The Fallen Angel

commentator after another branded them an affront that could not go unanswered. Watching the coverage from his office, Imam Hassan Darwish found the outrage mildly amusing. He knew that in just a few hours’ time, the pope’s words would seem like a bit of loose talk by an old man in white. With his eyes fixed on the screen, he reached for the phone and dialed. The man he knew as Mr. Farouk answered instantly.
    “Yes?”
    “Deliver the Korans to the address I gave you.”
    “Allahu Akbar . ”
    Darwish replaced the receiver and headed across the esplanade to the Dome of the Rock—not to the main hall of the shrine, but to the cave just beneath the Foundation Stone known as the Well of Souls. There he knelt on a musty prayer rug, listening to the wailing of the dead. Soon they would be free, he thought, because soon there would be no Well of Souls. In fact, if Allah allowed everything to go according to plan, there would be nothing at all.

41
     
    THE OLD CITY, JERUSALEM
     
    I T WAS G OOD F RIDAY , which meant Jerusalem, God’s fractured citadel upon a hill, was in a state of near hysteria. In the predominantly Jewish districts of the New City, the morning proceeded with the usual last-minute preparations for the coming Shabbat. But in East Jerusalem, thousands of Muslims were making their way to the Haram al-Sharif for Friday prayers, while at the same time, a multitude of Catholics from around the world were preparing to commemorate the crucifixion of Christ with the man they believed to be his representative on earth. Not surprisingly, police and medical personnel reported an unusual surge in cases of Jerusalem Syndrome, the sudden religious psychosis brought on by exposure to the city’s countless sacred sites. In one incident, a guest of the King David Hotel appeared in the lobby wearing only a bedsheet, proclaiming the end of days was near.
    “Where is he now?” asked Donati.
    “Resting comfortably under heavy sedation,” replied Gabriel. “He’s expected to make a full recovery.”
    “Is he one of ours or one of yours?”
    “Yours, I’m afraid.”
    “Where’s he from?”
    “San Francisco.”
    “And he had to come all the way to Jerusalem to have a psychotic break?”
    Smiling, Donati lit a cigarette. They were seated in the formal parlor of the Latin Patriarch’s residence. On the table between them was a large-scale map of the Old City with the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Grief, marked in red. A narrow Roman road with steep, cobbled stairs in places, it ran two thousand feet across the Old City, from the former Antonia Fortress to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, regarded by Christians as the place of Christ’s crucifixion and burial. Like most Israelis, Gabriel avoided the street because of the aggressive Palestinian shopkeepers who tried to ensnare every passing soul, regardless of their faith. Usually, the shops remained open on Good Friday, but not today. Gabriel had ordered them all closed.
    “I have to admit that this is the day that worries me the most,” he said, staring at the map. “The pope has to walk along a very narrow street and stop at fourteen of the most famous places in religious history.”
    “I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do about the route—or the story, for that matter. His Holiness has to walk the same route that Christ walked on the way to his crucifixion. And he insists on doing it with as much dignity as possible.”
    “Will he at least reconsider the Kevlar vest?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because Our Lord did not wear a bulletproof vest on the way to his death. And neither will my master.”
    “It’s just a reenactment, Luigi.”
    “Not for him. When the Holy Father sets foot on the Via Dolorosa, he will be the embodiment of Jesus Christ in the eyes of his flock.”
    “With one important difference.”
    “What’s that?”
    “His Holiness is supposed to survive the day.”
     
     
    The pope came down from his rooms ten minutes later, his gleaming white soutane covered by a scarlet vestment, and climbed into the back of his limousine. It bore him around the northern edge of the Old City, past an endless throng of delirious Christian pilgrims, and eventually to the Lions’ Gate. The Vaticanisti waited there, along with a large delegation of clergy and Catholic dignitaries who would follow in the pope’s footsteps as he walked the stations of the cross. As Gabriel and Donati helped the Holy Father from the car, the crowd burst into