Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [158]
“Harry,” Danny said quietly. “Just come in. Father Bardoni would have told them nothing.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“—I just do…”
LESS THAN THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Harry came into the building. Carefully checking the entryway, he looked at the elevator, then took the front stairs, feeling they were safer than the little elevator box where he could be trapped.
Danny and Elena were in the living room when he came in. He could feel the tension and the electricity. For a moment no one said anything. Then Danny motioned toward the window.
“I want you to take a look, Harry.”
Harry glanced at Elena, then went to the window.
“Look to the left, follow the wall,” Danny said. “Far down is the top of a round brick tower. It’s the Tower of San Giovanni, where Cardinal Marsciano is being held. He’s in the center room halfway up on the far side. It has a glass door that goes out to a small terrace. It’s the only opening in the wall.”
The tower was perhaps a quarter of a mile away, and Harry could see the top of it clearly—a high, circular tower, turreted on top, made of the same ancient brick as the wall inside which it stood.
“We’re the only ones left to do it,” Danny said quietly.
Harry turned slowly.
“You and me and Sister Elena.”
“Do—what?”
“Get Cardinal Marsciano out…” Whatever emotion Danny had shown earlier, when he couldn’t reach Father Bardoni, he’d put away. Father Bardoni was dead; they had to move on.
Harry shook his head. “Uh-uh, not Elena…”
“I want to, Harry.” Elena was looking directly at him. There was no doubt at all she meant it.
“Of course you do. Why wouldn’t you?” Harry looked from Elena to Danny. “She’s as crazy as you are.”
“There’s no one else, Harry… ,” Elena said softly.
Abruptly Harry looked to Danny. “Why are you so certain we’re safe here… that Father Bardoni didn’t tell them?—I saw him, Danny. If it was me, I would have told them anything they wanted to know.”
“You have to believe me, Harry…”
“It’s not you. It’s Father Bardoni. I don’t have that much trust.”
Danny looked at his brother for a long moment in silence; when he finally spoke it was in a way that tried to make Harry understand there was more to what he was saying than simply the words he was using.
“This apartment building belongs to the owner of one of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in Italy. All he had to know was that Cardinal Marsciano requested a private place for a few days and it was done with no questions…”
“What’s that got to do with Father Bardoni?”
“Harry, the cardinal is one of the most beloved men in Italy…. Look who helped him, and at what risk to themselves. I…”—Danny hesitated, then went on—“I became a priest because I was as lost and confused after I came out of the marines as I was before I went in…. By the time I came to Rome, I was just as lost…. Then I met the cardinal, and he showed me a life that was inside me that I never knew existed. Over the years he guided me, encouraged me to find my own convictions, spiritual and otherwise…. The Church, Harry, became my family… and the cardinal I loved like a father…. It was the same for Father Bardoni. It’s why he would have told them nothing…”
The image of Father Bardoni in the bathtub was too strong: a man being tortured yet saying nothing. Shaken and moved, Harry ran a hand through his hair and had to look away. When he did, his eyes found Elena’s. They were tender and loving and told him she understood what Danny had said—and knew he was right.
“Harry—“
The sharpness of Danny’s voice brought him around and back to his brother. It was only then he saw the television was on in the background.
“There is something else…. If I didn’t believe it before, Father Bardoni’s murder confirmed it…. Do you know what is going on in China?”
“A catastrophe, a lot of people dead. I don’t know. I haven’t exactly had a lot of time to watch the TV. What the hell are you talking about?”
“In Bellagio, Harry. When we were