Day of Confession Read online

  “Yes,” he said finally. “Pescara. I’m leaving now.”

  33

  7:50 A.M.

  “WARM TEA,” HERCULES SAID. “CAN YOU SWALLOW?”

  “Yes…,” Harry nodded.

  “Put your hands around it.”

  Hercules guided the cup to him and helped Harry grasp it, the bandage on his left hand, like an oversized mitten, making what should have been a simple process awkward.

  Harry drank and gagged.

  “Terrible, isn’t it? Gypsy tea. Strong and bitter. Drink it anyway. It will help you heal and bring back your sight.”

  Harry hesitated, then took the tea down in a series of long gulps, trying not to taste it. Hercules watched him carefully as he drank, moving from side to side and then back again as an artist might while studying a subject. When he was finished, Hercules snatched the cup away.

  “You are not you.”

  “What?”

  “You are not Father Daniel but his brother.”

  Harry put an elbow under himself and raised up. “How do you know that?”

  “First, from the picture on the passport. Second, because the police are looking for you.”

  Harry started. “The police?”

  “It was on the radio. You are wanted for murder—not the one your brother is wanted for. The cardinal vicar, that’s a big one. But yours is big enough.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The policeman, Mr. Harry Addison. The police detective named Pio.”

  “Pio is dead?”

  “You did a good job.”

  “I did a—?”

  In an instant it came back. Pio glancing in the mirror of the Alfa Romeo. Then sliding his gun onto the seat. At the same time Harry saw the truck directly in front of them. Heard his own voice scream for Pio to look out!

  And now another part of it returned too. Something he hadn’t remembered until this moment. It was a sound. Terribly loud. A thunderous boom that repeated quickly. A gun being fired.

  And then he remembered the face. There and then gone, like a flashbulb illuminating something for a millisecond. It had been pale and cruel. With a half smile. And then, for some reason, although he didn’t know why, he remembered the deepest blue eyes he had ever seen.

  “No…,” Harry said, his voice barely audible. Stunned, his eyes found Hercules.

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “It makes no difference, Mr. Harry, if you did or you didn’t…. All that matters is the authorities think you did. Italy has no capital punishment, but the police will find a way to kill you anyhow.”

  Suddenly Hercules pulled himself up. Leaning on his crutch, he looked down at Harry. “They say you are a lawyer. From California. You make money from movie stars and are very rich.”

  Harry lay back. So that was it. Hercules wanted money and was going to extort it from him, threatening him with the police. And why not? Hercules was a common criminal living in filth under the Metro, and Harry had fallen into his lap. And whatever reason he had had for saving his life, with the new turn of events, he suddenly found he had saved a golden goose.

  “I have some money, yes. But I can’t get it without the police knowing where I am. So, even if I wanted to give it to you, I couldn’t.”

  “It does not matter.” Hercules leaned closer and grinned. “You have a price on you.”

  “Price?”

  “The police have offered a reward. One hundred million lire. About sixty thousand dollars, U.S. A lot of money, Mr. Harry—especially to those who have none.”

  Finding his other crutch, Hercules abruptly turned his back and pushed off as he had earlier, swinging away into the darkness.

  “I didn’t kill him!” Harry shouted.

  “The police will kill you anyway!” Hercules’ voice echoed until it was lost in the distant rumbling of a Metro train passing at the end of his private tunnel. Afterward came the sound of the great door as it opened and thudded closed.

  And then there was silence.

  34

  Cortona, Italy.

  THE PLACE WHERE THEY BROUGHT MICHAEL Roark was not a hospital but a private home—Casa Alberti, a restored, three-story stone farmhouse, named for an ancient Florentine family. Sister Elena saw it through the early mist as they drove through the iron gate and started up the long gravel drive.

  Leaving Pescara they had circumvented the A14 Autostrada, taken the A24, and then rejoined the A14 to the north. Driving along the Adriatic coast to San Benedetto and then Civitanova Marche, they turned west sometime after midnight, later passing Foligno, Assisi, and Perugia before climbing into the hills to find Casa Alberti just east of the ancient Tuscan city of Cortona at daybreak.

  Marco had unlocked the gate and opened it, walking up the drive in front of the van as Luca drove toward the house. Pietro, following in his car, had locked the gate behind them, then gone into the house first, checking it carefully before turning on the lights and letting them in.

  Elena had watched without a word as, a few moments later, Marco and Luca carried the gurney up the steps and into the house and then up to the large second-floor suite that was to become Michael Roark’s hospital room. Opening the shuttered window, she had seen see the red globe of the sun just beginning to rise over the farmland in the distance.

  Now, below her, Pietro came out of the house and moved his car to the front of the van so that it blocked the driveway, as if to make it all but impossible for another vehicle to get past and up to the house. Then she heard the engine stop and saw Pietro walk to the trunk and take out a shotgun. A moment later, he yawned and got back in the car with the door open, then folded his arms over his chest and went to sleep.

  “Do you need anything?”

  Marco stood in the doorway behind her.

  “No.” She smiled.

  “Luca will sleep in the room upstairs. I will be down in the kitchen if you need me.”

  “Thank you…”

  Marco looked at her and then left, closing the door behind him. Almost at once, Elena felt her own weariness. She had dozed off and on during most the trip, but her senses and thoughts had kept her on edge. Now they were here at the Casa, and the thought of sleep was suddenly and overwhelmingly seductive.

  To her right was a large bathroom with a tub and separate shower. To the left was a small nook with a bed and closet and a room divider for privacy.

  In front of her Michael Roark was in a deep sleep. The trip, she knew, had exhausted him. He’d remained awake for a good deal of it. His eyes going from her to the men in the van and then back to her, as if he were trying to understand where he was and what was happening. If he’d been afraid, she hadn’t seen it, but perhaps it was because of her constant reassurance, telling him her name and his, over and over, and the names of the men who were with them, friends taking him to a place where he could rest and recover. And then an hour or two before they’d arrived at the farmhouse, he’d fallen into the sound sleep he was in now.

  Opening the medicine kit Marco had brought up and set on the chair, she took out the arm wrap with its pump and gauge and took his blood pressure, studying him as she did. His face beneath the bandages covering his head was gaunt, and she knew he had lost weight. She wondered what he had looked like before. What he might look like again when he began to recover and take solid food and rebuild his strength.

  Finishing, she stood, and put the blood pressure gauge away. His blood pressure was the same as it had been that afternoon, the same as it had been when she’d first arrived in Pescara. Not better. Not worse. Simply unchanged. She marked it on his chart, then took off her habit, pulled on the light cotton sleeping gown, and got into bed, hoping to close her eyes for forty-five minutes or at most an hour. As she did, she looked at her watch.

  It was eight-twenty in the morning, Friday, July 10.

  35

  Rome. Same time.

  CARDINAL MARSCIANO WATCHED THE PRESS conference on a small television in his library. It was l
ive, impromptu, and filled with anger. Marcello Taglia, the man in charge of Gruppo Cardinale, had been cornered as his car entered police headquarters, and he had stepped out to confront the mass of reporters and respond to their questions head on.

  Where the videotape of the American attorney Harry Addison had come from he did not know, Taglia said. Nor did he have any idea who had leaked it to the press. Nor did he know who had leaked the photograph and speculation surrounding Addison’s brother, Father Daniel Addison, a prime suspect in the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome and thought killed in the bombing of the Assisi bus, but now possibly alive and in hiding somewhere in Italy. And, yes, it was true, a reward of one hundred million lire had been offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of either of the American brothers.

  Abruptly the cameras cut away from Taglia and went to the television studio, where an attractive anchorwoman behind a glass desk introduced the video of Harry. When it was over, photographs of both brothers were put on the screen and a telephone number given that anyone seeing either man could call.

  CLICK

  Marsciano turned off the television and stared at the empty screen, his world darker yet. It was a world that in the following hours could become even more impossible, if not unbearable.

  Shortly he would sit before the four other cardinals who made up the commission overseeing the investments of the Holy See and present the new, and intentionally misleading, investment portfolio for ratification.

  At one-thirty the meeting would break, and Marsciano would take the ten-minute walk from Vatican City to Armari, a small family-run trattoria on Viale Angelico. There, in a private upstairs room, he would meet with Palestrina to report on the outcome. It was an outcome upon which rested not only Palestrina’s “Chinese Protocol” but also Marsciano’s own life, and with it, the life of Father Daniel.

  Purposefully he had fought to keep the thought from his mind for fear it would weaken him and show him as desperate when he went before the cardinals. But, as the clock ticked forward, and as much as he battled to keep it locked away, the memory crept forward, chillingly, almost as if Palestrina had willed it.

  And then, with a rush, it was there, and he saw himself in Pierre Weggen’s office in Geneva the evening of the day that the Assisi bus had exploded. The phone had rung, and the call was for him. It was Palestrina informing him, in one breath, that Father Daniel had been on the bus and was presumed dead; and, in the next—Father in heaven! Marsciano could still feel the awful stab of Palestrina’s words delivered in a voice so calm they were like the brush of silk—“the police have found sufficient evidence to prove Father Daniel guilty of the assassination of Cardinal Parma.”

  Marsciano remembered his own shout of outrage and then seeing Weggen’s quiet grin in response, as if the investment banker knew full well the content of Palestrina’s call, and then the continuing voice of Palestrina as he went on unmoved.

  “Moreover, Eminence, if your presentation to the council of cardinals should fail, resulting in the investment proposal voted down, the police will soon discover that the road from Parma’s murder does not end with Father Daniel but leads directly to you. And I can safely surmise that the first question the investigators will ask is if you and the cardinal vicar were lovers. A denial, of course, would be futile, because there would be sufficient evidence—notes, letters of a lurid and very personal sort, found in the private computer files of you both…. Think then, Eminence, of seeing your face and his on the cover of every newspaper and magazine, on every television screen around the globe…. Think of the repercussions throughout the Holy See, and the utter disgrace it would bring to the Holy Church.”

  Trembling and horrified, and certain without doubt who had been responsible for the bombing of the bus, Marciano had simply hung up. Palestrina was everywhere. Twisting the screw, tightening his hold. Efficient, controlled, ruthless. Larger, more terrifying and detestable than Marsciano could ever have imagined.

  TURNING IN HIS CHAIR, Marsciano looked out the window. Across the street he could see the gray Mercedes waiting to take him from his apartment to the Vatican. His driver was new and a favorite of Farel’s, the baby-faced plainclothes member of the Vatican police, Anton Pilger. His housekeeper, Sister Maria-Louisa, was new as well. As were his secretaries and office manager. Of his original staff only Father Bardoni remained, and only because he knew how to access computer files and understood the shared database with Weggen’s Geneva office. Once the new portfolio was accepted, Marsciano was certain Father Bardoni would be gone, too. He was the last of the truly loyal, and his going would leave Marsciano wholly alone in the nest of Palestrina’s vipers.

  36

  HARRY MOVED UNSTEADILY IN THE DARKness, his head still aching from the smack of the ricocheting bullet, his back against the rough of the tunnel wall, with his good hand stretched out along it trying to find Hercules’ great door. He had to get out before the dwarf came back. Who knew what he would bring with him when he did? Friends? The police? What must sixty thousand dollars mean to a creature like him?

  Where was the door? It couldn’t be this far. What if he had gone past it in the dark?

  He stopped. Listening. Hoping for the distant rumble of a Metro train that might give him some clue to where he was.

  Silence.

  It had taken most of his strength just to dress, collect Danny’s things, and get out of Hercules’ den. What he would do once he was out and away he didn’t know, but anything was better than staying there and waiting for whatever Hercules had planned.

  Behind and in front was blackness. Then he saw it. A pinpoint of light in the distance. The end of the tunnel. He felt relief shudder through him. Back against the wall he started toward it. The light became brighter. He walked faster. Now his foot touched something hard. He stopped. Put his foot up to feel it. Steel. It was a rail. He looked back. The light was closer. He flashed on the machine of torture his captors had used. It couldn’t be the same. Where was he? Had he never left there at all?

  Then he felt the ground rumble under him. The light was racing toward him. Then he knew! He was in a live tunnel. The light rocketing toward him was a Metro train. Turning, he ran back the way he had come. The light became brighter and brighter. His left foot slipped on the rail and he nearly fell. He heard the shriek of the train whistle. Then the scream of steel as the driver slammed on the brakes.

  Suddenly rough hands grabbed him and threw him against the tunnel wall. He saw the lights inside the train as it slid past inches from him. The faces of startled passengers. Then it was past. Screeching to a stop fifty yards down the track.

  “Are you crazy?”

  Hercules was in his face, his hands on Harry’s jacket, holding him in an iron grip.

  Yells of trainmen came from down the track. They were climbing out, coming toward them with flashlights.

  “This way.”

  Hercules spun him around and into a narrow side tunnel. A moment later he shoved him up a work ladder, then followed himself, crutches hanging on one arm, swinging up behind him like a circus performer.

  Behind them they heard the shouts and calls of the trainmen. Hercules stared angrily at him, then moved him forward down another narrow tunnel full of wiring and ventilation equipment.

  They went on that way, Harry in front, Hercules directly behind, for what seemed like a half mile or more. Finally they stopped under the light of a ventilation shaft.

  For a long moment Hercules said nothing, just listened, then, satisfied they hadn’t been followed, looked to Harry.

  “They will report that to the police. They will come and search the tunnels. If they find my place, they will know you were there. And I will have nowhere to live.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “At least we know two things. You are well enough to walk, even run. And you are no longer blind.”

  Harry could see. He hadn’t had time to even think about it. He’d been in darkness. Then had come the light o
f the train and seeing the passengers inside. Not with one eye but two.

  “So,” Hercules said. “You are free.” With that he slung a small bound package from his shoulder and pushed it at Harry.

  “Open it.”

  Harry stared, then did as the dwarf said. Undoing the package, he unrolled its contents. Black trousers, black shirt, black jacket, and the white clerical collar of a priest, all worn but serviceable.

  “You will become your brother, eh?”

  Harry stared, incredulous.

  “All right, maybe not your brother, but a priest. Why not? Already you are growing a beard, changing your appearance…. In a city filled with priests, how better to hide than in the open…? In the pants’ pocket are a few hundred thousand lire. Not much, but enough for you to gather your wits and see what you would do next.”

  “Why?” Harry said. “You could have turned me over to the police and collected the reward.”

  “Is your brother alive?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did he kill the cardinal vicar?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There, you see. If I had given you to the authorities, you could never have answered the questions: If your brother lives. If he is a murderer. How do you know unless you find out?—Not forgetting that you yourself are wanted for the murder of a policeman. It makes it twice as interesting, eh?”

  “You could have had enough money to last you a long time.”

  “But the police would have to give it to me. And I cannot go to the police, Mr. Harry. Because I myself am a murderer…. And if I had someone else do it and offered some sort of arrangement, they might take the money and never come back…. You would be in prison, and I would be no better off than I am now…. What good is that?”

  “Then why?”

  “Do I help you?”

  “Yes.”

  “To let you out, Mr. Harry, and see what you can do. How far your wits and courage will take you. If you are good enough to survive. To find answers to your questions. To prove your innocence.”