“Better to turn away a few pilgrims than expose the Holy Father unnecessarily.”

The Pope looked at Gabriel. “Do you have specific credible evidence that the terrorists intend to strike tomorrow?”

“No, Holiness. Operational intelligence of that nature is very difficult to come by.”

“If we move the audience into the chamber, and turn away good people, then the terrorists have won, have they not?”

“Sometimes it is better to give an opponent a small victory than suffer a devastating defeat yourself.”

“Your people are famous for living their lives normally in the face of terrorist threats.”

“We still take sensible precautions,” Gabriel said. “For example, one cannot enter most public places in my country without being searched.”

“So search the pilgrims and take other sensible precautions,” the Pope replied, “but I’ll be in St. Peter’s Square tomorrow afternoon, where I belong. And it’s your job to make certain nothing happens.”

IT WAS JUST after ten o’clock when Donati escorted Gabriel down the flight of steps that led from the Apostolic Palace to the Via Belvedere. A light mist was falling; Gabriel zipped his jacket and hitched his overnight bag over his shoulder. Donati, coatless, seemed not to notice the weather. His eyes remained on the paving stones as they walked past the Vatican central post office toward St. Anne’s Gate.

“Are you sure I can’t offer you a lift?”

“Until this morning, I thought I might never be allowed to set foot here again. I think I’ll use the opportunity to take a walk.”

“If the Italian police arrest you before you reach your flat, tell them to give me a call. His Holiness will vouch for your fine character.” They walked in silence for a moment. “Why don’t you come back for good?”

“To Italy? I’m afraid Shamron has other plans for me.”

“We miss you,” Donati said. “So does Tiepolo.”

Francesco Tiepolo, a friend of the Pope and Donati, owned the most successful restoration firm in the Veneto. Gabriel had restored two of Bellini’s greatest altarpieces for him. Nearly two, he thought. Tiepolo had had to finish Bellini’s San Giovanni Crisostomo altarpiece after Gabriel’s flight from Venice.

“Something tells me Tiepolo will survive without me.”

“And Chiara?”

Gabriel, with his moody silence, made it clear he had no desire to discuss with the Pope’s private secretary the state of his tangled love life. Donati adroitly changed the subject.

“I’m sorry if you felt the Holy Father was putting you on the spot. I’m afraid he’s lost much of his old forbearance. It happens to all of them a few years into their papacy. When one is regarded as the Vicar of Christ, it’s difficult not to become the slightest bit overbearing.”

“He’s still the gentle soul I met three years ago, Luigi. Just a bit older.”

“He wasn’t a young man when he got the job. The cardinals wanted a caretaker Pope, someone to keep the throne of St. Peter warm while the reformers and the reactionaries sorted out their differences. My master never had any intention of being a mere caretaker, as you well know. He has much work to do before he dies-things that aren’t necessarily going to make the reactionaries happy. Obviously, I don’t want his papacy cut short.”

“Nor do I.”

“Which is why you’re the perfect man to be at his side tomorrow during the general audience.”

“The Swiss Guard and their helpers from the Carabinieri are more than capable of looking after your master.”

“They’re very good, but they’ve never experienced an actual terrorist attack.”

“Few people have,” Gabriel said. “And usually they don’t live to tell about it.”

Donati looked at Gabriel. “You have,” he said. “You’ve seen the terrorists up close. And you’ve seen the look in a man’s eyes as he was about to press the button on his detonator.”

They stopped a few yards from St. Anne’s Gate. On the left was the round, butter-colored Church of St. Anne, parish church of Vatican City; to their right the entrance to the Swiss Guards barracks. One of the guards stood watch just inside the gate, dressed in his simple blue night uniform.

“What do you want me to do, Luigi?”

“I leave that in your capable hands. Make a general nuisance of yourself. If you see a problem, address it.”

“On whose authority?”

“Mine,” Donati said resolutely. He reached into the pocket of his cassock and produced a laminated card, which he handed to Gabriel. It was a Vatican ID badge with Security Office markings. “It will get you anywhere in the Vatican -except for the Secret Archives, of course. I’m afraid we can’t have you rummaging around in there.”

“I already have,” said Gabriel, then he dropped the badge into his coat pocket and slipped into the street. Donati waited at St. Anne’s Gate until Gabriel had disappeared into the darkness, then he turned and headed back to the palace. And though he would not realize it until later, he was murmuring the words of the Hail Mary.

GABRIEL CROSSED the Tiber over the Ponte Umberto. On the opposite embankment he turned left and made his way to the Piazza di Spagna. The square was deserted, and the Spanish Steps shone in the lamplight like polished wood. On the twenty-eighth step sat a girl. Her hair was similar to Chiara’s, and for a moment Gabriel thought it might actually be her. But as he climbed higher he saw it was only Nurit, a surly courier from Rome Station. She gave him a key to the safe flat and, in Hebrew, told him that behind the tins of soup in the pantry he would find a loaded Beretta and a spare clip of ammunition.

He hiked up the rest of the steps to the Church of the Trinità dei Monti. The apartment house was not fifty yards from the church, on the Via Gregoriana. It had two bedrooms and a small terrace. Gabriel retrieved the Beretta from the pantry, then went into the larger of the two bedrooms. The telephone, like all safe-flat telephones, had no ringer, only a red light to indicate incoming calls. Gabriel, lying in bed in the clothes he’d donned to meet the prime minister, picked up the receiver and dialed a number in Venice. A woman’s voice answered. “What is it?” she asked in Italian. Then, receiving no answer, she muttered a curse and slammed down the phone-hard enough so that Gabriel jerked the receiver away from his ear before replacing it gently in the cradle.

He removed his clothing and pillowed his head, but as he was sliding toward sleep the room was suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning. Instinctively he began to count to calculate the proximity of the strike. He saw a skinny black-haired boy with eyes as green as emeralds chasing lightning in the hills above Nazareth. The thunderclap exploded before he reached the count of four. It shook the building.

More strikes followed in quick succession, and rain hammered against the bedroom window. Gabriel tried to sleep but could not. He switched on the bedside lamp, opened the file containing the photographs taken from Ali Massoudi’s computer, and worked his way through them slowly, committing each image to memory. An hour later he switched off the light and, in his mind, flipped through the images once more. Lightning flashed over the bell towers of the church. Gabriel closed his eyes and counted.