The Fallen Angel

should be going,” said Gabriel. “You’ll catch your death.”
    “No,” she said, “I love it, too.”
    “The cold at night?”
    “And the smell of the pine and eucalyptus,” she said. “It smells like . . .” Her voice trailed off.
    “Like what, Chiara?”
    “Like home,” she said. “It feels good to finally be home.”

49
     
    PIAZZA DI SANT’IGNAZIO, ROME
     
    W HEN G ABRIEL ENTERED THE P IAZZA DI Sant’Ignazio two days later, the sun shone brightly from a cloudless Roman sky, and the tables of Le Cave stood in neat rows across the paving stones. At one, shaded by a white umbrella, sat General Ferrari of the Art Squad. Near his elbow was a copy of that morning’s edition of Corriere della Sera , which he placed in front of Gabriel. It was open to a story from Paris about the unexpected recovery of two stolen works of art. The Cézanne was the main attraction; the Greek vase, a lovely hydria by the Amykos Painter, a mere afterthought.
    “I was right about one thing,” the general said. “You certainly do know how to think like a criminal.”
    “I had nothing to do with it.”
    “And I still have a perfectly good right hand.” The general appraised Gabriel for a moment with his one good eye before asking whether he had stolen the painting and the vase himself.
    “Operational verisimilitude required me to utilize the services of a professional.”
    “So it was a commissioned theft?”
    “You might say that.”
    “Does this thief ever practice his trade in Italy?”
    “Every chance he gets.”
    “How much would I have to pay for his name?”
    “I’m afraid it’s not for sale.”
    Gabriel returned the paper to the general, who used it to wave away an approaching waiter.
    “I’ve been reading the recent news from your country with great interest,” he said, as though Gabriel’s country was some place hard to find on a map. “Do you believe those pillars are truly from Solomon’s First Temple?”
    Gabriel nodded.
    “You’ve seen them?”
    “And the bomb they were going to use to blow them to pieces.”
    “Madness,” said the general, shaking his head slowly. “I suppose it puts my efforts to protect Italy’s cultural patrimony in a whole new light. I only have to contend with thieves and smugglers, not religious maniacs who are trying to plunge the Middle East into war.”
    “Sometimes the religious maniacs actually get help from the thieves and smugglers.” Gabriel paused, then added, “But then, you already knew that, didn’t you, General Ferrari?”
    Ferrari fixed Gabriel with a glassy stare from his prosthetic eye but said nothing.
    “That’s why you sent me to Veronica Marchese,” Gabriel continued. “Because you already knew that her husband controlled the global trade in looted antiquities. You also knew he was working with the criminal funding arm of Hezbollah. You knew all this,” Gabriel concluded, “because my service told you it was so.”
    “Actually,” the general responded, “I knew about Carlo long before your chief brought us his dossier.”
    “Why didn’t you do anything about it?”
    “Because it would have destroyed the career of a woman I admire greatly, not to mention a close friend of hers who lives next door to His Holiness on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace.”
    “You knew that Donati and Veronica were lovers once?”
    “And so does Carlo,” the general said, nodding. “He also knows that the monsignor left his order after a pair of killings in El Salvador. Which is why he wanted to be on the supervisory council of the Vatican Bank so badly.”
    “He knew it would be a perfect safe harbor to launder his money because Donati would never dare move against him.”
    The general nodded thoughtfully. “The monsignor’s past made him vulnerable,” he said after a moment. “That is the last thing one should be in a place like the Vatican.”
    “And when you heard that Claudia Andreatti had been found in the Basilica?”
    “I had no doubt as to who was behind her death.”
    “Because your informant Roberto Falcone told you that she’d been to Cerveteri to see him,” Gabriel said. “And when I found Falcone’s body in the acid bath, you realized that you had a perfect solution to your Carlo problem. An Italian solution.”
    “Not in the strictest sense of the term, but, yes, I suppose I did.” The unblinking eye scrutinized Gabriel for a moment. “And now it seems we have arrived at the place where we began. What