The Confessor ga-3 Page 9

  "The KGB? I don't think so, General, and neither do you. The K.GB wasn't fond of the Pole, but they weren't foolish enough to kill him, either. Even you don't believe it was the KGB. From what * hear, you believe the conspiracy to kill the Pope originated closer to home--within the Church itself. That's why the findings of your inquiry were kept secret. The prospect of revealing the true identity of the plotters was too embarrassing for all concerned. It was also convenient to keep the finger of unsubstantiated blame pointed eastward, toward Moscow, the true enemies of the Vatican."

  "The days when we settled our differences by murdering popes ended with the Middle Ages."

  "Please, General, such statements are beneath a man of your intelligence and experience." Lange dropped the dossier on the coffee table. "The links between this man and the Jew professor are too strong. I won't do it. Find someone else."

  "There is no one else like you. And I don't have time to find another suitable candidate."

  "Then it will cost you."

  "How much?"

  A pause, then: "Five hundred thousand, paid in advance."

  "That's a bit excessive, don't you think?"

  "No, I don't."

  Casagrande made a show of thought, then nodded. "After you kill him, I want you to search his office and remove any material linking him to the professor or the book. I also want you to bring me his computer. Carry the items back to Zurich and leave them in the same safe-deposit account where you left the material from Munich."

  "Transporting the computer of a man you've just killed is not the wisest thing for an assassin to do."

  Casagrande looked at the ceiling. "How much?"

  "An additional one hundred thousand."

  "Done."

  "When I see that the money has been deposited in my account, I'll move against the target. Is there a deadline?"

  "Yesterday."

  "Then you should have come to me two days ago."

  Casagrande turned and let himself out. Eric Lange switched off the light and sat there in the dark, finishing his wine.

  Casagrande walked down Bahnhofstrasse into a swirling wind blowing off the lake. He felt an appalling desire to fall on his knees in a confessional and unburden his sins to a priest. He could not. Under the rules of the Institute, he could confess only to a priest who was a member of the brotherhood. Because of the sensitive nature of Casagrande's work, his confessor was none other than Cardinal Marco Brindisi.

  He came to the Talstrasse, a quiet street lined with graystone buildings and modern office blocks. Casagrande walked a short distance, until he arrived at a plain doorway. On the wall next to the doorway was a brass plaque:

  Becker & Puhl

  Private Bankers

  Talstrasse 26

  Next to the plaque was a button, which Casagrande pressed with his thumb. He glanced up into the fisheye of the security camera over the door, then looked away. A moment later, the deadbolt tapped back and Casagrande stepped into a small antechamber. Herr Becker was waiting for him. Starched, fussy and very bald,

  Becker was known for absolute discretion, even in the highly secretive world of the Bahnhofstrasse. The exchange of information that took place next was brief and largely a needless formality. Casagrande and Becker were well acquainted and had done much business over the years, though Becker had no idea who Casagrande was or where his money came from. As usual, Casagrande had to struggle to hear Becker's voice, for it rose barely above a whisper even in normal conversation. As he followed him down the corridor to the strongbox room, the fall of Becker's Bally loafers on the polished marble floor made no sound.

  They entered a windowless chamber, empty of furniture except for a high viewing table. Herr Becker left Casagrande alone, then returned a moment later with a metal a safe-deposit box. "Leave it on the table when you're finished," the banker said. "I'll be just outside the door if there's anything else you require."

  The Swiss banker went out. Casagrande unbuttoned his overcoat and unzipped the false lining. Hidden inside were several bound stacks of currency, courtesy of Roberto Pucci. One by one, the Italian placed the bundles of cash into the box.

  When Casagrande was finished, he summoned Herr Becker. The little Swiss banker saw him out and bid him a pleasant evening. As Casagrande walked back up the Bahnhofstrasse, he found himself reciting the familiar and comforting words of the Act of Contrition.

  VENICE

  Gabriel returned to Venice early the following morning. He left the Opel in the carpark adjacent to the train station and took a water taxi to the Church of San Zaccaria. He entered without greeting the other members of the team, then climbed his scaffolding and concealed himself behind the shroud. After an absence of three days, they were strangers to each other, Gabriel and his virgin, but as the hours slowly passed they grew comfortable in each other's presence. As always, she blanketed him with a sense of peace, and the concentration required by his work pushed the investigation of Benjamin's death into a quiet corner of his mind.

  He took a break to replenish his palette. For a moment, his mind left the Bellini and returned to Brenzone. After taking breakfast that morning in his hotel, he had walked to the convent and rung the bell at the front gate to summon Mother Vincenza. When she

  appeared, Gabriel had asked if he could speak to a woman called Sister Regina. The nun's face reddened visibly, and she explained that there was no one at the convent by that name. When Gabriel asked whether there had ever been a Sister Regina at the convent, Mother Vincenza shook her head and suggested that Signor Landau respect the cloistered nature of the convent and never return. Without another word, she crossed the courtyard and disappeared inside. Gabriel then spotted Licio, the groundskeeper, trimming the vines on a trellis. When he tried to summon him, the old man glanced up, then hurried away through the shadowed garden. At that moment Gabriel concluded that it was Licio who had followed him through the streets of Brenzone the previous night and Licio who had placed the anonymous call to his hotel room. Clearly, the old man was frightened. Gabriel decided that, for now at least, he would do nothing to make Licio's situation worse. Instead, he would focus on the convent itself. If Mother Vincenza were telling him the truth--that Jews had been sheltered at the convent during the war--then somewhere there would be a record of it.

  Returning to Venice, he'd had a nagging impression that he was being followed by a gray Lancia. In Verona he left the autostrada and entered the ancient city center, where he performed a series of field-tested maneuvers designed to shake surveillance. In Padua he did the same thing. Half an hour later, racing across the causeway toward Venice, he was quite confident he was alone.

  He worked on the altarpiece all afternoon and into the evening. At seven o'clock, he left the church and wandered over to Francesco Tiepolo's office in San Marco and found him sitting alone at the broad oak table he used as a desk, working his way through a stack of papers. Tiepolo was a highly skilled restorer in his own right, but had long ago set aside his brushes and palette to focus his attention on running his thriving restoration business. As Gabriel entered the room, Tiepolo smiled at him through his tangled black beard. On the streets of Venice, he was often mistaken by tourists for Luciano Pavarotti.

  Over a glass of ripasso, Gabriel broke the news that he had to leave Venice again for a few days to take care of a personal matter. Tiepolo buried his big face in his hands and murmured a string of Italian curses before looking up in frustration.

  "Mario, in six weeks the venerable Church of the San Zaccaria is scheduled to reopen to the public. If it docs not reopen to the public in six weeks, restored to its original glory, the superintendents will take me down to the cellars of the Doge's Palace for a ritual dis-embowelment. Am I making myself clear to you, Mario? If you don't finish that Bellini, my reputation will be ruined."

  "I'm close, Francesco. I just need to sort out some personal affairs."

  "What sort of affairs?"

  "A death in the family."

  "Really
?"

  "Don't ask any more questions, Francesco."

  "You do whatever you need, Mario. But let me tell you this. If I think the Bellini is in danger of not being finished on schedule, I'll have no choice but to remove you from the project and give it to Antonio."

  "Antonio's not qualified to restore that altarpiece, and you know it."

  "What else can I do? Restore it myself? You leave me no choice."

  Tiepolo's anger quickly evaporated, as it usually did, and he poured more ripasso into his empty glass. Gabriel looked up at the behind Tiepolo's desk. Amid photos of churches and scuolas

  restored by Tiepolo's firm was a curious image: Tiepolo himself, strolling through the Vatican Gardens, with none other than Pope Paul VII at his side.

  "You had a private audience with the Pope?"

  "Not an audience really. It was more informal than that."

  "Would you care to explain?"

  Tiepolo looked down and shuffled his stack of paperwork. It did not take a trained interrogator to conclude that he was reluctant to answer Gabriel's question. Finally, he said, "It's not something I discuss frequently, but the Holy Father and I are rather good friends."

  "Really?"

  "The Holy Father and I worked very closely together here in Venice when he was the patriarch. He's actually something of an art historian. Oh, we used to have the most terrible battles. Now we get on famously. I go down to Rome to have supper with him at least once a month. He insists on doing the cooking himself. His specialty is tuna and spaghettini, but he puts so much red pepper in it that we spend the rest of the night sweating. He's a warrior, that man! A culinary sadist."

  Gabriel smiled and stood up. Tiepolo said, "You won't let me down, will you, Mario?"

  "A friend of Il papa} Of course not. Ciao, Francesco. See you in a couple days."

  AN AIR of desertion hung over the old ghetto--no children playing in the campo, no old men sitting in the cafe, and from the tall apartment houses came no sounds of life. In a few of the windows, Gabriel saw lights burning, and for a fleeting instant he smelled meat and onion frying in olive oil, but for the most part he imagined himself a man coming home to a ghost town, a place where homes and shops remained but the inhabitants had long ago vanished.

  The bakery where he had met with Shamron was closed. He walked a few paces to No. 2899. A small sign on the door read comunita ebraica di venezia. Gabriel rang the bell, and a moment later came the voice of a woman over an unseen intercom. "Yes, may I help you?"

  "My name is Mario Delvecchio. I have an appointment to see the rabbi."

  "Just a moment, please."

  Gabriel turned his back to the door and surveyed the square. A moment stretched to two, then three. It was the war in the territories. It had made everyone jittery. Security had been tightened at Jewish sites across Europe. So far, Venice had been spared, but in Rome and in cities across France and Austria, synagogues and cemeteries had been vandalized and Jews attacked on the streets. The newspapers were calling it the worst wave of public anti-Semitism to sweep the continent since the Second World War. At times like these, Gabriel despised the fact that he had to conceal his Jewishness.

  A buzzer finally sounded, followed by the click of an automatic lock giving way. He pushed back the door and found himself in a darkened passageway. At the end was another door. As Gabriel approached, it too was unlocked for him.

  He entered a small, cluttered office. Because of the air of decline hanging over the ghetto, he had prepared himself for an Italian version of Frau Ratzinger--a formidable old woman shrouded in the black cloak of widowhood. Instead, much to his surprise, he was greeted by a tall, striking woman about thirty years old. Her hair Was dark and curly and shimmering with highlights of auburn and chestnut. Barely constrained by a clasp at the nape of her neck, it spilled riotously about a pair of athletic shoulders. Her eyes were the color of caramel and flecked with gold. Her lips looked as though they were attempting to suppress a smile. She seemed supremely aware of the effect her appearance was having on him.

  "The rabbi is at the synagogue for Ma'ariv. He asked me to entertain you until he arrives. I'm Chiara. I just made coffee. Care for

  "Thank you."

  She poured from a stovetop espresso pot, added sugar without asking whether he wanted any, and handed the cup over to Gabriel. When he took it, she noticed the smudges of paint on his fingers. He had come to the ghetto straight from Tiepolo's office and hadn't had time to wash properly.

  "You're a painter?"

  "A restorer, actually."

  "How fascinating. Where are you working?"

  "The San Zaccaria project."

  She smiled. "Ah, one my favorite churches. Which painting? Not the Bellini?"

  Gabriel nodded.

  "You must be very good."

  "You might say that Bellini and I are old friends," Gabriel said modestly. "How many people show up for Ma'ariv}"

  "A few of the older men, usually. Sometimes more, sometimes fewer. Some nights, the rabbi is alone up there in the synagogue. He believes strongly that the day he stops saying evening prayers is the day this community vanishes."

  Just then the rabbi entered the room. Once again, Gabriel was surprised by his relative youth. He was just a few years older than Gabriel, fit and vibrant, with a mane of silver hair beneath his black fedora and a trimmed beard. He pumped Gabriel's hand and appraised him through a pair of steel-rimmed eyeglasses.

  "I'm Rabbi Zolli. I hope my daughter was a gracious host in my absence. I'm afraid she's spent too much time in Israel the last few years and has lost all her manners as a result."

  "She was very kind, but she didn't say she was your daughter."

  "You see? Always up to mischief." The rabbi turned to the girl. "Go home now, Chiara. Sit with your mother. We won't be long. Come, Signor Delvecchio. I think you'll find my office more comfortable."

  The woman pulled on her coat and looked at Gabriel. "I'm very interested in art restoration. I'd love to see the Bellini. Would it be all right if I stopped by sometime to watch you work?"

  "There she goes again," the rabbi said. "So straightforward, so blunt. No manners anymore."

  "I'd be happy to show you the altarpiece. I'll call when it's convenient."

  "You can reach me here anytime. Ciao."

  Rabbi Zolli escorted Gabriel into an office lined with sagging bookshelves. His collection of Judaica was impressive, and the stunning array of languages represented in the titles suggested that, like Gabriel, he was a polyglot. They sat in a pair of mismatched armchairs and the rabbi resumed where they had left off.

  "Your message said you were interested in discussing the Jews who took shelter during the war at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Brenzone."

  "Yes, that's right."

  I find it interesting that you should phrase your question in that manner."

  "Why is that?"

  "Because I've devoted my life to studying and preserving the history of Jews in this part of Italy, and I've never seen any evidence to suggest that Jews were provided sanctuary at that particular convent. In fact, the evidence suggests quite the opposite occurred-- that Jews requested sanctuary and were turned away."

  "You're absolutely sure?"

  "As sure as one can be in a situation like this."

  "A nun at the convent told me that a dozen or so Jews were provided sanctuary there during the war. She even showed me the rooms in a cellar where they hid."

  "And what is this good woman's name?"

  "Mother Vincenza."

  "I'm afraid Mother Vincenza is sadly mistaken. Or, worse, she's deliberately trying to mislead you, though I would hesitate to level such an accusation against a woman of faith."

  Gabriel thought of the late-night call to his hotel room in Bren-zone: Mother Vincenza is lying to you, the same way she lied to your friend.

  The rabbi leaned forward and laid his hand on Gabriel's forearm. "Tell me, Signor Delvecchio. What is your interest in this matter? I
s it academic?"

  "No, it's personal."

  "Then do you mind if I ask you a personal question? Are you Jewish?"

  Gabriel hesitated, then answered the question truthfully.

  "How much do you know about what happened here during the war?" the rabbi asked.

  "I'm ashamed to say that my knowledge is not what it should be, Rabbi Zolli."

  "Believe me, I'm used to that." He smiled warmly. "Come with me. There's something you should see."

  THEY CROSSED the darkened square and stood before what appeared to be an ordinary apartment house. Through an open shade, Gabriel could see a woman preparing an evening meal in a small, institutional kitchen. In the next room, a trio of old women huddled round a flickering television. Then he noticed the sign over the door: casa israelitica di riposo. The building was a nursing home for Jews.

  "Read the plaque," the rabbi said, lighting a match. It was a memorial to Venetian Jews arrested by the Germans and deported during the war. The rabbi extinguished the match with a flick of his wrist and gazed through the window at the elderly Jews.

  "In September of 1943, not long after the collapse of the Mussolini regime, the German Army occupied all but the southernmost tip of the Italian Peninsula. Within days, the president of the Jewish community here in Venice received a demand from the SS: hand over a list of all Jews still living in Venice, or face the consequences."

  "What did he do?"

  "He committed suicide rather than comply. In doing so, he alerted the community that time was running out. Hundreds fled the city. Many took refuge in convents and monasteries throughout the north, or in the homes of ordinary Italians. A few tried to cross the border into Switzerland but were turned away."

  "But none at Brenzone?"

  "I have no evidence to suggest that any Jews from Venice--or anywhere else, for that matter--were given sanctuary at the Con-Vent of the Sacred Heart. In fact, our archives contain written testimony

  about a family from this community who requested sanctuary in Brenzone and were turned away."

  "Who stayed behind in Venice?"