Allan Folsom - Day Of Confession

It was at a high point that he saw the flotilla to the north, maybe thirty or forty boats at anchor or cruising slowly back and forth, held offshore by three larger craft that looked like cutters or guard boats, and he knew the police had found the grotto. Then, as he was starting down, negotiating the hairpin, he saw a helicopter suddenly rise up to circle over the top of the cliff where he'd been less than twenty minutes earlier.

Abruptly the entire scene vanished as the truck slid forward on the loose gravel. Pumping the brakes wildly, Harry swung the wheel back toward the road. But it did no good. The truck continued to slide. The edge was coming up. After that there was nothing but air and the water below. And then the right front wheel caught in a rut. The steering wheel snapped out of his hand. And, as if it had suddenly been mounted on a track, the vehicle swung sharply back and followed the path of the road, dropping behind a steep ridge and in under an umbrella of trees.

For another five minutes Harry fought both the truck and road, and then he was at lake level, where the road went on for another twenty yards, then ended abruptly in a growth of brush and high trees at the water's edge.

Parking on a hill behind a row of trees and making sure the truck couldn't be seen from the lake, Harry got out and walked along the water's edge, then pushed through the undergrowth to where he could see the dark shadow that was the entry to the cave. In the distance he could hear the helicopter circling. And he prayed that's where it would stay, in the distance.

Circling.

The grotto. Same time.

Roscani stood on the landing, looking into the motorboat. A man and woman lay dead inside it. The woman had been lucky he hadn't used the razor – the way he'd done it on the man with her, the way he'd done it on Edward Mooi, whose nearly headless body had been found floating in the inner channel.

Edward Mooi.

'Dammit!' he said out loud. 'Dammit to hell!' He should have known he was the one who had hidden the priest. Should have gone back and pressured him the moment he'd found the engines on the outboard were still warm. But he hadn't, because the call had come about the dead men in the lake and he'd gone there instead.

Turning from the landing, letting the tech people work, he walked back down the grotto's main corridor past the ancient stone benches toward the room at the end where the priest had been kept, where Scala and Castelletti were now and where the body of a carabiniere had been brought from the maze of back passageways – another of the ice picker's victims, the ice picker who they now knew was blond and had scratches down his cheek.

'Biondo,' the dying carabiniere had managed, his eyes glazed over, one hand grasping Scala's, his other clawing feebly at his own cheek.

''Graffiato,' he'd coughed, his fingers still pulling at his cheek. Graffiato.

'Biondo. Graffiato.'

Blond. And strong. And quick. And, they surmised, the skin on his face scratched as well, most likely by the fingernails of the murdered woman, under which fragments of skin had been found. Fragments that would be sent to the lab for DNA analysis. New technology, Roscani thought. But useful only when they had a suspect, when they could take a blood sample and see if they had a match.

Entering the room, Roscani moved past Scala, and Castelletti went again into the room where the nun's personal belongings had been found.

Nursing sister Elena Voso, age twenty-seven, a member of the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart; home convent, the Hospital of St Bernardine in the Tuscan city of Siena.

Walking back to the main tunnel, Roscani ran a hand through his hair and tried to get some sense of the place itself. Eros Barbu's enormous wealth was everywhere, and yet the people who had hidden here, a nun and a priest, and the dead men who had protected them, were not wealthy. Why had Barbu allowed his property to be used as a hiding place?

It was a question Barbu himself would never answer. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were now investigating his apparent suicide on a mountain trail overlooking Lake Louise in Banff. Death by shotgun in the mouth. Except that Roscani knew it was no suicide, but murder, done, he was certain, by a colleague of the blond ice picker, who knew where Barbu was and how to find him and had killed him either in retaliation for helping Father Daniel escape or in an effort to find out where he was. Perhaps it was even the same colleague who killed Harry Addison's boss in California. If so, the conspiracy was much broader and far-reaching than it first seemed.

In the distance, Roscani could hear the echo of the search dogs and their handlers leading the carabinieri teams probing the maze of tunnels for Elena Voso and the fugitive priest – and Harry Addison. He had no proof. It was a hunch and nothing else. But somehow Roscani sensed the American had been there and helped his brother to escape.

Taking a half-eaten chocolate biscuit from his pocket, the Italian unwrapped the foil and bit into it, looking up as he did.

High above, a helicopter unit was coordinating Gruppo Cardinale teams on the ground combing the cliffs above the grotto. A clear set of footprints had been found outside the elevator shaft. And there were tire tracks of a vehicle driven in, parked, and then driven away. Whether any of it would lead them to the blond man or the fugitives it was too early to tell.

Whatever had happened, or would happen, one thing alone had become chillingly clear – Roscani was no longer dealing simply with a fugitive priest and his brother, but with people internationally connected, highly skilled, and with no reservation at all about killing. And anyone with even the slightest idea where the priest might be, or what he might know, had become a hard target seemingly reachable anywhere.

Danny was alone as Harry came into the cave, sitting just back from the entrance, his broken legs in their blue fiberglass casts twisted awkwardly in front of him. He wore Harry's black jacket over the thin hospital gown he had on when they put him into the skiff.

Immediately Harry looked around. Where was Elena? He looked back to find Danny staring at him, as if he weren't quite sure who Harry was. And Harry knew the physical exhaustion caused by the brutal ride through the grotto's sluices was taking its toll. Danny had regressed, and it frightened him because he didn't know how far back he'd gone or if he would regain the strength to come back.

'Danny, do you know who I am?'

Danny said nothing, just continued to stare. Unsure, uncertain.

'I'm your brother, Harry.'

Finally, hesitantly, Danny nodded.

'We are in a cave in the north of Italy.'

Danny nodded again. But the action was still vague, as if he understood the words but not what they meant.

'Do you know where the sister is – the nun who is taking care of you. Where is she?'

For several seconds there was no reaction at all. Then slowly, deliberately, Danny's eyes shifted to the left.

Harry followed the movement across the cave to a bright, sunlit opening near the back. Leaving Danny, he crossed to it, started through, then stopped. Elena was half dressed, her habit around her waist, her breasts exposed. Startled, she quickly covered herself.

'Sorry,' Harry said, then turned and went back inside.

A moment later and fully dressed, Elena followed him in, thoroughly embarrassed, trying to explain.

'I apologize, Mr Addison. My clothing was still wet. I dried it out there on the rocks, as I did your jacket and your brother's gown. He was sleeping when I… was… not dressed…'