Allan Folsom - Day Of Confession

'I understand…' Harry found a way to smile, and it put her at ease.

'You came with the truck?'

'Yes.'

'Harry-?' Danny cocked his head as Harry and Elena came closer.

It was Harry, he was sure. Elena was with him, and that helped because she had been with him for a long time. And she made him feel anchored to some kind of reality. Still, he felt weak. Thinking itself – where they were, how Harry came to be there – was a supreme effort. Then the vision of Harry taking his hand and helping him out of the water came back vividly. So, too, did the moment when they looked at each other and realized that after so much time they were together again.

'I…' Danny touched a hand to his head. 'Not thinking… too… clear…'

'It's okay, Danny,' Harry said gently. 'It's going to DC okay…'

'It's not unexpected, Mr Addison,' Elena said deliberately, her eyes going to Danny. 'And I don't mind talking in front of the father, because he needs to understand it, too – he has been seriously hurt… He was making progress, all this has set him back… Physically I think he will be all right… But he may have trouble with his words, his cognizance, or both… How much will return, only time will tell.' Now she looked to Harry.

'How far is the truck, Mr Addison?' She was suddenly concerned with time, with the lengthening shadows outside the cave. 'How far do we have to go to reach it?'

Harry hesitated, then looked to Danny. Afraid of upsetting or frightening him, he took Elena by the arm and led her toward the cave's entrance, telling her he'd show her the way from there.

As they reached it and bent down to step over the rocks that kept it from being seen from the lake, Harry turned to face her.

'The police have found the grotto. They had a helicopter circling the top of the hill by the elevator shaft. Maybe that's the way the blond man got out – who knows? But they'll know Danny was there and that he was alive…' Harry hesitated. 'You left your things behind, Elena. They'll know who you are… and probably that I was there, too, because I wasn't very careful about what I touched.

'They'll search the tunnels and corridors, and when they don't find us, they'll saturate this whole area looking for us.

'The road up out of here is impossible, but if we can get out before they come this far, and do it before dark, before I need to use headlights, we might make it. At least to the main road and in with other traffic. Hoping that when it does get dark, we can slip through their checkpoints like we did this morning.'

'To go where, Mr Addison?'

'With luck, the Autostrada at Como and then north to the Swiss border at Chiasso.'

Elena studied him for the briefest moment. 'And then where, Mr Addison?'

'-I'm not sure…' Suddenly Harry was aware of Danny watching them intently from inside the cave. For the first time Harry saw him at a distance, saw what he had become. Emaciated, broken. But still with fight, the same way Harry had always remembered him. Bullheaded sometimes, but always tough. Nonetheless, right now he was next to helpless.

Abruptly, Harry turned back to Elena. There were things she needed to understand before they went anywhere.

'You know that I am wanted for killing an Italian policeman. And that Danny is a prime suspect in the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome.'

'Yes.'

Harry's eyes were suddenly intense and filled with strength. 'It's important you understand that I did not kill the policeman… What my brother did or didn't do, I don't know and won't until his mind is clear enough for me to ask him… And even then, I don't know what he'll say, or won't… But whatever happened, someone wants him dead… Because of what he knows, for what he might tell… That's why the blond man, maybe even the police… And now they know he's alive, they'll not only come after him again, they will assume he's passed on whatever he knows to the people with him.'

'You and me, Mr Addison…'

'Yes.'

'And whether he has told us anything or not-'

'They won't ask.' Harry finished the thought for her.

Suddenly, and out of nowhere, came the chunky thud of a jet helicopter's rotor blades slicing air. Taking Elena by the arm, Harry pulled her back into the cave's overhang just as the machine swept over the ridge above them. Moving out over the lake, it made a wide turn, then swung back the way it had come, disappearing over the treetops. Its sound vanishing with it.

Instantly Elena's eyes came back to Harry.

'I understand the situation, Mr Addison, and I am prepared for whatever happens…'

Harry stared at her for the briefest moment.

'Okay,' he said, then turned back into the cave for Danny.

Roscani saw the lake and then the treetops as the helicopter swung in over the cliffs, taking one last careful look for himself, his father's way of doing things, as if because of it, he would succeed where everyone else had failed. But he didn't. He saw nothing but rock and trees and the water off to the left.

'Damn,' he swore under his breath. They were down there somewhere, all of them. Father Daniel, the nun, the blond ice picker/razor man, and Harry Addison. Roscani's earlier hunch had been right: the American had been in the grotto. Fingerprints lifted from a medicine case in the room where Father Daniel had been confirmed it.

Roscani wouldn't allow himself to imagine how the American had slipped from them all and found the water caves before they did, or how he and the others had managed to avoid the blond man, which, it seemed, they had. On the positive side, a manhunt across all of Italy had narrowed down to an area of a few square miles. On the negative, he had two sets of fugitives – the Addison group and the blond killer – each with either extraordinary skill at avoidance, third-party help, or just plain luck. Roscani's job was to stop it all, pinch off any possible route of escape, and end it here as quickly as possible.

Ahead, as the pilot brought them north in growing twilight, he could see the buildup of the huge Gruppo Cardinale force he was putting in place to do it – hundreds of Italian Army, carabinieri, local police personnel – arriving at the tactical staging area on top of the cliffs above the grotto.

Abruptly, Roscani ordered the helicopter back to strategic headquarters set up hours earlier at Villa Lorenzi, his mind shifting to the next. Gruppo Cardinale was hunting two separate entities. The Americans and the nun he knew, but he had no idea who his aggressive blond ice picker was. At this point, it was essential he find out.

The steering wheel chattered unmercifully in Harry's hands. The truck shook, and the tires spun in the gravel against the steep pitch of the hill, the truck inching upward but at the same time sliding sideways, bringing them perilously close to the edge and the lake how many hundred feet below. Then they were out of the gravel and onto solid ground, the truck gained purchase, and Harry guided it back toward the center of the road.

'So far, so good…' He half smiled and saw Elena pressed against the far door, trying not to show her fear. And Danny, jammed in between them, wholly exhausted, was staring off at nothing, seemingly unaware of any of it. Immediately Harry glanced at the truck's primitive instrument panel. Fuel. They had little more than a quarter of a tank, and how far that would take them he didn't know.

'Mr Addison, your brother needs fluids and food as quickly as we can possibly get them.'

By now, it was all but dark, and in the distance they could see the lights of traffic on the Bellagio road. The highway south would take them along the lake and back toward Como, where Harry wanted to go. How far it was or how many towns there were in between, he didn't know and neither did Elena.