“What kind of cases?”

“Forgeries.” Ferrari opened the folder and removed the first page of the gospel. It was still encased in protective plastic. “It looks like it was produced during the Renaissance. In truth, it was manufactured a few months ago. Which means the Gospel of Pilate, the book that led to the murder of His Holiness Pope Paul the Seventh, is a fraud.”

“How were you able to date it so precisely?”

“The papermaker is on my payroll. I paid him a visit after my lab delivered its findings.” Ferrari tapped the page. “It was part of a large order of reproduction Renaissance paper. Several hundred sheets, in fact. The size was appropriate for bookbinding. It cost the buyer a small fortune.”

“Who was he?”

“A priest, actually.”

“Does the priest have a name?”

“Father Robert Jordan.”

63

VENICE—ASSISI

IT HAD BEEN GABRIEL’S INTENTION to return to Israel the following morning on the ten o’clock El Al flight from Venice’s Marco Polo Airport. He instructed Travel to book four seats on the evening flight from Rome instead. The car, a Volkswagen Passat, he saw to himself. They departed Venice at half past seven, a full thirty minutes later than he had hoped, and arrived in Assisi a few minutes after noon. With Chiara and the children at his side, he rang the bell at the Abbey of St. Peter. Receiving no answer, he rang it again.

At length, Don Simon, the English Benedictine, answered. “Good afternoon. May I help you?”

“I’m here to see Father Jordan.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“No.”

“Your name?”

“Gabriel Allon. I was here with—”

“I remember you. But why do you wish to see Father Jordan again?”

Gabriel crossed his fingers. “I was sent by the Holy Father. I’m afraid it’s a matter of some urgency.”

There was a silence of several seconds. Then the lock snapped open.

Gabriel looked at Chiara and smiled. “Membership has its privileges.”

THE MONK LED THEM TO the common room overlooking the abbey’s green garden. Ten minutes elapsed before he returned with Father Jordan. The American Jesuit did not appear pleased to see the friend of the new Roman pontiff.

At length, he looked at Don Simon. “Perhaps you should give Signore Allon’s wife and children a tour of the grounds. They’re really quite beautiful.”

Chiara glanced at Gabriel, who nodded once. A moment later he and Father Jordan had the room to themselves.

“Are you really here at the behest of the Holy Father?” asked the priest.

“No.”

“I admire your honesty.”

“I wish I could say the same.”

Father Jordan moved to the window. “How much of the story have you managed to piece together?”

“I know that almost everything you told us was a lie, beginning with your name. I also know that you recently took delivery of a large order of reproduction Renaissance paper, which you used to produce a book called the Gospel of Pilate. The question is, was the gospel a fraud? Or was it a copy of the original?”

“Do you have an opinion?”

“I’m betting it was a copy.”

Father Jordan beckoned for Gabriel to join him at the window. Together they watched Chiara and the children walking along a garden path at the side of the Benedictine monk.

“You have a beautiful family, Mr. Allon. Every time I see Jewish children, I think they are a miracle.”

“And when you see a Jesuit pope?”

“I see your handiwork.” Father Jordan gave him a conspiratorial smile. “Shouldn’t you be in Israel?”

“We’re on our way to the airport.”

“When is your flight?”

“Six o’clock.”

Father Jordan looked down at the two small children playing in the garden. “In that case, Mr. Allon, I believe you have just enough time for one last story.”

HE BEGAN BY TAKING ISSUE with Gabriel on a small but not insignificant point. His legal name, he said, was in fact Robert Jordan. His mother and father had changed the family name shortly after they arrived in America in 1939 as refugees from Europe. They chose an anglicized version of their real surname, which was the Italian word for the river that flows from the Northern Galilee to the Dead Sea.

“Giordano,” said Gabriel.

Father Robert Jordan nodded. “My father was the son of a wealthy Roman businessman named Emanuele Giordano. One of three sons,” he added pointedly. “My mother was from an old family called Delvecchio. The name is quite common among Italian Jews. I must admit, I thought my own name was rather dull in comparison. I considered changing it many times, especially when I moved to Italy to teach at the Gregoriana.”

“How on earth did the child of two Jews become a Catholic priest?”

“My parents were never very religious, even when they lived in Rome. When they came to America, they masqueraded as Catholics in order to blend in with their surroundings. It wasn’t difficult for them. As Romans, they were used to the rituals of Catholicism. But I was the real thing. I was baptized and received my First Communion. I even served as an altar boy in our parish church. I can only imagine what my poor parents were thinking when they saw me up there in my little vestments.”

“How did they react when you told them you wanted to become a priest?”

“My father could scarcely look at me in my cassock and Roman collar.”

“Why didn’t he tell you the truth?”

“Guilt, I suppose.”

“At having forsaken his faith?”

“My father never abandoned his faith,” said Father Jordan. “Even when he was pretending to be a Catholic. He was guilty because he and my mother had survived the war. They didn’t want me to know that their relatives weren’t so lucky. They were ensnared in the Rome roundup in October 1943 and sent to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. All without a word of protest from the Holy Father, despite the fact that it took place under his very windows.”

“And you became a Catholic priest.”

“Imagine that.”

“When did you learn the truth?”

“It wasn’t until November 1989, when I returned to Boston to attend my father’s funeral. After the service, my mother gave me a letter he had written after I went off to the seminary. Obviously, it came as quite a shock. Not only was I Jewish, I was a surviving remnant of a family that had perished in the Holocaust.”

“Did you ever consider renouncing your vows?”

“Of course.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I decided I could be both a Christian and a Jew. After all, Jesus was a Jew. So were the twelve apostles whose statues stand guard over the portico of the basilica. Twelve apostles,” he repeated. “One each for the twelve tribes of Israel. The original Christians didn’t see themselves as founders of a new faith. They were Jews who were also Jesus followers. I saw myself in a similar light.”

“Do you still believe in the divinity of Jesus?”

“I’m not sure I ever did. But neither did they. They believed Jesus was a man who had been exalted into heaven, not a supreme being who had been sent to earth. All that came much later, after the Gospels had been written and the early Church settled on Christianity’s orthodoxy. That was when the great sibling rivalry began. The Church Fathers declared that the covenant between God and his chosen people had been broken, that the old law had been replaced by the new. God had sent his son to save the world, and the Jews had rejected him. Then, for good measure, they had cleverly maneuvered a gullible and blameless Roman prefect into nailing him to a cross. For such a people, the murderers of God himself, no punishment was too severe.”