“My friend tells me this is your first flight.”
“Second, actually,” the pilot replied with a crooked smile.
“How did the first one go?”
“I had to ditch it in the Ligurian. I was lucky to survive.”
“That’s not funny.”
“You’re telling me.”
***
As they were approaching the northern tip of the island of Corsica, the pilot admitted that he had logged several thousand hours of flying time for the Carabinieri with no incidents other than a single hard landing in the Dolomites during a blizzard. Gabriel nevertheless breathed a small sigh of relief when he spotted the floodlit dome of St. Peter’s rising over the seven hills of Rome. The Vatican’s helipad was located at the eastern tip of the city-state. From there it was a walk of five minutes through the Vatican Gardens to the small courtyard at the foot of a rather ordinary-looking structure with walls the color of dun.
Gabriel slipped through the unlocked door and climbed the steps to the Sala Regia. Father Mark Keegan, a phone to his ear, nodded toward the entrance of the Sistine Chapel. Inside, His Holiness Luigi Donati, Bishop of Rome, Pontifex Maximus, successor to the Apostle Peter, knelt on a simple wooden prie-dieu before Michelangelo’sLast Judgment. Gabriel passed through the opening in thetransenna, the marble screen that divided the chapel in two, and approached his old friend soundlessly from behind.
“Don’t skulk, Gabriel.” Donati peered at him over one shoulder. “It makes me nervous when you skulk.”
“I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“I don’t require complete silence to pray. I’m rather good at it after all these years.”
Gabriel went to Donati’s side. “Come here often?”
“Every chance I get. It’s my personal chapel, you know.” Donati lifted his gaze toward theLast Judgment, with its swirling mass of souls rising and falling to their eternal fates. “Have you an opinion about it?”
“As a depiction of the end of days?”
“As a work of art,” answered Donati.
“It is not without its shortcomings.”
“The Council of Trent thought the nudity blasphemous.”
“But your predecessor Pius the Sixth had the good sense to wait until Michelangelo died before adding fig leaves and garments to some of the figures.”
“One of history’s great artistic crimes. Fortunately it was rectified during the last restoration.” Donati rose from the prie-dieu and gazed down the length of the empty chapel. “Do you remember the last time we were here together? I begged you to take me away before the cardinal-electors could place the awful burden of the papacy on my shoulders. And you, as I recall, refused.”
“You’re mistaken, Holiness.”
“I’m infallible.”
“Only when you speak ex cathedra. I, however, am never wrong.”
Donati looked at the museum case hanging from Gabriel’s right hand. “And what do you have there?”
“Something that belongs to you.”
“Is it a painting, by any chance?”
“A rather good one.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
Gabriel removed the Leonardo from the case and balanced the panel atop the armrest of the prie-dieu. Donati stared at the girl from Milan as though he had been struck mute.
“Are you certain it’s a Leonardo?” he asked at last.
