The Order (Gabriel Allon #20) - Daniel Silva Page 0,76
Russians?” Estermann shook his head. “But more often than not, our interests align.”
“The chancellor of Austria is quite fond of the Kremlin.”
“Jörg Kaufmann? He’s our rock star. Even the American president adores him, and he doesn’t like anyone.”
“What about Giuseppe Saviano?”
“Thanks to the Order, he came from nowhere to win the last election.”
“Cécile Leclerc?”
“A real warrior. She told me that she intends to build a bridge between Marseilles and North Africa. Needless to say, the traffic will flow only one way.”
“That leaves Axel Brünner.”
“The bombings have given him a real boost in the polls.”
“You wouldn’t know anything about them, would you?”
“My old friends at Bf V are convinced the cell is based in Hamburg. It’s a real mess, Hamburg. Lots of radical mosques. Brünner will clean it up once he’s in power.”
Gabriel smiled. “Thanks to you, the only way Brünner will ever see the inside of the Federal Chancellery is if he gets a job as a janitor.”
Estermann was silent.
“You were on the verge of getting everything you wanted. And yet you put it all at risk by murdering an old man with a bad heart. Why kill him? Why not simply wait for him to die?”
“That was the plan.”
“What changed?”
“The old man found a book in the Secret Archives,” said Estermann. “And then he tried to give it to you.”
42
MUNICH
IT WAS IN EARLY OCTOBER, after the Holy Father’s return from a long weekend at Castel Gandolfo, that the Order realized it had a problem. His health failing, perhaps sensing that the end was near, he had embarked on a review of the Vatican’s most sensitive documents, especially those related to the early Church and the Gospels. Of particular interest to His Holiness were the apocryphal gospels, books the Church Fathers had excluded from the New Testament.
Cardinal Domenico Albanese, the prefetto of the Secret Archives, carefully curated the Holy Father’s reading list, hiding material he did not want the pontiff to see. But quite by chance, while visiting the papal study with several other curial cardinals, he noticed a small book, several centuries old, bound in cracked red leather, lying on the table next to the Holy Father’s desk. It was an apocryphal piece of early Christian writing that was supposed to be locked in the collezione. When Albanese asked the Holy Father how he had obtained the book, His Holiness replied that it had been given to him by a certain Father Joshua, a name Albanese did not recognize.
Alarmed, Albanese immediately informed his superior general, Bishop Hans Richter, who in turn contacted the Order’s chief of security and intelligence, Andreas Estermann. Several weeks later, in mid-November, Estermann learned the Holy Father had begun work on a letter—a letter he intended to give to the man who had saved his life during the attack on the Vatican.
“And thus,” said Estermann, “his fate was sealed.”
“How did you know about the letter?”
“I planted a transmitter in the papal study years ago. I heard the Holy Father telling Donati that he was writing to you.”
“But Lucchesi didn’t tell Donati why he was writing to me.”
“I heard the pope tell someone else. I was never able to determine who he was talking to. In fact, I couldn’t hear the other person’s voice.”
“Why was the Order so worried about the prospect of Lucchesi giving me the book?”
“Let me count the ways.”
“You were afraid it called into question the historical accuracy of the Gospels.”
“Obviously.”
“But you were also concerned about the book’s provenance. It was given to the Order in 1938 by a wealthy Roman Jew named Emanuele Giordano, along with a large sum of cash and several works of art. Signore Giordano did not make this contribution out of the goodness of his heart. The Order was running quite an extortion racket in the thirties. It targeted wealthy Jews, who were promised protection and lifesaving baptismal certificates in exchange for cash and valuables. That money was the venture capital for the Wolf Group.” Gabriel paused. “All of which I would have exposed if Lucchesi had placed the book in my hands.”
“Not bad, Allon. I always heard you were good.”
“How did the Gospel of Pilate end up in the Secret Archives?”
“Father Schiller turned it over to Pius the Twelfth in 1954. His Holiness should have burned it. He buried it in the Archives instead. If Father Joshua hadn’t found it, Lucchesi would still be alive.”
“How did Father Graf kill him?”
The question surprised Estermann. After a moment’s hesitation he held up the first two fingers of his right