Day Of Confession

155

10:48 a.m.

Danny and Elena came out into the smoke through an emergency door on the ground floor of the Apostolic Library.

'Left,' Danny commanded through his handkerchief, and Elena turned them that way along the narrow road to the gardens.

'Harry,' Danny spoke urgently into the cell phone.

Nothing.

'Harry, can you hear me?'

There was a hiss on the other end, as if the line were still open. Then:

CLICK. The line went dead.

'Dammit!' Danny said out loud.

'What's the matter?' Elena pressed, sudden fear for Harry jolting her.

'Don't know…'

Harry, Hercules, and Marsciano huddled in silence on Marsciano's platform, peering over the side in the smoke.

'You're sure they're there?' Harry said to Hercules.

'Yes, down there just past the door.'

Just as Hercules dropped from the roof to the platform he had seen two of the black suits take position on either side of the door. But now the settling smoke made it impossible to see.

'Send them away.' Harry was suddenly pulling Anton Pilger's two-way radio from his belt, giving it to Hercules.

Taking it, Hercules clicked on, winking at Harry as he did. 'They've come down the outside of the tower by rope!' he said urgently in Italian. 'They're moving toward the helipad!'

'Va bene,' – Okay – a voice came back.

'The helipad! The helipad!' Hercules barked for good measure, then abruptly shut the radio off.

Beneath them was a scurrying, and then they glimpsed one man and then another move off at a dead run away from the tower.

'Now!' Harry said.

'Eminence,' Hercules said. The rope suddenly twisted in his hands; he made one loop and brought it over Marsciano's shoulders, then a second around his waist. A moment later Hercules was balanced on the rail and Harry was helping Marsciano onto it. Then, turning it through the steel of the railing, he held on and stepped back, lowering both men to the ground.

'Mr Harry!' Hercules' voice floated up. Harry saw the rope tighten from the ground and knew Hercules was guiding it. Taking hold, he swung up on the railing, then went over himself. At the same instant, a shot rang out, the rope half severed, and Harry dropped like a stone fifteen feet before the rope caught again. He hung there for another instant, and then the rope broke and he dropped to the ground.

Rolling over, he looked up at the sound of a scream.

Hercules had a black suit at the edge of the bushes, his steel-like arms around the man's neck.

'Look out!' Harry yelled.

The black suit still had his gun, and Hercules didn't see it. It was coming up against the side of Hercules' head.

'GUN!' Harry yelled again, getting up, rushing up toward them.

There was a tremendous report as the pistol went off just as Hercules wrenched. There was a hideous scream and both men fell back.

Harry and Marsciano arrived at the same moment. The black suit lay still, his head twisted at a terrible angle. Hercules was on his back, blood covering half his face.

'Hercules.' Harry moved quickly, kneeling down, looking at him. 'Jesus God,' he whispered, his hand moving in to feel his neck for a pulse.

Then Hercules opened one eye, and his hand reached up and wiped the blood from the other. Abruptly he sat up, blinking the blood away. A second wipe from his hand took a huge smear of the blood from his face. A clear flesh wound with the sheer white of a powder burn ran, like an arrow, up the side of it.

'Can't kill me,' he said. 'Not like that.'

In the distance came the sound of a train whistle. Finding a crutch, Hercules pulled himself up.

'The engine, Mr Harry.' Blood or not, Hercules' eyes danced. 'The engine!'