“Who cleared him into the Vatican?”
“It was Father Keegan.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
With a wave of his hand, Metzler sent the three halberdiers filing out of his office. Then he looked at Gabriel and said, “A rather unexpected development.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” Gabriel drew his phone and dialed the Holy Father’s private secretary. “We have a problem.”
“The Pantheon,” said Father Keegan. “Eight o’clock.”
18
Osteria Lucrezia
The four-car motorcade arrived at the Pantheon, the ancient pagan temple turned Roman Catholic basilica, at the stroke of eight o’clock. Three of the vehicles were unmarked sedans, and the fourth was a Mercedes saloon model with opaque curtains drawn over the rear windows. As Gabriel approached the car, the rear passenger-side door opened to reveal a darkly handsome man dressed in chinos and a plaid sport jacket.
“Don’t just stand there,” said Luigi Donati. “Get in.”
Gabriel slid into the back seat, and the motorcade shot forward. “Did you run out of clean cassocks, Holiness?”
“I have twelve, if you must know. But it’s rather hard to go unnoticed when one is draped head-to-toe in white.”
“You don’t say.”
“It is a verifiable fact. We can look it up, if you like.”
“You’re one of the most recognizable public figures in the world, Luigi, regardless of how you’re dressed.”
“I beg to differ. In the words of the theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam,vestis virum facit.”
“Clothes make the man?”
“Absolutely.”
The secret papal motorcade turned onto the Via del Tritone. Thepedestrians filing along the pavements paid it no heed. They were Romans, after all.
“Where are we going?” asked Gabriel.
“I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
“Private residence?”
“Public restaurant.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Wait until you taste thetrippa alla Romana. Your life will never be the same.”
It was a traditional Roman dish of entrails stewed in tomatoes and aromatics. “I’d sooner eat my shoe than the digestive organs of a bovine,” said Gabriel.
“But you’re quite fond offegato alla Veneziana, if I remember correctly.”
“Calf’s liver is different, Holiness.”
“I shall rule on the matter in my next encyclical.” Donati peered round the edge of the curtain covering his window. “This is my diocese, you know.”
