Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [130]
“Harry, are you there?”
Harry heard Danny stir beside him. Christ, Danny, not now! Not like before, in the grotto.
“Tell me where you are. I’ll come to you.”
Danny stirred again. The police were almost there. Car lengths away. Less.
“Dammit, Harry. Talk to me. Tell me where—“
CLICK.
Harry snapped off the phone and slid his body over Danny’s in the dark, below window level, praying he would be silent. Then, from somewhere under him, the phone rang again.
Adrianna was calling back.
“Christ,” Harry breathed.
The ring was loud. Shrill. It sounded as if it were being blasted through a speaker. Desperately he fumbled under him, trying to find the phone in the dark. But it was caught between the folds of his shirt and Danny and the seat. Pulling his arms in, he tried to smother it with his body. Hoping to hell that in the stillness of the summer night the police couldn’t hear it.
An eternity passed before the ringing stopped. And then there was silence. Harry wanted to look up, see if the police had passed. But he didn’t dare. He could hear the thump of his heart. The thud of his pulse.
Suddenly there was a sharp knock on the window. A chill shot through him. His senses froze. The knock came again. Louder.
Finally. Terrified. Resigned. Harry raised his head.
Elena was looking in at him. A priest was with her, and they had a wheelchair.
101
AN ATTRACTIVE WOMAN IN A BLUE BLAZER and large straw hat sat alone at a table near the front window of the bar of the Hotel Florence. From there she could see the waterfront and the landing where the hydrofoil would come in. She could also see the Gruppo Cardinale police near the ticket booth and on the landing itself, watching the people who waited for the boat.
Her back turned slightly to the crowd of the room, she took a cell phone from her purse and dialed a number in Milan, where the call was received by a special switching box and forwarded to another number and switching box in the coastal city of Civitavecchia, and from there to an unlisted number in Rome.
“Si,” a male voice answered.
“This is S,” Thomas Kind said.
“Un momento.”
Silence. Then—
“Yes.” Another male voice had come on. It was distorted electronically so that it could not be recognized. The rest of the conversation was held in French.
S: The target is alive. Possibly wounded…. And, it is unfortunate to report, escaped.
MALE VOICE: I know.
S: What do you want me to do?—I will resign if you like.
MALE VOICE: No. I value your resolve and proficiency…. The police know you are there and are looking for you, but they have no idea who you are.
S: So I presumed.
MALE VOICE: Can you leave the area?
S: With luck.
MALE VOICE: Then I want you to come here.
S: I can still pursue the target from where I am. Even with the police.
MALE VOICE: Yes, but why, when the moth has waked from its sleep and can be brought to the flame?
Palestrina pressed a button on a small box beside his telephone, then handed the receiver to Farel, who took it and hung it up. For a long moment the Vatican secretariat of state sat looking out across his sparsely lit marbled office at the paintings, sculptures, shelves of ancient books, at the centuries of history surrounding him in his residence on the floor beneath that of the papal apartments in the Palace of Sixtus V, the apartments where the Holy Father now slept, mind and body exhausted from the regimen of the day, trusting in his advisers to steer the course of the Holy See.
“If I may, Eminence,” Farel said.
Palestrina looked at him. “Say what is on your mind.”
“The priest. Thomas Kind cannot stop him, nor can Roscani with his huge force. He’s like a cat who has not used up his lives. Yes, we may entrap him…. But what if he speaks out first?”
“You are suggesting one man could make us lose China.”
“Yes. And there would be nothing we could do about it. Except to deny everything. But China would still