Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [2]
Suddenly the bronze gates swung open and there was a roar from the crowd. At the same time seemingly every church bell in Rome began to ring. For a moment nothing happened. Then, above the din of the bells, S heard a second roar as the pope appeared, the white of his cassock standing out clearly against a sea of red as his men of trust walked close behind him—the group surrounded tightly by security men wearing black suits and sunglasses.
Valera groaned, his eyes flickered, and he tried to roll over. S glanced at him, but only for an instant. Then he turned and lifted something covered with an ordinary bath towel from the shadows beside the window. Setting it on the table, he took away the towel and put his eye to the scope of a Finnish sniper rifle. Instantly his view of the basilica magnified a hundredfold. In the same moment, Cardinal Palestrina stepped forward and fully into its circular frame, its crosshairs meeting directly over his broad grin. S took a breath and held it, letting his gloved forefinger ease against the trigger.
Abruptly Palestrina stepped aside, and the rifle’s scope came tight on Cardinal Marsciano’s chest. S heard Valera grunt behind him. Ignoring him, he swung the rifle left through a blur of cardinal red until he saw the white of Leo XIV’s cassock. A split second later the crosshairs centered between his eyes just above the bridge of his nose.
Behind him Valera yelled something out loud. Again, S ignored him. His finger tightened against the trigger as the pope lurched forward, past a security man, smiling and waving at the crowd. Then, abruptly, S swung the rifle right, bringing the mesh of crosshairs full on the gold pectoral cross of Rosario Parma, the cardinal vicar of Rome. S gave no expression, simply squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession, rocking the room with thundering discharge and, two hundred yards away, showering Pope Leo XIV, Giacomo Pecci, and those around him with the blood of a man of trust.
1
Los Angeles. Thursday, July 2, 9:00 P.M.
THE VOICE ON THE ANSWERING MACHINE resonated with fear.
“Harry, it’s your brother, Danny…. I… don’t mean to call you like this… after so much time…. But… there’s… no one else I can talk to…. I’m scared, Harry…. I don’t know what to do… or… what will happen next. God help me. If you’re there, please pick up—Harry, are you there?—I guess not…. I’ll try to call you back.”
“Dammit.”
Harry Addison hung up the car phone, kept his hand on it, then picked it up again and pushed REDIAL. He heard the digital tones as the numbers redialed automatically. Then there was silence, and then the measured “buzz, buzz,” “buzz, buzz” of the Italian phone system as the call rang through.
“Come on, Danny, answer…”
After the twelfth ring Harry set the receiver back in its cradle and looked off, the lights of oncoming traffic dancing over his face, making him lose track of where he was—in a limousine with his driver on a race to the airport to make the ten-o’clock red-eye to New York.
It was nine at night in L.A., six in the morning in Rome. Where would a priest be at six in the morning? An early mass? Maybe that’s where he was and why he wasn’t answering.
“Harry, it’s your brother, Danny…. I’m scared…. I don’t know what to do…. God help me.”
“Jesus Christ.” Harry felt helplessness and panic at the same time. Not a word or a note between them in years, and then there was Danny’s voice on Harry’s answering machine, jumping out suddenly among a string of others. And not just a voice, but someone in grave trouble.
Harry had heard a rustling as though Danny was starting to hang up, but then he had come back on the line and left his phone number, asking Harry to please call if he got in soon. For Harry, soon was moments ago, when