Allan Folsom - Day Of Confession

For no reason he picked up the knife he had used to slice the bread and cheese. It was an everyday kitchen knife, its cutting edge a little bit dull like most. As a knife it wasn't very impressive, but it did the job. Holding it up, he rotated it in his hand, saw the blade glint in the overhead light. Then, with the easiest of motions, he turned and slid it deep into what remained of the bread. The safety and well-being of his brother was all that mattered. All the rest – the Vatican, its power struggles and intrigues – could go to hell.

The Hospital of St John. Via dell' Amba Aradam, 9:50 p.m.

Harry was alone in the small chapel, sitting in a pew three rows back from the altar, his black beret tucked inside his jacket pocket, his head bowed, seemingly in prayer. He'd been there fifteen minutes when the door opened and a man in a short-sleeved shirt and what looked like tan Levi Dockers came in and sat down nearby.

Harry glanced at his watch and then back toward the door. Marsciano was to have met him there twenty minutes ago. It was only when he decided he would give the cardinal another five minutes and then leave that he looked again at the man who had come in and realized in amazement that it was Marsciano.

For a long while the cardinal remained still. Head bowed, silent. Finally he looked up, made eye contact, and nodded toward a door to the left. Then he stood, crossed himself before the altar, and pushed through the door. At the same moment, a young couple entered, knelt before the altar and crossed themselves, taking seats together in the front row.

Harry counted slowly to twenty, then got up, made the sign of the cross and went out through the same door Marsciano had taken.

On the far side was a narrow hallway, and the cardinal stood alone in it.

'Come with me,' Marsciano said.

Their footsteps echoing on the worn black-and-white tile floor, the cardinal led Harry down the empty corridor and into an older part of the building. Turning down another hallway, Marsciano opened a door, and they entered a small private room which was another sanctuary for prayer. Dimly lit, more intimate than the first, it had a stone floor and several polished wooden benches facing a simple bronze cross on the wall opposite. Above, on the left and right, high windows, now dark against the night sky, touched the ceiling.

'You wished to see me. Here I am, Mr Addison.' Marsciano closed the door and turned in such a way that the lights of the room cut him at an angle that left his eyes and the top of his head in shadow. Purposeful or not, it underscored his authority, reminding Harry that whatever else he was, or might be, Marsciano was still a major figure within the hierarchy of the Church. Hugely forceful, and larger than life.

Still, Harry could not let himself be intimidated. 'My brother is alive, Eminence, and you know where he is.'

Marsciano was silent.

'Who are you protecting him from? The police?… Farel?'

Harry knew Marsciano was watching him, the eyes he couldn't see searching his own.

'Do you love your brother, Mr Addison?'

'Yes…'

'Do – you – love – your – brother?' Marsciano said again. This time more deliberate, demanding, unforgiving. 'You were estranged. You did not speak for years.'

'He is my brother. '

'Many men have brothers.'

'I don't understand.'

'You have been apart all this time. Why is he so important to you now?'

'Because he just is.'

'Then why do you risk his life?'

Fire and anger danced in Harry's eyes. 'Just tell me where he is.'

'Have you thought what you will do then?' Marsciano ignored him, just kept on. 'Stay with him where he is? Hide with him forever? – Sooner or later you will realize that you will have to face the matter immediately at hand. The police. And when you do that, Mr Addison, when you come out, you will both be killed. Your brother, because of what he knows. You, because they will think he has told you.'

'Just what does he know?'

For a long moment Marsciano said nothing, then he stepped forward out of the shadow, the light touching his face, illuminating his eyes for the first time. What was there was no longer a papal aristocrat but a lone man who was twisted and torn and filled with fear. More fear than Harry thought anyone capable of. And it caught him wholly by surprise.

'They tried to murder him once. They are trying again. A hunter has been sent to track and kill him.' Marsciano's eyes were riveted on Harry's.

'Number forty-seven Via di Montoro. Do not think you retreated to your apartment this afternoon unnoticed. Do not think your priest's costume will continue to hide you. I warn you with everything I have, to stay away! Because, if you do not-'

'Where is he? What the hell does he know?'

'-because if you do not, I will tell them where he is myself. And if I do, neither of us will hear from him again.' Marsciano's voice dropped to a whisper. 'That much is at stake…'

'The Church.' Harry felt the chill, the immensity of it, even as he said it.

The cardinal stared for the briefest moment, then abruptly turned, pulled open the door, and disappeared into the hallway, his footsteps fading to silence.

Three hours later, Monday, July 13, 1:20 a.m.

Roscani took the call in the nude, the way he always slept in the heat of summer. Glancing at his wife, he put the caller on hold and pulled on a light robe. A moment later he picked up the phone in his study, clicking on the desk light as he did.

A middle-aged man and his wife had been found shot to death in a storage container behind the ambulance company they owned in Pescara. They had been dead almost thirty-six hours when anxious family members had discovered them. Local investigators on the scene at first believed it was a murder-suicide, but after questioning friends and family, decided in all probability it was not. And, on the off-chance it might have a connection to the nationwide manhunt, alerted Gruppo Cardinale headquarters in Rome.

Pescara, 4:30 a.m.

Roscani walked the murder scene, the storage shed behind Servizio Ambulanza Pescara. Ettore Caputo and his wife had six children and had been married thirty-two years. They fought, Pescara police said, all the time, and about anything. Their battles were loud and violent and passionate. But never had anyone seen one touch the other in anger. And – never – had Ettore Caputo owned a gun.

Signora Caputo had been shot first. Point blank. And then her husband had apparently turned the weapon on himself, because his fingerprints were on it. The weapon was a two-shot.44 magnum derringer. Powerful, but tiny. The kind of weapon few people even knew about unless they were firearm aficionados.

Roscani shook his head. Why a derringer? Two shots didn't give you much room for miss or error. The only positive thing about it was its size, because it was easy to conceal. Stepping back, Roscani nodded to a member of the tech crew, and she moved in with an evidence bag to take the gun away. Then he turned and walked out of the shed and across a parking area to the ambulance company's front office. In the street beyond he could see people gathered in the gray early-morning light watching from behind police-barricades.

Roscani thought back to last evening, and what he and his detectives had learned from their singular tours of the hospitals outside Rome. And that was nothing more definitive than the chance they could be right. That there could have been a twenty-fifth passenger on the bus who was never recorded. Someone who could have walked away in the confusion if he was able or taken off by car or – Roscani glanced at a promotional calendar tacked on the office wall as he stepped into the company's office – by private ambulance.