The Messenger

screen. It had been playing nonstop. Gabriel had watched it at least a dozen times, and he watched again now. He saw Müller lunge from the knot of Swiss Guards, the gun in his outstretched hands. He saw himself, drawing his own gun from the inside of his jacket, and Donati, throwing his long body in front of the president of the United States as Müller opened fire. A fraction of a second, he thought. If he’d seen Müller a fraction of a second earlier, he might have been able to fire first. And Donati wouldn’t be lying near death on the eleventh floor of the Gemelli Clinic. Gabriel looked at the Pope. His eyes were no longer closed but were fixed on the screen of the television.
    “How did he know to step in front of the president instead of me?”
    “I suppose he understood that Müller could have killed you countless times if he’d wanted to. Müller was going for the president first, and Luigi understood that.”
    “In the blink of an eye.”
    “He’s one of the smartest men I’ve ever met, Holiness.” Gabriel looked at Donati. “He saved the president of the United States, and he probably isn’t even aware of it.”
    “Luigi just stopped the bullets,” the Pope said, “but you’re the one who saved him. If it wasn’t for you, we would have never been on alert for something like this. How did you know, Gabriel? How did you know they were going to hit us again today?”
    “We’ll have to talk about this at a later date. A much later date.”
    “You’re in the middle of an operation, aren’t you?”
    Gabriel was silent.
    “Erich Müller, a member of my palace guard…” The Pope’s voice trailed off. “I still can’t believe it. How did they do it, Gabriel? How did they get an assassin into the Swiss Guard?”
    “The details are sketchy, Holiness, but it appears Müller was recruited sometime after he left the Swiss army. He didn’t have a job waiting for him, so he spent about a year and half traveling around Europe and the Mediterranean. He spent several months in Hamburg, and several more in Amsterdam. He was known to be a frequent participant in anti-American, anti-Israel demonstrations. He may have actually converted to Islam. We believe he was recruited into the terrorist network by a man named Professor Ali Massoudi.”
    “Massoudi? Really? Good God, Gabriel, but I think Professor Massoudi submitted some of his writings to my special commission on improving ties between Islam and the West. I think he may have actually visited the Vatican at some point.”
    “Improving ties between Islam and the Church was not part of Professor Massoudi’s real agenda, Holiness.”
    “Obviously,” said the Pope. “I suppose we now know who opened the Door of Death for the suicide bombers in October. It was Müller, wasn’t it?”
    Gabriel nodded and looked at the television as the video of the attack began again.
    “I wonder how many people have seen this image today,” the Pope said.
    “Billions, Holiness.”
    “Something tells me your days as a secret agent are over. Welcome back to the real world, Gabriel.”
    “It’s not a world in which I’m comfortable.”
    “What are your plans?”
    “I have to return to Israel.”
    “And then?”
    “My future is somewhat uncertain.”
    “As usual,” the Pope said. “Francesco Tiepolo tells me you and Chiara have reunited.”
    “Yes, Holiness. She’s in Israel now.”
    “What are your plans?”
    “I have to marry her before she leaves me again.”
    “Wise man. And then?”
    “One step at a time, Holiness.”
    “Will you allow me to give you one more piece of advice?”
    “Of course.”
    “As of this moment, you are the most famous man in Italy. A national hero. Something tells me the country would welcome you back with open arms. And this time not as Mario Delvecchio.”
    “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
    “If I were you, I’d make it a bridge back to Venice.”
    The Pope gazed silently for a moment through the open door. “I don’t know what I’ll do if God takes him from me. I can’t run the Roman Catholic Church without Luigi Donati.”
    “I remember the day he came to Jerusalem to see me,” Gabriel said. “When we were walking through the Old City, I foolishly described him as a faithless man at the side of a man of great faith. But it took a great deal of faith to step in front of those bullets.”
    “Luigi Donati is a man of extraordinary faith. He just doesn’t realize it sometimes. Now I