Allan Folsom - Day Of Confession

Marsciano had no idea how the others felt, but he was certain none despised his own weakness and fear more than he.

Once again he looked at his watch.

8:10

'Eminence.' Pierre Weggen approached with Yan Yeh. The president of the People's Bank of China was quite short, and trim, his dark hair flecked with gray.

'You remember Yan Yeh,' Weggen said.

'Of course.' Marsciano smiled and took the Chinese banker's hand firmly. 'Welcome to Rome.'

They had met once before, in Bangkok, and except for a few terse moments when Palestrina had purposefully challenged the banker about the future of the Catholic Church in the new China and been told coldly, directly, and authoritatively that the time was not right for a rapprochement between Beijing and Rome, Marsciano had found Yan Yeh to be personable, outgoing, even witty, and with seeming genuine concern for the well-being of people, whoever they were.

'I think,' Yan Yeh said, a twinkle in his eye as he lifted a glass of red wine and touched it to Marsciano's, 'the Italians should give us Chinese a good lesson in wine making.'

Just then Marsciano saw the papal nuncio enter and approach Palestrina, taking him aside, away from the Chinese ambassador and foreign minister. The two spoke briefly, and he saw Palestrina glance his way before leaving the room. It was a small gesture, insignificant to anyone else. But for him it was everything, because it meant he had been singled out.

'Perhaps,' Marsciano said, turning back to Yan Yeh, 'an arrangement could be made.' He smiled.

'Eminence.' The nuncio touched the cardinal's sleeve.

Marsciano turned. 'Yes, I know… Where do you want me to go?'

Marsciano stopped briefly at the bottom of the stairway, then walked up. At the top, he turned down a narrow hallway, stopping at an elaborately paneled door. Turning the knob, he entered.

The late sun cut sharply through the lone window dividing the ornate meeting room in half. Palestrina stood on one side of it, partly in shadow. The person with him was little more than a silhouette, but Marsciano didn't need to see him to know who it was. Jacov Farel.

'Eminence… Jacov.' Marsciano closed the door behind him.

'Sit down, Nicola.' Palestrina gestured toward a grouping of high-backed chairs that faced an ancient marble fireplace. Marsciano crossed the shaft of sunlight to do as he had been asked.

As he did, Farel sat down opposite him, crossing his feet at the ankles, buttoning his suit coat, then his gaze coming up to Marsciano's and holding there.

'I want to ask you a question, Nicola, and I want you to answer with the truth.' Palestrina let his hand trail lightly across the top of a chair, then took hold of it and pulled it around to sit down directly in front of Marsciano. 'Is the priest alive?'

Marsciano had known, from the moment Harry Addison declared the remains were not his brother's, that it was only a matter of time before Palestrina came with his questions. He was surprised it had taken this long. But the interval had given him the chance to prepare himself as best he could.

'No,' he said, directly.

'The police believe he is.'

'They are wrong.'

'His brother disagreed,' Farel said.

'He merely said the body was not that of his brother. But he was mistaken.' Marsciano worked to seem dispassionate and matter-of-fact.

'There is a videotape in the possession of Gruppo Cardinale made by Harry Addison himself, asking his brother to give himself up. Does that sound like someone who was mistaken?'

For a moment Marsciano said nothing. When he did speak, it was to Palestrina and in the same tone as before. 'Jacov was there beside me at the morgue when the evidence was presented and the identification made.' Marsciano turned toward Farel. 'Is that not true, Jacov?'

Farel said nothing.

Palestrina studied Marsciano and then rose from his chair and walked toward the window, his enormous body blocking the sunlight. Then he turned, so that he stood wholly in shadow, with nothing visible except the dark hugeness of his form.

'The top is taken from a box. A moth flies out to disappear in the breeze… How did it survive where it was? Where did it go when it flew away?' Palestrina came back toward them.

'I grew up a scugnizzo, a common Neapolitan street urchin. My only teacher was experience. Sitting in the gutter with your head bleeding because you had been lied to but had believed you had been told the truth… From it you learned. And you took care so that it wouldn't happen again…' Palestrina stopped at Marsciano's chair and looked down at him.

'I will ask you once more, Nicola: Is the priest alive?'

'No, Eminence. He is dead.'

'Then we are finished here.' Palestrina glanced at Farel, then abruptly left the room.

His sensibilities all but frozen, Marsciano watched him go. Then, knowing Palestrina would question his policeman about his manner after he left, Marsciano gathered himself and looked to Farel. 'He is dead, Jacov,' he said 'Dead.'

One of Farel's plainclothes guards stood at the bottom of the stairs as Marsciano came down, and the cardinal passed him without a glance.

Marsciano's entire life had been given to God and the Church. He was as strong yet simple as his Tuscan background. Men like Palestrina and Farel lived in a world beyond his, one that he had no place in and feared greatly, yet circumstances and his own competence had placed him there.

'For the good of the Church,' Palestrina had said because he knew the Church and its sanctity were Marsciano's weakness, that he revered them nearly as much as he revered God, because to him they were close to one and the same. Give me Father Daniel, Palestrina was telling him, and the Church will be saved from the spectacle of a trial and the public scandal and degradation certain to come with it if it is true he is alive and the police get him. And he would be right, because if he did, Father Daniel, already presumed dead, would simply vanish, Farel or Thomas Kind would see to that. He would be judged guilty within the Church and the matter of Cardinal Parma's murder put to rest.

But giving up Father Daniel only to have him murdered was not something Marsciano was prepared to do. Under the noses of Palestrina and Farel and Capizzi and Matadi, he had called upon all the resources at his command in an attempt to get away with the impossible; to have Father Daniel declared dead when he knew he was not. And were it not for Father Daniel's brother, it might have worked. But it hadn't. In result, he had no choice but to continue the charade and, with it, hope to buy time. But he had done poorly, of that there was little doubt.

His attempt to reassure Farel he had been telling the truth after Palestrina left had been feeble and had fallen on deaf ears. His fate, he knew, had been sealed with the secretariat's glance at his policeman as he'd walked from the room. With it, he had taken Marsciano's liberty. From that moment on, he would be watched. Wherever he went, whoever he saw or spoke with, whether on the telephone or in the corridor, even at home, would be monitored and reported. First to Farel and then from Farel to Palestrina. What it amounted to was house arrest. And there was nothing at all he could do about it.

Once again he looked at his watch.

8:50

All he could do was pray there had been no glitches. That by now they were gone, safely out of there as planned.

Pescara. Still Thursday, July 9. 10:35 p.m.

Nursing sister Elena Voso rode on a fold-down jump seat in the back of an unmarked beige van. In the dimness she could see Michael Roark next to her. He lay on his back on a gurney, staring at the IV hanging overhead as it swung with the motion of the truck. Across from her was the handsome Marco, while up front, the heavy-set Luca drove, guiding the van deliberately through the narrow streets as if he knew exactly where he was taking them, though none had spoken of it.