“The Order of St. Helena Incorporated.”

“You’ve obviously read Alessandro Ricci’s book.”

“Why did you leave the Bf V early?”

“I’d done everything I could from the inside. Besides, by 2014 we were close to achieving our goals. Bishop Richter and Herr Wolf decided that the Project required my full attention.”

“The Project?”

Estermann nodded.

“What was it?”

“A response to an incident that occurred at the Vatican in the autumn of 2006. You might remember it. In fact,” said Estermann, “I believe you were there that day.”

HE NEEDLESSLY REMINDED GABRIEL OF the horrific details. The attack had occurred a few minutes after noon, during a Wednesday General Audience in St. Peter’s Square. Three suicide bombers, three shoulder-launch RPG-7s: a calculated insult to the Christian concept of the Trinity, which Islam regarded as polytheism, or shirk. More than seven hundred people were killed, making it the worst terrorist attack since 9/11. Among the dead were the commandant of the Swiss Guard, four curial cardinals, eight bishops, and three monsignori. The Holy Father would have died as well if Gabriel hadn’t shielded his body from the falling debris.

“And what did Lucchesi and Donati do?” asked Estermann. “They called for dialogue and reconciliation.”

“I assume the Order had a better idea.”

“Islamic terrorists had just attacked the heart of Christendom. Their goal was to turn Western Europe into a colony of the caliphate. Let’s just say that Bishop Richter and Jonas Wolf were in no mood to negotiate the terms of Christianity’s surrender. In fact, when discussing their plan, they borrowed a famous phrase from the Jews.”

“What was that?”

“Never again.”

“How flattering,” said Gabriel. “And the plan?”

“Radical Islam had declared war on the Church and Western civilization. If the Church and Western civilization could not summon the strength to fight back, the Order would do it for them.”

It was Jonas Wolf, he continued, who chose to call the operation the Project. Bishop Richter had argued for something biblical, something with historical sweep and gravitas. But Wolf insisted on blandness over grandeur. He wanted a harmless-sounding word that could be used in an e-mail or a phone conversation without raising suspicion.

“And the nature of the Project?” asked Gabriel.

“It was to be a twenty-first-century version of the Reconquista.”

“I assume your ambitions weren’t limited to the Iberian Peninsula.”

“No,” said Estermann. “Our goal was to erase the Islamic presence from Western Europe and restore the Church to its proper place of ascendancy.”

“How?”

“The same way our founder, Father Schiller, waged a successful war against communism.”

“By throwing in your lot with fascists?”

“By supporting the election of traditionalist politicians in the predominantly Roman Catholic heartland of Western Europe.” His words had the dryness of a policy paper. “Politicians who would take the difficult but necessary steps to reverse current demographic trends.”

“What sort of steps?”

“Use your imagination.”

“I’m trying. And all I can see are cattle cars and smokestacks.”

“No one’s talking about that.”

“You’re the one who used the word erase, Estermann. Not me.”

“Do you know how many Muslim immigrants there are in Europe? In one generation, two at the most, Germany will be an Islamic country. France and the Netherlands, too. Can you imagine what life will be like for the Jews then?”

“Why don’t you leave us out of it and explain to me how you’re going to get rid of twenty-five million Muslims.”

“By encouraging them to leave.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Deportations will be necessary.”

“All of them?”

“Every last one.”

“What’s your role in this? Are you Adolf Eichmann or Heinrich Himmler?”

“I’m the chief of operations. I funnel the Order’s money to our chosen political parties and run our intelligence and security service.”

“I assume you have a cyber unit.”

“A good one. Between the Order and the Russians, little of what your average Western European reads online these days is true.”

“Are you working with them?”

“The Russians?” Estermann shook his head. “But more often than not, our interests align.”

“The chancellor of Austria is quite fond of the Kremlin.”

“Jörg Kaufmann? He’s our rock star. Even the American president adores him, and he doesn’t like anyone.”

“What about Giuseppe Saviano?”

“Thanks to the Order, he came from nowhere to win the last election.”

“Cécile Leclerc?”

“A real warrior. She told me that she intends to build a bridge between Marseilles and North Africa. Needless to say, the traffic will flow only one way.”

“That leaves Axel Brünner.”

“The bombings have given him a real boost in the polls.”

“You wouldn’t know anything about them, would you?”

“My old friends at Bf V are convinced the cell is based in Hamburg. It’s a real mess, Hamburg. Lots of radical mosques. Brünner will clean it up once he’s in power.”

Gabriel smiled. “Thanks to you, the only way Brünner will ever see the inside of the Federal Chancellery is if he gets a job as a janitor.”

Estermann was silent.

“You were on the verge of getting everything you wanted. And yet you put it all at risk by murdering an old man with a bad heart. Why kill him? Why not simply wait for him to die?”

“That was the plan.”

“What changed?”

“The old man found a book in the Secret Archives,” said Estermann. “And then he tried to give it to you.”

42

MUNICH

IT WAS IN EARLY OCTOBER, after the Holy Father’s return from a long weekend at Castel Gandolfo, that the Order realized it had a problem. His health failing, perhaps sensing that the end was near, he had embarked on a review of the Vatican’s most sensitive documents, especially those related to the early Church and the Gospels. Of particular interest to His Holiness were the apocryphal gospels, books the Church Fathers had excluded from the New Testament.

Cardinal Domenico Albanese, the prefetto of the Secret Archives, carefully curated the Holy Father’s reading list, hiding material he did not want the pontiff to see. But quite by chance, while visiting the papal study with several other curial cardinals, he noticed a small book, several centuries old, bound in cracked red leather, lying on the table next to the Holy Father’s desk. It was an apocryphal piece of early Christian writing that was supposed to be locked in the collezione. When Albanese asked the Holy Father how he had obtained the book, His Holiness replied that it had been given to him by a certain Father Joshua, a name Albanese did not recognize.

Alarmed, Albanese immediately informed his superior general, Bishop Hans Richter, who in turn contacted the Order’s chief of security and intelligence, Andreas Estermann. Several weeks later, in mid-November, Estermann learned the Holy Father had begun work on a letter—a letter he intended to give to the man who had saved his life during the attack on the Vatican.