The Confessor Page 7

  Gabriel climbed inside, rammed the keys into the ignition, and started the engine. He dropped the car into gear and pulled away from the curb, then turned hard to the right and vanished into the evening traffic.

  DETECTIVE AXEL Weiss had leapt out of his car so quickly that he had left his cellular phone behind. He ran all the way back, then paused to catch his breath before dialing the number. A moment later, he broke the news to the man in Rome that the Israeli called Landau was gone.

  “How?”

  Embarrassed, Weiss told him.

  “Did you get a photograph at least?”

  “Earlier today—at the Olympic Village.”

  “The village? What on earth was he doing there?”

  “Staring at the apartment house at Connollystrasse Thirty-one.”

  “Wasn’t that where it happened?”

  “Yes, that’s right. It’s not unusual for Jews to make a pilgrimage there.”

  “Is it usual for Jews to detect surveillance and execute a perfect escape?”

  “Point taken.”

  “Send me the photograph—tonight.”

  Then the man in Rome severed the connection.

  7

  NEAR RIETI, ITALY

  THERE IS AN UNSETTLING BEAUTY about the Villa Galatina. A former Benedictine abbey, it stands atop a column of granite in the hills of Lazio and stares disapprovingly down at the village on the floor of the wooded valley. In the seventeenth century an important cardinal purchased the abbey and converted it into a lavish summer residence, a place where His Eminence could escape the broiling heat of Rome in August. His architect had possessed the good sense to preserve the exterior, and its tawny-colored façade remains to this day, along with the teeth of the battlements. On a morning in early March, a man was visible high on the windswept parapet. It was not a bow over his shoulder but a high-powered Beretta sniper’s rifle. The current owner was a man who took his security seriously. His name was Roberto Pucci, a financier and industrialist whose power over modern Italy rivaled that of even a Renaissance prince of the Church.

  An armored Mercedes sedan stopped at the steel gate, where it was greeted by a pair of tan-suited security guards. The man seated in the back compartment lowered his window. One of the guards examined his face, then glanced at the distinctive SCV license plates on the Mercedes. Vatican plates. Roberto Pucci’s gate swung open and an asphalt drive lined with cypresses stretched before them. A quarter mile up the hillside was the villa itself.

  The Mercedes eased up the drive and pulled into a gravel forecourt shaded by umbrella pine and eucalyptus. Two dozen other cars were already there, surrounded by a small army of security men and chauffeurs. The man in the backseat climbed out, leaving his own bodyguard behind, and walked across the courtyard toward the bell tower of the chapel.

  His name was Carlo Casagrande. For a brief time in Italy, his name had been a household word, for it was General Carlo Casagrande, chief of the antiterrorist unit of L’arma dei Carabinieri, who had crushed the Communist Red Brigades. For reasons of personal security, he was notoriously camera shy, and few people outside the Rome intelligence community would have recognized his face.

  Casagrande no longer worked for the Carabinieri. In 1981, a week after the attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II, he resigned his commission and vanished behind the walls of the Vatican. In a way, Casagrande had been working for the men of the Holy See all along. He took control of the Security Office, vowing that no pope would ever again leave St. Peter’s Square in the back of an ambulance praying to the Virgin Mary for his life. One of his first acts was to launch a massive investigation into the shooting, so that the conspirators could be identified and neutralized before they were able to mount a second attempt on the Pope’s life. The findings of the inquiry were so sensitive that Casagrande shared them with no one but the Holy Father himself.

  Casagrande was no longer directly responsible for protecting the life of the pope. For the last three years, he had been engaged in another task for his beloved Church. He remained attached to the Vatican Security Office, but it was only a flag of convenience to give him standing in certain quarters. He was now the head of the vaguely named Special Investigations Division. So secret was Casagrande’s assignment, only a handful of men within the Vatican knew the true nature of his work.

  Casagrande entered the chapel. Cool air, scented with candle wax and incense, caressed his face. In the sanctuary he dipped his fingers in holy water and made the sign of the cross. Then he walked up the center aisle toward the altar. To call it a chapel was an understatement. It was in fact a rather large church, larger than the parish churches in most of the nearby towns.

  Casagrande took his place in the first pew. Roberto Pucci, dressed in a gray suit and an open-necked white shirt, nodded at him from across the aisle. Despite his seventy-five years, Pucci still radiated an aura of physical invincibility. His hair was white and his face the color of oiled saddle leather. He appraised Casagrande coldly with a pair of hooded black eyes. The Pucci stare. Whenever Pucci looked at you, it was as if he was deciding whether to stab you in the heart or slit your throat.

  Like Carlo Casagrande, Roberto Pucci was an uomo di fiducia, a man of trust. Only laymen with a unique skill valued by the men of the Vatican were allowed into its innermost chambers. Casagrande’s expertise was security and intelligence. Pucci’s was money and political power. He was the hidden hand in Italian politics, a man so influential that no government could form without first making a pilgrimage to the Villa Galatina to secure his blessing. But few people in the Italian political establishment knew that Pucci maintained a similar grip over another Roman institution: the Vatican. His power at the Holy See derived from his covert management of a substantial portion of the vast stock and real estate holdings of the Catholic Church. Under Pucci’s sure hand, the net worth of the Vatican’s portfolios had experienced explosive growth. Unlike his predecessors, he had achieved this feat without a whiff of scandal.

  Casagrande glanced over his shoulder. The others were scattered in the remaining pews: the Italian foreign minister; an important bishop from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; the chief of the Vatican Press Office; an influential conservative theologian from Cologne; an investment banker from Geneva; the leader of a far-right party in France; the owner of a Spanish media conglomerate; the chief of one of Europe’s largest automakers. A dozen more, very much in the same mold—all doctrinaire Catholics, all wielding enormous political or financial power, all dedicated to restoring the Church to the position of supremacy it had enjoyed before the calamity of the Reformation. Casagrande found it vaguely amusing when he overheard debates about where true power resided within the Roman Catholic Church. Did it rest with the Synod of Bishops? The College of Cardinals? Did it rest in the hands of the Supreme Pontiff himself? No, thought Casagrande. True power in the Catholic Church resided here, in this chapel on a mountainside outside Rome, in the hands of this secret brotherhood.

  A cleric strode onto the altar, a cardinal clad in the ordinary vestments of a parish priest. The members rose to their feet, and the Mass commenced.

  “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.”

  “Amen.”

  The cardinal led them briskly through the introductory rites, the penitential rite, the Kyrie and the Gloria. He celebrated the Tridentine Mass, for it was one of the goals of the brotherhood to restore what it deemed the unifying force of the Latin liturgy.

  The Homily was the typical fare of gatherings such as this: a call to arms, a warning to remain steadfast in the face of enemies, a plea to stamp out the corrosive forces of liberalism and modernism within society and the Church itself. The cardinal did not mention the name of the brotherhood. Unlike its close relatives, Opus Dei, the Legions of Christ, and the Society of St. Pius X, it did not officially exist, and its name was never spoken. Among themselves, the members referred to it only as “the Institute.”

  Casagrande had heard the sermon m
any times before, and he allowed his mind to drift. His thoughts turned to the situation in Munich and the report he had received from his operative about the Israeli called Landau. He sensed further trouble, an ominous threat to the Church and the brotherhood itself. He required the blessing of the cardinal, and the money of Roberto Pucci, to deal with it.

  “Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei,” the cardinal recited. “For this is the chalice of my blood, of the new and eternal testament, the mystery of faith, which shall be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins.”

  Casagrande’s attention returned to the Mass. Five minutes later, when the Liturgy of the Eucharist was complete, he rose to his feet and filed toward the altar behind Roberto Pucci. The financier received the sacrament of Communion, then Casagrande stepped forward.

  Cardinal Secretary of State Marco Brindisi held the host aloft, stared directly into Casagrande’s eyes, and said in Latin: “May the body of our Lord Jesus Christ keep your soul unto life everlasting.”

  Carlo Casagrande whispered, “Amen.”

  BUSINESS WAS never discussed in the chapel. That was reserved for a sumptuous buffet lunch, served in a large gallery hung with tapestries overlooking the terrace. Casagrande was distracted and had no appetite. During his long war against the Red Brigades, he had been forced to live in hiding in a series of underground bunkers and military barracks, surrounded by the rough company of his staff officers. He had never grown used to the luxurious privilege of life behind the Vatican walls. Nor did he share the enthusiasm of the other guests for Roberto Pucci’s food.

  He pushed a piece of smoked salmon around his plate while Cardinal Brindisi deftly conducted the meeting. Brindisi was a lifelong Vatican bureaucrat, but he loathed the circular logic and duplicity that characterized most discussions inside the Curia. The cardinal was a man of action, and there was a boardroom quality to the way he presided over the agenda. Had he not become a priest, thought Casagrande, he might very well have been Roberto Pucci’s fiercest competitor.

  The men seated around the room considered democracy a messy and inefficient means of governance, and the brotherhood, like the Roman Catholic Church itself, was no democracy. Brindisi had been entrusted with power and would wield it until his death. In the lexicon of the Institute, each man in the room was a Director. He would return home and hold a similar gathering with the men who reported to him. In that way, Brindisi’s orders would be dispersed throughout the vast organization. There was no tolerance for creativity or independent action among middle management. Members were sworn to absolute obedience.

  Casagrande’s work was never discussed among the Directorate. He spoke only in executive session, which in this case consisted of a stroll through the magnificent terraced gardens of the Villa Galatina with Brindisi and Pucci during a break in the proceedings. Brindisi walked with his chin up and his fingers interlaced across his abdomen, Casagrande on his left, Pucci on his right. The three most powerful men in the brotherhood: Brindisi, spiritual leader; Pucci, minister of finance; Casagrande, chief of security and operations. The members of the Institute privately referred to them as the Holy Trinity.

  The Institute did not have an intelligence section of its own. Casagrande was beholden to a small cadre of Vatican policemen and Swiss Guards loyal to him and the brotherhood. His legendary status among the Italian police and intelligence forces gave him access to their resources as well. In addition, he had built a worldwide network of intelligence and security officials, including a senior administrator of the American FBI, all willing to do his bidding. Axel Weiss, the Munich detective, was a member of Casagrande’s network. So was the minister of the interior in the heavily Catholic state of Bavaria. At the suggestion of the minister, Weiss had been assigned to the Stern case. He had removed sensitive material from the historian’s apartment and had controlled the direction of the investigation. Stern’s assassination had been linked to neo-Nazis, just as Casagrande had intended. Now, with the appearance of the Israeli called Landau, he feared the situation in Munich was beginning to unravel. He expressed his concerns to Cardinal Brindisi and Roberto Pucci in the garden of the Villa Galatina.

  “Why don’t you just kill him?” Pucci said in his gravelly voice.

  Yes, kill him, thought Casagrande. The Pucci solution. Casagrande had lost count of how many murders had been linked to the shadowy financier. He chose his words carefully, for he had no wish to openly cross swords with him. Pucci had once ordered a man killed for leering at Pucci’s daughter, and his assassins were far more skilled than the fanatical children of the Red Brigades.

  “We took a calculated risk by liquidating Benjamin Stern, but it was forced upon us by the material in his possession.” Casagrande spoke in a measured, deliberate manner. “Based upon the actions of this man Landau, it is now safe to conclude that the Israeli secret service does not believe the murder of their former operative was carried out by a neo-Nazi extremist.”

  “Which brings us back to my original suggestion,” Pucci interrupted. “Why don’t you just kill him?”

  “This is not the Italian service that I’m talking about, Don Pucci. This is the Israeli service. As director of security, it is my job to protect the Institute. In my opinion, it would be a grave mistake to involve us in a shooting war with the Israeli secret service. They have assassins of their own—assassins who have killed on the streets of Rome and slipped away without a trace.” Casagrande looked across the cardinal toward Pucci. “Assassins who could penetrate the walls of this old abbey, Don Pucci.”

  Cardinal Brindisi played the role of the mediator. “Then how do you suggest we proceed, Carlo?”

  “Carefully, Eminence. If he is truly an agent of Israeli intelligence, then we can use our friends in the European security services to make life very uncomfortable for him. In the meantime, we must make sure there’s nothing else for him to find.” Casagrande paused, then added: “I’m afraid we have one loose end remaining. After examining the material taken from Professor Stern’s apartment, I’ve come to the conclusion he was working with a collaborator—a man who’s given us problems in the past.”

  A look of annoyance rippled over the cardinal’s face—a stone cast into a calm pond at sunrise—then his features regained their composure. “And the other aspects of your inquiry, Carlo? Are you any closer to identifying the brethren who leaked these documents to Professor Stern in the first place?”

  Casagrande gave a frustrated shake of his head. How many hours had he spent sifting the material taken from the flat in Munich? Notebooks, computer files, address books—Casagrande had gone over everything, looking for clues to the identity of the individuals or group who’d given the information to the professor. Thus far he’d found nothing. The professor had covered his tracks well. It was as if the documents had been handed to him by a ghost.

  “I’m afraid that element of the case remains a mystery, Eminence. If this act of treachery was perpetrated by someone inside the Vatican, we may never know the truth. The Curia happens to be good training ground for intrigues of this sort.”

  This remark elicited a flicker of a smile from Brindisi. They walked in silence for a moment. The cardinal’s eyes were down.

  “Two days ago, I had lunch with the Holy Father,” he said finally. “As we suspected, His Holiness intends to go forward with his program of reconciliation with the Jews. I tried to dissuade him, but it was useless. He’s going to the Great Synagogue of Rome next week.”

  Roberto Pucci spat at the ground. Carlo Casagrande exhaled heavily. He was not surprised by the cardinal’s news. Casagrande and Brindisi had a source on the Holy Father’s staff, a secretary who was a member of the brotherhood and kept them apprised of developments inside the appartamento. He had been warning for weeks that something like this was coming.

  “He is a caretaker pope,” Pucci snapped. “He needs to learn his place.”

  Casagrande held his breath, waiting for Pucci to suggest his favorite solution to a problem, but not
even Pucci would consider such an option.

  “The Holy Father is not content simply to issue another statement of remorse over our past differences with the Jews. He intends to throw open the Secret Archives as well.”

  “He can’t be serious,” said Casagrande.

  “I’m afraid he’s very serious. The question is, if he throws open the archives, will the historians find anything?”

  “The Archives have been purged of all references to the meeting at the convent. As for the witnesses, they’ve been dealt with and their personnel files destroyed. If the Holy Father insists on commissioning a new study, the Archives will yield no new damaging information whatsoever. Unless, of course, the Israeli manages to reconstruct the work of Professor Stern. If that happens—”

  “—then the Church, and the Institute, will find itself in very difficult straits,” said the Cardinal, finishing Casagrande’s sentence for him. “For the greater good of the Church and all those who believe in her, the secret of the covenant must remain just that, a secret.”

  “Yes, Eminence.”

  Roberto Pucci lit a cigarette. “Perhaps our friend in the appartamento can advise the Holy Father to see the error of his ways, Eminence.”

  “I’ve tried that route already, Don Pucci. According to our friend, the Pope is determined to proceed, regardless of the advice of his secretaries or the Curia.”

  “From a financial point of view, the Holy Father’s initiative could be disastrous,” Pucci said, switching his focus from murder to money. “Many people wish to do business with the Vatican because of its good name. If the Holy Father drags that good name through the mud of history . . .”

  Brindisi nodded in agreement. “In private, the Holy Father often expresses a desire to return to the days of a poor church.”

  “If he’s not careful,” said Pucci, “he’ll get his wish.”

  Cardinal Brindisi looked at Casagrande. “This collaborator,” the cardinal said. “You believe he poses a threat to us?”