the Jews in Western Europe. In most of these places, they had to deal with local governments to pry the Jews loose for deportation and extermination. Luther's section of the Foreign Office was responsible for that. It was Luther's job to deal with the local governments on a ministry-to-ministry basis to make certain that the deportations went smoothly and all diplomatic niceties were adhered to. And he was damned good at it."
    "For argument's sake, let's assume the old man was referring to this Martin Luther. What would he have been doing at a convent in northern Italy?"
    Lavon shrugged his narrow shoulders. "It sounds to me as if the old man was trying to tell you that something happened at the convent during the war. Something that Sister Vincenza is trying to cover up. Something that Beni knew about."
    "Something that got him killed?"
    Lavon shrugged. "Maybe."
    "Who would be willing to kill a man over a book?"
    Lavon hesitated, taking a moment to slip the protocol of the Wannsee Conference back into the file. Then he looked up at Gabriel, eyes narrowed, and drew a deep breath.
    "There was one government in particular that Eichmann and Luther were concerned about. It maintained diplomatic relations with both the Allies and Nazi Germany during the war. It had representatives
    in all of the countries where the roundups and deportations were taking place--representatives who could have made the task more difficult had they chosen to forcefully intervene. For obvious reasons, Eichmann and Luther considered it critical that this government not raise objections. Hitler considered this government so pivotal that he dispatched the second-ranking official at the Foreign Office, Baron Ernst von Weizacker, to serve as his ambassador. Do you know which government I'm talking about, Gabriel?"
    Gabriel closed his eyes. "The Vatican."
    "Indeed."
    "So who are the clowns that have been following me?"
    "That's a very good question."
    Gabriel crossed the room to Lavon's desk, lifted the receiver of the telephone, and dialed a number. Lavon did not need to ask who Gabriel was calling. He could see it in the determined set of his jaw and the tension in his hands. When a man is being stalked by an enemy he does not know, it is best to have a friend who knows how to fight dirty.
    THE MAN STANDING on the steps of Vienna's famed Konzerthaus radiated open-air Austrian good looks and Viennese sophistication. Had anyone spoken to him, he would have replied in perfect German, with the lazy inflection of a well-heeled young man who had spent many happy hours sampling the Bohemian delights of Vienna. He was not Austrian, nor had he been