Part 40 (1/2)
There was a long silence, then, ”Fair,” Danny whispered.
”Okay... ,” Harry said and then, exhaustion overtaking him, turned to Elena. ”Where do I sleep?”
128.
The Vatican. The Tower of San Giovanni. Same time.
CARDINAL MARSCIANO SAT IN A STRAIGHT-backed armchair, staring trancelike at the television screen five feet in front of him. Its sound was still turned off. A commercial played now. It was animated. Whatever was being sold did not penetrate.
Across the room was the velvet purse Palestrina had left him. The hideous thing inside it affirmation, as if more were needed, of the secretariat's descent into total madness. Barely able to look at it let alone touch it, Marsciano had tried to get them to take it away, but Anton Pilger had merely stood in the doorway and refused, saying nothing could be brought in or taken out without specific orders, and there were none. With that he had said he was sorry and closed the door, the sound of the bolted lock as it clicked into place, by now, almost ear shattering.
Abruptly a graphic flashed on the television screen in front of Marsciano. It played over a map of China that highlighted both Wuxi and Hefei.
As of 10:20 As of 10:20 P.M P.M. Beijing time:WUXI, CHINA-FATALITIES: 1,700HEFEI, CHINA-FATALITIES: 87,553 Immediately the picture cut to Beijing. A field reporter was standing in Tiananmen Square.
Marsciano picked up the remote: CLICK.
The sound came up. The reporter was speaking in Italian: A major announcement regarding the disasters in Hefei and Wuxi was imminent, he said. Speculation centered on an announcement to the provinces of an immediate and ma.s.sive rebuilding of China's entire water and power infrastructures.
CLICK.
The reporter spoke on in silence. Marsciano put down the remote. Palestrina had won. He had won, yet there was still to be a third city, another ma.s.s poisoning. What h.e.l.l was this?
Seeing what had already happened, knowing what was yet to come, Marsciano closed his eyes and wished Father Daniel had had died in the bus explosion, so that he never would have known of the horror caused by Marsciano's loathsome weakness and inaction against Palestrina. Wished he had died then rather than be killed here by Farel's thugs when he came looking for Marsciano-after China had already happened. died in the bus explosion, so that he never would have known of the horror caused by Marsciano's loathsome weakness and inaction against Palestrina. Wished he had died then rather than be killed here by Farel's thugs when he came looking for Marsciano-after China had already happened.
Turning from the cold cruelty of the television screen, Marsciano looked across the room. Early-afternoon sunlight radiated through the gla.s.s door, beckoning him toward it. Besides sleep and prayer, the door had been his only solace. From it, he could look out over the Vatican gardens and see a pastoral world of peace and beauty.
Going there now, he pulled aside the curtains to stand at the gla.s.s, watching the sunlight stream through the trees to make a grand chiaroscuro of the landscape beneath. In a moment he would turn from the doorway to kneel at his bed and beg-as he had so often in the last days and hours-G.o.d's forgiveness for the terror he had helped create.
His mind on his prayers, he was about to turn back when suddenly the beauty he looked upon vanished. What he saw in its place shook him to his soul. It was an image he had seen a hundred times before, but never had it filled him with the revulsion it did now.
Two men walked toward him along a gravel pathway. One was huge physically and wore black. The other was older and much smaller and dressed in white. The first was Palestrina. The other, the one in white, was the Holy Father, Giacomo Pecci, Pope Leo XIV.
Palestrina was animated as they walked. Chatting, gesturing with infectious energy. As if the world and everything in it were filled with joy. While the pope, beside him, was, as always, enamored by his charisma and utterly trusting. And because of it, wholly blind to the truth.
As they drew closer, Marsciano felt a chill creep across his shoulders and ease like frozen breath down his spine. For the first time, and with profound horror, he saw who this scugnizzo scugnizzo, this common street urchin from Naples, as Palestrina called himself, really was.
More than a grand, beloved, and all-persuasive politician. More than a man who had risen to the second most powerful position in the Roman Catholic Church. More, even, than a corrupt, increasingly mad, and paranoid being, prime architect of one of the most gruesome civilian ma.s.sacres in history. The smiling, ruddy-cheeked, white-haired giant who walked through Eden's dappled sunlight with the Holy Father ravished in his spell was darkness itself, a whole and complete incarnation of evil.
129.
8:35 P.M P.M.
”MR. HARRY!” HERCULES BLURTED AS HARRY opened the door to Piano 3a and Roscani gestured for him to enter. In complete surprise the dwarf swung into the apartment on his crutches, with Roscani, Scala, and Castelletti following.
Closing the door and locking it, Castelletti remained alongside it while Scala, with a glance at Danny and Elena, walked off and through the rest of the apartment.
”The climbing rope you asked for is in the hallway outside,” Roscani said.
Harry nodded, then looked to Hercules hanging on his crutches in front of Castelletti, open-mouthed and totally baffled.
”Come in and sit down, please.... This is my brother, Father Daniel, and this is Sister Elena... ,” he said to both Roscani and Hercules, introducing the priest in a wheelchair and an attractive young woman beside him as if both men had been invited there for dinner.
Hercules followed Harry across the room as bewildered as ever and with no idea at all of what was going on. All he knew was that he'd been suddenly hustled away from a work detail in the central jail and told he was being transferred to another prison. Fifteen minutes later he was being whisked across Rome in the backseat of a dark blue Alfa Romeo with the top cop of Gruppo Cardinale sitting next to him.
”n.o.body else,” Scala said, coming back into the room, looking at Roscani. ”One door through the kitchen to a rear stairway. Single-bolt lock on the door. Anybody tries to come in from the roof, he's going to have to break gla.s.s and make a lot of noise doing it.”
Roscani nodded, then, with a studied glance at Danny as if he were trying to get the measure of him, looked to Harry. ”Hercules is signed out in a transfer from one jail to another. The paperwork got mixed up on the way.... This time tomorrow, I want him back.”
”This time tomorrow you may have all of us,” Harry said. ”What about the handgun?”
Roscani hesitated, then abruptly looked to Scala and nodded. Opening his jacket, Scala took a semiautomatic pistol from his waistband and gave it to Harry.
”Nine-millimeter Calico parabellum. Sixteen-shot magazine,” he said in heavily accented English. Then he pulled a second clip from his pocket and gave it to Harry as well.
”The serial numbers have been filed off,” Roscani said flatly. ”If you get caught, you don't remember where you got it. If you say anything about what's gone on here, it will be denied completely and your trial will become more difficult than you could ever imagine.”
”We've only met once, Ispettore Capo,” Harry said. ”The day you picked me up at the airport.... The others here have never seen you...
Roscani's eyes crossed the room. He looked at Hercules. At Elena. Then at Danny and, finally, at Harry.
”Tomorrow,” he said, ”the freight car is to be taken from the Vatican to a siding between Stazione Trastevere and Stazione Ostiense, where it will be left to be picked up later. We will follow it the entire way. When the work engine leaves, we will come in.
”As for the rest.... My advice is to avoid Farel's men at all cost.... There are too many and they have too much communication...”
Roscani slipped a 5 7 color photograph from his inside jacket pocket and gave it to Harry.
”This is Thomas Kind, as of three years ago. I don't know if it will help, because he changes his appearance as often as most of us change clothes. Dark hair, blond, man, woman-he speaks a half dozen languages. If you see him-”
”Roscani.” Harry cut him off. He was staring at the photograph the policeman had given him, remembering the face, where he had seen it before. It had been illuminated for a split second just after the ear-shattering roar of gunshots. Pale and cruel with the deepest blue eyes he had ever seen. ”It was him,” he said, looking up to Roscani. ”It was Thomas Kind who shot Pio.”
For the longest moment Roscani was silent, then he finished what he had started to say before. ”If you see him, don't even think, just pull the trigger. And keep pulling it until he's dead. Then walk away. Let Farel take credit for it.” Roscani paused and glanced around the room. ”One of us will be outside all night if you need us.”
Harry nodded. ”Thank you,” he said and meant it.
Roscani glanced once more at the others. ”Buona fortuna, ”he said, then looked to Scala and Castelletti.
A moment later the door closed behind them and they were gone.
Buona fortuna. Good luck.
130.
Wuxi, China. Friday, July 17, 3:20 A.M A.M.