The Confessor

the emergency line. The same woman had answered the phone and had told him to go to the
    Church of Santa Maria della Pace. Inside, near the confessionals would be a man in a tan overcoat with a folded copy of L'Osserva-tore Romano. The agent would tell Gabriel where to go next.
    His first responsibility now was to his rescuers. He had to be certain he was not leading them into a trap. As he wound his way through the warren of narrow streets and alleyways in the Centro Storico, he mingled with tourists and ordinary Romans, keeping clear of main thoroughfares. He could still hear the wail of police sirens in the distance but was confident no one was following him.
    In the Piazza Navona, carabinieri were patrolling in pairs. Gabriel pulled up his hood and settled into a group of people watching a man play classical guitar next to a fountain. He looked up and saw that the northern end of the piazza was free of police. He turned, crossed the square, and followed a narrow alley to the entrance of the church. A beggar was sitting on the steps. Gabriel slipped past and went inside.
    The smell of incense greeted him. He thought of Venice. The stillness of San Zaccaria. Just two weeks ago he was at peace, restoring one of the most important paintings in all of Italy. Now he was being hunted by every policeman in Rome. He wondered whether he would ever be allowed to go back to his old life again.
    He paused before the basin of holy water, thought better of it, and eased forward into the nave. An old woman was on her knees before a bank of memorial candles. Opposite the doors of the confessional sat the man in the tan overcoat. On the pew was a copy of L'Osservatore Romano folded in half. Gabriel settled in next to him.
    "You're bleeding," said the man in the overcoat. Gabriel looked down and saw that the side of his sweatshirt was indeed soaked with blood. "Do you need a doctor?"
    "I'll be fine. Let's get out of here."
    "Not me. I'm just the messenger." "Where do I go?"
    "There's a silver BMW motorcycle parked outside the church. The driver is wearing a crimson helmet."
    Gabriel walked outside. The motorcycle was there. As Gabriel approached, the driver pressed the starter button and revved the engine into life. Gabriel threw his leg over the back and wrapped his arms around the driver's waist. The bike turned into traffic and sped in the direction of the river.
    It did not take Gabriel long to realize that the agent driving the motorcycle was a woman: the hourglass hips, the narrow waist and slender blue-jeaned thighs, the bunch of hair poking from the bottom of the helmet. It was curly and smelled of jasmine and tobacco. He was certain he had smelled it before.
    They raced along the Lungotevere. To his right Gabriel could see the dome of St. Peter's, looming over the Vatican Hill. Crossing the river, he hurled Alessio Rossi's Beretta into the black water.
    They headed up the Janiculum Hill. At the Piazza Ceresi they turned into a steeply sloped residential street lined with stone pines and small apartment houses. The bike slowed as they approached an old palazzo that had been converted into a block of flats. The woman killed the engine and they coasted beneath an archway, coming to a stop in a darkened courtyard.
    Gabriel dismounted and followed her into the foyer, then up two flights of stairs. She unlocked the door and pulled him inside. In the darkened entrance hall, she unzipped her leather riding jacket and removed her helmet. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders. Then she turned on the lights. "You?" said Gabriel. The girl smiled. It was Chiara, the rabbi's daughter from Venice.
    FOR THE second time that evening, Eric Lange's cellular telephone chirped softly on the bedside table of his Paris hotel room. He brought it to his ear and listened silently while Rashid Husseini told him about the gun battle at the Pensione Abruzzi. Obviously, Carlo Casagrande did know about Allon, and he had sent a mob of incompetent Italian policemen to do the job when it could have been handled quite easily by one good man with a gun. Lange's window of opportunity to deal with Allon himself may have just closed
    permanently.
    "What are you doing now?" Lange asked. "We're looking for him, along with half the police in Italy. There's no guarantee we're going to find him. The Israelis are good at getting their people out of tight spots."
    "Yes, they are," said Lange. "In fact, I'd say the Rome station of the Israeli secret service is very busy