Day Of Confession

82

It wasn't a boat so much as an aluminum skiff, flat bottomed, twelve feet long and five feet wide, and designed to be towed behind a boat to haul supplies or to take away garbage. Salvatore had found it near a smaller landing, around a turn in the canal, a hundred or more yards down from the first, propped up against a wall just outside a heavy door that led to Eros Barbu's legendary wine cellar. With it were two oars, and Harry and Salvatore carried it to the water and put it in, securing it to the landing with a rope.

Then Harry stepped in and tested it.

It floated, didn't leak, and held his weight. Bending, he set the oarlocks into place and slid the oars into them. 'Okay, let's get him in.'

Salvatore pushed the gurney forward, then he and Harry hefted it into the skiff setting it sideways across the stern. Next, he handed Harry a bag holding a minimum of medical supplies. Then Harry helped Elena in and looked expectantly to Salvatore, but the Italian and his wife stepped back.

The skiff was too small for all of them, he said, Elena translating. There were markings on the walls high above the waterlines that would guide them out of the tunnels. Follow those and they would be all right.

'What about you?' Harry looked at Salvatore with concern.

Salvatore and Marta would ride the cage back up. Again Elena translated. They would meet them with the farm truck at a cove farther south on the lake. Glancing at Elena, he explained how to find it. Finally he looked back to Harry.

'Arrivederci,' he said, almost apologetically, as if he were abandoning them. Then he quickly took Marta's hand, and the two disappeared back into the cave.