Day of Confession (45 page)

135

Beijing, China. Still Friday, July 17. 9:40
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
to be. I did not have the formulas,
he
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 “snowballs”—the deadly, nonmonitored constituent 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
.

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 mass 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 passed under a streetlight before vanishing 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. Brushing 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
.

WEARING THE BLACK SUIT AND WHITE SHIRT of Farel’s guard, his hair black and cut short, Thomas Kind leaned against the balustrade 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.

That left only the business of Father Daniel and those with him. At Palestrina’s order and with Farel’s blessing, Thomas Kind had spent most of yesterday with five members of the black-suited Vigilanza whom the Vatican policeman had carefully chosen himself. Outwardly they carried the same initial credentials as all of the specially chosen Swiss Guards. They were Catholic and Swiss citizens, but comparisons stopped there. Where the others had previously been exemplary members of the Swiss Army, these five simply had the word “military experience” next to their names. Secondary records showed why. All had been recruited by Farel himself and then used as his or Palestrina’s personal guard. Three had been members of the French Foreign Legion and discharged with prejudice before the expiration of their five-year terms. The other two had had troubled childhoods, had been in and out of prison before Swiss Army service, and had later been discharged from the Swiss Army for aggravated assault, one with intent to commit murder. That one had been Anton Pilger. Moreover, all five had been brought into the Vigilanza within the last seven months, making Thomas Kind wonder if perhaps Palestrina had foreseen this kind of problem and therefore his need of the five black suits. But whatever Palestrina’s motive, Kind had accepted the selection, met them, and then, handing out photographs of the Addison brothers, laid out his plans.

The brothers’ sole purpose in coming, he told them, was to free Cardinal Marsciano. The idea then was to guard the tower from a distance, letting the brothers approach it in any way they chose. Once they were inside, the trap would simply be closed, the brothers shot on the spot, their bodies put into the trunk of an unmarked car and driven to a farmhouse in the countryside outside Rome, where they would be discovered a day or two later, killed by people unknown.

From his perch at the top of St. Peter’s, Thomas Kind looked down to the empty square below him. In another hour people would start to come. From then on, the crowds would grow almost by the minute as the multitudes from around the world came to visit this holy and ancient place. It was curious, he thought, how much calmer and less mad and desperate he was since he’d come here. Perhaps there was indeed something spiritual here after all.

Or perhaps it was because he was helped by distance, as the one orchestrating the killing as opposed to doing it himself. And he began to rationalize and think that if he stopped killing altogether, retired from it completely, he would get well. The idea was frightening, because it was finally admitting that he was ill, agreeing that he was both seduced by and addicted to the act of murder. But like with any illness or addiction, he knew the first step in the cure was recognizing it. And since there was no professional he could turn to for help, he would have to become his own physician and prescribe the necessary treatment.

Looking up, he let his eyes drift toward the distant banks of the Tiber. The plan he had outlined for the black suits was more serviceable than remarkable, but they were hardly fighting a Third World War, so, under the circumstances and with the men he had chosen, it would do. The thing now was to watch, and wait for the brothers to come.

And then would begin the first step in his healing: orchestrate the plan while letting the others execute it.

139

THE CLINK OF GLASS AND SMELL OF RUM AND spilled beer filled the kitchen. There was a final gurgle as Elena emptied the last bottle of Moretti double-malt beer into the sink. Then, running the tap, she rinsed the bottle, collected the four other Moretti bottles she’d already emptied, and brought them to the table where Danny worked.

In front of him was a large ceramic mixing bowl with a pour spout. In it, mixed proportionally, were two simple ingredients from the kitchen: 150-proof rum used for cooking, and olive oil. On the table to his right were a pair of scissors and a box of pint-sized plastic Ziploc bags; and to the right of that, the work that was already done—ten large cloth table napkins, cut in quarters, then soaked in the rum-and-oil mixture and rolled up tightly like little tubes. These he was carefully placing with oily, rum-soaked fingers into the plastic bags, and then sealing them. Forty in all, four to a bag, ten bags.

Finishing, he wiped his hands with a paper towel, then took the Moretti bottles from Elena and placed them on the table in front of him. Picking up the mixing bowl, he carefully poured the remainder of the liquid into each.

“Cut another napkin,” he said to Elena as he worked. “We’ll need five dry wicks, about six inches long, rolled tightly.”

“All right.” Picking up the scissors, Elena glanced at the clock over the stove.

* * *

ABRUPTLY ROSCANI TOOK THE unlit cigarette out of his mouth and shoved it in the Alfa’s ashtray. Another moment and he knew he would have pushed in the lighter. Glancing at Castelletti beside him, he looked in the mirror and then to the broad avenue ahead of them. They were driving south, along Viale di Trastevere, and Roscani was more troubled than he had been throughout the entire night, when he couldn’t sleep; he was thinking about Pio and how much he missed him and how much he wished he were with them right now.

For the first time in his life, Roscani was lost. He had no idea if what they were doing was right. Pio’s magic was that he would have looked at the whole thing differently than any of them, and they would have talked it through and in the end found some way that made it work for everyone. But Pio wasn’t there, and whatever magic they might hope for they would have to find themselves.

The Alfa’s tires squealed loudly as he took a sharp right, and then another. On their left were the railroad tracks, and absently Roscani searched for the work engine. But he saw nothing. Then they were there and turning down Via Nicolò V, moving toward Scala’s white Fiat parked at the end of the street across from number 22.