The Confessor

the way they looked at him made sweat run over Gabriel's ribs.
    He took his time walking back to the hotel, careful to make sure no one was following him. Along the way, he passed a bored cara-biniere on a motorcycle, parked in a patch of sunlight, watching the madness of a traffic circle with little interest. Gabriel seemed to intrigue him even less.
    He entered the Pensione Abruzzi. The Spaniards had returned from the Wednesday audience in a state of great excitement. It seemed that one of them, a girl with a spiked haircut, had managed to touch the Pope's hand.
    Upstairs in his room, Gabriel dialed Rossi's number.
    "Pronto."
    "Inspector Rossi?"
    "Si."
    "My name is Heinrich Siedler. I called earlier today."
    "Are you still at the Pensione Abruzzi?"
    "Yes."
    "Don't call here again."
    Click.
    NIGHT FELL and with it came a Mediterranean storm. Gabriel lay on his bed with the window open, listening to the rain smacking against the paving stones in the street below while the conversation with Alessio Rossi played over and over in his head like a loop of audio tape.
    "Are you still at the Pensione Abruzzi?" Yes.
    "Don't call here again."
    Clearly the Italian detective wished to speak with him. It was also clear that he wanted no more contact with Herr Siedler on his office telephone. Gabriel had no choice but to wait him out and hope Rossi would make the next move.
    At nine o'clock the telephone finally rang. It was the night manager.
    "There's a man here to see you."
    "What's his name?"
    "He didn't say. Shall I send him away?"
    "No, I'll be down in a minute."
    Gabriel hung up the phone and stepped into the corridor, lock'ing the door behind him. Downstairs, he found the night manager seated behind the front desk. No one else was there. Gabriel looked at him and shrugged. The night manager pointed a sausage-like forefinger toward the common room. Gabriel entered but found the room deserted, except for the Croatian table-tennis players.
    He went back to the front desk. The Italian threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender and turned his attention to a miniature black-and-white television. Gabriel climbed the stairs to his room. He unlocked the door and stepped inside.
    He saw the blow coming, a glint of light on black metal, sweeping toward him in an arc, like a shimmering swath of wet paint across blank canvas. Too late, he raised his hands to shield his head. The butt of a pistol crashed against the base of his skull behind his left ear.
    The pain was immediate. His vision blurred. His legs seemed suddenly paralyzed, and he felt himself corkscrewing downward. His attacker caught him and eased him soundlessly to the linoleum floor. He heard Peter Malone's warning one last time--"If they thinly you pose a threat, they won't hesitate to kill you"--and then only the sound of the table tennis match downstairs in the common room.
    TAPa-TAP-a-TAP .. .
    When Gabriel had awoken, his face was burning. He opened his eyes and found himself staring into a halogen bulb not more than an inch from his face. He closed his eyes and tried to turn his head. Pain shot through the back of his skull like a second Wow. He wondered how long he had been out. Long enough for his stacker to bind his mouth and wrists with packing tape. Long enough for blood to dry against the side of his neck.
    The light was so close he could see nothing more of the room.
    He had the sense that he had not left the Abruzzi. This was confirmed when he heard shouting in Serbo-Croatian. He was on his own bed.
    He tried to sit up. A gun barrel seemed to flow out of the light It pressed against his breastbone and pushed him back onto the mattress. Then a face appeared. Heavy shadows beneath the eyes, stubble on the square chin. The lips moved, sound reached Gabriel's ears. In his delirium, it seemed like a film out of sync, and his brain required a moment to process and comprehend the words he had just heard.
    "My name is Alessio Rossi. What the fuck do you want?"
    ROME
    THE YOUNG MAN sitting astride the motorino on the Via Gioberti had an air of bored insolence typical of Roman teenagers. He was not bored, nor was he a teenager, but a thirty-year-old Vigilanza officer assigned to Carlo Casagrande's special section of the Vatican Security Office. His youthful appearance proved an asset in his present assignment: the surveillance of Inspector Alessio Rossi of the Polizia di Stato. The Vigilanza man knew only what he needed to know about Rossi. A troublemaker, the