Daniel Silva - The Confessor

"You do make quite an entrance, General."

"God knows what they were talking about before I arrived. But you can rest assured the conversation will be less stimulating now."

"There's a lot of red in the room tonight."

"They're the ones I worry about the most, the Curial prelates who spend their days surrounded by supplicant priests who say nothing but 'Yes, Excellency. Of course, Excellency. Whatever you say, Excellency. "

"Excellent, Excellency!" Bartoletti chimed in.

The security chief had taken the liberty of ordering the first bottle of wine. He poured Casagrande a glass. The food at L'Eau Vive was French, and so was the wine list. Bartoletti had selected an excellent Medoc.

"Is it my imagination, General, or do the natives seem more restless than usual?"

Casagrande thought: Is it that obvious? Obvious enough so that an outsider like Bartoletti could detect the electric crackle of instability in the air of L'Eau Vive? He decided any attempt to dismiss the question out of hand would be transparently deceptive and therefore a violation of the subtle rules of their relationship.

"It's that uncertain time of a new papacy," Casagrande said, with a note of judicial neutrality in his voice. "The fisherman's ring has been kissed and homage has been paid. By tradition, he's promised to carry on the mission of his predecessor, but memories of the Pole are fading very quickly. Lucchesi has redecorated the papal apartments on the terzopiano. The natives, as you call them, are wondering what's next."

"What is next?"

"The Holy Father has not divulged his plans for the Church to me, Achille."

"Yes, but you have impeccable sources."

"I can tell you this: He's isolated himself from the mandarins in the Curia and surrounded himself with trusted hands from Venice. The mandarins of the Curia call them the Council of Ten. Rumors are flying."

"What sort?"

"That he's about to launch a program of de-Stalinization to reduce the posthumous influence of the Pole. Major personnel changes in the Secretariat of State and Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are expected--and that's just the beginning."

He's also going to make public the darkest secrets in the Vatican Archives, thought Casagrande, though he didn't share this with Achille Bartoletti.

The Italian security chief leaned forward, eager for more. "He's not going to move on the Holy Trinity of burning issues, is he? Birth control? Celibacy? Women in the priesthood?"

Casagrande shook his head gravely. "He wouldn't dare. It would be so controversial that the Curia would revolt and his papacy would be doomed. Relevancy is the buzzword of the day in the Apostolic Palace. The Holy Father wants the Church to be relevant in the lives of one billion Catholics around the world, many of whom don't have enough to eat each day. The old guard has never been interested in relevance. To them, a word like 'relevance' sounds like glasnost or perestroika, and that makes them very nervous. The old guard likes obedience. If the Holy Father goes too far, there will be hell to pay."

"Speak of the devil."

The room fell silent again. This time Casagrande was not to blame. Looking up, he spotted Cardinal Brindisi making his way toward one of the private rooms at the back of the restaurant. His pale blue eyes barely seemed to acknowledge the murmured greetings of the lesser Curial officials seated around him, but Casagrande knew that Cardinal Brindisi's faultless memory had duly recorded the presence of each one.

Casagrande and Bartoletti wasted no time ordering. Bartoletti perused the menu as if it were a report from a trusted agent. Casagrande chose the first thing he saw that looked remotely interesting. For the next two hours, over sumptuous portions of food and judicious amounts of wine, they swapped intelligence, rumors, and gossip. It was a monthly ritual, one of the enormous dividends of Casagrande's move to the Vatican twenty years earlier. So high was his standing in Rome after crushing the Red Brigades that his word was like Gospel inside the Italian government. What Casagrande wants, Casagrande gets. The organs of Italian state security were now virtual arms of the Vatican, and Achille Bartoletti was one of his most important projects. The nuggets of Vatican intrigue that Casagrande tossed him were like pure gold. They were often used to impress and entertain his superiors, just like the private audiences with the Pope and the front-row tickets to the Christmas Midnight Mass in St. Peter's.

But Casagrande offered more than just Curial gossip. The Vatican possessed one of the largest and most effective intelligence services in the world. Casagrande often picked up things that escaped the notice of Bartoletti and his service. For example, it was Casagrande who learned that a network of Tunisian terrorists in Florence was planning to attack American tourists over the Easter holiday. The information was forwarded to Bartoletti, and an alert was promptly issued. No American suffered so much as a scratch, and Bartoletti earned powerful friends in the American CIA and even the White House.

Eventually, over coffee, Casagrande brought the conversation round to the topic he cared about most--the Israeli named Ehud Landau who had gone to Munich claiming to be the brother of Benjamin Stern. The Israeli who had visited the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Brenzone, and who had shaken Casagrande's surveillance men as though he were brushing crumbs from the white tablecloth at L'Eau Vive.

"I have a serious problem, Achille, and I need your help."

Bartoletti took note of Casagrande's somber tone and set his coffee cup back in its saucer. Had it not been for Casagrande's patronage and support, Bartoletti would still be a mid-level apparatchik instead of the director of Italy's intelligence service. He was in no position to refuse a request from Casagrande, no matter what the circumstances. Still, Casagrande approached the matter with delicacy and respect. The last thing he wanted to do was embarrass his most important protege by making crass demands on their relationship.

"You know that you can count on my support and loyalty, General,"

Bartoletti said. "If you or the Vatican are in some sort of trouble, I will do anything I can to help."

Casagrande reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and produced a photograph, which he placed on the table and turned so Bartoletti could see it properly. Bartoletti picked up the photo and held it near the flame of the candle for a better view.

"Who is he?"

"We're not sure. He's been known to use the name Ehud Landau on occasion."

"Ehud? Israeli?"

Casagrande nodded.

"What's the problem?" Bartoletti asked, his eyes still on the photo.

"We believe he's intent on killing the Pope."

Bartoletti looked up sharply. "An assassin?"

Casagrande nodded slowly. "We've seen him a few times in St. Peter's, acting strangely during the Wednesday general audiences. He's also been present at other papal appearances, in Italy and abroad. We believe he attended an outdoor papal Mass in Madrid last month with the intention of killing the Holy Father."

Bartoletti held up the photo between his first two fingers and turned it so the image was facing Casagrande. "Where did you get this?"

Casagrande explained that one of his men had spotted the assassin in the Basilica a week earlier and had snapped the photograph outside in the square. It was a lie, of course. The picture had been taken by Axel Weiss in Munich, but Achille Bartoletti did not need to know that.

"We've received several threatening letters over the past few weeks--letters we believe were written by this man. We believe he

constitutes a serious threat to the Holy Father's life. Obviously, we would like to find him before he gets an opportunity to make good on his threats."