Authors: Daniel Silva
I
T WOULD BE ANOTHER SEVENTY-TWO
hours before sufficient order had been restored to allow the government of Israel to fully explain to the world why it had entered the Temple Mount and what it had discovered there. To do so, it assembled a pool of journalists and camera crews from the world's most authoritative news organizations and took them down through the network of aqueducts and cisterns, to the newly dug chamber 167 feet beneath the surface. There the chief of staff of the IDF showed them the massive bomb, while the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority walked them through the remarkable collection of artifacts that had been unearthed by the Waqf during years of reckless digging. The highlight of the tour were the two rows of limestone pillars, twenty-two in all, that had been part of the
heikhal
of King Solomon's First Temple of Jerusalem.
As expected, the reaction to the news was mixed at best. The video of the ancient pillars electrified the Israeli public and sent a tremor of anticipation through the global community of archaeologists and ancient historians. Most scholars immediately accepted the pillars as authentic, but in Germany the leader of a discipline of archaeology known as biblical minimalism dismissed them as “twenty-two hunks of wishful thinking.” Not surprisingly, the leadership of the Palestinian Authority seized on that statement when issuing its own response to the news. The pillars were an Israeli hoax, it said. And so was the “so-called bomb.”
But what had led the Israelis to enter the Temple Mount in the first place? And who had been the ultimate mastermind of the plot to bring it down? The Israeli government, citing its long-standing refusal to comment on matters related to intelligence gathering, declined to go into specifics. But as the pillars emerged slowly from the earth, a series of stories appeared in the press that began to shed a diffuse light on the mysterious chain of events that had led to their discovery.
There was the exposé in
Le Monde
about a Sorbonne graduate named David Girard, aka Daoud Ghandour, who had advised the Waqf on archaeological matters, and who, according to unnamed law enforcement officials, was a member of a criminal antiquities smuggling network with links to Hezbollah. And the story in the
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
about an Iranian connection to the bombing of Galleria Naxos in St. Moritz. And the investigative follow-up in
Der Spiegel
that linked David Girard to one Massoud Rahimi, the Iranian terrorist mastermind who had been briefly kidnapped in Germany. Which made it all the more interesting when, just twelve days later, that same Massoud Rahimi was killed in Tehran by a limpet-style bomb planted beneath his car. The television terrorism analysts had little doubt about who was behind the assassination or what it meant. Massoud had been the mastermind of the Temple Mount plot, they proclaimed, and the Israelis had just returned the favor.
But there were many aspects of the story the press would never learn, including the fact that the affair had begun when Gabriel Allon, the wayward son of Israeli intelligence, had been summoned to St. Peter's Basilica to view the corpse of a fallen angel. Or that Gabriel had spent the last two weeks sitting beside the hospital bed of the archaeologist whose blood stained the pillars of Solomon's Temple. As a result, he was present when the archaeologist finally opened his eyes. “Rivka,” Eli Lavon murmured. “Make sure someone looks after Rivka.”
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That same evening, a tense calm fell over Jerusalem for the first time since the beginning of the Temple Mount crisis. Gabriel went to the Mount Herzl Psychiatric Hospital to spend a few minutes with Leah before meeting Chiara for dinner at a restaurant located in the original campus of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Afterward, he took her for ice cream and a walk in Ben Yehuda Street.
“Donati called this afternoon,” she said suddenly, as though it had slipped her mind. “He was wondering when you were coming back to Rome to finish the Caravaggio and deal with Carlo.”
“I'd almost forgotten about them both.”
“That's understandable, darling. After all, you
did
save Israel and the world from Armageddon and find twenty-two pillars from the First Temple of Jerusalem.”
Gabriel smiled. “I'll leave the day after tomorrow.”
“I'm coming with you.”
“You can't. Besides,” he added quickly, “I have a job for you.
Two
jobs, actually.”
“What are they?”
“I need someone to look after Eli until I get back.”
“And the other?”
“The government has decided to put the pillars in a special wing at the Israel Museum. You're going to be part of the team that will design the interior of the building and the overall exhibit.”
“Gabriel!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. “How on earth did you manage that?”
“As one of the co-discoverers of the pillars, I have a certain amount of sway. In fact, they wanted to name the exhibit in my honor.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That it should be called the Eli Lavon Wing,” he said. “I'm just thankful it's not going to be the Eli Lavon
Memorial
Wing.”
“Will they change anything?”
“The pillars?”
Chiara nodded.
“Did you hear what the Palestinians said about them?”
“Zionist lies.”
“Temple Denial,” said Gabriel. “They can't admit that we were here before them because that would mean we have a right to be here now. In their eyes, we have to remain foreign invaders, something to be driven out, like the Crusaders.”
“Blood never sleeps,” Chiara said softly.
“Nor is it in short supply,” Gabriel added. “Our friends in the West like to think the Arab-Israeli conflict can be solved by drawing a line on a map. But they don't understand history. This city has existed in a state of almost perpetual warfare for three thousand years. And the Palestinians are going to keep fighting until we're gone.”
“So what do we do?”
“Hold fast,” said Gabriel. “Because the next time we lose Jerusalem, it will be for good. And then where will we go?”
“I've been asking myself the same question.”
The air had turned suddenly cooler. Chiara pulled her coat tightly around her and studied a group of Israeli teenagers laughing on the other side of the street. They were sixteen or seventeen. In a year or two, they would all be in the army, soldiers in the war without end.
“It's not so easy, is it, Gabriel?”
“What's that?”
“To think about leaving at a time like this.”
“It's the other form of Jerusalem Syndrome. The worse it gets, the more you love it.”
“You
do
love it, don't you?”
“I love it dearly,” he said. “I love the color of the limestone and the sky. I love the smell of the pine and the eucalyptus. I love it when the air turns cold at night. I even love the
haredim
who shout at me when I drive my car on Shabbat.”
“But do you love it enough to stay?”
“His Holiness thinks I have no choice.”
“What are you talking about?”
Gabriel told her about the conversation with the pope on the parapet of the Vatican walls, when the leader of a billion Catholics confessed he was having visions of the Apocalypse. “He thinks we've been wandering too long,” he said. “He thinks the country needs me.”
“The pope doesn't have to wait in hotel rooms wondering whether you're going to come back from an operation alive.”
“But he
is
infallible.”
“Not when it comes to matters of the heart.” Chiara looked at Gabriel for a moment. “Do you know what it's going to be like if we live here? Every time we come home, Ari is going to be sitting in our living room.”
“As long as he doesn't smoke, that's fine with me.”
“Do you mean that?”
“He's like a father to me, Chiara. I need to take care of him.”
“And when Uzi asks you to run an errand for the Office?”
“I suppose I'll just have to learn those three little words.”
“Which words?”
“Find someone else.”
“What will you do for work?”
“I'll find work.”
“It gets claustrophobic here.”
“Tell me about it.”
“We'll need to travel, Gabriel.”
“I'll take you wherever you want to go.”
“I've always wanted to spend an autumn in Provence.”
“I know just the village.”
“Have you ever been to Scotland?”
“Not that I can recall.”
“Will you take me skiing just once?”
“Anywhere but St. Moritz or Gstaad.”
“I miss Venice.”
“So do I.”
“Maybe Francesco Tiepolo can give you a bit of work.”
“He pays me peanuts.”
“I
adore
peanuts.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. Her hair smelled of vanilla. “Do you think it will hold?” she asked.
“The quiet?”
She nodded.
“For a little while,” said Gabriel, “if we're lucky.”
“How long will you be in Rome?”
“I suppose that depends entirely on Carlo.”
“Just don't go anywhere near him without a gun in your pocket.”
“Actually,” he said, “I was planning on having Carlo come to me.”
Chiara shivered.
“We 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.”
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 do we do about Carlo?”
“I know what I'd
like
to do.”
“How much hard evidence do you have?”
“Enough to tie a
cordata
around his scrawny neck.”
“How do you want to handle it?”
“I'm going to tell him to resign his post at the Vatican Bank immediately. But first, I'm going to offer him a chance to confess his sins.”
The general smiled. “I've always found that confession can be good for the soul.”
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After lunch, Gabriel hiked across the river, to the faded old palazzo in Trastevere that had been turned into a faded old apartment building. He still had the key. Entering the foyer, he once again checked the postbox. This time, it was empty.
He headed upstairs and let himself into the flat. It was exactly as he had left it nearly four months ago, with one exception: the electricity had been cut off. And so he sat alone at her desk, watching as the creeping afternoon shadows slowly reclaimed her possessions. Finally, a few minutes after six, he heard the scrape of a key entering the lock. Then the door swung open, and Dr. Claudia Andreatti came floating toward him through the darkness.
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Her sister's death had spared the world a cataclysm, which meant that Paola Andreatti deserved to know nothing less than the complete truth about what had happened. Not the Office's version of the truth, thought Gabriel, and surely not the Vatican's. It had to be truth without evasion and without regard to the sensitivities of powerful individuals or institutions. A truth she could take to the grave of her sister and, one day, to her own.
And so Gabriel told her the entire story of his remarkable journey from the dome of St. Peter's Basilica to the hole in the heart of the Holy Mountain, where he had found the twenty-two pillars of Solomon's First Temple and the bomb that could have caused a conflict of biblical proportions. She remained silent throughout, her hands folded neatly on her lap. The eyes that watched him from the evening shadows were identical to the ones that had gazed up at him from the floor of the Basilica. The voice, when finally she spoke, was the same voice that had spoken to him briefly in the stairwell of the Vatican Museum the night of her death.
“What are you going to do about Carlo?”
Gabriel's answer seemed to cause her physical pain.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“If the Italian prosecutors bring charges against himâ”
“I know how the justice system works in Italy, Mr. Allon,” she said, cutting him off. “The case will drag on for years, and the chances are good he'll never see the inside of a jail.”
“What do you want, Dr. Andreatti?”
“Justice for my sister.”
“It's not something I can give you.”
“Then why did you bring me to Rome?”
“For the truth,” he said. “I wanted you to hear the truth. And not just from me. From him as well.”
“When?” she asked.
“Tomorrow night.”
She was silent for a moment. “If there was a God,” she said finally, “he would die the same death as my sister.”
Yes, thought Gabriel. If there was a God.