“Vienna.”
“I didn’t do it for myself. I did it so someone else wouldn’t have to bury a child or visit a loved one in a psychiatric hospital.”
“You just answered my question in the affirmative,” Shamron said. “I’m only sorry we had to send Massoud back to Tehran. He deserved to die an ignoble death.”
“We did the next best thing by burning him.”
“I only wish the flames could have been real instead of allegorical.” Shamron drank some of his wine and asked Gabriel what it was like being on the Temple Mount.
“It’s changed since my last visit.”
“Did you feel close to God?”
“Too close.”
Shamron smiled. “The visit didn’t go exactly as planned, at least from the mufti’s point of view. But from ours . . .” Shamron’s voice trailed off. “The pope’s words of support couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. And we have you to thank for it.”
“They were his words, Ari, not mine.”
“But I’m not sure he would have spoken them if it wasn’t for your friendship. I just hope he stands by us when the inevitable becomes a reality.”
“You mean an attack on Iran?”
Shamron nodded.
“How much longer do we have?”
“Your friend Uzi will have to make that decision. But if I had to guess, it will be some time in the next year. In my opinion,” Shamron added, “we’ve waited too long already.”
“But even you’re not sure whether an attack on their facilities will be successful.”
“But I
“It’s possible you’re being too pessimistic.”
“Actually,” Shamron said, “I was giving you my best-case scenario.”
“And the worst case?”
He turned his head a few degrees and gazed in the direction of the Old City. “It could all go up in a ball of fire, like the night Titus laid siege to the Second Temple.”
The sound of Chiara’s laughter filtered from the kitchen onto the terrace. It softened Shamron’s dark mood.
“Have there been any developments on the child front?”
“The pope is praying for us.”
“So am I,” Shamron said. “I read an interesting article about infertility not long ago. It said frequent travel can sometimes interfere with conception. It also said that the couple should remain at home as often as possible, surrounded by family and loved ones.”
“Have you no shame?”
“None whatsoever.” Shamron smiled and placed a hand on Gabriel’s arm. “Are you happy, my son?”
“I will be as soon as I put His Holiness back on his airplane.”
“I assume you’re planning to accompany him?”
Gabriel nodded. “I need to have a word with Carlo Marchese. I also have to finish that Caravaggio.”
“Never a dull moment.”
“Actually, I’d kill for one.”
“And when you’re finished in Rome? What then?”
Gabriel smiled. “Drink your wine, Ari. They say it’s good for the heart.”
As Shamron predicted, the pope’s remarks during his visit to the Temple Mount did not go over well in the Muslim world. On Al Jazeera that evening, one commentator after another branded them an affront that could not go unanswered. Watching the coverage from his office, Imam Hassan Darwish found the outrage mildly amusing. He knew that in just a few hours’ time, the pope’s words would seem like a bit of loose talk by an old man in white. With his eyes fixed on the screen, he reached for the phone and dialed. The man he knew as Mr. Farouk answered instantly.
“Yes?”
“Deliver the Korans to the address I gave you.”
Darwish replaced the receiver and headed across the esplanade to the Dome of the Rock—not to the main hall of the shrine, but to the cave just beneath the Foundation Stone known as the Well of Souls. There he knelt on a musty prayer rug, listening to the wailing of the dead. Soon they would be free, he thought, because soon there would be no Well of Souls. In fact, if Allah allowed everything to go according to plan, there would be nothing at all.
41
THE OLD CITY, JERUSALEM
IT WAS GOOD FRIDAY, which meant Jerusalem, God’s fractured citadel upon a hill, was in a state of near hysteria. In the predominantly Jewish districts of the New City, the morning proceeded with the usual last-minute preparations for the coming Shabbat. But in East Jerusalem, thousands of Muslims were making their way to the Haram al-Sharif for Friday prayers, while at the same time, a multitude of Catholics from around the world were preparing to commemorate the crucifixion of Christ with the man they believed to be his representative on earth. Not surprisingly, police and medical personnel reported an unusual surge in cases of Jerusalem Syndrome, the sudden religious psychosis brought on by exposure to the city’s countless sacred sites. In one incident, a guest of the King David Hotel appeared in the lobby wearing only a bedsheet, proclaiming the end of days was near.
“Where is he now?” asked Donati.
“Resting comfortably under heavy sedation,” replied Gabriel. “He’s expected to make a full recovery.”
“Is he one of ours or one of yours?”
“Yours, I’m afraid.”
“Where’s he from?”
“San Francisco.”
“And he had to come all the way to Jerusalem to have a psychotic break?”
Smiling, Donati lit a cigarette. They were seated in the formal parlor of the Latin Patriarch’s residence. On the table between them was a large-scale map of the Old City with the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Grief, marked in red. A narrow Roman road with steep, cobbled stairs in places, it ran two thousand feet across the Old City, from the former Antonia Fortress to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, regarded by Christians as the place of Christ’s crucifixion and burial. Like most Israelis, Gabriel avoided the street because of the aggressive Palestinian shopkeepers who tried to ensnare every passing soul, regardless of their faith. Usually, the shops remained open on Good Friday, but not today. Gabriel had ordered them all closed.
“I have to admit that this is the day that worries me the most,” he said, staring at the map. “The pope has to walk along a very narrow street and stop at fourteen of the most famous places in religious history.”
“I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do about the route—or the story, for that matter. His Holiness
“Will he at least reconsider the Kevlar vest?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
