Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [100]
SETTING HIS HEAVY BRIEFCASE on a wooden bench, Li Wen looked back across the room toward the door through which he had come in. Certain he was alone, he approached one of the four two-foot-square cutouts where he could look directly into the treated water being pumped into the city’s water mains. The water ran fast, but instead of being clear as it was in the winter months, it was cloudy and putrid smelling, the result of the summer heat and the buildup of sun-fed algae in Lake Chao. This was the thing the government had done nothing about, and the thing he was counting on.
Turning, he went quickly back to his briefcase. Opening it, he slipped on a pair of thin surgical gloves and then opened its large, insulated, inner compartment. A half dozen frozen gray-white “snowballs” sat in what looked like a Styrofoam egg crate, their coats just beginning to melt, glistening in the overhead light.
Glancing again at the door, Li Wen picked the egg crate from the case and carried it to the cutouts above the flowing water. Picking up the first “snowball,” he reached over the side and dropped it in, feeling a triumphant flutter of his heart as he did. Then quickly he did the same with the rest, dropping them in one by one, and watching them whirl away to vanish in the swift flow of murky water.
As quickly, he turned back, put the egg crate and gloves in his briefcase and closed it. Then crossing to the cutouts once more, he lifted a vial from a metal case on the wall and took a sample of the water, then quietly went about the business of testing for what he was certain was its government-acceptable “purity.”
69
Bellagio, Lake Como, Italy.
Monday, July 13, 10:40 P.M.
HARRY PICKED UP THE SMALL SUITCASE Adrianna had given him when he’d left the hotel in Como and walked with the handful of other late-night passengers off the hydrofoil and up the landing toward the street. Ahead was the Navigazione Lago di Como ticket booth, unmanned at this hour and overhung by the dense summer foliage of the lakeside trees around it. Past it, he could see the lighted street and across it the Hotel Du Lac. Another minute, two at the most, and he would be there.
The trip from Como—with stops at the small towns of Argegno, Lezzeno, Lenno, and Tremezzo—had been nerve-wracking. At each stop Harry had fully expected armed police to come onboard, checking the identity of travelers. But none had. And finally, after the stop in Tremezzo, with Bellagio next, Harry started to relax like the rest of the passengers. For the first time in as long as he could remember, there was no sense of danger. No sense of being hunted. Nothing but the sound of the motors and the rush of water under the hull.
It was the same now as he walked up the landing behind the others, the way he might as a tourist, another passenger walking off a boat and into a lazy summer’s night. He was tired, he realized, emotionally and physically. He wanted to lie down and turn off the world and sleep for a week. But this was hardly the place. He was in Bellagio. The heart of the Gruppo Cardinale search. And it wasn’t only Danny they were looking for. He needed to be more guarded and alert than ever.
“Mi scusi, Padre.”
Two uniformed policemen suddenly stepped out of the darkness. They were young and had Uzis slung over their shoulders.
The first policeman stepped smartly in front of him. Harry stopped, and the other passengers pushed around him, leaving him alone with the police.
“Come si chiama?”—What is your name?—he asked.
Harry looked from one to the other. This was it. He either crossed the line and played the role Eaton had set for him, or he didn’t.
“Come si chiama?”
He was still thin, more gaunt than the Harry Addison in the video. Still wore the beard in the passport photo. Maybe it was enough.
“I’m sorry,” he said, smiling. “I don’t speak Italian.”
“Americano?”
“Yes.” He smiled again.
“Step over here, please.” The second policeman said in English. Harry followed them across the walkway and into the light of the