The building contained no lift, and to reach the flat it was necessary to navigate four gloomy flights of stairs. Chiara went first, followed by Gabriel and Francesco Tiepolo. Before she could slip her key into the lock, the door flew open and Shimon Pazner's square physique filled the frame. The memory of Gabriel and Chiara's flight from the beach was visible in the expression on his face. Had Ari Shamron and Eli Lavon not been standing six feet behind him, each puffing away on a Turkish cigarette, Gabriel was quite certain Pazner would have pounced. Instead, he was forced to silently hold his ground as Gabriel brushed past without a word and greeted Shamron. There would be no family quarrels tonight, not in front of an outsider. But one day, when Shamron was gone, Pazner would take his revenge. That's the way things always went in the Office.

Gabriel handled the introduction. "This is Francesco Tiepolo. Francesco, these are the guys. I won't insult you by giving them names, because they wouldn't be real in any case."

Tiepolo seemed to take this news in good humor. Shamron stepped forward and took over the proceedings. He shook Tiepolo's hand and looked up directly into his eyes for a long moment. Tiepolo could see he was being appraised for trustworthiness but made no sign that he found Shamron's undisguised scrutiny at all uncomfortable.

"I can't thank you enough for agreeing to help us, Signor Tiepolo."

"The Holy Father is a dear friend of mine. If any harm ever came to him, I would never be able to forgive myself, especially if I had been in a position to somehow prevent it."

"You may rest assured that our interests in this matter are in complete harmony." Shamron finally released Tiepolo's hand and looked at Shimon Pazner. "Bring him some coffee. Can't you see he's had a long journey?"

Pazner shot Gabriel an icy look and stalked off to the kitchen Shamron ushered Tiepolo into the sitting room. The Venetian settled himself at the end of the couch, the rest gathered around him Shamron wasted no more time on small talk.

"What time do you enter the Vatican?"

"I'm expected at the Bronze Doors at six o'clock this evening. Customarily, Father Donati greets me there and escorts me up to the third floor, to the papal apartments."

"Are you certain this man Donati is to be trusted?"

"I have known Father Donati as long as I have known the Holy Father. He is intensely loyal."

Shimon Pazner entered the room and handed Tiepolo a cup of espresso.

"It is important that the Pope and his aides feel comfortable," Shamron resumed. "We will meet with His Holiness under any circumstances of his choosing. Obviously, we would prefer a secure location, someplace where our presence will not be noted by certain elements of the Curia. Do you understand what I'm trying to say to you, Signor Tiepolo?"

Tiepolo raised the coffee to his lips and nodded vigorously.

"The information we wish to pass to the Holy Father is of a sensitive nature. If necessary, we will meet with a trusted aide, but we believe it would be best for the Pope to hear it with his own ears."

Tiepolo swallowed the espresso in a gulp and set the cup gently on the saucer. "It would be helpful to me if I had some idea of the nature of this information."

Shamron allowed his face to register discomfort, then he leaned forward. "It concerns the actions of the Vatican during the Second World War and a meeting that took place in a convent on Lake Garda a long time ago. You'll forgive me, Signor Tiepolo, if I say no more."

"And the nature of the threat to his life?"

"We believe the threat to the Holy Father originates from forces inside the Church, which is why he needs to take additional steps to protect himself and those around him."

Tiepolo inflated his cheeks and expelled the air slowly. "You have one thing working to your advantage. Father Donati has told me on any number of occasions that he is concerned about the security around the Holy Father. So this will come as no surprise to him. As for the war--" Tiepolo hesitated, clearly choosing his words carefully. "Let me just say that it is a topic to which the Holy Father has given a great deal of thought. He calls it a stain on the Church. A stain that he is determined to remove."

Shamron smiled. "Obviously, Signor Tiepolo, we're here to help."

AT 5:45 P.M., a black Fiat sedan pulled up outside the entrance of the apartment house. Francesco Tiepolo settled himself in the backseat. Shamron and Shimon Pazner appeared briefly on the terrace and watched the car set out along the river toward the dome in the distance.

Fifteen minutes later, the Fiat deposited the Venetian at the entrance of St. Peter's Square. Tiepolo slipped through the metal guard barrier and made his way along Bernini's Colonnade as the bells of the Basilica tolled six o'clock. At the Bronze Doors, he presented his name and Italian identity card to the Swiss Guard. The Guard consulted a clipboard, then compared Tiepolo's face to the photograph on the identity card. Satisfied, he allowed Tiepolo to enter the Apostolic Palace.

Father Donati was waiting at the foot of the Scala Regia. As usual, he wore a grim expression, like a man perpetually bracing himself for bad news. He shook Tiepolo's hand coldly and led him upstairs to the papal apartments.

As always, Tiepolo was taken aback by the appearance of the papal study. It was a simple room--much too austere for so powerful a man, he thought--yet completely in keeping with the humble clergyman he had come to know and admire in Venice. Pope Paul VII was standing in the window overlooking St. Peter's Square, a white figure posed against the crimson drapery. He turned as Tiepolo and Father Donati entered the room and managed a fatigued smile. Tiepolo fell to his knees, kissing the fisherman's ring. Then the Pope took Tiepolo by the shoulders and guided him to his feet. He seized the Venetian by his biceps and squeezed, seemingly drawing strength from the bigger man.

"You look well, Francesco. Obviously life in Venice continues to treat you well."

"Until yesterday, Holiness, when I learned about a threat to your life."

Father Donati sat down, carefully crossed one leg over the other, and smoothed the crease of his trousers--a busy chief executive, eager to move the proceedings along. "All right, Francesco," Donati said. "Enough of the dramatics. Have a seat and tell me exactly what in God's name is going on."

POPE Paul VII was scheduled to dine that evening with a delegation of visiting bishops from Argentina. Father Donati telephoned the leader of the delegation, a prelate from Buenos Aires, and told him that unfortunately His Holiness was under the weather and would not be able to host the meal. The bishop promised to pray for the Holy Father's speedy recovery.

At nine-thirty, Father Donati stepped into the corridor outside the papal study and confronted the Swiss Guard standing watch. "The Holy Father wishes to walk in the gardens to meditate," Donati said briskly. "He'll be leaving in just a few moments."

"I thought His Holiness was ill this evening," the Swiss Guard replied innocently.

"How His Holiness is feeling is none of your concern." "Yes, Father Donati. I'll notify the Guards in the garden that His Holiness is coming."

"You will do no such thing. The Holy Father would like to meditate in peace."

The Swiss Guard stiffened. "Yes, Father Donati." The priest walked back to the study, where he found Tiepolo helping the Pope into a long fawn overcoat and brimmed hat. With the coat buttoned, only the fringe of his white soutane was visible.

There are a thousand rooms in the Vatican and countless miles of corridors and staircases. Father Donati had made it his business to learn every inch of them. He led the Pope past the Swiss Guard, then spent the next ten minutes winding his way downward through the labyrinthine passageways of the ancient palace--here a murky shoulder-width tunnel with a dripping arched ceiling, here a flight of stone steps, rounded by time, slick as ice.

Finally, they came to a darkened underground garage. A small Fiat sedan was waiting. The Vatican SCV license plates had been replaced by normal Italian tags. Francesco Tiepolo helped the Pope into the backseat and joined him there. Father Donati climbed behind the wheel and started the engine.

The Pope could not hide his alarm at this development. "When was the last time you drove a car, Luigi?"

"To be honest, Holiness, I can't recall. It was certainly before we came to Venice."

"That was eighteen years ago!"

"May the Holy Spirit protect us on our journey."

"And all the angels and saints," added the Pope.

Donati forced the car into gear and guided it timidly up a winding, darkened ramp. A moment later, the car emerged into the night. The priest hesitantly pushed the accelerator toward the floor and sped along the Via Belvedere toward St. Anne's Gate.

"Duck down, Holiness."

"Is that really necessary, Luigi?"

"Francesco, please help His Holiness conceal himself!"

"I'm sorry, Holiness."

The big Venetian grabbed the Pope by the lapels of his overcoat and pulled him down into his lap. The Fiat sped past the Pontifical Pharmacy and the Vatican Bank. As they approached St. Anne's Gate, Father Donati switched on his headlights and sounded his horn. A stunned Swiss Guard leapt out of the path of the speeding car. Father Donati made the sign of the cross as the car flashed through the gate and entered Rome proper.

The Pope looked up at Tiepolo. "May I sit up now, Francesco? This is most undignified."

"Father Donati?"

"Yes, I think it's safe now."

Tiepolo helped the Pope sit up and straightened his overcoat.

It was Chiara standing on the terrace of the safe flat, who spotted the Fiat entering the piazza. The car stopped in front of the building and three men climbed out. Chiara ducked into the sitting room. "There's someone here," she said. "Tiepolo and two other men. I think one of them might be him."

A moment later there was a sharp knock. Gabriel quickly crossed the room and pulled open the door. He was greeted by the sight of Francesco Tiepolo and a priest in clerical suit, flanking a small man in a long overcoat and a fedora hat. Gabriel stepped aside. Tiepolo and the priest ushered the man into the safe flat.

Gabriel closed the door. As he turned around, he saw the little man remove his fedora and hand it to the priest. Perched on his head was a white zucchetto. Next, he removed the fawn overcoat, revealing a soutane of brilliant white.

His Holiness Pope Paul VII said: "I'm told that you gentlemen have some important information you'd like to impart to me. I'm all ears."

ROME.

The door of the flat opened to Lange's touch, just as the Italian had said it would. He closed it again and pushed the deadbolt into place before switching on the lights. He was greeted by the sight of a single room with a bare floor and water-marked walls. There was a steel bed--more like a cot than a real bed--with a wafer-thin mattress. No pillow, a scratchy woolen blanket folded at the foot, stains. Piss? Semen? Lange could only guess. It was not unlike the room in Tripoli, where he had once spent a feverish fortnight waiting for his guide from the Libyan secret service to take him to the training camps in the south. There were distinct differences about this place, though, namely the large carved-wood crucifix hanging above the bed, adorned with a rosary and a length of dried palm leaf.

Next to the bed was a small chest. Lange wearily pulled open the drawers. He found underpants, balled black socks, and a dogeared breviary. With some trepidation he ventured into the bathroom: a rust-stained basin with twin taps, a mirror that barely cast a reflection, a toilet with no seat.

He opened the closet. Two clerical suits hung from the rod. On the floor was a pair of black shoes, well worn but polished, the shoes of a poor man who took care of his appearance. Lange pushed the shoes out of the way with the toe of his loafer and saw the loose floorboard. He bent down and pried it up.

Reaching into the small space, he found a bundle of oilcloth. He unfolded the cloth: a Stechkin pistol, a silencer, two magazines of nine millimeter ammunition. Lange rammed one magazine into the butt and slipped the Stechkin into the waistband of his trousers. The silencer and the second magazine he rewrapped in the oilcloth.

He reached into the compartment a second time and found two more items: a set of keys to the motorcycle parked outside the apartment house, and a leather billfold. He opened the billfold. Inside was a Vatican Security Office identification badge, quite obviously the real thing. Lange looked at the name--manfred beck, special investigations division--then at the photograph. It was the one he had given Casagrande in the hotel room in Zurich. It was not him, of course, but the vague resemblance could easily be enhanced with a bit of preparation.

Manfred Beck, Special Investigations Division . . .

He returned the billfold to the compartment, then replaced the floorboard and covered it with the shoes. He looked around at the barren, lonely room. A priest's room, this. A sudden memory overtook him: a winding cobblestone street in Fribourg, a young man in a black cassock drifting through the mist rising from the river Saane. A young man in crisis, Lange remembered. A tormented man. A man who could not bear the acute loneliness of the life that lay ahead of him. A man who wanted to be on the front lines. How odd that the path he had chosen had resulted in a life more lonely than a parish priest's. How odd that it had led him back here, to this desperate room in Rome.

He went to the window and pushed open the glass. The wet night air washed over his face. The Stazione Termini stood in the distance about a half-kilometer away. Directly across the street lay a straggly unkempt park. A woman was making her way along the puddled walkway. A streetlamp briefly caught the Breton red highlights in her hair. Something made her look up at the open window. Training. Instinct. Fear. Seeing his face, she smiled, and started across the road.

ROME.

Ari Shamron had decided that there would be no misleading the Vicar of Christ. Gabriel was to tell him everything, with no regard for protecting sources or methods. He also ordered Gabriel to give the account chronologically, for Shamron, a man who had briefed a half-dozen prime ministers, knew the value of a good story. He believed that the dirty details of how intelligence was acquired often made the conclusions more credible to the target audience--in this case the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

They settled themselves in the sitting room. The Pope sat in a comfortable armchair, knees together, hands folded. Father Donati sat next to him, a notebook open on his lap. Gabriel, Shamron, and Lavon squeezed shoulder to shoulder on the couch, separated from the Pope and his secretary by a low coffee table and a pot of tea that no one touched. Chiara and Shimon Pazner stood watch on the balcony. Francesco Tiepolo, his work complete, kissed the papal ring and left for Venice in the back of an Office car.

Gabriel spoke to the Pope in his native tongue, while Father Donati took furious notes. Every few minutes, Donati would interrupt Gabriel by raising his silver pen and peering at him over his half-moon spectacles. Then he would force Gabriel to backtrack in order to clarify some seemingly mundane detail, or quibble with Gabriel on a point of translation. If it conflicted with what was written in his notebook, he would make a vast show of expunging the offending passage. When Gabriel recounted his conversation with Peter Malone--and the words "Crux Vera" were mentioned for the first time--Donati shot a conspiratorial glance at the Pope, which the Pontiff pointedly ignored.

For his part, the Pope remained silent. Sometimes his gaze was focused on his intertwined fingers; sometimes his eyes would close, as though he were at prayer. Only the deaths seemed to stir him from his reverie. With each killing--Benjamin Stern, Peter Malone, Alessio Rossi and the four carabinieri in Rome, the Crux Vera operative in the south of France--the Pope made the sign of the cross and murmured a few words of prayer. He never once looked at Gabriel or even at Father Donati. Only Shamron could capture his attention. The Pope seemed to find kinship with the old man. Perhaps it was the closeness of their age, or perhaps the Pope saw something reassuring in the fissures and ravines of Shamron's rugged face. But every few minutes, Gabriel would notice them staring at each other over the coffee table, as though it were a chasm of time and history.

Gabriel handed Sister Regina's letter to Father Donati, who then read it aloud. The Pope wore an expression of grief on his face, his eyes tightly closed. To Gabriel it seemed like a remembered pain-- the pain of an old wound being torn open. Only once did he open his eyes, at the point Sister Regina wrote of the boy sleeping on her lap. He looked across the divide at Shamron, holding his gaze for a moment, before closing his eyes once more and returning to his private agony.

Father Donati handed the letter back to Gabriel when he was finished. Gabriel told the Pope of his decision to return to Munich to search Benjamin's apartment a second time and of the document Benjamin had entrusted to the old caretaker, Frau Ratzinger.

"It's in German," Gabriel said. "Would you like me to translate it, Your Holiness?"

Father Donati answered the question for the Pope. "The Holy Father and I both speak German fluently. Please feel free to read the document in its original language."

The memorandum from Martin Luther to Adolf Eichmann seemed to cause the Pope physical pain. At the halfway point, he reached out and took Father Donati's hand for support. When Gabriel finished, the Pope bowed his head and joined his hands beneath his pectoral cross. When he opened his eyes again, he looked directly at Shamron, who was holding Sister Regina's account of the meeting at the convent.

"A remarkable document, is it not, Your Holiness?" Shamron asked in German.

'I'm afraid I would use a different word," the Pope said, answering him in the same language. "'Shameful' is the first word that comes to mind."

'But is it an accurate account of the meeting that took place at that convent in 1943?"

Gabriel looked first at Shamron, then at the Pope. Father Donati opened his mouth to object, but the Pope silenced him by gently placing a hand on his secretary's forearm.

"It's accurate except for one detail," said Pope Paul VII. "I wasn't really sleeping on Sister Regina's lap. I'm afraid I just couldn't bear to say another decade of the rosary."

AND THEN he told them the story of a boy--a boy from a poor village in the mountains of northern Italy. A boy who found himself orphaned at the age of nine, with no relatives to turn to for support. A boy who made his way to a convent on the shores of a lake, where he worked in the kitchen and befriended a woman named Sister Regina Carcassi. The nun became his mother and his teacher. She taught him to read and write. She taught him to appreciate art and music. She taught him to love God and to speak German. She called him Ciciotto--little chubby one. After the war, when Sister Regina renounced her vows and left the convent, the boy left too. Like Regina Carcassi, his faith in the Church was shaken by the events of the war, and he found his way to Milan, where he scratched out an existence on the streets, picking pockets and stealing from shops. Many times, he was arrested and beaten up by police officers. One night he was beaten nearly to death by a gang of criminals and left for dead on the steps of a parish church. He was discovered in the morning by a priest and taken to a hospital. The priest visited him each day and saw to the bills. He discovered that the filthy street urchin had spent time in a convent, that he could read and write and knew a great deal about Scripture and the Church. He convinced the boy to enter the seminary and study for the priesthood as a way to escape a life of poverty and prison. The boy agreed, and his life was forever changed.

Throughout the Pope's account, Gabriel, Shamron, and Eli Lavon sat motionless and enthralled. Father Donati looked down at his notebook but his hands were still. When the Pope finished, a deep silence hung over the room, broken finally by Shamron.

"What you must understand, Your Holiness, is that it was not our intention to uncover the information about the Garda covenant or your past. We only wanted to know who killed Benjamin Stern and why."

"I am not angry with you for bringing me this information, Mr. Shamron. As painful as these documents are, they must be made public, so that they can be examined by historians and ordinary Jews and Catholics alike and placed in their proper context."

Shamron laid the documents in front of the Pope. "We have no desire to make them public. We leave them in your hands to do with them what you will."

The Pope tilted his head down at the papers, but his gaze was distant, his eyes lost in thought. "He was not as wicked as his enemies have made him out to be, our Pope Pius the Twelfth. But unfortunately, neither was he as virtuous as his defenders, the Church included, have claimed. He had his reasons for silence-- fear of dividing German Catholics, fear of German retaliation against the Vatican, a desire to play a diplomatic role as a peacemaker--but we must face the painful fact that the Allies wanted him to speak out against the Holocaust and Adolf Hitler wanted him to remain silent. For whatever reason--his hatred of Communism, his love of Germany, the fact that he was surrounded by Germans in his papal household--Pius chose the course Hitler wanted, and the shadow of that choice hangs over us to this day. He wanted to be a statesman when what the world needed most was a priest-- a man in a cassock to shout at the murderers at the top of his lungs to stop what they were doing, in the name of God and all that was decent."

The Pope looked up and studied the faces before him--first Lavon, then Gabriel, then finally Shamron, where his gaze lingered longest. "We must face the uncomfortable fact that silence was a weapon in the hands of the Germans. It allowed the roundups and deportations to go forward with a minimum of resistance. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Catholics who took part in rescuing Jews. But had the priests and nuns of Europe received instructions or simply the blessing from their pope to resist the Holocaust, many more Catholics would have sheltered Jews, and many more Jews would have survived the war as a result. Had the German episcopacy spoken up against the murder of Jews early on, it is possible that the Holocaust might never have reached its feverish pitch. Pope Pius knew that the wholesale mechanized murder of the European Jews was under way, but he chose to keep that information largely to himself. Why did he not tell the world? Why did he not even tell his bishops in the countries where roundups were taking place? Was he honoring a covenant of evil reached on the shores of a lake?"

The Pope reached for the pot in the center of the table. When Father Donati leaned forward to help him, he raised his hand, as if to say His Holiness still knew how to pour a cup of tea. He spent a moment reflectively stirring in the milk and sugar before resuming.

"I'm afraid the behavior of Pius is only one aspect of the war that needs examination. We must face the uncomfortable truth that, among Catholics, there were many more killers than there were rescuers. Catholic chaplains ministered to the very German forces committing the slaughter of the Jews. They heard their confessions and provided them the sacrament of Holy Communion. In Vichy France, Catholic priests actually helped French and German forces round up Jews for deportation and death. In Lithuania, the hierarchy actually forbade priests to rescue Jews. In Slovakia, a country ruled by a priest, the government actually paid the Germans to take away their Jews to the death camps. In Catholic Croatia, clergymen actually took part in the killings themselves. A Franciscan nicknamed Brother Satan ran a Croatian concentration camp where twenty thousand Jews were murdered." The Pope paused to sip his tea, as though he needed to remove a bitter taste from his mouth. "We must also face the truth that after the war, the Church sought leniency for the murderers and helped hundreds escape justice altogether."

Shamron stirred restlessly in his seat but said nothing.

"Tomorrow, at the Great Synagogue of Rome, the Catholic Church will begin to confront those questions honestly for the first time."

"Your words are compelling, Your Holiness," said Shamron, "but it might not be safe for you to venture across the river and say them aloud in a synagogue for the world to hear."

"A synagogue is the only place for these words to be spoken-- especially the synagogue in the Roman ghetto, where the Jews were rounded up beneath the very windows of the Pope without so much as a murmur of protest. My predecessor went there once to begin this journey. His heart was in the right place, but I'm afraid many segments of the Curia were not with him, and so his journey stopped short of its destination. I will finish it for him, tomorrow, in the place where he started it."

"It appears you have something else in common with your predecessor, Holiness," Shamron said. "There are elements within the Church--quite probably here in Rome--who do not support a candid examination of the Vatican's role in the Holocaust. They have proven themselves willing to commit murder to keep the past a secret, and you should act on the assumption that your life is now in danger as well."

"You're referring to Crux Vera?"

"Does such an organization exist within the Church? "

The Pope and Father Donati exchanged a long look. Then the Pope's gaze settled once more on Shamron. "I'm afraid Crux Vera does indeed exist, Mr. Shamron. The society was allowed to flourish during the thirties and throughout the Cold War because it proved to be an effective weapon in the fight against Bolshevism. Unfortunately, many of the excesses committed in the name of that fight can be laid directly at the feet of Crux Vera and its allies."

"And now that the Cold War is over?" asked Gabriel.

"Crux Vera has adapted with the times. It has proved itself a useful tool for maintaining doctrinal discipline. In Latin America, Crux Vera has battled the adherents of liberation theology, sometimes resorting to ghastly violence to keep rebellious priests in line. It has waged a ceaseless fight against liberalism, relativism, and the tenets of the Second Vatican Council. As a result, many of those inside the Church who support the goals of Crux Vera have turned a blind eye to some of its more unseemly methods."

"Is Crux Vera also engaged in an effort to keep unpleasant Church secrets from coming to light?"

"Without a doubt," answered Father Donati.