The Messenger

Office.

“My apologies,” the carabiniere said, and moved off.

“Wait,” Gabriel said.

The carabiniere stopped and turned around.

“Aren’t you going to ask to see my identification?”

The carabiniere held out his hand. He gave the ID badge a bored glance, then handed it back.

“Don’t trust anyone,” Gabriel said. “Ask for identification, and if it doesn’t look right, call your superior.”

Gabriel turned and walked over to St. Anne’s Gate, where a flock of nuns in gray habits was being admitted simply by saying “Annona,” the name of the Vatican supermarket. He tried the same tactic and, like the nuns, was waved onto Vatican territory. Just inside the gate he withdrew his Vatican ID badge and chastised the Swiss Guard in the Berlin-accented German he had acquired from his mother. Then he went back into the street. A moment later there came an elderly priest with very white hair who informed the Swiss Guard he was going to the Vatican pharmacy. The Guard detained the priest at the gate until he could produce ID from the pocket of his cassock.

Gabriel decided to check security at the other main entrance of the Vatican, the Arch of Bells. He arrived five minutes later, just in time to see a Curial cardinal and his two aides passing through the arch without so much as a glance from the Swiss Guard standing at attention near his weather shelter. Gabriel held his badge in front of the Guard’s eyes.

“Why didn’t you ask that cardinal for some identification?”

“His red hat and pectoral cross are his identification.”

“Not today,” Gabriel said. “Check everyone’s ID.”

He turned and walked along the outer edge of the Colonnade, pondering the scenes he had just witnessed. St. Peter’s Square, for all its vastness, was largely secure. But if there was a chink in the Vatican ’s armor, it was the relatively large number of people who were allowed free movement behind the square. He thought of the photographs on Ali Massoudi’s computer and wondered whether the terrorists had discovered the very same thing.

HE CROSSED the square to the Bronze Doors. There were no magic words to gain admittance to what was essentially the front door of the Apostolic Palace. Gabriel’s badge was examined outside by a Swiss Guard in full dress uniform and a second time inside the foyer by a Guard in plain clothes. His Security Office clearance allowed him to enter the palace without signing in at the Permissions Desk, but he was required to surrender his firearm, which he did with a certain reluctance.

The marble steps of the Scala Regia rose before him, shimmering in the glow of the vast iron lamps. Gabriel climbed them to the Cortile di San Damaso and crossed the courtyard to the other side, where a waiting elevator bore him upward to the third floor. He paused briefly in the loggia to admire the Raphael fresco, then hurried along the wide corridor to the papal apartments. Donati, wearing a cassock with a magenta sash, was seated behind the desk in his small office adjacent to the Pope’s. Gabriel slipped inside and closed the door.

“How many people work inside the Vatican?” Donati said, repeating Gabriel’s question. “About half.”

Gabriel frowned.

“Forgive me,” Donati said. “It’s an old Vatican joke. The answer is about twelve hundred. That includes the priests and prelates who work in the Secretariat of State and the various congregations and councils, along with their lay support staff. Then there are the laypeople who make the place run: the tour guides, the street sweepers, the maintenance people and gardeners, the clerks in places like the post office, the pharmacy, and the supermarket. And then there’s the security staff, of course.”

Gabriel held up his Vatican ID badge. “And they all get one of these?”

“Not everyone can get into the Apostolic Palace, but they all have credentials that get them beyond the public sections of the Vatican.”

“You mean the square and the Basilica?”

“Correct.”

“What kind of background check do you perform on them?”

“I take it you’re not referring to the cardinals, bishops, monsignori, and priests.”

“We’ll leave them aside.” Gabriel frowned, then added, “For now.”

“Jobs at the Vatican are highly coveted. The salaries aren’t terribly high, but all our employees have shopping privileges at the pharmacy and the supermarket. The prices are subsidized and much lower than those at Italian markets. The same is true for the prices at our gas station. Aside from that, the hours are reasonable, vacations are long, and the fringe benefits are quite good.”

“What about a background check for the people who get those jobs?”

“The jobs are so coveted-and there are so few of them-that they almost always go to someone with a family connection, so the background check is fairly cursory.”

“I was afraid of that,” Gabriel said. “And what about people like me? People with temporary credentials?”

“You’re asking how many?” Donati shrugged. “At any given time, I’d say there are several hundred people with temporary access to the Vatican.”

“How does the system work?”

“They’re usually assigned to one of the various pontifical councils or commissions as support staff or professional consultants. The prefect or an undersecretary vouch for the character of the individual, and the Vatican Security Office issues the badges.”

“Does the Security Office keep all the paperwork?”

“Of course.”

Gabriel lifted the receiver of the telephone and held it out to Donati.

TWENTY MINUTES ELAPSED before Donati’s phone rang again. He listened in silence, then replaced the receiver and looked at Gabriel, who was standing in the window overlooking the square, watching the crowds streaming into the square.

“They’re starting to pull the paperwork now.”

“Starting?”

“It required authorization from the chief. He was in a meeting. They’ll be ready for you in fifteen minutes.”

Gabriel looked at his wristwatch. It was nearly ten-thirty.

“Move it indoors,” he said.

“The Holy Father won’t hear of it.” Donati joined Gabriel at the window. “Besides, it’s too late. The guests have started to arrive.”

THEY SETTLED HIM in a tiny cell with a sooty window overlooking the Belvedere Courtyard and gave him a boyish-looking ex-carabiniere named Luca Angelli to fetch the files. He limited his search to laypersons only. Even Gabriel, a man of boundless suspicion, could not imagine a scenario under which a Catholic priest could be recruited, knowingly or unwittingly, to the cause of al-Qaeda. He also struck from his list members of the Swiss Guard and Vigilanza. The ranks of the Vigilanza were filled largely by former officers of the Carabinieri and Polizia di Stato. As for the Swiss Guard, they were drawn exclusively from Catholic families in Switzerland and most came from the German- and French-speaking cantons in the mountainous heart of the country, hardly a stronghold of Islamic extremism.

He started with the lay employees of the Vatican city-state itself. To limit the parameters of his search he reviewed only the files of those who had been hired in the previous five years. That alone took him nearly thirty minutes. When he was finished he set aside a half dozen files for further evaluation-a clerk in the Vatican pharmacy, a gardener, two stock boys in the Annona, a janitor in the Vatican museum, and a woman who worked in one of the Vatican gift shops-and gave the rest back to Angelli.

The next files to arrive were for the lay employees attached to various congregations of the Roman Curia. The congregations were the approximate equivalent of government ministries and dealt with central areas of Church governance, such as doctrine, faith, the clergy, saints, and Catholic education. Each congregation was led by a