Day Of Confession

156

Adrianna came out of the building to see Eaton running full tilt up the road behind St Peter's, then vanishing like a wisp in the smoke.

'Skycam, what do you have on the engine?' she spat into the phone as she ran, cutting up the hill and across the grass toward the Palace of the Government, the Vatican's city hall. She was three minutes, maybe four, from the railroad station.

Elena pulled Danny back into the overhang of a tree near the Church of San Stefano and waited for the helicopter to pass over. It did, then abruptly swung back toward the station.

At the same moment, Danny's cell phone chirped.

'Harry-'

'We have Marsciano with us. What about the engine?'

Elena could feel the pound of her heart at Harry's voice. He was all right, at least for the moment.

'Harry-,' Danny said, 'we've got air cover. I don't know who it is. Go the other way, come down by Vatican Radio and in past the Ethiopian College. By then we'll be closer, and I can see what the hell's going on.'

10:50 a.m.

'Stay here!' Roscani yelled at Scala and Castelletti. Then, turning, he ran down the track after the little oily-green engine just as it chugged in through the open gates and vanished in the massive hang of smoke.

For a moment Scala and Castelletti stood open-mouthed, watching him. Little by little Roscani had been walking down the track following the engine, but his move and the quickness of it had caught them by surprise. Suddenly they started to run after him. A dozen yards later they stopped as they saw him reach the opening in the wall and disappear into the gloom. From where they stood, it looked like the entire Vatican was either on fire or fully under siege.

Suddenly an Italian Army helicopter roared in directly overhead. At the same time Farel's voice crackled loudly over the radio, identifying himself and telling the WNN Skycam helicopter to vacate Vatican airspace immediately.

'Dammit,' Adrianna said at the order. Then she heard the rotors overhead crank up and her Skycam pull away.

'Keep south of the wall,' she shouted into the phone. 'When that engine comes out, stay with it!'

For some reason the work engine had stopped just inside the gates and Roscani crossed the tracks behind it quickly, moving to his right and past the station. Coughing, his eyes tearing with the smoke, he pulled open his jacket and slid his 9mm Beretta automatic from his belt. Straining to see, he went up the road in the direction of the tower. What he was doing was totally illegal, but he didn't care. The law was fucked and could go to hell. He'd made the decision in an instant as he walked down the tracks after the work engine and saw the huge gates pull back for it. The open portal in the wall was all he needed, and he went for it just like that, all fire and emotion and the knowledge that he had to do something.

And now, as he fought the smoke and tears and just tried to breathe, he prayed to God he wouldn't lose his bearings and get lost, that he would somehow find the Addisons before Farel's gunmen or Thomas Kind did.

Thomas Kind ran forward, Walther mascinen pistole in hand, wiping his eyes, trying not to cough with the acrid smoke. It was already hard enough to see anything, and the physical act of coughing jarred and threw him off even more.

Running across the lawn, jumping a low hedge, he suddenly lost his bearings and stopped. It was like being on skis in a whiteout. Up, down, or sideways, everything was the same.

He could hear emergency sirens far to his left. Above, and also to the left, was the heavy thud of rotors from what he assumed was the Italian Army jet helicopter circling to land on the roof of the papal palace. Pulling up his radio, he spoke into it in Italian.

'This is S. Copy.'

Silence.

'This is S,' he said again. 'Copy.'

Hercules swung alongside Harry and Marsciano as they made their way quickly along the narrow road toward Vatican Radio, the damp towels tight around their faces. The two-way radio in Hercules' belt spat with Thomas Kind's voice.

'Who is that?' Marsciano asked.

'I think someone we want nothing in the world to do with,' Harry said, knowing, without knowing, that it was Thomas Kind. Harry coughed, looking at his watch.

10:53 a.m.

'Eminence,' he said suddenly. 'We have five minutes to get past the Ethiopian College to the tracks and into the railroa-'

'Mr Harry!' Hercules suddenly cried out.

Harry looked up. A black suit stood directly in front of them, less than five feet away in the smoke. He had a huge pistol in either hand – revolvers. He stepped forward. He was tall and youthful and had wavy hair. He looked for all the world like a young Dirty Harry. He was Thomas Kind's last man.

'Put your gun on the ground,' he said to Harry in English with a thick French accent. 'The waist pack, too.'

Slowly Harry eased the Calico out and set it on the ground, then unclasped the waist pack and let that fall, too.

'Harry-' Danny's voice jumped out from the cell phone in his belt.

'Harry!'

At that moment something happened that startled them all. A light breeze wafted across, lifting the smoke ever so slightly. At the same time came the distant sound of the work engine's whistle as it passed through the gates. The black suit suddenly smiled. The train was coming, the trio in front of him would never make it.

It wasn't much, just a tiny moment, and what Hercules had been looking for. In a single motion he shifted his weight to his left crutch and flung the right.

The black suit cried out in surprise as the crutch struck his right hand sending one gun flying off. Recovering, he swung the other gun toward Harry, his finger closing on the trigger. At the same instant Hercules threw himself forward. Harry saw the gun buck in the black suit's hand, heard its heavy report just as Hercules crashed into him, knocking them both to the ground.

Harry's fingers found the Calico. What happened next was in flashes. Split seconds. Pieces. Bits. Passion. Fury. He was across the ground and on the black suit. Arm around his neck. Tearing him off Hercules. The gun coming across toward his head. Then suddenly the black suit wrenched free.

In an instant he had Harry by the hair with both hands and was jerking him forward, slamming his forehead hard into Harry's with a vicious head butt. Harry saw a stabbing bolt of light and then blackness. A split second later, his vision returned to see the Calico in the black suit's hand inches from his face.

'Fuck you!' the black suit screamed, his finger squeezing the trigger.

Immediately there was a thundering gunshot. Followed in lightning succession by three more ear-shattering blasts. Harry saw the black suit's entire head explode in what seemed like slow motion. Then his body arched and he fell back, the Calico dropping to the grass beside him.

Harry whirled, looking up.

Roscani was coming down the hill toward them, his Beretta pointed directly at the dead black suit, as if there were some chance the man might actually get up again.

'Harry, the engine!' Danny's voice came out of a fog at Harry's waist.

Harry got to his feet as Roscani came nearer. He started to say something, then froze, staring up the hill behind him.

'Look out!' Harry yelled.

Roscani spun. The two black suits Hercules had sent running toward the helicopter pad were running toward them. They were thirty yards away, coming through the smoke.

Roscani glanced at Hercules. His face was ashen, his hand over his stomach, a circle of blood widening from it.

'Get out of here!' Roscani yelled, turning and dropping to one knee. His first shot hit the lead black suit in the shoulder, spinning him around, the second kept coming.

Behind him Harry heard a barrage of gunshots. He could feel bullets whizz by inches away as he bent to pick Hercules from the ground. As he did, he suddenly remembered Marsciano.

'Eminence-,' he said, looking up.

There was no one. Marsciano was gone.