The cardinal ran a long, spidery finger around the rim of his coffee cup, steeling himself for one more assault on the ridge. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, "The Pole apologized on numerous occasions for the sins of some of the Church's sons and daughters. Other prelates have apologized as well. Some, such as our brethren in France, have gone much further than I would have preferred. But the Jews and their friends in the media will not be satisfied until we admit that we were wrong--that His Holiness Pope Pius the Twelfth, a great and saintly man, was wrong. What they do not understand--and what you seem to be forgetting, Holiness--is

that the Church, as the embodiment of Christ on earth, cannot be wrong. The Church is truth itself. If we admit that the Church, or a pope, was wrong . . ." He left his sentence unfinished, then added: "It would be an error for you to go forward with this initiative of yours, Holiness. A grave error."

"Behind these walls, Marco, error is a loaded word. Surely it is not your intention to level such an accusation at me."

"I have no intention of parsing my words, Holiness."

"And what if the documents contained in the Secret Archives tell a different story?"

"Those documents must never be released."

"I am the only one with the power to release documents from the Secret Archives, and I have decided that it will be done."

The cardinal fingered his pectoral cross. "When do you intend to announce this . .. initiative ?"

"Next week."

"Where?"

"Across the river," the Pope said. "At the Great Synagogue."

"Out of the question! The Curia hasn't had time to give the matter the thought and preparation it deserves."

"I'm seventy-two years old. I don't have time to wait for the mandarins of the Curia to give the matter thought and preparation. That, I'm afraid, is how things are buried and forgotten. The rabbi and I have spoken. I'm going to the ghetto next week, with or without the support of the Curia--or my secretary of state, for that matter. The truth, Eminence, shall make us free."

"And you, the street-urchin pope from the Veneto, pretend to know the truth."

"Only God knows the truth, Marco, but Thomas Aquinas wrote of a cultivated ignorance, an ignorantia affectata. A willful lack of knowledge designed to protect one from the harm. It is time to shed our ignorantia affectata. Our Savior said that he was the light of the world, but here in the Vatican, we live in darkness. I intend to turn on the lights."

"My memory seems to be playing tricks on me, Holiness, but it is my recollection of the conclave that we elected a Catholic Pope."

"You did, Eminence, but you also elected a human one."

"If it were not for me, you would still be wearing red."

"It is the Holy Spirit who chooses popes. We just cast his ballots."

"Another example of your shocking naivety."

"Will you be at my side next week in Trastevere?"

"I believe I'm going to be suffering from the flu next week."

The cardinal stood up abruptly. "Thank you, Holiness. Another pleasant meal."

"Until next Friday?"

"That remains to be seen."

The Pope held out his hand. Cardinal Brindisi looked down at the fisherman's ring shining in the lamplight, then turned around and walked out without kissing it.

Father Donati listened to the quarrel between the Holy Father and the cardinal from the adjoining pantry. When Brindisi had gone, he entered the dining room and found the Pope looking tired and drawn, eyes closed, thumb and forefinger squeezing the bridge of his nose. Father Donati sat in the cardinal's chair and pushed away the half-drunk cup of espresso.

"I know that must have been unpleasant, Holiness, but it was necessary."

The Pope finally looked up. "We have just disturbed a sleeping cobra, Luigi."

"Yes, Holiness." Donati leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Now let us pray that in its rage, the cobra makes a miscalculation and bites itself." 

MUNICH

Gabriel spent the better part of the following morning trying to track down Doctor Helmut Berger, chairman of the department of modern history at Ludwig-Maximilian University. He left two messages on the professor's home answering machine, a second on his cellular phone, and a third with a surly secretary in the department. Over lunch in the shadowed courtyard of the hotel, he considered waiting in ambush outside the professor's office. Then the concierge appeared with a message slip in his hand. The good professor had agreed to meet with Herr Landau at six-thirty at a restaurant called the Gastatte Atzinger on the Amalienstrasse.

That left five hours to kill. The afternoon was clear and blustery, so Gabriel decided to take a walk. Leaving the hotel, he wandered up a narrow cobblestone street that led to the southern end of the English Gardens. He moved slowly along the footpaths, beside shaded streams, across broad sunlit lawns. In the distance the thousand-foot spire of the Olympia Tower sparkled against the crystalline blue sky. Gabriel lowered his gaze and kept walking.

Leaving the park, he drifted through Schwabing. In the Adalbertstrasse he saw Frau Ratzinger sweeping the steps of No. 68. He had no wish to speak to the old woman again, so he rounded a corner and headed in the opposite direction. Every few minutes he would look up and glimpse the tower, looming before him, growing larger by degrees.

Ten minutes later, he found himself at the southern edge of the village. In many ways Olympiapark was just that: a village, a vast residential area, complete with its own railway station, its own post office, even its own mayor. The cement-block bungalows and apartment houses had not aged gracefully. In an attempt to brighten up the place, many of the units had been painted in bright tie-dye patterns.

He came upon the Connollystrasse. It was not a street, really, but a pedestrian walkway lined with small three-story apartment houses. At No. 31 he stopped walking. On the second floor, a bare-chested teenager stepped onto the balcony to shake out a throw rug. Gabriel's memory flashed. Instead of a young German, he saw a Palestinian in a balaclava. Then a woman emerged from the ground-floor apartment, pushing a stroller and clutching a child to her breast. For an instant, Gabriel saw Issa, leader of the Black September team, his face covered in boot polish, swaggering about in his safari suit and golf hat.

The woman looked at Gabriel as though she was used to strangers standing outside her home with disbelieving expressions on their faces. Yes, she seemed to be saying. Yes, this is the place where it happened. But now it's my home, so please go. She seemed to sense  something else in his gaze--something that unnerved her--and she quickly strapped the child into the stroller and headed toward a playground.

Gabriel climbed a grassy hillock and sat in the cool grass. Usually when the memories came, he tried desperately to push them away, but now he unchained the door and allowed them to enter. Romano . .. Springer... Spitzer... Slavin ... the faces of the dead flashed through his memory. Eleven in all. Two killed in the takeover. Nine more during the bungled German rescue attempt at Fiirsten-feldbruck. Golda Meir wanted revenge of Biblical proportions-- an eye for an eye--and she ordered the Office to "send forth the boys" to hunt down the members of Black September who had plotted the attack. A brash operations officer named Ari Shamron was placed in charge of the mission, and one of the boys he came for was a promising young student at Jerusalem's Betsal'el School of Art named Gabriel Allon.

Somehow, Shamron had come across the file from Gabriel's unhappy compulsory service in the army. The child of Auschwitz survivors, Gabriel was found arrogant and selfish by his superiors; prone to periods of melancholia, but also highly intelligent and capable of taking independent action without waiting for guidance from commanding officers. He was also multilingual, an attribute that had little value in a frontline infantry unit but was much sought after by Ari Shamron. His war would not be fought in the Golan or the Sinai. It would be a secret war waged in the shadows of Europe. Gabriel had tried to resist him. Shamron left him no choice.