Gabriel looked at the television. Video of the attack, one of the most dramatic moments ever broadcast live, was flickering on the screen. It had been playing nonstop. Gabriel had watched it at least a dozen times, and he watched again now. He saw Müller lunge from the knot of Swiss Guards, the gun in his outstretched hands. He saw himself, drawing his own gun from the inside of his jacket, and Donati, throwing his long body in front of the president of the United States as Müller opened fire. A fraction of a second, he thought. If he’d seen Müller a fraction of a second earlier, he might have been able to fire first. And Donati wouldn’t be lying near death on the eleventh floor of the Gemelli Clinic. Gabriel looked at the Pope. His eyes were no longer closed but were fixed on the screen of the television.

“How did he know to step in front of the president instead of me?”

“I suppose he understood that Müller could have killed you countless times if he’d wanted to. Müller was going for the president first, and Luigi understood that.”

“In the blink of an eye.”

“He’s one of the smartest men I’ve ever met, Holiness.” Gabriel looked at Donati. “He saved the president of the United States, and he probably isn’t even aware of it.”

“Luigi just stopped the bullets,” the Pope said, “but you’re the one who saved him. If it wasn’t for you, we would have never been on alert for something like this. How did you know, Gabriel? How did you know they were going to hit us again today?”

“We’ll have to talk about this at a later date. A much later date.”

“You’re in the middle of an operation, aren’t you?”

Gabriel was silent.

“Erich Müller, a member of my palace guard…” The Pope’s voice trailed off. “I still can’t believe it. How did they do it, Gabriel? How did they get an assassin into the Swiss Guard?”

“The details are sketchy, Holiness, but it appears Müller was recruited sometime after he left the Swiss army. He didn’t have a job waiting for him, so he spent about a year and half traveling around Europe and the Mediterranean. He spent several months in Hamburg, and several more in Amsterdam. He was known to be a frequent participant in anti-American, anti-Israel demonstrations. He may have actually converted to Islam. We believe he was recruited into the terrorist network by a man named Professor Ali Massoudi.”

“Massoudi? Really? Good God, Gabriel, but I think Professor Massoudi submitted some of his writings to my special commission on improving ties between Islam and the West. I think he may have actually visited the Vatican at some point.”

“Improving ties between Islam and the Church was not part of Professor Massoudi’s real agenda, Holiness.”