Day of Confession Part 41

The murder early this morning of Marsciano's personal aide, Father Bardoni. Not yet announced by the police.

Also this morning-Harry Addison's terse calls, traced to public telephones near the Vatican, alerting them to the situation in China. To which they had responded immediately, and which within hours resulted in the clandestine arrest and interrogation of a government water-quality inspector named Li Wen.

And again this morning-the surprising announcement of the suspected reemergence in Italy of the long-silent celebrated terrorist Thomas Kind, and the all-points arrest-and-detain order put out for him by Gruppo Cardinale.

Suddenly Scala took a sharp left ahead of them, turning right after a half block, and then making a quick left and accelerating off. Adrianna could see Eaton smile slightly as he kept up with him. Changing gears, accelerating, then dropping back, using the skill and training demanded of the professional spy he was. Up until tonight both he and Adrianna had had to sit back and wait, hoping Harry Addison would lead them to Father Daniel. Now the police were doing it. Why and what was unfolding, they didn't know, but with the disaster in China now seemingly interconnected with the Vatican intrigue, they were certain they were on the edge of monumental, breaking history.

"The police are going to make it difficult." Eaton slowed. Ahead of them Scala made a sharp right down a darkened residential street.

Adrianna said nothing. She knew that at another time and in another situation Eaton would have called in two or three of his Italian operatives and had Father Daniel kidnapped. But not now, not in the presence of the police and not with a clumsy postCold War CIA under the stony-cold microscope of both Was.h.i.+ngton and the world. No, they could only do what they'd been doing all along, wait and watch and see what happened. And hope that something would happen, and that they could get Father Daniel alone.

133.

Friday, July 17, 12:10 A.M A.M.

PALESTRINA WOKE FROM HIS SLEEP WITH A cry. He was soaked with sweat, his arms out in front of him in the darkness, still trying to push the thing away. This had been the second night in a row when shadowy spirits had come toward him in a dream. There were many of them and they carried a heavy, unclean blanket to cover him, a blanket he knew was filled with disease, the same disease that had caused the fever that killed him before, when he was Alexander.

It was a moment before he realized that what had waked him was not only the terror of his dream but the ringing of the phone at his bedside. Abruptly the ringing stopped, then started again, the multiline phone lighting up a private number only one person had, Thomas Kind. Quickly he picked up.

"Si..."

"There has been a setback in China," Kind said evenly in French, deliberately trying not to alarm Palestrina. "Li Wen has been detained. I have taken care of the situation. There is nothing to concern yourself with other than the business of the coming day."

"Merci," Palestrina said, aghast, and hung up. Suddenly he s.h.i.+vered, the coldness real and reaching deep inside him. The spirits were not a dream, they were real and getting closer. What if something happened and Thomas Kind failed to "take care of the situation" and the Chinese found out? It was not impossible-after all, it was Thomas Kind who had failed to kill Father Daniel.

Suddenly a new horror stabbed through him-that Father Daniel was still alive not because of luck but because the spirits had sent him, and sent his brother as well. They were Death and their appointment was with Palestrina. Not only that, as the moth comes to the flame, Palestrina was bringing them right into his own lair.

12:35 A.M A.M.

Harry opened the door to the kitchen and turned on the light. Crossing to the counter, he double-checked the battery charger, making certain life was being pumped into the ultra-slim batteries of the cell phones. They had two of them, the one that had been in the apartment and the one Adrianna had given Harry. In the morning when they left for the Vatican, Danny would carry one, Harry the other. It was how they would communicate when they went in after Marsciano, trusting that between the ma.s.ses of tourists and Vatican personnel, random conversations would be difficult, if not impossible, for Farel to monitor, even if he knew they were there.

Satisfied the charger was working, Harry turned out the light and started back into the hallway.

"You should sleep." Elena stood in the open doorway of her room, directly across from the bedroom Harry was sharing with Danny. Her hair was brushed back and she wore a thin cotton nights.h.i.+rt. Farther down the darkened hallway was the living room, and they could hear Hercules snoring loudly as he slept on the couch.

Harry moved closer. "I don't want you to go with us," Harry said, quietly. "Danny and I and Hercules can handle it alone."

"Hercules has his own job, and someone has to take Father Daniel in the wheelchair, and you can't be two places at once..."

"Elena.... It's too unpredictable and too dangerous..."

The light from the beside lamp behind her shone through the material of her nights.h.i.+rt. She was wearing nothing at all underneath. She moved closer, and Harry could see the rise and fall of her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s under the nights.h.i.+rt as she breathed.

"Elena, I don't don't want you to go," Harry said definitively. "If something were to happen-" want you to go," Harry said definitively. "If something were to happen-"

Reaching up, Elena gently pressed her fingers to his mouth. Then, in almost the same motion, slid her fingers away and brushed her lips against his.

"We have now, Harry," she whispered. "Whatever happens, we still have now.... Use it to love me..."

134.

1:40 A.M A.M.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER THAN THE LAST time Danny had looked at his bedside clock. If he'd slept in those minutes, he didn't know. Harry had come in only a few moments earlier and gone to bed. It had been more than an hour since he'd gone out to check the battery chargers. Where he had been or what he had been doing in the meantime he didn't know, but he a.s.sumed he had been with Elena.

He had seen electricity building between them since Bellagio, and he knew that at some point it had to spark. It made little difference that she was a nun. Danny had known almost from the time she had come to care for him in Pescara that Elena was not the kind of woman who could continue to live the lifelong, cloistered, contemplative life required of her. That she should fall in love with his brother, of all people, was something he could never have foreseen under the wildest circ.u.mstances. And these-he half-grinned in the dark-were, far and away, the most turbulent circ.u.mstances that anyone could have ever foreseen. Turbulent and-the grin abruptly faded-terribly, terribly tragic. In his mind he saw the man with the gun on the bus to a.s.sisi, felt again the explosion. Remembered the fire, the screaming, the confusion, the bus swinging wildly out of control. Remembered his reflex reaction of getting up, sticking as much of his identification as he could in the gunman's jacket. Abruptly that vision left, and he saw Marsciano through the wire mesh of the confessional, heard the pained sound of his voice. "Bless me Father, for I have sinned..."

Abruptly Danny turned away, put his head to his pillow, trying to drown out the rest of it. But he couldn't. He knew every word by heart.

ADRIANNA STIRRED at the sound and looked up. Eaton was getting out of the car, straightening his beige summer suit jacket, then walking off along the sidewalk toward where Scala was parked. She saw him sidestep the throw of a streetlight, all the while looking up at the dark loom of the apartment building partway down the street, then he disappeared in the darkness. Immediately her eyes went to the dull orange illumine of the dashboard clock and wondered how long she had been dozing.

2:17 A.M A.M.

Now Eaton came back, sliding into the seat beside her.

"Scala still there?" she asked.

"Sitting in the car, smoking..."

"No lights on in the apartment building?"

"No lights." Eaton looked over at her. "Go back to sleep. You'll know when something happens."

Adrianna smiled lightly. "I used to think I loved you, James Eaton..."

"You loved the office, not the man..." Eaton looked back at the apartment building.

"The man, too, for a while." Adrianna pulled her loose-fitting denim over-s.h.i.+rt around her, then curled up on the seat. For a long time she watched Eaton watch the building, then finally she drifted off.

135.

Beijing, China. Still Friday, July 17. 9:40 A.M A.M.

"JAMES HAWLEY. AN AMERICAN HYDROBIOlogical engineer," Li Wen said in Chinese. His mouth was dry and he was soaked with sweat. "He... he lives in Walnut Creek, California. The procedure came from him. I... I... didn't know what they were. I... thought they were a new test... for wa... water toxicity..."

The man in the army uniform who stared at Li Wen across the hard wooden table was the same man who had demanded he confess what he had done six hours earlier in Wuxi. The same man who had handcuffed him and accompanied him on the military jet to Beijing and taken him here to this brightly lit cement-block building somewhere on the air base where they had landed.

"There is no James Hawley of Walnut Creek, California," the man said softly.

"Yes, there is. There has has to be. I did not have the formulas, to be. I did not have the formulas, he he did." did."

"I repeat... , there is no James Hawley. It has been confirmed by the American authorities."

Li Wen felt the breath go out of him as suddenly he realized he'd been played for the fool the entire time. If something went wrong he alone was the one who would pay for it.

"Confess."

Slowly Li Wen looked up. Just behind the man at the table was a videocamera, its red light on, recording what was happening. And behind the camera he could see the faces of a half dozen uniformed soldiers-military police, or, worse, men like his interrogator, members of the Ministry of State Security.

Finally he nodded, and looking directly into the camera, told how he had introduced his "s...o...b..a.l.l.s"-the deadly, nonmonitored const.i.tuent polycyclic, unsaturated alcohol-into the water systems. Explaining extensively and in scientific terms the details of the formula, what it was designed to do, and how many it was expected to kill.

As he finished, wiping sweat from his forehead with the palm of his hand, he saw two of the uniformed men suddenly step forward. In an instant they had him on his feet and he was marched through a door and down a dimly lit concrete corridor. They went for twenty or thirty feet before he saw a man step out of a side door. The soldiers froze in surprise. In an instant the man had stepped forward. He had a pistol in his hand, a silencer on the barrel. Li Wen's eyes went wide. The man was Chen Yin. His finger squeezed back on the trigger and he fired point-blank.

PTTT! PTTT!.

Li Wen was blown backward, his body twisting away from the soldiers, his blood splattering across the wall behind him.

Chen Yin looked at the soldiers and smiled, then started to back away. Suddenly his grin turned to horror. The first soldier was raising a submachine gun. Chen Yin backed away.

"NO!" he screamed. "NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTA-"

Suddenly he turned and ran for the door. There was a sound like a dull jackhammer, the first shots spinning Chen Yin around, the last taking off the top of his head just over his right eye. He, like Li Wen, was dead before his body hit the ground.

136.

Rome. 4:15 A.M A.M.

HARRY WAS IN THE BATHROOM SHAVING, GETTING rid of the beard. It was dangerous because he would be exposing the face the public knew from the Gruppo Cardinale television spots and from the newspapers. But he had no choice. Few if any Vatican gardeners, Danny had said, wore beards.

Hercules sat at the kitchen table watching tiny whiffs of steam rise from the steaming cup of black coffee he held between his hands. Elena was across from him, as silent as he, her coffee untouched.

Fifteen minutes earlier Hercules had left the bathroom-a treat so rare and luxurious he'd spent half an hour there to enjoy all of it, sit and wash in a tub of hot water, and shave as Harry was now. And when Harry was done, that would give them something else in common. Not only bold and brave crusaders about to march on a foreign land, but they would also both be freshly shaven when they did. A little thing maybe, but like a uniform, it added to the brotherhood and tickled Hercules no end.

SCALA SAW THE FRONT DOOR open and the two come out. The only distinction between Harry Addison and an ordinary priest on his way to early ma.s.s was the long coil of climbing rope over his shoulder. That, and the dwarf who swung alongside him on crutches, his movements strong and smooth, like those of a gymnast.

Scala saw them cross onto Viale Vaticano and then turn left in the darkness, moving west, along the Vatican wall toward the tower of San Giovanni. It was twenty minutes to five in the morning.

EATON-SITTING BEHIND the wheel of the Ford, using a monocular nightscope-saw them leave, too. The crippled dwarf as much a puzzle as the coil of rope.

"Harry and a dwarf." Adrianna was awake and alert and had glimpsed them in the brief seconds when they'd pa.s.sed under a streetlight before vanis.h.i.+ng again in the dark.

"But no Father Daniel, and Scala hasn't made a move." Eaton put away the nightscope.

"Why the rope? You don't think they're-"

"Going in after Marsciano?" Eaton finished Adrianna's sentence. "And the police are letting them..."

"I don't get it."

"Neither do I."

137.

A PICKUP TRUCK RATTLED PAST CARRYING firewood. Then the street was dark again, and Harry and Hercules stepped from the angle in the Vatican wall they had hidden behind.

"You know what that wood is for, Mr. Harry?" Hercules whispered. "Pizza ovens all over the city. Pizza." He winked. "Pizza." Abruptly he gave Harry his crutches and turned to the wall. "Boost me up."

With a glance back down the street, Harry picked Hercules up by the waist and lifted him toward a ledge that ran the length of the wall halfway up. Hercules strained to reach it, then did. In an instant he was up and balancing on it.

"Crutches first. Then the rope."

Crutches handed overhead, Harry tossed the coil of rope. Grabbing it, Hercules shook out a few feet, put a loop around his shoulder and dropped the free end to Harry.

Taking hold, Harry felt it tighten. Above him, Hercules smiled, then waved him up. Ten seconds later Harry had come up the wall and stood on the ledge beside him.

"No legs, Mr. Harry, but the rest of me like granite, eh?"

"I think you like this." Harry half grinned.

"We are in search of the truth. And no goal is more honorable, is it, Mr. Harry?" Hercules' eyes bore into Harry's, the pain of a lifetime in them. Then, as quickly, he looked to the top of the wall.

"Another boost, Mr. Harry. This time is trickier. Lean your back to the wall and keep your balance or we both go down."

Putting his back against the wall, Harry dug his heels into the narrow stone ledge.

"Go," Harry whispered. Immediately he felt Hercules' hands on his shoulders, felt him pull up. Then the rope coil brushed across his chest, and Hercules' deadened feet banged over his face, then his weight vanished. Quickly Harry looked up. Hercules was kneeling on top of the wall.

"Crutches," he said.

"How's it look?" Harry handed them up.

One arm tucked through his crutches, Hercules peered over the side and into the Vatican gardens. The tower loomed behind some trees, not thirty yards away. Turning, he gave Harry the thumbs up.

"Good luck."

"See you inside." Hercules winked.

Then Harry saw him twist a turn of rope over a jutting corner of the wall, jab his arm through the crutches and disappear over the top.

For the briefest second Harry hesitated, then with a look back down the street, he jumped. Hitting the ground, he rolled over once and was up. Brus.h.i.+ng off his jacket, tugging the black beret over his forehead, he walked quickly back down Viale Vaticano, the way he had come. Scala's Calico automatic was in his belt, Adrianna's cell phone in his pocket. Ahead of him, the buildings were stark black against the eerie pale of the brightening sky.

138.

6:45 A.M A.M.

WEARING THE BLACK SUIT AND WHITE s.h.i.+RT of Farel's guard, his hair black and cut short, Thomas Kind leaned against the bal.u.s.trade on the outside walkway at the top of the Dome of St. Peter's, looking out over Rome. Two hours earlier he'd learned the situation in Beijing was over, the contracts he'd put out on Li Wen and Chen Yin satisfied. The first had been carried out by an unsuspecting Chen Yin himself, the second done swiftly but expensively through a contact in the North Korean secret police with close ties to the Chinese Ministry of State Security. Li Wen had been brought to a military airfield in Beijing for questioning. A source had been paid to leave a door open and look the other way as Chen Yin entered. Chen Yin had done his job, fully expecting to simply turn and walk away unmolested. That was when the second contract kicked in and the whole thing ended.