Day Of Confession

152

Farel's office was pandemonium. The fire chief was on the line, demanding to know what the hell was going on, screaming that water pressure had been reduced to a dribble everywhere, when the first bomb exploded outside the fire department. Instantly the chiefs tone changed. Were they under a terrorist siege or not? He was not sending his fire fighters against armed terrorists. That was Farel's job.

Farel well knew this and was already scrambling his black suits toward the museums to assist the fully armed regiment of Swiss Guards, leaving only the six, including Thomas Kind and Anton Pilger, to keep the trap at the tower. It was then that the second firebomb went off.

No more chances could be taken. This might be the Addisons, it might not.

'The water is your problem, Capo.' Farel ran a sweaty hand across his shaved head, his husky voice deeper than usual.

'The Vigilanza and Swiss Guards will get the public to safety. My concern is one thing alone. The safety of the Holy Father. Nothing else matters.' With that he hung up and started for the door.

Hercules could see Harry's fourth fire go up. Then he saw him cross out of the smoke and start toward the tower, then duck behind a row of ancient olive trees and disappear.

Securing the rope in a double twist around the iron railing at the top of the tower, then letting it slip through his fingers, Hercules eased himself down the steep pitch of roof to the edge and looked over. Some twenty feet beneath him he could see the small platform that stuck out from Marsciano's prison room. And twenty, thirty feet below that was the ground. Easy enough, unless people were shooting at you.

Across the way he saw another fire go up. And then another, the thick smoke filtering the sunlight and turning the landscape blood red. Suddenly the bright morning had become dark. The combination of Harry's fires, the smoke from the museums, and the absolute lack of wind had, in the matter of the last few minutes, come together and turned Vatican Hill into an eerie, nearly invisible, foglike dreamscape, a choking, ghostly canvas where objects floated free-form and disembodied, where seeing more than a few feet in any direction was all but impossible.

Beneath him Hercules could hear coughing and gagging. Then, for a briefest moment the smoke cleared and he saw the two black suits nearest the front door move quickly away toward where the others were hidden, desperate to find fresh air.

At the same time he saw a figure dart across the road in the direction of the railroad station and into the tall hedges on the far side. Slinging off his crutches, Hercules moved up on his knees, waving them over his head. A moment later Harry's head popped up. And Hercules used the crutches to point across the roadway, where the four black suits were gathered. Harry waved back, then the smoke came again, and he vanished from sight. Fifteen seconds later, bright red flame shot up from the spot where he had been.

10:38 a.m.

Roscani, Scala, and Castelletti stood beside the blue Alfa, watching the smoke and listening to the sirens, like most all of Rome. The police radio gave them more, the ongoing exchanges between Vatican Police and Fire and Rome City Police and Fire. They had heard Farel himself call for a helicopter for the pope, not to land on the helipad at the rear of the Vatican gardens but on the ancient roof of the papal apartments.

At almost the same moment, they saw a puff of diesel smoke from the work engine. Then a second puff came, and the little green engine began to inch forward toward the Vatican gates. That the pope was being evacuated, as was most of the Vatican proper, had no bearing on orders. The railroad wasn't on fire, and no one had called them back. So, forward they went, wanting only to retrieve an aging freight car.

'Who has a cigarette?' Abruptly Roscani turned from the train to look at his policemen.

'Come on, Otello,' Scala said. 'You quit, you can't start again…'

'I didn't say I was going to light it,' Roscani snapped harshly.

Scala hesitated. He could see Roscani's disquiet. 'You're worried about the whole thing, especially what happens to the Americans.'

Roscani looked at Scala a moment longer. 'Yes,' he said, half nodding, then turned and walked away by himself. Back down the track, stopping finally to watch the work engine as it crept toward the Vatican wall.