Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [133]
“Good night and God bless,” she whispered finally and turned and left.
HARRY WATCHED HER cross the room in the dark, had just a glimpse of her as she opened the door and went out. She’d come to share something deeply personal with him, why exactly, he still wasn’t sure. All he did know was that he’d never met anyone quite like her, but he also knew that if he was being drawn to her, this was not the time. The last thing they needed now was that kind of distraction. It was far too disruptive and, therefore, much too dangerous.
103
A STYLISH, HANDSOME WOMAN WEARING A large straw hat stood in line with the other passengers, waiting as the hydrofoil approached the boat landing from the dark of the lake.
At the top stairs above, four Gruppo Cardinale police in flak jackets and carrying Uzis stood watch. Four more patrolled the landing itself, studying faces of waiting passengers, searching for the fugitives. A spot check of papers confirmed that almost all of them were foreign tourists. Great Britain. Germany. Brazil. Australia. The United States.
“Grazie,” a young policeman said, as he handed Julia Louise Phelps’s passport back to her, then touched the brim of his hat and smiled. This was no blond killer with a scratched face, nor an Italian nun, nor a fugitive priest or his brother. This was a tall, attractive woman, an American as he had guessed, with a large straw hat and distinctive smile. It was why he had approached her and asked for her papers in the first place, not because she was a suspect, but because he was flirting. And she had let him.
And then, as the hydrofoil docked and the passengers onboard disembarked, she put her passport back into her purse, smiled once again at the policeman, and, in the company of the other passengers, went onboard. A moment later the gangplank was pulled back, the engines revved, and the hydrofoil moved away.
The policemen on the landing and those at the top of the stairs watched it pick up speed, then saw the hull lift up out of the water as it moved out into the darkness of the lake, crossing to Tremezzo and Lenno, and then Lezzeno and Argegno, and finally back to Como. The hydrofoil Freccia delle Betulle was the last boat for the night. And, to a man, the police relaxed as they watched it go. Knowing they had done their job well. Confident that on their watch, not one of the fugitives had slipped past them.
Rome. The Vatican. Wednesday, July 15, 12:20 A.M.
Farel opened the door to Palestrina’s private office, and the young, bespectacled Father Bardoni entered, poised, unmoved by the hour or by being called there. Showing no emotion at all. Simply answering the summons of a superior.
Palestrina was behind his desk and motioned Father Bardoni toward a chair in front of him.
“I have called you here to tell you personally that Cardinal Marsciano has been taken ill,” he said as the priest sat down.
“Ill?” Father Bardoni sat forward.
“He collapsed here, in my office, early this evening after attending a meeting at the Chinese Embassy. The doctors believe it to be a simple case of exhaustion. But they are not certain. As a result he is being kept under observation.”
“Where is he?”
“Here, on the Vatican grounds,” Palestrina said. “The guest apartments in the Tower of San Giovanni.”
“Why is he not in a hospital?” From the corner of his eye, Father Bardoni saw Farel step forward to stand near him.
“Because I chose to keep him here. Because of what I believe to be the reason for his ‘exhaustion’…”
“Which is?”
“The ongoing dilemma of Father Daniel.” Palestrina watched the priest carefully. So far he was showing no outward display of emotion, even now, at the mention of Father Daniel.
“I don’t understand.”
“Cardinal Marsciano has sworn he was dead. And perhaps he still does not believe, as the police do, that he is not. Moreover, new evidence suggests that Father Daniel not only lives but is well enough to continually avoid the authorities.