The Order

by Daniel Silva

  “I came to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to talk to you about Niklaus.”

  “Where is he?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “When was the last time you heard from him?”

  “It was the morning of the pope’s funeral. He wouldn’t tell me where he was.”

  “Why not?”

  “He said he didn’t want them to know.”

  “Who?”

  She started to answer, but stopped. “Have you seen him?” she asked.

  “Yes, Stefani. I’m afraid I have.”

  “When?”

  “Last night,” said Donati. “On the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.”

  FROM HIS OBSERVATION POST AT Café des Arcades, Gabriel listened as Donati quietly told Stefani Hoffmann that Niklaus Janson was dead. He was glad it was his old friend on the other side of the street and not him. If Donati always labored over how to acknowledge his occupation, Gabriel likewise struggled over how to tell a woman that a loved one—a son, a brother, a father, a fiancé—had been murdered in cold blood.

  She didn’t believe Donati at first, which was to be expected. His response, that he had no motive to lie about such a thing, did little to dilute her skepticism. The Vatican, she shot back, lied all the time.

  “I don’t work for the Vatican,” answered Donati. “Not anymore.”

  He then suggested they speak somewhere private. Stefani Hoffmann said the restaurant closed at ten, and that her boss would kill her if she left him in the lurch.

  “Your boss will understand.”

  “What do I say to him about Niklaus?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  “My car is in the Place des Ormeaux. Wait for me there.”

  Donati went into the street and lifted the phone to his ear. “Were you able to hear all that?”

  “She knows,” answered Gabriel. “The question is, how much?”

  Donati slipped the phone into his pocket without killing the connection. Stefani Hoffmann emerged from the restaurant a few minutes later, a scarf around her neck. Her car was a worn-out Volvo. Donati lowered himself into the passenger seat as Gabriel slid behind the wheel of the BMW. Through his earpiece he heard the click of Donati’s safety belt, followed an instant later by a wail of anguish from Stefani Hoffmann.

  “Is Niklaus really dead?”

  “I saw it happen.”

  “Why didn’t you stop it?”

  “There was nothing to be done.”

  Stefani Hoffmann reversed out of the parking space and turned onto the rue du Pont-Muré. Ten seconds later, Gabriel did the same. As they left the Old Town on the Route des Alpes, Donati asked why Niklaus Janson had fled the Vatican the night of the Holy Father’s death. Her response was scarcely audible.

  “He was afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “That they were going to kill him.”

  “Who, Stefani?”

  For a long moment there was only the rattle of the Volvo’s engine, followed a moment later by the sound of Stefani Hoffmann screaming. Gabriel lowered the volume on his phone. He was glad it was his old friend sitting next to her and not him.

  17

  RECHTHALTEN, SWITZERLAND

  AS THEY APPROACHED THE HAMLET of St. Ursen, Stefani Hoffmann became aware of the fact they were being followed.

  “It’s only an associate of mine,” explained Donati.

  “Since when do priests have associates?”

  “He’s the man who helped me find Niklaus in Florence.”

  “I thought you said you came to Fribourg alone.”

  “I said no such thing.”

  “Is this associate of yours a priest, too?”

  “No.”

  “Vatican intelligence?”

  Donati was tempted to inform Stefani Hoffmann that there was no department of the Holy See known as Vatican intelligence; that it was a canard invented by Catholicism’s enemies; that the real intelligence-gathering apparatus of the Vatican was the Universal Church itself, with its global network of parishes, schools, universities, hospitals, charitable organizations, and nuncios in capitals around the world. He spared her this discourse, at least for the moment. Still, he was curious why she would ask such a question. It could wait, he decided, until his associate had joined them.

  The next village was Rechthalten. Donati recognized the name. It was the village where Niklaus Janson had been born and raised. Its inhabitants were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. Most were employed in what government statisticians referred to as the primary sector of the economy, a polite way of saying they worked the land. A handful, like Stefani Hoffmann, commuted each day to Fribourg. She had moved out of the family home about a year ago, she said, and was living alone in a cottage at the far eastern edge of the town.

  It was shaped like an A, with a small sun deck on the upper floor. She turned into the unpaved drive and switched off the engine. Gabriel arrived a few seconds later. In German he introduced himself as Heinrich Kiever. It was the name on the false German passport he had displayed earlier that afternoon at Geneva Airport.

  “Are you sure you’re not a priest?” Stefani Hoffmann accepted his outstretched hand. “You look more like a priest than the archbishop.”

  She led them inside the cottage. The ground floor had been converted into an artist’s studio. Stefani Hoffmann, Donati remembered suddenly, was a painter. Her latest work was propped on an easel in the center of the room. The man she knew as Heinrich Kiever stood before it, a hand to his chin, his head tilted slightly to one side.

  “This is quite good.”

  “Do you paint?”

  “Only the occasional watercolor while on holiday.”

  Stefani Hoffmann was clearly dubious. She removed her coat and scarf and looked at Donati as tears fell from her blue eyes. “Something to drink?”

  HER BREAKFAST DISHES WERE STILL on the table in her tiny kitchen. She cleared them away and filled the electric kettle with bottled water. As she spooned coffee into the French press, she apologized for the chaotic state of the cottage, and for its modesty. It was all she could afford, she lamented, on her salary from the restaurant and the small amount of money she earned through the sale of her paintings.

  “We’re not all rich private bankers, you know.”

  She addressed them in German. Not the dialect of Swiss German spoken in the village, but proper High German, the language of her Alemannic brethren to the north. She had learned to speak it in school, she explained, beginning at the age of six. Niklaus Janson had been a classmate. He was an awkward boy, skinny, shy, bespectacled, but at seventeen he was somehow magically transformed into an object of striking beauty. The first time they made love, he insisted on removing his crucifix. Afterward, he confessed to Father Erich, the village priest.

  “He was a very religious boy, Niklaus. It was one of the things I liked about him. He said he never mentioned my name in the confessional, but Father Erich gave me quite a look when I took communion the next Sunday.”

  After completing their secondary education at the local Kantonsschule, Stefani studied art at the University of Fribourg, and Niklaus, whose father was a carpenter, enlisted in the Swiss Army. At the conclusion of his service, he returned to Rechthalten and started looking for work. It was Father Erich who suggested he join the Swiss Guard, which was undermanned at the time and desperately looking for recruits. Stefani Hoffmann was vehemently opposed to the idea.

  “Why?” asked Donati.

  “I was afraid I was going to lose him.”

  “To what?”

  “The Church.”

  “You thought he might become a priest?”

  “He talked about it all the time, even after he got out of the military.”

  He was subjected to no background check or formal interview. Father Erich’s affirmation that Niklaus was a practicing Catholic of good moral character was all it took. On the night before he left f
or Rome, he gave Stefani an engagement ring with a small diamond. She was wearing it a few months later when she attended the solemn ceremony, held in the San Damaso Courtyard, where Niklaus swore to lay down his life to defend the Vatican and the Holy Father. He was exceedingly proud of his dress uniform and red-plumed medieval-style helmet, but Stefani thought he looked rather silly, a toy soldier in the world’s smallest army. After the ceremony he took his parents to meet His Holiness. Stefani was not allowed to come.

  “Only wives and mothers could meet the Holy Father. The Guard doesn’t like girlfriends.”

  She saw Niklaus every couple of months, but they did their best to keep up their relationship with daily video calls and text messages. The work of the Swiss Guard was grueling and, most of the time, terribly dull. Niklaus used to recite the rosary while standing his three-hour shifts, his feet pointing outward at sixty-degree angles, as per Swiss Guard regulations. He spent most of his free time in the Swiss Quarter, the Guard’s enclave near St. Anne’s Gate. Like most Swiss, he thought Rome was a filthy mess.

  Within a year of joining the Guard, he was working inside the Apostolic Palace. There he observed the comings and goings of the most senior princes of the Church—Gaubert, the secretary of state; Albanese, keeper of the Secret Archives; Navarro, keeper of the faith itself. But the Vatican official Niklaus admired most did not wear a red hat. He was the Holy Father’s private secretary, Archbishop Luigi Donati.

  “He used to say that if the Church had any sense, it would make you the next pope.”

  She managed a smile, which faded as she described Niklaus’s downward spiral into depression and drinking. Somehow Donati had missed the signs of Niklaus’s emotional turmoil. One priest, however, had noticed. A priest who worked in a relatively insignificant department of the Roman Curia, something to do with establishing a dialogue between the Church and nonbelievers.

  “Could it have been the Pontifical Council for Culture?” probed Donati gently.

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “And the priest’s name?”

  “Father Markus Graf.”

  Donati gave his associate a look that made it clear the priest in question was pure trouble. Stefani Hoffmann, while pouring boiling water into the French press, explained why.

  “He’s a member of a reactionary order. Secretive, too.”

  “The Order of St. Helena,” said Donati, more for Gabriel’s benefit than Stefani Hoffmann’s.

  “Do you know him?”

  Donati revealed a flash of his old arrogance. “Father Graf and I move in rather different circles.”

  “I met him once. He’s slippery as an eel. But quite charismatic. Seductive, even. Niklaus was quite taken with him. The Guard has its own chaplain, but Niklaus chose Father Graf as his confessor and spiritual guide. They also began spending a great deal of time together socially.”

  “Socially?”

  “Father Graf had a car. He used to take Niklaus to the mountains around Rome so he wouldn’t be homesick. The Apennines aren’t exactly the Alps, but Niklaus enjoyed getting out of the city.”

  “He was reprimanded twice for curfew violations.”

  “I’m sure it had something to do with Father Graf.”

  “Was there anything more to their relationship?”

  “Are you asking whether Niklaus and Father Graf were lovers?”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “The thought crossed my mind. Especially after the way he acted the last time I went to Rome.”

  “What happened?”

  “He refused to have sex with me.”

  “Did he give you a reason?”

  “Father Graf had instructed him not to engage in sexual intercourse outside of marriage.”

  “And how did you react?”

  “I said we should get married right away. Niklaus agreed, but on one condition.”

  “He said you had to become a lay member of the Order of St. Helena.”

  “Yes.”

  “I assume Niklaus was already a member.”

  “He swore his oath of obedience to Bishop Richter at the Order’s palazzo on the Janiculum Hill. He said Bishop Richter had reservations about certain aspects of my character but had agreed to allow me to join.”

  “How did Bishop Richter know about you?”

  “Father Erich. He’s a member of the Order, too.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I threw my engagement ring into the Tiber and returned to Switzerland.”

  “Do you recall the date?”

  “How could I forget? It was the ninth of October.” She poured three cups of coffee and placed one before the man she knew as Heinrich Kiever. “Doesn’t he have any questions for me?”

  “Herr Kiever is a man of few words.”

  “Just like Niklaus.” She sat down at the table. “After I refused to join the Order, he cut off all communication. Tuesday was the first time I’d spoken to him in weeks.”

  “And you’re sure it was the morning of the Holy Father’s funeral?”

  She nodded. “He sounded awful. For a moment, I didn’t think it was him. When I asked what was wrong, he just cried.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I asked him again.”

  “And?”

  She raised her coffee to her lips. “He told me everything.”

  18

  RECHTHALTEN, SWITZERLAND

  NIKLAUS HAD ALREADY PULLED TWO shifts that day. Arch of Bells in the morning, Bronze Doors in the afternoon. When he arrived at the papal apartments at nine p.m., his legs were shaking with fatigue. The first person he saw was the Holy Father’s private secretary. He was on his way out.

  “Did he know where I was going?”

  “Dinner with a friend. Outside the walls.”

  “Did he know the friend’s name?”

  “A rich woman who lived near the Villa Borghese. Her husband died in a fall from the dome of the basilica. Niklaus said you were there when it happened.”

  “Where did he hear a thing like that?”

  “Where do you think?”

  “Father Graf?”

  She nodded. She was holding her mug of coffee with both hands. A nimbus of steam swirled about her flawless face.

  “What happened after I left?”

  “Cardinal Albanese arrived around nine thirty.”

  “The cardinal told me he didn’t arrive until ten.”

  “That was his second visit,” said Stefani Hoffmann. “Not the first.”

  Cardinal Albanese had not told Donati about an earlier visit to the appartamento. Nor had he included it in the official Vatican time line. That single inconsistency, were it ever to become public, would be enough to plunge the Church into scandal.

  “Did Albanese tell Niklaus why he was there?”

  “No. But he was carrying an attaché case with the coat of arms of the Archives on the side.”

  “How long did he stay?”

  “Only a few minutes.”

  “Did he have the attaché case when he left?”

  She nodded.

  “And when he came back at ten o’clock?”

  “He told Niklaus that the Holy Father had invited him to pray in the private chapel.”

  “Who arrived next?”

  “Three cardinals. Navarro, Gaubert, and Francona.”

  “The time?”

  “Ten fifteen.”

  “When did Dottore Gallo arrive?”

  “Eleven o’clock. Colonel Metzler and a Vatican cop showed up a few minutes after that.” She lowered her voice. “Then you, Archbishop Donati. You were the last.”

  “Did Niklaus know what was happening inside?”

  “He had a pretty good idea, but he wasn’t certain until the ambulance attendants arrived with the gurney.”

  A few minutes after they entered the apartment, she continued, Metzler came out. He confirmed the obvious. The Holy Father was dead. He warned Niklaus that he was never to speak of what he had witnessed th
at evening. Not to his comrades in the Guard, not to his friends and family, and certainly not to the media. Then he ordered Niklaus to remain on duty until the Holy Father’s body was removed and the apartment sealed. The camerlengo performed the ritual at half past two.

  “Did Cardinal Albanese remove anything from the apartment when he left?”

  “One item. He said he wanted something to help him remember the saintliness of the Holy Father. Something he had touched.”

  “What was it?”

  “A book.”

  Donati’s heart banged against his rib cage. “What kind of book?”

  “An English murder mystery.” Stefani Hoffmann shook her head. “Can you imagine that?”

  BY THE TIME NIKLAUS LEFT the Apostolic Palace, the Press Office had announced the Holy Father’s death. St. Peter’s Square was ablaze with the spectral light of the television crews, and in the cloisters and courtyards of the Vatican, nuns and priests were gathered in small groups, praying, weeping. Niklaus was weeping, too. Alone in his room in the barracks, he changed into civilian clothing and tossed a few things into his duffel bag. He slipped out of the Vatican around five thirty that morning.

  “Why did he go to Florence instead of coming home to Switzerland?”

  “He was afraid they would find him.”

  “The Guard?”

  “The Order.”

  “And you had no other contact other than the single phone call? No texts or e-mails?”

  “Only the package. It arrived the day after I spoke to him.”

  “What was it?”

  “A dreadful devotional painting of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. I can’t imagine why he would send me such a thing.”

  “Was there anything else in the package?”

  “Niklaus’s rosary.” She paused, then added, “And a letter.”

  “A letter?”

  She nodded.

  “To whom was it addressed?”

  “Me. Who else?”

  “What did it say?”

  “He apologized for joining the Order of St. Helena and breaking off our engagement. He said it was a terrible mistake. He said they were evil. Especially Bishop Richter.”

  “May I read it?”