The Confessor

 Lavon unconsciously smoothed his unruly hair. It was a habit when he was thinking. "There are two possibilities that spring to mind. I suppose we can rule out a certain German monk who turned the Roman Catholic Church on its ear. That would narrow the field to one. I'll be right back."

He disappeared into an adjoining room. For the next several minutes, Gabriel was treated to the familiar sound of his old friend rifling through file cabinets and cursing in several different languages. Finally, he returned with a thick accordion file bound by a heavy metal clasp. He laid the file on the coffee table in front of Gabriel and turned it so he could read the label.

MARTIN LUTHER: GERMAN FOREIGN OFFICE, 1938-1943.

LAVON OPENED the file and removed a photograph, holding it up for Gabriel to see. "The other possibility," he said, "is this Martin Luther. He was a high-school dropout and furniture mover who joined the Nazi Party in the twenties. By chance, he met the wife of Joachim von Ribbentrop during the redecoration of her villa in Berlin. Luther ingratiated himself with Frau von Ribbentrop, then her husband. When Ribbentrop became foreign minister in 1938, Luther got a job at the ministry."

Gabriel took the photograph from Lavon and looked at it. A rodent of a man stared back at him: a slack face; thick glasses that magnified a pair of rheumy eyes. He handed the photo back to Lavon.

"Luther rose rapidly through the ranks of the Foreign Office, largely because of his slavish devotion to Ribbentrop. By 1940, he was chief of the Abteilung Deutschland, the Division That made Luther responsible for all Foreign Office business co

"So what you're saying is that Martin Luther was in charge of Jewish matters inside the German Foreign Office."

"Precisely," Lavon said. "What Luther lacked in education and intelligence, he made up for in ruthlessness and ambition. He was interested in only one thing: increasing his own personal power. When it became clear to him that the a

Lavon paused for a moment to leaf through the contents of the file. After a moment he found what he was looking for, removed it with a flourish, and laid it on the coffee table in front of Gabriel.

"This is the protocol from the Wa

Lavon picked up the document. "The meeting was held in a villa overlooking the Wa

Lavon handed the document to Gabriel. "Look at the list of participants. Recognize any of the names?"

Gabriel cast his eyes down the attendees:

Gauleiter Dr. Meyer and Reichsamtleiter Dr. Leibbrandt,

Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories Staatssekretar Dr. Stuckart, Reich Ministry of the

Interior Staatssekretar Neuma

Year Plan

Staatssekretar Dr. Freisler, Reich Ministry of Justice Staatssekretar Dr. Buhler, Office of the General

Government Unterstaatssekretar Dr. Luther, Foreign Office

Gabriel looked up at Lavon. "Luther was at Wa

"Indeed, he was. And he got exactly what he so desperately wanted. Heydritch mandated that the Foreign Office would play a pivotal role in facilitating deportations of Jews from countries allied with Nazi Germany and from German satellites such as Croatia and Slovakia."

"I thought the SS handled the deportations."

"Let me back up a moment." Lavon leaned over the coffee table and placed his hands on the surface, as though it were a map of Europe. "The vast majority of Holocaust victims were from Poland, the Baltics, and western Russia--places conquered and ruled directly by the Nazis. They rounded up Jews and slaughtered them without any interference from other governments, because there were no other governments."

Lavon paused, one hand sliding over the imaginary map to the south, the other to the west. "But Heydrich and Eichma

"For argument's sake, let's assume the old man was referring to this Martin Luther. What would he have been doing at a convent in northern Italy?"

Lavon shrugged his narrow shoulders. "It sounds to me as if the old man was trying to tell you that something happened at the convent during the war. Something that Sister Vincenza is trying to cover up. Something that Beni knew about."

"Something that got him killed?"

Lavon shrugged. "Maybe."

"Who would be willing to kill a man over a book?"

Lavon hesitated, taking a moment to slip the protocol of the Wa

"There was one government in particular that Eichma

 in all of the countries where the roundups and deportations were taking place--representatives who could have made the task more difficult had they chosen to forcefully intervene. For obvious reasons, Eichma

Gabriel closed his eyes. "The Vatican."

"Indeed."

"So who are the clowns that have been following me?"

"That's a very good question."

Gabriel crossed the room to Lavon's desk, lifted the receiver of the telephone, and dialed a number. Lavon did not need to ask who Gabriel was calling. He could see it in the determined set of his jaw and the tension in his hands. When a man is being stalked by an enemy he does not know, it is best to have a friend who knows how to fight dirty.

THE MAN STANDING on the steps of Vie