The Confessor

THE CONFESSOR
    By
    Daniel Silva
    From The Cover:
    FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE ENGLISH ASSASSIN
    Art restorer Gabriel Allon is trying to put his secret service past behind him. But when his friend Benjamin Stern is murdered in Munich, he's called into action once more.
    Police in Germany are certain that Stern, a professor well known for his
    work on the Holocaust, was killed by right-wing extremists. But Allon is far
    from convinced. Not least because all trace of the new book Stern
    was researching has now mysteriously disappeared...
    Meanwhile, in Rome, the new Pope paces around his garden, thinking about
    the perilous plan he's about to set in motion. If successful, he will
    revolutionize the Church. If not. he could very well destroy it...
    In the dramatic weeks to come, the journeys of these two men will intersect.
    Long-buried secrets and unthinkable deeds will come to light and both
    their lives will be changed for ever...
    'The Confessor opens with a startling twist, then gets even better. It will
    resonate with fans of Dan Brown's novels, as long-buried secrets about
    unthinkable deeds are unearthed. The pace is relentless...'
    'A shrewd, timely thriller that opens the heart of the Vatican.'
    THE CONFESSOR
    Daniel Silva is also the author of the bestselling thrillers The Unlikely Spy, The Mark of the Assassin, The Marching Season, The Kill Artist and The English Assassin. The Washington Post ranks him as 'among the best of the younger American spy novelists' and he is regularly compared to Graham Greene and John Le Carre. He lives in Washington, DC.
    DANIEL SILVA
    THE
    CONFESSOR
    MICHAEL JOSEPH
    an imprint of PENGUIN BOOKS
    MICHAEL JOSEPH LTD Published by the Penguin Group
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    First published in The United States of America by G.P. Putnam's Sons 2003
    First published in Great Britain in Penguin Books 2004
    This edition first published by the Penguin Group (Australia), a
    division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd 2004
    13579108642
    Copyright © Daniel Silva, 2003
    All rights reserved
    The moral right of the author has been asserted Printed and bound in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group, Maryborough, Victoria
    Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it
    shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated
    without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
    which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being
    imposed on the subsequent purchaser
    ISBN 0718) 47952 www.penguin.com.au
    For David Bull, il restauratore,
    and as always,
    for my wife Jamie and
    my children Lily and Nicolas
    "Roma locuta est; causa finita est." Rome has spoken; the case is closed.
    ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
    PART ONE
    AN APARTMENT IN MUNICH
    MUNICH
    THE APARTMENT HOUSE at Adalbertstrasse 68 was one of the few in the fashionable district of Schwabing yet to be overrun by Munich's noisy and growing professional elite. Wedged between two red brick buildings that exuded prewar charm, No. 68 seemed rather like an ugly younger stepsister. Her facade was a cracked beige stucco, her form squat and graceless. As a result her suitors were a tenuous community of students, artists, anarchists, and unrepentant punk rockers, all presided over by an authoritarian caretaker named Frau Ratzinger, who, it was rumored, had been living in the original apartment house at No. 68 when it was leveled by an Allied bomb. Neighborhood activists derided the building as an eyesore in need of gentrification. Defenders said it exemplified the very sort