Page 130 of An Inside Job

“You have my word.”

“And please keep things moving,” added Father Keegan. “We’re already behind schedule.”

“Don’t worry, they can’t start the papal mass in Palermo without me.”

And with that, Donati leapt from the back of the car and rushedheadlong into the crowd’s embrace. By the time Gabriel and the rest of the security detail caught up with him, His Holiness was cradling a small boy in his arms and posing for a selfie with the child’s parents.

One of the Polizia di Stato officers returned the child to his mother, and Gabriel, with a firm tug at the papal fascia, managed to get His Holiness moving again. He strode past the crowds at a determined clip, his right arm raised in blessing, a soldier of God on a mission of mercy. As he was nearing the entrance of the airport, a wild-eyed man lunged toward him while clutching a long daggerlike weapon in his right hand. Or so it appeared to Gabriel, whose lightning-fast response resulted in the attacker being taken violently to the ground. Only then did Gabriel realize that the object in the man’s hand was nothing more dangerous than a silver crucifix. When Donati helped the fallen pilgrim to his feet, the multitude roared its approval. For better or worse, they had managed to change the subject.

53

Palermo

During his first trip as the newly elected pope, Luigi Donati had startled the Vatican press corps by conducting an impromptu news conference in the back of his plane, a practice he continued throughout his papacy. His failure to address reporters after his emotionally charged visit to Lampedusa was viewed by most of theVaticanistias still more evidence that His Holiness was hiding something. The wily Esteban Rodríguez of the Press Office blamed it on the short duration of the flight—it was less than an hour—and on the fact that the Holy Father was still hard at work on his homily for the open-air mass in Palermo. That much, at least, was true.

There was no crowd on hand when the papal plane touched down at Palermo Airport, and only a small delegation of Sicilian VIPs waited on the tarmac. Donati greeted them cordially, then squeezed into the back seat of another all-electric Fiat for the twenty-minute drive to the site of the open-air mass. Gabriel once again sat at his side, though this time he didn’t bother with an inspection of his window. The supreme pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, spiritual leader of more than a billion souls, was riding in an unarmored vehicle through one of Western Europe’s most dangerous cities.

“You disapprove?”

“Strenuously, Holiness.”

“I will not travel in a bombproof saloon car like some potentate.”

“But youarea potentate.”

“I’m an absolute monarch. There’s a difference.”

“You are also the only hope in a world gone mad,” said Gabriel. “Someone has to speak for the poorest among us. Someone has to tell those who call themselves Christians that they are behaving in ways that Jesus himself wouldn’t recognize.”

“Do I really make a difference? Sometimes I’m not so sure.”

“You were extraordinary in Lampedusa. You changed hearts and minds.”

Donati adopted a confiding tone. “I’ll let you in on a little secret,mio amico. You haven’t seen anything yet.”

***

The grassy park known as the Foro Italico stretched for several hundred meters along Palermo’s picturesque waterfront. An undulating mass of humanity, some three hundred thousand in number, filled it from stem to stern. Gabriel walked the perimeter of the esplanade and was pleased to see Italian cops with handheld mags opening backpacks and patting down pilgrims. There were sharpshooters on the rooftops of nearby buildings and Carabinieri patrol boats in the whitecapped bay. Someone, it seemed, had gotten the message.

The temporary altar was the size of a stage at an outdoor music festival and flanked by jumbotrons. Gabriel searched the underside of the platform for stray parcels or toolboxes left behind by workmen—anything that might contain a bomb. Then he headed to the small trailer behind the platform where Father Keegan was placing the pallium over Donati’s gold-embroidered chasuble.

“Nervous?” he asked.

“A little, Holiness.”

“If you’d like to reprise your role as Father Benedetti, I’m sure we can find some vestments for you.”

“I think I’ll watch from the wings with Colonel Metzler.”

“That’s probably for the better. But please try not to assault anyone. We wouldn’t want another ugly incident.”

Gabriel left Donati’s trailer and found Metzler standing on the left side of the altar. The afternoon light was beginning to fade, and the massive crowd was growing restless. His Holiness, as was often the case, was running late.

Metzler checked the time. “When he was the private secretary, he was punctual as a Swiss watch. But now that he’s pope...”

“His Tardiness?”

“We call it Donati time. It’s an hour behind the rest of Rome.”