Part 9 (1/2)

ANGRILY ROSCANI SHOVED OPEN a side door and stepped into the morning sun. Its warmth should have been a welcome relief from the coldness of the rooms below, but it wasn't. Taking the long way around the building, he tried to let his emotions fade, but they didn't. Finally, he turned a corner and walked down a ramp to the street where he'd parked his car. Sadness and loss and anger were crus.h.i.+ng him.

Leaving his car, he stepped off the curb, waited for traffic to pa.s.s, then crossed the street and started to walk. He needed what he called ”a.s.soluta tranquillita,” a kind of splendid silence, that quiet time when he was alone and could think things through properly. Especially now, time alone to try and walk off the emotion, to begin to think things through as an investigator for Gruppo Cardinale, not as the shattered, enraged partner of Gianni Pio.

Time for silence and to think.

To walk and walk and walk.

23.

THOMAS KIND PULLED BACK A WINDOW CURTAIN and watched as the men in coveralls emerged from the building and took Harry Addison across the courtyard. He had what he needed from him, or at least as much as he knew he was going to get; now the men in coveralls simply needed to get rid of him.

HARRY COULD SEE only from his right eye. And that was more shadow than image. His left eye had no feeling or sight whatsoever. His other senses told him that he was outside and being walked across a hard surface by, he thought, two men. Somewhere he had the vaguest memory of sitting on a stool or something like it, of taking directions and saying words out loud that were spoken to him through an earphone by the same voice that had spoken to him before. He remembered that only because of the fuss someone else had made about fitting the device in his ear. Most of the argument was in Italian. But part had been fought in English. It was the wrong size. It wouldn't work. It would show.

Abruptly a male voice beside him spoke sharply in Italian-the same man, he thought, who had argued about the earphone while trying to fit it. A moment later, a hand shoved him from behind and he nearly stumbled. His recovery cleared his thoughts enough to tell him that while his hands were still bound behind him, his feet had been freed. He was walking on his own, and he thought he could hear traffic. His mind cleared to another level, telling him that if he could walk, he could run. The hand shoved him again. Hard. And he fell, crying out as he hit the ground and felt his face sc.r.a.pe the pavement. He tried to roll over, but a foot stamped on his chest, holding him there. Somewhere nearby came the sound of a man straining, then there was a clank, and he heard something heavy, like iron sc.r.a.ping stone, sliding past his ear. Then he was lifted up by his shoulders and put over an edge. His feet touched steel and he was forced down the rungs of a ladder. Instantly what little light there was faded, and stench dominated everything.

A second male voice farther off cursed and then echoed. There was the sound of rus.h.i.+ng water. The smell was overpowering. And then Harry knew. He'd been brought into the sewer. An exchange came in Italian.

”Prepararsi?”

”Si.”

Harry felt a jarring between his wrists. There was a snap, and his hands came free.

CLICK. The unmistakable metallic sound of a gun being c.o.c.ked.

”Sparagli. ”Shoot him.

In reflex reaction Harry stepped backward, throwing his hands in front of his face.

”Sparagli!”

Immediately there was a thundering explosion. Something slammed into his hand. Then his head. The force threw him backward into the water.

Harry did not see the face of the gunman who stepped over him. Or of the other man who held the flashlight. Harry did not see what they saw; the enormous volume of blood covering the left side of his face, matting his hair, a trickle of it was.h.i.+ng away in the flow of water.

”Morto,” a voice whispered.

”Si.”

The gunman knelt down and rolled Harry's body over the edge into a deeper, faster rush of water, then watched as it floated away.

”I topi faranno it resto.”

The mice will finish it.

24.

The Questura, police headquarters.

HARRY ADDISON SAT THERE, A BANDAGE OVER his left temple, dressed in the off-white polo s.h.i.+rt, jeans, and aviator sungla.s.ses he wore when he left the Hotel Ha.s.sler at little after one-thirty yesterday afternoon. Nearly thirty hours earlier.

The fifteen-second video of the fugitive Harry Addison had come anonymously to Sala Stampa della Santa Sede, the press office of the Holy See, at 3:45 that afternoon, with a request it be sent immediately to the pope. Instead it had been put on a shelf and not opened until approximately 4:50. Immediately it had been sent to Farel's office and, after being viewed by a junior staff member, sent to Farel himself. By six o'clock Farel, Gruppo Cardinale prosecutor Marcello Taglia, Roscani, along with Castelletti and Scala, the homicide detectives a.s.signed to Pio's murder, and a half dozen others were sitting in the dark of a video room viewing it together.

”Danny, I'm asking you to come in.... To give yourself up.” Harry spoke in English, and an interpreter from Roscani's office translated into Italian.

As far as they could tell, Harry was sitting on a wooden stool in a darkened room, alone. The wall behind him appeared to be covered with a textured and patterned wallpaper. That and Harry, his dark gla.s.ses, and the bandage on his forehead were all that was visible.

”They know everything.... Please, for me.... Come in... please.... Please...”There was a pause and Harry's head started to come up as if to say something more, then the tape abruptly ended.

”Why wasn't I told the priest might still be alive?” Roscani looked at Taglia and then Farel as the lights came up.

”I learned of it only moments before this video was brought to my attention,” Farel said. ”The incident happened yesterday, when the American asked that the casket be opened, and when it was, swore the remains were not those of his brother.... It could be the truth, it could be a lie.... Cardinal Marsciano was there. He felt the American was emotionally overwrought. It was only this afternoon, when he learned of the circ.u.mstances of Pio's death, he sent Father Bardoni to tell me.”

Roscani got up and crossed the room. He was irritated. This was something he should have been told of immediately. Besides, there was no love lost between him and Farel.

”And you and your people have no idea where the video came from.”

Farel's eyes locked on Roscani's and stayed there. ”If we knew, Ispettore Capo, we would have done something about it, don't you think?”

Taglia, slim and dressed in a dark pinstripe suit, and with a bearing that suggested an aristocratic upbringing, intervened and spoke for the first time.

”Why would he do it?”

”Ask for the casket to be opened?” Farel looked to Taglia.

”Yes.”

”From what I was told he was overcome with feeling; he wanted to see his brother to tell him good-bye.... Blood runs deep, even with murderers.... Then when he saw the body was not Father Daniel, he reacted in surprise, without thinking.”

Roscani came back across the room, working to ignore Farel's abrasiveness. ”Suppose that's true and he made a mistake-why, a day later, does he a.s.sume the man is still alive and beg him to come forward? Especially when he's wanted for murder himself?”

”It's a gamble,” Taglia said. ”They're worried that if he is alive, what he might reveal if he is caught. They have his brother call him in so they can kill him.”

”This same brother who so emotionally asked to look at a hideous corpse now wants to kill him?”

”Maybe that was the reason.” Farel sat back in his chair. ”Maybe it was more calculated than it appears. Maybe he had a sense that everything was not as it seemed.”

”Then why did he say so out loud? Father Daniel was officially dead. Why didn't he leave it that way? It's not likely the police would search for a dead man. If he were alive, he could have gone after him quietly.”