Free The Confessor by Daniel Silva Page B

hung up, pulled on his jacket, and collected his bags. In the lobby he explained to the night clerk that he was checking out ahead of schedule.
    “Do you require a taxi, Herr Landau?”
    “No, I’m being picked up. Thank you.”
    A bill slid toward him across the counter. Gabriel paid with one of Shamron’s credit cards and went out. He turned left and started walking quickly, garment bag in one hand, briefcase in the other. Twenty seconds later, he heard the sound of a car door opening and closing, followed by footsteps on the wet cobblestones of the Annastrasse. He maintained his steady pace, resisting the impulse to look over his shoulder.
    “ . . . corner of the Seitzstrasse and the Unsöld-strasse . . .”
    Gabriel passed a church, turned left, and paused in a small square to take his bearings. Then he turned right and followed another narrow street toward the sound of the traffic rushing along the Prinzregentenstrasse. Weiss was still trailing him.
    He walked along a line of parked cars, reading registration numbers, until he came across the one he’d just been given over the phone. It was attached to a dark gray Opel Omega. Without stopping, he bent slightly at the waist and ran his fingers beneath the rear bumper until he found the keys. With a movement so brief and smooth that Weiss seemed not to notice, Gabriel tore the keys loose.
    He pressed the button on the remote. The doors unlocked automatically. Then he opened the driver’s side door and threw his bags onto the passenger seat. He looked to his right. Weiss was running toward him, panic on his face.
    Gabriel climbed inside, rammed the keys into the ignition, and started the engine. He dropped the car into gear and pulled away from the curb, then turned hard to the right and vanished into the evening traffic.
     
    DETECTIVE AXEL Weiss had leapt out of his car so quickly that he had left his cellular phone behind. He ran all the way back, then paused to catch his breath before dialing the number. A moment later, he broke the news to the man in Rome that the Israeli called Landau was gone.
    “How?”
    Embarrassed, Weiss told him.
    “Did you get a photograph at least?”
    “Earlier today—at the Olympic Village.”
    “The village? What on earth was he doing there?”
    “Staring at the apartment house at Connollystrasse Thirty-one.”
    “Wasn’t that where it happened?”
    “Yes, that’s right. It’s not unusual for Jews to make a pilgrimage there.”
    “Is it usual for Jews to detect surveillance and execute a perfect escape?”
    “Point taken.”
    “Send me the photograph— tonight .”
    Then the man in Rome severed the connection.

7
NEAR RIETI, ITALY
     
    T HERE IS AN UNSETTLING BEAUTY about the Villa Galatina. A former Benedictine abbey, it stands atop a column of granite in the hills of Lazio and stares disapprovingly down at the village on the floor of the wooded valley. In the seventeenth century an important cardinal purchased the abbey and converted it into a lavish summer residence, a place where His Eminence could escape the broiling heat of Rome in August. His architect had possessed the good sense to preserve the exterior, and its tawny-colored façade remains to this day, along with the teeth of the battlements. On a morning in early March, a man was visible high on the windswept parapet. It was not a bow over his shoulder but a high-powered Beretta sniper’s rifle. The current owner was a man who took his security seriously. His name was Roberto Pucci, a financier and industrialist whose power over modern Italy rivaled that of even a Renaissance prince of the Church.
    An armored Mercedes sedan stopped at the steel gate, where it was greeted by a pair of tan-suited security guards. The man seated in the back compartment lowered his window. One of the guards examined his face, then glanced at the distinctive SCV license plates on the Mercedes. Vatican plates. Roberto Pucci’s gate swung open and an asphalt drive lined with