The Fallen Angel

with bombs, the Arab world declared those fraudulent, too. It saw the hidden hand of Israel in the killings, and for once it was absolutely and entirely correct.
    It was against this unsettled backdrop that Massoud Rahimi, Iran’s kidnapped diplomat, was found wandering handcuffed and blindfolded in a pasture in the far north of Germany. He told the German police that he had escaped from his captors, but in a statement, the Iranian Liberation Army said they had released Massoud for “humanitarian reasons.” The next morning, looking a few pounds thinner but otherwise in good health, Massoud appeared before the cameras in Tehran, flanked by the Iranian president and the chief of his service. Massoud offered few details about his time in captivity, except to say that, in general terms, he was well treated. His chief appeared somewhat skeptical, as did the Iranian president, who vowed that those behind the kidnapping would be severely punished.
    The threat of Iranian retaliation was not taken lightly, especially within the corridors of King Saul Boulevard. For the most part, though, the Office celebrated the success of the operation. Lives had been saved, an old adversary had been severely compromised, and a lucrative fund-raising network for Hezbollah lay in ruins. If there was one factor that diminished their mood, however, it was the fact that His Holiness Pope Paul VII was scheduled to land at Ben Gurion Airport in less than a week. Given the overall turbulence in the region, Uzi Navot thought it might be wise for the Vatican to consider postponing the trip, a sentiment shared by the prime minister and the rest of his fractious cabinet. But who was going to tell the pope not to come to the Holy Land? They had but one candidate. A fallen angel in black. A sinner in the city of saints.
     
     
    Father Mark was waiting for Gabriel just inside the Bronze Doors. He escorted him up the steps of the Scala Regia, across the cobblestones of the Cortile di San Damaso, and, eventually, upstairs to the private apartments of the pope. Donati was seated behind the desk in his office. It was a simple, high-ceilinged room with whitewashed walls and shelves lined with books on canon law. Framed photographs stood in neat rows atop the credenza. Most showed Donati standing discreetly at the side of his master at historic moments of the papacy. One photo, however, seemed curiously out of place—a younger version of Donati, soiled and smiling without reservation, his arm flung across the shoulder of a bookish young priest.
    “That’s Father José Martinez,” Donati explained. “We’d just finished building a schoolhouse in our village in El Salvador. It was taken a week before his murder.” He studied Gabriel’s face for a moment and then frowned. “You look the way I did when I came out of El Salvador one step ahead of the death squads.”
    “It’s been a busy few weeks since I left Rome.”
    “So I’ve been reading,” Donati said. “An art theft in France, an explosion at a gallery in St. Moritz, a kidnapped Iranian diplomat, and a dramatic counterterrorism operation in the heart of Vienna. To the uninitiated, these events might appear unrelated. But to someone like me, they appear to have one thing in common.”
    “Two things, actually,” said Gabriel. “One is the Office. And the other is Carlo Marchese.”
     
     
    It was approaching six o’clock, and the sun was dipping below the rooftops and domes of Rome’s historic center. As Gabriel spoke, the soft sienna light drained slowly from the office until it was cloaked in a confessional gloom. Dressed in his black cassock, Donati might have been invisible were it not for the ember of his cigarette. At the conclusion of Gabriel’s account, he sat for several minutes in a penitential silence before walking over to the window. Directly below was the Bastion of Nicholas V, the medieval tower that now served as headquarters of the Vatican Bank.
    “Can you prove any of it?”
    “There’s the kind of proof that will stand up in a court of law. And then there’s the kind of proof that’s good enough to make a problem go away.”
    “What are you suggesting?”
    “A conversation,” answered Gabriel. “I’ll tell Carlo everything I know. And then I’ll tell him that you and His Holiness would like him to resign his position on the supervisory council of the Vatican Bank effective immediately. I’ll also tell him that if he ever darkens the Bronze Doors again,