The Order

by Daniel Silva

  “Eat your food, Estermann. You’re going to need your strength.”

  He wrapped two pieces of grilled lamb in a bazlama flatbread and hesitantly took a first bite.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “A little takeaway near the Hauptbahnhof.”

  “That’s where all the Turks live, you know.”

  “In my experience that’s generally the best place to get Turkish food.”

  Estermann ate one of the dolmades. “It’s quite good, actually. Still, it’s not what I would have chosen for my last meal.”

  “Why so glum, Estermann?”

  “We both know how this is going to end.”

  “The ending,” said Gabriel, “has yet to be written.”

  “And what must I do to survive this night?”

  “Answer every question I ask.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “I’ll be tempted to waste a perfectly good bullet on you.”

  Estermann lowered his voice. “I have children, Allon.”

  “Six,” said Gabriel. “A very Jewish number.”

  “Really? I never knew.” Estermann looked at the glass of wine.

  “Have some,” said Gabriel. “You’ll feel better.”

  “It’s forbidden.”

  “Live a little, Estermann.”

  He reached for the wineglass. “I certainly hope so.”

  ANDREAS ESTERMANN’S STORY BEGAN, OF all places, with the Munich Massacre. His father had been a policeman, too. A real policeman, he added. Not the secret variety. In the early-morning hours of September 5, 1972, he was awakened with news that Palestinian guerrillas had kidnapped several Israeli athletes at the Olympic Village. He remained inside the command post during the daylong negotiations and witnessed the rescue attempt at Fürstenfeldbruck. Despite its failure, Estermann’s father was awarded his department’s highest commendation for his efforts that day. He tossed it in a drawer and never looked at it again.

  “Why?”

  “He thought it was a disaster.”

  “For whom?”

  “Germany, of course.”

  “What about the innocent Israelis who were murdered that night?”

  Estermann shrugged.

  “I suppose your father thought they had it coming to them.”

  “I suppose he did.”

  “He was a supporter of the Palestinians?”

  “Hardly.”

  His father, Estermann continued, was a member of the Order of St. Helena, as was their parish priest. Estermann joined when he was a student at Munich’s Ludwig Maximillian University. Three years later, during a particularly chilly phase of the Cold War, he joined the Bf V. By any objective measure, he had a fine career, the failure to disrupt the Hamburg Cell notwithstanding. In 2008 he left the counterterrorism division and took command of Department 2, which monitored neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists.

  “A bit like the fox guarding the henhouse, don’t you think?”

  “A bit,” admitted Estermann with a wry smile.

  He kept a close eye on the worst of the worst, he continued, and helped federal prosecutors put a few behind bars. But for the most part, he worked to advance the country’s rightward drift by shielding extreme political parties and groups from scrutiny, especially when it came to the source of their funding. On the whole, his term as director of Department 2 had been wildly successful. The German far right exploded in size and influence during his tenure. He retired from the Bf V in 2014, three years ahead of schedule, and the next day went to work as head of security for the Wolf Group.

  “The Order of St. Helena Incorporated.”

  “You’ve obviously read Alessandro Ricci’s book.”

  “Why did you leave the Bf V early?”

  “I’d done everything I could from the inside. Besides, by 2014 we were close to achieving our goals. Bishop Richter and Herr Wolf decided that the Project required my full attention.”

  “The Project?”

  Estermann nodded.

  “What was it?”

  “A response to an incident that occurred at the Vatican in the autumn of 2006. You might remember it. In fact,” said Estermann, “I believe you were there that day.”

  HE NEEDLESSLY REMINDED GABRIEL OF the horrific details. The attack had occurred a few minutes after noon, during a Wednesday General Audience in St. Peter’s Square. Three suicide bombers, three shoulder-launch RPG-7s: a calculated insult to the Christian concept of the Trinity, which Islam regarded as polytheism, or shirk. More than seven hundred people were killed, making it the worst terrorist attack since 9/11. Among the dead were the commandant of the Swiss Guard, four curial cardinals, eight bishops, and three monsignori. The Holy Father would have died as well if Gabriel hadn’t shielded his body from the falling debris.

  “And what did Lucchesi and Donati do?” asked Estermann. “They called for dialogue and reconciliation.”

  “I assume the Order had a better idea.”

  “Islamic terrorists had just attacked the heart of Christendom. Their goal was to turn Western Europe into a colony of the caliphate. Let’s just say that Bishop Richter and Jonas Wolf were in no mood to negotiate the terms of Christianity’s surrender. In fact, when discussing their plan, they borrowed a famous phrase from the Jews.”

  “What was that?”

  “Never again.”

  “How flattering,” said Gabriel. “And the plan?”

  “Radical Islam had declared war on the Church and Western civilization. If the Church and Western civilization could not summon the strength to fight back, the Order would do it for them.”

  It was Jonas Wolf, he continued, who chose to call the operation the Project. Bishop Richter had argued for something biblical, something with historical sweep and gravitas. But Wolf insisted on blandness over grandeur. He wanted a harmless-sounding word that could be used in an e-mail or a phone conversation without raising suspicion.

  “And the nature of the Project?” asked Gabriel.

  “It was to be a twenty-first-century version of the Reconquista.”

  “I assume your ambitions weren’t limited to the Iberian Peninsula.”

  “No,” said Estermann. “Our goal was to erase the Islamic presence from Western Europe and restore the Church to its proper place of ascendancy.”

  “How?”

  “The same way our founder, Father Schiller, waged a successful war against communism.”

  “By throwing in your lot with fascists?”

  “By supporting the election of traditionalist politicians in the predominantly Roman Catholic heartland of Western Europe.” His words had the dryness of a policy paper. “Politicians who would take the difficult but necessary steps to reverse current demographic trends.”

  “What sort of steps?”

  “Use your imagination.”

  “I’m trying. And all I can see are cattle cars and smokestacks.”

  “No one’s talking about that.”

  “You’re the one who used the word erase, Estermann. Not me.”

  “Do you know how many Muslim immigrants there are in Europe? In one generation, two at the most, Germany will be an Islamic country. France and the Netherlands, too. Can you imagine what life will be like for the Jews then?”

  “Why don’t you leave us out of it and explain to me how you’re going to get rid of twenty-five million Muslims.”

  “By encouraging them to leave.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Deportations will be necessary.”

  “All of them?”

  “Every last one.”

  “What’s your role in this? Are you Adolf Eichmann or Heinrich Himmler?”

  “I’m the chief of operations. I funnel the Order’s money to our chosen political parties and run our intelligence and security service.”

  “I assume you have a cyber unit.”

  “A good one. Between the Order and the Russians,
little of what your average Western European reads online these days is true.”

  “Are you working with them?”

  “The Russians?” Estermann shook his head. “But more often than not, our interests align.”

  “The chancellor of Austria is quite fond of the Kremlin.”

  “Jörg Kaufmann? He’s our rock star. Even the American president adores him, and he doesn’t like anyone.”

  “What about Giuseppe Saviano?”

  “Thanks to the Order, he came from nowhere to win the last election.”

  “Cécile Leclerc?”

  “A real warrior. She told me that she intends to build a bridge between Marseilles and North Africa. Needless to say, the traffic will flow only one way.”

  “That leaves Axel Brünner.”

  “The bombings have given him a real boost in the polls.”

  “You wouldn’t know anything about them, would you?”

  “My old friends at Bf V are convinced the cell is based in Hamburg. It’s a real mess, Hamburg. Lots of radical mosques. Brünner will clean it up once he’s in power.”

  Gabriel smiled. “Thanks to you, the only way Brünner will ever see the inside of the Federal Chancellery is if he gets a job as a janitor.”

  Estermann was silent.

  “You were on the verge of getting everything you wanted. And yet you put it all at risk by murdering an old man with a bad heart. Why kill him? Why not simply wait for him to die?”

  “That was the plan.”

  “What changed?”

  “The old man found a book in the Secret Archives,” said Estermann. “And then he tried to give it to you.”

  42

  MUNICH

  IT WAS IN EARLY OCTOBER, after the Holy Father’s return from a long weekend at Castel Gandolfo, that the Order realized it had a problem. His health failing, perhaps sensing that the end was near, he had embarked on a review of the Vatican’s most sensitive documents, especially those related to the early Church and the Gospels. Of particular interest to His Holiness were the apocryphal gospels, books the Church Fathers had excluded from the New Testament.

  Cardinal Domenico Albanese, the prefetto of the Secret Archives, carefully curated the Holy Father’s reading list, hiding material he did not want the pontiff to see. But quite by chance, while visiting the papal study with several other curial cardinals, he noticed a small book, several centuries old, bound in cracked red leather, lying on the table next to the Holy Father’s desk. It was an apocryphal piece of early Christian writing that was supposed to be locked in the collezione. When Albanese asked the Holy Father how he had obtained the book, His Holiness replied that it had been given to him by a certain Father Joshua, a name Albanese did not recognize.

  Alarmed, Albanese immediately informed his superior general, Bishop Hans Richter, who in turn contacted the Order’s chief of security and intelligence, Andreas Estermann. Several weeks later, in mid-November, Estermann learned the Holy Father had begun work on a letter—a letter he intended to give to the man who had saved his life during the attack on the Vatican.

  “And thus,” said Estermann, “his fate was sealed.”

  “How did you know about the letter?”

  “I planted a transmitter in the papal study years ago. I heard the Holy Father telling Donati that he was writing to you.”

  “But Lucchesi didn’t tell Donati why he was writing to me.”

  “I heard the pope tell someone else. I was never able to determine who he was talking to. In fact, I couldn’t hear the other person’s voice.”

  “Why was the Order so worried about the prospect of Lucchesi giving me the book?”

  “Let me count the ways.”

  “You were afraid it called into question the historical accuracy of the Gospels.”

  “Obviously.”

  “But you were also concerned about the book’s provenance. It was given to the Order in 1938 by a wealthy Roman Jew named Emanuele Giordano, along with a large sum of cash and several works of art. Signore Giordano did not make this contribution out of the goodness of his heart. The Order was running quite an extortion racket in the thirties. It targeted wealthy Jews, who were promised protection and lifesaving baptismal certificates in exchange for cash and valuables. That money was the venture capital for the Wolf Group.” Gabriel paused. “All of which I would have exposed if Lucchesi had placed the book in my hands.”

  “Not bad, Allon. I always heard you were good.”

  “How did the Gospel of Pilate end up in the Secret Archives?”

  “Father Schiller turned it over to Pius the Twelfth in 1954. His Holiness should have burned it. He buried it in the Archives instead. If Father Joshua hadn’t found it, Lucchesi would still be alive.”

  “How did Father Graf kill him?”

  The question surprised Estermann. After a moment’s hesitation he held up the first two fingers of his right hand and moved his thumb as though squeezing the plunger of a syringe.

  “What was in it?”

  “Fentanyl. Apparently, the old man put up quite a fight. Father Graf gave him the injection through his soutane and held his hand over his mouth as he was dying. One of the tasks of the camerlengo is to supervise the preparation of the Holy Father’s body for burial. Albanese made certain no one noticed the small hole in his right thigh.”

  “I think I’ll put a hole in Father Graf the next time I see him.” Gabriel laid a photograph on the table. A man in a motorcycle helmet on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, right arm extended, a gun in his hand. “He’s a rather good shot.”

  “I trained him myself.”

  “Did Niklaus let him into the papal apartments the night of the murder?”

  Estermann nodded.

  “Did he know what Father Graf was planning to do?”

  “Saint Niklaus?” Estermann shook his head. “He loved the Holy Father and Donati. Father Graf manipulated him into opening the door. I heard Niklaus go into the study a few minutes after Father Graf left. That’s when he took the letter off the desk.”

  Gabriel placed it on the table, next to the photograph.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “It was in his pocket when he was killed.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It says you’d better tell me what happened to the Gospel of Pilate after Albanese removed it from the study.”

  “He gave it to Bishop Richter.”

  “And what did Bishop Richter do with it?”

  “He did what Father Schiller and Pius the Twelfth should have done a long time ago.”

  “He destroyed it?”

  The German nodded.

  Gabriel drew the Beretta from the small of his back. “How do you want the story to end?”

  “I want to see my children again.”

  “Correct answer. Now let’s try for two in a row.” Gabriel leveled the Beretta at Estermann’s head. “Where’s the book?”

  THERE WAS A HEATED QUARREL, but then no Office operation was complete without one. Yaakov Rossman appointed himself the spokesman for the opposition. The team, he argued, had already pulled off the near impossible. Hastily assembled in a city on high alert, it had succeeded in making a former German intelligence officer disappear without a trace. Under skillful interrogation, he had surrendered the information necessary to prevent the Catholic Church from falling into the hands of a malignant, reactionary order with ties to Europe’s far right. What was more, the proverbial tree had fallen in the operational forest without a sound. It was better not to push their luck with a risky final gambit, said Yaakov. Better to put Estermann on ice and make a leisurely run for Munich Airport.

  “I’m not leaving without that book,” said Gabriel. “And Estermann is going to get it for me.”

  “What makes you think he’ll agree to do it?”

  “Because it’s better than the alternative.”

  “What if he’s lying?” asked Yaakov. “What if he’s sending you on a wild-goose chase?”

/>   “He isn’t. Besides, his story is easily verifiable.”

  “How?”

  “The phone.”

  The phone to which Gabriel was referring belonged to Father Markus Graf. Gabriel ordered Unit 8200, which had gained access to the device after acquiring its number, to check the GPS data stored in the operating system. Shortly after five a.m. Munich time, Yuval Gershon called back with the Unit’s findings. The GPS data matched Estermann’s story.

  At which point all debate ended. There was, however, a minor problem of transport.

  “If things go sideways up there,” said Eli Lavon, “you won’t be able to get back to Rome tonight.”

  “Not without a private plane,” conceded Gabriel.

  “Where are we going to get a plane?”

  “I suppose we could just steal one.”

  “Could be messy.”

  “In that case,” said Gabriel, “we’ll borrow one instead.”

  MARTIN LANDESMANN, THE SWISS FINANCIER and philanthropist, famously slept only three hours a night. Therefore, when he answered his phone at five fifteen, he sounded alert and full of entrepreneurial vitality. Yes, he said, business was good. Quite good, in fact. No, he replied with a mirthless laugh, he was not selling nuclear components to the Iranians again. Because of Gabriel, all that was in Landesmann’s past.

  “And you?” he asked earnestly. “How’s your business these days?”

  “International chaos is a growth industry.”

  “I’m always looking for investment opportunities.”

  “Financing isn’t a problem, Martin. What I need is a plane.”

  “I’m taking the Boeing Business Jet to London later this morning, but the Gulfstream is available.”

  “I suppose it will have to do.”

  “Where and when?”

  Gabriel told him.

  “Destination?”

  “Tel Aviv, with a brief stopover at Ciampino in Rome.”

  “Where shall I send the bill?”

  “Put it on my tab.”

  Gabriel rang off and called Donati in Rome.

  “I was beginning to think I would never hear from you,” he said.