Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [71]
And afterward, as if it were possible to be more audacious, Palestrina had simply pushed a huge hand through his great white mane and dismissed them.
MARSCIANO’S EYES CAME BACK to the dim light of his study and the tiny recorder on his desk. With his confession he had told Father Daniel of the assassination of Cardinal Parma and of his own complicity in Palestrina’s master plan for the expansion of the Church into China—one that would involve not only the surreptitious maneuvering of Vatican investments but, more horrifically, the deaths of untold numbers of innocent Chinese citizens.
With his confession, and wholly unknowingly, he had condemned Father Daniel to death. The first time, God or perhaps fate had intervened. But once they knew for certain he was still alive, Thomas Kind would take up the hunt. And to escape someone like Kind would be all but undoable. Palestrina would not fail twice.
46
Pescara. Via Arapietra. Saturday, July 11, 7:10 A.M.
THOMAS KIND SAT BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A rented white Lancia and waited for someone to open the door to number 1217, the private ambulance company across the street.
Glancing in the mirror, he smoothed his hair, then looked back to the storefront. The shop opened at seven-thirty. Just because he was early, why should he expect anyone else to be, especially on a Saturday morning? So he would wait. Patience was everything.
7:15
A male jogger passed on the sidewalk in front of number 1217. Seventeen seconds later, a boy on a bicycle went by in the opposite direction. Then nothing.
Patience.
7:20
Abruptly two policemen on motorcycles appeared in his rearview mirror. Thomas Kind did not flinch. They approached slowly and then passed. The door across the street remained closed.
Leaning back against the leather seat, Thomas Kind thought about what he knew so far—that a late-model beige Iveco van with the Italian license plate number PE 343552 had left Hospital St. Cecilia at exactly ten-eighteen Thursday night. It had carried a male patient, a nun who was apparently a nurse as well, and two men thought to be male nurses.
The information he had requested and received, finally, from Farel had shown that Hospital St. Cecilia was one of only eight hospitals in all of Italy that, in the last week, had admitted an anonymous patient. More specifically, it was the only hospital whose patient had been male and in his early to mid-thirties. And that patient had been discharged shortly after ten the evening before.
Arriving just after noon yesterday, he had gone directly to St. Cecilia’s. A brief look around confirmed what he had suspected and prepared for; that the private hospital had in place a system of security cameras covering not only the hallways and public rooms but also the exits and entrances. It was, he hoped, as extensive as it appeared.
Directed to the administrative offices, he produced a business card identifying him as a sales representative for a security systems company based in Milan and asked to see the hospital’s chief of security.
The security chief was out, he was told, and not due back until eight that evening. And Thomas Kind had simply nodded and said he would return then.
By eight-fifteen the two were chatting amiably in the security chief’s office. Turning the conversation to business, he asked whether, in light of the bombing of the Assisi bus and the assassination of the cardinal vicar of Rome in what the government feared might be a new wave of terrorist attacks, the hospital had done anything to increase its security situation.
Not to worry, he was told by the assured and surprisingly young security chief. Moments later the two