Harry stared at Danny for a long moment, making sure he understood. Then he opened the door and started out.
“Who I am is me!” Danny’s voice exploded behind Harry, stabbing into him like a knife. Harry stopped short, frozen where he was. When he turned back, Danny’s eyes were riveted on his.
“Your thirteenth birthday. You saw it chalked on a rock in the woods when you walked home from school, the same long way around you always took when you didn’t want to come home. And that day, especially, you didn’t want to come home.”
Harry could feel his legs turn to rubber. “You put it there…”
“It was a present, Harry. The only one I could give. You needed to trust in yourself, because that’s all any of us had. And you did. And you ran with it. You built your life around it. And you did a helluva job….” Danny eyes danced over Harry’s face, studying him. “Getting to Rome means everything to me, Harry…. I’m the one who needs a present now…. And you are the only one who can give it.”
For the longest moment Harry just stood there. Danny had reached into the pack and pulled out the trump card, the only one he had left. Finally Harry stepped back into the room and closed the door.
“How the hell are we going to get to Rome?”
“These…”
Danny picked up a flat manila envelope from the bedside table and slid out what was inside—long, narrow white license plates emblazoned with the black letters SCV 13.
“Vatican City plates, Harry. Diplomatic plates. Very low number. No one will stop a car with those on it.”
Slowly Harry looked up.
“What car?” he said.
113
5:25 P.M.
THE RABBI LOOK WAS OUT, THE PRIEST LOOK back in. Once again Father Jonathan Arthur Roe of Georgetown University, Harry was making his way through the rush-hour streets of Lugano, looking for the rented gray Mercedes Father Bardoni had supposedly left parked on Via Tomaso across the tracks and up the hill from the railroad station.
Following Veronique’s directions, he took the funicular up to the Piazza della Stazione and then crossed to the railroad station itself and went inside. Keeping his head down, doing his best to avoid looking at people directly, he worked his way through the crowds waiting for trains, trying to find a place where he could cross the tracks to the stairs leading up to Via Tomaso.
His mind was on Rome and getting there without getting caught. And what to do about Elena. It was a mental turmoil that left him totally unprepared for what happened next, as he turned a corner inside the station.
Uniformed police, six of them, suddenly materialized out of a crowd directly in front of him, walking forcefully toward a train that had just come into the station. But it wasn’t just the police—it was who they had with them: three prisoners in chains and handcuffs. The second, and now passing directly in front of Harry, was Hercules. The shackles were making it all but impossible for him to move on his crutches, but he was doing it anyway. And then he saw Harry, and their eyes met. Even as they did, he abruptly looked away, protecting Harry from any happened glance from the police that might make them single him out, wonder why he recognized one of their prisoners. And then they were gone, Hercules hustled with the others, up the steps and onto the train.
Harry saw him a moment later as one of the police took his crutches and helped him into a seat beside a window. Immediately, Harry pushed through the crowd, moving alongside the train toward the window. Hercules saw him coming and quickly shook his head, then looked away.
Station chimes sounded, and with Swiss precision the train moved off, leaving the station exactly on time. Heading south for Italy.
Harry turned away, stunned, absently looking for the stairs to Via Tomaso. The whole thing had taken no more than sixty seconds. Hercules had looked pale and resigned until he had seen Harry, and then everything seemed to change as he worked to protect him. For a moment at least, life and the fire of it, had seemed to come back to him. What he had regained, if fleetingly, had been a purpose.
Siena, Italy. Police headquarters. 6:40 P.M.
It had come to this. An unlit cigarette held between the fingers. Then, once in a while, snuggled into the corner of the mouth for a minute or two. But that, Roscani promised himself, was as far as it would go. No matter how much more frustrating or anxious things became from here on in, he would not go for the match. In a ceremonial gesture for himself, and just to make sure, he took the one packet of matches he had from his jacket pocket, tore one match off, then put the packet into an ashtray, struck the lone match, and touched it to the others. For the briefest moment he felt a pang of remorse, then, as quickly, turned back to the telephone company print-outs spread across the desk in front of him and went over them again. Logs were numbered in date/time order, the path of telephone calls coming to and going from Mother Fenti’s office and the private number in her apartment, from the day of the Assisi bus explosion up through today. Thirteen days altogether.
Two police researchers stationed in the hallway to assist Roscani saw him suddenly turn, pick up the telephone, and dial. He waited for a moment, then said something and hung up. Abruptly he stood up and walked across the room, an unlit cigarette put in his mouth, taken out, then put back in. Suddenly the phone rang. He turned and came back quickly, immediately picking it up. Nodding, he scrawled something on a piece of paper, underlined it, then said something brief and hung up. A half second later, he threw the cigarette into a wastebasket, snatched up the paper, and headed out the door.
“I need one of you to drive me to the helicopter pad,” he said as he came into the hallway.
“Where are you going?” The first researcher was already up and on his feet, moving with Roscani down the hallway.
“Lugano, Switzerland.”
114
Lugano. Same time.
A DARK GRAY MERCEDES WITH VATICAN CITY license plates and two priests in the front seat left Lugano in an early evening darkened by rain. Passing the hotels along the lakefront, the Mercedes turned onto Via Giuseppe Cattori, then headed west toward the N2 motorway that would take them south to Chiasso and then into Italy.
Elena sat in back, watching Danny give Harry directions as he read from a map in the glow of the light above the rearview mirror. There was tension between the brothers. She could see it and feel it. What it was exactly she didn’t know, and Harry hadn’t mentioned it, only given her the opportunity to stay behind, but she had refused. Where the brothers were going, she was going. It was a given, and she told Harry so, reminding him she was a nurse and Father Daniel was still in her care. Moreover, she was Italian and they were going back into Italy and, if Harry didn’t remember, that was something that had proven beneficial more than once in the past. And when Harry smiled ever so slightly at her pluck and determination, it was clear she was coming with them.
As they reached the motorway, Danny abruptly reached up and shut off the map light, settling back out of sight as he did. Suddenly Harry was the only one Elena could see.
Lighted by the dim of the instrument panel, he became the entire focus of her attention. The tense movement of his fingers over the steering wheel. His concentration on the road in front of him. That same aura of uneasiness grew as he sat back, then leaned forward again against the restraint of the seat harness, a discomfort not with the car but with where it was going. Rome, it was obvious, was not his idea.
“Are you all right?” Harry asked quietly.
Elena looked up and saw he was watching her in the mirror.
“Yes…” Her eyes fastened on his, and they studied each other in silence.
“Harry.” Danny’s voice suddenly warned over the metronome of the wipers.
Instantly Harry’s eyes left Elena and went to the road. The traffic in front of them was slowing. Then came the distinct pink-white glow of mercury-vapor lamps against the turbid night sky.
“The Italian border.” Danny sat up, alert, attentive.
Elena saw Harry’s hands
tighten on the wheel. Felt the Mercedes slow as he touched the brakes. Then he glanced at her once more, his eyes holding for the briefest instant before he looked back to the road ahead.
115
Beijing. Thursday, July 16.
PIERRE WEGGEN’S BLACK CHAUFFER-DRIVEN limousine entered Zhongnanhai Compound, the private complex where China’s most preeminent leaders resided, shortly after one in the morning. Five minutes later, the Swiss investment banker was being shown into a large living room in the home of Wu Xian, general secretary of the Communist Party, by the solemn president of the People’s Bank of China, Yan Yeh.
The general secretary stood to meet Weggen as he came in, taking his hand genuinely and introducing him to the half dozen ranking members of the Politburo waiting to hear the details of his proposal; among them were the heads of the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Communication, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs. What they wanted to know was the full extent of it, how it might be accomplished, at what cost and in how short a time.
“Thank you for your hospitality, gentlemen,” Weggen began in Chinese. And then, extending his deepest sympathies not only to those present but to the country as a whole and especially the people of Hefei, he began to lay out his recommendations for a very rapid and highly visible rebuilding of the country’s water-delivery systems.
Taking a chair to one side, Yan Yeh sat down and lit a cigarette. Deeply shaken by the horror of what had happened and exhausted from the events of the day, he remained hopeful that the men gathered here in the early-morning hours would see that the plan Weggen was presenting was vital to national security and national interests. He hoped they would bury their pride and political infighting, along with their suspicions of the West, and undertake to endorse the project and begin work as quickly as was humanly possible—before the same thing happened again.
There was something else, too, and more personal. Whether it was spoken of or not, everyone in China who knew of the incident in Hefei was fearful of the drinking water, especially the water that was drawn from the lakes; and as powerful and influential a leader as he was, Yan Yeh was no different. Only three days before, his wife and ten-year-old son had left to visit his wife’s family in the lake city of Wuxi. And hours earlier he had called her to tell her the tragedy at Hefei had been a lone incident, reassuring her, as the public was being reassured, that the quality of the drinking water across the country was being heavily monitored. And that the government was well into taking a plan of action that, if it followed his counsel, would hastily rebuild the nation’s entire water system. More than anything, Yan Yeh had made the call simply to talk to his wife and calm her fears and tell her he loved her. And secretly, he hoped he was right, that Hefei had been an isolated incident.
But somehow, in the pit of his stomach, he knew it wasn’t.
Rome, Vatican City. Wednesday July 15, 7:40 P.M.
Palestrina stood by the window in his library office and looked out on the crowds that still filled St. Peter’s Square enjoying its ambience and the day’s last hours of light.
Turning from the window he looked back across his office. On the credenza behind his desk, the marble head of Alexander stared out eternally, and Palestrina looked at it almost wistfully.
Then, in an abrupt change of mood, he crossed to his desk, sat down, and lifted the telephone from its console. Clearing a line, he punched in a number and waited, listening as a switching station in Venice took the call and automatically forwarded it to a station in Milan, which in turn rang a number in Hong Kong and was immediately switched to Beijing.
THE CHIRP OF CHEN YIN’S cell phone brought him quickly from a sound sleep. By the third ring, he was out of bed and standing naked in the dark of his bedroom above his flower shop.
“Yes?” he said in Chinese.
“I have an order for an early-morning delivery to the land of fish and rice,” an electronically altered voice said in Chinese.
“I understand,” Chen Yin said and hung up.
PALESTRINA LET THE PHONE SLIDE back into its cradle, then slowly swiveled in his chair to look again at the marble presence of Alexander. He had used Pierre Weggen’s close friendship with Yan Yeh—a casual probing about the Chinese banker’s daily life, his friends and family—to select the second lake. A fertile area of water and mild climate and booming industry called “the land of fish and rice,” it was south of Nanjing and little more than a few hours’ train ride for the poisoner Li Wen. The lake was called Taihu. The city was Wuxi.
116
HARRY WATCHED IN THE MIRROR, FEELING the response of the Mercedes’ acceleration as they left the checkpoint. Behind him he could see the glow of the mercury-vapor lamps, the taillights of cars moving north as they slowed to a stop, the mass of Italian Army vehicles and carabinieri armored cars. This had been a major checkpoint, two hours south of Milan. Unlike the roadblock at Chiasso, where they’d just been waved through, barely slowing, here they had been slowed to a stop with heavily armed soldiers approaching the car from both sides. That was until an army officer had suddenly pointed to the license plates, glanced at the priests in the front seat, and quickly waved them past.
“Wise ass.” Danny grinned at him as darkness enveloped the car and they were safely away.
“Just because I waved the guy a thanks?”
“Yeah, just because you waved the guy a thanks. What if he hadn’t liked it and decided to pull us over? Then what?”
Harry glanced in the mirror at Elena, then looked to his brother. “Then you could have explained to him what the hell was going on and why we had to get to Rome. Maybe he would have even sent the army with us…”
“The army wouldn’t go into the Vatican, Harry…. Not the Italian Army, not any army…”
“No, just you… and Father Bardoni…” Harry’s voice had a decided edge.
Danny nodded. “Just me and Father Bardoni.”
Rome. The Church of San Crisogno,Trastevere section. Thursday, July 16, 5:30 A.M.
Palestrina stepped from the back of the Mercedes and into the mist of early-morning light. Glancing around protectively at the deserted street, one of Farel’s black-suited men moved ahead of him, crossing the sidewalk to open the door to the eighteenth-century church. Then he stepped back, and the Vatican secretariat of state entered alone.
Palestrina’s footsteps echoed as he approached the altar and then, crossing himself, knelt to pray beside the only other person there—a woman in black, a rosary in her hand.
“It has been a long time since my last confession, Father,” she said without looking at him. “Could I confess to you?”
“Of course.” Palestrina crossed himself again and stood. And then he and Thomas Kind walked away toward the dark singularity of the confessional.
117
Lugano, Switzerland. The house at Via Monte Ceneri, 87.Still Thursday, July 16. Same time.
A clear morning after the rain.
ROSCANI WALKED DOWN THE STEPS AND BACK into the street. His suit was more than wrinkled, he had a stubble beard, and he was tired. Almost too tired to think the way he needed to think. But more than that, he was angry and tired of being lied to, especially by women who, on the outside at least, should have been respectable. Mother Fenti for one, and, here in Lugano, the sculptor and painter Signora Veronique Vaccaro, an iconoclast in middle age who swore through the night and into the early morning hours that she knew nothing of the fugitives and refused to waver from her story. Then she had abruptly and indignantly gone to bed, leaving the police to worry among themselves. And worry they did, especially Roscani, who insisted the chief Swiss investigator who had first interviewed Veronique Vaccaro go over his entire findings again.
Exhaustively he had, saying the Swiss police had found nothing to indicate the house had been occupied during Signora Vaccaro’s short absence. However, neighbors had reported seeing a white van with lettering on the doors parked in front of the entrance for a short time at midday the day before. And two yo
ung boys taking their dog for a walk in the rain after dinner that night had said they’d seen a big car, a Mercedes, the older boy proudly swore, parked in front as they’d left their house. But it had not been there when they’d come back. And Signora Vaccaro’s alibi, one impossible to corroborate, was that she had come home only moments before the police arrived, returning from a camping/sketching trip alone in the Alps.
It was no better with Castelletti and Scala, who had closed the investigations in Bellagio with the interrogation of Monsignor Jean-Bernard Dalbouse, French-born parish priest of the Church of Santa Chiara, and his staff, clerical and laypeople alike. The end result of exhaustive questioning was that each and every one denied having received a call from a cell phone in Siena at 4:20 A.M. the day before. A cell phone registered to Mother Fenti.
Liars. They were all liars.
Why?
It was driving Roscani crazy. Every one of them risked going to jail and for a long time. Yet none of them had even begun to crack. Who, or what, were they protecting?
Leaving Veronique’s house, Roscani walked the street alone. The neighborhood was quiet, its residents still asleep. Lake Lugano stretching in the distance was also still, glassed over, from this distance not even a ripple. What was he doing out there? Looking for clues the others had missed? Once again becoming the bulldog of his father’s legacy? Going in circles until he had some kind of answer? Or, did he have a sense that this was where he should be? Like some kind of magnet drawn toward a pile of sawdust and a lost nail. Throwing off the notion, telling himself he was out there for the fresh air, for a moment of assoluta tranquillità, he pulled a battered cigarette pack from his jacket, once again twisted an unlit cigarette into the corner of his mouth, and turned back for the house.