Page 22 of An Inside Job

“The secretary of state?”

“The man in white.”

“His Holiness? I wish you luck, Cesare.”

“I don’t need luck,” replied the general. “I have Gabriel Allon.”

9

Arch of Bells

Ordinarily Gabriel entered the restricted quarters of the Vatican through St. Anne’s Gate or the Bronze Doors, the main entrance of the Apostolic Palace. On that afternoon, however, he headed to the Arch of Bells, located on the southern flank of St. Peter’s Basilica, directly beneath the statues of the apostles Thaddeus and Matthew. Two Swiss Guards in their Renaissance-era dress uniforms stood watch in the shadowed passageway, one bearing a two-meter-long halberd, the other with his hands clasped and his feet shoulder width apart at a precise sixty-degree angle. Their bearing was more rigid than usual, doubtless because their commanding officer, Colonel Alois Metzler, was standing between them, dressed in a dark business suit and tie. Colonel Metzler was the only officer in the four-hundred-year history of the Pontifical Swiss Guard to have fatally shot a Roman Catholic priest. He had committed this unthinkable act to spare Gabriel the indignity of having to pull the trigger himself.

Their greeting was businesslike and brief. In the impenetrable Swiss German of those native to Canton Uri, Metzler asked Gabriel if he was carrying a firearm. Gabriel, in the Berlin-accented Hochdeutsch of his mother, replied truthfully that he was not. Metzlernevertheless laid a hand discreetly on the small of Gabriel’s back, just to make sure.

“What are you worried about, Alois? It’s not as if I haven’t carried a weapon around the Holy Father before. I’m practically an honorary member of the Swiss Guard.”

“Membership in the Guard is restricted to single Catholic males from Switzerland who have served in the Swiss Army and are of irreproachable character. You, Gabriel, meet none of those qualifications.”

“Does a fondness for fondue and Chasselas count for anything?”

Metzler treated Gabriel to a rare smile. “Let’s go. The private secretary is expecting you.”

They set off along the facade of the Basilica. Gabriel quickly adjusted the necktie he had purchased after leaving Penelope Radcliff’s apartment.

“Nervous?” asked Metzler.

“About what?”

“Seeing the Holy Father again.”

“Should I be?”

“He’s the supreme pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vicar of Christ.”

“He also happens to be my friend.”

“Not anymore.” They passed beneath a pair of archways near the Basilica’s left transept. “I assume this isn’t a social call.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Is the Holy Father in any danger?”

Gabriel shook his head. “It’s a public relations problem.”

“What is it this time?”

“You’ll know soon enough.”

“That doesn’t sound encouraging.”

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Alois.”

“Why break with tradition?”

They turned to the left and headed across a small piazza toward the Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican’s five-story clerical guesthouse. Another Swiss Guard stood watch outside the glass doorway, and Father Mark Keegan, the Holy Father’s private secretary, waited in the lobby. Father Keegan was an Irishman from Philadelphia and, like his master, a member of the Society of Jesus. He had the face of an altar boy and the eyes of someone who never lost at cards. Gabriel knew the papal private secretary to be efficient, ruthless, and most of all humorless.

The priest’s inscrutable gaze settled briefly on the commandant of the Swiss Guard. “Thank you, Colonel Metzler. I’ll show Signore Allon out after his audience with the Holy Father.”