Day Of Confession

129

8:35 p.m.

'Mr Harry!' Hercules blurted as Harry opened the door to Piano 3a and Roscani gestured for him to enter. In complete surprise the dwarf swung into the apartment on his crutches, with Roscani, Scala, and Castelletti following.

Closing the door and locking it, Castelletti remained alongside it while Scala, with a glance at Danny and Elena, walked off and through the rest of the apartment.

'The climbing rope you asked for is in the hallway outside,' Roscani said.

Harry nodded, then looked to Hercules hanging on his crutches in front of Castelletti, open-mouthed and totally baffled.

'Come in and sit down, please… This is my brother, Father Daniel, and this is Sister Elena…' he said to both Roscani and Hercules, introducing the priest in a wheelchair and an attractive young woman beside him as if both men had been invited there for dinner.

Hercules followed Harry across the room as bewildered as ever and with no idea at all of what was going on. All he knew was that he'd been suddenly hustled away from a work detail in the central jail and told he was being transferred to another prison. Fifteen minutes later he was being whisked across Rome in the backseat of a dark blue Alfa Romeo with the top cop of Gruppo Cardinale sitting next to him.

'Nobody else,' Scala said, coming back into the room, looking at Roscani. 'One door through the kitchen to a rear stairway. Single-bolt lock on the door. Anybody tries to come in from the roof, he's going to have to break glass and make a lot of noise doing it.'

Roscani nodded, then, with a studied glance at Danny as if he were trying to get the measure of him, looked to Harry. 'Hercules is signed out in a transfer from one jail to another. The paperwork got mixed up on the way… This time tomorrow, I want him back.'

'This time tomorrow you may have all of us,' Harry said. 'What about the handgun?'

Roscani hesitated, then abruptly looked to Scala and nodded. Opening his jacket, Scala took a semiautomatic pistol from his waistband and gave it to Harry.

'Nine-millimeter Calico parabellum. Sixteen-shot magazine,' he said in heavily accented English. Then he pulled a second clip from his pocket and gave it to Harry as well.

'The serial numbers have been filed off,' Roscani said flatly. 'If you get caught, you don't remember where you got it. If you say anything about what's gone on here, it will be denied completely and your trial will become more difficult than you could ever imagine.'

'We've only met once, Ispettore Capo,' Harry said. 'The day you picked me up at the airport… The others here have never seen you…'

Roscani's eyes crossed the room. He looked at Hercules. At Elena. Then at Danny and, finally, at Harry.

'Tomorrow,' he said, 'the freight car is to be taken from the Vatican to a siding between Stazione Trastevere and Stazione Ostiense, where it will be left to be picked up later. We will follow it the entire way. When the work engine leaves, we will come in.

'As for the rest… My advice is to avoid Farel's men at all cost… There are too many and they have too much communication…'

Roscani slipped a 5 x 7 photograph from his inside jacket pocket and gave it to Harry.

'This is Thomas Kind, as of three years ago. I don't know if it will help, because he changes his appearance as often as most of us change clothes. Dark hair, blond, man, woman – he speaks a half dozen languages. If you see him, don't even think, just pull the trigger. And keep pulling it until he's dead. Then walk away. Let Farel take the credit for it.' Roscani glanced around the room. 'One of us will be outside all night.'

'I thought you trusted-'

'In the event Thomas Kind has found where you are…'

Harry nodded. 'Thank you,' he said and meant it.

Roscani glanced once more at the others. 'Buona fortuna,' he said, then looked to Scala and Castelletti.

A moment later the door closed behind them and they were gone.

Buona fortuna. Good luck.