Unless, thought Albanese, there was another unexpected development like the one that had occurred the previous morning at the Secret Archives. Gabriel Allon and Archbishop Donati had undoubtedly found something. What it was, Albanese could not say. He only knew that after leaving the Archives, Allon and Donati had traveled to Assisi, where they had met with a certain Father Robert Jordan, the Church’s foremost expert on the apocryphal gospels. Afterward, they had returned to Rome, where they had met with one Alessandro Ricci, the world’s foremost expert on the Order of St. Helena. It was hardly an encouraging sign.
“Truly magnificent, is it not?”
Albanese turned with a start.
“Forgive me,” said Bishop Richter. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Albanese addressed his superior general with a cool and distant formality. “Good morning, Excellency. What brings you to the Sistina?”
“I was told I might find the camerlengo here.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Not at all. In fact, I have rather good news.”
“What’s that?”
Richter smiled. “Gabriel Allon just left Rome.”
35
Zurich
It was half past fourwhen Gabriel arrived in Zurich. He rode in a taxi to the Paradeplatz, the St. Peter’s Square of Swiss banking, and then walked along the stately Bahnhofstrasse to the northern tip of the Zürichsee. A BMW sedan drew alongside him on the General-Guisan-Quai. Behind the wheel was Christoph Bittel. Bald and bespectacled, he looked like just another gnome heading home to the lakeside suburbs after a long day spent tabulating the hidden riches of Arab sheikhs and Russian oligarchs.
Gabriel dropped into the passenger seat. “Where were we?”
“The man in the sketch.” Bittel eased into the rush-hour traffic. “I’m sorry it took me so long to make the connection. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Estermann,” said Bittel. “Andreas Estermann.”
As Gabriel suspected, Estermann was a professional. For thirty years he had worked for the BfV, Germany’s internal security service. Not surprisingly, the BfV maintained close links with its sister service in Switzerland, the NDB. Early in his career, Bittel had traveled to Cologne to brief his German counterparts on Soviet espionage activity in Bern and Geneva. Estermann was his contact.
“When the meeting was over, he invited me for a drink. Which was odd.”
“Why?”
“Estermann doesn’t touch alcohol.”
“Does he have a problem?”
“He has lots of problems, but alcohol isn’t one of them.”
In the years that followed their first meeting, Bittel and Estermann bumped into each other from time to time, as practitioners of the secret trade are prone to do. Neither one of them was what you might describe as an action figure. They were not operatives, they were glorified policemen. They conducted investigations, wrote reports, and attended countless conferences where the primary challenge was keeping one’s eyes open. They shared lunches and dinners whenever their paths crossed. Estermann often funneled intelligence to Bittel outside normal channels. Bittel reciprocated whenever possible, but always with the approval of the top floor. His superiors considered Estermann a valuable asset.
“And then the planes crashed into the World Trade Center, and everything changed. Especially Estermann.”
“How so?”
“He had moved from counterintelligence to counterterrorism a couple of years before nine-eleven, just like me. He claimed he was on to the Hamburg Cell from the beginning. He swore he could have stopped the plot in its tracks if his superiors had allowed him to do his job properly.”
“Was any of it true?”
“That he could have single-handedly prevented the worst terrorist attack in history?” Bittel shook his head. “Maybe Gabriel Allon could have done it. But not Andreas Estermann.”
“How did he change?”
