The Fallen Angel (24 page)

“He'll be gone before you know it.”

“Do you require anything from me?”

“Stay as far away as possible.”

A companionable silence settled between them. The pope examined Gabriel carefully, as Donati had before him.

“Have you given any thought to what you're going to do next?”

“I have a Caravaggio to finish.”

“And then?”

“I'm going to do my very best to make my wife happy.”

“And to think you would have let her slip through your fingers if it wasn't for me,” the pope said. “Perhaps you should devote some of your time to having a child.”

“It's complicated.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

It was Gabriel's turn to smile. “What do you have in mind?”

“As leader of the Roman Catholic Church, I'm afraid my options are limited to prayer.”

“Your prayers would be deeply appreciated.”

“And what about my advice?”

Gabriel was silent. The pope scrutinized him a moment before speaking.

“You've been wandering for many years, Gabriel. Perhaps the time has come for you to go home.”

“My work is here in Europe, Holiness.”

“Paintings?”

Gabriel nodded.

“There are some things in life more important than art,” the pope said. “I fear your country faces dark days ahead. My sleep has been troubled by dreams of late. I've been having . . . visions.”

“What kind of visions, Holiness?”

“It would probably be better if I didn't answer that question,” the pope replied, placing his hand on Gabriel's arm. “But listen carefully. Finish that Caravaggio, Gabriel. And then go home.”

37

EAST JERUSALEM

A
T THAT SAME MOMENT IN
East Jerusalem, Imam Hassan Darwish guided his dented station wagon up the steep ramp leading from the Jericho Road to the Lions' Gate. As usual, the Israeli policeman on duty gave the car only a cursory inspection before allowing the imam to enter the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. Imam Darwish was a descendant of a family of Palestinian notables from the West Bank town of Hebron. More important, he was a member of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Waqf, the official caretakers of the Temple Mount plateau since Saladin recaptured it from the Crusaders in 1187. The position meant that Darwish was as close to untouchable as an Arab could be in East Jerusalem, for with only a few words of incitement, he could turn the Holy Mountain into a seething cauldron. In fact, on numerous occasions, he had done just that.

He left the station wagon in the small Waqf car park off Lions' Gate Street and entered his office at the northern edge of the Temple Mount esplanade. A tower of phone messages beckoned from his old Ottoman desk. As the unofficial spokesman for the Waqf, he received dozens of calls each day for interviews on issues related to the Temple Mount and the other sacred sites in Jerusalem. Most he ignored, especially those from American and Israeli reporters—and not without good reason. Working first with Yasir Arafat, then with his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, Darwish had waged a relentless campaign to weaken the Jewish claim on Palestine by denying the existence of the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem. But Darwish's war on the truth had extended beyond mere words. Using the cover of construction projects, he had systematically stripped the Holy Mountain of all evidence of the ancient Temple. His unofficial adviser in the endeavor, an antiquities expert from Switzerland, had recently been martyred in an explosion at his gallery. Darwish hoped he would not meet the same fate. While he routinely spoke about the beauty of martyrdom, he much preferred to leave the dying to others.

As usual, Darwish quickly dispensed with the interview requests by dropping them unceremoniously into his rubbish bin. All that remained was a single mundane-looking message from a Mr. Farouk saying that an order of Korans had arrived from the printing presses of al-Azhar University in Cairo. Darwish stared at the message for several minutes, wondering whether he had the courage, or the faith, necessary to go through with it. Then he took a ring of keys from the top drawer of his desk and headed out onto the sacred mount.

 

The Darwish family had been linked to the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf for centuries, and as a child Hassan Darwish had passed his days memorizing the Koran in the shade trees at the northern edge of the Noble Sanctuary. But even now, in middle age, he could not walk past the Dome of the Rock without feeling as though Allah and the Prophet Muhammad were walking beside him. At the center of the colorful octagonal structure was the Foundation Stone, sacred to all three of the Abrahamic faiths. For Jews and Christians, it was the place where the Archangel Gabriel prevented Abraham from slaying his son Isaac; for Muslims, it marked the spot where Gabriel accompanied Muhammad on his Night Journey into heaven. Beneath the stone itself was a natural cave known as the Well of Souls, the place where Muslims believed the souls of the damned are temporarily held before being cast into hell. As a boy, Darwish used to sneak into the cave alone late at night. There he would sit for hours on the musty prayer rugs, pretending he could hear the souls wailing in anguish. In his imagination, they were never Muslims, only the Jews whom God had punished for stealing the land of Palestine.

For a time, Darwish believed it was possible for Jews and Muslims to divide the land and live side by side in peace. Now, after decades of crushing Israeli occupation and broken promises, he had come to the conclusion the Palestinians would never be free until the Zionist state was annihilated. The key to the liberation of Palestine, he believed, was the Temple Mount itself. The Israelis had foolishly allowed the Waqf to retain its authority over the Haram after the Six-Day War. In doing so, they had unwittingly sealed their own fate. A scholar of ancient Middle Eastern history, Darwish understood that conflict between Arabs and Jews was more than simply a struggle over land; it was a religious war, and the Haram was at the center of it. Arafat had used the Temple Mount to ignite the bloody Second Intifada in 2000. Now, Imam Hassan Darwish intended to use it to start another. But this intifada, the third, would dwarf the two that had come before. It would be cataclysmic, a final solution. And when it was over, there would not be a single Jew left in the land of Palestine.

With images of the coming apocalypse vivid in his thoughts, the imam passed beneath the freestanding archway of the Southwest Qanatir and set out across a broad courtyard toward the silver-domed al-Aqsa Mosque. On the eastern side of the massive structure was the newly built entrance to the underground Marwani Mosque. Darwish descended the terrace-like steps and, using one of his keys, unlocked the main door. As always, he felt slightly apprehensive about entering. As director of the construction project, Darwish knew how badly the removal of several tons of earth and debris had weakened the Haram. The entire southern half of the plateau was in danger of collapse. Indeed, on Ramadan and other important holy days, Darwish could almost hear the Holy Mountain groaning under the weight of the faithful. All it would take was one small shove, and a large portion of the most sacred place on earth would collapse into the Kidron Valley, taking the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest shrine in Islam, with it.
And what would happen then?
The armies of Islam would be on Israel's borders within hours, along with tens of millions of enraged Muslim faithful. It would be a jihad to end all jihads, an intifada with but one purpose—the complete annihilation of the State of Israel and its inhabitants.

For now, the enormous subterranean mosque, with its twelve avenues of Herodian pillars and arches, was deathly silent and aglow with a soft, divine light. Alone, Darwish padded quietly along a vaulted passage until he came to a heavy wooden door sealed fast with a thick padlock. The imam had the only key. He unlocked the door and heaved it open, revealing a flight of stone steps. At the bottom was yet another locked door. Darwish possessed the single key to this one as well, but when he opened it, the darkness beyond was absolute. He removed a small Maglite from the pocket of his
thobe
and, switching it on, illuminated the first fifty feet of an ancient tunnel no wider than the width of a man's shoulders. Dug during the time of the First Jewish Temple, it was but one of many ancient wonders unearthed by Palestinian workers during the construction of the mosque. Darwish had informed neither the Israel Antiquities Authority nor the United Nations of the tunnel's existence. No one knew about it—no one but Imam Hassan Darwish and a handful of laborers who had been sworn to secrecy.

Some men might be naturally apprehensive about entering an ancient tunnel at night, but not Darwish. As a child, he had spent countless hours happily exploring the Noble Sanctuary's hidden caves and passages. This one descended at a treacherously steep angle for several hundred feet before finally leveling off. After that it ran largely straight and flat for approximately a quarter-mile and then rose sharply once again. At the terminus was a newly installed steel ladder. Slightly winded from the arduous walk, Hassan Darwish took hold of the handrails and climbed slowly toward the wooden trapdoor at the top. Opening it, he found himself in the bedroom of an apartment in Silwan, the neighborhood of East Jerusalem adjacent to the City of David. On one wall was a poster of a French soccer star; on another, a photograph of Yahiya Ayyash, the master Hamas bomb maker known as the Engineer. Darwish opened the closet. Inside were the “Korans” that Mr. Farouk had mentioned in his message—several hundred pounds of high explosives and detonators that had been smuggled across the Egyptian border by Hezbollah and Hamas and carried into Israel by Bedouin tribesmen. There was more elsewhere in Silwan. Much more.

Darwish closed the closet door. Then he slipped out of the bedroom and made his way through the cramped rooms of the apartment to a tiny balcony overlooking the Kidron Valley. On the opposite side, floating above the soaring honey-colored walls of Herodian stone, were two enormous domes, one silver, the other gold.
“Allahu Akbar,”
the imam said softly. “And may he have mercy on my soul for what I am about to do in His name.”

38

VATICAN CITY

F
OR THE NEXT WEEK
, G
ABRIEL'S
turbulent life settled into a pleasant if cloistered routine. With the flat on the Via Gregoriana now off-limits, he took refuge in a small priestly apartment inside the Apostolic Palace, one floor below Donati and the pope. He rose early each morning, ate breakfast with the Holy Father's household nuns, and then headed over to the conservation lab to spend a few hours working on the Caravaggio. Antonio Calvesi, the chief restorer, rarely strayed from Gabriel's grottolike workspace. On the second day, he finally screwed up the nerve to ask about the reason for Gabriel's absence.

“I was visiting a sick aunt.”

“Where?”

“Palm Beach.”

Calvesi gave a skeptical frown. “Rumor has it you're going to accompany
il Papa
on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land.”

“Actually, we prefer to call it Israel,” said Gabriel, tapping his paintbrush gently against the flowing red mantle of John the Evangelist. “And, yes, Antonio, I'm going with him. But don't worry, I'll finish the Caravaggio when we get back.”

“How long?”

“Maybe a week, maybe a month.”

“Do you do that just to annoy me?”

“Yes.”

“Let us hope your
aunt
remains healthy.”

“Yes,” said Gabriel. “Let us hope.”

At ten o'clock sharp, Gabriel would depart the lab and walk over to the Swiss Guard barracks for a daily briefing on the security arrangements for the pope's trip. At first, Alois Metzler seemed annoyed by Gabriel's presence. But his misgivings quickly evaporated when Gabriel pointed out several glaring problems with the protection plan that no one else seemed to have noticed. At the conclusion of one particularly long meeting, he invited Gabriel into his office.

“If you're going to serve with us,” he said, glancing at Gabriel's blue jeans and leather jacket, “you're going to have to dress like us.”

“Pantaloons make me look fat,” said Gabriel. “And I've never been able to figure out how to get a halberd through an airport metal detector.”

Metzler pressed a button on his intercom. Ten seconds later, his adjutant entered carrying three dark suits, three white shirts, three ties, and a pair of lace-up dress shoes.

“Where did you get my measurements?” asked Gabriel.

“Your wife.” Metzler opened the top drawer of his desk and removed a 9mm pistol. “You're also going to need one of these.”

“I
have
one of those.”

“But if you're going to pass for Swiss Guard, you have to carry a standard-issue Swiss Guard sidearm.”

“A SIG Sauer P226.”

“Very impressive.”

“I've been around the block a time or two.”

“So I've heard.” Metzler smiled. “You'll just need to pass a range proficiency exam before I can issue the weapon.”

“You're joking.”

“I'm Swiss, which means I never joke.” Metzler rose. “I assume you remember the way.”

“Take a right at the suit of armor and follow the corridor to the courtyard. The door to the firing range is on the other side.”

“Let's go.”

The walk took less than two minutes. When they entered the range, four Swiss boys in their early twenties were blasting away, and the air was thick with smoke. Metzler ordered them to leave before giving Gabriel the SIG Sauer, an empty magazine, and a box of ammunition. Gabriel quickly inserted fifteen rounds into the magazine and rammed it into the butt of the gun. Metzler put on ear and eye protection.

“You?” he asked.

Gabriel shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Because if someone is trying to kill the Holy Father, I won't have time to protect my eyes and ears.”

Metzler hung a target on the line and ran it twenty yards down the range.

“Farther,” said Gabriel.

“How far?”

“All the way.”

Metzler did as he was told. Gabriel raised the gun in a classic triangular firing position and poured all fifteen rounds through the eyes, nose, and forehead of the target.

“Not bad,” said Metzler. “Let's see if you can do it again.”

Metzler ran another target to the end of the range while Gabriel quickly reloaded the weapon. He emptied it in a matter of seconds. This time, instead of fifteen holes grouped around the face, there was just a single large hole in the center of the forehead.

“Good Lord,” said Metzler.

“Good gun,” said Gabriel.

At midday, Gabriel would slip the bonds of the Vatican in the back of Donati's official sedan and make his way to the Israeli Embassy to review the daily intelligence from King Saul Boulevard. Time permitting, he would return to the conservation lab for a few more hours of work. Then, at seven, he would join Donati and the pope for supper in the private papal dining room. Gabriel knew better than to raise the issue of security again, so he used the extraordinary opportunity to help prepare the pope for what would be one of the most important foreign trips of his papacy. The Secretariat of State, the rough equivalent of the Vatican foreign ministry, had written a series of predictably safe statements for the pope to issue at the various stops he planned to make in both Israel and the territories under Palestinian authority. But with each passing day, it became apparent that the pope intended to radically reshape the historically tense relationship between the Holy See and the Jewish State. The trip would be more than just a pilgrimage; it would be the culmination of the process the pope had set in motion almost a decade earlier with his act of contrition at the Great Synagogue of Rome.

On the final night, Gabriel listened as the Holy Father wrestled with the remarks he intended to deliver at Yad Vashem, Israel's museum and memorial to the Holocaust. Afterward, a restless Donati insisted on walking Gabriel back to his apartment. A detour brought them to one of the doorways leading to the Sistine Chapel. Donati hesitated before turning the latch.

“It's probably better if you go in without me this time.”

“Who's in there, Luigi?”

“The one person in the world who can give Carlo the punishment he deserves.”

 

Veronica Marchese was standing behind the altar, her arms folded defensively, her eyes on
The Last Judgment
. They remained there as Gabriel went quietly to her side.

“Do you think it will look like this?” she asked.

“The end?”

She nodded.

“I hope not. Otherwise, I'm in serious trouble.”

She looked at him for the first time. He could see she had been crying. “How did it happen, Mr. Allon? How did a man like you become one of the world's finest restorers of Christian art?”

“It's a long story.”

“I think I need one,” she said.

“I was asked to do things for my country that left me incapable of painting. So I learned how to speak Italian and went to Venice under an assumed identity to study restoration.”

“With Umberto Conti?”

“Who else?”

“I miss Umberto.”

“So do I. He had a ring of keys that could open any door in Venice. He used to drag me out of my bed late at night to look at paintings. ‘A man who is pleased with himself can be an adequate restorer,' he used to say to me, ‘but only a man with a damaged canvas of his own can be a truly great restorer.' ”

“Have you managed to repair it?”

“Portions,” Gabriel answered after a reflective silence. “But I'm afraid parts are beyond repair.”

She said nothing.

“Where's Carlo?”

“Milan. At least, I think he's in Milan. Not long ago, I discovered that Carlo doesn't always tell me the truth about where he is or who he's meeting with. Now I understand why.”

“How much did Donati tell you?”

“Enough to know that my life as I knew it is now over.”

A leaden silence fell between them. Gabriel recalled how Veronica had appeared that afternoon at the Villa Giulia museum, how she could have passed for a much younger woman. Now, suddenly, she looked every one of her fifty years. Even so, she was remarkably beautiful.

“You must have realized your husband wasn't what he appeared to be,” he said at last.

“I knew Carlo made a great deal of money in ways I didn't always understand. But if you're asking whether I knew he was the head of an international criminal organization that controlled the trade in illicit antiquities . . .” Her voice trailed off. “No, Mr. Allon, I did not know that.”

“He used you, Veronica. You were his door into the Vatican Bank.”

“And my reputation in the antiquities world gave him a patina of respectability.” Her hair had fallen across her face. Deliberately, she moved it aside, as though she wanted Gabriel the restorer to assess the damage done by Carlo's treachery.

“Why did you marry him?” he asked.

“Are you judging me, Mr. Allon?”

“I wouldn't dream of it. I was just wondering how you could choose a man like him after being in love with Luigi.”

“You don't know much about women, do you?”

“So I've been told.”

Her smile was genuine. It faded quickly as she listed the reasons why she had married a man like Carlo Marchese. Carlo was handsome. Carlo was exciting. Carlo was rich.

“But Carlo wasn't Donati,” Gabriel said.

“No,” she replied, “there's only one Luigi. And I would have had him all to myself if it wasn't for Pietro Lucchesi.”

Her tone was suddenly bitter, resentful, as though His Holiness were somehow to blame for the fact she had married a murderer.

“It was probably for the better,” said Gabriel carefully.

“That Luigi returned to the priesthood instead of marrying me?”

He nodded.

“That's easy for you to say, Mr. Allon.” Then she added softly, “You weren't the one who was in love with him.”

“He's happy here, Veronica.”

“And what happens when they remove the Fisherman's Ring from Lucchesi's finger and place his body in the crypt beneath the Basilica? What will Luigi do then?” She quickly answered her own question. “I suppose he'll teach canon law for a few years at a pontifical university. And then he'll spend the last years of his life in a retirement home filled with aging priests. So lonely,” she added after a moment. “So terribly sad and lonely.”

“It's the life he chose.”

“It was chosen for him, just like yours. You two are quite alike, Mr. Allon. I suppose that's why you get along so well.”

Gabriel looked at her for a moment. “You're still in love with him, aren't you?”

“That's not a question I care to answer—at least not in here.” She tilted her face toward the ceiling. “Did you know that Claudia called my office at the Villa Giulia the night of her death?”

“At 8:47,” he said.

“Then I assume you also know she placed a call to a different number one minute before that.”

“I do know that. But we were never able to identify it.”

“I could have helped you.”

She handed him one of her business cards. The number Claudia had dialed was for Veronica's mobile.

“I'd left the office by the time she called me there, and I didn't realize until the next day that she'd called my BlackBerry.”

“Why not?”

“Because it was missing all day. I found it the next morning on the floor of my car. I didn't think anything of it until the day you came to see me at the museum. Then I realized how Carlo had done it. After I left you standing in that downpour, I drove into the Villa Borghese and cried for an hour before going home. Carlo could see something was wrong.”

“Why didn't you tell me the night of the dinner party?”

“I was afraid.”

“Of what?”

“That my husband would kill me, too.” She looked at Gabriel, then at
The Last Judgment
. “I hope it's as beautiful as this.”

“The end?”

“Yes.”

“Somehow,” said Gabriel, “I doubt we'll be so lucky.”

 

He told her as much as he could and then saw her to the Bronze Doors. As she melted into the colonnades, he imagined Donati walking beside her—not a Donati bound by vows of chastity, but Donati as he might have been had God not called him to become a priest. When she was gone, he started back toward his rooms, but something drew him back to the chapel. Alone, he stood motionless for several minutes, his eyes roaming over the frescoes, a single verse of scripture running through his thoughts.
“The House which King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high
. . .
”