The Order (Gabriel Allon #20) - Daniel Silva Page 0,27
Ormesini. Chiara’s final kiss was decorous. “Do try not to get yourself killed,” she whispered into Gabriel’s ear. “Your children need you. And so do I.”
Gabriel and Donati settled into the aft seating compartment of a waiting motoscafo and skimmed across the gray-green waters of the lagoon to Marco Polo Airport. In the crowded concourse, passengers were gathered beneath the television monitors. Another bomb had exploded in Germany. This time the target was a market in the northern city of Hamburg. A claim of responsibility had appeared on social media, along with a professionally edited video from the purported mastermind. In perfect colloquial German, his face concealed behind an Arab headdress, he promised the bombings would continue until the black flag of the Islamic State flew over the Bundestag. Having suffered two terrorist attacks in just forty-eight hours, Germany was now on high alert.
The bombing immediately snarled air travel across Europe, but somehow the late-morning Alitalia flight to Geneva departed on time. Despite the increased security at Switzerland’s second-busiest airport, Gabriel and Donati cleared passport control with no delay. Transport had left a BMW sedan in the short-term car park, with the key taped beneath the front bumper. In the glove box, wrapped in a protective cloth, was a 9mm Beretta.
“It must be nice,” remarked Donati. “I always have to pick up my gun at the counter.”
“Membership has its privileges.”
Gabriel followed the airport exit ramp to the E62 and headed northwest along the shore of the lake. Donati took note of the fact he was driving without the aid of a navigation device.
“Come to Switzerland often?”
“You might say that.”
“They say it’s going to be another bad year for snow.”
“The state of Switzerland’s winter tourism industry is the least of my concerns.”
“You don’t ski?”
“Do I look like a skier to you?”
“I never saw the point of it.” Donati pondered the mountain peaks rising above the opposite shore of the lake. “Any fool can slide down a mountain, but it takes someone of character and discipline to walk up one.”
“I prefer to walk along the sea.”
“It’s rising, you know. Apparently, Venice will soon be uninhabitable.”
“At least it will discourage the tourists.”
Gabriel switched on the radio in time to catch the hourly newscast on SFR 1. The death toll in Hamburg stood at four, with another twenty-five wounded, several critically. There was no mention of a Swiss citizen having been murdered the previous evening on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.
“What are the Polizia di Stato waiting for?” asked Donati.
“If I had to guess, they’re giving the Vatican a chance to get its story straight.”
“Good luck with that.”
The last item on the newscast concerned a report by the Episcopal Conference of Switzerland detailing a sharp increase in the number of new sexual abuse cases.
Donati sighed. “I wish they would talk about something uplifting. The bombing in Hamburg, for example.”
“Did you know the report was coming?”
Donati nodded. “The Holy Father and I reviewed the first draft a few weeks before his death.”
“How is it possible there are still new cases of abuse?”
“Because we apologized and asked for forgiveness, but we never addressed the root causes of the problem. And the Church has deservedly paid a terrible price. Here in Switzerland, Roman Catholicism is on life support. Baptisms, church weddings, and Mass attendance have all fallen to extinction levels.”
“And if you had it to do over again?”
“Despite what my enemies used to say about me, I was not the pope. Pietro Lucchesi was. And he was an innately cautious man.” Donati paused. “Too cautious, in my opinion.”
“And if you were the one with the Ring of the Fisherman on his finger?”
Donati laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“The very idea is preposterous.”
“Humor me.”
Donati considered his answer carefully. “I’d start by reforming the priesthood. It’s not enough merely to weed out the pedophiles. We must create a new and dynamic global community of Catholic religious if the Church is to survive and flourish.”
“Does that mean you would admit women into the priesthood?”
“You said it, not me.”
“How about married priests?”
“Now we’re sailing into treacherous waters, my friend.”
“Other faiths allow their clergy to marry.”
“And I respect those faiths. The question is, can I as a Roman Catholic priest love and cherish a wife and children while at the same time serving the Lord and tending to the spiritual needs of my flock?”
“What’s the answer?”
“No,” said Donati. “I cannot.”
A sign warned they were approaching the lakeside resort town of Vevey. Gabriel turned onto the E27 and followed it north to Fribourg. It was a