Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [67]
Harry fingered his glass. He was overwrought. Beat up. His nerves all over the place. But he had to pull himself back. Be aware enough of what was happening to protect himself. Eaton might be who he said he was and there trying to help him. Or he might not. He could be doing a diplomatic thing. Making sure no feathers got ruffled between the U.S. and Italy when they handed him over to the police.
“I didn’t kill the policeman.”
“You didn’t…”
“No.”
“What about the videotape?”
“I was tortured, then coerced into making it by the people who I assume did kill him…. They took me away afterward…. Then they shot me and left me for dead…” Harry lifted his bandaged hand. “Except I didn’t die.”
Eaton sat back. “Who were these people?”
“I don’t know. I never saw them.”
“Did they speak English?”
“Some…. Mostly Italian.”
“They killed a policeman and, in essence, kidnapped and tortured you.”
“Yes.”
Eaton took a pull at his drink. “Why? What did they want?”
“They wanted to know about my brother.”
“The priest.”
Harry nodded.
“What did they want to know about him?”
“Where he was…”
“And what did you tell them?”
“I said I didn’t know. Or if he was even alive.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
Harry lifted his glass and took half the vodka in one swallow. Then he finished it and set the glass on the table in front of Eaton.
“Mr. Eaton, I am innocent. I believe my brother is innocent…. And I am scared to death of the Italian police. What can the embassy do to help? There has to be something.”
Eaton looked at Harry for a long moment, as if he were thinking. Finally he stood and picked up Harry’s glass. Crossing to the cabinet, he poured them each a second drink.
“By rights, Mr. Addison, I should have informed the consul general the moment Adrianna called. But then he would have been obliged to notify the Italian authorities. I would have betrayed a trust, and you would have been in the jail, or worse…. And that wouldn’t have done either of us much good.”
Harry looked at him, puzzled. “What does that mean?”
“We are in the information business, Mr. Addison, not law enforcement…. The job of the counselor for Political Affairs is to know the political climate of the country to which he or she is assigned. In our case that applies not only to Italy but the Vatican…. The killing of the cardinal vicar of Rome and the sabotage of the Assisi bus, which I know the police believe are somehow interconnected, involve both.
“As private secretary to Cardinal Marsciano, your brother was in a privileged position within the Church. If he did assassinate the cardinal vicar, it’s more than probable he wasn’t acting alone. If so, there’s every reason to believe that the murder was not an isolated incident but part of a larger intrigue taking place at the highest levels of the Holy See….” Eaton came back and handed Harry his glass. “That’s where our interest is, Mr. Addison, inside the Vatican.”
“What if my brother didn’t do it? What if he wasn’t involved at all?”
“I have to believe what the police do, that the Assisi bus was bombed for one reason, to kill your brother. Whoever did it thought he was dead, but now they doubt it and are very fearful of what he knows and what he can tell. And they will do anything to find him and shut him up.”
“What he knows. What he can tell…” Suddenly Harry understood. “You want to find him, too.”
“That’s right,” Eaton said quietly.
“No, I mean you. Not the embassy. Not even your boss. You, yourself. That’s why you’re here.”
“I’m fifty-one years old and still a secretary, Mr. Addison. I have been passed over for promotion more times than you would want to know…. I don’t want to retire as a secretary. Therefore I need to do something that will make it impossible for them not to raise my standing. Uncovering something going on deep inside the Vatican would do that very well.”
“And you want me to help you—” Harry was incredulous.
“Not just