The Russian walked over to the Chapel of the Pietà. After spending just thirty seconds pretending to marvel at Michelangelo’s masterpiece, he continued up the right side of the nave and paused again, this time before the Monument to Pope Pius XII. Because of the statue’s position, the Russian was temporarily shielded from Gabriel’s view. Gabriel looked toward the opposite side of the nave and saw Lavon standing near the entrance of the Vatican Grottoes. Their eyes met briefly; Lavon nodded once. Gabriel took one final look at the soaring Dome, then set off toward the spot where the Russian was waiting for him.
The sculpture of Pius XII is a curious one. The right hand is raised in blessing, but the head is turned a few degrees to the right, a somewhat defensive pose that makes it appear as if the wartime pontiff is attempting to ward off a blow. Even more curious, however, was the scene Gabriel encountered as he entered the enclave where the statue is located. Boris Ostrovsky was on his knees before the pedestal, with his face lifted sharply toward the ceiling and his hands raised to his neck. A few feet away, three African nuns were conversing softly in French, as though there was nothing unusual about the sight of a man kneeling in fervent veneration before the statue of so great a pope.
Gabriel slipped past the nuns and moved quickly to Ostrovsky’s side. His eyes were bulging and frozen in terror, and his hands were locked around his own throat, as though he were attempting to strangle himself. He wasn’t, of course; he was only trying to breathe. Ostrovsky’s affliction wasn’t natural. In fact, Gabriel was quite certain the Russian had been poisoned. Somehow, somewhere, an assassin had managed to get to him, despite all their precautions.
Gabriel eased Ostrovsky to the floor and spoke quietly into his ear while attempting to pry loose his hands. The nuns gathered round and began to pray, along with a crowd of curious bystanders. Within thirty seconds, the first officers of the Vigilanza, the Vatican ’s police force, arrived to investigate. By then, Gabriel was no longer there. He was walking calmly down the steps of the Basilica, with his sunglasses on his face and Eli Lavon at his side. “He was clean,” Lavon was saying. “I’m telling you, Gabriel, he was clean.”
8 VATICAN CITY
It took just one hour for the death in St. Peter’s to reach the airwaves of Italy and another hour for the first report to appear in a roundup of European news on the BBC. By eight o’clock, the corpse had a name; by nine, an occupation.
At 9:30 P.M. Rome time, global interest in Ostrovsky’s death increased dramatically when a spokesman for the Vatican Press Office issued a terse statement suggesting the Russian journalist appeared to have died as a result of foul play. The announcement ignited a frenzy of activity in newsrooms around the world, it being an otherwise rather slow day, and by midnight there were satellite broadcast trucks lining the Via della Conciliazione from the Tiber to St. Peter’s Square. Experts were brought in to analyze every possible angle, real or imagined: experts on the police and security forces of the Vatican; experts on the perils facing Russian journalists; experts on the Basilica itself, which had been sealed off and declared a crime scene. An American cable channel even interviewed the author of a book about Pius XII, before whose statue Ostrovsky had died. The scholar was engaged in idle speculation about a possible link between the dead Russian journalist and the controversial pope as Gabriel parked his motorbike on a quiet side street near the Vatican walls and made his way toward St. Anne’s Gate.
A young priest was standing just inside the gate, chatting with a Swiss Guard dressed in a simple blue night uniform. The priest greeted Gabriel with a nod, then turned and escorted him silently up the Via Belvedere. They entered the Apostolic Palace through the San Damaso Courtyard and stepped into a waiting elevator that bore them slowly up to the third floor. Monsignor Luigi Donati, private secretary to His Holiness Pope Paul VII, was waiting in the frescoed loggia. He was six inches taller than Gabriel and blessed with the dark good looks of an Italian film star. His handmade black cassock hung gracefully from his slender frame, and his gold wristwatch glinted in the restrained light as he banished the young priest with a curt wave.
“Please tell me you didn’t actually kill a man in my Basilica,” Donati murmured after the young priest had receded into the shadows.
“I didn’t kill anyone, Luigi.”
The monsignor frowned, then handed Gabriel a manila file folder stamped with the insignia of the Vigilanza. Gabriel lifted the cover and saw himself, cradling the dying figure of Boris Ostrovsky. There were other photos beneath: Gabriel walking away as the onlookers gathered round; Gabriel slipping out the Filarete Door; Gabriel at the side of Eli Lavon as they hurried together across St. Peter’s Square. He closed the file and held it out toward Donati like an offertory.
“They’re yours to keep, Gabriel. Think of them as a souvenir of your visit to the Vatican.”
“I assume the Vigilanza has another set?”
Donati gave a slow nod of his head.
“I would be eternally grateful if you would be so kind as to drop those prints in the nearest pontifical shredder.”
“I will,” Donati said icily. “After you tell me everything you know about what transpired here this afternoon.”
“I know very little, actually.”
“Why don’t we start with something simple, then? For example, what in God’s name were you doing there?”
Donati removed a cigarette from his elegant gold case, tapped it impatiently against the cover, then ignited it with an executive gold lighter. There was little clerical in his demeanor; not for the first time, Gabriel had to remind himself that the tall, cassocked figure standing before him was actually a priest. Brilliant, uncompromising, and notoriously short of temper, Donati was one of the most powerful private secretaries in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. He ran the Vatican like a prime minister or CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a management style that had won him few friends behind the walls of the Vatican. The Vatican press corps called him a clerical Rasputin, the true power behind the papal throne, while his legion of enemies in the Roman Curia often referred to him as “the Black Pope,” an unflattering reference to Donati’s Jesuit past. Their loathing of Donati had diminished some during the past year. After all, there were few men who could say they had actually stepped in front of a bullet meant for the Supreme Pontiff.
“It might be in your interests, Monsignor Donati, to limit your exposure to certain facts surrounding the circumstances of Ostrovsky’s death.” Gabriel’s tone was lawyerly. “Otherwise, you might find yourself in a ticklish situation when the investigators start asking questions.”
“I’ve been in ticklish situations before.” Donati blew a stream of smoke toward the high ceiling and gave Gabriel a sideways glance. “We both have. Just tell me everything you know and let me worry about how to handle the questions from the investigators.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been to confession, Luigi.”
“Try it,” Donati said. “It’s good for the soul.”
Gabriel may have harbored serious doubts about the benefits of confession, but he had none when it came to the trustworthiness of Luigi Donati. Their bond had been forged in secrecy and was drenched in blood, some of it their own. The former Jesuit knew how to keep a secret. He was also skilled at telling the occasional untruth, as long as it was in the service of a noble cause. And so, as they walked the silent halls of the Apostolic Palace together, Gabriel told him everything, beginning with his summons to Assisi and ending with Ostrovsky’s death.