Day Of Confession

121

Harry's first impulse had been to go back to where he'd left the Mercedes, break the window and retrieve the keys, and get Danny and Elena out of the apartment on Via Nicolo V.

'He's dead. They mutilated him,' he told Danny over the cell phone. 'Who the hell knows what he told them? They could be on the way there now!' Harry was half walking, half running, trying not to draw attention to himself as he came out of the alley behind Father Bardoni's apartment and turned down the street. Heading back the way he'd come.

'Harry,' Danny said quietly. 'Just come in. Father Bardoni would have told them nothing.'

'How the hell do you know?'

'-I just do…'

Less than thirty minutes later, Harry came into the building. Carefully checking the entryway, he looked at the elevator, then took the front stairs, feeling they were safer than the little elevator box where he could be trapped.

Danny and Elena were in the living room when he came in. He could feel the tension and the electricity. For a moment no one said anything. Then Danny motioned toward the window.

'I want you to take a look, Harry.'

Harry glanced at Elena, then went to the window.

'What am I looking at?'

'To the left, follow the wall,' Danny said. 'Far down is the top of a round brick tower. It's the Tower of San Giovanni, where Cardinal Marsciano is being held. He's in the center room halfway up on the far side. It has a glass door that goes out to a small terrace. It's the only opening in the wall.'

The tower was perhaps a quarter of a mile away, and Harry could see the top of it clearly – a high, circular tower, turreted on top, made of the same ancient brick as the wall inside which it stood.

'We're the only ones left to do it,' Danny said quietly.

Harry turned slowly.

'You and me and Sister Elena.'

'Do – what?'

'Get Cardinal Marsciano out…' Whatever emotion Danny had shown earlier, when he couldn't reach Father Bardoni, he'd put away. Father Bardoni was dead; they had to move on.

Harry shook his head. 'Uh-uh, not Elena…'

'I want to, Harry.' Elena was looking directly at him. There was no doubt at all she meant it.

'Of course you do. Why wouldn't you?' Harry looked from Elena to Danny. 'She's as crazy as you are.'

'There's no one else, Harry…' Elena said softly.

Abruptly Harry looked to Danny. 'Why are you so certain we're safe here… that Father Bardoni didn't tell them? – I saw him, Danny. If it was me, I would have told them anything they wanted to know.'

'You have to believe me, Harry…'

'It's not you. It's Father Bardoni. I don't have that much trust.'

Danny looked at his brother for a long moment in silence; when he finally spoke it was in a way that tried to make Harry understand there was more to what he was saying than simply the words he was using.

'This apartment building belongs to the owner of one of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in Italy. All he had to know was that Cardinal Marsciano requested a private place for a few days and it was done with no questions…'

'What's that got to do with Father Bardoni?'

'Harry, the cardinal is one of the most beloved men in Italy… Look who helped him, and at what risk to themselves. I…' – Danny hesitated, then went on – 'I became a priest because I was as lost and confused after I came out of the marines as I was before I went in… By the time I came to Rome, I was just as lost… Then I met the cardinal, and he showed me a life that was inside me that I never knew existed. Over the years he guided me, encouraged me to find my own convictions, spiritual and otherwise… The Church, Harry, became my family… and the cardinal I loved like a father… It was the same for Father Bardoni. It's why he would have told them nothing…'

The image of Father Bardoni in the bathtub was too strong: a man being tortured yet saying nothing. Shaken and moved, Harry ran a hand through his hair and had to look away. When he did, his eyes found Elena's. They were tender and loving and told him she understood what Danny had said – and knew he was right.

'Harry-'

The sharpness of Danny's voice brought him around and back to his brother. It was only then he saw the television was on in the background.

'There is something else… If I didn't believe it before, Father Bardoni's murder confirmed it… Do you know what is going on in China?'

'A tragedy, a lot of people dead. I don't know. I haven't exactly had a lot of time to watch the TV. What the hell are you getting at?'

'In Bellagio, Harry. When we were waiting in the truck for Sister Elena to come for us. You got a call on a cell phone… It woke me… I heard you say two names, Adrianna and Eaton.'

'What about it?' Harry still didn't understand.

'Adrianna Hall. James Eaton.'

Harry was both surprised and puzzled. 'They were the people who helped me get to you. How the hell do you know them?'

'It doesn't make any difference. What's important is that you get in touch with them both as fast as you can.' Abruptly Danny moved his wheelchair toward his brother. 'We have to stop what's going on in China.'

'Stop what?' Harry didn't understand.

'They're poisoning the lakes, Harry… One has already been done… There are two more to go…'

'What are you talking about? Who's poisoning the lakes? From what little I know, it was an act of nature.'

'It's not,' Danny said quickly, then glanced at Elena before looking back to Harry. 'It's part of Palestrina's goal… for the Vatican to control China.'

'That was in the confession, wasn't it?…' Harry felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

'It was a part of the confession…'

Elena crossed herself. 'Mother Mary…' she said under her breath.

'A little while ago WNN ran a recap story on Hefei,' Danny kept on, pressing strongly. 'At two minutes and twenty-odd seconds past eight, there was a clip from the Hefei water-filtration plant – I know the time because I looked at my watch. In that clip was the face of a man who, if he isn't doing the poisoning, knows who is.'

'How do you know that?' Harry whispered.

'I saw him last summer at a private retreat outside Rome. He was there with another man, waiting to see Palestrina. Not many Chinese are invited to a Vatican retreat.' Danny was as intense as Harry had ever seen him.

'Adrianna Hall can roll the tape back to the second and find that picture. The man is short and standing to the left, he's got a briefcase in his hand. When she has it, have her get it to Eaton as fast as she can.'

'What the hell is Eaton going to do with it? He's a minor embassy official.'

'Harry, he's Rome station chief of the CIA.'

'What?' Harry was dumbfounded.

Danny didn't waver. 'I've been in Rome a long time, Harry… Where I work, there are levels of international diplomacy where things are known… Cardinal Marsciano has guided me into rooms most people would never know existed…'

Both Harry and Elena could see Danny's anguish. Bound by the Seal of Confession, he was jeopardizing his soul by revealing anything he had heard in it. Yet hundreds of thousands of lives were at stake, and he had to do something. And in doing it, he had to trust not in canon law, but in God.

Danny wheeled his chair back a little, never taking his eyes from Harry. 'I want you to go out of the building now. Call Adrianna Hall first, and do it from a pay phone. Then go to another pay phone and call Eaton. Tell him what I told you and that Adrianna is getting him the footage. Tell him to inform Chinese Intelligence – tell him they have to find the man with the briefcase. Underline that speed is everything. Otherwise the people in Beijing are going to have a couple of hundred thousand more dead to answer for…'

Harry hesitated for the briefest moment, then his finger pointed off. 'There's a phone right there, Danny. Why not tell Eaton yourself?'

'He can't know where I am or you are…'

'Why?'

'Because I'm still a U.S. citizen, and because a threat to China is a matter of national security. He'll want more from me, and he'll do whatever he has to do to get it… Even if it means illegally taking all three of us into custody… If he does' – Danny's voice faded to a hoarse and exhausted whisper – 'Cardinal Marsciano will die.'

Elena saw the look in Harry's eyes. Saw him stare at his brother for a long time before he slowly nodded and said, 'Okay.' She knew in her heart Harry felt what they were doing was wrong, even ill advised. But she had also seen him accept without a word Danny's very special relationship with Cardinal Marsciano, understanding why he would risk everything to save him.

By going along, Harry had not only shown his brother how much he loved him, but in doing so had made – possibly for the first time in their adult lives – their mission the same: slip into the venerable city, free the prince imprisoned in the tower, and then escape alive. It was gallant, medieval, foolhardy, and would have been difficult enough even with Father Bardoni's help. But Father Bardoni was dead, and so his part of the burden rested solely on Harry. And Elena could feel him trying to work it out, to determine where they were now, where they could go from here. Suddenly Harry glanced at her, holding her eyes for a moment, then opened the door and left, still dressed the way he had been most all the time she'd known him, as a priest.