Allan Folsom: Day Of Confession

'Careful-,' Harry warned.

'What are you doing?' Kind said.

'Nothing…' She moved closer still, a half step, no more. Her eyes were locked on Kind's.

'Adrianna, don't.' Again Harry warned her.

Adrianna stopped. She was five feet from Kind, no more. 'You are the one who killed the cardinal vicar of Rome.'

'Yes.'

'In the last few minutes you killed four more people…'

'Yes.'

'And when you find Father Daniel you'll do the same to him… and then us…'

'Perhaps…' Thomas Kind smiled, and Harry could tell he was enjoying every moment of it.

'Why?' Adrianna said sharply. 'What does it all have to do with the Vatican and the poisoning of the lakes in China?'

Harry looked at her, wondering what she was doing. Why she was pressing Kind when he had the gun and she had nothing at all to gain.

Then he realized. The same time Kind did.

'You're taping this, aren't you? You're wearing a lipstick camera, you've got a video rolling…' Kind smiled, wholly amused, amazed at his own revelation.

Adrianna smiled. 'Why don't you answer the question and then we'll talk about it…'

The next happened in a nanosecond. Thomas Kind lifted the machine pistol. There was the sound of the dull jackhammer. A look of complete surprise swept over Adrianna. She half stumbled, then fell backward.

Elena turned from Harry, frozen in horror. Thomas Kind didn't see the move. He was lost in his own actions. Harry could see the veins bulge in his neck and forehead as he stepped over Adrianna's body. Firing at it, no longer in bursts but a single shot at a time. Dropping down to a squatting position he smiled and shot her again, then again, almost as if he were making love to her.

It was all too fast. Too violent, too perverse. No time for Harry to react. It was just he, Elena, and Thomas Kind. In the center of the floor of an enormous room. Void of furniture. No place to run. To hide at all.

Then Harry did move. Directly for Kind. Kind saw him and stepped around, bringing the machine pistol up as he did.

'HARRY!'

Danny's voice suddenly echoed across the empty station. Harry froze.

So did Kind, his eyes searching the empty depot.

Abruptly Harry stepped into the line of fire, directly between Kind and Elena and the door behind them.

'Elena, get out. Now!'

Harry's eyes were locked on Kind's. His voice full of urgency.

Elena turned, slowly, reluctantly.

'GET OUT!!!'

Suddenly, she broke. Running for the door. In a moment she was across the room and through it.

'Thomas Kind!' Once again Danny's voice echoed. 'Let my brother go!'

Kind felt the touch of his palm on the machine pistol's grip. His eyes continued to search. Dark, to the bright spots of sunlight in the center of the floor, back to dark.

'She's gone, Kind. You're done anyway. You kill my brother you gain nothing. I'm the one you want.'

'Show yourself!'

'Let him go, first.'

'I count to three, Father. Then I start to take him apart in pieces. One-'

Through the window Harry could see Elena climb the stairs to the engine. He wondered what the hell she was doing.

'Two-'

Suddenly a series of short, loud train whistle bursts rocked the station. Kind ignored it. Dropped the machine pistol toward Harry's knee caps.

'Danny!' Harry yelled. 'What's the word? – What's the word, Danny?'

Harry's eyes swung to Thomas Kind. 'I know my brother better than he thinks.' Harry kept his eyes on the terrorist. 'What is it, Danny? – the word!' He yelled again, his voice bouncing in a thousand echoes off the empty station's stone walls.

'OORAH!'

Suddenly Danny appeared from behind a partition near the back, his wheelchair in deep shadow. Harry saw him push off with both hands. Disappearing into a circle of ultra-bright sunlight streaming through the high windows.

'OORAH!' Harry yelled back. 'OORAH!'

'OORAH!'

'OORAH!'

Kind saw nothing but blinding light in front of him! Then Harry started walking toward him.

'OORAH! OORAH!' he chanted, his eyes fixed on the terrorist. 'OORAH! OORAH!'

Suddenly Kind swung the machine pistol at Harry. At the same time Danny rolled forward in the wheelchair.

'OOOO RAHHHHHH!'

Danny's Celtic yell thundered off the hardness of the marbled walls, and the wheelchair moved into view.

'NOW!' Harry yelled.

Kind swung the machine pistol toward Danny, just as he hurled the last of the beer bottles. One. And then two. And they crashed flaming at Thomas Kind's feet.

For the briefest moment Thomas Kind felt the jump of the machine pistol in his hand and then he couldn't see. Fire was everywhere. Turning, he started to run. But to run he had to breathe, and without realizing, he inhaled the burning sear, sucking the flames deep, igniting his lungs. There was pain like nothing he'd ever experienced. There was no air to breathe either in or out, not even to scream. All he knew was that he was on fire and he was running. And then time itself began to slow. He could see the outdoors. The sky above him. The looming open gate in the Vatican wall. Curiously and despite the terrible pain that now seemed to exist in every part of him, he felt a deep peace. Never mind what he had done with his life or what he had become; for Thomas Jose Alvarez-Rios Kind, the disease that had ultimately usurped his soul was being terminated. That the cost was enormous didn't matter, in a matter of moments he would be free.

The train whistle still sounding, Scala and Castelletti ran down the track. The gunshots, the train whistle with no train appearing. The hell with it, they were going in. Then they stopped. A man on fire was running through the open gates coming down the tracks toward them.

The policemen held their breath as the man ran on. Another ten feet, fifteen. Then he slowed, stumbled a few feet more and collapsed on the tracks. He was no more than a hundred feet into Italy.

Harry heard the massive iron gates thud closed in the wall behind. In front of him an ambulance pulled in through a sea of blue-shirted, heavily armed Swiss Guards and drove rapidly onto the dock beside the station. Backing up, it stopped next to the work engine. Then the paramedics and the doctor with them rushed to where Elena knelt with Hercules. In no time they had inserted an IV and moved him onto a stretcher; and then the dwarf was lifted up, put in the ambulance, and it was gone, driving off through the army of Vatican soldiers.

Watching it go, Harry felt as if some part of him were leaving with it. Finally he turned away only to find Danny watching him from his wheelchair. The look in Danny's eyes told him he knew they had been seeing the same thing; the deja vu of someone they cared for deeply, put into an ambulance and driven away as they stood helplessly by and watched. It had been twenty-five years since that terrible Sunday when their sister's body had been taken from the icy pond, put blanket-wrapped into the ambulance by the fire chief, and driven away in the shivering semidarkness. The only differences now – the quarter century, that they were in Rome, not Maine, and that Hercules was still alive.

Suddenly Harry was aware that he had forgotten Elena. Turning, he saw her standing alone, her back to the work engine, watching them both, all but unaware of the force of soldiers around them. It was as if she understood something of great significance was going on between the brothers and wanted to be a part of it yet was hesitant, even afraid, to intrude. In that moment she became the dearest person he had ever known in his life.

Automatically, and without the slightest conscious thought, he went to her. And in front of Danny and the mass of faceless blue shirts surrounding them, he kissed her – gently and with all the love and tenderness he had.