Allan Folsom - Day Of Confession

'I need one of you to drive me to the helicopter pad,' he said as he came into the hallway.

'Where are you going?' The first researcher was already up and on his feet, moving with Roscani down the hallway.

'Lugano, Switzerland.'

Lugano. Same time.

A dark gray Mercedes with Vatican City license plates and two priests in the front seat left Lugano in an early evening darkened to night by rain. Passing the hotels along the lakefront, it turned onto Via Giuseppe Cattori, then headed west toward the N2 motorway that would take them south to Chiasso and then into Italy.

Elena sat in back watching Danny give Harry directions as he read from a map in the glow of the map light above the rearview mirror. There was tension between the brothers. She could see it and feel it. What it was exactly she didn't know, and Harry hadn't spoken to her about it, only given her the opportunity to stay behind, but she had refused. Where the brothers were going, she was going. It was a given, and she told Harry so, reminding him she was a nurse and Father Daniel was still in her care. Moreover, she was Italian and they were going back into Italy and, if Harry didn't remember, that was something that had proven beneficial more than once in the past. And when Harry smiled ever so slightly at her pluck and determination, it was clear she was coming with them.

As they reached the motorway, Danny abruptly reached up and shut off the map light, settling back out of sight as he did. Suddenly Harry was the only one Elena could see.

Lighted by the dim of the instrument panel, he became the entire focus of her attention. The tense movement of his fingers over the steering wheel. His steely concentration on the road in front of him. That same aura of uneasiness grew as he sat back, then leaned forward again against the restraint of the seat harness, a discomfort not with the car but with where it was going. Rome, it was obvious, was not his idea.

'Are you all right?' Harry asked quietly.

Elena saw he had looked up and was watching her in the mirror.

'Yes…' Her eyes fastened on his, and they studied each other in silence.

'Harry.' Danny's voice suddenly warned over the metronome of the wipers.

Instantly Harry's eyes left Elena and went to the road. The traffic in front of them was slowing. Then came the distinct pink-white glow of mercury-vapor lamps against the turbid night sky.

'The Italian border.' Danny sat up, alert, attentive.

Elena saw Harry's hands tighten on the wheel. Felt the Mercedes slow as he touched the brakes. Then he glanced at her once more, his eyes holding for the briefest instant before he looked back to the road ahead.

Beijing. Thursday, July 16.

Pierre Weggen's black chauffer-driven limousine entered Zhongnanhai compound, the private complex where China's most preeminent leaders resided, shortly after one in the morning. Five minutes later, the Swiss investment banker was being shown into a large living room in the home of Wu Xian, general secretary of the Communist Party, by the solemn president of the People's Bank of China, Yan Yeh.

The general secretary stood to meet Weggen as he came in, taking his hand genuinely and introducing him to the half dozen ranking members of the Politburo waiting to hear the details of his proposal; among them were the heads of the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Communication, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs. What they wanted to know was the full extent of it, how it might be accomplished, at what cost and in how short a time.

'Thank you for your hospitality, gentlemen,' Weggen began in Chinese. And then, extending his deepest sympathies not only to those present but to the country as a whole and especially the people of Hefei, he began to lay out his recommendations for a very rapid and highly visible rebuilding of the country's water delivery systems.

Taking a chair to one side, Yan Yeh sat down and lit a cigarette. Deeply shaken by the horror of what had happened and exhausted from the events of the day, he remained hopeful that the men gathered here in the early-morning hours would see that the plan Weggen was presenting was vital to national security and national interests. He hoped they would bury their pride and political infighting, along with their suspicions of the West, and undertake to endorse the project and begin work as quickly as was humanly possible – before the same thing happened again.

There was something else, too, and more personal. Whether it was spoken of or not, everyone in China who knew of the incident in Hefei was fearful of the drinking water, especially the water that was drawn from the lakes; and as powerful and influential a leader as he was, Yan Yeh was no different. Only three days before, his wife and ten-year-old son had left to visit his wife's family in the lake city of Wuxi. And hours earlier he had called her to tell her the tragedy at Hefei had been a lone incident, reassuring her, as the public was being reassured, that the quality of the drinking water across the country was being heavily monitored. And that the government was well into taking a plan of action that, if it followed his counsel, would hastily rebuild the nation's entire water system. More than anything, Yan Yeh had made the call simply to talk to his wife and calm her fears and tell her he loved her. And secretly, he hoped he was right, that Hefei had been an isolated incident.

But somehow, in the pit of his stomach, he knew it wasn't.

Rome, Vatican City. Wednesday July 15, 7:40 p.m.

Palestrina stood by the window in his library office and looked out on the crowds that still filled St Peter's Square enjoying its ambience and the day's last hours of light.

Turning from the window he looked back across his office. On the credenza behind his desk, the marble head of Alexander stared out eternally, and Palestrina looked at it almost wistfully.

Then, in an abrupt change of mood, he crossed to his desk, sat down, and lifted the telephone from its console. Clearing a line, he punched in a number and waited, listening as a switching station in Venice took the call and automatically forwarded it to a station in Milan, which in turn rang a number in Hong Kong and was immediately switched to Beijing.

The chirp of Chen Yin's cell phone brought him quickly from a sound sleep. By the third ring, he was out of bed and standing naked in the dark of his bedroom above his flower shop.

'Yes?' he said in Chinese.

'I have an order for an early-morning delivery to the land of fish and rice', an electronically altered voice said in Chinese.

'I understand,' Chen Yin said and hung up.

Palestrina let the phone slide back into its cradle, then slowly swiveled in his chair to look again at the marble presence of Alexander. He had used Pierre Weggen's close friendship with Yan Yeh – a casual probing about the Chinese banker's daily life, his friends and family – to select the second lake. A fertile area of water and mild climate and booming industry called 'the land of fish and rice', it was south of Nanjing and little more than a few hours' train ride for the poisoner Li Wen. The lake was called Taihu. The city was Wuxi.

Harry watched in the mirror, feeling the response of the Mercedes' acceleration as they left the checkpoint. Behind him he could see the glow of the mercury-vapor lamps, the taillights of cars moving north as they slowed to a stop, the mass of Italian Army vehicles and carabinieri armored cars. This had been a major checkpoint, two hours south of Milan. Unlike the roadblock at Chiasso, where they'd just been waved through, barely slowing, here they had been slowed to a stop with heavily armed soldiers approaching the car from both sides. That was until an army officer suddenly pointed to the license plates, glanced at the priests in the front seat, and quickly waved them past.