The Fallen Angel (5 page)

6

TRASTEVERE, ROME

T
HE WOMAN WAS NOT
C
LAUDIA
, of course, but the likeness was unnerving. It was as if Caravaggio had painted the curator's portrait, and then, pleased with his creation, had produced an exact copy down to the smallest detail—the same scale and composition, the same features, the same sandstone-colored hair, the same translucent blue eyes. Now the copy appraised Gabriel and Chiara silently for a moment before wiping a tear from her cheek.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I'm a colleague of Claudia's from the museum,” Gabriel answered vaguely. He realized suddenly that he was staring too intently at the woman's face. Earlier that morning, on the way out of the Basilica, Luigi Donati had mentioned something about a sister who lived in London, but he'd left out the part about an identical twin.

“You worked with Claudia in the antiquities division?” she asked.

“No,” replied Gabriel. “I was asked to collect some files that she borrowed from the archives. If I had known you were here, I never would have intruded on your privacy.”

The woman appeared to accept the explanation. Gabriel felt an uncharacteristic stab of guilt. Though he was trained in the fine art of lying, he was understandably apprehensive about telling an untruth to the wraith of a dead woman. Now the wraith rose to her feet and came slowly toward him through the half-light.

“Where did you get those?” she asked, nodding toward the keys in Gabriel's hand.

“They were found in Claudia's desk,” he said as the knife of guilt twisted slowly within his chest.

“Was anything else found?”

“Such as?”

“A suicide note?”

Gabriel could scarcely believe she hadn't said
my
suicide note. “I'm afraid you'll have to ask the Vatican police about that,” he said.

“I intend to.” She took a step closer. “I'm Paola Andreatti,” she said, extending her hand. When Gabriel hesitated to grasp it, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “So it's true, after all.”

“What's that?”

“My sister told me that you were the one who was restoring the Caravaggio, Mr. Allon. I have to admit I'm rather surprised to see you here now.”

Gabriel grasped the outstretched hand and found it warm and damp to the touch.

“Forgive me,” she said, “but I was doing the dishes before you arrived. I'm afraid my sister left quite a mess.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything in the apartment was slightly out of place,” she said, looking around. “I've tried to restore some semblance of order.”

“When did you speak to her last?”

“A week ago Wednesday.” The answer came without hesitation. “She sounded busy but entirely normal, not at all like someone who was about to . . .”

She stopped herself and looked at Chiara. “Your assistant?” she asked.

“She has the great misfortune of being married to me.”

Paola Andreatti smiled sadly. “I'm tempted to say you're a lucky man, Mr. Allon, but I've read enough about your past to know that's not exactly the case.”

“You shouldn't believe everything you read in the newspapers.”

“I don't.”

She studied Gabriel carefully for a moment. Her eyes were identical to the ones he had seen earlier that morning staring lifelessly into the dome of the Basilica. It was like being scrutinized by a ghost.

“Perhaps we should begin this conversation again,” she said finally. “But this time, don't lie to me, Mr. Allon. I just lost my sister and my closest friend in the world. And there's no way the Vatican would send a man like you to collect a few stray files.”

“I won't lie to you.”

“Then please tell me why you're here.”

“For the same reason you are.”

“I'm trying to find out why my sister is dead.”

“So am I.”

The ghost seemed relieved she was no longer alone. She stood her ground for another moment as if guarding the passageway to her secrets. Then she stepped to one side and invited Gabriel and Chiara to enter.

 

The sitting room was a place of academic disarray, of shelves sagging beneath the weight of countless books, of end tables piled high with dog-eared files and hulking monographs. It had an air of urgency, as though its occupant had been in pursuit of something and had been struggling to meet a deadline. Paola Andreatti was right about one thing; everything in the apartment looked slightly askew, as though it had been moved and hastily put back into place. Gabriel walked over to the cluttered writing desk and switched on the lamp. Then he crouched and examined the surface of the desk in the raked lighting. In the center was a perfect rectangle, about ten inches by fifteen inches, where no dust was present. He picked up a half-drunk cup of coffee and carried it into the kitchen, where Chiara and Paola Andreatti stood before the sink finishing the last of the dishes. Neither woman spoke as he placed the cup on the counter and sat at the tiny café-style table.

“Was your sister a believer?” he asked.

“She was a devout Catholic. I'm not so sure whether she actually believed in God.” She looked up from her work at the sink. “Why do you ask?”

“She wore a cross.”

“It belonged to our mother. It was the one possession of hers that Claudia wanted. Fortunately, it was the one thing I
didn't
want.”

“You don't share your sister's faith?”

“I'm a cardiologist, Mr. Allon. I'm a woman of science, not faith. I also believe that more evil has been carried out in the name of religion than any other force in human history. Look at the terrible fate of your own people. The Church falsely branded you as the murderers of God, and for two thousand years you've suffered the consequences. Now you've returned to the land of your birth only to find yourself locked in a war without end. Is this really what God had in mind when he made his pact with Abraham?”

“Perhaps Abraham forgot to read the fine print.”

Chiara fixed Gabriel with a reproachful stare, but Paola Andreatti managed a fleeting smile. “If you're asking whether my sister would be reluctant to kill herself because of her religious beliefs, the answer is yes. She also regarded St. Peter's Basilica as a sacred place that was inspired by God. Besides,” she added, “I'm a physician. I know a suicidal person when I see one. And my sister was not suicidal.”

“No trouble at work?” asked Gabriel.

“Not that she mentioned.”

“What about a man?” asked Chiara.

“Like many women in this country, my sister hadn't managed to find an Italian man suitable for marriage or even a serious relationship. It's one of the reasons I ended up in London. I married a proper Englishman. Then, five years later, he gave me a proper English divorce.”

She dried her hands and began returning the newly clean dishes to the cabinets. There was something mildly absurd about her actions, like watering a garden while thunder cracked in the distance, but they seemed to give her a momentary sense of peace.

“Twins are different,” she said, closing the cabinet. “We shared everything—our mother's womb, our nursery, our clothing. You might find this rather strange, Mr. Allon, but I always assumed my sister and I would share the same coffin.”

She walked over to the refrigerator. On the door, held in place by a magnet, was a photograph of the sisters posed along the railing of a ferry. Even Gabriel, who had an artist's appreciation of the human form, could scarcely tell one from the other.

“It was taken during a day cruise on Lake Como last August,” said Paola Andreatti. “I was recently separated from my husband. Claudia and I went alone, just the two of us. I paid, of course. Employees of the Vatican can't afford to stay in five-star hotels. It was the best vacation I'd had in years. Claudia said all the appropriate things about my pending divorce, but I suspect she was secretly relieved. It meant she would have me to herself again.”

She opened the refrigerator, exhaled heavily, and began placing the contents in a plastic rubbish bin. “As of this moment,” she said, “several hundred million people around the world believe my sister committed suicide. But not one of them knows that Gabriel Allon, a former Israeli intelligence agent and friend of the Vatican, is now sitting at her kitchen table.”

“I'd prefer to keep it that way.”

“I'm sure the men of the Vatican would, too. Because your presence suggests they believe there's more to my sister's death than merely a soul in distress.”

Gabriel made no response.

“Do you believe Claudia killed herself?”

“No,” Gabriel said. “I do not believe Claudia killed herself.”

“Why not?”

He told her about the broken necklace, about the shoes, and about the perfect rectangle on her sister's desk where no dust was present. “You weren't the first person to come here tonight,” he said. “Others came before you. They were professionals. They took anything that might be incriminating, including your sister's laptop computer.”

She closed the refrigerator and stared silently at the photograph on the door.

“You did notice the computer was missing, didn't you?”

“It's not the only thing,” she said softly.

“What else?”

“My sister never went to sleep at night without writing a few lines in her diary. She kept it on her bedside table. It's no longer there.” Paola Andreatti looked at Gabriel for a moment without speaking. “How long will it be necessary to allow this terrible lie about my sister to persist?”

“For as long as it takes to discover the truth. But I can't do it alone. I'm going to need your help.”

“What kind of help?”

“You can start by telling me about your sister.”

“And then?”

“We're going to search this apartment together one more time.”

“I thought you said the men were professionals.”

“They were,” said Gabriel. “But sometimes even professionals make mistakes.”

 

They moved into the sitting room and settled amid Claudia's books and papers. Paola Andreatti spoke of her sister as though she were speaking of herself. For Gabriel, it was like interviewing a corpse that had been granted the ability to speak.

“Did she use any other e-mail address besides her Vatican account?”

“Everyone at the Vatican keeps a private account. Especially the priests.”

She recited a Gmail address. Gabriel didn't need to write it down; his uncanny ability to mimic the brushstrokes of the Old Masters was matched only by the precision of his memory. Besides, he thought, when one is pitted against professionals, it is best to behave like one.

The interview complete, they searched the apartment. Chiara and Paola Andreatti saw to the bedroom while Gabriel handled the desk. He searched now as he imagined it had been searched in the hours after Claudia's death—drawer by drawer, file by file, page by page. Despite his thoroughness, he found nothing to indicate why anyone might want to kill her.

But the men who had come before Gabriel had indeed made one mistake; they had left the building without emptying Claudia's mailbox. Now Gabriel withdrew the post from Chiara's handbag and quickly flipped through it until he found a credit card bill. The charges were a glimpse into a typical Roman life, preserved forever, like archaeological debris, in the memory banks of a mainframe computer. All the expenditures appeared unremarkable except for one. Two weeks before her death, it appeared that Claudia had spent the night in a hotel in Ladispoli, a drab seaside resort just north of Rome. Gabriel had passed through the town once in another lifetime. He recalled little of the place other than mediocre restaurants and a beach the color of asphalt. He returned the bill to its envelope and sat there for several minutes, a single question turning over in his mind. Why would a woman like Claudia Andreatti spend the night in a hotel on the Italian coast, just thirty minutes from her own apartment, in the middle of winter? He could think of only two possible explanations. The first involved love. The second was the reason she was dead.

7

VATICAN CITY

T
HEY HELD THE FUNERAL MASS
on the third day, in the Church of St. Anne. The Holy Father did not attend, but after much quiet debate, it was decided somewhere within the halls of the Apostolic Palace that the papal private secretary would officiate. Gabriel entered the church as Donati, cloaked in white vestments, led the mourners in the recitation of the Penitential Act. Paola Andreatti sat silently in the second row, her face expressionless. Her presence made Claudia's colleagues visibly uneasy; it was as if the soul of the departed had decided to attend her own burial. At the conclusion of the mass, as she followed the casket slowly into the Via Belvedere, she passed Gabriel without a glance. A few seconds later, Donati did the same.

The restoration lab was officially closed that day, but Gabriel decided to use the opportunity to spend a few uninterrupted hours alone with the Caravaggio. Shortly after four o'clock, he received a text message from Father Mark, Donati's assistant, asking him to come to a café just beyond the walls of the Vatican on the Borgo Pio. When Gabriel arrived, the young priest was contemplating the screen of his BlackBerry at a table near the window. Father Mark was an American from Philadelphia. He had a face like an altar boy and the eyes of someone who never lost at cards, which was why he worked for Donati.

“A gift from the monsignor,” he said, handing Gabriel a small plastic bag from the Vatican bookstore.

“A collection of the Holy Father's encyclicals?”

Father Mark frowned. He didn't like jokes about His Holiness. He didn't like Gabriel much, either.

“It's all of Dr. Andreatti's research into the entire antiquities collection, just as you requested.”

“All in this little bag? How miraculous.”

“Thumb drives,” the priest explained pedantically. Father Mark might have had a sense of humor once, but it had been scrubbed away by eight years of seminary training.

“What about her phone records?”

“I'm working on it.”

“E-mail?”

“This is the Vatican we're talking about. These things take time.” Nothing registered on the young priest's angelic face. Even Gabriel couldn't tell whether he was holding a straight flush or a pair of deuces. “The monsignor would like to know how you intend to proceed with your inquiry,” he said, checking his BlackBerry.

“The first thing I'm going to do is go blind reading several thousand pages of documentation regarding the provenance of your antiquities collection.”

“And then?”

“Tell the monsignor he'll be the first to know.”

The priest stood abruptly and, citing an urgent matter requiring his attention, headed back to the Vatican. Gabriel slipped the plastic bag into his coat pocket, hesitated for a moment, and then autodialed a number on his BlackBerry. A gruff male voice answered in Hebrew. Gabriel murmured a few words in the same language and quickly severed the connection before the man at the other end could object. Then he sat there as night fell over the narrow street, wondering whether he had just made his first mistake.

 

There were few more thankless jobs than to be the declared chief of an Office station in Western Europe. Shimon Pazner, head of the generously staffed post inside the Israeli Embassy in Rome, had borne that burden longer than most. His tenure had coincided with a precipitous slide in Israel's public standing among Europeans of every stripe. Where once his country was regarded as a minor irritant, Europeans now viewed the Zionist enterprise with almost universal contempt and scorn. Israel was no longer a beacon of democracy in a troubled Middle East; it was an illegitimate rogue, an occupier, and a threat to world peace. Famously undiplomatic, Pazner had done little to help his cause. High on the list of Italian grievances was his conduct during meetings. His standard response when questioned about Israeli tactics and operations was to remind his brethren that, were it not for the deplorable conduct of Europeans, there would be no Israel at all.

Gabriel found Pazner seated alone on a stone bench outside the Galleria Borghese. Short and compact, he had gunmetal gray hair and a face like pumice. He offered Gabriel a perfunctory greeting in Italian, then suggested it might be better if they walked. They headed westward across the gardens along a footpath lined with umbrella pine. The cold air was heavy with the scent of damp leaves, wood smoke, and cooking—the smell of Rome on a winter's night. Pazner spoiled it by lighting a cigarette. His mood seemed worse than usual, but it was always a little hard to tell with Pazner. Rome annoyed him. As far as Pazner was concerned, it would always be the center of the empire that had destroyed the Second Temple and scattered the Jews to the four winds of the diaspora. He was a man with a long memory who held grudges. Gabriel was the object of several.

“I suppose it's fortuitous you called,” he said finally. “We needed to have a word with you.”

“We?”

“Don't get nervous, Gabriel. No one at King Saul Boulevard has any intention of calling you out of retirement again, not after what you went through in Saudi Arabia. Even the old man seems content to leave you in peace this time.”

“Are you sure we're talking about the same Ari Shamron?”

“Actually, he's not the same, not anymore.” Pazner was silent for a moment. “Far be it from me to tell you how to live your life,” he said at last, “but it might be a good idea to pay him a visit the next time you're in town.”

“When did you see him last?”

“A few weeks ago when I was in Tel Aviv for the annual meeting of the station chiefs. Shamron made his traditional appearance at dinner on the last night. He used to stay up to all hours regaling us with stories about the old days, but this time I had the sense he was just going through the motions. All I could think about was how things were when we were kids. Do you remember what he was like back then, Gabriel? The ground seemed to tremble whenever the old man entered a room.”

“I remember,” said Gabriel distantly, and for a moment he was striding across the courtyard of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, on a sun-bleached afternoon in September 1972. Seemingly from nowhere there appeared a small iron bar of a man with hideous black spectacles and teeth like a steel trap. The man didn't offer a name, for none was necessary. He was the one they spoke of only in whispers. The one who had stolen the secrets that led to Israel's lightning victory in the Six-Day War. The one who had plucked Adolf Eichmann, managing director of the Holocaust, from an Argentine street corner.

As usual, Shamron had come well prepared that day. He had known, for example, that Gabriel descended from a long line of gifted artists, that he spoke fluent German with a pronounced Berlin accent, and that he was married to a fellow art student named Leah Savir. He had also known that Gabriel, having been raised by a woman who had survived the Nazi death camp at Birkenau, was a natural keeper of secrets. “The operation will be called Wrath of God,” he had said that day. “It's not about justice. It's about vengeance, pure and simple—vengeance for the eleven innocent lives lost at Munich.” Gabriel had told Shamron to find someone else. “I don't want someone else,” Shamron had said. “I want you.”

It was but one of many arguments Shamron would eventually win. Time and time again, he had managed to manipulate Gabriel into doing his bidding, always coming up with some excuse, some minor operational errand, to keep his gifted prodigy within reach of the Office. It had been Shamron's wish that Gabriel assume his rightful place in the director's suite at King Saul Boulevard. But Gabriel, in one final act of defiance, had turned his back on the offer, handing the job instead to an old rival named Uzi Navot. For a time, it seemed Navot would be willing to act merely as Shamron's puppet. But now, having established his hold over the Office, Navot had banished Shamron to the Judean Wilderness, thus severing the old man's ties to the intelligence service he had created in his own image. Shamron lived now in something akin to internal exile at his villa overlooking the Sea of Galilee. The politicians and generals who used to seek his advice no longer beat a path to his door. To fill the empty hours, he repaired antique radios and tried to concoct some way to convince Gabriel, whom he loved as a son, to come home again.

“How often does he call to check up on me?”

“Never,” replied Pazner, shaking his head for emphasis.

“How often, Shimon?”

“Twice a week, sometimes three. In fact, I just got off the phone with him before you called.”

“What did he want?”

“King Saul Boulevard is in an uproar. They're convinced something is about to come down. Something big.”

“Is there anything specific on the target?”

Pazner took a final pull at his cigarette and sent the ember arcing into the darkness. “It might be an embassy or a consulate. It might be a synagogue or a community center. They think it's going to happen in the south, probably Istanbul or Athens, but they can't rule out Rome. We've barely finished rebuilding from the last time we were hit.” Pazner glanced at Gabriel and added, “Something tells me you remember that attack well.”

Gabriel didn't respond directly. “Is it al-Qaeda?”

“After your last operation, there's probably no al-Qaeda network or cell capable of carrying out a major attack in Europe. And since the Palestinians have no interest in hitting us here at the moment, that leaves only one other candidate.”

“The Iranians.”

“Acting through their favorite proxy, of course.”

Hezbollah . . .

They had reached the edge of the Piazza di Siena. The broad dusty oval was awash with pale moonlight, and the sound of the traffic along the Corso was but a whisper. It was almost possible to imagine they were the last two men alive in an ancient city.

“What's the source?” asked Gabriel.

“Sources,” countered Pazner. “It's a mosaic of intelligence, both human and signals. It appears the Qods Force of the Revolutionary Guard is running the operation. Department Five of VEVAK is apparently involved as well.”

VEVAK was the Persian-language acronym of the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security, Iran's formidable intelligence service. Department Five was among its most important divisions, for it dealt exclusively with the State of Israel.

“According to one of our assets in southern Lebanon,” Pazner continued, “a team of Hezbollah operatives left Beirut about six weeks ago. We think it's a straight revenge operation. Frankly, we've been expecting something like this for some time. They have good reason to be angry at us.”

For much of the past decade, the Office had been waging a not-so-secret war against the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Scientists had been assassinated, destructive computer viruses had been introduced into labs and facilities, and faulty parts had been cleverly inserted into Iran's nuclear supply chain—including several dozen sabotaged industrial centrifuges that destroyed four secret enrichment facilities. The operation had been one of Gabriel's finest. Fittingly, it had been code-named Masterpiece.

“Has my name come up in any of the intel?”

“Not a whisper. But that doesn't mean they don't suspect you were the one behind it. Anyone who underestimates the Iranians does so at his own risk, you included.”

“I've never underestimated them. But I have no intention of spending the rest of my life in hiding.”

“No one's suggesting that.”

“What
are
you suggesting?”

“Jerusalem is lovely this time of year.”

“Actually, it's miserable. But that's beside the point. I'm too busy to leave Rome.”

“So I've heard. I've also heard that your friend the monsignor asked you to have a look at the suicide in the Basilica while the body was still in situ.”

“Very impressive, Shimon. How did you know I was there?”

“Because Lorenzo Vitale told one of his old friends in the Guardia di Finanza. And that friend told one of
his
friends in the Italian security service. And the friend from the Italian security service told me. He also told me that if you step out of line, he'll put you on the first plane out of town.”

“Tell him I'm living up to the letter and spirit of our agreement.”

“Is that why Donati's assistant invited you to coffee this afternoon?”

“I see you're monitoring my mobile phone again.”

“What makes you think I ever stopped?” Pazner walked in silence for a moment. “I don't suppose that woman actually threw herself from the dome of the Basilica, did she?”

“No, Shimon, she didn't.”

“Any idea why she was killed?”

“I have a theory, but I can't pursue it without help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Forensic help,” replied Gabriel. “I need Unit 8200 to have a look under her fingernails.”

Unit 8200 was Israel's signals intelligence service, the equivalent of the National Security Agency in the United States. Though formally under the command of the military chief of staff, it carried out tasks for all the Israeli intelligence and security agencies, including the Office. Its alumni included some of the most successful entrepreneurs in Israel's thriving high-tech industry.