Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [148]
Harry studied his brother, trying to find the answer he wasn’t getting. “A little while ago you warned me to leave here before I got killed. Now you’re asking me to jump right back into the furnace. What changed it?”
“A little while ago I didn’t know the situation.”
“What is the situation?”
Danny said nothing.
Harry kept on. “Inside the Vatican. What the hell is all this about?”
Still Danny said nothing.
“Marsciano wanted me and everybody else to believe you were dead.” Harry kept pushing. “He was protecting you…. He said, ‘They will kill you both. Your brother for what he knows. You, because they will believe he has told you.’ Now you can add Elena to that…. If you want me to put my life and yours and hers on the line, then you can fucking well tell me the rest.”
“I can’t…” Danny’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Give me a reason.” Harry was hard, even brutal, determined to get an answer.
“I—” Danny hesitated.
“I said, give me a reason, dammit.”
For a long moment there was silence, then finally Danny spoke. “In your business, Harry, it’s called client-counselor privilege. In mine it’s called confession…. Now do you understand?”
“Marsciano confessed to you?” Harry was stunned. Confession was something he’d never considered.
“I didn’t say who or what, Harry. I simply told you why—I can’t talk about it.”
Harry turned away to stare out the small window at the end of the room. For once in their adult lives he wanted them on the same side. Wanted Danny to trust him enough to tell him the truth. But now it was clear he couldn’t.
“Harry,” Danny said quietly. “Cardinal Marsciano is being held prisoner inside the Vatican. If I don’t go, they’ll kill him.”
Harry turned back. “Who is ‘they’?—Farel?”
“The Vatican secretariat of state. Cardinal Palestrina.”
“Why?” Harry breathed.
Danny shook his head ever so slightly. “—can’t tell you.”
Abruptly Harry crossed back, toward Danny’s bed. “They want you for Marsciano, that’s the deal, isn’t it?”
“Yes…. Except it’s not going to work that way,” Danny said. “Father Bardoni and I are going to get the cardinal out. That’s why he went back alone, to start setting things up, and because we couldn’t take the chance of traveling together and us both getting caught.”
“You are going to get Marsciano out of the Vatican?” Harry stared in disbelief. “Two men, one of them a cripple, against Farel and the Vatican secretariat of state? Danny, this isn’t just two powerful men you’re fighting, it’s a country.”
Danny nodded. “I know…”
“You’re crazy.”
“No…. I’m methodical, I think things through…. It can be done.… I was a marine, remember. I learned a few tricks…”
“No.” Harry said sharply.
“No, what?” Danny sat up quickly.
“No, period!” Harry was intense, decisive. “It’s true, I didn’t come back for you in Maine all those years ago, but I’m making up for it now—New York to Rome, to Como, to Bellagio, to wherever the hell we are now.—Well, here I finally am… and I’m getting you the fuck out. But not to Rome, Geneva…. I’m going to try to get us there and arrange a surrender to the International Red Cross. And hope to hell that much spotlight will give us at least some rational measure of protection.”
Abruptly Harry crossed to the door. He had his hand on the knob when he looked back to Danny. “I don’t care about the rest of it, brother of mine, I am not going to lose you…. Not for Marsciano or the Holy See, and not to Farel or Palestrina or anyone else…” Harry’s voice dropped off. “I am not going to lose you to them, the way I lost Madeline to the ice…”
Harry stared at Danny for a long moment, making sure he understood. Then he opened the door and started out.
“Who I am is me!” Danny’s voice exploded behind Harry, stabbing into him like a knife. Harry stopped short, frozen where he was. When he turned back, Danny’s eyes were riveted on his.
“Your thirteenth birthday. You saw it chalked on a rock in the woods when you walked home from school, the same long way around you always took when you didn’t want to come home. And that day, especially, you didn’t