“I’d rather walk to Israel than fly there with the likes of Jonas Wolf.”
“I thought for a minute you were going to kill him.”
“Me?” Lavon shook his head. “I’ve never been one for the rough stuff. But I did enjoy watching you hit him with that poker.”
Gabriel’s phone pulsed. It was Uzi Navot calling from King Saul Boulevard. “Are you planning to stay for dinner?” he asked.
Gabriel laughed in spite of himself. “Can this wait? We’re a bit busy at the moment.”
“I thought you should know that I just got a call from my new best friend, Gerhardt Schmidt. The Bundespolizei are on their way to arrest Wolf. You might want to vacate the premises before they arrive.”
Gabriel killed the connection. “Time to go.”
Lavon closed the lid of the suitcase and with Gabriel’s help tipped it onto its wheels. “It’s a good thing we’re flying on a private plane. This thing must weigh seventy kilos at least.”
Together they wheeled the suitcase into the next room. Estermann and Karl Weber were tending to Wolf’s injuries, watched over by Mikhail and Oded. Yossi was inspecting one of the Gobelin tapestries. Yaakov was standing in front of the open window, listening to the distant wail of sirens.
“They’re definitely getting louder,” he said.
“That’s because they’re on their way here.” Gabriel beckoned to Mikhail and Oded and started toward the door.
Wolf called out to him from across the room. “Who do you think it will be?”
Gabriel stopped. “What’s that, Wolf?”
“The conclave. Who’s going to be the next pope?”
“They say Navarro is already ordering new furniture for theappartamento.”
“Yes,” said Wolf, smiling. “That’s what they say.”
Part Three
Extra Omnes
48
Jesuit Curia, Rome
Luigi Donati wasa man of many virtues and admirable traits, but patience was not one of them. He was by nature a pacer and a twirler of pens who did not suffer fools or even minor delays gladly. Rome tested him daily. So had life behind the walls of the Vatican, where nearly every encounter with the backbiting bureaucrats of the Curia had driven him to utter distraction. All conversations within the Apostolic Palace were coded and cautious and laden with ambition and fear of a misstep that could doom an otherwise promising career. One seldom said what one was really thinking, and one never,never, put it in writing. It was far too dangerous. The Curia did not reward boldness or creativity. Inertia was its sacred calling.
But at least Donati had never been bored. And with the exception of the six weeks he had spent in the Gemelli Clinicrecovering from a bullet wound, he had never been powerless. At present, however, he was both. When combined with his aforementioned lack of forbearance, it was a lethal combination.
His old friend Gabriel Allon was to blame. In the three days since he had left Rome, Donati had heard from him only once, at 5:20 that morning. “I have everything you need,” Gabriel had promised. Unfortunately, he neglected to tell Donati what it was he had discovered. Only that it was a twelve on the Bishop Richter scale—a rather clever pun, Donati had to admit—and that there was an additional complication involving someone close to the previous pope. A complication that could not be discussed over the phone.
For the subsequent eleven hours, Donati had heard not so much as a ping from his old friend. Hence, he had passed a thoroughly unpleasant day behind the walls of the Jesuit Curia. The news from Germany, while shocking, at least provided a distraction. Donati watched it with a few of his colleagues on the television in the common room. The German police had prevented a truck bombing targeting Cologne Cathedral. The purported terrorists were not from the Islamic State but a shadowy neo-Nazi organization with links to the far-right politician Axel Brünner. One member of the cell, an Austrian national, had been arrested, as had Brünner himself. At four thirty Germany’s interior minister announced that two other men implicated in the scandal had been found dead at an estate in the Obersalzberg. Both had been killed by the same handgun in what appeared to be a case of murder-suicide. The murder victim was a former German intelligence officer named Andreas Estermann. The suicide was the reclusive billionaire Jonas Wolf.
“Dear God,” whispered Donati.
Just then, his Nokia shivered with an incoming call. He tappedanswerand raised the device to his ear.
“Sorry,” said Gabriel. “The traffic in this town is a nightmare.”
“Have you seen the news from Germany?”
“Wonderful, isn’t it?”
“Is that what you meant by tying up one or two loose ends?”
