Cardinal Navarro’s lead would shrink on the second ballot. And on the third, a new name would emerge: Cardinal Franz von Emmerich, the archbishop of Vienna and a secret member of the Order of St. Helena. By the fifth ballot, Emmerich would be unstoppable. By the sixth, the papacy would be his. No, thought Albanese suddenly. The papacy would be the Order’s.

They planned to waste little time in undoing the modest reforms put in place by Lucchesi and Donati. All power would be centralized in the Apostolic Palace. All dissent would be ruthlessly repressed. There would be no more talk of women in the priesthood or allowing priests to marry. Nor would there be any heartfelt encyclicals about climate change, the poor, the rights of workers and immigrants, and the dangers posed by the rise of the far right in Western Europe. Indeed, the new secretary of state would forge close ties between the Holy See and the authoritarian leaders of Italy, Germany, Austria, and France—all doctrinaire Catholics who would serve as a bulwark against secularism, democratic socialism, and, of course, Islam.

Albanese moved toward the altar. Behind it was Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, with its swirling cyclone of souls rising toward heaven or falling into the depths of hell. It never failed to stir Albanese. It was the reason he had become a priest, the fear that he would suffer for all eternity in the emptiness of the underworld.

That fear, after lying dormant within Albanese for many years, had risen again. It was true that Bishop Richter had granted him absolution for his role in the murder of Pietro Lucchesi. But in his heart Albanese did not believe such a mortal sin could truly be forgiven. Granted, it was Father Graf who had done the deed. But Albanese had been an accessory before and after the fact. He had played his role flawlessly, with one exception. He had failed to find the letter—the letter Lucchesi was writing to Gabriel Allon about the book he had found in the Secret Archives. The only explanation was that the Janson boy had taken it. Father Graf had killed him as well. Two murders. Two black marks on Albanese’s soul.

All the more reason why the conclave had to go precisely as planned. It was Albanese’s job to make certain the cardinal-electors who had accepted the Order’s money cast their ballots for Emmerich at the appropriate time. A sudden and decisive move toward the Austrian would raise suspicion of tampering. His support had to build gradually, ballot by ballot, so that nothing looked amiss. Once Emmerich was clad in white, the Order would face no threat of exposure. The Vatican was one of the world’s last absolute monarchies, a divine dictatorship. There would be no investigation, no exhumation of the dead pontiff’s body. It would almost be as though it had never happened.

Unless, thought Albanese, there was another unexpected development like the one that had occurred the previous morning at the Secret Archives. Gabriel Allon and Archbishop Donati had undoubtedly found something. What it was, Albanese could not say. He only knew that after leaving the Archives, Allon and Donati had traveled to Assisi, where they had met with a certain Father Robert Jordan, the Church’s foremost expert on the apocryphal gospels. Afterward, they had returned to Rome, where they had met with one Alessandro Ricci, the world’s foremost expert on the Order of St. Helena. It was hardly an encouraging sign.

“Truly magnificent, is it not?”

Albanese turned with a start.

“Forgive me,” said Bishop Richter. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

Albanese addressed his superior general with a cool and distant formality. “Good morning, Excellency. What brings you to the Sistina?”

“I was told I might find the camerlengo here.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Not at all. In fact, I have rather good news.”

“What’s that?”

Richter smiled. “Gabriel Allon just left Rome.”

35

ZURICH

IT WAS HALF PAST FOUR when Gabriel arrived in Zurich. He rode in a taxi to the Paradeplatz, the St. Peter’s Square of Swiss banking, and then walked along the stately Bahnhofstrasse to the northern tip of the Zürichsee. A BMW sedan drew alongside him on the General-Guisan-Quai. Behind the wheel was Christoph Bittel. Bald and bespectacled, he looked like just another gnome heading home to the lakeside suburbs after a long day spent tabulating the hidden riches of Arab sheikhs and Russian oligarchs.

Gabriel dropped into the passenger seat. “Where were we?”

“The man in the sketch.” Bittel eased into the rush-hour traffic. “I’m sorry it took me so long to make the connection. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen him.”

“What’s his name?”

“Estermann,” said Bittel. “Andreas Estermann.”

AS GABRIEL SUSPECTED, ESTERMANN WAS a professional. For thirty years he had worked for the Bf V, Germany’s internal security service. Not surprisingly, the Bf V maintained close links with its sister service in Switzerland, the NDB. Early in his career, Bittel had traveled to Cologne to brief his German counterparts on Soviet espionage activity in Bern and Geneva. Estermann was his contact.

“When the meeting was over, he invited me for a drink. Which was odd.”

“Why?”

“Estermann doesn’t touch alcohol.”

“Does he have a problem?”

“He has lots of problems, but alcohol isn’t one of them.”

In the years that followed their first meeting, Bittel and Estermann bumped into each other from time to time, as practitioners of the secret trade are prone to do. Neither one of them was what you might describe as an action figure. They were not operatives, they were glorified policemen. They conducted investigations, wrote reports, and attended countless conferences where the primary challenge was keeping one’s eyes open. They shared lunches and dinners whenever their paths crossed. Estermann often funneled intelligence to Bittel outside normal channels. Bittel reciprocated whenever possible, but always with the approval of the top floor. His superiors considered Estermann a valuable asset.

“And then the planes crashed into the World Trade Center, and everything changed. Especially Estermann.”

“How so?”

“He had moved from counterintelligence to counterterrorism a couple of years before nine-eleven, just like me. He claimed he was on to the Hamburg Cell from the beginning. He swore he could have stopped the plot in its tracks if his superiors had allowed him to do his job properly.”

“Was any of it true?”

“That he could have single-handedly prevented the worst terrorist attack in history?” Bittel shook his head. “Maybe Gabriel Allon could have done it. But not Andreas Estermann.”

“How did he change?”

“He became incredibly bitter.”

“At whom?”

“Muslims.”

“Al-Qaeda?”

“Not just al-Qaeda. Estermann resented all Muslims, especially those who lived in Germany. He was unable to separate the hard-core jihadist from the poor Moroccan or Turk who came to Europe looking for a better life. It got worse after the attack on the Vatican. He lost all perspective. I found his company difficult to bear.”

“But you maintained the relationship?”

“We’re a small service. Estermann was a force multiplier.” Bittel smiled. “Like you, Allon.”