Day of Confession Part 49

There Was One.

Other Thing- Los Angeles. August 5.

IN THE MIDST OF A RIOTOUS WORKLOAD AFTER his return-including hammering out a contract for a sequel to Dog on the Moon Dog on the Moon-and innumerable hour-long conversations with Elena in Italy as she prepared in body and soul to move to Los Angeles, Harry was increasingly troubled by the memories of a conversation he'd had with Danny on the drive from Maine back to Boston.

It had begun with Harry thinking about unanswered questions. And in light of his restored relationship with his brother and because of what they had experienced together and the secrets they still shared, he felt it completely natural to ask Danny to help him clarify a few things.

HARRY: You called me early Friday morning Rome time and left word on my answering machine that you were scared and didn't know what to do. "G.o.d help me!" you said.

DANNY: Right.

HARRY: I a.s.sume it was because you had just heard Marsciano's confession and were horrified by it and by what the repercussions might be.

DANNY: Yes.

HARRY: What if I had been home and had answered the phone?

Would you have told me about the confession?

DANNY: I was a mess, I don't know what I would have told you. That I had heard a confession, maybe. Not what was in it.

HARRY: But you didn't get me, so you left word and a few hours later you were on a bus to a.s.sisi. Why a.s.sisi? There was hardly a church inhabitable after the earthquakes.

(It was here Harry remembered Danny's beginning to get uncomfortable with his questions.) DANNY: It didn't make any difference. It was a terrible time, the bus was going and a.s.sisi was my solace. It always had been.... What are you getting at?

HARRY: That maybe it wasn't just solace, that maybe you were going there for another reason.

DANNY: Like what?

HARRY: Like to meet someone.

DANNY: Who?

HARRY: Eaton.

DANNY: Eaton?-Why would I be going all the way to a.s.sisi to see Eaton?

HARRY: You tell me...

DANNY: [Big smile.] You're wrong, Harry. It's that simple.

HARRY: He was trying very hard to get to you, Danny. By providing me with false papers he was sticking his neck way out. He could have gotten into a h.e.l.l of a lot of trouble if he got caught.

DANNY: It's the business he was in...

HARRY: He got killed trying to find you. Maybe even protect you.

DANNY: It's the business he was in...

HARRY: What if I said the real reason you went to a.s.sisi all those years was not for solace but to deliver information... to Eaton...

DANNY: [Big incredulous grin.] Are you suggesting I was the CIA's man in the Vatican?

HARRY: Were you?

DANNY: You really want to know?

HARRY: Yes.

DANNY: No.... Anything else?

HARRY: No...

But there was, and finally Harry had to find out. Closing his office door, he picked up the phone and called a friend at Time Time in New York. Ten minutes later he was talking to the magazine's CIA expert in the Washington bureau. in New York. Ten minutes later he was talking to the magazine's CIA expert in the Washington bureau.

What were the chances, he wanted to know, of the Central Intelligence Agency's having a mole inside the Vatican. The response was a laugh. Very unlikely, he was told. But possible? Yes, possible.

"Especially," the Time Time correspondent explained, "if someone a.s.signed to watch Italy was concerned about the Vatican's influence on the country, particularly after the Vatican banking scandals of the early 1980s." correspondent explained, "if someone a.s.signed to watch Italy was concerned about the Vatican's influence on the country, particularly after the Vatican banking scandals of the early 1980s."

"Banking-and/or where they had their"-Harry chose the word carefully-"investments?"

"Right.... Decide if that information was important enough, and if it was, then place an operative as close to the source as possible."

Harry felt the chill begin to slide down his spine. Close to the source Close to the source, he thought-as in private secretary to the cardinal who manages the Holy See's investments.

"Might," he went on, "this someone watching Italy be the Rome station chief?"

"Yes."

"Who would know about it?"

"There's a very guarded category of operative called HUMINTS-an acronym for Human Intelligence, people who are deep cover plants. Deeper still, and in a situation as sensitive as Vatican-U.S. relations more likely, are people known as NOCs-an acronym for Non-Official Covers. Operatives like this are so concealed and protected even the director of Central Intelligence might not know. A NOC would be recruited directly by someone like a station chief for a very precise positioning. In all likelihood they would have been recruited sometime earlier so that they could work their way to a position of trust with no suspicion whatsoever."

"Could an operative like this be... someone in the clergy?"

"Why not?"

HARRY DIDN'T REMEMBER getting off the phone, or leaving his office, or walking in the August heat and smog along Rodeo Drive or even where or how he crossed Wilshire Boulevard. All he knew was that somehow he was in Neiman-Marcus and a very attractive young woman was showing him ties.

"I don't think so." Harry shook his head at a proffered Hermes tie. "Why don't I just look around on my own..."

"Sure." The woman smiled at him with the kind of flirtatious glow he used to do something about. But not now, maybe not ever again. Today was Wednesday. Sat.u.r.day he was going back to Italy to meet Elena's family. Elena was all he thought about, saw in his dreams, felt with every breath. That was until now, after the phone call to the Time Time correspondent, and on the way here, when he had the sudden and all-too-clear memory of facing Thomas Kind in the Vatican railroad station and boldly telling him across his murderous machine pistol-"I know my brother better than he thinks." correspondent, and on the way here, when he had the sudden and all-too-clear memory of facing Thomas Kind in the Vatican railroad station and boldly telling him across his murderous machine pistol-"I know my brother better than he thinks."

NOC, Non-Official Cover-so concealed and protected even the director of Central Intelligence might not know.

Danny. Jesus H. Christ, maybe he didn't know him at all.

Acknowledgments.

FOR TECHNICAL INFORMATION AND ADVICE I am especially grateful to Alessandro Pansa, head of the Central Operative Service of the Italian National Police; Father Gregory Coiro, media relations director for the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles; Leon I. Bender, M.D.; Gerald Svedlow, M.D.; Niles Bond; Marion Rosenberg; Imara; Gene Mancini, senior biological consultant; Master Gunnery Sergeant Andy Brown and Staff Sergeant Douglas Fraser, United States Marine Corps; and Norton F. Kristy, Ph.D.

I am additionally grateful to Alessandro D'Alfonso, Wilton Wynn, Nicola Merchiori, and, particularly, Luigi Bernab, for their a.s.sistance in Italy.

I am indebted as well to Larry Kirshbaum and Sarah Crichton, and, as always, to the wizardry of Aaron Priest. Finally, a most particular thanks to Frances Jalet-Miller for her excellent suggestions and enduring patience in reworking the ma.n.u.script.