Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [182]
Now he was at the planters at the base of the tree. Anxiously, he glanced around, then knelt. His hand touched nylon and he could feel the breath go out of him in relief. It meant not only that Danny and Elena were there, but also that the bulky package he’d decided not to wear at the last minute, for fear it might raise the suspicion of security guards inside St. Peter’s, had been safely delivered.
Glancing around once more, he stood and slipped into the tree’s shadow. Loosening his shirt, he fastened the waist pack underneath at his waist and repositioned the Calico inside the pull of its strap. Then, tucking his shirt back in, letting it fall loosely at his waist to cover the pack’s bulge, he walked off and back down the steps. The whole thing had taken no more than thirty seconds.
9:57 P.M.
The Tower of San Giovanni. Same time.
There was the cruel sound of the lock turning and then the door to Marsciano’s apartment opened and Thomas Kind entered. Anton Pilger was in the hallway behind him, hands crossed in front of him, staring in. He stayed there as Kind crossed the room.
“Buon giorno, Eminence,” he said. “If I may.”
Marsciano stood back silently as Kind looked carefully around the room, then went into the bathroom. A moment later he came out and crossed to the glass doorway. Opening the doors, he stepped out onto the tiny balcony. Putting his hands on the railing, he looked down at the gardens below and then up, overhead, at the sheer brick wall leading to the roof.
Satisfied, he came back in and closed the glass doors and for a moment studied Marsciano.
“Thank you, Eminence,” he said, finally. Crossing the room, he went out immediately, pulling the door closed behind him. Marsciano shuddered at the sound of the lock turning. By now it was a grating that had become almost unbearable.
Turning away, he wondered why the assassin had visited him for the third time in the last twenty-four hours, and each time had gone through the exact same motions.
146
“WHEN YOU REACH THE FAR DOORWAY, TURN right,” Danny said as Elena pushed him through the Room of the Popes, the last of the rooms of Borgia Apartments.
There was a rush and anxiousness to Father Daniel that Elena hadn’t seen before. The abrupt turning in the hallway outside the men’s rest room, the urgency in his voice now. It was more than concentration on what they were doing. It was fear.
Passing through the doorway, she turned him right, as he had said, moving him down a long corridor. Halfway down on the left was an elevator.
“Stop there,” Danny said.
Reaching it, they stopped and Elena pushed the button.
“What’s wrong, Father? Something happened—what is it?”
For a second Danny watched people move past, going from one gallery to another, then he looked up at her sharply. “Eaton and Adrianna Hall are in the museum looking for us. We can’t be found by either of them.”
Abruptly the elevator door opened. Elena started to push him in when they heard an all-too-familiar voice behind them.
“We will be first, if you don’t mind.”
Looking, they saw the pushy white-haired woman in the wheelchair and her dutiful middle-aged daughter from the shuttle bus. For the second time they were face-to-face with a couple from that bunch. And Danny wondered if it was a curse.
“Not this time, madam. I’m sorry.” Danny looked at her with a glare and Elena pushed him into the elevator.
“Well, I never—,” the woman ranted. “I shall not ride in same lift with you at all, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Danny leaned forward and punched a button, and the door slid closed in the woman’s face.