“Why?”

“I need to talk to you about Niklaus.”

“Where is he?”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you heard from him?”

“It was the morning of the pope’s funeral. He wouldn’t tell me where he was.”

“Why not?”

“He said he didn’t want them to know.”

“Who?”

She started to answer, but stopped. “Have you seen him?” she asked.

“Yes, Stefani. I’m afraid I have.”

“When?”

“Last night,” said Donati. “On the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.”

FROM HIS OBSERVATION POST AT Café des Arcades, Gabriel listened as Donati quietly told Stefani Hoffmann that Niklaus Janson was dead. He was glad it was his old friend on the other side of the street and not him. If Donati always labored over how to acknowledge his occupation, Gabriel likewise struggled over how to tell a woman that a loved one—a son, a brother, a father, a fiancé—had been murdered in cold blood.

She didn’t believe Donati at first, which was to be expected. His response, that he had no motive to lie about such a thing, did little to dilute her skepticism. The Vatican, she shot back, lied all the time.

“I don’t work for the Vatican,” answered Donati. “Not anymore.”

He then suggested they speak somewhere private. Stefani Hoffmann said the restaurant closed at ten, and that her boss would kill her if she left him in the lurch.

“Your boss will understand.”

“What do I say to him about Niklaus?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“My car is in the Place des Ormeaux. Wait for me there.”

Donati went into the street and lifted the phone to his ear. “Were you able to hear all that?”

“She knows,” answered Gabriel. “The question is, how much?”

Donati slipped the phone into his pocket without killing the connection. Stefani Hoffmann emerged from the restaurant a few minutes later, a scarf around her neck. Her car was a worn-out Volvo. Donati lowered himself into the passenger seat as Gabriel slid behind the wheel of the BMW. Through his earpiece he heard the click of Donati’s safety belt, followed an instant later by a wail of anguish from Stefani Hoffmann.

“Is Niklaus really dead?”

“I saw it happen.”

“Why didn’t you stop it?”

“There was nothing to be done.”

Stefani Hoffmann reversed out of the parking space and turned onto the rue du Pont-Muré. Ten seconds later, Gabriel did the same. As they left the Old Town on the Route des Alpes, Donati asked why Niklaus Janson had fled the Vatican the night of the Holy Father’s death. Her response was scarcely audible.

“He was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“That they were going to kill him.”

“Who, Stefani?”

For a long moment there was only the rattle of the Volvo’s engine, followed a moment later by the sound of Stefani Hoffmann screaming. Gabriel lowered the volume on his phone. He was glad it was his old friend sitting next to her and not him.

17

RECHTHALTEN, SWITZERLAND

AS THEY APPROACHED THE HAMLET of St. Ursen, Stefani Hoffmann became aware of the fact they were being followed.

“It’s only an associate of mine,” explained Donati.

“Since when do priests have associates?”

“He’s the man who helped me find Niklaus in Florence.”

“I thought you said you came to Fribourg alone.”

“I said no such thing.”

“Is this associate of yours a priest, too?”

“No.”

“Vatican intelligence?”

Donati was tempted to inform Stefani Hoffmann that there was no department of the Holy See known as Vatican intelligence; that it was a canard invented by Catholicism’s enemies; that the real intelligence-gathering apparatus of the Vatican was the Universal Church itself, with its global network of parishes, schools, universities, hospitals, charitable organizations, and nuncios in capitals around the world. He spared her this discourse, at least for the moment. Still, he was curious why she would ask such a question. It could wait, he decided, until his associate had joined them.

The next village was Rechthalten. Donati recognized the name. It was the village where Niklaus Janson had been born and raised. Its inhabitants were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. Most were employed in what government statisticians referred to as the primary sector of the economy, a polite way of saying they worked the land. A handful, like Stefani Hoffmann, commuted each day to Fribourg. She had moved out of the family home about a year ago, she said, and was living alone in a cottage at the far eastern edge of the town.

It was shaped like an A, with a small sun deck on the upper floor. She turned into the unpaved drive and switched off the engine. Gabriel arrived a few seconds later. In German he introduced himself as Heinrich Kiever. It was the name on the false German passport he had displayed earlier that afternoon at Geneva Airport.

“Are you sure you’re not a priest?” Stefani Hoffmann accepted his outstretched hand. “You look more like a priest than the archbishop.”

She led them inside the cottage. The ground floor had been converted into an artist’s studio. Stefani Hoffmann, Donati remembered suddenly, was a painter. Her latest work was propped on an easel in the center of the room. The man she knew as Heinrich Kiever stood before it, a hand to his chin, his head tilted slightly to one side.

“This is quite good.”

“Do you paint?”

“Only the occasional watercolor while on holiday.”

Stefani Hoffmann was clearly dubious. She removed her coat and scarf and looked at Donati as tears fell from her blue eyes. “Something to drink?”

HER BREAKFAST DISHES WERE STILL on the table in her tiny kitchen. She cleared them away and filled the electric kettle with bottled water. As she spooned coffee into the French press, she apologized for the chaotic state of the cottage, and for its modesty. It was all she could afford, she lamented, on her salary from the restaurant and the small amount of money she earned through the sale of her paintings.

“We’re not all rich private bankers, you know.”

She addressed them in German. Not the dialect of Swiss German spoken in the village, but proper High German, the language of her Alemannic brethren to the north. She had learned to speak it in school, she explained, beginning at the age of six. Niklaus Janson had been a classmate. He was an awkward boy, skinny, shy, bespectacled, but at seventeen he was somehow magically transformed into an object of striking beauty. The first time they made love, he insisted on removing his crucifix. Afterward, he confessed to Father Erich, the village priest.

“He was a very religious boy, Niklaus. It was one of the things I liked about him. He said he never mentioned my name in the confessional, but Father Erich gave me quite a look when I took communion the next Sunday.”

After completing their secondary education at the local Kantonsschule, Stefani studied art at the University of Fribourg, and Niklaus, whose father was a carpenter, enlisted in the Swiss Army. At the conclusion of his service, he returned to Rechthalten and started looking for work. It was Father Erich who suggested he join the Swiss Guard, which was undermanned at the time and desperately looking for recruits. Stefani Hoffmann was vehemently opposed to the idea.