Allan Folsom: Day Of Confession

Why had he looked at the emergency exit? What was that for? 'You asked if I was American. Why would you think I lived in Rome?'

'I've been there off and on. You look familiar, that's all.' Livermore 's right hand was in his lap, but his left was out of sight. 'What do you do?'

The conversation was innocent, but it wasn't. 'I'm a writer…'

'What do you write?'

'For American television…'

'No, you don't.' Abruptly Livermore 's demeanor changed. His eyes hardened, and he leaned in, pressing against Father Daniel. 'You're a priest.'

'What?'

'I said you're a priest. You work at the Vatican. For Cardinal Marsciano.'

Father Daniel stared at him. 'Who are you?'

Livermore 's left hand came up. A small automatic was in it. A silencer squirreled to the barrel. 'Your executioner.'

At the same instant a digital timer beneath the bus clicked to 00:00. A split second later there was a thundering explosion. Livermore vanished. Windows blew out. Seats and bodies flew. A scything piece of razor-sharp steel decapitated the driver, sending the bus careening right, crushing a white Ford against the guardrail. Bouncing off it, the bus came crashing back through traffic, a screaming, whirling, twenty-ton fireball of burning steel and rubber. A motorcycle rider disappeared under its wheels. Then it clipped the rear of a big-rig truck and spun sideways. Slamming into a silver-gray Lancia, the bus carried it full force through the center divider, throwing it directly into the path of an oncoming gasoline tanker.

Reacting violently, the tanker driver jammed on his brakes, jerking the wheel right. Wheels locked, tires shrieking, the enormous truck slid forward and sideways, at the same time knocking the Lancia off the bus like a billiard ball and sending the burning coach plunging off the highway and down a steep hill. Tilting up on two wheels, it held for a second, then rolled over, ejecting the bodies of its passengers, many of them dismembered and on fire, across the summer landscape. Fifty yards later it came to a rest, igniting the dry grass in a crackling rush around it.

Seconds afterwards its fuel tank exploded, sending flame and smoke roaring heavenward in a fire storm that raged until there was nothing left but a molten, burned-out shell and a small, insignificant wisp of smoke.

Delta Airlines flight 148, New York to Rome.

Monday, July 6, 7:30 a.m.

Danny was dead, and Harry was on his way to Rome to bring his body back to the U.S. for burial. The last hour, like most of the flight, had been a dream. Harry had seen the morning sun touch the Alps. Seen it glint off the Tyrrhenian Sea as they'd turned, dropping down over the Italian farmland on approach to Rome 's Leonardo da Vinci International Airport at Fiumicino.

' Harry, it's your brother, Danny… '

All he could hear was Danny's voice on the answering machine. It played over and over in his mind, like a tape on a loop. Fearful, distraught, and now silent.

'Harry, it's your brother, Danny… '

Waving off a pour of coffee from a smiling and pert flight attendant, Harry leaned back against the plush seat of the first-class cabin and closed his eyes, replaying what had happened in between.

He'd tried to call Danny twice more from the plane. And then again when he checked into his hotel. Still, there had been no answer. His apprehension growing, he'd called the Vatican directly, hoping to find Danny at work, and what he'd learned, after being passed from one department to another and being spoken to in broken English and then Italian and then a combination of both, was that Father Daniel was 'not here until Monday'.

To Harry that had meant he was away for the weekend. And no matter his mental state, it was a legitimate reason why Danny was not answering his phone. In response, Harry had left a message on his answering machine at home, giving his hotel number in New York in the event Danny called back as he said he would.

And then Harry had turned, with some sense of relief, to business as usual and to why he had gone to New York – a last-minute huddle with Warner Brothers distribution and marketing chiefs over this fourth of July weekend's opening of Dog on the Moon, Warner's major summer release, the story of a dog taken to the moon in a NASA experiment and accidentally left there, and the Little League team that learns about it and finds a way to bring him back; a film written and directed by Harry's twenty-four-year-old client Jesus Arroyo.

Single and handsome enough to be a movie star, Harry Addison was not only one of the entertainment community's most eligible bachelors, he was also one of its most successful attorneys. His firm represented the cream of multimillion-dollar Hollywood talent. His own list of clients had either starred in or were responsible for some of the highest-grossing movies and successful television shows of the past five years. His friends were household names, the same people who stared weekly from the covers of national magazines.

His success – as the daily Hollywood trade paper Variety had recently put it – was due to 'a combination of smarts, hard work, and a temperament markedly different from the savagely competitive young warrior agents and attorneys to whom the "deal" is everything and whose only disposition is "take no prisoners." With his Ivy League haircut and trademark white shirt and dark blue Armani suit, the Harry Addison approach is that the most beneficial thing for everyone is to cause as little all-around bleeding as possible. It's why his deals go through, his clients love him, the studios and networks respect him, and why he makes a million dollars a year.'

Dammit, what did any of that mean now? His brother's death overshadowed everything. All he could think of was what he might have done to help Danny that he hadn't. Call the U.S. Embassy or the Rome police and send them to his apartment? He didn't even know where he lived. That was why he had started to call Byron Willis, his boss and mentor and best friend, from the limo when he'd first heard Danny's message. Who did they know in Rome who could help? was what he had intended to ask but hadn't because the call had never gone through. If he had, and if they had found someone in Rome, would Danny still be alive? The answer was probably no because there wouldn't have been time.

Christ.

Over the years how many times had he tried to communicate with Danny? Christmas and birthday cards formally exchanged for a short while after their mother's death. Then one holiday missed, then another. Finally nothing at all. And busy with his life and career, Harry had let it ride, eventually accepting it as the way it was. Brothers at opposites. Angry, at times even hostile, living a world apart, as they always would. With both probably wondering during the odd quiet moment if he should be the one to take the initiative and find a way to bring them back together. But neither had.

And then Saturday evening as he'd been in the Warner's New York offices celebrating the huge numbers Dog on the Moon was realizing – nineteen million dollars with Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday still to come, making a projected weekend gross of thirty-eight to forty-two million – Byron Willis had called from Los Angeles. The Catholic archdiocese had been trying to reach Harry and was reluctant to leave word at his hotel. They'd traced Willis through Harry's office, and Byron himself had chosen to make the call. Danny was dead, he'd said quietly, killed in what appeared to be a terrorist bombing of a tour bus on the way to Assisi.

In the emotional gyration immediately afterward, Harry had canceled his plans to return to L.A. and booked himself on a Sunday evening flight to Italy. He would go there and bring Danny home personally. It was the last and only thing he could do.