The Assassini
Authors: Thomas Gifford
“Delivered with style, believability, and sharp characterizations. An extraordinary novel.”—Nelson DeMille, author of
The Gold Coast
“Packed with intrigue, action, fascinating history and equally fascinating characters.”—David Morrell, author of
The Brotherhood of the Rose
Ben Driskill:
The one-time Jesuit seminarian whose life and legal practice are still mired in Church affairs. Someone has killed eight people close to the Church—including one whose death Driskill cannot leave unsolved.…
Hugh Driskill:
Patriarch of a vastly influential Catholic family whose millions are always at the service of Rome. His faith never wavers—even when his only daughter dies for her sacred mission.…
Sister Valentine:
Passionate, outspoken, unwavering in her convictions. She listened to no one under the rank of God, and delved too deep into the secrets of the Church she loved.…
Sister Elizabeth:
Val Driskill’s closest friend, a rising power in the new Church, with special access to the murky vaults of the Vatican library. Working with Ben to unravel Val’s murder, she will have her own price to pay.…
“
The Assassini
is worth the 11 years Gifford spent on it.”—
The Kansas City Star
“Tough and gripping.”—
Donald
E. Westlake, author of the screenplay for
The Grifters
Drew Summerhays:
Rich and powerful enough to influence a papal election, this former intelligence agent is one of the few laymen ever to penetrate the Vatican’s innermost sanctum. He knows more than he will tell.…
Cardinal Giacomo D’Ambrizzi:
His ambition to occupy the most powerful post in Christendom may be foiled by the mystery and violence of his past service to his faith.…
Klaus Richter:
The former Nazi reborn in prosperity in Cairo after the war, he knew not only the dark secrets of the Church during the Second World War, but the crimes that continued in peacetime. His trail would lead to the godforsaken monastery in the desert, the place known as
L’inferno
.
Pope Callistus IV:
Ailing, near death, and frightened for the future of his Church, he is already bypassed by the loop of Vatican intrigue. But he has the strength for one last act, to influence the choice of his successor.…
“I raced through this story not really being able to stop … this narrator’s skill is rare in modern novelists.”—Malachi Martin, author of
Hostage to the Devil
and
The Final Conclave
“Gifford pulls off the feat of confirming some of the non-Catholic’s darkest suspicions about the Church while explaining why some of its most discerning members love it nonetheless.”—
USA Today
August Horstmann:
Loyal, solitary, versed in the unholy arts of war. His service to his church was vital long ago, during the threatened apocalypse of World War II. Now this faithful servant may unwittingly bring ruin to his friends.…
Brother Leo:
The archivist of the desolate Irish monastery of St. Sixtus, he knowingly holds the evidence linking the bloodstained legacy of the Church’s past to the shadowy intrigue of the present.…
Father Artie Dunn:
The popular novelist and worldly priest whose jovial manner conceals a keen mind. He seems to arrive at the scene of a crime half a step ahead of the police.…
THE ASSASSINI
A Bantam book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published September 1990
Bantam mass market edition / August 1991
Bantam mass market reissue / May 2004
Published by
Bantam Dell
A division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in
Collected Poems 1909-1962
by T. S. Eliot, copyright 1936 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., copyright © 1964, 1963 by T. S. Eliot, reprinted by permission of the publisher, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Hugh Martin & Ralph Blane, copyright 1943 (renewed 1971) by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., copyright 1944 (renewed 1972) by Leo Feist, Inc. All rights assigned to EMI Catalog Partnership. All rights controlled and administered by EMI Feist Catalog, Inc. International copyright secured. Made in U.S.A. All rights reserved. Used by permission
.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1990 by Thomas Gifford and Boston Books, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 90-30533
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publishers, except where permitted by law. For information address:
Bantam Books, New York, New York.
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-8041-4977-8
Published simultaneously in Canada
v3.1
S
pending nine years researching and writing a book is a remarkably daunting task. Countless people, both from within and from outside the Church, helped and hindered the work. Each doubtless had sufficient reasons for what he or she did, whether selfless or despicable. But for each one who tried to stop my completing this book there were many more who gave of their time and energy and insight to help me. They know who they are, heroes and villains alike. But three people were utterly indispensable.
Charles Hartman inspired every aspect of the undertaking. Without him there would have been no book. He was a source of constant encouragement; he was tireless when I was at the end of my tether; at the darkest times, when the obstacles seemed too great to overcome, he never failed me.
Kathy Robbins negotiated her way through the impossibly dense thicket of emotions, conflicting aims and egos, and the vast accumulation of legal documents with the skill and good humor and wit of a great diplomat. For nearly nine years she slew the dragons, even when the dragons seemed to be winning.
Beverly Lewis joined the effort when it had reached its greatest crisis and with the clear intelligence and the determination of a Jesuit made it all come right. Her skill as an editor is exceeded only by the one quality that sets the great editors apart from the rest—her utter respect for and understanding of the author’s intention.
Whatever may be wrong with the piece of work you are holding is my doing; whatever is right I gladly share with these three.
Thomas Gifford
London
November 1989
October 1982
New York City
H
e looked like a bird of prey, all black and swooping against the silver sheen of ice. He was an elderly gentleman. He was very good on the blades. He was enjoying himself, hearing the hiss of his skates carving neat, precise patterns in the ice, feeling the crisp autumn breeze on his face. His senses were unusually acute, as they always were on such important days. The task at hand brought him to life in a unique way: on such days he was one with his destiny, one with his God. The point of his existence was clear to him on such days.
The world was clearer, too. Everything around him lost its mystery. On such days he understood. The mist of the morning had blown away and sunshine was streaming past the high white clouds. The towers of Rockefeller Center rose above him and the music from the loudspeakers set his pace and he was able to lose himself in the grace and power of his skating, almost able to ride them back through time.
As a boy he had learned his skating on the frozen canals of The Hague. The somber houses, the snowy parks, the leaden sky with heavy clouds lowering over the ancient city and the dikes and the windmills: they all stuck in his mind with the peculiar tenacity of childhood impressions, things you never forget. It didn’t matter that there weren’t many windmills anymore. They were still there, slowly turning, forever in his mind. The thought of
the slow-moving arms of the windmills and the sibilant swishing of the blades on ice always worked to relax him. On such days as this, when he had work to do, he always prepared by relaxing. A younger generation might call it meditating, but it all came down to the same thing. You wanted to reach a level of pure, perfect concentration, so perfect that you no longer noticed that you were trying. He was almost there. The skating was taking him there. Soon time would cease to exist. He would become a single, all-seeing eye, aware of everything, missing nothing, capable of being one with his task, one with God’s purpose. Soon. Very soon.