The Confessor

over dinner? The covenant at Garda? It's no wonder people are dying because of this. If this is made public, it will be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off in St. Peter's Square."
    "Can you authenticate it?"
    "I have a few contacts inside the old KGB. So does the quiet little man standing in the window over there. It's not something he likes
    to talk about, but he and his friends from Dzerzhinsky Square did quite a lot of business together over the years. I bet he could get to the bottom of this in a couple of days if he set his mind to it."
    Shamron looked at Lavon as if to say it would take him no more than an afternoon.
    "Then what would we do with the information?" asked Gabriel. "Leak it to The New York Times? A Nazi memorandum, via the KGB and Israeli intelligence? The Church would deny that the meeting ever took place and attack the messenger. Very few people would believe us. It would also poison relations between Israel and the Vatican. Everything John Paul the Second did to repair relations between Catholics and Jews would go up in flames."
    Frustration showed on Lavon's face. "The conduct of Pope Pius and the Vatican during the war is a matter of state concern for the government of Israel. There are those in the Church who wish to declare Pius the Twelfth a saint. It is the policy of the Israeli government that no canonization should take place until all relevant documents in the Secret Archives have been released and examined. This material should be turned over to the Foreign Ministry in Tel Aviv and acted upon."
    "It should, Elijah," said Shamron, "but I'm afraid Gabriel speaks the truth. That document is too dangerous to make public. What do you think the Vatican is going to say? 'Oh dear, how could this have happened? We're terribly sorry.' No, that's not how they'll react. They'll attack us, and it will blow up in our faces. Our relations with the Vatican are tenuous at best. There are many members of the Secretariat of State who would use any excuse--including our , involvement in this affair--to sever them. For anything good to come out of this, it has to be handled delicately and quietly--from the inside."
    "By you? Forgive me, Boss, but the words delicate and quiet don't leap into my mind when I think about you. Lev gave you and Gabriel permission to investigate Beni's death, not cause a firestorm in our relations with the Holy See. You should turn the material over to the Foreign Ministry and go back to Tiberias."
    "Under normal circumstances, I might take your advice, but I'm afraid the situation has changed."
    "What are you talking about, Boss?"
    "The phone call I took earlier this morning was from Aaron Shilo, our ambassador to the Holy See. It seems there's been an unexpected addition to the Holy Father's schedule."
    "Which brings us back to the gentlemen who followed you when you left the safe flat in Rome." Shamron sat down opposite Gabriel and placed a photograph on the table. "This photograph was taken in Bucharest fifteen years ago. Recognize him?"
    Gabriel nodded. The man in the photograph was the assassin and terrorist-for-hire known only as the Leopard.
    Shamron laid a second photograph on the table, next to the first. "This photograph was taken by Mordecai in London minutes after the murder of Peter Malone. Research ran the photographs through the face-recognition software. They're the same man. Peter Malone was murdered by the Leopard."
    "And Beni?" asked Gabriel.
    "If they hired the Leopard to kill Malone, it's quite possible they hired him to kill Beni, but we may never know for certain."
    "Obviously, you have a theory about the dead Palestinian in Rome."
    "I do," Shamron said. "We know the Leopard had a long and
    fruitful association with Palestinian terror groups. The operation on Cyprus was testament to that. We also know that he'd reached a deal with Abu Jihad to carry out additional acts of terror against Israeli citizens. Fortunately, you cut short Abu Jihad's illustrious career and the Leopard's operations never came to pass."
    "You think the Leopard renewed his relationship with the Palestinians in order to find me?"
    "I'm afraid it does make a certain amount of sense. Crux Vera wants you dead, and so do many people within the Palestinian movement. It's quite possible that the Leopard was the second man in that Lancia--and that he was the one who killed Marwan Aziz."
    Gabriel picked up the photographs and studied them carefully, as if they were a pair of canvases,