Day of Confession Part 43

The Tower of San Giovanni. Same time.

There was the cruel sound of the lock turning and then the door to Marsciano's apartment opened and Thomas Kind entered. Anton Pilger was in the hallway behind him, hands crossed in front of him, staring in. He stayed there as Kind crossed the room.

"Buon giorno, Eminence," he said. "If I may."

Marsciano stood back silently as Kind looked carefully around the room, then went into the bathroom. A moment later he came out and crossed to the gla.s.s doorway. Opening the doors, he stepped out onto the tiny balcony. Putting his hands on the railing, he looked down at the gardens below and then up, overhead, at the sheer brick wall leading to the roof.

Satisfied, he came back in and closed the gla.s.s doors and for a moment studied Marsciano.

"Thank you, Eminence," he said, finally. Crossing the room, he went out immediately, pulling the door closed behind him. Marsciano shuddered at the sound of the lock turning. By now it was a grating that had become almost unbearable.

Turning away, he wondered why the a.s.sa.s.sin had visited him for the third time in the last twenty-four hours, and each time had gone through the exact same motions.

146.

"WHEN YOU REACH THE FAR DOORWAY, TURN right," Danny said as Elena pushed him through the Room of the Popes, the last of the rooms of Borgia Apartments.

There was a rush and anxiousness to Father Daniel that Elena hadn't seen before. The abrupt turning in the hallway outside the men's rest room, the urgency in his voice now. It was more than concentration on what they were doing. It was fear.

Pa.s.sing through the doorway, she turned him right, as he had said, moving him down a long corridor. Halfway down on the left was an elevator.

"Stop there," Danny said.

Reaching it, they stopped and Elena pushed the b.u.t.ton.

"What's wrong, Father? Something happened-what is it?"

For a second Danny watched people move past, going from one gallery to another, then he looked up at her sharply. "Eaton and Adrianna Hall are in the museum looking for us. We can't be found by either of them."

Abruptly the elevator door opened. Elena started to push him in when they heard an all-too-familiar voice behind them.

"We will be first, if you don't mind."

Looking, they saw the pushy white-haired woman in the wheelchair and her dutiful middle-aged daughter from the shuttle bus. For the second time they were face-to-face with a couple from that bunch. And Danny wondered if it was a curse.

"Not this time, madam. I'm sorry." Danny looked at her with a glare and Elena pushed him into the elevator.

"Well, I never-," the woman ranted. "I shall not ride in same lift with you at all, sir."

"Thank you."

Danny leaned forward and punched a b.u.t.ton, and the door slid closed in the woman's face. As the elevator started down, Danny reached in his pocket and took out the set of keys Father Bardoni had given him in Lugano. Sliding one into a lock underneath the panel of elevator b.u.t.tons, he turned it.

Elena watched the elevator pa.s.s the ground floor and continue down. When it stopped, the door opened onto a dimly lit service corridor. Danny took the key out and pushed a b.u.t.ton that read LOCK LOCK.

"Okay. Out and to the left and then to the corridor immediately to the right."

Fifteen seconds later they were moving into a large mechanical room housing the museum's ma.s.sive ventilating equipment.

10:10 A.M A.M.

147.

THE MARBLE FLOORS, THE SMALL COVERED wooden benches, the semicircular rose marble altar with its bronze crucifix, the bright stained-gla.s.s ceiling. The Holy Father's private chapel.

How many times had Palestrina been here before? To pray alone with the pope or with the few select guests who might have been invited to join them. Kings, presidents, statesmen.

But this was the first time he had been summoned on the spur of the moment to pray alone with the Holy Father. And now as he came in, he found the pope seated in his bronze chair in front of the altar, head bent in prayer.

He looked up as Palestrina approached. Outstretching his hands, he took Palestrina's in his and studied him, his eyes intense and filled with worry.

"What is it?" Palestrina asked.

"This is not a good day, Eminence." The pope's voice was barely audible. "There is a sense of foreboding. And dread and fearfulness in my heart. It was there on arising and has sat perched on my shoulder ever since. I don't know what it is, but you are a part of it, Eminence... a part of whatever this darkness is...." The pope hesitated and his eyes probed Palestrina's. "Tell me what it is..."

"I do not know, Holiness. To me the day seems bright, and warm with the summer sun."

"Then pray with me that I am wrong, that it is only a feeling and will pa.s.s.... Pray for the salvation of the spirit..."

The pope stood from his chair and both men knelt before the altar. Palestrina bowed his head as Pope Leo XIV led them in prayer, knowing that whatever the Holy Father felt, he was wrong.

The forbidding horror that had begun in the early morning hours as Palestrina had waked from his nightmare of the disease-bringing spirits, even as Thomas Kind was calling to tell him of the situation with Li Wen, had turned suddenly and inconceivably to good fortune.

Less than an hour earlier, Pierre Weggen had called to tell him that despite the revelation that the lakes had been deliberately poisoned-by, in the official words of the Chinese, "a mentally ill co-worker and water-quality engineer"-Beijing had decided to go ahead with the ma.s.sive plan to rebuild the country's entire water-delivery system. It was a gesture designed to comfort and unite a traumatized, still-fearful, and unsettled nation, and at the same time show the world the central government remained in control. It meant that despite everything Palestrina's "Chinese Protocol" was in place and would not be turned back. In addition, what Thomas Kind had promised he had delivered-with the deaths of Li Wen and Chen Yin, any chance that a road might be discovered that would lead from China to Rome was closed forever. And under Thomas Kind's sure hand, the final chapter removing the last possible connection would soon be written here, inside the Vatican, as the moth comes to the flame-neither Father Daniel nor his brother were Death sent by the spirits, but simply a worry that had only to be eliminated.

So the Holy Father was mistaken, and the thing sitting perched on his shoulder was not the shadow of Palestrina's death but the emotional and spiritual infirmities of an old and fearful man.

148.

10:15 A.M A.M.

ROSCANI BIT DOWN RESTLESSLY ON A KNUCKLE and watched as the work engine came slowly down the track toward them. It was old and creaky with oily soot muddying most of the once bright green paint beneath.

"It's early," Scala said from the backseat.

"Early, late. At least it's here," Castelletti said, sitting in front with Roscani.

They were watching from Roscani's blue Alfa parked on the roadside halfway between the railroad spur to the gates in the Vatican wall and Stazione San Pietro. As the green engine drew closer, they could hear a grating of steel on steel as the engineer applied the brakes and the rumbling machine began to slow. A moment later it drifted past them, slowing even more. Then it stopped. A brakeman jumped from it and walked up the track to the spur. They saw him unlock a mechanical hand switch, then reach up and tug on a steel bar connecting it to the rail switches. A moment later he waved to the engine. There was a puff of brown diesel exhaust from the smokestack and it moved forward onto the spur. When it had gone far enough, the brakeman signaled, and it stopped. Then he threw the switch back the way it had been and climbed back onboard the engine.

Scala leaned forward against the front seat. "They go in now, it's going to f.u.c.k up everyone's timetable inside."

Castelletti shook his head. "They won't. It's the Vatican. They'll sit there until precisely the time it takes to open the gates and go inside at eleven on the dot. No Italian trainman is going to risk p.i.s.sing off the pope by being early or late."

Roscani glanced at Castelletti, then looked back to the work engine. He was increasingly troubled by what he had done. Maybe he had wanted justice too much and had let some part of him reason the Addisons could somehow deliver it to him. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized they were all crazy. And he most of all for letting it happen. The Addisons might think they were prepared for what they were getting into, but the truth was, they weren't, not when they were going up against Farel's black-suited secret service, never mind someone like Thomas Kind. The trouble was-and he knew it-his insight had come too late, the event had already begun.

10:17 A.M A.M.

Danny was out of his wheelchair and on the floor, his legs in the blue fibergla.s.s casts twisted out awkwardly from his body. In front of him was a large blanket of crumpled newspaper. On top of it, he placed the last of eight of the rolled olive-oil-and-rum-soaked rags, setting them side by side and approximately eight inches apart and directly in front of the main air intake for the Vatican museums' central ventilating system.

"Oorah!" Danny said to himself. "Oorah!" Ready to kill! The ancient Celtic battle cry the marines had taken as their own. It was both arousing and chilling and came from the soul. Everything to now had been the setup, here and now was where it all began. Emotionally he had shifted gears, working himself up to where he needed to be, his mind-set become that of a warrior.

"Oorah!" he said again under his breath as he finished, then looked over his shoulder to Elena standing at a work sink behind him, waiting with a battered galvanized bucket containing a dozen water-soaked equipment-maintenance towels.

"Ready?"

She nodded.

"Okay."

With a glance at his watch, Danny lit a match and touched it in turn to the rags. Instantly they caught, throwing up a cloud of oily brown smoke and igniting the newspapers. Twisting abruptly left, Danny picked up more of the crumpled newspapers and fed them on top of those already burning. In seconds he had a roaring inferno.

"Now!" he said.

Elena came in a rush. Wincing against the heat and flame, they took the wet towels from the bucket, laying them one by one across the top of the fire.

Almost instantly the flames died away. In their stead was a thick billow of heavy brown-and-white smoke, all of it drawn, not into the room, but into the ventilating system. Satisfied, Danny pushed back, and Elena helped him into the wheelchair. As she did, he looked up at her.

"Next," he said.

149.

10:25 A.M A.M.

HARRY STOOD IN THE DEEP SHADE OF PINE trees just east and north of the Carriage Museum, waiting until a gardener's electric cart pa.s.sed. When it did, he stepped out, cursing and fumbling with the stuck zipper on the waist pack inside his shirt. Finally, it came open and he reached in to take out a Ziploc bag. Opening it, he pulled out one of the rolled, oily rags, then closed the bag again and put it back in the waist pack.

In the distance near St. Peter's he could see two white-shirted Vigilanza patrolmen walking along the road away from him and toward the Ufficio Centrale di Vigilanza, the Vatican police station, a building that he now realized was probably no more than a hundred yards from the railroad station.

Harry watched for a half second more, then, quickly kneeling, he pulled together a large mound of pine needles, placed the rolled oily rag near the bottom and lit it. Immediately it flared up, igniting the tinder-dry needles around it. Counting to five, he smothered the fire with more pine needles. Instantly the flames turned to smoke. Then, as the flames flared again, he piled on several heavy armloads of soaking leaves gathered from beneath a freshly watered hedgerow nearby.

It was then he heard the first wail of warning sirens coming from the direction of the Vatican museums. Dumping a final armload of wet leaves onto the fire and seeing the smoke billow up, he glanced around, then walked quickly up the hill toward the Central Avenue of the Forest.

ELENA STARED BLANKLY ahead, waiting for the elevator to stop. She tried not to hear the sirens or think of the ma.s.s anxiety of the people or the damage the smoke might do to the priceless art-"little, if any," Father Daniel had told her. Then she realized the elevator had stopped and the doors were opening. As they did, the smell of smoke mixed with a clang of warning bells and shrieking fire alarms.

"Let's go!" Danny urged, and she pushed the wheelchair out into the corridor in front of them. Suddenly they were in a rush of frenzied tourists being urged on by white-shirted Vigilanza.

"The doors at the far end," Danny said.

"All right," Elena said. She could feel the adrenaline pump through her as she moved the wheelchair forward through the clamor and thickening smoke. Abruptly, and for no reason, her thoughts went to Harry and how he had looked at her without saying a word just as he and Hercules were leaving the apartment in the early-morning darkness. It was a look not of concern or even fear, but of love. Deep, even profound, there was no real way to describe it, except that it had been there and it had been for her, and it would stay with her for the rest of her life, wherever she was and no matter what happened.

"Out here," Danny said suddenly.

The urgency in his voice brought her back to the instant. She was following his direction, pushing him forcefully through a rush of people into an outer courtyard, the screaming sirens drowning out the yells of people pouring out the myriad of doors right along with them. She could see Danny opening the camera bag-taking out three of the oiled rags, then three matchbooks whose covers had been inserted with nonfiltered cigarettes that would act as fuses, and then the covers tucked back in again to hold the cigarettes tight.

"Over there." He was indicating the first of three large trash receptacles, each twenty yards apart.

Smoke was now drifting out from every open window and doorway. And everywhere people rushed and shoved to get out, afraid, yelling, uncertain.

Taking the matchbooks between oily fingers, Danny inserted them separately into the rags.

"Slow it up," he said as they neared the first trash container. Elena did. Danny lit a match to the first cigarette fuse, made certain it caught, then glancing around, dropped it into the receptacle.

"Okay."

They moved on to the second and did the same. And then again at the third.

Behind them the first cigarette burned down to the match pack. With a tiny whoosh whoosh it ignited, and, in turn, set fire to the oil-and-rum rag, setting the mess of collected refuse aflame. it ignited, and, in turn, set fire to the oil-and-rum rag, setting the mess of collected refuse aflame.

"Back inside," Danny yelled over the shriek of sirens and blaring alarms.

Elena wheeled the chair toward the nearest open doorway, where mountains of people continued to pour out with the smoke that was now heavier than ever.

They could see a half dozen helmeted, ax-carrying, and rubber-jacketed vigili del fuoco vigili del fuoco-Vatican firemen-running along the edge of the roof above them looking for flames. It meant that as yet they had not discovered the source of the smoke. Now one of them stopped and pointed and yelled something. They saw others stop, too, and look in the same direction. And they knew the other trash containers were burning as well.

Now they were at the doorway.

"Scusi!Scusi!" Elena yelled at the crowd, forcing the wheelchair into their midst. Miraculously, enough of them moved out of the way for her to push through. And then they were inside. Pushing along an interior hallway, moving with a river of people going that way, Elena saw Father Daniel pull the cell phone from his shirt pocket and dial.

"Harry-where are you?"

"Top of the hill. Number two is burning."

Harry was moving quickly through a heavy growth of conifers toward the northwest corner of the gardens, trying not to think that it was working and that only three of them were doing it. Planning, surprise, and determination of the individual, Danny had emphasized over and over, were at the heart of any successful guerrilla action, and so far he was right.

Fifty yards behind him he could see the towers of Vatican Radio. To his right, another fifty yards downhill, heavy smoke began to billow from behind a high hedge, where he had just been. Beyond that he could already see the smoke from his first fire rising slowly.

"No wind, Danny," Harry said into the cell phone. "All this stuff's going to hang around."

"You should be near the shut-off valves."

"Right."

Harry pushed through an opening in a protective hedge to find the plumber's Christmas tree, the low twist of piping that came up from underground and held the control valves for what appeared to be the main water shut-off. But, according to Danny, it wasn't; it was only an intermediary shut-off, aged and almost never used. And unless the maintenance engineers on duty were old-timers, they probably had no idea of its existence. Still, if one shut it down, it turned off the water to all of the Vatican from that point out, which meant to all of the buildings below, including St. Peter's, the museums, the Vatican palace, and the administrative buildings.

"I'm on top of them. Twin valves, one opposite the other."

ELENA TILTED DANNY BACKWARD in the chair, taking them down a flight of stairs and deeper into the smoke.

"How badly rusted?" Danny coughed strongly against the smoke.

"Can't tell." Harry's voice crackled through the phone.