“You tell me.”
“The entire country will have to be quarantined to prevent further spread. Hospitals will be so overwhelmed they’ll be forced to turn away everyone but the youngest and the healthiest. Hundreds will die every day, perhaps thousands. The military will have to resort to mass cremation to prevent further spread. It will be—”
“A holocaust.”
Gabriel nodded slowly. “And how do you suppose an incompetent subliterate like Saviano will react under those conditions? Will he listen to medical experts, or will he think he knows better? Will he tell his people the truth, or will he promise that a vaccine and lifesaving treatments are just around the corner?”
“He’ll blame the Chinese and the immigrants and emerge stronger than ever.” Ferrari looked at Gabriel seriously. “Is there something you know that you’re not telling me?”
“Anyone with half a brain knows we’re long overdue for something on the scale of the Great Influenza of 1918. I’ve told my prime minister that of all the threats facing Israel, a pandemic is by far the worst.”
“I’m thankful that my only responsibility is to find stolen paintings.” The general watched as the television camera panned across a sea of red vestments. “There sits the next pontiff.”
“They say it’s going to be Cardinal Navarro.”
“That’s the rumor.”
“Do you have any insight?”
General Ferrari answered as though addressing a roomful of reporters. “The carabinieri make no effort to monitor the papal succession process. Nor do the other agencies of Italian security and intelligence.”
“Spare me.”
The general laughed quietly. “And what about you?”
“The identity of the next pope is of no concern to the State of Israel.”
“It is now.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ll lethimexplain.” General Ferrari nodded toward the television, where the camera had found Archbishop Luigi Donati,private secretary to His Holiness Pope Paul VII. “He was wondering whether you might have a spare moment or two to speak to him.”
“Why didn’t he just call me?”
“It’s not something he wanted to discuss on the phone.”
“Did he tell you what it was?”
The general shook his head. “Only that it was a matter of the utmost importance. He was hoping you were free for lunch tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“Rome.”
Gabriel made no reply.
“It’s an hour away by plane. You’ll be back in Venice in time for dinner.”
“Will I?”
“Judging by the archbishop’s tone of voice, I rather doubt it. He’s expecting you at one o’clock at Piperno. He says you’re familiar with it.”
“It rings a distant bell.”
“He’d like you to come alone. And don’t worry about your wife and children. I’ll take very good care of them during your absence.”
“Absence?” It was not the word Gabriel would have chosen to describe a daylong excursion to the Eternal City.
