The Order Read online

  “What?”

  “Tiepolo Restoration will be mine.”

  Gabriel recalled the words Tiepolo had spoken while standing over the tomb of Tintoretto. Today you’re on holiday, but one day you’ll die in Venice … He doubted this scheme had been hatched over coffee yesterday.

  “A nice Jewish girl from the ghetto will be caring for the churches and scuole of Venice? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Rather remarkable, isn’t it?”

  “And what will I do?”

  “I suppose you can spend your days wandering the streets of Venice.”

  “Or?”

  She smiled beautifully. “You can work for me.”

  This time it was Gabriel who looked down. His phone was aglow with an incoming message from King Saul Boulevard. He turned the device over. “It might be controversial, Chiara.”

  “Working for me?”

  “Leaving Israel the minute my term is over.”

  “Do you intend to run for a seat in the Knesset?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Write a book about your exploits?”

  “I’ll leave that chore to someone else.”

  “So?”

  He made no reply.

  “If you stay in Israel, you’ll be within easy reach of the Office. And if there’s a crisis, they’ll drag you back in to right the ship, just like they did to Ari.”

  “Ari wanted back in. I’m different.”

  “Are you really? Sometimes I’m not so sure about that. In fact, you’re getting more like him every day.”

  “What about the children?” he asked.

  “They adore Venice.”

  “School?”

  “Believe it or not, we have several very fine ones.”

  “They’ll turn into Italians.”

  She frowned. “A pity, that.”

  Gabriel exhaled slowly. “Have you seen Francesco’s books?”

  “I’ll knock them into shape.”

  “The summers here are dreadful.”

  “We’ll go to the mountains or sail the Adriatic. It’s been years since you’ve sailed, darling.”

  Gabriel had run out of objections. In truth, he thought it was a marvelous idea. If nothing else, it would keep Chiara occupied during the final two years of his term.

  “Do we have a deal?” she asked.

  “I believe we do, provided we come to terms on my compensation package, which will be exorbitant.”

  He signaled the waiter for the check. Chiara was pulling at the loose thread in the tablecloth again.

  “There’s one thing that’s bothering me,” she said.

  “About uprooting the children and moving to Venice?”

  “The Vatican bollettino. Luigi always remained by Lucchesi’s side late into the evening. And when Lucchesi went to the chapel to pray and meditate before bed, Luigi always went with him.”

  “True.”

  “So why was Cardinal Albanese the one who found the body?”

  “I suppose we’ll never know.” Gabriel paused. “Unless I have lunch with Luigi in Rome tomorrow.”

  “You can go on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Take me with you.”

  “What about the children?”

  “My parents can look after them.”

  “And who’s going to look after your parents?”

  “The carabinieri, of course.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t make me ask twice, Gabriel. I really hate playing the role of the complaining wife. They’re so annoying, those women.”

  5

  VENICE—ROME

  NEXT MORNING THEY DROPPED THE children at the Zolli house after breakfast and hurried over to Santa Lucia in time to make the eight o’clock train to Rome. As the rolling plains of central Italy slid past their window, Gabriel read the newspapers and exchanged a few routine e-mails and texts with King Saul Boulevard. Chiara leafed through a thick stack of home design magazines and catalogs, licking the tip of her index finger with each turn of the page.

  Occasionally, when the combination of shadows and light was favorable, Gabriel caught sight of their reflection in the glass. He had to admit, they were an attractive couple, he in his fashionable dark suit and white dress shirt, Chiara in her black leggings and leather jacket. Despite the pressure and long hours of his job—and his many injuries and brushes with death—Gabriel judged he had held up rather well. Yes, the lines around his jade-colored eyes were a bit deeper, but he was still trim as a cyclist, and he had retained all his hair. It was short and dark but very gray at the temples. It had changed color almost overnight, not long after the first assassination he carried out at the behest of the Office. The operation had taken place in the autumn of 1972, in the city where they would soon be arriving.

  As they were approaching Florence, Chiara thrust a catalog beneath his nose and asked his opinion of the couch and coffee table displayed on the open page. His indifferent response earned him a glance of mild rebuke. It seemed Chiara had already begun scouring the real estate listings for their new home, adding still more evidence to support his theory that a return to Venice had been in the works for some time. For now, she had narrowed her search to two properties, one in Cannaregio and a second in San Polo, overlooking the Grand Canal. Both would substantially diminish the small fortune Gabriel had accumulated through his labors as a restorer, and both would require Chiara to commute to Tiepolo’s offices in San Marco. The San Polo apartment was much closer, a few stops by vaporetto. It was also twice the price.

  “If we sell Narkiss Street …”

  “We’re not selling it,” said Gabriel.

  “The San Polo apartment has an incredible room with high ceilings where you can build a proper studio.”

  “Which means I can supplement the starvation wages I’ll make working for you by taking private commissions.”

  “Exactly.”

  Gabriel’s phone pinged with the tone reserved for urgent messages from King Saul Boulevard.

  Chiara watched uneasily as he read it. “Are we going home?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What is it?”

  “A car bombing in the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.”

  “Casualties?”

  “Probably. But there’s no confirmation yet.”

  “Who did it?”

  “The Islamic State is claiming responsibility.”

  “Do they have the capability to carry out a bombing in Western Europe?”

  “If you’d asked me that question yesterday, I would have told you no.”

  Gabriel followed the updates from Berlin until the train pulled into Roma Termini. Outside, the sky was cerulean blue and cloudless. They walked through canyons of terra-cotta and sienna, keeping to the side streets and alleyways where watchers were easier to spot. While dawdling in the Piazza Navona, they agreed they were not being followed.

  Ristorante Piperno was a short distance to the south, in a quiet campo near the Tiber. Chiara entered first and was shown by a dazzled white-jacketed waiter to a prized table near the window. Gabriel, who arrived three minutes later, sat outside in the warm autumnal sunlight. He could see Chiara’s thumbs working furiously over the keypad of her phone. He drew his own device from the breast pocket of his suit jacket and typed, Something wrong?

  Chiara’s reply arrived a few seconds later. Your son just broke my mother’s favorite vase.

  I’m sure it was the vase’s fault, not his.

  Your lunch date is here.

  Gabriel watched a worn-out Fiat sedan creeping hesitatingly over the cobbles of the tiny campo. It had ordinary Roman registration, not the special SCV plates reserved for cars from the Vatican. A tall, handsome cleric emerged from the backseat. His black cassock and simar were trimmed in amaranth red, the plumage of an archbishop. His arrival at Ristorante Piperno provoked only slightly less tumult than Chiara’s.

  “Forgive me,” said Luigi Donati as he sat down oppos
ite Gabriel. “I never should have agreed to speak to that reporter from Vanity Fair. I can’t go anywhere in Rome these days without being recognized.”

  “Why did you do the interview?”

  “She made it clear she was going to write the article with or without my cooperation.”

  “And you fell for it?”

  “She promised it would be a serious profile of the man who helped to guide the Church through troubled waters. It didn’t turn out as promised.”

  “I assume you’re referring to the part about your physical appearance.”

  “Don’t tell me you actually read it.”

  “Every word.”

  Donati frowned. “I must say, the Holy Father rather liked it. He thought it made the Church seem cool. His exact word, by the way. My rivals in the Curia didn’t agree.” He abruptly changed the subject. “I’m sorry about interrupting your holiday. I hope Chiara wasn’t angry.”

  “Quite the opposite.”

  “Are you telling me the truth?”

  “Have I ever misled you?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that?” Donati smiled. It was an effort.

  “How are you holding up?” asked Gabriel.

  “I’m mourning the loss of my master and adjusting to my reduced circumstances and status loss.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Jesuit Curia. It’s just down the street from the Vatican on the Borgo Santo Spirito. My rooms aren’t as nice as my apartment in the Apostolic Palace, but they’re quite comfortable.”

  “Have they found something for you to do?”

  “I’m going to be teaching canon law at the Gregoriana. I’m also designing a course on the Church’s troubled history with the Jews.” He paused. “Perhaps someday I can convince you to deliver a guest lecture.”

  “Can you imagine?”

  “I can, actually. The relationship between our two faiths has never been better, and it is because of your personal friendship with Pietro Lucchesi.”

  “I sent you a text the night he died,” said Gabriel.

  “It meant the world to me.”

  “Why didn’t you respond?”

  “For the same reason I didn’t challenge Cardinal Albanese when he refused to allow you to attend the funeral. I needed your help on a sensitive matter, and I didn’t want to cast any unnecessary light on the closeness of our relationship.”

  “And the sensitive matter?”

  “It concerns the death of the Holy Father. There were certain … irregularities.”

  “Beginning with the identity of the person who discovered the body.”

  “You noticed that?”

  “Actually, it was Chiara.”

  “She’s a smart woman.”

  “Why did Cardinal Albanese find the body? Why wasn’t it you, Luigi?”

  Donati looked down at his menu. “Perhaps we should order something to start. How about the fried artichoke leaves and zucchini flowers? And the filetti di baccalà. The Holy Father always swore they were the best in Rome.”

  6

  RISTORANTE PIPERNO, ROME

  THE MAîTRE D’ INSISTED ON sending over a bottle of complimentary wine. It was something special, he promised, a fine white from a small producer in Abruzzo. He was certain His Excellency would find it more than satisfactory. Donati, with considerable ceremony, declared it divine. Then, when they were alone again, he described for Gabriel the final hours of the papacy of Pope Paul VII. The Holy Father and his private secretary had shared a meal—a last supper, said Donati gravely—in the dining room of the papal apartments. Donati had taken only a bit of consommé. Afterward, the two men had adjourned to the study, where Donati, at the Holy Father’s request, had opened the curtains and the shutters of the window overlooking St. Peter’s Square. It was the penultimate act of service he would perform for his master, at least while His Holiness was still alive.

  “And the final act?” asked Gabriel.

  “I laid out the Holy Father’s nightly dose of medication.”

  “What was he taking?”

  Donati recited the names of three prescription drugs, all for the treatment of a failing heart.

  “You managed to conceal it quite well,” said Gabriel.

  “We’re rather good at that around here.”

  “I seem to recall a brief stay in the Gemelli Clinic a few months ago for a severe chest cold.”

  “It was a heart attack. His second.”

  “Who knew?”

  “Dottore Gallo, of course. And Cardinal Gaubert, the secretary of state.”

  “Why so much secrecy?”

  “Because if the rest of the Curia had known about Lucchesi’s physical decline, his papacy would have been effectively over. He had much work to do in the time he had left.”

  “What sort of work?”

  “He was considering calling a third Vatican council to address the many profound issues facing the Church. The conservative wing is still coming to terms with Vatican II, which was completed more than a half century ago. A third council would have been divisive, to put it mildly.”

  “What happened after you gave Lucchesi his medicine?”

  “I went downstairs, where my car and driver were waiting. It was nine o’clock, give or take a few minutes.”

  “Where did you go?”

  Donati reached for his wineglass. “You know, you really should try some of this. It’s quite good.”

  THE ARRIVAL OF THE ANTIPASTI granted Donati a second reprieve. While plucking the first leaf from the fried Roman artichoke, he asked with contrived carelessness, “You remember Veronica Marchese, don’t you?”

  “Luigi …”

  “What?”

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  Dr. Veronica Marchese was the director of the Museo Nazionale Etrusco and Italy’s foremost authority on Etruscan civilization and antiquities. During the 1980s, while working on an archaeological dig near the Umbrian village of Monte Cucco, she fell in love with a fallen priest, a Jesuit, a fervent advocate of liberation theology, who had lost his faith while serving as a missionary in the Morazán Province of El Salvador. The affair ended abruptly when the fallen priest returned to the Church to serve as the private secretary to the Patriarch of Venice. Heartbroken, Veronica married Carlo Marchese, a wealthy Roman businessman from a noble family with close ties to the Vatican. Marchese had died after falling from the viewing gallery atop the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. Gabriel had been standing next to Carlo when he toppled over the protective barrier. Two hundred feet below, Donati had prayed over his broken body.

  “How long has this been going on?” asked Gabriel.

  “I’ve always loved that song,” replied Donati archly.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Nothing is going on. But I’ve been having dinner with her on a regular basis for a year or so.”

  “Or so?”

  “Maybe it’s more like two years.”

  “I assume you two don’t dine in public.”

  “No,” answered Donati. “Only in Veronica’s home.”

  Gabriel and Chiara had attended a party there once. It was an art-and-antiquity-filled palazzo near the Villa Borghese. “How often?” he asked.

  “Barring a work emergency, every Thursday evening.”

  “The first rule of illicit behavior is to avoid a pattern.”

  “There is nothing illicit about Veronica and me having dinner together. The discipline of celibacy does not forbid all contact with women. I simply can’t marry her or—”

  “Are you allowed to be in love with her?”

  “Strictly speaking, yes.”

  Gabriel stared at Donati with reproach. “Why willingly place yourself in such close proximity to temptation?”

  “Veronica says I do it for the same reason I used to climb mountains, to see whether I can maintain my footing. To see whether God will
reach down and catch me if I fall.”

  “I assume she’s discreet.”

  “Have you ever met anyone more discreet than Veronica Marchese?”

  “And what about your colleagues at the Vatican?” asked Gabriel. “Did anyone know?”

  “It is a small place filled with sexually repressed men who love nothing more than to exchange a good piece of gossip.”

  “Which is why you find it suspicious that a man with a failing heart died on the one night of the week you weren’t in the Apostolic Palace.”

  Donati said nothing.

  “Surely there’s more than that.”

  “Yes,” said Donati as he plucked another leaf from the artichoke. “Much more.”

  7

  RISTORANTE PIPERNO, ROME

  THERE WAS, FOR A START, the phone call from Cardinal Albanese. It arrived nearly two hours after the camerlengo said he had found the Holy Father dead in the private chapel. Albanese claimed to have called Donati several times without receiving an answer. Donati had checked his phone. There were no missed calls.

  “Sounds like an open-and-shut case. Next?”

  The condition of the papal study, answered Donati. Shutters and curtains closed. A half-drunk cup of tea on the desk. One item missing.

  “What was it?”

  “A letter. A personal letter. Not official.”

  “Lucchesi was the recipient?”

  “The author.”

  “And the contents of the letter?”

  “His Holiness refused to tell me.”

  Gabriel was not sure the archbishop was being entirely truthful. “I assume the letter was written in longhand?”

  “The Vicar of Christ doesn’t use a word processor.”

  “To whom was it addressed?”

  “An old friend.”

  Donati then described the scene he encountered when Cardinal Albanese led him into the papal bedroom. Gabriel pictured the tableau as though it were rendered in oil on canvas by the hand of Caravaggio. The body of a dead pontiff stretched upon the bed, watched over by a trio of senior prelates. At the right side of the canvas, scarcely visible in the shadows, were three trusted laymen: the pope’s personal physician, the chief of the Vatican’s small police force, and the commandant of the Pontifical Swiss Guard. Gabriel had never met Dr. Gallo, but he knew Lorenzo Vitale, and liked him. Alois Metzler was another story.