Daniel Silva

Interviews

• The Rembrandt Affair
• The Defector
• Moscow Rules
• The Messenger
• Prince of Fire
• The Confessor

A Conversation with Daniel Silva, Author of THE REMBRANDT AFFAIR

Q: Your last two books were #1 New York Times bestsellers, and once again, you’ve written one of the summer’s hottest thrillers. Tell us a little about your brand-new page-turner, The Rembrandt Affair.

A: The Rembrandt Affair is my thirteenth novel and the tenth to feature my hero, the enigmatic art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon. What excites me most about the book is that it blends the two vastly different sides of Gabriel’s character—the world of art and the world of intelligence—into a fast-paced and entertaining read. As the story opens, Gabriel has returned to the windswept cliffs of Cornwall, where he is hoping to restore paintings and lead a well-deserved quiet life. But once again, trouble comes calling. In the ancient and mystical English city of Glastonbury, an art restorer is brutally murdered and a long-lost Rembrandt mysteriously stolen. Despite his reluctance, Gabriel agrees to use his unique skills to find the painting. And though he doesn’t realize it, his search will lead him into a confrontation with one of the world’s most dangerous men, a man who will do anything for money.

Q: What attracted you to the topic of art theft?

A: I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that thieves have made off with some of the most beautiful objects ever created. And for the most part, they get away with it. I think there is a tendency to dismiss art crime as somehow romantic, a sort of gentleman’s game. The truth is, art crime is big business. During my research for The Rembrandt Affair, I learned that between $4 billion and $6 billion dollars’ worth of art and antiquities are stolen each year. According to Interpol, art theft ranks fourth on the list of the most lucrative forms of criminal activity, right after drug trafficking, arms dealing, and money laundering. It is a sad but fascinating reality that if all the paintings ever stolen were gathered into one so-called Museum of the Missing, it would be among the greatest in the world.

Q: Critics have hailed Gabriel Allon as one of the most fascinating characters on the literary landscape today. But he’s not the typical hero, is he?

A: No, not at all. First of all, there’s the issue of his nationality. He can pass as an Italian or a German, but in reality Gabriel Allon is an Israeli. He started his career for Israeli intelligence when he was very young. In fact, he was still in art school when he was recruited to hunt down and kill the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. But what makes Gabriel unique—and what makes him so attractive to many different kinds of readers—is his cover job. Gabriel is truly one of the finest art restorers in the world. He uses restoration not only as his cover but as a way to heal himself after difficult operations.

Q:Like all your novels, The Rembrandt Affair is a page-turner and entertainment of the highest caliber. But it’s also a searing morality tale about greed. To what extent were you influenced by the financial meltdown and the behavior of some investment bankers on Wall Street?

A: Like everyone, I was appalled by the greed and reckless pursuit of profit that helped bring about the Great Recession. And, of course, by the case of Bernie Madoff. Here was a charismatic figure who appeared to be a paragon of virtue. Madoff was a man people thought they could trust, a man who donated millions of dollars to charity. But underneath it all, Madoff was a criminal, arguably the greatest thief and con man in history. And as we found out, he wasn’t alone. It turns out there were dozens of Bernie Madoffs out there. And I was intrigued by two questions. What motivates these people? And how do they live with themselves? And that became the inspiration for the villain of The Rembrandt Affair.

Q: You’ve created some wonderful villains over the years. They’re always complex. But the one who appears on the pages of The Rembrandt Affair is unique. He’s a Swiss billionaire named Martin Landesmann, but I understand that both his supporters and detractors have another name for him?

A: That’s true. They call him Saint Martin, but I’m told he’s not terribly fond of it. Saint Martin is regarded as something of a prophet by his legion of devoted followers. He preaches debt relief, corporate responsibility, and renewable energy. He has a charitable foundation called One World that’s given away hundreds of millions of dollars to causes Saint Martin supposedly holds dear. But, of course, it’s all a sham. Beneath Martin Landesmann’s saintly façade is a secret best summed up by the famous quotation attributed to Honoré de Balzac that serves as the epigraph for the novel: “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”

Q: As the title of the novel suggests, the painting at the center of the story is a Rembrandt. And not just any Rembrandt. It’s a long-lost masterpiece, and as Gabriel soon discovers, it has a tragic history, one dealing with the Holocaust in Holland. Where did you find the inspiration for the haunting story of the hidden child in The Rembrandt Affair?

A: Oddly enough, I quite literally stumbled upon it one afternoon at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem. I was doing some research in the archives for my novel A Death in Vienna, when I mistakenly entered a room. There was a gathering of Holocaust survivors, men and woman who, as young children, had been separated from their families and hidden from the Germans. They are some of the most tragic and least understood victims of the Holocaust. They carry a tremendous amount of guilt and sadness over the fact that they survived and their families did not. I spent a long time talking to them and listening to their stories. They broke my heart. I tucked away my memories of that day and waited for the story to take shape. The result is The Rembrandt Affair.

Q: I’m sure you’re aware of this, but many of your most devoted fans also happen to be women and make no secret of being in love with Gabriel Allon. And one of the hallmarks of your books is that they always include strong, captivating female characters. The Rembrandt Affair is no exception, and the star of this book is Zoe Reed. Who is she?

A: Zoe Reed is every corrupt businessman’s nightmare. She’s a British investigative reporter who works for London’s most prestigious business daily, and she takes great pleasure in making mincemeat out of tycoons who step out of line. She’s tough. She’s smart. She’s sexy. And she has a razor-sharp wit that routinely reduces arrogant CEOs to mush. But as it turns out, Zoe is less than perfect herself. She’s leading a double life. And because of that, she’s recruited to work against our villain, Martin Landesmann. I love Zoe Reed, and I think readers will, too. Every time I reread the words that came out of her mouth, I laugh.

Q: The Rembrandt Affair also features a remarkable cast of well-drawn minor characters. There’s a charming Marseilles crime boss, a failed artist who became one of the world’s best forgers, and a master art thief named Maurice Durand. I loved them all, but I have to say Monsieur Durand is my favorite.

A: Mine too, because he might well be the only art thief in the business who actually has a conscience. And without giving away too much of the story, Maurice Durand turns out to be the true hero of The Rembrandt Affair. He deserves his own book.

Q: In real life, does an art thief like Maurice Durand exist?

A: As The Rembrandt Affair points out, there’s a debate inside the art world over that very question. In some cases, paintings are stolen by lowlife criminals and end up being used as ransom or as a sort of underworld currency to finance drug deals and other illicit trade. But I’m convinced there are also professional art thieves who supply inventory for what you might call the unscrupulous end of the trade. In a way, it doesn’t much matter who’s stealing paintings. The sad fact is, art disappears almost on a daily basis. And once it’s gone, it almost always stays gone. In fact, the odds of recovering a stolen painting are pathetically low, one in ten at best.

Q: One of the reasons why readers love your books so much is that they deal with real-world problems. The Rembrandt Affair deals with one of the most urgent threats in the world today, the quest by the Islamic Republic of Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. And you deal with one very specific aspect of the problem: the support the Iranians have received from some European high-tech firms.

A: I think it is fair to say that Iran would not be on the doorstep of acquiring nuclear weapons were European high-tech firms not selling them essential nuclear technology. During my research for The Rembrandt Affair, I spoke to a very senior U.S. intelligence official who told me in no uncertain terms that the worst offenders are German and Swiss companies—hardly surprising since German and Swiss firms were deeply involved in the nuclear smuggling network of A. Q. Khan. When I asked this official what could possibly motivate these companies to do business with the Iranians, he smiled and said one word. Greed.

Q: How do the goods get from Europe to Iran?

A: For the most part, through a sophisticated state-sponsored smuggling network operated by the Iranian government and their friends in the Revolutionary Guard. Iranian agents and front companies approach European suppliers with a shopping list of material they need and place their orders. Since much of the material is dual-use, it’s easy for the Iranians to disguise their true intentions. It’s also easy for certain unscrupulous suppliers to feign ignorance about the true destination of the material they’re supplying. On any given day, American and European authorities are involved in a sophisticated game of cat and mouse trying to keep dangerous, restricted material out of Iranian hands. Paradoxically, the Iranian dependence on European suppliers has given Western intelligence an ability to peer inside the program to a certain degree. It’s also given us the opportunity to make a little mischief from time to time—one of Gabriel Allon’s specialties.

Q: There’s been a great deal of speculation over the past few years that Israel will be forced to attack Iran at some point. Do you share that opinion?

A: I’m just a novelist who writes spy thrillers, and I try not to make a habit about predicting events, especially when they involve the Middle East. But I would be surprised if Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. To truly destroy the program would take a sustained air campaign of the type only the United States can muster.

Q: Can economic sanctions stop the Iranians?

A: In theory, they could. But they would truly have to be crippling in nature—the kind of sanctions that would bring the Iranian economy to its knees. But I don’t think there’s much of an appetite in the world for that, especially when there are so many countries who want to do business with Iran.

Q: So, is it your conclusion that Iran is going nuclear?

A: Unless something dramatic happens, I’m afraid that’s going to be the case. And then we have to confront what the Middle East will look like the morning after.

Q: In the novel, your spies use some cutting-edge technology involving computers and mobile phones that kept me up at night, worrying about my privacy. Without giving too much away, is it real or did you make it up?

A: Unfortunately, all the technology portrayed in the novel is the real thing, and we should all be worried about our privacy. I was briefed by a top expert. By the time he was done, I was ready to throw away my smart phone, and I was looking at my computer in a whole new light. Suffice it to say mobile communications have given government eavesdroppers the ability to monitor targets every minute of the day. A BlackBerry or an iPhone can be a serious weapon in the hands of a good intelligence officer.

Q: In reading this book, I felt that I learned so much about an astonishing array of topics from art to history to nuclear weapons. Do you set out to educate the reader? And how do you do your research?

A: My primary goal is to tell a good story and to entertain the reader. That said, I do select topics that I want to learn more about. But I always try to dramatize the material rather than simply tell it. As for my research, it involves a great deal of reading, but I also speak with experts and utilize trusted sources.

Q: And what about your settings? In The Rembrandt Affair, the reader is swept from the Swiss Alps to the cliffs of Cornwall, England. Do you actually visit the places you write about?

A: I really do, and I spend as much time there as possible. Most of the research for The Rembrandt Affair was done last summer after I finished the book tour for The Defector. I hopped on a plane with my wife and children and spent the next couple of weeks stealing paintings across Europe—fictitiously, of course. For the most part, the book was plotted during train rides between various European cities. Like Gabriel Allon, I prefer trains to airplanes.

Q: This is the tenth novel to feature Gabriel Allon, but I was surprised to read recently that you never intended for him to become a continuing character. What happened to change your mind?

A: When I finished the first Gabriel Allon novel, The Kill Artist, I had a feeling I’d created something special. But I was concerned about the long-term viability of a morose, retired Israeli assassin who restored Dutch and Italian Old Master paintings for a living. I also feared the level of anti-Israeli sentiment in the world would be a problem when it came to marketing and sales. Fortunately, I’ve been proven wrong. Gabriel Allon is now a number-one New York Times bestseller. And no one is more pleasantly surprised than the person who created him.

Q: The critics have called you “the gold standard” of thriller writers because your books are not only addictive page-turners but sophisticated stories told with beautiful prose. What is your writing process like? And has it become easier over the years?

A: I wish I could say it’s become easier, but, in reality, the opposite is true. I always thought that once I had a few books under my belt, I would discover some magic secret to writing one. But the truth is, there is no magic secret. Each book is a unique and surprising journey, and when I get to the end of it, I’m always a bit surprised I actually made it.

Q: Do you outline your stories first?

A: I tried to write an outline once, but it really didn’t work for me. In fact, when I finished the book and looked back at the original outline, they had very little in common other than the broad themes and the title. Basically, I like to map out the first third of the story. Once I’ve brought it to life on the page, I try to stand aside and let the characters take over. As for my writing schedule, it’s fairly intense. Most people think a writer’s life is idyllic—don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining—but, in reality, there’s nothing romantic about it. I publish a book a year, which means I have about six months to research and write. I’m at my desk at six in the morning, and I work seven days a week. I also put tremendous pressure on myself. It may sound odd, but when someone tells me they loved my last book, or that it was my best yet, all I can think is, “Now I have to write a better one.”

Q: Do you know the ending of a book before you start writing it?

A: In this case, I did. But I had only the vaguest idea of how to get there.

A Conversation with Daniel Silva, Author of THE DEFECTOR

Q: In 2008, you released #1 New York Times bestseller Moscow Rules, a book everyone was talking about. Now you’ve written the much-anticipated sequel. Tell us a little about The Defector.

A: The Defector is my twelfth novel and the ninth to feature my hero, the enigmatic art restorer and Israeli assassin Gabriel Allon. As you might expect, a writer forms an attachment to all his books—in a way, they’re a bit like children—but I’m especially excited about The Defector because it’s not only a thriller but a love story. Just to bring readers up to date, in the last installment of the series, Gabriel brought down one of the world’s most dangerous men: the ruthless Russian oligarch and arms dealer Ivan Kharkov. But even the great Gabriel Allon makes mistakes once in a while, and in the case of Ivan, his mistake was leaving him alive. There’s a wonderful quotation from Machiavelli that I use as the epigram for the novel: “If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.” Gabriel would have been wise to heed that advice. He didn’t, of course. And in The Defector, Ivan Kharkov is out for revenge.

Q: Did I hear you correctly? A man who’s been described as one of the top American spy novelists of all time has written a love story?

A: It’s true. A heart-stopping, edge-of-your-seat, and sometimes extremely violent love story, but a love story nonetheless. I feel as if I’ve developed a real bond with my readers, and I’ve learned something extremely valuable from them. While they’re captivated by Gabriel’s adventures, they also follow his personal trials and misfortunes very carefully—especially my female readers. Gabriel has had a complicated history with women, to say the least, but I’ve discovered that many of my female readers have a bit of a crush on him. Frankly, I’m a bit surprised by this. He’s moody, clinically shy, and prone to periods of melancholia. But he’s also a very intriguing and attractive character.

Q: In fact, Gabriel’s personal life plays an important role in the way The Defector unfolds.

A: It really does. As the story opens, he’s returned to an isolated villa in the hills of Umbria to resume his honeymoon with Chiara and to restore a seventeenth-century altarpiece for the Vatican. But his world is once again thrown into turmoil when he learns that Grigori Bulganov, the defector and former Russian intelligence officer who saved his life in Moscow, has vanished without a trace from a busy street in London. British intelligence is convinced Grigori was a double agent all along, but Gabriel’s masters in Tel Aviv have another opinion. They suspect Bulganov has been abducted by Ivan Kharkov. And they’re convinced Gabriel is next on Ivan’s list. Gabriel is confronted by a stark choice. He can return to Israel and go into hiding, or he can try to keep a promise he made to Grigori the night of their dramatic escape from Russia. He chooses the second option—after all, he is Gabriel Allon—and, as you might imagine, Chiara isn’t terribly pleased. Without giving away too much of the plot, the decision will prove to be the most fateful of Gabriel’s long career, and his life will never be the same again.

Q: As you mentioned, women like Gabriel Allon, and Daniel Silva clearly likes writing female characters. In fact, the storyline is dominated by a series of very intriguing, very compelling women.

A: That’s true. And each of the remarkable women portrayed in the novel have a huge impact on the way the story is finally resolved. In real life I’m surrounded by strong women—anyone who’s met my wife knows that—so it’s only natural for me to cast women in heroic roles.

Q: As with all your books, The Defector moves briskly across a broad canvas: Moscow, Geneva, Paris, Lake Como, Saint-Tropez, and a place you poetically refer to as “the Russian city sometimes referred to as London.” Why is London so central to your story?

A: In short, because London now finds itself on the front lines of this new Cold War between Russia and the West. You might find this surprising, but some two hundred thousand Russians make their home in metropolitan London these days. Those Russians include exiled billionaires and dissidents along with several hundred Russian intelligence agents. By all accounts, MI5, the British Security Service, was caught flatfooted by the recent surge of Russian espionage activity in London. And with good reason. For the past several years, the overwhelming majority of MI5’s resources have been focused on the fight against Islamic terrorism. Now they’ve had to redirect many of those assets toward the Russians. I’m afraid they have little choice. The murder of a real-life defector and dissident named Alexander Litvinenko proved that the Kremlin is willing to use violence when it wants to make a point.

Q: Your books have a very sharp sense of setting and place. Do you actually go to all the places you write about?

A: In the case of The Defector, I really have: a chess club in Bloomsbury, a quiet mews in Maida Vale, a dingy, dilapidated terraced house in Oxford, an isolated villa in the Haute-Savoie region of France. I’ve even been inside the headquarters of the FSB (the Russian Federal Security Service, what is known as today’s KGB). I think it’s important to walk the streets that Gabriel walks. I’m not just using sexy datelines. I’ve been to these places and for the most part rendered them accurately—although, occasionally, I take a bit of literary license. For example, the members of the real chess club in Bloomsbury are a much more princely lot than the ones who appear on the pages of The Defector.

Q: The critics have called you “the gold standard” of thriller writers because your books are not only addictive page-turners but sophisticated stories told with beautiful prose. What is your writing process like? And has it become easier over the years?

A: I wish I could say it’s become easier, but, in reality, the opposite is true. I always thought that once I had a few books under my belt, I would discover some magic secret to writing one. But the truth is, there is no magic secret. Each book is a unique and surprising journey, and when I get to the end of it, I’m always a bit surprised I actually made it.

Q: Do you outline your stories first?

A: I tried to write an outline once, but it really didn’t work for me. In fact, when I finished the book and looked back at the original outline, they had very little in common other than the broad themes and the title. Basically, I like to map out the first third of the story. Once I’ve brought it to life on the page, I try to stand aside and let the characters take over. As for my writing schedule, it’s fairly intense. Most people think a writer’s life is idyllic—don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining—but in reality there’s nothing romantic about it. I publish a book a year, which means I have about six months to research and write. I’m at my desk at six in the morning, and I work seven days a week. I also put tremendous pressure on myself. It may sound odd, but when someone tells me they loved my last book, or that it was my best yet, all I can think is, “Now I have to write a better one.”

Q: Critics have hailed Gabriel Allon as one of the most fascinating characters on the literary landscape today. But he’s not the typical hero, is he?

A: Not at all. First of all, there’s the issue of his nationality. He can pass as an Italian or a German, but in reality Gabriel Allon is an Israeli. He started his career for Israeli intelligence when he was very young. In fact, he was still in art school when he was recruited to hunt down and kill the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. But what makes Gabriel unique—and what makes him so attractive to many different kinds of readers—is his cover job. Gabriel is truly one of the finest art restorers in the world. He uses restoration not only as his cover but as a way to heal himself after difficult operations.

Q: Your villains stand out because they are never one-dimensional. And I suppose it was no accident that the antagonist of The Defector was named Ivan, as in Ivan the Terrible?

A: None whatsoever. Good thrillers need good villains, and Ivan Kharkov certainly falls into that category. For the record, he is a wholly fictitious character, but he may remind some people of the Russian oligarchs we’re always reading about in the newspaper. The ones who fly around the world on private jets and own mansions in London and the south of France. There is a legitimate side to Ivan’s business operations—a very profitable one actually—but he makes most of his money selling Russian weapons to very dangerous people. In fact, Ivan Kharkov is without question the biggest private arms dealer in the world. He’s shrewd, intelligent, and prone to extreme violence. He also has the Kremlin in his back pocket along with the backing of the Russian intelligence services. And that makes him a global menace.

Q: A moment ago, you mentioned Alexander Litvinenko, the former FSB officer and the defector who was murdered in London in November 2006 with a dose of radioactive polonium-210. I suppose the echoes of Litvinenko’s death in your story are intentional?

A: Absolutely. Litvinenko’s death was a watershed moment. Consider it in these terms: for five years before his death, the United States and its allies had been locked in a global struggle against al-Qaeda and its affiliates. And yet Russia, our supposed ally, staged what amounted to an act of nuclear terrorism in the heart of London. I’ve always been fascinated by the man accused by the British of actually carrying out the attack: Andrei Lugovoi. He denies any role, of course, and the Russian government has rejected a request to extradite him to Britain. But what makes Lugovoi so interesting to me is that he actually became something of a national hero in Russia and even served in parliament. As one of my characters, Olga Sukhova, likes to say, “Only in Russia.”

Q: There’s a Russian term used in the book that really becomes the spine of the story: vyshaya mera.

A: In Russian, it means “the highest measure of punishment.” I first read about it in a wonderful book published not long ago called Comrade J by Pete Earley. It tells the real-life story of a Russian spy who defected to the United States in 2000. Vyshaya mera was the term he used to describe the punishment meted out to those who betray Russia’s intelligence services: “He would be taken into a room, made to kneel, then shot in the back of the head with a high-caliber handgun so his face would become unrecognizable because of the blast. His body would be dumped in an unmarked grave. His relatives would not be told where.” That passage haunted me for a long time. It is so quintessentially Russian. In many respects it is the inspiration for the story of The Defector.

Q: You always do exhaustive research for your books, and in your Author’s Note you say the story was inspired by a visit you made to a place called Butovo. Tell us about it.

A: Butovo was one of the killing sites used by Stalin’s henchmen during the Great Terror. The victims were brought there late at night after the proverbial “knock at the door” and shot to death in a small building. Then they were buried in long mass graves. Recently the Russian Orthodox Church turned Butovo into a memorial, a shrine, to Stalin’s victims. In fact, my family and I were among the first Americans to visit. It was an incredibly moving and sad experience. What’s more, it’s one of only a handful of places where ordinary Russians can pay tribute to Communism’s victims.

Q: Why are there so few places like Butovo in Russia?

A: I think it’s quite obvious. The leaders of the New Russia aren’t terribly interested in exposing the sins of the Soviet past. On the contrary, they are engaged in a carefully orchestrated endeavor to airbrush away its most repulsive aspects while celebrating its achievements. I suppose one can understand why. The NKVD, which carried out the Great Terror at Stalin’s behest, was the forerunner of the KGB. And former officers of the KGB, including Vladimir Putin himself, are now running Russia. During a visit to Germany in 2007, Putin famously remarked that “problematic pages in our history exist.” It seems to me the systematic murder of a million people is more than just “problematic.” And those are just the ones who were shot to death in the Great Terror. Millions more died from Stalin-induced famines.

Q: And yet Stalin remains incredibly popular in Russia to this day.

A: I think the most recent poll found he was the third most popular leader in Russian history, behind only Peter the Great and Vladimir Putin. In fact, when you visit tourist flea markets in Russia these days, it is startling to see that one of the most popular items are small bronze busts of Stalin. Imagine if the city were Berlin instead of Moscow and one could buy statues of Hitler. There would be outrage across Europe. And rightly so.

Q: Do you think this sort of historical myopia is dangerous?

A: The obvious danger is that it might happen again. In far smaller and more subtle ways, it already is. Look at poor Stanislav Markelov, the crusading human rights lawyer and social justice activist who was gunned down on a central Moscow street in January 2009. His assassins shot him twice in the head and then managed to escape in broad daylight. In my opinion, Markelov’s murder was in its own way vyshaya mera and Great Terror, right on the streets of Moscow. There’s a lawlessness in Russia that is truly terrifying. And I believe the Kremlin bears much of the responsibility. What is your average Russian killer to think when he hears Vladimir Putin describe Anna Politkovskaya—a crusading journalist, author, and human rights activist—as a person of “marginal significance” not long after she’s gunned down in the elevator of her apartment building? It was an incredibly callous thing to say. But I think it also left the impression that the Kremlin wouldn’t mind it much if troublesome journalists and other critics of the regime were taken out.

Q: What do you want readers to get out of this book? 

A: First and foremost, I want them to be entertained. I want them to be swept away in a fast-paced story with moments of great human drama and excitement. At the same time, it is a cautionary tale. I want them to understand that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and that we’ll need to keep one eye focused on Russia as we move forward in the years ahead.

Q: So what’s next for Gabriel Allon?

A: Perhaps a bit of rest, but not for too long. It’s a dangerous world. And I have no doubt someone is going to require his services in the very near future. After all, he is Gabriel Allon.

A Conversation with Daniel Silva, Author of MOSCOW RULES

Q: What are the Moscow Rules and are they real?

A: They are real, and every spy and intelligence officer knows them. During the Cold War, Moscow was by far the toughest, most dangerous city in the world to work. So the CIA created a set of operating principles. They applied not only to Moscow but other rough stations and bases as well. When I started researching the book, I tried to find an official list of the rules, but I discovered from friends at the CIA that the agency never really bothered to write them down. I suppose they did that on purpose. Some of the rules are quite chilling: “Assume everyone you meet is under opposition control.” “Assume every telephone is tapped and every room is bugged.” Some are hysterical: “Murphy was right.” “Technology will always let you down.” My personal favorite is: “Don’t look back. You are never completely alone.” That rule serves not only as the epigraph of the novel but its spine as well.

Q: Why did you pick Moscow Rules for the title?

A: Without giving too much away, the villain of the book is one of those New Russian oligarchs we’ve all been reading about in the newspapers. His name is Ivan Kharkov. Before the fall of communism, he was a KGB officer. Now he’s a fabulously successful investor and businessman. He has mansions in Moscow, London, and the South of France, and he flies between them on his private jet. He has close friends in high places in Moscow, including the Russian president himself.

But there’s a part of Ivan’s business empire he keeps carefully hidden from outside eyes. Ivan is the world’s biggest arms dealer, and he’s planning to sell some very dangerous weapons to some very dangerous people. Someone close to Ivan—someone who is surrounded day and night by bodyguards, someone who’s every e-mail and conversation is monitored—has risked everything in an attempt to stop the deal. The hero of my series, Gabriel Allon, needs to talk to this person. To do so, he has to operate under the Moscow Rules.

What I was trying to do with the title and tone of the book was to take the iconography of the Cold War and apply it to a very human, present-day story. I wanted to create a sense in the reader’s mind that maybe things haven’t changed that much in Russia. Maybe a new tsar, a new Stalin, is running the place. The action at the end of the novel flows up and down a boulevard called the Leninsky Prospekt. I did that or a specific reason. Lenin is the man who inflicted communism on the Russian people, yet one of the most important avenues in Moscow still bears his name.

Q: This is your eleventh novel and the eighth in your featuring spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon. Your thrillers take place all over the world, but this is the first time you’ve chosen to set a book in Russia. Why now?

A: I suppose Russia has been calling me for a long time. I grew up reading the classic novels of Cold War espionage. I studied Russian history and Soviet foreign policy in college. I even wanted to work in Moscow as a foreign correspondent. But by the time I started writing novels full-time, the Cold War was over. I thought several times about writing a historical novel of the Cold War, but it didn’t feel right. I’d always enjoyed the challenge of trying to catch history in the act. I knew enough about Russian history to bide my time. I told myself to be patient. Eventually, Russia would find a new tsar and challenge us again. The new tsar turned out to be Vladimir Putin, and his critics were soon dying under mysterious and violent circumstances. When Aleksandr Litvinenko was murdered in London in 2006 with a lethal dose of polonium-210, I knew it was time for Gabriel Allon to go to Russia.

Q: Before Gabriel Allon could go to Moscow, you had to go. You spent last summer there. What did you find?

A: I absolutely fell in love with Moscow. Strange, because it’s not an easy place to visit. Just getting around the city can be a challenge because of the nightmarish traffic. But it’s one of those places where you can’t help but trip over history at every turn. And now, because of Russia’s newfound wealth, it’s a city of enormous contradictions. Within a few yards of Lenin’s Tomb is some of the most expensive shopping in the world. The city is filled with luxury cars, exclusive boutiques, and trendy restaurants. It’s as if the entire country is trying to make up for sixty years of lost time with an orgy of capitalism and consumerism. Every night, we watched Russian millionaires making deals in the bar of our hotel. They dressed in the latest designer clothing, spoke fluent English, and were surrounded by bodyguards who made no effort to conceal their weapons. There’s a reason why they call Moscow “the Wild East.” Needless to say, I found it to be the perfect setting for a thriller.

Q: There’s a theme that runs through the novel, a sort of running joke between the characters about how everything in Russia is “the world’s biggest.”

A:It really came to be a refrain wherever we went. World’s biggest hotel. World’s biggest bell. World’s biggest swimming pool. World’s biggest supermarket. One evening when I was returning to my hotel from a meeting, my driver looked at one of the old Stalinist towers that still dominate the Moscow skyline. “Europe’s biggest apartment building,” he said. Then he sighed heavily and added, “Everything in this country has to be the biggest, the tallest, the fastest, and the best. We cannot live as normal people.” The line really stuck with me, and I used it as the spine of the novel. Russians cannot live as normal people. Russia is not a normal country.

Q: The action in Moscow Rules moves from one exotic locale to the next: Moscow, Italy, Israel, the Alps, the French Riviera, London. Did you spend a lot of time in those places?

A: Thankfully, yes. That’s the best part of my job. For example, at the start of the story, Gabriel is staying at an isolated cattle farm in the hills of Umbria. My family and I were lucky enough to stay on a farm just like it as I was finishing The Messenger. I also spent a great deal of time chasing rich Russians around Western Europe, trying to get a glimpse of the way they’re spending their money. And I can report that they’re spending an enormous amount of it. Even a novelist can’t make this up. In Saint-Tropez, there’s a restaurant frequented by Russians where a caviar appetizer costs three thousand euros, about five thousand dollars. In Courchevel, I visited a restaurant where the manager told me about a group of Russians who had just spent three hundred thousand euros for lunch. That’s about a half million dollars. For lunch! My dedication to accuracy went only so far. I didn’t eat at these restaurants, but my characters had a fabulous time there. Our guides in Russia also told us several jokes that Russians like to tell on themselves about the extravagant spending of the New Russian millionaires. Our favorite was this one: A Russian millionaire buys a luxury Mercedes. The next week, he goes back to the dealer and says he wants to trade the car in for a new model. The mystified dealer asks, “What wrong with this one?” The Russian millionaire answers, “The ashtrays are full.”

Q: You managed to get inside Lubyanka, the infamous former home of the KGB and current headquarters of its successor agency, the FSB. How did you get in, and what was it like?

A: The truth is, I am still not sure how we got in, but it was the experience of a lifetime. We put in a request and waited. Finally, near the end of our stay, the call came. We were ordered to present ourselves at a side door of FSB headquarters, on Bolshaya Lubyanka Street, early on a Sunday morning. We were told not to be late. Waiting inside was a fit-looking colonel in his late fifties. He had a pleasant smile, and eyes that actually seemed to twinkle. He spoke only Russian, so our guide had to provide simultaneous translation. We followed him through darkened corridors and up darkened staircases. We didn’t get to visit the part of the building were where poor Gabriel ends up in the story—the notorious holding cells of Lubyanka—but it was still fascinating.

Q: Is it true the KGB really has a private museum?

A: Absolutely true. It’s near the offices that were once used by some of the KGB’s most notorious chiefs. No other intelligence service in the world has a history quite like the KGB’s, and for someone like me, a student of Russian history and espionage, the museum was Valhalla. It’s a surprisingly candid place, but it contains almost no evidence that the KGB had ever tried to spy on the United States. When I asked to see the exhibits dealing with the traitors Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, our guide only laughed. My favorite moment occurred when we stopped before a large album containing the official portraits of every KGB and FSB chief, beginning with Felix Dzerzhinsky. “He was shot,” the colonel said of one early chief. He turned the page. “He was shot… He was shot… He was shot.” At the next portrait, he paused for a moment. “Ah, this one was different.” He paused dramatically. “He was poisoned.” What more could I ask for.

Q: Were there any other moments that stood out during your Moscow trip?

A: I loved riding in gypsy cabs. You can walk to the curb of virtually any street in Moscow, stick out your arm, and twenty cars will pull over. You don’t know who the driver is, but you hop in and away you go. I got into one of these “cabs” one night and there was a kid behind the wheel who looked like he might have been twelve years old. He had dark-tinted film on the inside of car’s windows and was wearing sunglasses. At night, mind you! We drove along the Kremlin walls, listening to American music on the car’s stereo. The juxtaposition was quite jarring. But I have to thank him for inspiring a scene in the book.

Q: Do your children always accompany you on these research trips?

A: Whenever possible, yes. They love to joke that when they get back to school every fall and have to write the usual essay, “What I did on my summer vacation,” they get to say they helped their father pick out places to kill people! But sometimes it really is true. For example, my son, Nicholas, helped me to choreograph the kidnapping of Elizabeth Halton in The Secret Servant. And the murder in the opening chapter of that novel was inspired by an incident involving my daughter, Lily, and a housepainter in Amsterdam. I’m sure they would have rather spent their summer on a beach somewhere, but they really did learn a great deal about Russian history and culture. And it’s already paid dividends. This year, when my son’s English class read Animal Farm, he understood everything in a deeply personal way because he’d been to the real Animal Farm.

Q: Were you operating under Moscow Rules when you were in Moscow?

A: We had a family joke the entire time we were in Russia: “Mr. Putin is watching.” Oddly enough, our guide could have been a Putin double. I’m not exaggerating. He looked shockingly like Putin himself. But having been a reporter in the Middle East, I tend to operate by the Moscow Rules wherever I go.

Q: Your novel doesn’t paint a particularly flattering portrait of the new rulers of Russia. Are you nervous about what Mr. Putin will think of your book?

A: That’s a great question. President Putin – uh, excuse me, Prime Minister Putin –  is very busy man who probably doesn’t have time to read many American thrillers. But who knows? He was the chief of the FSB, after all. He might like a good spy story.

Q: Your story deals with the dangers faced by Russian journalists. In fact, two reporters for a publication called Moskovsky Gazeta are murdered during the course of the story. Were you able to talk to Russian reporters for your research?

A: I did, actually, and they were incredibly helpful. I was deeply moved by their courage and their dedication to a principle that we all too often take for granted. Not many people realize this, but Russia is an extremely dangerous place to be a journalist. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, forty-seven reporters, editors, cameramen, and photographers have been killed in Russia since 1992, making it the third-deadliest country in the world in which to practice the craft of journalism, after Iraq and Algeria. Fourteen of those deaths occurred during Putin’s presidency. Nearly all of them were contract killings, and very few have been solved or prosecuted. I met a reporter who literally broke down in tears as he described the murder of his friend. It affected me deeply, and had a profound impact on the book.

Q: At one point in the story, a Russian journalist named Olga Sukhova describes the political and cultural situation in Russia today. In doing so, she refers several times to the siloviki. Who are the siloviki?

A: It’s a word Russians use to describe the men from the security and intelligence services who are now ruling Russia. In a way, it’s the modern-day equivalent of calling someone a chekist. The siloviki took control of Russia after the chaos of Yeltsin’s presidency and said, in effect, enough is enough. They have a plan. They’re not the least bit interested in democracy. They believe, as Putin has said many times, that the collapse of the Soviet Union was one of the greatest geopolitical disasters in history. They want Russia to be a great country again. An important country. And they want their empire back.

Q: As of 2008, Putin remains the most popular politician in Russia according to opinion polls. If the Putin government has no interest in democracy, why aren’t the people more up in arms about him?

A: It might seem strange to us but the Russian people aren’t terribly interested in democracy, at least not the kind of democracy that’s practiced in the United States or Western Europe. Let’s try to look at it from their perspective. They went through a terrible time in the nineties. Their experience with multiparty democracy was, quite frankly, an unmitigated disaster. Putin righted the ship and restored order. But there’s been a price to pay. Putin has put in place a system where he and his party dominate Russian politics and the media. The Russian people are arguably freer than they’ve ever been, but there’s a line they dare not cross. Everyone in the country knows where that line is. And if they do cross it, they’re likely to run straight into the siloviki.

Q: What do you see as the challenges we’ll be facing with Russia? Are we, in fact, about to embark on a new Cold War?

A: I think it’s too early to say. Clearly, the Russians want to be a major world power again. They liked the bipolar world of the Cold War much better than the unipolar world of today. I think that in the future they’re going to look for opportunities to challenge American power and hegemony around the world. In many respects, they still regard us as “the main adversary.” There’s an embedded anti-Americanism in Russia that we should never discount. The intellectual classes can say nice things about us, but, in the main, Russians are basically anti-American. They also think of themselves as superior to us in many respects. It sets up a strange contradiction. They don’t really like us, but, at the same time, they want to be part of us. The G8 is a perfect example of this. The Russians want to sit at the table with the rest of the world’s wealthiest nations, but, at the same time, when things don’t go their way, they threaten to target G8 cities with their nukes. And then there’s the case of Aleksandr Litvinenko. The British government has accused the Russians, in effect, of carrying out an act of nuclear murder in the heart of the British capital. It boggles the mind when you think about it in those terms.

Q: How do Russian arms sales play into this scenario?

A: In my opinion, they are a critical component. One of the places where the Russians look to challenge America is in the Middle East and broader Muslim world. They see an opening there. And they’re using arms sales to some of the world’s must dangerous regimes as a way to raise their profile. They’ve sold highly sophisticated weapons to Syria, for example. And, of course, they’re deeply involved in Iran’s nuclear program.

Q: Your novel deals with a plot to sell very dangerous weapons to al-Qaeda. Is there any evidence to suggest that the Russians have ever sold weapons directly to terrorists?

A: The Russian government? I wouldn’t rule anything out, but the answer is probably not. But there’s strong evidence to suggest that Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer who operated under the umbrella of protection of the Russian security services, sold weapons to al-Qaeda. He also sold to the Taliban. And the Taliban, in turn, probably supplied some of those weapons to al-Qaeda. Let’s keep something else in mind: Before the fall of the Soviet Union, the KGB worked with anti-Western and anti-American terrorists of every stripe. And some of those KGB men are now running Russia.

Q: Where is Viktor Bout now?

A: He was arrested in Thailand earlier this year in a U.S.-led sting operation. He allegedly thought he was negotiating a major deal with the FARC rebels in Colombia. In reality, he was dealing with American agents. Apparently, he was planning to sell the Colombians the same weapons that my fictitious arms dealer, Ivan Kharkov, was prepared to sell al-Qaeda: shoulder-launch antiaircraft missiles. Bout has been indicted by a federal grand jury in New York. It’s quite possible he could end up being brought to the United States to stand trial.

Q: You’re well connected in Washington? Did you have any inside knowledge that the operation against Bout was under way?

A: None whatsoever. When I saw the reports of Bout’s arrest, I was shocked.

Q: Viktor Bout plied his deadly trade for years. Why is it so hard to bring people like him - or, for that matter, the villain in your book -  to justice?

A: In short, because it’s very difficult. Much of what arms dealers do is perfectly legal, or it has the patina of legality. They operate in a gray area of international law. Very few have ever been arrested and prosecuted. And I’m afraid I’m not terribly optimistic when it comes to shutting down the trade in weapons anytime soon. Look at what’s happening around the world now. Food shortages, global warming, competition for scarce resources such as water and energy. It doesn’t take a scholar to imagine a world where we have more and more failed states. And that means more civil wars. And more potential markets for men like Viktor Bout and his fellow travelers.

Q: Your last book, The Secret Servant, was #2 on the New York Times bestseller list, your highest ranking ever. Each one of your novels has been more successful than its predecessor. Why do you think Gabriel Allon has caught on the way he has?

A: No one is more surprised by the success of Gabriel and the series than I am. He really seems to have struck a chord with readers—and not just Gabriel but the entire cast of secondary characters that surround him. Everyone seems to have their favorite, but I do think Gabriel is unique. There really is no one else quite like him on the literary landscape: an Israeli assassin who also happens to be one of the world’s finest art restorers and who lives in Italy under an assumed identity. The funny thing is Gabriel was never supposed to be a continuing character. I actually had to be talked into it. I really believed that no one wanted to read about an Israeli hero. But I had an idea for a book I wanted to write—a story involving looted art and Switzerland’s behavior during World War II—and Gabriel was a perfect fit. It turned out to be a book called The English Assassin, and, in many ways, it was my breakout novel. Despite the book’s success, I still wasn’t sure about him. When I made my first notes for The Confessor, Gabriel wasn’t in the story. Fortunately, I came to my senses.

Q: What sort of man is Gabriel?

A: He’s not someone you’d actually like to spend a lot of time around. In fact, that’s one of the reasons he’s so interesting to write about. He’s not the friendliest person in the world, and there are very few people in the world who actually know who he is. He’s incredibly gifted and very smart. And as his mentor, Ari Shamron, points out at the end of the book, he suffers from melancholy and mood swings. His attitudes have hardened a bit over the last couple of books, but he’s by no means a gunslinging, kill-all-the-bad-guys kind of superhero. He knows what it means to lose loved ones. I think that if the president of the United States had asked Gabriel for advice after 9/11, Gabriel would have warned him about the price to be paid for climbing into the gutter with terrorists and murderers and fighting them at their level.

Q: What do you think will most surprise readers of this book?

A: I think many American readers will be surprised by the extent to which Russians have invaded Western Europe. When you go to places like the South of France, the place is teeming with Russians. And London is now home to a Russian population of more than three hundred thousand. That’s why I structured my story the way I did. It moves between Russia and Western Europe just like the rich Russians of today.

Q: You’ve talked about bringing your kids along on your research trips. Would you want either of them to follow in your footsteps and become a writer?

A: Like every parent, I want them to do whatever will make them happy. But both of them are very good writers already. But writing a book a year is an interesting challenge to say they least, and I put a great deal of pressure on myself to make each novel better. I throw out hundreds of pages for each book, because it’s all about finding the right pages. A couple of years ago, I took a private tour of the Vatican Museums with its chief art historian. We were standing in front of one of my favorite paintings, The Deposition of Christ by Caravaggio. The historian pointed to the right hand of Christ and explained that a recent examination of the painting had revealed the existence of five other hands beneath, meaning that Caravaggio actually had to paint it six times before he was satisfied. Let me be absolutely clear: I am by no means comparing myself to Caravaggio, but it is reassuring to a mere mortal such as me to know that a genius like Caravaggio had to work very hard at his craft.

Q. You had one of last summer’s biggest thrillers with The Messenger, a story about a Saudi-inspired attack on the Vatican. When you sat down to start working on the follow-up, did you ask yourself, “How do I top this one?”
A. Because I write and publish a book a year, I generally start on the next novel before I know how the previous one is going to be received, so that question really doesn’t enter into my calculus. In all honesty, the first thing I try to do is forget what I’ve just written. Last year, when I finished editing The Messenger and getting it ready for publication, I moved my family to a cattle ranch in the hills of Umbria, where I spent some time in seclusion, thinking about the kind of book I wanted to write next. The result was The Secret Servant.


Q. This is your tenth novel. It’s both deeply provocative and wildly entertaining. How do you walk that fine line in your work?
A. I tend to think it comes quite naturally to me. I’ve always felt that there are two writers living inside me, one with more literary leanings and another who is unrepentantly commercial. These two engage in an annual struggle for supremacy, and the result in recent years has been The Messenger, The Confessor, and A Death in Vienna, novels of entertainment that deal with terribly important topics of today and the past. I like to think of myself as a serious writer who works in the thriller mode.


Q. The Secret Servant moves at a blistering clip from beginning to end. One hates to use clichés when talking to a writer, but this one really is impossible to put down. Did you consciously try to write a more up-tempo book?
A. I didn’t in fact. When I begin a novel, I try to have as few preconceived notions as possible. I want to bring the characters to life on the page and then let them lead me by
the hand. But there is definitely a ticking clock in the book, with the life of an

extraordinary young woman, and perhaps even the fate of a nation, hanging in the balance. It means the characters have to make decisions of great moral significance under conditions of extreme time pressure. It also means that the novel plunges forward at a breathless pace, particularly toward the end.


Q. You speak of characters having to make decisions of moral significance under difficult conditions, and of course that would apply to Gabriel Allon, the hero of your last seven novels. Tell me about him.
A. It’s probably accurate to say that no one has been battling Arab and Islamic terror longer than Gabriel Allon. In 1972 he was a promising art student at Jerusalem’s prestigious Bezalel Academy of Art, when he was recruited by Israeli intelligence to hunt down and kill the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. He’s worked on and off for Israeli intelligence ever since. He also happens to be one of the world’s finest restorers of Old Master paintings. As The Secret Servant opens, he’s just finished restoring a painting by Giovanni Bellini for the Vatican. When he returns to his apartment in Jerusalem, he finds Ari Shamron, Israel’s spymaster and his own mentor, waiting with another assignment. It’s an assignment that will take him back to Europe, to Amsterdam to be precise, where an asset of Israeli intelligence has been brutally murdered by a Muslim immigrant.

Q. The murder scene is hauntingly reminiscent of the killing of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam in November 2004. I assume the echo is intentional?
A. Of course. In many respects, the death of Theo van Gogh was Europe’s miniature 9/11. It sent shock waves through the Netherlands and the rest of Europe. It was a violent wake-up call, as was the rioting that swept France during the autumn of 2005. Many European countries now contain large Muslim populations that, for the most part, have not been properly integrated. Many of the young men in these Muslim communities are unemployed and angry. They’re fed a steady diet of hatred by their imams and the Internet. They’re trapped between two worlds, the world of radical Islam on the one hand and the secular, tolerant West on the other, and all too often they succumb to the siren song of terrorist recruiters.


Q. You write in the book that “Europe is receding quietly into history. It’s old and tired, and its young are so pessimistic about the prospects of the future they refuse to have enough children to ensure their own survival. They believe in nothing but their thirty-five-hour workweek and their August vacation.” Are things really that bad?
A. Those were the rather gloomy observations of a longtime character in the series named Eli Lavon, but as someone who loves Europe and who has watched it change dramatically over the last twenty years, I would tend to agree. While it’s a risk to generalize, I do think that Europe has lost its way a bit; without question it is facing a looming demographic crisis. In virtually all the countries of Western Europe, the birthrate

of the native population is below replacement level, while the Muslim population is
increasing rapidly. Sometime in the very near future, Europe will have to confront these facts and make some difficult decisions about its identity. That process is already under way in France, Denmark, and Britain. I hope it is a peaceful process. I’m not at all sure it will be.


Q. One epigraph of The Secret Servant quotes from the historian Bernard Lewis: “On present demographic trends, by the end of the twenty-first century at the latest, Europe will be Muslim.” If that comes to pass, what will be the consequences for Europe and the United States?
A. Profound, to put it mildly. I know for a fact that U.S. intelligence agencies are already thinking about the ramifications of a “Muslim” Europe for U.S. foreign policy. In the short term, however, the restive Muslim populations of Europe provide a fertile breeding ground for terrorism, and that’s the backdrop of The Secret Servant.


Q. Without giving away too much of the plot: The book deals with a conspiracy by al-Qaeda and a little-known group of Egyptian extremists to kidnap the daughter of the American ambassador to London. The goal of this plot is to force the United States to release an Egyptian cleric jailed in this country on terrorism charges. It sounds frighteningly plausible.
A. I was discussing it with a friend who works for the CIA. He nodded and said, “Well, that’s certainly realistic.” Obviously, it’s something that I hope never comes to pass.


Q. By now most people know that Osama bin Laden is Saudi, but do they realize how Egyptian al-Qaeda is?
A. Many people don’t know that. Egypt is indeed the heartland of Islamic extremism, and Egyptians are a major component of al-Qaeda. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number-two man in the organization and, some would say, the real brains behind it, is an Egyptian terrorist leader who spent many years trying to bring down the government of Hosni Mubarak. It’s still one of al-Qaeda’s ultimate goals, though for now they’re focused on what they call the “far enemy,” meaning us.


Q. A central theme of the novel is the morality of torture and the practice known as “extraordinary rendition”—taking known or suspected terrorists from one country and transferring them in secret to Middle Eastern countries—Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt—for questioning. Why did you choose to deal with this in the book?
A. For me, the rendition program has been one of the most troubling aspects of U.S. response to the attacks of 9/11—and mind you, this is coming from someone who believes Islamic extremism and terrorism are grave threats to American security and must be dealt with harshly. But the regimes you mentioned are some of the most repressive in the world. I believe they’ve helped create and foster the problem of terrorism by attempting to deflect the anger of their people outward to America and Israel. Ultimately, they’re part of the problem, not part of the solution. Borrowing their torture chambers is one of the big moral lapses of our response to the attacks of 9/11.


Q. There is a wonderful line uttered by the character of Prime Minister Golda Meir in Steven Spielberg’s film Munich, when she says that every civilization at one time or another finds it necessary to compromise its values. Wasn’t the period after 9/11 one of those times for the United States? Weren’t the president and his men obligated to do everything in their power to prevent another attack?
A. Without question, and I think the United States was wholly justified in enlisting the support and assistance of the Arab security services to scoop up known or suspected members of al-Qaeda in the days and weeks after 9/11. These terrorists needed to be taken off the streets and put someplace where they could do no more harm. But I draw the line morally at transferring someone to a country for the specific purpose of having him tortured there. We should be encouraging reform within the Arab world rather than subletting its torture chambers.


Q. If the president of the United States had asked Gabriel Allon for advice on September 12, 2001, what would Gabriel have said?
A. He would have warned the president about the terrible price of climbing into the sewer with terrorists and fighting them on their terms. He would have told the president that the fight against terrorism was not only morally just but also morally imperative. But he would have cautioned the president not to resort to practices that don’t look terribly flattering with the passage of time. A few years ago I wrote a book called A Death in Vienna. It dealt with one of the more unsavory aspects of the Cold War: the CIA’s use of Nazi war criminals as paid assets. The novel was really a private plea to policy makers not to take similar morally questionable steps in the war against terrorism.


Q. The Secret Servant contains some disturbing descriptions and accounts of torture as practiced by the Egyptian secret police. Another epigraph cites a former CIA officer, Robert Baer: “If you send a prisoner to Jordan, you get a better interrogation. If you send a prisoner, for instance, to Egypt, you will probably never see him again.” Are the accounts in your book based on fact?
A. Unfortunately, they are. I did a considerable amount of research on the practices of the Egyptian security services, and I heard firsthand accounts of their work when I was based in Cairo in the 1980s as a correspondent for United Press International.


Q. That experience must have been very helpful to you when you were working on this book.
A. Very much so. I interviewed Islamic militants during that period, men who, I assume, went on to become members of al-Qaeda. They made it clear to me then what they wanted to do—they said they wanted to destroy us—and I believed they were serious. During the late eighties and early nineties, I told anyone who would listen that we would one day face a grave threat from militant Islam, and my fears were proven correct.


Q. One of the most compelling characters of The Messenger was Sarah Bancroft. Why did you decide to use her again?
A. “Back by popular demand” is probably the best way to put. Everyone loved Sarah the moment I handed in the first draft of The Messenger, and the response I received from readers after publication was also overwhelmingly positive. I needed a CIA component to Gabriel’s team in The Secret Servant, and she was a perfect fit.


Q. The book is set in a number of cities: Amsterdam, London, Copenhagen, Cairo, and Jerusalem, to name a few. Judging from the flawless depictions and other evidence of the amount of research you must have done, I guess you didn’t spend the entire summer on that cattle ranch in the hills of Umbria.
A. As much as I would have liked to, the answer is no. I returned to the States in July and spent a month on a book tour, then went back to Europe to start researching my next book. My family jokingly referred to it as the “Summer Euroterror Tour of 2006.” The first stop was London, where MI5 and Scotland Yard had just broken up the plot to bomb transatlantic jetliners with liquid explosives. Then it was on to Amsterdam and Denmark. My children are old enough to help out now. When their teachers ask them what they did on their summer vacation, they say they spent it helping their father pick out places to kill people.

Q: The Messenger is the sixth novel featuring Israeli intelligence agent and art restorer Gabriel Allon, a man who has been described as one of the most intriguing and original characters in today's commercial fiction. He's had a long and colorful career, to say the least, and now he's found himself in a fight with a new enemy: Saudi Arabia. What attracted you to the material?
A: The Saudis are, quite simply, the perfect villains. They have a seemingly endless supply of money and hold the economic security of not only this country but the entire world in the palm of their hand. They have been described as one of our closest allies in the Middle East, yet at various times throughout their history, they have behaved more like enemies than friends. I also believe that Saudi Arabia bears a large responsibility for what happened to this country on 9/11 and have never truly been held accountant. The 9/11 Commission described them as "a problematic ally in the war against terrorism," a stunning example of understatement. They are, to a large degree, the ideologues and financiers of global Islamic extremism. Indeed, I believe one can argue it was the House of Saud that started the fire of the global jihad movement in the first place. The Messenger gave me an opportunity to explore some of those themes.

Q: Without giving too much away of the plot, The Messenger deals with a terrorist conspiracy to attack the Vatican-a conspiracy financed and enabled by a Saudi billionaire and a former Saudi intelligence officer. All of your work has some foundation in fact. I assume this one does, too.
A: It does, indeed. In fact, the plot of The Messenger was inspired to a large degree by a report produced by German intelligence in 2004. They found that a pair of Saudi companies-one of them was a hundred-million-dollar-a-year holding company-were essentially front companies for the Saudi intelligence service, and that these companies had substantial ties to al-Qaeda cells operating in Germany and Indonesia. The report made me think. What if the holding company was owned and operated by a globe-trotting billionaire with close ties to Washington elite? What if he was using his company and his businesses to move men and materiel around the globe? What if a terrorist mastermind was hidden somewhere within his empire? It didn't take long before I had a frighteningly plausible scenario.

Q: Is there evidence that the Saudi elite have contributed directly to al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists?
A: A great deal of evidence, unfortunately. In many cases wealthy Saudis have given money to Islamic charities that has found its way into the coffers of the terrorist organizations. In others they've given money directly to the terrorists. In 2002, police in Bosnia raided the offices of a Saudi charitable organization and discovered, among other things, a list of al-Qaeda's earliest financial backers. There were twenty names. Six were Saudi bankers, twelve were businessmen, and of those twelve, two had served as Saudi government ministers.

Q: Can we assume individual Saudis are still involved in funding the global terrorist movement?
A: I asked that question of a very senior American official while researching the novel. He expressed confidence that the Saudi government had managed to stem the flow of money from the official Saudi charities to the terrorists, but he was less confident when it came to individual Saudi citizens. In fact, it was his assumption that individual Saudis were still giving money to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, even though bin Laden and his lieutenants now appear to have the House of Saud clearly in their sights. It's one of the most intriguing aspects of Saudi Arabia and its ties to global terror. The House of Saud helped to inspire and nurture the terrorists with money and ideology, and now those terrorists are calling for its destruction. During a conversation with a senior CIA official, he compared the House of Saud to a man holding a tiger by the ears. The tiger is symbolic of the terrorists, of course, and if the man lets go, he'll be devoured.

Q: Any chance you'll tell us the name of the "very senior" government official to whom you spoke?
A: None at all.

Q: There's a wonderful line in The Messenger, uttered by the deputy director of the CIA: "There's a pipeline between Riyadh and Washington, and it flows green with cash." You live in Washington, and before becoming a novelist, you were a journalist and television producer. Does this fictitious pipeline exist?
A: I'm afraid it does. Critics of Israel love to point out the legendary influence of "the Jewish lobby" in Washington, but the Jewish lobby has a rival, and that's the Saudi lobby. Money talks in Washington, and the Saudis have petrodollars to burn. They pour money into the big law firms, and hire the most influential lobbyists, many of whom are former members of congress or former senior government officials. They give generously to American charities, and fund think tanks and Middle East policy centers that have a distinctly pro-Saudi tilt in their view of the world. Prince Alwaleed, the Saudi billionaire investor, recently gave twenty million dollars to the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where many of tomorrow's diplomats are being trained. Prince Bandar, the roguish former Saudi Ambassador to the United States, used to boast openly about the impact of Saudi money on Washington. He once told the Washington Post in an interview: "If the reputation, then, builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office, you'd be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office." Now that's chutzpah.

Q: There are a number of references in the book to Wahhabi Muslims. What is Wahhabism and what are its connections to Saudi terrorism?
A: Wahhabism, or Wahabbi Islam, is the form of Sunni Islam practiced by the majority of Saudi citizens. It's puritanical and deeply intolerant of other faiths and even other sects of Islam itself, especially Shiism. The Saudis have spent billions of dollars propagating the faith across the Muslim world, in Europe, and even here in the United States. I've come to the conclusion, after a great deal of thought and research, that much of the Islamic extremism sweeping the Middle East and beyond flowed from the well of Saudi Wahhabism. It's no accident that fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, or that the majority of those held at Guantánamo Bay are Saudis. I think most Americans would be shocked at the sort of things that are said by extreme Wahhabi preachers during the average Friday sermon-or at the things that are taught about Christians and Jews in the average Saudi classroom. In the novel, Gabriel Allon tells his American counterpart that the war on terror can never be won unless something is done to stem the flow of hatred in Saudi mosques and schools. I truly believe this. Dore Gold said it best in his groundbreaking book, Hatred's Kingdom: "Unless the ideological roots of the hatred that led to September 11 are addressed, the war on terrorism will not be won. It will be only a matter of time before the next Osama bin Laden emerges."

Q: Gabriel Allon has been surrounded by a remarkable cast of characters from the outset of the series, and The Messenger features many of them. But it also stars a new character. Tell me about Sarah Bancroft.
A: Sarah Bancroft is a curator working for a small museum in Washington who is recruited by Gabriel and his American counterparts for a covert operation. She's young, very attractive, and lost someone close to her on 9/11. She actually tried to join the CIA after the attacks but was turned down because the CIA screeners thought she was too independent-minded. Now she's going to be given a second chance, because she is exactly the sort of person Gabriel needs for the operation he has in mind. She's a deeply symbolic character. In many ways, she's representative of America itself. Wounded by 9/11, well-intentioned, but perhaps in a bit over her head.

Q: Do the Americans and Israelis really conduct joint operations?
A: I have it on very good authority that the CIA and Israeli intelligence operate jointly on a regular basis. I also have it on good authority that the Americans never come away from those operations without being impressed by the ingenuity and creativity of their Israeli counterparts. I only hope I've done justice to that spirit with the operation at the heart of The Messenger.

Q: It's an operation that involves, of all things, a lost painting by Vincent van Gogh called Marguerite Gachet at her Dressing Table. Does the painting really exist?
A: No, I'm afraid this canvas exists only on the pages of The Messenger.

Q: It feels like it could exist, though. You must have done a lot of research to bring the painting to life.
A: I did actually, most of it focused on Vincent's final days. Fortunately for me, there's no shortage of great research and writing on the demise and suicide of Vincent van Gogh, and I have to admit to becoming a bit sidetracked for a few days as I wandered through his remarkable and tragic life. There are three known works depicting Marguerite Gachet. I worked hard to concoct a scenario by which there could have been a fourth painting-a painting that was sold not long after Vincent's death and kept secret by its owners for a variety of reasons. I enjoy art and art history very much, and it's one of the great guilty pleasures of the series. It allows me to indulge my own passions.

Q: It's very convincing. I suspect it might encourage a few art detectives to start looking for a work just like it.
A: I'm afraid they'll be searching in vain. But if they should find it, please call me!

Q: As with the best spy fiction, exotic locations abound in The Messenger. Rome, Venice, Tel Aviv, London, and the Caribbean islands. Did you spend time in each of the places while preparing to write the book, or do you create local color based on research from afar?
A: It can be a mixture of both, but for this novel I've really been to nearly every place described. There are a couple of exceptions. I've never actually been inside the private apartments of the Pope. Nor have I been beyond the entrance of the barracks of the Swiss Guards. Maybe someday I'll be lucky enough to get an invitation.

Q: Your last two novels, A Death in Vienna and Prince of Fire, were serious in their subject matter and somewhat somber in tone. Don't take this the wrong way, but The Messenger is a bit more entertaining, if that's the right word. Was it intentional?
A: Yes and no. Each novel tends to take on a life of its own, and if I've done my job correctly, the characters really do determine the tone and course of the story. That said, I'm being published in the summer for the first time this year instead of winter, and I wanted to make sure The Messenger was sort of book one would carry to the beach.

Q: Mission accomplished.
A: I'll take that as a compliment.

Q: At the novel's outset, Gabriel is wanted for questioning by the French government and more or less resigned himself to a life in hiding. By the end, he's come face-to-face with the prime minister of Israel, the president of the United States, the Pope, and one of the world's most dangerous terrorists in the world. Now that he's the world's most famous terrorist fighter, where else can he go?
A: I've learned many lessons in the decade I've been writing books, and one of them is that it is never wise to talk about the book you intend to write, because they never come out the way you think they will-at least mine don't. Suffice it to say that we live in a dangerous world and Gabriel, for all his desire to spend his life quietly restoring paintings, is likely to be drawn back into the fight against global terrorism.

Prince of Fire

In this interview Daniel Silva talks about his interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict, shares why he chose this moment to write about terrorism and sheds light on his character Gabriel Allon, as well as revealing some of his personal reflections on researching Prince of Fire.

Q: You described your previous three books as "an accidental trilogy dealing with the unfinished business of the Holocaust." Could Prince of Fire be the beginning of another "accidental" series?
A: When it comes to something as unpredictable as writing novels, it's generally a mistake to make predictions, but, no, I don't see this as the beginning of a new cycle of novels. Indeed, quite the opposite is true. This novel is something of a conclusion to the series. When I introduced the Gabriel Allon character in The Kill Artist, he was cast in the unlikely role of safeguarding the life of Yasir Arafat, who was then engaged in the Oslo peace process. Of course, everything changed shortly after that novel was published. Yasir Arafat rejected the peace deal he was offered at Camp David and then launched the second Intifada. In a way, I felt obligated to write this novel. The Kill Artist was written in a time of hope, Prince of Fire in a time of despair and terror, and I think that's reflected in the tone of some of the book's more memorable passages.

Q: Prince of Fire offers a virtual history lesson on the Arab-Israeli conflict during the entire twentieth century. How did you develop an interest in this part of the world?
A: I've always been captivated by the history of Zionism and the conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine-the notion that history and Providence has thrown these two remarkable peoples together in this tiny slice of land and bound them in bloodshed. As a writer of fiction, there is a deep well from which to draw: fascinating characters, a compelling and violent history, and a starkly beautiful physical landscape. And, of course, it is a conflict that affects us all. I tried very hard to do justice to both sides and to capture, in microcosm, the pain felt by both Arabs and Jews. At its core, the book is a thriller, not a history lesson, but I was careful to include enough history so that situation can be understood and placed in context. It's amazing how little many people really know about the history of the conflict.

Q: In Prince of Fire the action moves across continents, from Rome, Venice, and Cairo, to London, Paris and Jerusalem. Whether the setting is verdant Celtic ruins in Provence or the tan hills of Galilee, each location is vividly rendered. What kind of research did you do to capture each one so precisely?
A: There's really no substitute for going to a place and seeing it with your own eyes-looking at a landscape and imagining your characters moving across it. The research for this book took me from Israel to Paris to the south of France. A significant portion is set in Marseilles. It had been some time since I'd been there. In fact, the last time was before the attacks of September 11. It was interesting to look at a place like Marseilles and imagine it as a hub of terrorist activity. In all honesty, it wasn't too difficult.

Q: In the thriller's opening scenes, a massive terrorist bombing sparks an international manhunt for an elusive Arab terrorist. Was this an unconscious or a deliberate response to the September 11th attacks in the U.S.?
A: For a long time after the attacks of September 11, I felt reluctant to touch the subject of terrorism. For me, like most Americans, the attacks were a watershed event, a tear in the fabric of human history. I still don't think I'll ever write a book about a terrorist plot against America, but I finally felt capable of writing about terrorism in the Israeli context.

Q: The terrorist mastermind in your book is a man named Khaled al-Khalifa. He is the son of the leader of Black September, the notorious Palestinian terror group of the 1970s that carried out the Munich Olympics massacre. Why did you choose to resurrect Black September for this novel?
A: As I say in the author's note of the novel, the story of Prince of Fire was really inspired by a photograph taken at the funeral of Ali Hassan Salemeh, the operations chief of Black September. The photograph shows Salemeh's young son seated on the lap of a grieving Yasir Arafat. It made me think: What if the boy had been hidden away by Arafat and trained to carry on the tradition of his father? As for my interest in Black September, it began with the Munich Olympics massacre. Like millions of other people around the world, I watched the drama unfold from beginning to end, and the murder of the hostages hit me very hard. Although we didn't realize it then, the Munich Massacre was in many ways the beginning of the modern terrorist age. I believe Black September and the Palestinians must share some of the blame for the events of September 11. Remember, it was Black September that first demonstrated the utility of carrying out spectacular acts of terrorism on the international stage. I'm quite confident that the planners of Al Qaeda have studied their exploits carefully.

Q:. Your protagonist, Gabriel Allon, is a gifted art restorer when he's not involved in international espionage. The meticulous description of his work suggests that you also have a great appreciation for the Grand Masters. Is painting or art history a passion of yours?
A: It is, and I've been able to indulge that passion with this series. I'm also fortunate enough to have wonderful and generous friends who know much more about art than I do.

Q: Fidelity and loyalty are prominent themes in your hero's relationships with his estranged wife, his lover, and his boss in the Israeli Secret Service, as well as in his adversaries' relationships. Do these issues have special significance for you?
A: Something happened inside Israel when the Palestinian terrorists started setting off bombs on buses, in cafés and even during a Passover Seder. Israelis set aside their differences and demanded an end to the violence. A certain tribalism took hold, in my opinion, and Gabriel Allon was not immune to that. His name is significant. The archangel Gabriel is the defender of Israel, the angel of vengeance, and the Prince of Fire. In a time of terror and bloodshed, Gabriel has no choice but to pick up his gun once again in service of his country and his people. He does so with a certain reluctance, because he fears he is a soldier in a war without end, but he does so all the same, out of loyalty and fidelity.

Q: Your characters offer strong opinions on hot-button issues such as Israel's Separation Fence. Do you find yourself taking sides as you write?
A: At the risk of sounding as though I'm dodging the question, I have sympathy for both parties to the conflict. I believe that Jews have a right to a homeland. I also believe that Palestinians suffered terribly as a result of the birth of Israel and that they deserve a state of their own. That said, I have to say that I am profoundly disappointed, to put it mildly, in the way the Palestinian side conducted itself after the signing of the Oslo peace accords. I was a supporter of the Oslo Agreement, even though I had doubts about the ability of the two sides to reach a final accord. I believed that Arafat had truly reconciled himself to the existence of a Jewish State in the Middle East and was committed to peace. That turned out to be wrong. Arafat, I'm convinced, viewed the Oslo process as part of his "phased strategy" to bring about the destruction of the Jewish State. He said so many times, in Arabic, when he was speaking to his own people. I also believe he ended his career as he began it: as a terrorist. With his passing, there might be a chance for peace, but I tend to doubt it. Arafat left behind a mess, but then, he always did -- in Lebanon and before that in Jordan. Still, one has to hope. The alternative is too awful to contemplate: Arabs and Jews, killing each other in the Promised Land, until the end of time.

Q: Your popular protagonist, Gabriel Allon, is a melancholy man haunted by his past, or as you describe him, "the eternal wandering Jew." Is the character based on anyone you've actually known?
A: Thankfully, no. Gabriel Allon is truly a fictitious character.

Q:. Allon has a tense face-to-face conversation with Arafat. How did you prepare to write that scene? Did Arafat's death affect what you wrote?
A: Arafat died as I was finishing the novel, and I chose not to incorporate his death into the story. As for the preparation, I've come to know both of these men very well. It was really a matter of putting them in a room together, along with their terrible history, and letting them show me the way.

Q: What's next for Gabriel Allon? Can you give us a clue about what part of the world he'll visit in a future book?
A: I haven't made any final decisions yet, but there are a couple books I've been longing to write that don't suit Mr. Allon, so there's a chance we might be taking a break from each other.

The Confessor

In this February 2003 interview Daniel Silva discusses the inspiration and historical research behind his latest novel, THE CONFESSOR, and reveals what he hopes to accomplish with his books.

Q: One of the major New York dailies recently described you as someone who has "graduated from being a writer of thrillers that sneak onto the bestseller lists for a week or two to a brand-name author-one of those people like Tom Clancy who can launch book after book onto the charts." What does it feel like to be compared to someone like Clancy? And what was that transition like to "brand-name" author?
DS: (Laughter) That's very flattering, but I'm no where near Clancy's league in terms of sales. Someday, I hope. If, as you say, the brand name has taken hold, that's great, but I don't take anything for granted. When my books become bestsellers, I'm always pleasantly surprised, and it's still a big thrill.

Q: Critics have also praised your "journalistic passion that animates your stories." How have your experiences as a journalist for UPI and then CNN influenced the way you approach your fiction writing?
DS: I always look for a factual underpinning to my stories, and I read and research until I'm blind. THE ENGLISH ASSASSIN dealt with Nazi art looting. I devoured everything I could find on the subject. THE CONFESSOR also deals with the Holocaust and the Second World War, but this time focuses on Pope Pius XII and the role of the Catholic church. I must have read a hundred books and scholarly articles on the topic. And, of course, as with all the Gabriel Allon books, I did tremendous amounts of research on art restoration and, in this case, the artist Bellini. I love it. But no matter how much time I spend conducting journalism-style research on the subjects I'm writing about, I never want the research to get in the way of the imagination. Essentially, I fill up the tank with as many facts and as much history and analysis of the subject as possible, and then I try to walk through a door and create something that's pure entertainment and fun to read. I always try to go just far enough with my research so that the imagination has room to work and spin a story that readers will find entertaining. That's the primary goal.

Q: Where did the inspiration for this story come from?
DS: It's a topic I've been interested in for a long time, but the specific inspiration can be traced back to two incidents. One was We Remember, the long-awaited statement on the Holocaust released by the Vatican in 1998. I felt it came up far short of what it set out to do in terms of reconciliation and atonement and apologizing for the conduct of the Church during the war. The other incident was the squabble that broke out when a commission of six independent historians, which was created by the Vatican in a bid to calm the controversy surrounding Pius XII, requested access to the Vatican's Secret Archives, and the Vatican refused. It was clear that there were things in the Archives they didn't want the world to see. According to sources quoted by a newspaper at the time, access to the Secret Archives was blocked by a cabal led by the Vatican's secretary of state. All these things just started simmering, and a story started to take shape: What would happen if a pope wanted to throw open the Secret Archives?

Q: Aside from all the reading, and your focus on Pius XII, what other research did you do?
DS: The inner workings of the Vatican, of course. I interviewed diplomats, former priests, and reporters who've covered the Vatican and been behind the walls. I made a decision that there would be very little spirituality in the book, if that's the right word. Instead, I choose to write about the Vatican as a political institution and to treat the characters as politicians. Keeping that image in my mind-of Church officials as quarreling politicians in a pressure-cooker atmosphere-helped me get the feel and tone that I wanted.

Q: What makes the spy thriller such a compelling genre?
DS: First of all, I should say that I consider myself a writer of international intrigue stories as opposed to a writer of pure espionage thrillers. I like the genre because it gives you more license. There are no police procedures or rules of evidence to hem you in. Also, I'm a student of twentieth-century European history and politics. That's what interests me. And so the international intrigue genre is where I feel the most at home.

Q: How did you come up with the Gabriel Allon character?
DS: He came as a thunderbolt. I can't describe it any other way than that. I was working on The Kill Artist and doing the initial sketches for the character. My wife and I were walking down the street in Georgetown when she turned to me and said, "By the way, we're having dinner tonight with David Bull." David was the head of the restoration department at the National Gallery. I stopped dead in my tracks and said, "Oh my God! An assassin whose cover job is art restoration."

The character has been such a joy to work with. He's not a person I'd necessarily want to hang out with, but I just find him so compelling. There's something about him that makes him impossible not to watch. He allows me to write the way I want to write. I always thought it strange when writers became so attached to their characters that they'd talk about them as if they were real people, but Gabriel Allon has definitely become a real person for me. He's just there. He is. He exists.

Q: What fascinates you so about him?
DS: The fact that Gabriel is an art restorer and a reluctant assassin allowed me to plumb the two distinct sides of his character that are constantly at war within him: He's a healer, but he's also a destroyer. He finds peace in restoration. He's also attractive to me because so much history and pain and suffering-the Holocaust, the Israeli-Arab conflict-flow through this man. He and Ari Shamron, my fictional spymaster of Israeli intelligence, are at the crossroads of twentieth century Middle Eastern and European history. Who better to investigate the role of the Catholic church in the Holocaust than Gabriel Allon? It's no accident that, when the story opens, Gabriel is living quietly in Venice, restoring churches.

Q: Writers of fiction will often say their characters become so alive that they end up doing things they-as the writer-hadn't intended them to do. Did that happen with Gabriel?
DS: Definitely. What I try to do is create the character first, as opposed to first creating the line I want the character to walk through the novel. If I do it right, I end up with a character who's multidimensional, a character who will lead me by the hand, not through the grand arc of the story but rather through interesting little side journeys. And those are the things that usually make a novel memorable.

Q: Why do so many of your stories center around this notion of history guided by men of the secret world?
DS: Because I think history is about 80 percent classified. I believe that intelligence agencies guide the course of history much more than we'll ever really know. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I think men of the secret world really have had a tremendous influence on the course of human history. And when you talk about those kinds of individuals, you can't help but think of the Vatican, the oldest political institution in the western world. The men of the Vatican have been engaging in conspiracies and intrigues for centuries, and they're very good at their craft.

Q: There's been a lot of speculation in recent years regarding what's going on inside the Vatican's walls as the current pope, John Paul II, gets older and ever more enfeebled. What sort of maneuvering do you think is going on as this pope ages?
DS: I'm not convinced he's as feeble as he appears. According to those closest to him, he still has tremendous powers of concentration and intellect. But having said that, the Church is in crisis, and there are certainly people within the Vatican who are preparing for the next conclave. Names are being mentioned as possible successors, and records are being examined. It will be fascinating to watch the next conclave. Will the next pope be an Italian or perhaps a cardinal from the Third World? Will he be a doctrinaire pope, or will he permit change? The future of the Roman Catholic church might rest on the answers to those questions.

Q: One of the central entities of The Confessor is this secret group within the Vatican, Crux Vera, that holds the true power of the Church. Over the centuries the Vatican has seen its share of Machiavellian intrigue. Are there any specific historical precedents for the fictional cabal you describe here?
DS: I looked at all sorts of reactionary Church groups and secret Church societies. Some operate openly --- they even have web sites you can browse --- but many still remain very secretive. There are a number of groups who are opposed to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and want to reverse them. Some operate quite openly with the tolerance and, some might say, the encouragement, of the Vatican. On other occasions the Vatican has chosen to crack down and punish rebellious leaders. These groups are very conservative, very reactionary, and there have been suggestions that some of them may have been involved in some dirty dealings in the past. What I essentially did was take their worst attributes, magnify them, and apply them to my fictional group, Crux Vera. But as I said in the author's note, Crux Vera is a complete creation on my part.

Q: One of pivotal moments of the story occurs as Hitler's final solution is well underway when officials from Crux Vera meet with the Germans and essentially collude with them --- by their silence about the Holocaust --- to carry out the extermination of European Jewry. Their goal, set forth in the story, was to forestall the creation of a postwar Jewish homeland because it would result in Jewish control of Christian holy sites, and would also leave Jews on an equal diplomatic footing with the Vatican among the world's nations. Notwithstanding that this is fiction, are you suggesting this could have happened?
DS: I set out to answer the question: Why was Pope Pius XII silent regarding the plight of the Jews under Hitler and the Nazi regime? I made a decision early on in the writing process that I would attribute no fictitious actions to the Pope. Out of respect for him and for the papacy, I was not going to create actions on his part. What I did do, however, was put forward a fictional explanation of why he was silent, an explanation that was both historically possible and at the same time compelling and dramatic. Were there priests and bishops within the Church who actually supported the extermination of European Jews and took part in the Holocaust? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. Did the Vatican oppose the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine, even Jewish emigration to Palestine, when it was the only escape hatch available to Jews? Once again, the answer is yes. I basically took those elements and spun them into a fiction that might logically explain why Pius XII failed to speak out.

Q: Were there any surprises for you as you carried on this yearlong running conversation about the Church with various sources?
DS: As I took a hard look at the Church, its long history of anti-Semitism, and its conduct during the war, I guess you could say I was somewhat shocked, but I also felt a great sense of sadness. That same sense of sadness can be found in a lot of Catholic writers --- James Carroll, Gary Wills, John Cornwell and others --- who have explored these subjects. You can feel it in the way they write. One of the things that became clear to me is that there's still a tremendous amount of anti-Semitism within the Vatican, despite all the efforts to improve relations between the two communities.

Q: Most people have this view of the pope as someone who has absolute power within the Church. Is this the case?
DS: The Roman Curia is the oldest court and oldest bureaucracy in Europe. It wields tremendous power even over a pope, who, technically, is an absolute monarch. In order to get things done, like any other head of state, the pope has to work through his bureaucracy. It's a very tough, backbiting, jealous atmosphere. A lot of backstabbing goes on, and apparently it's quite a vicious place to work. What a perfect setting for a thriller: the Vatican in all its power and majesty, and filled with scheming and intrigue. For me, it's impossible to stand in St. Peter's Square and not wonder what's really going on behind those walls.

Q: According to Pius's defenders, he was a friend of the Jews who saved hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives through quiet diplomacy. His critics say he was a calculating politician who displayed a callous and near-criminal indifference to the plight of the Jews. Some even go so far as to say he was actually complicit in the Holocaust. What's your take on Pius XII? Was he as vile as his critics suggest; as virtuous as his defenders suggest; or somewhere in between?
DS: Let's look at this, for a moment, as if it were a court case with prosecutors and defense attorneys. I think even honest defenders of the pope would agree that Pius XII knew about the Holocaust from almost the very beginning; that he said nothing and did very little; that most of the Vatican's efforts were confined to Jews who had converted to Christianity; and that those efforts came late in the war once the tide had turned against Germany. Rightly or wrongly, I think Pius XII had a fear of dividing German Catholics, a fear of German retaliation against the Vatican, a desire to play a diplomatic role as a peacemaker, and that he clearly wanted Nazi Germany to prevail in its confrontation with Communist Russia, which the Church viewed as its mortal enemy. Pius didn't want to do anything to undermine the Nazis, and he apparently was not sufficiently morally moved by the murder of millions of Jews to back away from that course of action. I'm afraid that's about the most positive portrait that one can draw based on an honest appraisal of the facts. But if you look at the case in total: the long history of anti-Semitism within the Church; the fact that Pius never excommunicated a single Nazi leader and yet, in 1949, he excommunicated all communists worldwide; the fact that he opposed the Nuremberg trials and that the Vatican helped thousands of Nazi war criminals escape justice, then a much darker picture emerges.

Q: There's a movie currently playing, called Amen, which explores some of the issues you write about in THE CONFESSOR. Have you seen it and what did you think of it?
DS: I have seen it. I think it's an excellent film. Very powerful.

Q: What do you want readers to get out of this book?
DS: I want them to be entertained. That's the first and primary goal of my storytelling. The greatest compliment readers give me is when they complain that I kept them up all night. If I'm also able to teach them a little something along the way, that's great too.

©Copyright 2003, The Penguin Group. All rights reserved.