Day of Confession

  Opening the camera bag, he took out one of the oil-and-rum-filled beer bottles, with the short wick sticking from the neck. Now he looked up to Elena, her face barely visible behind the bandana covering it.

  “You all right?”

  “Yes.”

  Danny glanced back, then raised the bottle and touched a match to the wick.

  Leaning back, he counted to five.

  “Oorah!” he grunted and flung the bottle through the open window. Outside, a resounding crash was followed by a wall of flame as the shattering glass spread burning oil across the pavement and into the shrubbery beneath the window.

  “Other side,” he said quickly, pulling the window closed, sitting back down.

  Two minutes later a second bottle exploded on the gravel near the Courtyard of the Triangle—the closest point yet toward the papal palace—like the first firebomb, sending a sheet of flame across the open ground and igniting the brush around it.

  152

  FAREL’S OFFICE WAS PANDEMONIUM. THE fire chief was on the telephone, demanding to know what the hell was going on, screaming that water pressure had been reduced to a dribble everywhere when the first bomb exploded outside the fire department. Instantly the chief’s tone changed. Were they under a terrorist siege or not? He was not sending his fire fighters against armed terrorists. That was Farel’s job.

  Farel well knew and was already scrambling his black suits toward the museums to assist the fully armed regiment of Swiss Guards, leaving only the six, including Thomas Kind and Anton Pilger, to keep the trap at the tower. It was then that the second firebomb went off.

  No more chances could be taken. This might be the Addisons, it might not.

  “The water is your problem, Capo.” Farel ran a sweaty hand across his shaved head.

  “The Vigilanza and Swiss Guards will get the public to safety. My concern is one thing alone. The safety of the Holy Father. Nothing else matters.” With that he hung up and started for the door.

  HERCULES COULD SEE Harry’s fourth fire go up. Then he saw him cross out of the smoke and start toward the tower, then duck behind a row of ancient olive trees and disappear.

  Securing the rope in a double twist around the iron railing at the top of the tower, then letting it slip through his fingers, Hercules eased himself down the steep pitch of roof to the edge and looked over. Some twenty feet beneath him he could see the small platform that stuck out from Marsciano’s prison room. And twenty, thirty feet below that was the ground. Easy enough, unless people were shooting at you.

  Across the way he saw another fire go up. And then another, the thick smoke filtering the sunlight and turning the landscape blood red. Suddenly the bright morning had become dark. The combination of Harry’s fires, the smoke from the museums, and the absolute lack of wind had, in the matter of the last few minutes, come together and turned Vatican Hill into an eerie, nearly invisible, foglike dreamscape, a choking, ghostly canvas where objects floated free-form and disembodied, where seeing more than a few feet in any direction was all but impossible.

  Beneath him Hercules could hear coughing and gagging. Then, for a briefest moment the smoke cleared and he saw the two black suits nearest the front door move quickly away toward where the others were hidden, desperate to find fresh air.

  At the same time he saw a figure dart across the road in the direction of the railroad station and into the tall hedges on the far side. Slinging off his crutches, Hercules moved up on his knees, waving them over his head. A moment later Harry’s head popped up. Hercules used the crutches to point across the roadway, where the four black suits were gathered. Harry waved back, then the smoke came again, and he vanished from sight. Fifteen seconds later, bright red flame shot up from the spot where he had been.

  10:38 A.M.

  Roscani, Scala, and Castelletti stood beside the blue Alfa, watching the smoke and listening to the sirens, like most all of Rome. The police radio gave them more, the ongoing exchanges between Vatican Police and Fire and Rome City Police and Fire. They had heard Farel himself call for a helicopter for the pope, not to land on the helipad at the rear of the Vatican gardens but on the ancient roof of the papal apartments.

  At almost the same moment, they saw a puff of diesel smoke from the work engine. Then a second puff came, and the little green engine began to inch forward toward the Vatican gates. That the pope was being evacuated, as was most of the Vatican proper, had no bearing on orders. The railroad wasn’t on fire, and no one had called them back. So, forward they went, wanting only to retrieve an aging freight car.

  “Who has a cigarette?” Abruptly Roscani turned from the train to look at his policemen.

  “No, Otello,” Scala said. “You quit, you can’t start again…”

  “I didn’t say I was going to light it.” Roscani snapped harshly.

  Scala hesitated. He could see Roscani’s disquiet. “You’re worried about the whole thing, especially what happens to the Americans.”

  Roscani looked at Scala a moment longer. “Yes,” he said, half nodding, then turned and walked away by himself. Back down the track, stopping finally to watch the work engine as it crept toward the Vatican wall.

  153

  10:40 A.M.

  A DARK MERCEDES LIMOUSINE WAS PARKED in the shadow of a hedgerow near the tower, the car to take the bodies of the Addison brothers out of the Vatican.

  Thomas Kind sat inside, behind the wheel and out of the smoke. He had known from the first fire the brothers were coming. At first he thought it was a simple diversion, and then had come more fires and then the blanket of smoke and he knew he was dealing with someone with definitive military training. He knew Father Daniel had been a skilled marksman and a member of an elite unit in the U.S. Marine Corps; but the smoke and effectiveness of it were telling him the priest had been with a group such as Force Recon, which was schooled in deep insurgency. If so, he would have trained with the Navy SEALS, who are schooled to do with a small number of men what a major force might do, and who rely almost entirely on the individual.

  What it meant was the Addisons were much more inventive and dangerous than he thought. It was a musing abruptly brought to life when suddenly Harry Addison darted past an opening in the hedge directly in front of him and vanished back into the smoke moving toward the tower.

  Thomas Kind’s immediate response was to go after Harry right then and kill him himself. And he was starting to, his hand already on the car door, when he pulled himself back. His reaction had been uncontrolled and flush with urgency. It was the old feeling, and it terrified him. This was what he had thought about earlier when he had admitted to himself that he was ill and decided to distance himself from the act.

  There were other men here who were paid and waiting to do the job. He needed to let them and refuse to become involved himself. If he did, he would be all right.

  Abruptly he lifted his two-way radio. “This is S,” he said into it, S now his official command designation. “Target B is dressed in civilian clothes and moving alone on the tower. Let him get inside and then eliminate him immediately.”

  HIDDEN IN THE VEGETATION at the bottom of the tower, Harry looked up through the smoke. He could just see Hercules. Again the dwarf pointed toward the far bushes where the black suits had gone. Acknowledging, Calico in hand, he moved. In an instant he was at the heavy glass tower door, throwing it open and going inside. Closing it behind him, he locked it and turned quickly to look at what was there. A small foyer, with narrow stairs leading up, a tiny elevator.

  Glancing over his shoulder at the door, he pressed the elevator button and waited for the door to slide open. When it did, he reached inside and clicked the lock switch into place. Then, using the Calico as a hammer, he brought the grip down hard on the top of the switch, breaking it off and disabling the elevator.

  Quickly, he turned back, glanced again at the door, and then started up the stairs.

  He was halfway up when he heard them trying to get past his lock and in through th
e door. It would be only a matter of seconds before they would break the glass and come in after him.

  He looked up. Another dozen steps and stairs turned abruptly to the right. Quickly he climbed them, stopping at the corner and easing around, Calico first, ready to fire. There was nothing. The stairs simply continued up to the next floor, maybe twenty steps higher.

  Suddenly he heard the crash of glass below. Then the door slammed open, and he glimpsed two men in black suits come in and start up the stairs, guns drawn. Quickly he darted around the corner and stopped. Slipping the Calico into his belt, he opened the waist pack and took out the olive-oil-and rum-filled Moretti beer bottle. He could hear the footsteps as the men raced up the stairs behind him.

  Lighting a match, he touched it to the wick in the bottle, counted—one, two. Suddenly he stepped out, flinging the bottle at the feet of the first man. The crash of glass and whoosh of flame were buried in a hail of gunshots. Bullets chewed up the stairs beside Harry, wanged off the ceiling and walls. Then the shooting stopped. In its place came the sound of the men below screaming.

  “This time you’re out of luck,” a heavily accented voice barked from above.

  Harry whirled, pulling the Calico free. A familiar figure was coming down the stairs toward him. Young, black suited, eager, deadly. Anton Pilger. A large gun was in his hand, and his finger closing on the trigger.

  Harry was already firing, pulling the Calico’s trigger. He kept on pulling it, making Pilger’s body seem to dance on the stairs where it was, his own gun firing into the steps at his feet, his expression one of surprise and puzzlement.

  Finally, his legs gave out and he slid backward against the stairs. There was a crackle from the radio in his jacket. But that was all. In the deathly silence that came next Harry knew that he had heard the voice before. Suddenly he understood what Pilger had said about luck. He had tried to kill Harry before and failed. It had been in the sewer, after he had been tortured and before Hercules found him.

  Then Harry bent over, taking Pilger’s radio and moving on up the stairs in a daze, only now realizing the truth of why he was there, why he had done all of this. It was because he loved his brother and because his brother needed him. There was no other reason.

  10:45 A.M.

  154

  MARSCIANO WAS PRESSED BACK AGAINST THE wall when he heard the lock turn in the door. He’d heard the gunshots outside in the hallway. The breaking glass and the screaming. His prayers were twofold. That Father Daniel was coming for him. And that he wasn’t.

  Then the door banged open and Harry Addison stood there.

  “It’s all right—,” he said quietly and closed the door behind him, locking it.

  “Where is Father Daniel?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “There are men outside.”

  “We’re going out anyway.”

  Glancing around, Harry saw the bathroom and went in. A moment later he came out carrying a wetted hand towel.

  “Put this over your nose and mouth.” Harry handed Marsciano a towel, then went quickly to the glass doors and threw them open. Heavy smoke wafted in. At the same time, an apparition dropped from the sky.

  Marsciano started. A tiny man with a huge head and larger chest stood on the balcony, a rope harness slung around him.

  “Eminence.” Hercules smiled, bowing his head respectfully.

  THOMAS KIND’S RADIO picked it up the same time it came over Adrianna’s cell phone, her open line patched into the radio communication between her crews.

  “I don’t know if anybody cares in all this, but the railroad gates are open in the Vatican wall, and a work engine’s going toward it.”

  “Skycam, are you sure?” Adrianna was talking to her helicopter pilot, who was just coming in over Vatican territory from the south.

  “Affirmative.”

  ADRIANNA TURNED QUICKLY from the phone and looked to Eaton. “The Vatican railroad gates are open, a work engine’s going in.”

  Eaton stared. “Christ—it’s how they’re getting Marsciano out!”

  “SKYCAM, STAY ON THE ENGINE. Stay on it!” Thomas Kind heard Adrianna finish and click off.

  Suddenly he was turning the key, starting the Mercedes engine. There had been no communication from any of the men inside the tower, and he couldn’t wait longer to find out what had happened. Throwing the car in gear, he fishtailed out of the gravel path and onto the narrow road beside the tower wall. Peering through the smoke and ash, he accelerated. Suddenly bushes were flying past. Then there was a loud bang as he sideswiped a tree and slid sideways into the thick of a hedgerow. Where the road had turned he had no idea. Violently, he threw it in reverse. There was a roar of engine and the whine of tires. The car shuddered but didn’t move. Flinging open the door, he saw the wheels spinning on the green of the torn shrubbery as if it were ice.

  Cursing in his native Spanish, he climbed out, choking against the smoke, and ran off on foot in the direction of the station.

  155

  10:48 A.M.

  DANNY AND ELENA CAME OUT INTO THE SMOKE through an emergency door on the ground floor of the Apostolic Library.

  “Left,” Danny commanded through his handkerchief, and Elena turned them that way along the narrow road to the gardens.

  “Harry,” Danny spoke urgently into the cell phone.

  Nothing.

  “Harry, can you hear me?”

  There was a hiss on the other end, as if the line were still open. Then:

  CLICK. The line went dead.

  “Dammit!” Danny said out loud.

  “What’s the matter?” Elena pressed, sudden fear for Harry jolting her.

  “Don’t know…”

  HARRY, HERCULES, AND MARSCIANO huddled in silence on Marsciano’s platform, peering over the side in the smoke.

  “You’re sure they’re there?” Harry said to Hercules.

  “Yes, down there just past the door.”

  Just as Hercules dropped from the roof to the platform he had seen two of the black suits take position on either side of the door. But now the settling smoke made it impossible to see.

  “Send them away.” Harry was suddenly pulling Anton Pilger’s two-way radio from his belt, giving it to Hercules.

  Taking it, Hercules clicked on, winking at Harry as he did. “They’ve come down the outside of the tower by rope!” he said urgently in Italian. “They’re moving toward the helipad!”

  “Va bene,”—Okay—a voice came back.

  “The helipad! The helipad!” Hercules barked for good measure, then abruptly shut the radio off.

  Beneath them was a scurrying, and then they glimpsed one man and then another move off at a dead run away from the tower.

  “Now!” Harry said.

  “Eminence,” Hercules said. The rope suddenly twisted in his hands; he made one loop and brought it over Marsciano’s shoulders, then a second around his waist. A moment later Hercules was balanced on the rail and Harry was helping Marsciano onto it. Then, turning it through the steel of the railing, he held on and stepped back, lowering both men to the ground.

  “Mr. Harry!” Hercules voice floated up. Harry saw the rope tighten from the ground and knew Hercules was guiding it. Taking hold, he swung up on the railing, then went over himself. An instant later, a shot rang out and the rope half severed. For a moment Harry just hung there, and then the rope broke and he dropped like a stone to the ground.

  The wind knocked out of him, he looked up at the sound of a scream. Hercules had a black suit at the edge of the bushes, his steellike arms around the man’s neck.

  “Look out!” Harry yelled.

  The black suit still had his gun, and Hercules didn’t see it. It was coming up against the side of Hercules’ head.

  “GUN!” Harry yelled again, pushing himself up, rushing up toward them.

  There was a tremendous report as the pistol went off just as Hercules wrenched. There was a hideous scream and both men fell back.

  Harry an
d Marsciano arrived at the same moment. The black suit lay still, his head twisted at a terrible angle. Hercules was on his back, blood covering half his face.

  “Hercules.” Harry moved quickly, kneeling down, looking at him. “Jesus God,” he whispered, his hand moving in to feel his neck for a pulse.

  Then Hercules opened one eye, and his hand reached up and wiped the blood from the other. Abruptly he sat up, blinking the blood away. A second wipe from his hand took a huge smear of the blood from his face. A clear flesh wound with the sheer white of a powder burn ran, like an arrow, up the side of it.

  “Can’t kill me,” he said. “Not like that.”

  In the distance came the sound of a train whistle. Finding a crutch, Hercules pulled himself up.

  “The engine, Mr. Harry.” Blood or not, Hercules eyes danced. “The engine!”

  156

  ADRIANNA CAME OUT OF THE BUILDING TO see Eaton running up the road behind St. Peter’s, then he vanished like a wisp in the smoke.

  “Skycam, what do you have on the engine?” she spat into the phone as she ran, cutting up the hill and across the grass toward the Palace of the Government, the Vatican’s city hall. She was three minutes, maybe four, from the railroad station.

  ELENA PULLED DANNY BACK into the overhang of a tree near the Church of San Stefano and waited for the helicopter to pass over. It did, then abruptly swung back toward the station.

  At the same moment, Danny’s cell phone chirped.

  “Harry—“

  “We have Marsciano with us. What about the engine?”

  Elena could feel the pound of her heart at Harry’s voice. He was all right, at least for the moment.