The Order (Gabriel Allon #20) - Daniel Silva Page 0,19

struck him as a carrier.

He moved to the window and parted the gauzy curtain. The suite was on the north side of the guesthouse, overlooking the Piazza Santa Marta and the facade of the basilica. The dome was aglow with floodlights. The wounds from the Islamic terrorist attack had healed nicely. If only the same could be said for the Holy Mother Church. She was a shadow of her former self, barely breathing, close to death.

Bishop Hans Richter had appointed himself her savior. He had been prepared to wait out Lucchesi’s disastrous papacy before putting his plan into action. But His Holiness had given Richter no choice but to take matters into his own hands. It was Lucchesi who had erred, Richter assured himself, not he. Besides, God had been knocking on Lucchesi’s door for some time. To Richter’s way of thinking, he had merely given Pope Accidental an early start on the inevitable process of canonization.

Richter’s thoughts were interrupted by a thunderous flush of the commode. When Albanese emerged, he was wiping his big hands on a towel—like a ditchdigger, thought Richter. And to think he actually regarded himself as a potential pope, the one Richter would choose to be his puppet pontiff. He was no intellectual giant, Albanese, but he had played the curial insider’s game well enough to secure two critical papal appointments. As camerlengo, Albanese had shepherded Lucchesi’s body from the papal apartments to his tomb beneath St. Peter’s with no hint of scandal. He had also placed in Richter’s hands copies of several sin-filled personnel files from the Vatican Secret Archives that had proven invaluable during the preparations for the conclave. For his reward, Albanese would soon be the secretary of state, the second most powerful position in the Holy See.

He dried his pitted face and then tossed the towel over the back of a chair. “With all due respect, Excellency, do you think it was wise to come here this evening?”

“Are you forgetting that many of those cardinals downstairs are now wealthy men because of me?”

“All the more reason you should keep a low profile until the conclave is over. I can only imagine what the likes of Francona and Kevin Brady are saying right now.”

“Francona and Brady are the least of our problems.”

The simple wooden armchair into which Albanese lowered himself groaned beneath his weight. “Is there any sign of the Janson boy?”

Richter shook his head.

“He was obviously distraught that night. It’s possible he took his own life.”

“We should be so lucky.”

“Surely you don’t mean that, Excellency. If Janson committed suicide, his soul would be in grave peril.”

“It already is.”

“As is mine,” said Albanese quietly.

Richter placed a hand on the camerlengo’s thick shoulder. “I granted you absolution for your actions, Domenico. Your soul is in a state of grace.”

“And yours, Excellency?”

Richter removed his hand. “I sleep well at night knowing that in a few days’ time, the Church will be in our control. I will allow no one to stand in our way. And that includes a pretty little peasant boy from Canton Fribourg.”

“Then I suggest you find him, Excellency. The sooner the better.”

Bishop Richter smiled coldly. “Is that the type of incisive and analytical thinking you intend to bring to the Secretariat of State?”

Albanese suffered the rebuke from his superior general in silence.

“Rest assured,” said Bishop Richter, “the Order is using all of its considerable resources to find Janson. Unfortunately, we are no longer the only ones looking for him. It appears Archbishop Donati has joined the search.”

“If we can’t find Janson, what hope does Donati have?”

“Donati has something much better than hope.”

“What’s that?”

Bishop Richter gazed at the dome of the basilica. “Gabriel Allon.”

11

VIA SARDEGNA, ROME

THE PALAZZO WAS OFTEN MISTAKEN for an embassy or a government ministry, for it was surrounded by a formidable steel fence and watched over by an array of outward-aimed security cameras. A Baroque fountain splashed in the forecourt, but the two-thousand-year-old Roman statue of Pluto that had once adorned the entrance hall was absent. In its place stood Dr. Veronica Marchese, director of Italy’s National Etruscan Museum. She wore a stunning black pantsuit and a thick band of gold at her throat. Her dark hair was swept straight back and held in place by a clasp at the nape of her neck. A pair of cat’s-eye spectacles gave her a faintly academic air.

Smiling, she kissed Chiara on both cheeks. She offered Gabriel only her hand, guardedly. “Director Allon. I’m so pleased you were able to come. I’m