The Messenger

deafening thunderclap made more intense by the vast echo chamber of St. Peter’s Square. Gabriel was blown from the dais—a scrap of paper on a gale-force wind. His body took flight and turned over at least once. Then he landed hard on the steps of the Basilica and blacked out.

    W HEN HE opened his eyes he saw Christ’s Apostles peering down at him from their perch atop the façade. He did not know how long he had been unconscious. A few seconds, perhaps, but not longer. He sat up, ears ringing, and looked around. To his right were the Curial prelates who had been on the dais with the Pope. They appeared shocked and tousled but largely unhurt. To his left lay Donati and next to Donati was Karl Brunner. The commandant’s eyes were closed, and he was bleeding heavily from a wound at the back of his head.
    Gabriel got to his feet and looked around.
    Where was the Pope?
    Ibrahim el-Banna had cleared three priests into the Vatican.
    Gabriel suspected there were two more blasts to come.
    He found the SIG-Sauer he’d taken from the Swiss Guard and shouted at the prelates to stay down. Then, as he climbed back onto the dais to look for Lucchesi, the second bomb exploded.
    Another wave of searing heat and wind.
    Another thunderclap.
    Gabriel was hurled backward. This time he came to rest atop Donati.
    He got to his feet again. He wasn’t able to reach the dais before the third bomb detonated.
    When the thunderclap finally died out, he mounted the platform and looked out at the devastation. The shaheed s had distributed themselves evenly throughout the crowd near the front of the dais: one near the Bronze Doors, the second in the center of the square, and the third close to the Arch of Bells. All that remained of them were three plumes of black smoke rising toward the cloudless pale-blue sky. On the spots where the bombers had been standing, the paving stones were blackened by fire, drenched in blood, and littered with human limbs and tissue. Farther away from the blast points, it was possible to imagine that the tattered corpses had moments before been human beings. The folding chairs that Gabriel had watched being put into place earlier that morning had been tossed about like playing cards, and everywhere there were shoes. How many dead? Hundreds, he thought. But his concern at that moment was not with the dead but with the Holy Father.
    We declare war on you, the Crusaders, with the destruction of your infidel temple to polytheism…
    The attack, Gabriel knew, was not yet finished.
    And then, through the screen of black smoke, he saw the next phase unfolding. A delivery van had stopped just beyond the barricade at the far end of the square. The rear cargo doors were open and three men were scrambling out. Each one had a shoulder-launched missile.

    I T WAS THEN that Gabriel saw the throne on which the Pope had been seated. It had been blown sideways by the force of the first blast and had come to rest upside down on the steps of the Basilica. Poking from beneath it was a small hand with a gold ring…and the skirt of a white cassock stained in blood.
    Gabriel looked at Donati. “They’ve got missiles, Luigi! Get everyone away from the Basilica!”
    Gabriel leaped from the dais and lifted the throne. The Pope’s eyes were closed, and he was bleeding from several small cuts. As Gabriel reached down and cradled the Pope in his arms, he heard the distinctive whoosh of an approaching RPG-7. He turned his head, long enough to glimpse the missile streaking over the square toward the Basilica. An instant later the warhead struck Michelangelo’s dome and exploded in a shower of fire, glass, and stone.
    Gabriel sheltered the Pope from the falling debris, then lifted him and started running toward the Bronze Doors. Before they could reach the shelter of the Colonnade, the second missile came streaking across the square. It struck the façade of the Basilica, just beneath the balustrade on the Loggia of the Blessings.
    Gabriel lost his balance and fell to the paving stones. He lifted his head and saw the third missile on its way. It was coming in lower than the others and heading directly toward the dais. In the instant before it struck, Gabriel glimpsed a nightmarish image: Luigi Donati trying desperately to move the Curial cardinals and prelates to safety. Gabriel stayed on the ground and covered the Pope’s body with his own as another shower of wreckage rained down upon them.
    “Is it you, Gabriel?” the Pope asked,