Daniel Silva - The Fallen Angel

FOR THE NEXT WEEK, GABRIEL’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.”