by Daniel Silva
A knock at the door accomplished Luigi Donati’s goal of ending the exchange. A young novice entered the room, bearing a silver tray. He poured tea for Donati and Gabriel. The bishop drank hot water with a thin slice of lemon.
When the boy was gone, Drexler said, “But I’m sure you’re not interested in Bishop Hudal’s efforts to shield Jews from the Nazis, are you, Professor Rubenstein? You’re interested in the assistance he gave to German officers after the war?”
“Not German officers. Wanted SS war criminals.”
“He didn’t know they were criminals.”
“I’m afraid that defense strains credulity, Your Grace. Bishop Hudal was a committed anti-Semite and a supporter of Hitler’s regime. Does it not make sense that he would willingly help Austrians and Germans after the war, regardless of the crimes they had committed?”
“His opposition to Jews was theological in nature, not social. As for his support of the Nazi regime, I offer no defense. Bishop Hudal is condemned by his own words and his writings.”
“And his car,” Gabriel added, putting Moshe Rivlin’s file to good use. “Bishop Hudal flew the flag of the united Reich on his official limousine. He made no secret of where his sympathies lay.”
Drexler sipped his lemon water and turned his frozen gaze on Donati. “Like many others within the Church, I had my concerns about the Holy Father’s Historical Commission, but I kept those concerns to myself out of respect for His Holiness. Now it seems the Anima is under the microscope. I must draw the line. I will not have the reputation of this great institution dragged through the mud of history.”
Monsignor Donati pondered his trouser leg for a moment, then looked up. Beneath the calm exterior, the papal secretary was seething at the rector’s insolence. The bishop had pushed; Donati was about to push back. Somehow, he managed to keep his voice to a chapel murmur.
“Regardless of your concerns on this matter, Your Grace, it is the Holy Father’s desire that Professor Rubenstein be granted access to Bishop Hudal’s papers.”
A deep silence hung over the room. Drexler fingered his pectoral cross, looking for an escape hatch. There was none; resignation was the only honorable course of action. He toppled his king.
“I have no wish to defy His Holiness on this matter. You leave me no choice but to cooperate, Monsignor Donati.”
“The Holy Father will not forget this, Bishop Drexler.”
“Nor will I, Monsignor.”
Donati flashed an ironic smile. “It is my understanding that the bishop’s personal papers remain here at the Anima.”
“That is correct. They are stored in our archives. It will take a few days to locate them all and organize them in such a fashion that they can be read and understood by a scholar such as Professor Rubenstein.”
“How very thoughtful of you, Your Grace,” said Monsignor Donati, “but we’d like to see them now.”
HE LED THEM down a corkscrew stone stairway with timeworn steps as slick as ice. At the bottom of the stairs was a heavy oaken door with cast-iron fittings. It had been built to withstand a battering ram but had proved no match for a clever priest from the Veneto and the “professor” from Jerusalem.
Bishop Drexler unlocked the door and shouldered it open. He groped in the gloom for a moment, then threw a switch that made a sharp, echoing snap. A series of overhead lights burst on, buzzing and humming with the sudden flow of electricity, revealing a long subterranean passage with an arched stone ceiling. The bishop silently beckoned them forward.
The vault had been constructed for smaller men. The diminutive bishop could walk the passage without altering his posture. Gabriel had only to dip his head to avoid the light fixtures, but Monsignor Donati, at well over six feet in height, was forced to bend at the waist like a man suffering from severe curvature of the spine. Here resided the institutional memory of the Anima and its seminary, four centuries’ worth of baptismal records, marriage certificates, and death notices. The records of the priests who’d served here and the students who’d studied within the walls of the seminary. Some of it was stored in pinewood file cabinets, some in crates or ordinary cardboard boxes. The newer additions were kept in modern plastic file containers. The smell of damp and rot was pervasive, and from somewhere in the walls came the trickle of water. Gabriel, who knew something about the detrimental effects of cold and damp on paper, rapidly lost hope of finding Bishop Hudal’s papers intact.
Near the end of the passage was a small, catacomblike side chamber. It contained several large trunks, secured by rusted padlocks. Bishop Drexler had a ring of keys. He inserted one into the first lock. It wouldn’t turn. He struggled for a moment before finally surrendering the keys to “Professor Rubenstein,” who had no problem prying open the old locks.
Bishop Drexler hovered over them for a moment and offered to assist in their search of the documents. Monsignor Donati patted him on the shoulder and said they could manage on their own. The portly little bishop made the sign of the cross and padded slowly away down the arched passageway.
IT WAS GABRIEL, two hours later, who found it. Erich Radek had arrived at the Anima on March 3, 1948. On May 24, the Pontifical Commission for Assistance, the Vatican’s refugee aid organization, issued Radek a Vatican identity document bearing the number 9645/99 and the alias “Otto Krebs.” That same day, with the help of Bishop Hudal, Otto Krebs used his Vatican identification to secure a Red Cross passport. The following week he was issued an entrance visa by the Arab Republic of Syria. He purchased second-class passage with money given to him by Bishop Hudal and set sail from the Italian port of Genoa in late June. Krebs had five hundred dollars in his pocket. A receipt for the money, bearing Radek’s signature, had been kept by Bishop Hudal. The final item in the Radek file was a letter, with a Syrian stamp and Damascus postmark, that thanked Bishop Hudal and the Holy Father for their assistance and promised that one day the debt would be repaid. It was signed Otto Krebs.
20
ROME
BISHOP DREXLER LISTENED to the audio tape one final time, then dialed the number in Vienna.
“I’m afraid we have a problem.”
“What sort of problem?”
Drexler told the man in Vienna about the visitors to the Anima that morning: Monsignor Donati and a professor from Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
“What did he call himself?”
“Rubenstein. He claimed to be a researcher on the Historical Commission.”
“He was no professor.”
“I gathered that, but I was hardly in a position to challenge his bona fides. Monsignor Donati is a very powerful man within the Vatican. There’s only one more powerful, and that’s the heretic he works for.”
“What were they after?”
“Documentation about assistance given by Bishop Hudal to a certain Austrian refugee after the war.”
There was a long silence before the man posed his next question.
“Have they left the Anima?”
“Yes, about an hour ago.”
“Why did you wait so long to telephone?”
“I was hoping to provide you with some information that can be put to good use.”
“Can you?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Tell me.”
“The professor is staying at the Cardinal Hotel on the Via Giulia. And he’s checked into the room in the name of René Duran, with a Canadian passport.”
“I NEED YOU to collect a clock in Rome.”
“When?”
“Immediately.”
“Where is it?”
“There’s a man staying at the Cardinal Hotel on the Via Giulia. He’s registered in the name of René Duran, but sometimes he’s using the name of Rubenstein.”
“How long will he be in Rome?”
“Unclear, which is why you need to leave now. There’s an Alitalia flight leaving for Rome in two hours. A business-class seat has been reserved in your name.”
“If I’m traveling by plane,
I won’t be able to bring the tools I’ll need for the repair. I’ll need someone to supply me those tools in Rome.”
“I have just the man.” He recited a telephone number, which the Clockmaker committed to memory. “He’s very professional, and most important, extremely discreet. I wouldn’t send you to him otherwise.”
“Do you have a photograph of this gentleman, Duran?”
“It will be coming over your fax machine momentarily.”
The Clockmaker hung up the phone and switched off the lights at the front of the shop. Then he entered his workshop and opened a storage cabinet. Inside was a small overnight bag, containing a change of clothing and a shaving kit. The fax machine rang. The Clockmaker pulled on an overcoat and hat while the face of a dead man eased slowly into view.
21
ROME
GABRIEL TOOK A table inside Doney the following morning to have coffee. Thirty minutes later, a man entered and went to the bar. He had hair like steel wool and acne scars on his broad cheeks. His clothing was expensive but worn poorly. He drank two espressos rapid-fire and kept a cigarette working the entire time. Gabriel looked down at his La Repùbblica and smiled. Shimon Pazner had been the Office man in Rome for five years, yet he had still not lost the prickly exterior of a Negev settler.
Pazner paid his bill and went to the toilet. When he came out, he was wearing sunglasses, the signal that the meeting was on. He headed through the revolving door, paused on the pavement of the Via Veneto, then turned right and started walking. Gabriel left money on the table and followed after him.
Pazner crossed the Corso d’Italia and entered the Villa Borghese. Gabriel walked a little farther along the Corso and entered the park at another point. He met Pazner on a tree-lined footpath and introduced himself as René Duran of Montreal. Together they walked toward the Galleria. Pazner lit a cigarette.
“Word is you had a close shave up in the Alps the other night.”
“Word travels fast.”
“The Office is like a Jewish sewing circle, you know that. But you have a bigger problem. Lev has laid down the law. Allon is off limits. Allon, should he come knocking on your door, is to be turned into the street.” Pazner spat at the ground. “I’m here out of loyalty to the Old Man, not you, Monsieur Duran. This had better be good.”
They sat on a marble bench in the forecourt of the Galleria Borghese and looked in opposite directions for watchers. Gabriel told Pazner about the SS man Erich Radek who had traveled to Syria under the name Otto Krebs. “He didn’t go to Damascus to study ancient civilization,” Gabriel said. “The Syrians let him in for a reason. If he was close to the regime, he might show up in the files.”
“So you want me to run a search and see if we can place him in Damascus?”
“Exactly.”
“And how do you expect me to request this search without Lev and Security finding out about it?”
Gabriel looked at Pazner as though he found the question insulting. Pazner retreated. “All right, let’s say I might have a girl in Research who can have a quiet look through the files for me.”
“Just one girl?”
Pazner shrugged and tossed his cigarette onto the gravel. “It still sounds like a long shot to me. Where are you staying?”
Gabriel told him.
“There’s a place called La Carbonara on the northern end of the Campo dei Fiori, near the fountain.”
“I know it.”
“Be there at eight o’clock. There’ll be a reservation in the name of Brunacci for eight-thirty. If the reservation is for two, that means the search was a bust. If it’s for four, come to the Piazza Farnese.”
ON THE OPPOSITE bank of the Tiber, in a small square a few paces from St. Anne’s Gate, the Clockmaker sat in the cold late-afternoon shadows of an outdoor café, sipping a cappuccino. At the next table, a pair of cassocked priests were engaged in animated conversation. The Clockmaker, though he spoke no Italian, assumed them to be Vatican bureaucrats. A hunchbacked alley cat threaded its way between the Clockmaker’s legs and begged for food. He trapped the animal between his ankles and squeezed, slowly increasing the pressure, until the cat let out a strangled howl and scampered off. The priests looked up in disapproval; the Clockmaker left money on the table and walked away. Imagine, cats in a café. He was looking forward to concluding his business in Rome and returning to Vienna.
He walked along the edge of Bernini’s Colonnade and paused for a moment to peer down the broad Via della Conciliazione toward the Tiber. A tourist thrust a disposable camera toward him and pleaded, in some indecipherable Slavic tongue, for the Clockmaker to take his photograph in front of the Vatican. The Austrian wordlessly pointed toward his wristwatch, indicating he was late for an appointment, and turned his back.
He crossed the large, thunderous square just beyond the opening in the Colonnade. It bore the name of a recent pope. The Clockmaker, though he had few interests other than antique timepieces, knew that this pope was a rather controversial figure. He found the intrigue swirling about him rather amusing. So he did not help the Jews during the war. Since when was it the responsibility of a pope to help Jews? They were, after all, the enemies of the Church.
He turned into the mouth of a narrow street, leading away from the Vatican toward the base of the Janiculum park. It was deeply shadowed and lined with ocher-colored buildings covered in a powdery dust. The Clockmaker walked the cracked pavement, searching for the address he had been given earlier that morning by telephone. He found it but hesitated before entering. Stenciled to the sooty glass were the words ARTICOLI RELIGIOSI. Below, in smaller letters, was the name GIUSEPPE MONDIANI. The Clockmaker consulted the slip of paper where he’d written the address. Number 22 Via Borgo Santo Spirito. He had come to the right place.
He pressed his face to the glass. The room on the other side was cluttered with crucifixes, statues of the Virgin, carvings of long-dead saints, rosaries and medals, all certified to have been blessed by il papa himself. Everything seemed to be covered with the fine, flourlike dust from the street. The Clockmaker, though raised in a strict Austrian Catholic home, wondered what would compel a person to pray to a statue. He no longer believed in God or the Church, nor did he believe in fate, divine intervention, an afterlife, or luck. He believed men controlled the course of their lives, just as the wheelwork of a clock controlled the motion of the hands.
He pulled open the door and stepped inside, accompanied by the tinkle of a small bell. A man emerged from a back room, dressed in an amber V-neck sweater with no shirt beneath and tan gabardine trousers that no longer held a crease. His limp, thinning hair was waxed into place atop his head. The Clockmaker, even from several paces away, could smell his offensive aftershave. He wondered whether the men of the Vatican knew their blessed religious articles were being dispensed by so reprehensible a creature.
“May I help you?”
“I’m looking for Signor Mondiani.”
He nodded, as if to say the Clockmaker had found the man he was looking for. A watery smile revealed the fact that he was missing several teeth. “You must be the gentleman from Vienna,” Mondiani said. “I recognize your voice.”
He held out his hand. It was spongy and damp, just as the Clockmaker had feared. Mondiani locked the front door and hung a sign in the window that said, in English and Italian, that the shop was now closed. Then he led the Clockmaker through a doorway and up a flight of rickety wooden stairs. At the top of the steps was a small office. The curtains were drawn, and the air was heavy with the scent of a woman’s perfume. And something else, sour and ammonialike. Mondiani gestured toward the couch. The Clockmaker looked down; an image flashed before his eyes. He remained standing. Mondiani shrugged his narrow shoulders—As you wish.
The Italian sat down at his desk, straightened some papers, and smoothed his hair. It was dyed an unnatural shade of orange-black. The Clockmaker, balding with a salt-and-pepper fringe, seemed to be making him more self-conscious than he already was.
“Your colleague from Vienna said you required a weapon.” Mondiani pulled open a desk drawer, removed a dark item with a flat metallic finish, and laid it reverently on his coffee-stained desk blotter, as though it were a sacred relic. “I trust you’ll find this satisfactory.”
The Clockmaker held out his hand. Mondiani placed the weapon in his palm.
“As you can see, it’s a Glock nine-millimeter. I trust you’re familiar with the Glock. After all, it is an Austrian-made weapon.”
The Clockmaker raised his eyes from the weapon. “Has this been blessed by the Holy Father, like the rest of your inventory?”
Mondiani, judging from his dark expression, did not find the remark humorous. He reached into the open drawer once again and produced a box of ammunition.
“Do you require a second cartridge?”
The Clockmaker did not intend to get into a gunfight, but still, one always felt better with a loaded spare cartridge in one’s hip pocket. He nodded; a second appeared on the blotter.
The Clockmaker broke open the box of ammunition and began thumbing rounds into the cartridges. Mondiani asked whether he required a silencer. The Clockmaker, his gaze down, nodded in the affirmative.
“Unlike the weapon itself, this is not manufactured in Austria. It was made right here,” Mondiani said with excessive pride. “In Italy. It is very effective. The gun will emit little more than a whisper when fired.”
The Clockmaker held the silencer to his right eye and peered through the barrel. Satisfied with the craftsmanship, he placed it on the desk, next to the other things.
“Do you require anything else?”
The Clockmaker reminded Signor Mondiani that he had requested a motorbike.
“Ah yes, the motorino,” Mondiani said, holding a set of keys aloft. “It’s parked outside the shop. There are two helmets, just as you requested, different colors. I chose black and red. I hope that’s satisfactory.”
