Part 32 (1/2)

”He collapsed here, in my office, early this evening after attending a meeting at the Chinese Emba.s.sy. The doctors believe it to be a simple case of exhaustion. But they are not certain. As a result he is being kept under observation.”

”Where is he?”

”Here, on the Vatican grounds,” Palestrina said. ”The guest apartments in the Tower of San Giovanni.”

”Why is he not in a hospital?” From the corner of his eye, Father Bardoni saw Farel step forward to stand near him.

”Because I chose to keep him here. Because of what I believe to be the reason for his 'exhaustion'...”

”Which is?”

”The ongoing dilemma of Father Daniel.” Palestrina watched the priest carefully. So far he was showing no outward display of emotion, even now, at the mention of Father Daniel.

”I don't understand.”

”Cardinal Marsciano has sworn he was dead. And perhaps he still does not believe, as the police do, that he is not. Moreover, new evidence suggests that Father Daniel not only lives but is well enough to continually avoid the authorities. All of which means that he is probably able to communicate in one way or another-”

Palestrina paused, looking at the priest directly, making certain there would be no confusion interpreting what he said next.

”How joyous it would make Cardinal Marsciano to see Father Daniel alive. But since he is under the care of physicians and unable to travel, it follows that Father Daniel should come, or be brought, if it is necessary, to visit him here, at the apartments of San Giovanni.”

It was here that Father Bardoni faltered, casting a quick, furtive glance at Farel-a sudden, instinctive reaction, to see if Farel fully sided with Palestrina and backed Marsciano's imprisonment. And from his cold, impa.s.sive stare, there was no doubt whatsoever that he did. Recovering, he looked back to Palestrina, incensed.

”You are suggesting that I know where he is? And could get that message to him? That I could somehow engineer his coming to the Vatican?”

”A box is opened,” Palestrina said easily. ”A moth flies out.... Where does it go? Many people ask that same question and hunt for it. But it is never found because, at the last minute, it moves, and then moves again, and then again. Most difficult when it is either ill or injured. That is, unless it has help... from someone sympathetic, a famous writer perhaps, or someone in the clergy... and is attended to by a gentle hand schooled in such things. A nurse perhaps, or a nun, or one and the same... a nursing sister from Siena-Elena Voso.”

Father Bardoni didn't react. Simply stared, vacantly, as if he had no idea what the secretariat of state was talking about. It was a deliberate orchestration to cover his earlier lapse, but it was too late, and he knew it.

Palestrina leaned forward. ”Father Daniel is to come in silence. To speak with no one.... Should he be caught along the way, his answer-to the police, to the media, even to Taglia or Roscani-is that he simply does not remember what happened...”

Father Bardoni started to protest, but Palestrina held up a hand to silence him, and then he finished, his voice just loud enough to be heard.

”Understand-that for every day Father Daniel does not come, Cardinal Marsciano's mental outlook will worsen.... His health declining with his spirit, until there comes a point where”-he shrugged-”it no longer matters.”

”Eminence.” Father Bardoni was suddenly curt. ”You are speaking to the wrong man. I have no more idea where Father Daniel is or how to reach him than you.”

Palestrina stared for a moment, then made the sign of the cross. ”Che Dio ti protegga, ”he said. May G.o.d protect you.

Immediately Farel crossed to the door and opened it. Father Bardoni hesitated, then stood and walked past Farel and out into the darkness.

Palestrina watched the door as it closed. The wrong man? No, Father Bardoni was not. He was Marsciano's courier and had been all along. The one responsible for getting Father Daniel out of the hands of medical personnel and to Pescara after the bus explosion and guiding his movements ever since. Yes, they had suspected-followed him, had his phone line tapped, even suspected he was the man who had hired the hydrofoil in Milan. But they had been unable to prove anything. Except he had erred in glancing at Farel, and this had been enough. Palestrina knew Marsciano commanded strong loyalty. And if Marsciano had trusted enough in Father Daniel to confess to him, he would have trusted in Father Bardoni to help save the American's life. And Father Bardoni would have responded.

And so, he was not the wrong man, but the right one. And because of it, Palestrina was certain his message would be sent.

3:00 A.M A.M.

Palestrina sat at a small writing table in his bedroom. He was dressed in sandals and a silk scarlet robe that, with his physical poise and enormous size and his great mane of white hair, gave him the look of a Roman emperor. On the table in front of him were the early editions of a half dozen world newspapers. In each the lead story was the ongoing tragedy in China. To his right, a small television tuned to World News Network showed live coverage from Hefei, at the moment the picture was of truckloads of troops of the People's Liberation Army entering the city. They were dressed in coveralls, their hands gloved, their wrists and ankles taped, their faces hidden by bright orange filtration masks and clear protective goggles to safeguard-as a similarly dressed on-camera correspondent explained-against the transfer of bodily fluids and the spread of disease as they rushed to help manage the still-multiplying volumes of dead.

Glancing off, Palestrina looked at the bank of phones at his elbow. Pierre Weggen, he knew, was at this moment in Beijing in a friend-to-friend conversation with Yan Yeh. Solemnly-and with no hint whatsoever that the idea was any other than his alone-Weggen would be laying the early seeds of Palestrina's blueprint to rebuild all of China's water systems. He was trusting the Swiss investment banker's station and longtime a.s.sociation with the president of the People's Bank of China would be enough for the Chinese businessman to embrace the idea and take it directly to the general secretary of the Communist Party.

Whatever happened, when the meeting was ended and the proper courtesies had been said, Weggen would call and let him know. Palestrina glanced at his bed. He should sleep, but he knew it was impossible. Standing, he went to his dressing room and changed into his familiar black suit and white clerical collar. Moments later he left his private apartments.

Purposely taking a service elevator, he went unseen to the ground floor, and from there out a side door and into the dark of the formal gardens.

He walked for an hour, maybe more, lost in thought, doing little more than wandering. Along the Avenue of the Square Garden to the Central Avenue of the Forest and then back, pausing for some time at Giovanni Vasanzio's seventeenth-century sculpture Fontana dell' Aquilone Fontana dell' Aquilone, the Fountain of the Eagle. The eagle itself, the uppermost piece on the fountain-the heraldic symbol of the Borghese, the family of Pope Paul V-was, to Palestrina, something entirely different: symbolic, enormously personal and profound, it brought him to ancient Persia and the edge of his other life, touching his entire being in a way nothing else could. From it, he drew strength. And from that strength came power and conviction and the cert.i.tude that what he was doing was right. The eagle held him there for some time and then finally released him.

Vaguely, he drew away, moving off in the dark. In time, he pa.s.sed the two INTELSAT earth stations for Vatican Radio and then the tower building itself, and then continued on, across the endless green stage maintained by an army of full-time gardeners, through ancient groves and pathways, along the manicured lawns. Past the magnolias, the bougainvillaeas. Under the pines and palms, oaks and olives. Past seeming miles of carefully trimmed hedges. Surprised now and then by a shower of water thrown up by the b.o.o.by traps of nighttime sprinklers set on automatic timers with no mind but the inching of the clock.

And then a lone thought turned him back. In the faint light of day, Palestrina approached the entry to the yellow-brick building that was Vatican Radio. Opening the door, he climbed the interior steps to the upper tower and then stepped out onto its circular walkway.

Resting his ma.s.sive hands on the edge of the battlement, he stood and watched day begin to rise over the Roman hills. From there he could view the city, the Vatican Palace, St. Peter's, and much of the Vatican gardens. It was a favorite place and one that not so coincidentally provided physical security should he ever need it. The building itself was on a hill some distance from the Vatican proper and therefore easily defended. The exterior walkway where he stood encircled the entire building, putting anyone approaching in clear view; and gave him a vantage point from which he could direct his defenders.

It was a fanciful sentiment perhaps, but one he took increasingly to heart. Especially in light of the singular thought that had brought him there-Farel's observation that Father Daniel was like the cat that had not used up its lives, the one man alone who could make him lose China. Before, Father Daniel had been an unwelcome glitch, a festering sore to be eliminated. That he had been able to elude both Thomas Kind and all of Roscani's men, and continued to do so, touched a chord deep in Palestrina that terrified him-his secret belief in a dark and pagan netherworld and the mystic depraved spirits who dwelled there. These spirits, he was certain, were responsible for the sudden onslaught of crippling fever and his subsequent cruel death at the age of thirty-three when he lived as Alexander. If it were they who were guiding Father Daniel- ”No!” Palestrina said out loud, then deliberately turned from his perch and left, walking back down the stairs and out into the gardens. He would not allow himself to think of the spirits, now or ever again. They were not real but rather of his own imagination, and he would not let his own imagination destroy him.

104.

Hefei, China. Wednesday, July 15, 11:40 A.M A.M.

BUREAUCRACY AND CONFUSION AND HIS OWN position as water-quality inspector had delayed Li Wen from leaving the filtration plant. But finally he had done so by simply walking out of the angry turmoil of arguing politicians and scientists, and leaving. And now, heavy briefcase in one hand, the other pressing a handkerchief against his nose in a futile attempt to keep out the stench of decaying bodies, he worked his way up Changjiang Lu. Walking in the street one moment, on the sidewalk the next. Alternately moving between a flow of backed-up ambulances and emergency vehicles and the hordes of frightened, confused people desperate to find a way out of the city, or looking for relatives, or waiting in dread to feel the first chills and nausea that meant the water they had drunk earlier, that they had been told was safe, had poisoned them, too. And most were doing all three at the same time.

Another block and he pa.s.sed the Overseas Chinese Hotel, where he had stayed and left his suitcase and clothing. The hotel was no longer a hotel but now Anhui Province's Anti-Poisoning Headquarters; it had been taken over in a matter of hours, with guests abruptly thrown out of their rooms, their luggage hurriedly stacked near the front of the lobby, some of it spilling out onto the street. But even if he had time, Li Wen would not go back there anyway. There were too many people who might recognize him, stop to ask him questions, delay him further. And the one thing Li Wen could not afford was further delay.

Head down, doing his best to avoid looking at the horror-stricken faces of the people around him, he walked the few remaining blocks to the railroad station, where army trucks waited in long lines to pick up the hundreds of soldiers arriving by train.

Soaked with sweat, lugging his briefcase, he pushed around soldiers and dodged military police, each step becoming more laborious than the last, as his decidedly out-of-shape forty-six-year-old body battled the strain of the last days, the persistent heat, and the putrid, inescapable odor of rotting corpses, which, by now, permeated everything. Finally, he reached the jicun chu jicun chu, the left-luggage room, and collected the battered suitcase he'd checked early Monday when he'd first arrived; a suitcase containing the chemicals he would need to prepare more of his ”s...o...b..a.l.l.s.”

Doubly weighted now, he went back into the station, pushed through the platform entrance gate, and walked another fifty yards to the track area already jammed with refugees waiting for the next trains out. In fifteen minutes his train would come. The soldiers arriving on it would pile off, and he and the others would rush on. Because he was a government official, he would have a seat and for that he was extraordinarily grateful. After that, he could sit back and for a time relax. The trip to Wuhu would take nearly two hours, and then he would change trains for Nanjing, where he would spend the night at the Xuanwu Hotel on Zhongyang Lu as planned. It was there he would rest and let himself begin to feel his accomplishment and sense of retribution over the hated, dogmatic government that had so long ago killed his father and robbed him of his childhood.

Feel it and enjoy it, and wait to receive the order that would send him to his next objective.

105.

Bellagio. Gruppo Cardinale Headquarters, Villa Lorenzi. Wednesday, July 15, 6:50 A.M A.M.

s.h.i.+RT OPEN AT THE NECK, HIS JACKET OFF, Roscani looked out across the grand ballroom. A skeleton staff worked as they had in the hours since midnight, when, at the lack of any action at all, he had sent only the most critical of them off to the second floor to sleep in the cots brought in by the army. Personnel were still out in the field, and Castelletti had taken off in the helicopter at first light, while Scala had left before then to go back to the grotto with two of the Belgian Malinois and their handlers, still not convinced that they had searched all of it.

At two A.M A.M. Roscani had put in a call for an additional eight hundred Italian Army troops and then gone to bed himself. By three-fifteen he was up and showered and back in the same clothes he had worn for two days. By four he'd decided they'd all had enough.

At six A.M A.M. an announcement was broadcast over local radio and television and read in early parish ma.s.ses. In exactly two hours, at eight o'clock sharp, the Italian Army would stage a ma.s.sive door-to-door search of the entire area. The phrasing had been simple and direct: the fugitives were there and would be uncovered, and anyone found harboring them would be considered an accomplice and prosecuted accordingly.

Roscani's move was more than a threat, it was a ploy to make the fugitives think they might have a chance if they made their move before the deadline, and it was why Gruppo Cardinale police and army troops had moved into position a full thirty minutes before the announcement was made; silently watching and waiting, hoping one or all of them would cut from their hiding places and run.

6:57.