The Messenger

Gabriel looked at Donati. “They’ve got missiles, Luigi! Get everyone away from the Basilica!”

Gabriel leaped from the dais and lifted the throne. The Pope’s eyes were closed, and he was bleeding from several small cuts. As Gabriel reached down and cradled the Pope in his arms, he heard the distinctive whoosh of an approaching RPG-7. He turned his head, long enough to glimpse the missile streaking over the square toward the Basilica. An instant later the warhead struck Michelangelo’s dome and exploded in a shower of fire, glass, and stone.

Gabriel sheltered the Pope from the falling debris, then lifted him and started ru

Gabriel lost his balance and fell to the paving stones. He lifted his head and saw the third missile on its way. It was coming in lower than the others and heading directly toward the dais. In the instant before it struck, Gabriel glimpsed a nightmarish image: Luigi Donati trying desperately to move the Curial cardinals and prelates to safety. Gabriel stayed on the ground and covered the Pope’s body with his own as another shower of wreckage rained down upon them.

“Is it you, Gabriel?” the Pope asked, eyes still closed.

“Yes, Holiness.”

“Is it over?”

Three bombs, three missiles-symbolic of the Holy Trinity, Gabriel reckoned. A calculated insult to the mushrikun.

“Yes, Holiness. I believe it’s over.”

“Where’s Luigi?”

Gabriel looked toward the burning remains of the dais and saw Donati stagger out of the smoke, the body of a dead cardinal in his arms.

“He’s alive, Holiness.”

The Pope closed his eyes and whispered, “Thank God.”

Gabriel felt a hand grasp his shoulder. He turned around and saw a quartet of men in blue suits, guns drawn. “Let go of him,” one of the men shouted. “We’ll take him from here.”

Gabriel looked at the man for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “I’ve got him,” he said, then he stood up and carried the Pope into the Apostolic Palace, surrounded by Swiss Guards.

THE APARTMENT HOUSE stood in a cobbled vicolo near the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere. Four floors in height, its faded tan exterior was hung with power and telephone lines and contained several large patches of exposed brickwork. On the ground floor was a small motorcycle repair shop that spilled into the street. To the right of the shop was a doorway leading to the flats above. Ibrahim el-Ba

The attack had commenced five minutes after el-Ba

Now, safely inside the apartment house, he removed the offensive cross from his neck and mounted the dimly lit stairs. He had been ordered to come here by the Saudi who had conceived and pla

That place was Saudi Arabia, land of the Prophet, birthplace of Wahhabi Islam. Ibrahim el-Ba

And so the Muslim cleric who climbed the steps of the Roman apartment house was a contented man. He had just helped carry off one of the most important acts of jihad in the long, glorious history of Islam. And now he was setting out for a new life in Saudi Arabia, where his words and beliefs could help inspire the next generation of Islamic warriors. Only Paradise would be sweeter.

He reached the third-floor landing and went to the door of apartment 3A. When he inserted the key into the lock he felt a slight electric shock in his fingers. When he turned it, the door exploded. And then he felt nothing at all.

AT THAT same moment, in the section of Washington known as Foggy Bottom, a woman woke from a nightmare. It was filled with the same imagery she saw every morning at this time. A flight attendant with her throat slashed. A handsome young passenger making one final phone call. An inferno. She rolled over and looked at the clock on her nightstand. It was six-thirty. She picked up the remote control, aimed it at her television, and pressed the power button. God no, she thought when she saw the Basilica in flames. Not again.

7.

GABRIEL REMAINED AT THE safe flat near the Church of the Trinità dei Monti for the next week. There were moments when it seemed as though none of it had really happened. But then he would wander out to the balcony and see the dome of the Basilica looming over the rooftops of the city, shattered and blackened by fire, as if God, in a moment of disapproval or carelessness, had reached down and destroyed the handiwork of his children. Gabriel, the restorer, wished it was only a painting-an abraded canvas that he might heal with a bottle of linseed oil and a bit of pigment.

The death toll climbed with each passing day. By the end of Wednesday-Black Wednesday, as Rome ’s newspapers christened it-the number of dead stood at six hundred. By Thursday it was six hundred fifty, and by the weekend it had exceeded seven hundred. Colonel Karl Bru

The government of Israel had no official standing in the investigation, but Gabriel, with his proximity to Donati and the Pope, quickly came to know as much about the attack as any intelligence officer in the world. He gathered most of his intelligence at the Pope’s di

Within forty-eight hours of the attack the Italians had managed to identify all those involved. The missile strike had been carried out by a four-man team. The driver of the van was of Tunisian origin. The three men who fired the RPG-7s were of Jordanian nationality and were veterans of the insurgency in Iraq. All four were killed in a volley of Carabinieri gunfire seconds after launching their weapons. As for the three men who had posed as German priests, only one was actually German, a young engineering student from Hamburg named Manfred Zeigler. The second was a Dutchman from Rotterdam, and the third was a Flemish-speaking Belgian from Antwerp. All three were Muslim converts, and all had taken part in anti-American and anti-Israeli demonstrations. Gabriel, though he had no proof of it, suspected they had been recruited by Professor Ali Massoudi.