The Fallen Angel

“What time?”

“Nine o’clock,” said Donati. “The Bronze Doors.”

The time had not been chosen at random, but Carlo appeared not to notice. Nor did he seem to think it was odd when he found Father Mark waiting to greet him. Carlo was the kind of man who didn’t have to stop at the Permissions Desk on his way into the building. Carlo could find his own way from the Bronze Doors to the papal apartments.

“This way,” said Father Mark, taking Carlo’s elbow with a grip that indicated he had been lifting more than just a communion chalice. He led him up the Scala Regia and into the Sistine Chapel. There they passed beneath Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, with its swirling vision of the Apocalypse and the Second Coming of Christ, before heading down the gray-green tube to the Basilica. As they crossed to the other side of the soaring nave, Carlo began to show his first signs of agitation. It increased sharply when Father Mark informed him they would be taking the stairs to the dome rather than the elevator. The stairs were General Ferrari’s idea. He wanted Carlo to suffer, even in a small way, on his way to absolution.

The climb took slightly more than five minutes. As they reached the landing at the top of the stairs, Carlo tried to pause in order to catch his breath, but Father Mark nudged him into the gallery of the dome. A raincoated figure stood at the balustrade, peering downward toward the floor of the Basilica. As Carlo entered, the figure turned and regarded him without a word. Carlo froze and then recoiled.

“Something wrong, Carlo? You look as though you just saw a ghost.”

Carlo spun round and saw Gabriel standing where Father Mark had been.

“What is this, Allon?”

“Judgment, Carlo.”

Gabriel went to Paola’s side. She was staring downward again, as though oblivious to Gabriel’s presence.

“This is where Claudia was standing when she died. Whoever murdered her approached her from behind and broke her neck before throwing her over the barrier to make it look like a suicide. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting her up to the gallery in the first place.” Gabriel paused. “But you managed to figure that out, didn’t you, Carlo?”

“I had nothing to do with her death, Allon.”

Carlo’s declaration of innocence echoed high in the dome before dying the death it deserved. His gaze was now fixed on Paola’s neck. Gabriel placed a hand gently on her shoulder.

“She was scheduled to meet with Donati that night to tell him you were running your criminal empire from the Vatican Bank. But she canceled the meeting without explanation. She canceled it,” Gabriel added pointedly, “because someone told her to come to the dome of the Basilica. That person was going to give her the information she needed to destroy you. It was someone she trusted, someone she used to work with.” Gabriel paused again. “Someone like your wife.”

Carlo seemed to be trying to regain his composure, but Paola’s presence wouldn’t permit it. He was still staring at her neck. As a result, he didn’t notice General Ferrari standing a few feet behind him.

“Sometime that evening,” Gabriel resumed, “Claudia received a text message from Veronica asking her to come here. She called Veronica’s cell a few minutes before nine, but there was no answer. That’s because Veronica didn’t have her cell. You did, Carlo.”

“You can’t prove any of this, Allon.”

“Remember where you’re standing, Carlo.”

Paola gave Carlo an accusatory glare before setting off on a slow tour of the gallery.

“But who to trust with the job of actually killing your wife’s best friend?” Gabriel asked. “It had to be someone who could get inside the Vatican without much trouble, someone who didn’t have to stop at the Permissions Desk before entering the palace.” Gabriel smiled. “Know anyone like that, Carlo?”

“You don’t really believe I killed that poor girl with my own hands.”

“I know you did. And so does she,” Gabriel added with a glance at Paola. “Help her soul find peace, Carlo. Tell her that you killed her sister to protect your position at the Vatican Bank. Confess your sins.”

Paola’s presence had clearly lost its hold over Carlo. He was now staring at Gabriel with the same arrogant smile he had worn the night he tried to have Gabriel and Chiara killed. He was once again Carlo the untouchable, Carlo the man without physical fear.

“You are a member of a very small club,” Gabriel said. “You are the only person who ever tried to kill my wife who is still walking this earth. If you would like to remain here with us, I would advise you to tender your resignation at the Vatican Bank immediately. But first,” he added, glancing again toward Paola, “I want you to tell her why you murdered her sister.”

“You can have my resignation but—”

“Your wife already knows,” Gabriel said, cutting him off. “I told her everything before the Holy Father left for Jerusalem. She believed me, because she remembered that on the night of Claudia’s death she couldn’t find her mobile.”

To bring an opponent’s wife into play violated Gabriel’s personal code of ethics, but the tactic had its intended effect. Carlo’s face was now crimson with rage. Gabriel pressed his advantage.

“She’s going to leave you, Carlo. In fact, if I had to guess, she’s probably been thinking about it for some time. After all, she never loved you the way she loved Donati.”

That was enough to push Carlo’s anger past the point of control. He blundered toward Gabriel in a blind fury, his face unrecognizable with rage, his arms outstretched. Gabriel took a lightning step to one side, leaving Carlo to careen over the balustrade. A hand reached out, flailing. Too late, Gabriel tried to grasp it. Then he seized Paola and covered her ears tightly so she couldn’t hear the sound of Carlo’s body colliding with the marble below. Only when General Ferrari had taken her out onto the roof terrace did Gabriel look over the side. There he saw the pope’s private secretary kneeling on the floor of the Basilica, his fingertips moving gently over Carlo’s forehead. Ego te absolvo. And then it was done.

For the next two days, Gabriel remained a prisoner of his curtained little tomb at the far end of the restoration lab. The other members of the staff saw him rarely. He was there when they arrived in the morning, and he remained there, surrounded by a corona of brilliant halogen light, long after they left for the night. There were rumors of a disaster of some sort behind the shroud—an unexpected loss of Caravaggio’s original work, or perhaps a botched retouching. Enrico Bacci, still seething over his failure to secure the assignment, demanded a staff intervention, but Antonio Calvesi refused. Calvesi had heard the stories about the endless sessions before the canvas when the end was in sight. In fact, he had personally witnessed such an ordeal in Florence many years earlier, when Gabriel, then working under an assumed identity, had labored for twenty hours without a break to complete a Masaccio before his deadline. “There’s no problem,” Calvesi assured his faithless staff. “He’s just closing in on his target. Just be thankful it’s a painting and not a man.”

And so it came to pass that on the morning of the third day, when the staff came trickling into the lab, they found the curtain of his workspace hanging open and the painting propped on an easel, looking as though it had just been completed by Caravaggio himself. The only thing missing was the man who had restored it. Calvesi spent an hour fruitlessly searching for him before heading up to the palace to personally deliver the news to Monsignor Donati. The Caravaggio was finally finished, he reported. And Gabriel Allon, renowned restorer of Old Master paintings, retired Israeli spy and assassin, and savior of the Holy Father, had vanished without a trace.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Fallen Angel is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed in the story are the product of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Those who have made the ascent to the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica will surely remember there is a wire suicide barrier along the edge of the viewing gallery. I removed it in order to make a murder, and an accidental fall,