Day of Confession (13 page)

28

Pescara. Still Thursday, July 9. 10:35
P.M
.

NURSING SISTER ELENA VOSO RODE ON A FOLDdown jump seat in the back of an unmarked beige van. In the dimness she could see Michael Roark next to her. He lay on his back on a gurney, staring at the IV hanging overhead as it swung with the motion of the truck. Across from her was the handsome Marco, while up front, the heavy-set Luca drove, guiding the van deliberately through the narrow streets as if he knew exactly where he was taking them, though none had spoken of it.

Elena had not been prepared when, little more than an hour earlier, her mother general had called from her home convent of the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Siena to tell her the patient in her charge was to be moved by private ambulance that night and she was to accompany him, continuing to give him the care she had been. When she asked where he was being moved, where they were going, she was simply told “to another hospital.” Very shortly afterward Luca had arrived with the ambulance and they were on their way. Leaving Hospital St. Cecilia quickly and quietly, with hardly a word spoken between them, as if they were fugitives.

Crossing the Pescara River, Luca took a number of side streets before ending up in a slow parade of traffic along Viale della Riviera, a main thoroughfare that paralleled the beach. The night was steamy hot, and scores of people ambled along the sidewalk in shorts and tank tops, or crowded the pizzerias that sat along the edge of the sand. Because of their route Elena wondered if perhaps they were going to another hospital in the city. But then Luca turned away from the ocean and drove a zigzag course through the city, which took them past the massive railroad terminal before swinging northeast on a main highway out of town.

Through it all Michael Roark’s gaze shifted, from the IV to her, to the men in the van, and then back to her. It made her think that his mind was working, that somewhere he was trying to put it all together and understand what was happening. Physically he seemed as well as could be expected, his blood pressure and pulse remained strong, his breathing as normal as it had been all along. She had seen the EKG and EEG results of tests done prior to her arrival that reflected a strong heart and a functioning brain. The diagnosis was that he had suffered acute trauma; and that aside from the burns and broken legs, the main damage and the one bearing the closest watching had been a severe concussion. He could recover from it fully, partially, or not at all. Her job was to keep his body operative while the brain attempted to heal itself.

Smiling gently at Michael Roark’s gaze, she looked up to see Marco watching her as well. Two men examining her at the same time—the thought tickled her, and she grinned. Then quickly she looked away, embarrassed she had reacted so openly. In doing so, she saw for the first time that dark curtains covered the van’s rear windows. Turning back, she looked at Marco.

“Why are the windows covered?”

“The truck was rented. It came that way.”

Elena hesitated. “Where are we going?”

“Nobody told me.”

“Luca knows.”

“Then ask him.”

Elena glanced forward at Luca at the wheel, then back to Marco. “Are we in danger?”

Marco grinned. “So many questions.”

“We are directed to leave, suddenly, almost in the middle of the night. We drive as if to make it impossible to follow us. The truck windows are covered over, and you… carry a gun.”

“Do I. .?”

“Yes.”

“I told you I was a
carabiniere
…”

“Not anymore.”

“But still on reserve….” Abruptly Marco turned toward the front. “Luca, Sister Elena wants to know where we’re going.”

“North.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Marco leaned back and closed his eyes. “I’m going to sleep,” he said to Elena. “You sleep, too. We have a long way to go.”

Elena watched him, then looked to Luca at the wheel and saw his features briefly as he lit a cigarette. She had seen the bulge under his jacket as he helped load her patient into the truck, verifying what she had suspected earlier, that he carried a gun as well. And though no one had mentioned it, she knew Pietro, the morning man, was following in his car behind them.

Beside her Michael Roark had closed his eyes. She wondered if he was dreaming, and if so, what his dreams might be like. And where they were taking him. Or if he was simply going without knowing, as she was, down a darkened road toward a destination unknown, in the company of armed strangers.

And she wondered, as she had before, who he was that he would need such men. She wondered who he was at all.

29

Rome. Same time
.

SUDDENLY THERE WAS THE SENSATION OF being walked on by hundreds of tiny feet. Light, nimble feet. Small. Like those of rodents. With what seemed like superhuman effort Harry opened one eye and saw them. Not mice.

Rats.

They were on his chest, his midsection, on both legs. Fully aware, he shouted. Screamed. Trying to shake them off. Some disappeared, but others clung there. Ears up. Watching him with tiny red eyes.

Then he smelled the stench.

And remembered the sewer.

Everywhere was the sound of rushing water, and he felt the wet and realized he was in the water and it was washing past him. Raising himself up, he turned his head and with his one good eye saw more of them. Hundreds. Higher up on dry ground. Watching, waiting. It was why more hadn’t come. They were aware of the water, too. Only the bravest had ventured across the shallow flow where he was.

Above him was the semicircle of ancient stone that made up the ceiling. And the same stone supplemented by worn concrete lined the walls of either side and the sluice where he lay. Here and there dim lightbulbs encased in wire provided the illumination for what little vision he had.

Vision.

He could see!

At least a little.

Lying back, he let his right eye close, and abruptly everything faded. For a moment he remained still, then, gathering himself, opened his left eye.

Black. Nothing at all.

Immediately he opened his right eye and the world came back. Dim lights. Stone. Concrete. Water.

Rats.

He saw the two closest to his right eye inch forward. Noses moving. Teeth bared. The bravest of the brave. As if they knew. Take out that eye and he would see nothing at all. He was theirs.

“GET AWAY!” he screamed and tried to struggle up. He felt their claws dig and hold, staying where they were.

“GET AWAY! GET AWAY! GET THE FUCK AWAY!”

He thrashed from side to side, his voice echoing off the stone. Trying with everything to throw them off. Then he fell sideways into deeper water. He felt it rush over him, the force taking him with it. He was sure he felt them let go. Sure he heard their shrill squeaks as they tried to make higher ground without drowning. Sure he heard the hundreds of others shrieking in a terrible uproar of shared fear. He opened his mouth, bellowing against the sound, trying to get air. But it filled with water and he choked as he was swept away. The only thing clear in his mind was the taste of it; foul and filled with his own blood.

30

Friday, July 10, 1:00
A.M
.

A HAND TOUCHED HARRY’S FACE, AND HE GROANED, shivering. The hand retreated, a moment later to return with a damp cloth to wipe his face and again clean the wound on his forehead. Then moving a little to scrub gently the dried blood that matted his hair.

Somewhere far off came a vague rumbling and the ground shook, and then both sound and movement stopped. Then he felt a tugging at his shoulders and he opened his eyes, or rather the one eye that could see. When he did, he started. An oversized head stared down at him, the eyes glistening in the dim light.

“
Parla Italiano?”A
man was sitting on the ground beside Harry, his voice high-pitched and accented in a strange, singsong way.

Harry turned his head slowly to look at him.

“
Inglese?
”

“Yes… ,” Harry whispered.

“American?”

“Yes…,” Harry whispered again.

“Me, too, once. Pittsburgh. I came to Rome to be in a Fellini movie. I never was. And I never left.”

Harry could hear the sound of his own breathing. “Where am I…?”

The face smiled. “With Hercules.”

Suddenly another face appeared, looking down at him, too. It was that of a woman. Dark skinned, maybe forty, her hair turned up in a bright bandana. Kneeling down, she touched his head, then reached across and lifted his left hand. It was bandaged heavily. Her eyes went to the man with the enlarged head, and she said something in a language Harry had never heard. The man nodded. The woman glanced back at Harry, then stood abruptly and left. After a moment there was a sound like a heavy door opening and then closing.

“You have the use of only one eye…. But soon the other will come back. She has said so.” Hercules smiled again. “I am to wash your wounds twice every day and to change the bandage on your hand tomorrow. The one on your head can remain for a time…. She has told me that, too.”

Again came the rumbling and again the ground shook.

“This my house. Where I live,” Hercules said. “A boarded-up part of the Metro, an old work tunnel. I have existed here for five years—and no one knows. Well, except for a few such as her…. Pretty good, eh?” He laughed and then reached out and pulled himself up with an aluminum crutch. “I have no use of my legs. But my shoulders are huge and I am very strong.”

Hercules was a dwarf. Three and half feet, four feet tall at most. His head was large, almost egg shaped. And his shoulders
were
huge, as were his arms. But that was most all of him. His waist was tiny, his legs little more than spindles.

Limping to a darkened wall behind him, Hercules plucked something from it. When he turned back, he had a second crutch.

“You were shot…”

Harry stared blankly. He remembered none of it.

“Very lucky. The gun was small caliber. The bullet hit your hand and bounced off your head…. You were in the sewer. I fished you out.

Harry stared at him with his one good eye, uncomprehending, his mind straining to adjust, as if fighting to come out of a deep sleep, to move from an endless dream to reality. For some reason his thoughts went to Madeline, and he saw her, arms and legs askew, her hair floating out from her head in the black water under the ice, and he wondered if this was what it had been like for her—moving from some kind of terrifying reality to a dreamlike state, shifting back and forth between one and the other until she went finally into her last deep sleep.

“You do not feel pain?”

“No…”

Hercules grinned. “Because of her medicine. She is a Gypsy who knows healing. I am not Gypsy, but I get along with them. They give me things, I give them things. We do favors. That way we respect and do not steal from each other….” A giggle erupted, and he let it run, then became serious again. “Nor I from you, Father.”

“Father…?” Harry looked at him blankly.

“Your papers were in your jacket, Father Addison…” Hercules leaned on his crutches and swept his hand to the side.

Nearby, Harry’s clothes hung on a makeshift rack to dry. On the ground next to them, carefully laid out to dry as well, was the envelope Gasparri had given him. Next to it were Danny’s personal effects—his scorched watch, his broken glasses, his charred, Vatican identification, and his passport.

Like an acrobat Hercules suddenly dropped the length of his crutches to sit on the ground next to Harry, face-to-face as before. As if he had abruptly pulled up a chair.

“We have a problem, Father. Decidedly you would want me to tell someone of your condition. Most probably the police. But you are not ready to walk, and I can tell no one you are here because then my home would be found out. Understand?”

“Yes…”

“Best you rest anyway. With good fortune, as early as tomorrow you will be able to stand and then go where you wish.”

Suddenly Hercules reversed his earlier motion and abruptly pulled himself up on his crutches.

“I am leaving for a time. Sleep without fear. You will be safe.”

With that he swung off and disappeared in the darkness, the sound of him echoing until there was the creak of wood, the same as when the woman left—a heavy door opening and closing.

Harry lay back and for the first time was aware of a pillow under his head and a blanket covering him. “Thank you,” he whispered. Again he heard the vague rumbling and felt the ground shake as a Metro train passed in the distance. Then exhaustion overtook him and he closed his eyes and thoughts of Hercules and everything else faded away.

31

Beverly Hills, California. Thursday, July 9, dusk
.

BYRON WILLIS LET OUT A DEEP BREATH AND hung up the phone. Turning off Sunset and onto Stone Canyon Road, he switched on the Lexus’s headlights and saw them illuminate the ivy-covered walls guarding the massive, elegant estates he wound past. What had happened was impossible. Harry Addison, his Harry Addison, the guy whom he brought into the firm and loved like a brother and who had an office down the hall, was suddenly on the run in Italy, wanted for the murder of a Rome detective. And Harry’s brother was accused of the assassination of the cardinal vicar of Rome. And it had happened bang, bang. Like an auto accident. Already the media were tying up the office switchboard, trying to get a statement from him and the other partners.

“Son of a bitch!” he said out loud.

Whatever the hell had happened, Harry was going to need all the help he could get, and so was the firm. The night was going to be spent fending off the media and making certain their clients knew what had happened and telling them to say nothing when the reporters pounced. At the same time he would be trying to find Harry and get him the best legal representation in Italy.

Slowing, Byron Willis saw the satellite trucks and the gaggle of media gathered in front of the security gates of his home at 1500 Stone Canyon Road. Pressing the remote that opened the gates, he waited for people to clear, then drove through, waving politely, doing his best to ignore them. On the far side he stopped, making certain no one slipped past as the gates closed. Then he drove on, his headlights cutting an easy path through the darkness, illuminating the long, familiar drive up to his house.

“Dammit,” he breathed.

In an instant a friend’s world was turned upside down. It made him realize his own situation only more. Another late meeting, another coming home after dark. His wife and two young sons were away at the family vacation house in Sun Valley. A wife and two young sons whom, even when they were home, he barely saw, even on weekends. God only knew what lay around any corner. Life was rich and to be lived thoroughly, and the demands of work should not be allowed to take up so much of it. And in that moment he made a resolve that once the business with Harry had been worked through—and it
would
be worked through—he would cut his time at the office and begin to enjoy the rewards life had presented him.

Another push of the remote, and the door to his garage swung open. Usually the garage lights came on when the door opened, but for some reason this time they didn’t, and he didn’t know why. Opening the car door, he stepped out.

“Byron—,” a male voice said in the dark.

Byron Willis started and swung around to see the vaguest outline of a figure coming toward him.

“Who are you?”

“A friend of Harry Addison.”

Harry? What the hell did that mean? Suddenly, fear stabbed through him. “How did you get in here? What do you want?”

“Not much.”

There was a dance of flame and the smallest sound, as if someone had spit. Willis felt something hit him hard in the chest. Instinctively he looked down, wondering what it was. Then he felt his knees begin to buckle. The sound came again. Twice. The man stood right in front of him.

Byron Willis looked up. “I don’t understand…”

They were the last words he ever said.