Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [33]
“What’s going on?” Fear stabbed at Harry.
“Don’t know.” Pio glanced in the mirror. The Peugeot was right behind them. The windshield was heavily tinted. It was impossible to see the driver. Downshifting quickly, he stepped hard on the accelerator.
“Ispettore Capo Pio—,” he said into the radio.
“Look out!” Harry yelled too late.
A truck abruptly pulled out of a side street blocking the road. A tremendous squeal of tires was followed by a deadening crash as the Alfa hit the truck full on. The force pitched Pio forward, his head slamming off the steering wheel. Harry flew forward, then was jolted back by his safety belt.
Instantly the door beside him was pulled open. He saw a face for the briefest moment, then something hit him hard and everything went black.
Pio looked up to see his own gun in the gloved hand of a stranger. He tried to move, but his seat belt held him in. Then he saw his gun buck in the stranger’s hand and thought he heard a thundering explosion. But he was wrong. There was nothing but silence.
19
Hospital St. Cecilia. Pescara, Italy.
Still Wednesday, July 8. 6:20 P.M.
NURSING SISTER ELENA VOSO PASSED THE man at the door and went into the room. Her patient was as she’d left him, on his side, sleeping. Sleeping was what she called it, even though from time to time he opened his eyes and was able to blink in response when she squeezed a finger or toe and asked if he could feel it. Then his eyes would close and he would be as he was now.
It was approaching six-thirty, and he needed to be turned again. The man at the door would help with that, as whoever was on duty did every two hours to prevent the destruction of muscle tissue, which could lead not only to bedsores but kidney failure. Coming in at her call, he would take the shoulders while she took the feet, easing her charge carefully from his back and onto his side, being especially careful of the IV and of his broken legs, set in blue fiberglass casts, and the bandages covering his burns.
Michael Roark, age 34. Irish citizen. Home, Dublin. Unmarried. No children. No family. Religion, Roman Catholic. Injured in an automobile accident near this Adriatic seacoast town, Monday, July 6. Three days after the terrible explosion of the Assisi bus.
Elena Voso was a member of the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart. At twenty-seven, she had been a nursing sister for five years, working in the long-term-care ward at the Hospital of St. Bernardine in the Tuscan city of Siena. She had come to this small Catholic hospital on a hill overlooking the Adriatic only yesterday, assigned to this patient as part of a new kind of program for the Order. It was a way to expose younger nursing sisters to situations away from their home convents, preparing them for future emergencies where they might be called upon to go almost anywhere on short notice. And, though no one had said so, she also believed she had been sent because she spoke English and could communicate with the patient as he progressed, if he progressed.
“My name is Elena Voso. I am a nursing nun. Your name is Michael Roark. You are in a hospital in Italy. You were in an automobile accident.”
It was a string of words she had said over and over, trying to comfort him, hoping he could hear and understand. It wasn’t much, but it was something she knew she would like someone to say to her if she were ever in a similar situation. Especially since he had no relatives and therefore no familiar face he might recognize.
The man outside the door was named Marco. He worked from three in the afternoon to eleven at night. A year or two older than Elena, he was dark and strong and handsome. He said he was a fisherman and worked at the hospital when the fishing was slow. She knew he had been a carabiniere, a member of the national police, because he had told her so. She had seen him talking with other carabinieri earlier in the day, when she’d walked along the lungomare, the road along the seashore,