Gabriel drew his own gun and started firing, but not before Müller managed to squeeze off two shots. He did not hear the screaming or notice the flashing of the camera lights. He just kept firing until the Swiss Guard lay dead on the marble floor. The Secret Service agents concealed within the American delegation seized the president and hustled him toward the door. Pietro Lucchesi, Bishop of Rome, Pontifex Maximus, and successor to St. Peter, fell to his knees and began to pray over the fallen body of a tall priest in a black cassock.

38. Rome

Rome

THERE ARE ROOMS ON the eleventh floor of the Gemelli Clinic that few people know. Spare and spartan, they are the rooms of a priest. In one there is a hospital bed. In another there are couches and chairs. The third contains a private chapel. In the hallway outside the entrance is a desk for the guards. Someone stands watch always, even when the rooms are empty.

Though the hospital bed is reserved for the leader of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics, on that evening it was occupied by the leader’s trusted private secretary. The street below his window was filled with thousands of faithful. At nine o’clock they had fallen silent to listen to the first bollettino from the Vatican Press Office. Monsignor Luigi Donati, it said, had undergone seven hours of surgery to repair the damage inflicted by two 9mm rounds. The monsignor’s condition was described as “extremely grave,” and the bollettino made clear that his survival was very much in doubt. It concluded by saying that the Holy Father was at his side and planned to remain there for the foreseeable future. It did not mention the fact that Gabriel was there, too.

They were seated together on a couch in the sitting room. On the other side of an open connecting door lay Donati, pale and unconscious. A team of doctors and nurses stood round him, their expressions grim. The Holy Father’s eyes were closed and he was working the beads of a rosary. A broad smear of blood stained the front of his white cassock. He had refused to change out of it. Gabriel, looking at him now, thought of Shamron and his torn leather jacket. He hoped the Holy Father didn’t blame himself for what had happened today.