Day Of Confession

160

11:04 a.m.

Scala leaned on the hood of Roscani's blue Alfa, a set of binoculars trained on the distant gates. All he could see was the slight bend of the tracks as they curved inside the wall and a small part of the station but that was all. Behind it everything, despite the new breeze, was still thick smoke. Castelletti stood halfway down the tracks in front of him, staring at the same gape in the wall. Despite the wail of sirens, they had heard the gunshots, and as much as they knew their job was to wait for the train to come out and follow it to where it stopped, both had to work with all they had not to rush in after Roscani. But they couldn't, and they knew it. All they could do was watch and wait.

'You have a gun, Mr Addison. Please give it to me.'

Harry hesitated; Kind pushed the machine pistol up under Elena's ear.

'You know who I am, Mr Addison… And what I will do…' Thomas Kind's voice was calm, a slight smile crossing his lips.

Slowly Harry reached into his belt and lifted out the Calico.

'Put it on the floor.'

Harry did, then stood back.

'Where is your brother?'

'I wish I knew…' Harry's eyes went to Elena.

'She doesn't know either,' Thomas Kind said with the same calm. Elena had been alone, running to the freight car, when Kind suddenly came down over the edge of the wall and grabbed her, demanding to know where Father Daniel was. She had no idea, she told him defiantly. The father had gone one way, she another. She was a nurse, Father Daniel's brother was bringing a wounded man to the train. And that was where she was headed, to give the service that was needed.

It was at that moment, when he had Elena by the arm and saw both the dread and the fiery resolve in her, that Thomas Kind felt the sudden savage rush of his addiction come back. He could taste it in his mouth and feel the arousal it gave him. In that instant he knew his retreat from it had ended.

'We are going to find your brother, Mr Addison,' Thomas Kind said thinly, his calmness turned to ice.

Harry barely heard, his attention on Elena; he was staring at her, trying somehow to comfort her while at the same time find a way to get her out of Kind's grasp. Then, out of nowhere, a man appeared in the freight car's open doorway.

It was Eaton. 'Vigili del fuoco!' Fire department, he said quickly and with authority.

'What are you doing here?' Eaton demanded in Italian. He was playing it very carefully, not looking at Thomas Kind at all, but addressing them as a group, as if the machine pistol in Kind's hand didn't exist.

'Taking a journey.' Kind smiled easily.

Eaton's Colt automatic appeared from nowhere. The move was professional, calculated, and controlled, going for a single shot between the terrorist's eyes.

Thomas Kind barely blinked. A short burst from the machine pistol took Eaton just under his nose, blowing him out of the freight car doorway backward and across the tracks in a wash of blood and bone, and sending the Colt flying out of sight.

Elena stiffened in horror. Kind tightened his hand over her mouth.

Adrianna remained frozen where she was. She showed no expression at all. Hercules was on the floor in between Harry and Adrianna, Kind and Elena, his breath held, knowing what they all knew: another squeeze of Kind's finger and any or all of them were dead.