Day of Confession (50 page)

157

ROSCANI LAY PRONE IN THE GRASS. THE FIRST black suit was fifteen yards away sprawled on his back and moaning, the second was facedown in the grass not more than ten feet from Roscani, his eyes open but lifeless, blood slowly oozing from a hole between his eyes.

Taking a chance there had been only the two, Roscani rolled over and looked down the hill in the direction Harry had carried Hercules. He could see only the swirl of smoke that instead of dissipating was becoming thicker.

Getting up cautiously, he glanced around for more black suits, then went to the dead man in front of him. Taking the man’s gun, Roscani slipped it in his belt, then moved off toward the black suit still lying moaning on the ground ahead.

10:55
A.M
.

“Danny.” Harry’s urgent voice came over the open phone line. “Where are you?”

“Close to the station.”

“Get on the freight car. I’ve got Hercules, he’s been shot.”

Elena stopped. They were at the edge of the trees and behind a hedge across from the Vatican City Hall and the Mosaic Studio.

Directly ahead was the railroad station, and to the right of it she could see a part of the freight car. Then came the blast of an air horn, and a dirty, bright green work engine chugged slowly into view. Abruptly it stopped, and a lone man with white hair walked out from the station, a clipboard in his hand. Stopping at the track he seemed to note the number painted on the engine, then moved to it and climbed aboard.

“I don’t know if Hercules is going to make it.”

Elena glanced at Danny. They could both hear the fear, the desperation in Harry’s voice.

“Danny.” Harry’s voice came again. “Marsciano’s gone.”

“What?”

“I don’t know where, he went off on his own.”

“Where were you when he did?”

“Near Vatican Radio. We’re passing the Ethiopian College now.…

Elena, Hercules is going to need you.”

Elena leaned into the phone. “I’ll meet you, Harry. Just be careful…”

“Danny—Roscani’s here, so is Thomas Kind. I’m sure he knows about the train. Watch it.”

“DON’T MOVE!” Roscani commanded, his Beretta held military style in both hands and pointed at the moaning black suit.

As he drew closer, Roscani could see the man on his back. One leg was twisted under him, and his eyes were closed. Now he could see a bloodied hand limp across his chest; the other was out of sight beneath him. The man was going nowhere. In the distance came the sound of the train whistle. It was the second blast within seconds. Roscani turned quickly, looking through the smoke in its direction. Harry and Hercules had to be going toward it. Maybe Marsciano, too, and Father Daniel and Elena Voso. That meant there was every chance Thomas Kind was going there as well.

Instinct made Roscani turn back. The black suit was raised up on an elbow, an automatic in his hand. Both men fired at the same time. Roscani felt a jolt. His right leg collapsed under him, and he went down. Rolling over, he came up on his stomach firing. There was no need, the black suit was dead, the top of his skull blown away. Grimacing, Roscani struggled to his feet, then, crying out, slumped back down. A patch of red spread across the beige material of his upper pant leg. He’d been shot in his right thigh.

THERE WAS A deafening roar, and the whole building shook.

“
Va bene
,”—Okay—crackled through Farel’s radio.

Farel nodded and two jumpsuited Swiss Guards carrying automatic rifles pushed open the rooftop door. And they went out into smoky daylight, the guards first and then Farel, holding firmly onto the Holy Father’s arm, guiding the white-clad old man out.

A dozen more heavily armed Swiss Guards were on the ancient rooftop as they crossed it, moving hastily toward the Italian Army helicopter balanced on the edge of the terrace wall, its rotors slowly turning. Two army officers waited in its open doorway, two of Farel’s black suits with them.

“Where is Palestrina?” the pope asked Farel, looking around, fully expecting his secretariat of state to be waiting to leave with him.

“He said to tell you he would join you later, Holiness,” Farel lied. He had no idea where Palestrina was. Had not communicated with him in the last half hour at all.

“No.” The Holy Father suddenly stopped at the helicopter’s open door, his eyes fixed on Farel’s.

“No,” he said again. “He will not join me. I know it, and he knows it.”

With that, Giacomo Pecci, Pope Leo XIV, turned away from Farel and let the black-suited Vigilanza help him into the helicopter. Then they and the Italian Army officers followed him onboard. The door closed, and Farel moved back, waving to the pilot.

A thundering roar was followed by an immense blast of wind, and Farel and the Swiss Guards ducked away as the machine lifted skyward. Five seconds, ten. And then it was gone.

158

MARSCIANO HAD SEEN THE TOWERING FIGure through the smoke at the same moment Hercules had thrown his crutch at the black suit. Seen him come up the hill on the far side of the Vatican Radio tower, moving steadily toward it. In that instant Marsciano knew he would not be on the train when it left. Father Daniel or not, Harry Addison and the curious, miraculous dwarf or not, there were other things here. Things that he, and he alone, had to deal with.

PALESTRINA NO LONGER wore the simple black suit with its humble clerical collar; instead, he was dressed in the vestments of a cardinal of the Church. A black cassock with red piping and red buttons, a red sash at his waist, a red zucchetto on his head. A gold pectoral cross that hung from a gold chain around his neck.

He had paused at the Fountain of the Eagle on his way there, finding it easily, even in the dense smoke. But for the first time ever, the aura of the great heraldic symbol of the Borgheses, which had always touched him so deeply and so personally, from which he had drawn strength and courage and certitude, failed him. What he gazed upon was not magic, did not feed the secret warrior-king in him, as it always had. What he gazed upon was the ancient statue of an eagle. A sculpture. An adornment atop a fountain. Nothing.

A great breath was expelled from within him, and, hand over nose and mouth against the horrid, acrid smoke, he moved on toward the only refuge he knew.

He could feel the thrust of his giant body as he moved up the hill. Feel it even more as he threw open the door and started up the steep, narrow marble stairway toward Vatican Radio’s upper floors. More still as he pushed, heart pounding, lungs bursting, to kneel finally on the black marble floor before the altar of Christ in the tiny chapel just off the empty and vacant broadcast rooms.

Empty. Vacant.

Like the eagle.

Vatican Radio was his spire. Self-chosen. The place from which to command the defenses of the kingdom. The place from which to broadcast to the world the greatness of the Holy See. A Holy See more exalted than ever—one that controlled the appointment of bishops, rules for the behavior of priests, the sacraments, including marriage, the establishment of new churches, seminaries, universities. One that over the next century would be joined, little by little—hamlet to town to city—by a new flock representing one-quarter of the world’s population, making Rome again the centerpiece of the most powerful religious denomination on earth. To say nothing of the enormous financial leverage to be garnered through control of that country’s water and power, which in turn would govern when and where and what could be built or grown, and by whom. In a very short time a once-powerful saying would become the new and lasting one—and all because Palestrina had had the keenness to foresee and create it.
Roma locuta est; causa finita est
. “Rome has spoken,” it translated; “the matter is settled.”

Except that it was not. The
Vaticano
was under siege, part of it burning. The Holy Father had seen the darkness. The Eagle of the Borghese had given him nothing. He had been right about Father Daniel and his brother the first time. They
had
been sent by the spirits of the netherworld; the smoke they had created was filled with darkness and disease, the same that had killed Alexander before. So it was Palestrina and not the Holy Father who was mistaken: the thing perched on his shoulder was not the emotional and spiritual infirmities of an old and fearful man but indeed the shadow of death.

Suddenly Palestrina raised his head. He’d thought he was alone. He was not. There was no need to turn. He knew who it was.

“Pray with me, Eminence,” he said softly.

Marsciano stood behind him.

“Pray for what?”

Slowly Palestrina rose up and turned. Looking at Marsciano, he smiled gently. “Salvation.”

Marsciano stared.

“God has intervened. The poisoner has been caught and killed. There will be no third lake.”

“I know.”

Palestrina smiled once more and then slowly turned back to kneel again in front of the altar and make the sign of the cross. “Now that you know, pray with me.”

Palestrina felt Marsciano step behind him. Suddenly he grunted. And there was a piercing light brighter than any he had ever seen. He could feel the blade pierce the center of his neck. Between his shoulder blades. Feel the strength and rage in Marsciano’s hands as he pressed it down.

“There
is
no third lake,” Palestrina cried. His chest heaved, his massive hands and arms clawing, flailing behind him to reach Marsciano. But unable to.

“If not today, tomorrow. Tomorrow you would find a way to create another horror. And after that, another. And then another.” In his mind Marsciano saw only the anguish of a face seen in close-up on his television screen only moments before Harry Addison had come. It had been that of his friend Yan Yeh as the Chinese banker was led to a waiting car in the Beijing compound after having been informed of the deaths of his wife and son, poisoned by the water in Wuxi.

Staring blindly at the altar cross, over the white blaze of Palestrina’s hair in front of him, Marsciano felt the ornate letter opener in his hands as he pushed down, twisting slowly and with all his might as he did, driving it deeper into the neck and body that roiled and writhed like some monstrous serpent trying to escape.

Then he heard Palestrina cry out and felt his body shudder once against the blade, and then he was still. A huge breath escaped Marsciano and, letting go, he stumbled back. Bloodied hands before him. His heart pounding. Horrified at what he had done.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God”—his voice was a whisper—“pray for us sinners, now and at the moment of our death…”

Suddenly, he felt a presence and looked around.

Farel stood in the doorway behind him.

“You were right, Eminence,” he said softly, and closed the door behind him. “Tomorrow he would have found another lake…” Farel’s eyes went to Palestrina and he stared for a long moment before he looked back to Marsciano.

“What you did had to be done. I had not the courage…. He was, as he said, a street urchin, a
scugnizzo
… nothing more.”

“No,” Marsciano said. “He was a man and a cardinal of the Church.”

159

10:58
A.M
.

EATON STOOD NEAR THE BACK CORNER OF the railroad station, breathless and sweating, trying to stifle a coughing fit from the inhaling of smoke. The scant breeze that had come helped some but not enough, except that it had cleared the air just a little, enough for him to see what he saw now—Harry Addison coming down the grassy slope to his right, carrying the dwarf he’d left the apartment on Via Nicolò V with in his arms. He was half walking, half running, using a stand of trees that lined the roadway to the rail station for cover.

Fifty feet in front of him, Eaton saw the green engine inch toward an old and rusting freight car, which, he was certain, had to be the escape wagon. Glancing back he saw the rusty tracks leading out through the open gates in the Vatican wall. Now he looked back, searching for Father Daniel. If he could find him, that opening was the way he would take him, one way or another, even if he had to carry him.

Crossing behind the station, Eaton came onto the tracks with his back to the open gate. In front of him he saw the white-haired, white-shirted stationmaster standing on the platform watching the work engine near the freight car. The man was a problem, as was the two-man crew he’d seen on the engine. But none of them were half the problem he saw now. Adrianna, suddenly, and from nowhere, was crossing the grassy hill toward Harry Addison and the dwarf.

He saw Harry stop when he saw her. Then heard him yell something, as if to tell her to go away. But it made no difference. She kept coming, and now she reached them and was moving alongside, looking at the dwarf in Harry’s arms then back to Harry himself. Whatever she said or was saying, Harry Addison kept going, heading downhill, toward the tracks.

“Dammit,” Eaton swore under his breath, his eyes moving off again, searching for Father Daniel.

“ADRIANNA, GET OUT OF HERE! You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing!” Harry yelled, half stumbling with Hercules in his arms.

“I’m going with you, that’s what the fuck I’m doing.”

They were almost at the bottom of the hill. Almost to the tracks. Harry could see the green work engine nose to nose with the freight car, its engineer and brakeman with their backs to them working at the couplings. Saw the white-haired stationmaster turn and go back inside.

“Your brother’s in the freight car, isn’t he? The trainmen don’t know it, but that’s where he is.”

Harry ignored her. Kept walking, praying the trainmen wouldn’t look up and see them. Hercules grunted and Harry looked down at him. The dwarf smiled feebly.

“The Gypsies are going to meet the train when it stops…. Don’t let the police have me, Mr. Harry…. The Gypsies will bury me…”

“Nobody’s going to bury you.”

Suddenly the trainmen were walking away from the coupling, moving toward the engine.

“They’re getting ready to leave!” Immediately Harry was pulling Hercules tight to his chest. Starting to run the short distance to the tracks. Adrianna stayed right with him.

Ten seconds later they were there. Crossing the tracks behind the freight car, running alongside it, out of sight of the trainmen.

Harry’s eyes watered, his lungs on fire from the smoke and exertion of carrying Hercules. Where the hell were Danny and Elena? What had happened to Roscani? Then they were at the freight car door and he stopped. It was open.

“Danny. Elena—“

No reply.

Suddenly the train whistle sounded. They heard the engine’s diesel rev up. A puff of brown-black exhaust rising from its smokestack.

“Danny—,” Harry called again. Nothing.

Again the train whistle. Harry glanced at his watch.

11:00
A.M
. exactly
.

No time, they had to get into the car and do it now.

“Get in.” Harry looked quickly to Adrianna. “I’ll hand him up.”

“All right—“

Putting both hands on the freight car’s floor, Adrianna pulled herself up and in. Then she turned and Harry set Hercules in her arms.

The dwarf coughed, grimacing as she strained to lift him. Then she had him up, and Harry was coming into the dimly lit car behind her. Suddenly he froze.

Thomas Kind stood directly in front of him. Elena was with him, eyes wide with fright, an ugly machine pistol to her head.