Day Of Confession

103

A stylish, handsome woman wearing a large straw hat stood in line with the other passengers, waiting as the hydrofoil approached the boat landing from the dark of the lake.

At the top stairs above, four Gruppo Cardinale police in flak jackets and carrying Uzis stood watch. Four more patrolled the landing itself, studying faces of waiting passengers, searching for the fugitives. A spot check of papers confirmed that almost all of them were foreign tourists. Great Britain. Germany. Brazil. Australia. The United States.

'Grazie,' a young policeman said, as he handed Julia Louise Phelps's passport back to her, then touched the brim of his hat and smiled. This was no blond killer with a scratched face, nor an Italian nun, nor a fugitive priest or his brother. This was a tall, attractive woman, an American as he had guessed, with a large straw hat and distinctive smile. It was why he had approached her and asked for her papers in the first place, not because she was a suspect, but because he was flirting. And she had let him.

And then, as the hydrofoil docked and the passengers onboard disembarked, she put her passport back into her purse, smiled once again at the policeman, and, in the company of the other passengers, went onboard. A moment later the gangplank was pulled back, the engines revved, and the hydrofoil moved away.

The policemen on the landing and those at the top of the stairs watched it pick up speed, then saw the hull lift up out of the water as it moved out into the darkness of the lake, crossing to Tremezzo and Lenno, and then Lezzeno and Argegno, and finally back to Como. The hydrofoil Freccia delle Betulle was the last boat for the night. And, to a man, the police relaxed as they watched it go. Knowing they had done their job well. Confident that on their watch, not one of the fugitives had slipped past them.

Rome. The Vatican. Wednesday, July 15, 12:20 a.m.

Farel opened the door to Palestrina's private office, and the young, bespectacled Father Bardoni entered, poised, unmoved by the hour or by being called there. Showing no emotion at all. Simply answering the summons of a superior.

Palestrina was behind his desk and motioned Father Bardoni toward a chair in front of him.

'I have called you here to tell you personally that Cardinal Marsciano has been taken ill,' he said as the priest sat down,

'Ill?' Father Bardoni sat forward.

'He collapsed here, in my office, early this evening after attending a meeting at the Chinese Embassy. The doctors believe it to be a simple case of exhaustion. But they are not certain. As a result he is being kept under observation.'

'Where is he?'

'Here, on the Vatican grounds,' Palestrina said. 'The guest apartments in the Tower of San Giovanni.'

'Why is he not in a hospital?' From the corner of his eye, Father Bardoni saw Farel step forward to stand near him.

'Because I chose to keep him here. Because of what I believe to be the reason for his "exhaustion"…'

'Which is?'

'The ongoing dilemma of Father Daniel.' Palestrina watched the priest carefully. So far he was showing no outward display of emotion, even now, at the mention of Father Daniel.

'I don't understand.'

'Cardinal Marsciano has sworn he was dead. And perhaps he still does not believe, as the police do, that he is not. Moreover, new evidence suggests that Father Daniel not only lives but is well enough to continually avoid the authorities. All of which means that he is probably able to communicate in one way or another-'

Palestrina paused, looking at the priest directly, making certain there would be no confusion interpreting what he said next.

'How joyous it would make Cardinal Marsciano to see Father Daniel alive. But since he is under the care of physicians and unable to travel, it follows that Father Daniel should come, or be brought, if it is necessary, to visit him here, at the apartments of San Giovanni.'

It was here that Father Bardoni faltered, casting a quick, furtive glance at Farel – a sudden, instinctive reaction, to see if Farel fully sided with Palestrina and backed Marsciano's imprisonment. And from his cold, impassive stare, there was no doubt whatsoever that he did. Recovering, he looked back to Palestrina, incensed.

'You are suggesting that I know where he is? And could get that message to him? That I could somehow engineer his coming to the Vatican?'

'A box is opened,' Palestrina said easily. 'A moth flies out… Where does it go? Many people ask that same question and hunt for it. But it is never found because, at the last minute, it moves, and then moves again, and then again. Most difficult when it is either ill or injured. That is, unless it has help… from someone sympathetic, a famous writer perhaps, or someone in the clergy… and is attended to by a gentle hand schooled in such things. A nurse perhaps, or a nun, or one and the same… a nursing sister from Siena – Elena Voso.'

Father Bardoni didn't react. Simply stared, vacantly, as if he had no idea what the secretariat of state was talking about. It was a deliberate orchestration to cover his earlier lapse, but it was too late, and he knew it.

Palestrina leaned forward. 'Father Daniel is to come in silence. To speak with no one… Should he be caught along the way, his answer – to the police, to the media, even to Taglia or Roscani – is that he simply does not remember what happened…'

Father Bardoni started to protest, but Palestrina held up a hand to silence him, and then he finished, his voice just loud enough to be heard.

'Understand – that for every day Father Daniel does not come, Cardinal Marsciano's mental outlook will worsen… His health declining with his spirit, until there comes a point where' – he shrugged – 'it no longer matters.'

'Eminence.' Father Bardoni was suddenly curt. 'You are speaking to the wrong man. I have no more idea where Father Daniel is or how to reach him than you.'

Palestrina stared for a moment, then made the sign of the cross. 'Che Dio ti protegga,' he said. May God protect you.

Immediately Farel crossed to the door and opened it. Father Bardoni hesitated, then stood and walked past Farel and out into the darkness.

Palestrina watched the door as it closed. The wrong man? No, Father Bardoni was not. He was Marsciano's courier and had been all along. The one responsible for getting Father Daniel out of the hands of medical personnel and to Pescara after the bus explosion and guiding his movements ever since. Yes, they had suspected – followed him, had his phone line tapped, even suspected he was the man who had hired the hydrofoil in Milan. But they had been unable to prove anything. Except he had erred in glancing at Farel, and this had been enough. Palestrina knew Marsciano commanded strong loyalty. And if Marsciano had trusted enough in Father Daniel to confess to him, he would have trusted in Father Bardoni to help save the American's life. And Father Bardoni would have responded.

And so, he was not the wrong man, but the right one. And because of it, Palestrina was certain his message would be sent.

3:00 a.m.

Palestrina sat at a small writing table in his bedroom. He was dressed in sandals and a silk scarlet robe that, with his physical poise and enormous size and his great mane of white hair, gave him the look of a Roman emperor. On the table in front of him were the early editions of a half dozen world newspapers. In each the lead story was the ongoing tragedy in China. To his right, a small television tuned to World News Network showed live coverage from Hefei, at the moment the picture was of truckloads of troops of the People's Liberation Army entering the city. They were dressed in coveralls, their hands gloved, their wrists and ankles taped, their faces hidden by bright orange filtration masks and clear protective goggles to safeguard – as a similarly dressed on-camera correspondent explained – against the transfer of bodily fluids and the spread of disease as they rushed to help manage the still-multiplying volumes of dead.

Glancing off, Palestrina looked at the bank of phones at his elbow. Pierre Weggen, he knew, was at this moment in Beijing in a friend-to-friend conversation with Yan Yeh. Solemnly – and with no hint whatsoever that the idea was any other than his alone – Weggen would be laying the early seeds of Palestrina's blueprint to rebuild all of China's water systems. He was trusting that the Swiss investment banker's station and longtime association with the president of the People's Bank of China would be enough for the Chinese businessman to embrace the idea and take it directly to the general secretary of the Communist Party.

Whatever happened, when the meeting was ended and the proper courtesies had been said, Weggen would call and let him know. Palestrina glanced at his bed. He should sleep, but he knew it was impossible. Standing, he went to his dressing room and changed into his familiar black suit and white clerical collar. Moments later he left his private apartments.

Purposely taking a service elevator, he went unseen to the ground floor, and from there out a side door and into the dark of the formal gardens.

He walked for an hour, maybe more, lost in thought, doing little more than wandering. Along the Avenue of the Square Garden to the Central Avenue of the Forest and then back, pausing for some time at Giovanni Vasanzio's seventeenth-century sculpture Fontana dell' Aquilone, the Fountain of the Eagle. The eagle itself, the uppermost piece on the fountain – the heraldic symbol of the Borghese, the family of Pope Paul V – was, to Palestrina, something entirely different: symbolic, enormously personal and profound, it brought him to ancient Persia and the edge of his other life, touching his entire being in a way nothing else could. From it, he drew strength. And from that strength came power and conviction and the certitude that what he was doing was right. The eagle held him there for some time and then finally released him.

Vaguely, he drew away, moving off in the dark. In time, he passed the two INTELSAT earth stations for Vatican Radio and then the tower building itself, and then continued on, across the endless green stage maintained by an army of full-time gardeners, through ancient groves and pathways, along the manicured lawns. Past the magnolias, the bougainvillaeas. Under the pines and palms, oaks and olives. Past seeming miles of carefully trimmed hedges. Surprised now and then by a shower of water thrown up by the booby traps of nighttime sprinklers set on automatic timers with no mind but the inching of the clock.

And then a lone thought turned him back. In the faint light of day, Palestrina approached the entry to the yellow-brick building that was Vatican Radio. Opening the door, he climbed the interior steps to the upper tower and then stepped out onto its circular walkway.

Resting his massive hands on the edge of the battlement, he stood and watched day begin to rise over the Roman hills. From there he could view the city, the Vatican Palace, St Peter's, and much of the Vatican gardens. It was a favorite place and one that not so coincidentally provided physical security should he ever need it. The building itself was on a hill some distance from the Vatican proper and therefore easily defended. The exterior walkway where he stood encircled the entire building, putting anyone approaching in clear view; and gave him a vantage point from which he could direct his defenders.

It was a fanciful sentiment perhaps, but one he took increasingly to heart. Especially in light of the singular thought that had brought him there – Farel's observation that Father Daniel was like the cat that had not used up its lives, the one man alone who could make him lose China. Before, Father Daniel had been an unwelcome glitch, a festering sore to be eliminated. That he had been able to elude both Thomas Kind and all of Roscani's men, and continued to do so, touched a chord deep in Palestrina that terrified him – his secret belief in a dark and pagan netherworld and the mystic depraved spirits who dwelled there. These spirits, he was certain, were responsible for the sudden onslaught of crippling fever and his subsequent cruel death at the age of thirty-three when he lived as Alexander. If it were they who were guiding Father Daniel-

'No!' Palestrina said out loud, then deliberately turned from his perch and left, walking back down the stairs and out into the gardens. He would not allow himself to think of the spirits, now or ever again. They were not real but rather of his own imagination, and he would not let his own imagination destroy him.