The last item was a manila file folder. Gabriel lifted the cover and inside found a stack of newspaper clippings. His eyes flickered over the headlines. eleven Israeli athletes and coaches taken
HOSTAGE IN OLYMPIC VILLAGE . . . TERRORISTS DEMAND RELEASE OF PALESTINIAN AND GERMAN PRISONERS . . . BLACK SEPTEMBER . . .
Gabriel closed the file.
A black-and-white snapshot slipped out. Gabriel scooped it off the floor. Two boys, blue jeans and rucksacks. A pair of young Germans spending a summer roaming Europe, or so it appeared. It had been taken in Antwerp near the river. The one on the left was Benjamin, forelock of wavy hair in his eyes, mischievous smile on his face, his arm flung around the young man standing at his side.
Benjamin's companion was serious and sullen, as though he couldn't be bothered with something as trivial as a snapshot. He wore sunglasses, his hair was cropped short, and even though he was not much more than twenty years old, his temples were shot with
gray. "The stain of a boy who's done a man's job," Shamron had said. "Smudges of ash on the prince of fire."
Gabriel was not pleased about the file of newspaper clippings on the Munich massacre, but there was no way he could smuggle so large an item past Detective Weiss. The snapshot was different. He wedged it into Herr Landau's expensive wallet and slipped the wallet into his coat pocket. Then he sidestepped his way out of the storage room and closed the door.
Frau Ratzinger was waiting in the corridor. Gabriel wondered how long she had been standing there but dared not ask. In her hand was a small padded shipping envelope. He could see that it was addressed to Benjamin and that it had been opened.
The old woman held it out to him. "I thought you might want these," she said in German.
"What are they?"
"Benjamin's eyeglasses. He left them at a hotel in Italy. The concierge was good enough to send them back. Unfortunately, they arrived after his death."
Gabriel took the envelope from her, lifted the flap, and removed the eyeglasses. They were the spectacles of an academic: plastic and passe, chewed and scratched. He looked into the envelope once more and saw there was a postcard. He turned the envelope on end, and the postcard fell into his palm. The image showed an ocher-colored hotel on a sapphire lake in the north of Italy. Gabriel turned it over and read the note on the back.
Good luck with your book, Professor Stern.
Giancomo
Detective Weiss insisted on driving Gabriel to his hotel. Because Herr Landau had never before been to Munich, Gabriel was forced to feign awe at the floodlit neoclassical glory of the city center. He also noted that Weiss skillfully made the trip last five minutes longer than necessary by missing several obvious turns.
Finally they arrived in a small cobbled street called the Anna-strasse in the Lehel district of the city. Weiss stopped outside the Hotel Opera, handed Gabriel his card, and once more expressed condolences over Herr Landau's loss. "If there's anything else I can do for you, please don't hesitate to ask."
"There is one thing," Gabriel said. "I'd like to speak to the chairman of Benjamin's department at the university. Do you have his telephone numbers?"
"Ah, Doctor Berger. Of course."
The policeman removed an electronic organizer from his pocket, found the numbers, and recited them. Gabriel made a point of jotting them down on the back of the detective's card, even though, heard once, they were now permanently engraved in his memory.
Gabriel thanked the detective and went upstairs for the night. He ordered room service and dined lightly on an omelet and vegetable soup. Then he showered and climbed into bed with the file given to him that afternoon by the consular officer. He read everything carefully, then closed the file and stared at the ceiling, listening to the night rain pattering against the window. Who filled you, Beni? A neo-Nazi? No, Gabriel doubted that. He suspected the Odin Rune and Three Sevens painted on the wall were the equivalent of a false-flag claim of responsibility. But why was he killed? Gabriel had one working theory. Benjamin was on sabbatical from
the university to write another book, yet inside the flat Gabriel could find no evidence that he was working on anything at all. No notes. No files. No manuscript. Just a note written on the back of a postcard from a hotel in Italy. Good luck with your book. Professor Stern--Giancomo.
He opened his wallet and removed the photograph he'd taken from the storeroom. Gabriel had been cursed with a memory that allowed him to forget nothing. He could see Benjamin giving his camera to a pretty Belgian girl, feel Benjamin dragging him to the rail overlooking the river. He even remembered the last thing Benjamin had said before throwing his arm around Gabriel's neck.
"Smile, you asshole."
"This isn't funny, Beni."
"Can you imagine the look on the old man's face if he saw us posing for a picture?"
"He'll have your ass for this."
"Don't worry. I'll burn it."
Five minutes later, in the bathroom sink, Gabriel did just that.
Detective Axel Weiss lived in Bogenhausen, a residential district of Munich on the opposite bank of the Isar. He did not go there. Instead, after dropping the Israeli at his hotel, he parked in the shadows on an adjacent street and watched the entrance of the Hotel Opera. Thirty minutes later, he dialed a number in Rome on his cellular phone.
"This is the chief." The words were spoken in English with a pronounced Italian accent. It was always the same.
"I think we may have a problem."
"Tell me everything."
The detective gave a careful recitation of the events of that afternoon and evening. He was experienced at communicating over open phone systems and was careful not to make any specific references. Besides, the man at the other end knew the specifics.
"Do you have the resources to follow the subject?"
"Yes, but if he's a professional--"
"Do it," snapped the man in Rome. "And get a photograph."
Then the connection went dead.
VATICAN CITY
"Cardinal Brendisi. How pleasant to see you."
"Your Holiness."
Cardinal Secretary of State Marco Brindisi bent over the proffered fisherman's ring. His lips did not linger long. He stood upright and stared directly into the Pope's eyes with a confidence bordering on insolence. Thin, with a pinched face and skin like parchment, Brindisi seemed suspended above the floor of the papal apartments. His cassock was handmade by the same tailor near the Piazza, della Minerva who made garments for the popes. The solid gold pectoral cross attested to the wealth and influence of his family and patrons. The glint of white light on the small, round spectacles concealed a pair of humorless pale-blue eyes.
As secretary of state, Brindisi controlled the internal functions of the Vatican city-state along with its government-to-government relations with the rest of the world. He was in effect the Vatican's
prime minister and the second most powerful man in the Roman Catholic Church. Despite his disappointing showing at the conclave, the doctrinaire cardinal maintained a carefully cultivated core of support within the Curia that provided him with a power base rivaling even the Pope's. Indeed, the Pope was not at all sure who would prevail in a showdown, himself or the taciturn cardinal.