The Confessor

surrendering the search for Benjamin's killers. And Malone's. He pulled back onto the autoroute and accelerated toward Italy. At the border, a drowsy guard admitted him into the country with a languid wave of his hand.
    And now, after an interminable drive down the Italian peninsula, he found himself here, in his sour-smelling room at the Abruzzi. Downstairs, the table-tennis match had deteriorated into something of a new Balkan war. The shouts of the aggrieved party filled Gabriel's room. He thought of Peter Malone and wondered whether he was responsible for his death. Had he led the killers to him, or had Malone already been marked for elimination? Was Gabriel next on the list? As he drifted toward sleep, he heard Malone's warning careening about his memory: "If they think you pose a threat, they won't hesitate to kill you"
    Tomorrow he would find Alessio Rossi. Then he would get out of Rome as quickly as possible.
    Gabriel slept poorly and was awakened early by the ringing of church bells. He opened his eyes and blinked in the severe sunlight. He showered and changed into fresh clothing, then went downstairs to the dining room for breakfast. The Croatians were nowhere to be seen, only a pair of churchy American pilgrims and a band of noisy college students from Barcelona. There was a sense of excitement in the air, and Gabriel remembered that it was a Wednesday, the day the Holy Father greeted pilgrims in St. Peter's Square.
    At nine o'clock, Gabriel returned to his room and placed his first call to Inspector Alessio Rossi of the Polizia di Stato. A switchboard operator put him through to the detective's voice mail. "My name is Heinrich Siedler," Gabriel said. "I have information regarding Father Felici and Father Manzini. You can reach me at the Pensione Abruzzi."
    He hung up. Now what? He had no choice but to wait and hope the detective called him back. There was no television in the room. The bedside table had a built-in radio, but the tuning knob was broken.
    After one hour of paralyzing boredom, he dialed the number a second time. Once again the switchboard officer transferred him straight to Rossi's voice mail. Gabriel left a second message, identical to the first, but with a faint note of urgency in his voice.
    At eleven-thirty, he placed a third call to Rossi's number. This time he was put through to a colleague who explained that the inspector was on assignment and would not be back in the office until late afternoon. Gabriel left a third message and hung up.
    He decided to use the opportunity to get out of the room. In the streets around the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore he checked his tail for signs of surveillance and saw nothing. Then he walked down the Via Napoleone III. The March air was crisp and clear and scented with woodsmoke. He ate pasta in a restaurant near the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II. After lunch, he walked along the looming western facade of the Stazione Termini, then wandered among! the classical edifices of Rome's government quarter until he found! the headquarters of the Polizia di Stato. In a cafe across the street,! he drank espresso and watched officers and secretaries filing in and out, wondering whether Rossi was among them.
    At three o'clock, he started back toward the Pensione Abruzzi.
    As he was crossing the Piazza di Repubblica, a crowd of about five hundred students entered the square from the direction of the Uni-versita Romana. At the head of the procession was an unshaven boy wearing a white headband. Around his waist were sticks of mock dynamite. Behind him a group of pseudo-mourners carried a coffin fashioned of cardboard. As they drew closer Gabriel could see that most of the demonstrators were Italian, including the boy dressed as a suicide bomber. They chanted "Liberate the land of Palestine!" and "Death to the Jews!"--not in Arabic but in Italian. A young Italian girl, no more than twenty, thrust a leaflet into Gabriel's hand. It depicted the Israeli prime minister dressed in the uniform of the SS with a Hitler Ian toothbrush mustache, the heel of his jackboot crushing the skull of a Palestinian girl. Gabriel squeezed the leaflet into a ball and dropped it onto the square.
    He passed a flower stall. A pair of carabinieri were flirting shamelessly with the girl who worked there. They looked up briefly as Gabriel strode by and stared at him with undisguised interest before turning their attention once more to the girl. It could have been nothing, but something about