by Daniel Silva
Their quarry left Wolf Group headquarters seventeen minutes later. Gabriel watched his progress on an open laptop computer, a blinking blue light on a map of central Munich, courtesy of the compromised phone. It had already told Gabriel nearly everything he needed to know to prevent the Order of St. Helena from stealing the conclave. Still, there were one or two matters Andreas Estermann needed to clear up. If he had any sense, he would offer no resistance. Gabriel was in a dangerously bad mood. They were in Munich, after all. The Capital of the Movement. The city where murderers once walked.
39
BEETHOVENPLATZ, MUNICH
JUST NORTH OF MUNICH’S CENTRAL train station, the traffic came to an abrupt halt. It was another police checkpoint. There were several around the city, mainly near transportation hubs and in squares and markets where large numbers of pedestrians congregated. The entire country was on edge, bracing itself for the next attack. Even the Bf V, Andreas Estermann’s old service, was convinced another bombing was inevitable. Estermann was of a similar mind. Indeed, he had reason to believe the next attack would occur as early as tomorrow morning, probably in Cologne. If successful, the physical destruction and death toll would tear at the very soul of the country, touch an ancient nerve. It would be Germany’s 9/11. Nothing would ever be the same.
Estermann checked the time on his iPhone, then swore softly. Immediately, he pleaded with God for forgiveness. The strictures of the Order forbade all forms of profanity, not just those involving the Lord’s name. Estermann did not smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, and regular fasting and exercise helped to keep down his weight, despite a weakness for traditional German cooking. His wife, Johanna, was a member of the Order, too. So were their six children. The size of their family was unusual in modern Germany, where birth rates had fallen below replacement level.
Estermann again checked the time. 6:04 … He dialed Christoph Bittel’s number but received no answer. Then he dashed off a text message, explaining that he had left the office later than planned and was now stuck in traffic. Bittel replied instantly. It seemed he was running behind schedule as well, which was not like him. Bittel was usually as punctual as a Swiss timepiece.
At last, the traffic inched forward. Estermann saw the reason for the delay. The police were searching a delivery van outside the entrance of the station. The passengers, two young men, Arabs or Turks, lay spread-eagled on the pavement. Estermann took no small amount of pleasure in their predicament. When he was a boy growing up in Munich, he rarely saw a foreigner, especially one with brown or black skin. That changed in the 1980s, when the floodgates opened. Twelve million immigrants now resided in Germany, fifteen percent of the population. The overwhelming majority were Muslims. Unless present trends were reversed, native Germans would soon be a minority in their own land.
Estermann turned onto the Goethestrasse, a quiet street lined with elegant old apartment houses, and eased into an empty space along the curb at ten minutes past six. He lost three additional minutes purchasing a chit from the automatic dispenser and another two walking the rest of the way to Café Adagio. It was a dimly lit room with a few tables arranged around a platform where, later that evening, a trio of American jazz musicians would perform. Estermann did not care for jazz. Nor did he much like the clientele of Café Adagio. At a darkened table in the corner, two women—at least Estermann thought they were women—were kissing. A couple of tables away sat two men. One had a hard, pitted face. The other was thin as a reed. They looked like Eastern Europeans, maybe Jews. At least they weren’t queers. Estermann hated queers even more than he hated Jews and Muslims.
Bittel was nowhere to be seen. Estermann sat down at a table as far from the other patrons as possible. At length, a tattooed girl with purple hair wandered over. She looked at Estermann for a moment as though waiting for him to utter the secret password.
“Diet Coke.”
The waitress withdrew. Estermann checked his phone. Where the hell was Bittel? And why in God’s name had he chosen a place like Café Adagio?
ANDREAS ESTERMANN’S DISCOMFORT WAS SO transparent that Gabriel waited ten additional minutes before informing the German that, owing to a work emergency, Christoph Bittel would not be able to meet for a drink as planned. Estermann’s face, viewed through the camera lens of his compromised phone, twisted into a grimace. He sent a curt response, tossed a five-euro banknote onto the table, and stormed into the street. Fuming, he pounded along the pavements of the Goethestrasse to his car, where his rising anger boiled over.
A man was sitting on the hood, his boots resting on the bumper, a girl between his legs. His pale skin was luminous in the lamplight. The girl was very dark, like an Arab. Her hands were resting on the man’s thighs. Her mouth was on his.
Estermann would have only limited memory of what happened next. There was an exchange of words, followed by an exchange of blows. Estermann threw a single wild punch but was on the receiving end of several compact, carefully delivered elbows and knees.
Incapacitated, he crumpled to the pavement. From somewhere a van materialized. Estermann was hurled into the back like war dead. He felt a sharp pain in his neck, and instantly his vision began to swim. The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was the face of the woman. She was an Arab, he was sure of it. Estermann hated Arabs. Almost as much as he hated Jews.
40
MUNICH
THERE IS NO SUCH THING, practitioners of the secret trade like to say, as a perfect covert operation. The best a careful planner can do is limit the chances of failure and exposure—or, worse still, of arrest and prosecution. Sometimes the planner willingly accepts a modicum of risk when lives are at stake or his cause is just. And sometimes he must resign himself to the fact that a small measure of serendipity, of providence, will determine whether his ship reaches port safely or smashes itself to pieces on the rocks.
Gabriel struck just such a bargain with the operational gods that evening in Munich. Yes, he had lured Andreas Estermann to Café Adagio for what he thought was a meeting with an old acquaintance. But it was Estermann, not Gabriel and his team, who had selected the place of his abduction. Fortunately, Estermann chose well. There was no traffic camera to record his disappearance, and no witness other than a dachshund in the window of an adjacent apartment building.
Ninety minutes later, after a brief stop in the countryside west of Munich for a change of license plates, the van returned to the safe house near the Englischer Garten. Bound and blindfolded, Andreas Estermann was transferred to a makeshift holding cell in the basement. Typically, Gabriel would have left him there for a day or two to ponder his fate while deprived of sight, sound, and sleep. Instead, at half past ten, he instructed Natalie to hasten Estermann’s return to consciousness. She injected him with a mild stimulant along with a little something to take the edge off. Something to distort his sense of reality. Something to loosen his tongue.
Consequently, Estermann offered no resistance when Mordecai and Oded secured him to a metal chair outside the holding cell. On the opposite side of a table, flanked by Yaakov Rossman and Eli Lavon, sat Gabriel. Behind him was a tripod-mounted Solaris phone. Blindfolded, Estermann knew none of this. He only knew that he was in a great deal of trouble. The matter before him, however, was easily resolved. All that was required was his signature on a statement. A bill of particulars. Names and numbers.
At 10:34 p.m., Estermann’s inquisitor spoke for the first time. The camera captured the expression on the portion of the German’s face not concealed by the blindfold. Later, the video would be analyzed by the specialists at King Saul Boulevard. All were in agreement on one point. It was a look of profound relief.
THOUGH CURSED WITH A FLAWLESS memory, Gabriel sometimes found it hard to accurately recall his mother’s face. Two of her self-portraits hung in his bedroom in Jerusalem. Each night before he drifted off to sleep, he saw her as she had seen herself, a tormented figure rendered in the manner of the German Expressionists.
Like ma
ny young women who survived the Holocaust, she struggled with the demands of caring for a child. She was prone to melancholia and violent mood swings. She could not show pleasure on festive occasions and did not partake of rich food or drink. She wore a bandage always on her left arm, over the faded numbers tattooed into her skin. 29395 … She referred to them as her mark of Jewish weakness. Her emblem of Jewish shame.
Painting, like motherhood, was an ordeal for her. Gabriel used to sit on the floor at her feet, scribbling in his sketchpad, while she labored at her easel. To distract herself, she used to tell stories of her childhood in Berlin. She spoke to Gabriel in German, in her thick Berlin accent. It was Gabriel’s first language, and even now it was the language of his dreams. His Italian, while fluent, bore the faint but unmistakable trace of a foreigner’s intonation. But not his German. No matter where he traveled in the country, no one ever assumed he was anything but a native speaker of the language, one who had been raised in the center of Berlin.
Andreas Estermann clearly assumed that was the case as well, which prompted his misplaced expression of relief. It faded quickly once Gabriel explained why he had been taken into custody. Gabriel did not identify himself, though he implied he was a secret member of the Order of St. Helena who had been asked by Herr Wolf and Bishop Richter to investigate certain financial irregularities that had recently come to their attention. These irregularities concerned the existence of a bank account in the principality of Liechtenstein. Gabriel recited the current balance and the dates on which deposits had been made. Then he read aloud the text messages Estermann had exchanged with his private banker, Herr Hassler, lest Estermann entertain any thought of wriggling off the hook.
Next Gabriel turned his attention to the source of the money that Estermann had embezzled from the Order. It was money, he said, that was supposed to have been delivered to the cardinal-electors who had agreed to vote for the Order’s candidate at the coming conclave. At the mention of the prelate’s name, Estermann gave a start and then spoke for the first time. With a single objection, he confirmed both the existence of the plot and the name of the cardinal whom the Order had selected to be the next pope.
“How do you know it’s Emmerich?”
“What do you mean?” asked Gabriel.
“Only a handful of us are aware of the conclave operation.”
“I’m one of them.”
“But I would know who you are.”
“Why would you assume that?”
“I know the names of all the secret members of the Order.”
“Obviously,” said Gabriel, “that’s not the case.”
Receiving no further protest, Gabriel returned to the topic of the payments. It seemed several of the prelates had informed Cardinal Albanese that the agreed-upon sums of cash had not appeared in their accounts.
“But that’s not possible! Father Graf told me last week that all the cardinals had received their money.”
“Father Graf is working with me on this matter. He misled you at my request.”
“Bastard.”
“The Order forbids such language, Herr Estermann. Especially when it concerns a priest.”
“Please don’t tell Bishop Richter.”
“Don’t worry, it will be our little secret.” Gabriel paused. “But only if you tell me what you did with the money you were supposed to deliver to the cardinal-electors.”
“I wired it into their accounts, just as Herr Wolf and Bishop Richter instructed. I never stole a single euro.”
“Why would the cardinals lie?”
“Isn’t it obvious? They’re trying to extort us into paying more money.”
“What about the account in Liechtenstein?”
“It is an operational account.”
“Why is your wife the beneficiary?”
Estermann was silent for a moment. “Do Herr Wolf and Bishop Richter know about the account?”
“Not yet,” said Gabriel. “And if you do everything I tell you, they never will.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to call Herr Hassler first thing in the morning and tell him to wire that money to me.”
“Yes, of course. What else?”
Gabriel told him.
“All forty-two names? We’ll be here all night.”
“Is there somewhere else you have to be?”
“My wife is expecting me for dinner.”
“I’m afraid you missed dinner a long time ago.”
“Can you at least remove the blindfold and these restraints?”
“The names, Herr Estermann. Now.”
“Is there any particular order you want them?”
“How about alphabetically?”
“It would help if I had my phone.”
“You’re a professional. You don’t need your phone.”
Estermann tilted his head toward the ceiling and drew a breath. “Cardinal Azevedo.”
“Tegucigalpa?”
“There’s only one Azevedo in the College of Cardinals.”
“How much did you pay him?”
“One million.”
“Where’s the money?”
“Bank of Panama.”
“Next?”
Estermann cocked his head. “Ballantine of Philadelphia.”
“How much?”
“One million.”
“Where’s the money?”
“The Vatican Bank.”
“Next?”
THE LAST NAME ON ESTERMANN’S list was Cardinal Péter Zikov, the archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, one million euros, payable to his personal account at Banco Popolare Hungary. All totaled, 42 of the 116 cardinal-electors who would choose the successor to Pope Paul VII had received money in exchange for their votes. The total cost of the operation was slightly less than $50 million. Every penny of it had come from the coffers of the Wolf Group, the global conglomerate otherwise known as the Order of St. Helena Inc.
“And that’s all of the names?” probed Gabriel. “You’re sure you haven’t left anyone out?”
Estermann shook his head vigorously. “The other eighteen cardinals who will vote for Emmerich are members of the Order. They received no payment beyond their monthly stipends.” He paused. “And then there’s Archbishop Donati, of course. Two million euros. I deposited the money after he and the Israeli broke into the Secret Archives.”
Gabriel glanced at Eli Lavon. “And you’re sure you didn’t deposit that money in an account I don’t know about?”
“No,” said Estermann. “It’s in Donati’s personal account at the Vatican Bank.”
Gabriel turned to a fresh page in his notebook, despite the fact he hadn’t bothered to write down a single name or number. “Let’s go through it one more time, shall we? Just to make certain we haven’t missed anyone.”
“Please,” begged Estermann. “I have a terrible headache from the drugs you gave me.”
Gabriel looked at Mordecai and Oded and in German instructed them to return Estermann to the holding cell. Upstairs in the drawing room, he and Lavon reviewed the recording on a laptop computer.
“That clerical suit you wore into the Secret Archives the other day must have rubbed off on you. For a moment even I was convinced you were a member of the Order.”
Gabriel advanced the recording and clicked PLAY.
Two million euros. I deposited the money after he and the Israeli broke into the Secret Archives …
Gabriel clicked PAUSE. “Rather clever on their part, don’t you think?”
“They obviously don’t intend to go down without a fight.”
“Neither do I.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I’m going to have a word with him.” Gabriel paused. “Face-to-face.”
“You’ve got everything you need,” said Lavon. “Let’s get out of here before some nice German police officer knocks on the door and asks if we know anything about a missing senior executive from the Wolf Group.”
“We c
an’t release him until white smoke rises from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel.”
“So we’ll tape him to a tree somewhere in the Alps on our way down to Rome. With any luck, no one will find him until the glaciers melt.”
Gabriel shook his head. “I want to know why he has the private phone number of every major far-right leader in Western Europe. And I want that book.”
“It went up a chimney. You said so yourself.”
“Just like my grandparents.”
Gabriel turned without another word and headed downstairs to the cellar. There he instructed Mordecai and Oded to remove Estermann from the holding cell. Once again, the German offered no resistance as he was secured to the chair. At 12:42 a.m., the blindfold was removed. The camera of the Solaris phone captured the expression on Estermann’s face. Later, at King Saul Boulevard, all were in agreement on one point. It was one of Gabriel’s finest hours.
41
MUNICH
NATALIE GAVE ESTERMANN A HANDFUL of ibuprofen for his head and a plate of leftover Turkish takeaway. He swallowed the pain reliever tablets greedily but turned up his nose at the food. He likewise ignored the glass of Bordeaux she placed before him.
“She looks like an Arab,” he said when she was gone.
“She’s from France, actually. She and her parents had to immigrate to Israel to escape the anti-Semitism there.”
“I hear it’s very bad.”
“Almost as bad as Germany.”
“It’s the immigrants who are causing problems, not ethnic Germans.”
“Isn’t it pretty to think so.” Gabriel looked at the untouched wineglass. “Have some. You’ll feel better.”
“Alcohol is forbidden by the Order.” Estermann frowned. “I would have thought you knew that.” He looked down at his plate without enthusiasm. “I wonder if you might have any proper German food.”
“That would be rather difficult, given the fact we are no longer in Germany.”
Estermann adopted a superior smile. “I’ve lived in Munich most of my life. I know how it smells, how it sounds. If I had to guess, we’re in the city center, rather close to the Englischer Garten.”