Fifteen million was the price, but he might consider the possibility of raising it at any moment, especially if Gelli took too long to pay.

“Yes. I’m sure. Everything will be fine. Good night,” Gelli said in closing. “See you at eight, at the usual place.” And he hung up.

Smiling, Mino Pecorelli turned off the lights in the office, closed the door behind him, and was on the way to his car. Everything was turning out favorably, just as he had imagined. He couldn’t imagine that precisely at that moment, Gelli was making a phone call to an important member of the Italian government, to report the outcome of their conversation.

“There’s no way to convince Mino. He’s totally inflexible. Either we pay or he’s going to publish everything,” Gelli declared.

“I don’t know what he has in mind. How did he get set on this idea?” the person at the other end complained.

“If we pay now, he’ll do it again. And we can’t trust him. He knows too much.”

“Don’t worry, Licio. It’s already taken care of. He won’t bother us anymore.

We’ve given him many opportunities, perhaps too many, and he hasn’t listened. Finally, it was his own choice.”

“Ciao, Giulio.”

“Ciao, Licio.”

SUCH WAS Carmine Mino Pecarelli’s pleasure that he felt an irresistible urge to whistle as he sauntered down Via Orazi, now totally deserted, trying to recall exactly where he had parked his car.

Life was like that. Journalism offered such benefits. In this case it had offered him the possibility of making some easy money. It was stupid to waste time on remorse or burdens of conscience, especially when his bounty came to him from other people’s surplus. Maybe he was unscrupulous, but as a man he still retained a detached sense of justice. It never would occur to him to exploit someone who was unable to pay. But a wheeler-dealer like Gelli, always involved in dark dealings and shady businesses, robbing one for another’s benefit while enriching himself, and capable of anything to accomplish his ends, deserved to be humbled by a man like Carmine Pecorelli.

His car was near the end of the street, almost at the corner. He opened the door and as he settled into the seat, a hand shot out and prevented him from closing the door. The man who blocked the door grabbed him by the hair and yanked him backward. Letting go of the door, he pulled out a pistol, shoved the barrel into Pecorelli’s mouth, and fired twice.

Licio Gelli’s problem had been solved.

The man claiming to be Rafael drove at a moderate speed to avoid attracting attention. He seemed to know what he was doing. He picked up a package from the passenger seat, and offered it to Sarah in the backseat.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Food.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“If I were you, I’d eat something. A hamburger and a Coke aren’t enough for a whole night.”

“How did you know-” She interrupted herself midsentence, knowing the answer to her own question. “Forget it.”

Sarah was confused. This man had pursued and shot at her in the underground, beyond the slightest doubt, and now he claimed to be Rafael, the one her father had said she could trust. Was he deceiving her in some way? Yes, that had to be it. She should be expecting some higher member of the organization to appear, interrogate her using atrocious methods, and end up killing her, whether he got what he wanted or not. She had in her possession a list that they knew more about than she did.

“I assume you have a lot of questions for me,” Rafael said cordially.

“Huh?” Sarah was unsettled by his new attitude.

There was a silence, which didn’t seem to bother the man, who kept driving calmly. He exuded a certain air of satisfaction, as if Sarah’s torment amused him. But this could also be his natural way of being. The young woman’s imagination was racing at full speed.

“I’m at your disposal,” Rafael reassured her, apparently persisting in his attempt to make her feel more relaxed. Even so, and in perfect English, his tone sounded more like an order to Sarah.

“The first question that comes to me is, why did you try to kill me in the underground?”

“Did I try to kill you?”

“Yes. You know very well what I’m talking about.”

“Hmm.”

“Are you denying it?”

“I’m going to tell you, so you won’t have any further confusion about this, that if I’d really shot at you with the intent to kill, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”

“And what the hell happened at my flat? Can you explain to me what’s going on?”

“Yes, I can. The question is, would you be ready to hear it?” the man said in all earnestness.

“Ready or not, I need to know. No other choice.”

“You’re right,” Rafael admitted, forcing a smile. Then he gave her a thoughtful look. “Have you ever heard of Albino Luciani?”

“Yes, of course.” Sarah was offended by Rafael’s condescending tone, as if she were an ignoramus.

“Albino Luciani was known as John Paul I, also popularly known as ‘the Smiling Pope.’ ”

Sarah remembered the papacy of John Paul I. Although she had never been especially interested in religious matters, she knew that this pope had spent a very short time on Saint Peter’s throne.

“He was only pope for a few months.”

“No,” Rafael corrected, “Albino Luciani held the post for thirty-three days, in August and September of 1978.”

“Only thirty-three days?”

“Very little time for some, and too much for others. The death of John Paul I is shrouded in great mystery. There are some who think he was murdered.”

“Well, there are always crazy people who subscribe to conspiracy theories.”

“Try saying that to Pietro Saviotti, the prosecutor of the District of Rome. Apparently he’s one of those ‘crazies’ who think there are still shadows that haven’t been cleared up in that story.”

“But who would want to kill the pope?”

“Instead of who, the more important question is, why. The motive for the crime counts more than the criminal’s identity.”

“All right. Why, then?”

“Let me answer you with another question. Have you ever heard of the P2?”

“Vaguely. Wasn’t it a secret society or something like that?”

“Something like that. It’s the initials of Propaganda Due, an Italian Masonic lodge whose objective is to conquer the political, military, religious, and economic power of all the communities it manages to penetrate.”

Rafael gave Sarah a brief account of this organization, founded in 1877 as a branch of Italy ’s Grande Oriente, formed by people who had no possibility of creating their own lodge. In 1960 it had barely fourteen members, or that’s what people said. When a certain man named Licio Gelli became its grand master, its membership increased to a thousand in one year. And later, at its peak, its body grew to 2,400 members, including generals, politicians, judges, television executives, bankers, professors, priests, bishops, cardinals, and many other people of different professions and levels of power. In 1976 Italy ’s Grande Oriente broke its ties with Licio Gelli and the P2. That was how the organization became a separate lodge, alien to Italian Masonry.

“Nevertheless,” Rafael kept explaining, “Gelli didn’t abandon his ambitions, and he continued to build networks for secretly gaining control of the Italian government. For this he devised the ‘Plan for the Democratic Rebirth of the P2 Lodge.’ Knowing Gelli’s fondness for European fascism, it’s easy to see that he meant to install a totalitarian system, not a democracy. He almost achieved his objectives in the late seventies, judging by the mass media news. Gelli’s methods were not very different from those of other Mafia-type organizations around the world. Anybody who got in his way risked meeting his Maker ahead of time. A lot of the murders, attacks, and massacres of those times carried the seal of the P2 Lodge.”