Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [161]
“By train,” Danny had said when Harry asked how he and Father Bardoni had planned to get Marsciano out of the Vatican. The station and tracks were rarely used anymore. An Italian supply train used them to deliver heavy goods every once in a while, but that was all. In other days the tracks had provided the means for the pope to travel by train out of Vatican City and into Italy. But those days had long since ended. All that was left were the gates, the station, the tracks, and a rusting freight car sitting on a siding near the end of the line, which was a short concrete tunnel that went nowhere. Only God and the walls themselves knew how long the boxcar had been there.
Before he’d left Rome for Lugano, Father Bardoni had called the head of the railroad station and told him Cardinal Marsciano hated seeing the freight car and, ill or not, wanted it removed immediately. A short while later a call had come back from a subordinate to say that at eleven o’clock that Friday morning, a work engine would come for the old car.
And that was the plan. When the car left, Cardinal Marsciano would be inside it. It was as simple as that. And since it had been a subordinate who had called, Father Bardoni was certain the matter had been treated merely as another duty in line with many. Security would be alerted, but only to expect the switch engine; again, a conversation between underlings, and something far too mundane to reach Farel’s office.
Now Harry was walking up the hill coming up toward the top level of the aqueduct. He kept moving, looking ahead.
Reaching the track level, he turned back and saw it—the main line curving to the left, the rails shiny from constant use, and the spur line to the right, its double set of rails rusted and leading directly toward the Vatican walls.
Harry turned and looked behind him, his gaze following the tracks down the main line toward Stazione San Pietro. He had ten minutes to get there and look around, make certain he wanted to go through with it. If he didn’t, if he changed his mind, he could leave before they got there. But he wouldn’t leave, he’d known that when he made the call. At ten-forty-five he was to meet Roscani inside the station.
124
The Vatican. The Tower of San Giovanni. Same time.
“YOU ASKED TO SEE ME, EMINENCE.” PALESTRINA stood in the doorway of Marsciano’s cell, his massive body filling most of it.
“Yes.”
Marsciano stepped back, and Palestrina came into the room. As he did, one of his black suits stepped behind him, to close the door and stand beside it, guardlike. He was Anton Pilger, the young man with the perpetual smirk and eager face, who, only days earlier, had been Marsciano’s driver.
“I wanted to speak to you in private,” Marsciano said.
“As you wish.” Palestrina lifted a huge hand, and Pilger suddenly snapped to attention, then turned on his heel and left, a move not of a policeman, but of a soldier.
For a long moment Marsciano stared at Palestrina, as if trying to see behind his eyes, then slowly his hand moved out from his body and he pointed a finger toward the silent television nearby. The pictures on it, a horrible replay of those in Hefei—a convoy of trucks jammed with People’s Liberation Army troops. Hordes of people crowding the streets on either side of them as they passed. The camera cutting to a field reporter dressed much like the troops, his voice not heard because of the muted television, but obviously attempting to describe what was happening.
“Wuxi is the second lake.” Marsciano’s face was ashen. “I want it