Allan Folsom is a novelist and screenwriter who lives in Santa Barbara, California

Allan Folsom is a novelist and screenwriter who lives in Santa Barbara, California. His first novel, the bestselling The Day After Tomorrow, was published in 1994.

DAY OF CONFESSION

Allan Folsom

Version 1.0

CN 4968

THE CHARACTERS

Harry Addison

Father Daniel Addison — Harry's younger brother, a priest in the Vatican and private secretary to Cardinal Marsciano

Nursing sister Elena Voso

Hercules, a dwarf

THE VATICAN

Giacomo Pecci, Pope Leo XIV

The pope's Uomini di fiducia, 'Men of trust'

Cardinal Umberto Palestrina Cardinal Nicola Marsciano Cardinal Joseph Matadi Monsignor Fabio Capizzi Cardinal Rosario Parma

Father Bardoni, an aide to Cardinal Marsciano

THE VATICAN POLICE

Jacov Farel, head of the Vatican Police

THE ITALIAN POLICE

Homicide Detective Otello Roscani Homicide Detective Gianni Pio

Homicide Detective Scala Homicide Detective Castelletti

GRUPPO CARDINALE — The special task force set up by decree of the Italian Ministry of the Interior to investigate the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome

Marcello Taglia, Gruppo Cardinale Chief Prosecutor

THE CHINESE

Li Wen, a state water-quality inspector

Yan Yeh, president of the People's Bank of China

Jiang Youmei, Chinese ambassador to Italy

Zhou Yi, Jiang's foreign minister

Chen Yin, a merchant of cut flowers

Wu Xian, general secretary of the Communist Party

THE FREELANCERS

Thomas Jose Alvarez-Rios Kind, international terrorist Adrianna Hall, World News Network correspondent James Eaton, first secretary to the counselor for Political Affairs, United States Embassy, Rome Pierre Weggen, Swiss investment banker Miguel Valera, a Spanish communist

PROLOGUE

Rome. Sunday, June 28.

Today he called himself S and looked startlingly like Miguel Valera, the thirty-seven-year-old Spaniard spinning in a light, drug-induced sleep across the room. The apartment they were in was nothing, just two rooms with a tiny kitchen and bath, the fifth floor up from the street. The furnishings were worn and inexpensive, common in a place rented by the week. The most prominent pieces were the faded velvet couch on which the Spaniard reclined and the small drop leaf table under the front window, where S stood looking out.

So the apartment was nothing. What sold it was the view — the green of the Piazza San Giovanni and across it, the imposing medieval Basilica of St John in the Lateran, the Cathedral of Rome and 'mother of all churches', founded by the Emperor Constantine in the year 313. Today the view from the window was even better than its promise. Inside the basilica, Giacomo Pecci, Pope Leo XIV, was celebrating mass on his seventy-fifth birthday, and an enormous crowd overflowed the piazza, making it seem as if all Rome were celebrating with him.

Running a hand through his dyed-black hair, S glanced at Valera. In ten minutes his eyes would open. In twenty he would be alert and functional. Abruptly S turned and let his gaze fall on an ancient black-and-white television in the corner. On its screen was a live broadcast from the mass inside the basilica.

The pope, in white liturgical vestments, watched the faces of the worshipers in front of him as he spoke, his eyes meeting theirs energetically, hopefully, spiritually. He loved and they loved in return, and it seemed to give him a youthful renewal despite his age and slowly declining health.

Now the television cameras cut away, finding familiar faces of politicians, celebrities, and business leaders among those inside the packed basilica. Then the cameras moved on, fixing briefly on five clergymen seated behind the pontiff. These were his longtime advisers. His uomini di fiducia. Men of trust. As a group, probably the most influential authority within the Roman Catholic Church.

—Cardinal Umberto Palestrina, 62. A Naples street urchin and orphan become Vatican secretariat of state. Enormously popular within the Church and carried in the same high regard by the secular international diplomatic community. Massive physically, six foot seven and two hundred and seventy pounds.

—Rosario Parma, 67. Cardinal vicar of Rome, tall, severe, conservative prelate from Florence in whose diocese and church the mass was being celebrated.

—Cardinal Joseph Matadi, 57, prefect of the Congregation of Bishops. Native of Zaire. Broad-shouldered, jovial, widely traveled, multilingual, diplomatically astute.

—Monsignor Fabio Capizzi, 62, director general of the Vatican Bank. Native of Milan. Graduate of Oxford and Yale, self-made millionaire before joining the seminary at age thirty.

—Cardinal Nicola Marsciano, 60, eldest son of a Tuscan farmer, educated in Switzerland and Rome, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See; as such, chief overseer of the Vatican's investments.

CLICK.

The gloved hand of S turned off the television, and he stepped again to the table in front of the window. Behind him Miguel Valera coughed and moved involuntarily on the sofa. S glanced at him, then looked back out the window. Police barricades had been set up to keep the crowd from the cobblestone directly in front of the basilica, and now mounted police on horseback took up positions on either side of its bronze central entrance gate. Behind them and to the left, out of sight of the crowd, S could see a dozen dark blue vans. In front of them stood a phalanx of riot police, also out of sight, but ready if needed. Abruptly four dark Lancias, unmarked cars of the Polizia di Stato, the police force protecting the pope and his cardinals outside the Vatican, pulled up and stopped at the foot of the basilica's steps, waiting to take the pope and his cardinals back to the Vatican.

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 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.

Los Angeles. Thursday, July 2, 9:00 p.m.

The voice on the answering machine had 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 hypnotically 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 he'd picked up the calls from his home machine. But Danny's call had come two hours earlier, at a little after seven California time, just after four in the morning in Rome — what the hell had soon meant to him at that time of day?

Picking up the phone again, Harry dialed his law office in Beverly Hills. There had been an important partners' meeting. People might still be there.

'Joyce, it's Harry. Is Byron—?'

'He just left, Mr Addison. You want me to try his car?'

'Please.'

Harry heard the static as Byron Willis's secretary tried to connect with his car phone.

'I'm sorry, he's not picking up. He said something about dinner. Should I leave word at the house?'

There was a blur of lights, and Harry felt the limo lean as the driver took the cloverleaf off the Ventura Freeway and accelerated into traffic on the San Diego, heading south toward LAX. Take it easy, he thought. Danny could be at mass or at work or out for a walk. Don't start driving yourself or other people crazy when you don't even know what's going on.

'No, never mind. I'm on my way to New York. I'll get him in the morning. Thanks.'

Clicking off, Harry hesitated, then tried Rome once more. He heard the same digital sounds, the same silence, and then the now-familiar 'buzz, buzz', 'buzz, buzz' as the phone rang through. There was still no answer.

Italy. Friday, July 3, 10:20 a.m.

Father Daniel Addison dozed lightly in a window seat near the back of the tour bus, his senses purposefully concentrated on the soft whine of the diesel and hum of the tires as the coach moved north along the Autostrada toward Assisi.

Dressed in civilian clothes, he had his clerical garments and toiletries in a small bag on the overhead rack above, his glasses and identification papers tucked into the inside pocket of the nylon windbreaker he wore over jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. Father Daniel was thirty-three and looked like a graduate student, an everyday tourist traveling alone. Which was what he wanted.

An American priest assigned to the Vatican, he had been living in Rome for nine years and going to Assisi for almost as long. Birthplace of the humble priest who became a saint, the ancient town in the Umbrian hills had given him a sense of cleansing and grace that put him more in touch with his own spiritual journey than any place he'd ever been. But now that journey was in shambles, his faith all but destroyed. Confusion, dread, and fear overrode everything. Keeping any shred of sanity at all was a major psychological struggle. Still, he was on the bus and going. But with no idea what he would do or say when he got there.

In front of him, the twenty or so other passengers chatted or read or rested as he did, enjoying the cool of the coach's air-conditioning. Outside, the summer heat shimmered in waves across the rural landscape, ripening crops, sweetening vineyards, and, little by little, decaying the few ancient walls and fortresses that still existed here and there and were visible in the distance as the bus passed.

Letting himself drift, Father Daniel's thoughts went to Harry and the call he'd left on his answering machine in the hours just before dawn. He wondered if Harry had even picked up the message. Or, if he had, if he'd been resentful of it and had not called back on purpose. It was a chance he had taken. He and Harry had been estranged since they were teenagers. It had been eight years since they'd spoken, ten since they'd seen each other. And that had been only briefly, when they'd gone back to Maine for the funeral of their mother. Harry had been twenty-six then, and Danny twenty-three. It was not unreasonable to assume that by now Harry had written his younger brother off and simply no longer gave a damn.

But, at that moment, what Harry thought or what had kept them apart hadn't mattered. All Danny wanted was to hear Harry's voice, to somehow touch him and to ask for his help. He had made the call as much out of fear as love, and because there had been nowhere else to turn. He had become part of a horror from which there was no return. One that would only grow darker and become more obscene. And because of it, he knew he might very well die without ever touching his brother again.

A movement down the aisle in front of him shook him from his muse. A man was walking toward him. He was in his early forties, clean shaven, and dressed in a light sport coat and khaki trousers. The man had gotten on the bus at the last moment, just as it was pulling out of the terminal in Rome. For a moment Father Daniel thought he might pass and go into the lavatory behind him. Instead, he stopped at his side.

'You're American, aren't you?' he said with a British accent.

Father Daniel glanced past him. The other passengers were riding as they had been, looking out, talking, relaxing. The nearest, a half dozen seats away.

'Yes…'

'I thought so.' The man grinned broadly. He was pleasant, even jovial. 'My name is Livermore. I'm English if you can't tell. Do you mind if I sit down?' Without waiting for a reply, he slid into the seat next to Father Daniel.

'I'm a civil engineer. On vacation. Two weeks in Italy. Next year it's the States. Never been there before. Been kind of asking Yanks as I meet them where I should visit.' He was talky, even pushy, but pleasant about it, and that seemed to be his manner. 'Mind if I ask what part of the country you're from?'

'—Maine…' Something was wrong, but Father Daniel wasn't sure what it was.

'That would be up the map a bit from New York, yes?'

'Quite a bit…' Again Father Daniel looked toward the front of the bus. Passengers the same as before. Busy with what they were doing. None looking back. His eyes came back to Livermore in time to see him glance at the emergency exit in the seat in front of them.

'You live in Rome?' Livermore smiled amiably.

Why had he looked at the emergency exit? What was that for? 'You asked if I was American. Why would you think I lived in Rome?'

'I've been there off and on. You look familiar, that's all.' Livermore's right hand was in his lap, but his left was out of sight. 'What do you do?'

The conversation was innocent, but it wasn't. 'I'm a writer…'

'What do you write?'

'For American television…'

'No, you don't.' Abruptly Livermore's demeanor changed. His eyes hardened, and he leaned in, pressing against Father Daniel. 'You're a priest.'

'What?'

'I said you're a priest. You work at the Vatican. For Cardinal Marsciano.'

Father Daniel stared at him. 'Who are you?'

Livermore's left hand came up. A small automatic was in it. A silencer squirreled to the barrel. 'Your executioner.'

At the same instant a digital timer beneath the bus clicked to 00:00. A split second later there was a thundering explosion. Livermore vanished. Windows blew out. Seats and bodies flew. A scything piece of razor-sharp steel decapitated the driver, sending the bus careening right, crushing a white Ford against the guardrail. Bouncing off it, the bus came crashing back through traffic, a screaming, whirling, twenty-ton fireball of burning steel and rubber. A motorcycle rider disappeared under its wheels. Then it clipped the rear of a big-rig truck and spun sideways. Slamming into a silver-gray Lancia, the bus carried it full force through the center divider, throwing it directly into the path of an oncoming gasoline tanker.

Reacting violently, the tanker driver jammed on his brakes, jerking the wheel right. Wheels locked, tires shrieking, the enormous truck slid forward and sideways, at the same time knocking the Lancia off the bus like a billiard ball and sending the burning coach plunging off the highway and down a steep hill. Tilting up on two wheels, it held for a second, then rolled over, ejecting the bodies of its passengers, many of them dismembered and on fire, across the summer landscape. Fifty yards later it came to a rest, igniting the dry grass in a crackling rush around it.

Seconds afterwards its fuel tank exploded, sending flame and smoke roaring heavenward in a fire storm that raged until there was nothing left but a molten, burned-out shell and a small, insignificant wisp of smoke.

Delta Airlines flight 148, New York to Rome.

Monday, July 6, 7:30 a.m.

Danny was dead, and Harry was on his way to Rome to bring his body back to the U.S. for burial. The last hour, like most of the flight, had been a dream. Harry had seen the morning sun touch the Alps. Seen it glint off the Tyrrhenian Sea as they'd turned, dropping down over the Italian farmland on approach to Rome's Leonardo da Vinci International Airport at Fiumicino.

'Harry, it's your brother, Danny…'

All he could hear was Danny's voice on the answering machine. It played over and over in his mind, like a tape on a loop. Fearful, distraught, and now silent.

'Harry, it's your brother, Danny…'

Waving off a pour of coffee from a smiling and pert flight attendant, Harry leaned back against the plush seat of the first-class cabin and closed his eyes, replaying what had happened in between.

He'd tried to call Danny twice more from the plane. And then again when he checked into his hotel. Still, there had been no answer. His apprehension growing, he'd called the Vatican directly, hoping to find Danny at work, and what he'd learned, after being passed from one department to another and being spoken to in broken English and then Italian and then a combination of both, was that Father Daniel was 'not here until Monday'.

To Harry that had meant he was away for the weekend. And no matter his mental state, it was a legitimate reason why Danny was not answering his phone. In response, Harry had left a message on his answering machine at home, giving his hotel number in New York in the event Danny called back as he said he would.

And then Harry had turned, with some sense of relief, to business as usual and to why he had gone to New York — a last-minute huddle with Warner Brothers distribution and marketing chiefs over this fourth of July weekend's opening of Dog on the Moon, Warner's major summer release, the story of a dog taken to the moon in a NASA experiment and accidentally left there, and the Little League team that learns about it and finds a way to bring him back; a film written and directed by Harry's twenty-four-year-old client Jesus Arroyo.

Single and handsome enough to be a movie star, Harry Addison was not only one of the entertainment community's most eligible bachelors, he was also one of its most successful attorneys. His firm represented the cream of multimillion-dollar Hollywood talent. His own list of clients had either starred in or were responsible for some of the highest-grossing movies and successful television shows of the past five years. His friends were household names, the same people who stared weekly from the covers of national magazines.

His success — as the daily Hollywood trade paper Variety had recently put it — was due to 'a combination of smarts, hard work, and a temperament markedly different from the savagely competitive young warrior agents and attorneys to whom the "deal" is everything and whose only disposition is "take no prisoners." With his Ivy League haircut and trademark white shirt and dark blue Armani suit, the Harry Addison approach is that the most beneficial thing for everyone is to cause as little all-around bleeding as possible. It's why his deals go through, his clients love him, the studios and networks respect him, and why he makes a million dollars a year.'

Dammit, what did any of that mean now? His brother's death overshadowed everything. All he could think of was what he might have done to help Danny that he hadn't. Call the U.S. Embassy or the Rome police and send them to his apartment? He didn't even know where he lived. That was why he had started to call Byron Willis, his boss and mentor and best friend, from the limo when he'd first heard Danny's message. Who did they know in Rome who could help? was what he had intended to ask but hadn't because the call had never gone through. If he had, and if they had found someone in Rome, would Danny still be alive? The answer was probably no because there wouldn't have been time.

Christ.

Over the years how many times had he tried to communicate with Danny? Christmas and birthday cards formally exchanged for a short while after their mother's death. Then one holiday missed, then another. Finally nothing at all. And busy with his life and career, Harry had let it ride, eventually accepting it as the way it was. Brothers at opposites. Angry, at times even hostile, living a world apart, as they always would. With both probably wondering during the odd quiet moment if he should be the one to take the initiative and find a way to bring them back together. But neither had.

And then Saturday evening as he'd been in the Warner's New York offices celebrating the huge numbers Dog on the Moon was realizing — nineteen million dollars with Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday still to come, making a projected weekend gross of thirty-eight to forty-two million — Byron Willis had called from Los Angeles. The Catholic archdiocese had been trying to reach Harry and was reluctant to leave word at his hotel. They'd traced Willis through Harry's office, and Byron himself had chosen to make the call. Danny was dead, he'd said quietly, killed in what appeared to be a terrorist bombing of a tour bus on the way to Assisi.

In the emotional gyration immediately afterward, Harry had canceled his plans to return to L.A. and booked himself on a Sunday evening flight to Italy. He would go there and bring Danny home personally. It was the last and only thing he could do.

Then, on Sunday morning, he'd contacted the State Department, requesting the U.S. Embassy in Rome arrange a meeting between himself and the people investigating the bombing of the bus. Danny had been frightened and distraught; maybe what he had said might help shed some light on what had happened and who had been responsible. Afterward, and for the first time in as long as Harry could remember, he had gone to church. And prayed and wept.

Beneath him, Harry heard the sound of the landing gear being lowered. Looking out, he saw the runway come up and the Italian countryside fly past. Open fields, drainage ditches, more open fields. Then there was a bump and they were down. Slowing, turning, taxiing back toward the long, low sunlit buildings of Aeroporto Leonardo da Vinci.

The uniformed woman behind the glass at Passport Control asked him to wait and picked up the telephone. Harry saw himself reflected in the glass as he waited. He was still in his dark blue Armani suit and white shirt, the way he was described in the Variety article. There was another suit and shirt in his suitcase, along with a light sweater, workout gear, polo shirt, jeans, and running shoes. The same bag he had packed for New York.

The woman hung up and looked at him. A moment later two policemen with Uzi submachine guns slung over their shoulders walked up to her. One stepped into the booth and looked at his passport, then glanced at Harry and motioned him through.

'Would you come with us, please.'

'Of course.'

As they walked off, Harry saw the first policeman ease the Uzi around, his right hand sliding to its grip. Immediately two more uniformed police moved in to walk with them as they crossed the terminal. Passengers moved aside quickly, then turned, looking back over their shoulders when they were safely out of the way.

At the far side of the terminal they stopped at a security door. One of the policemen punched a code into a chrome keypad. A buzzer sounded, and the man opened the door. Then they went up a flight of stairs and turned down a corridor. A moment later they stopped at another door. The first policeman knocked, and they entered a windowless room where two men in suits waited. Harry's passport was handed to one of them, and the uniforms left, closing the door behind them.

'You are Harry Addison—'

'Yes.'

'The brother of the Vatican priest Father Daniel Addison.'

Harry nodded. 'Thank you for meeting me…'

The man who held his passport was probably forty-five, tall and tanned, and very fit. He wore a blue suit, over a lighter blue shirt with a carefully knotted maroon tie. His English was accented but understandable. The other man was a little older and almost as tall but with a slighter build and salt-and-pepper hair. His shirt was checkered. His suit, a light brown, the same as his tie.

'I am Ispettore Capo Otello Roscani, Polizia di Stato. This is Ispettore Capo Pio.'

'How do you do…'

'Why have you come to Italy, Mr Addison?'

Harry was puzzled. They knew why he was there or they wouldn't have met him as they had. '—To bring my brother's body home… And to talk with you people.'

'When had you planned to come to Rome?'

'I hadn't planned to come at all…'

'Answer the question, please.'

'Saturday night.'

'Not before?'

'Before? No, of course not.'

'You made the reservations yourself?' Pio spoke for the first time. His English had almost no accent at all, as if he were either American himself or had spent a lot of time in the U.S.

'Yes.'

'On Saturday.'

'Saturday night. I told you that.' Harry looked from one to the other. 'I don't understand your questions. You knew I was coming. I asked the U.S. Embassy to arrange for me to talk to you.'

Roscani slid Harry's passport into his pocket. 'We are going to ask you to accompany us into Rome, Mr Addison.'

'Why? — We can talk right here. There's not that much to tell.'

Suddenly Harry could feel sweat on his palms. They were leaving something out. What was it?

'Perhaps you should let us decide, Mr Addison.'

Again, Harry looked from one to the other. 'What's going on? What is it you're not telling me?'

'We simply wish to talk further, Mr Addison.'

'About what?'

'The assassination of the cardinal vicar of Rome.'

They put Harry's luggage in the trunk and then rode in silence for forty-five minutes, not a word or a glance between them, Pio at the wheel of the gray Alfa Romeo, Roscani in the back with Harry, taking the Autostrada in from the airport toward the ancient city, passing through the suburbs of Magliana and Portuense and then along the Tiber and across it, passing the Colosseum, and moving into Rome's heart.

The Questura, police headquarters, was an archaic five-story brownstone-and granite building on Via di San Vitale, a narrow cobblestone street off Via Genova, which was off Via Nazionale in the central city. Its main entrance was through an arched portal guarded by armed uniformed police and surveillance cameras. And that was the way they came in, with the uniforms saluting as Pio wheeled the Alfa under the portal and into the interior courtyard.

Pio got out first, leading them into the building and past a large glassed-in booth where two more uniformed officers watched not only the door but also a bank of video monitors. Then there was a walk down a brightly lit corridor to take an elevator up.

Harry looked at the men and then at the floor as the elevator rose. The ride in from the airport had been a blur, made worse by the silence of the policemen. But it had given him time to try and get some perspective on what was happening, why they were doing this.

He knew the cardinal vicar of Rome had been murdered eight days earlier by an assassin firing from an apartment window — a crime analogous in the U.S. to killing the President or other hugely celebrated person — but his knowledge was no more than that, limited to what he'd seen on TV or scanned in the newspaper, the same as several million others. That Danny had been killed in the bombing of a bus shortly afterward was an obvious, even logical, line to follow. Especially considering the tenor of his call to Harry. He'd been a Vatican priest, and the murdered cardinal a major figure within the Church. And the police were trying to see if there was some connection between whoever killed the cardinal and those responsible for bombing the bus. And maybe in some way there was. But what did they think he knew?

Obviously it was a bad time and the police were reeling anyway because so public and outrageous a crime had happened in their city, and on their watch and on television. It meant every detail of their investigation would be under the closest scrutiny of the media and therefore even more emotionally charged than it already would have been. The best thing, Harry decided, was to try to put his own feelings aside and simply answer their questions as best he could.

He knew nothing more than what he'd wanted to tell them in the first place, which was something they would soon find out.

'When did you become a member of the Communist Party, Mr Addison?' Roscani leaned forward, a notepad at his sleeve.

'Communist Party?'

'Yes.'

'I am most certainly not a member of the Communist Party.'

'How long had your brother been a member?'

'I wasn't aware that he was.'

'You are denying he was a Communist.'

'I'm not denying anything. But as a priest he would have been excommunicated…'

Harry was incredulous. Where did this come from? He wanted to stand up and ask them where they got their ideas and what the hell they were talking about. But he didn't. He just sat there in a chair in the middle of a large office, trying to keep his composure and go along with them.

Two desks were at right angles in front of him. Roscani was behind one — a framed photograph of his wife and three teenage boys next to a computer whose screen was a mass of brightly colored icons. An attractive woman with long red hair sat at the other, like a court stenographer, entering the text of what they said into another computer. The sound of the keys as she typed made a dull staccato against the noisy grind of an aging air conditioner under the lone window, where Pio stood, leaning against the wall, arms folded over his chest, expressionless.

Roscani lit a cigarette. 'Tell me about Miguel Valera.'

'I don't know a Miguel Valera.'

'He was a close friend of your brother.'

'I'm not familiar with my brother's friends.'

'He never spoke of Miguel Valera.' Roscani made a note on the pad next to him.

'Not to me.'

'Are you certain?'

'Detective, my brother and I were not close… We hadn't spoken for a long time…'

Roscani stared a moment, then turned to his computer and punched something up on the screen. He waited for the information to come up, then turned back.

'Your telephone number is 310-555-1719.'

'Yes…' Harry's defensive antenna suddenly went up. His home number was unlisted. They could get it, he knew. But why?

'Your brother called you last Friday at four-sixteen in the morning Rome time.'

That was it. They had a record of Danny's calls.

'Yes, he did. But I wasn't home. He left word on my answering machine.'

'Word. You mean a message?'

'Yes.'

'What did he say?'

Harry folded one leg over the other, then counted to five and looked at Roscani. 'That's what I wanted to talk to you about in the first place.'

Roscani said nothing. Just waited for Harry to continue.

'He was frightened. He said he didn't know what to do. Or what would happen next.'

'What did he mean by happen next?'

'I don't know. He didn't say.'

'What else did he say?'

'He apologized for calling the way he did. And said he would try and call back.'

'Did he?'

'No.'

'What was he frightened of?'

'I don't know. Whatever it was, it was enough to make him call me after eight years.'

'You had not spoken in eight years?'

Harry nodded.

Roscani and Pio exchanged glances.

'When was the last time you saw him?'

'Our mother's funeral. Two years before that.'

'You had not spoken with your brother in all that time. And then he calls you, and very shortly afterward he is dead.'

'Yes…'

'Was there a particular reason you and your brother were at odds?'

'One particular incident? No. Some things just build up over time.'

'Why were you the one he chose to call now?'

'He said… there was no one else he could talk to…'

Once again Roscani and Pio exchanged glances.

'We would like to hear the message on your machine.'

'I erased it.'

'Why?'

'Because the tape was full. It wouldn't have recorded anything else.'

'Then there is no proof there was a message. Or that you or someone in your home did not actually speak with him.'

Abruptly Harry sat forward. 'What are you insinuating?'

'That perhaps you are not telling the truth.'

Harry had to work to hold down his anger. 'First of all, no one was in my house when the call came. Secondly, when it came in, I was at Warner Brothers studios in Burbank, California, talking about a movie contract for a writer-director I represent and about the opening of his new film. For your information, it just came out this past weekend.'

'What is the name of this film?'

'Dog on the Moon,' Harry said flatly.

Roscani stared for a moment, then scratched his head and made a note on the pad in front of him.

'And the name of this writer-director,' he said without looking up.

'Jesus Arroyo.'

Now Roscani did look up.

'A Spaniard.'

'Hispanic-American. A Mexican to you. Born and grown up in East L.A.' Harry was getting angry. They were pressing him without telling him anything. Acting as if they thought not only Danny but also he were guilty of something.

Roscani stubbed his cigarette into an ashtray in front of him. 'Why did your brother murder Cardinal Parma?'

'What—?' Harry was stunned, taken completely off guard.

'Why did your brother kill Rosario Parma, the cardinal vicar of Rome?'

'That's absurd!' Harry looked at Pio. Nothing showed. He was the same as he'd been before, arms still folded over his chest, leaning against the wall by the window.

Roscani picked up another cigarette and held it. 'Before Father Daniel joined the Church he was a member of the United States Marine Corps.'

'Yes.' Harry was still reeling, trying to grasp the magnitude of their accusations. Clear thinking was impossible.

'He trained with an elite unit. He was a highly decorated marksman.'

'There are thousands of highly decorated marksmen. He was a priest, for God's sake!'

'A priest with the skill to put a tight three-shot pattern into a man's chest at two hundred yards.' Roscani stared at him. 'Your brother was an excellent shot. He won competitions. We have his records, Mr Addison.'

'That doesn't make him a murderer.'

'I'll ask you again about Miguel Valera.'

'I said I never heard of him.'

'I think you have…'

'No, never. Not until you brought his name up.'

The stenographer's fingers were running steadily over the keyboard, taking it all down; what Roscani said, what he said, everything.

'Then I will tell you — Miguel Valera was a Spanish Communist from Madrid. He rented an apartment across the Piazza San Giovanni two weeks before the shooting. It was from that apartment the shots were fired that killed Cardinal Parma. Valera was still there when we arrived. Hanging from a pipe in the bathroom, a belt around his neck…' Roscani tapped the cigarette's filter end on the desk, compacting the tobacco. 'Do you know what a Sako TRG 21 is, Mr Addison?'

'No.'

'It's a Finnish-made sniper rifle. The weapon used to kill Cardinal Parma. It was found wrapped in a towel behind the couch in the same apartment. Valera's fingerprints were on it.'

'Just his…?'

'Yes.'

Harry sat back, hands crossed in front of his chin, his eyes on Roscani. 'Then how can you accuse my brother of the murder?'

'Someone else was in the apartment, Mr Addison. Someone who wore gloves. Who tried to make us think Valera acted alone.' Roscani slowly put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it, the match still alive in his hand. 'What is the price of a Sako TRG 21?'

'I have no idea.'

'About four thousand U.S. dollars, Mr Addison.' Roscani twisted the burning match between his thumb and forefinger, putting it out, then dropped it in the ashtray.

'The apartment had been rented at nearly five hundred U.S. dollars a week. Valera paid for it himself in cash… Miguel Valera was a lifelong Communist. A stonemason who worked little. He had a wife and five children he could barely afford to feed and clothe.'

Harry stared at him, unbelieving. 'Are you intimating that my brother was the other person in the room? That he bought the gun and gave Valera money for the rent?'

'How could he, Mr Addison? Your brother was a priest. He was poor. He was paid only a small stipend by the Church. He had very little money at all. Not even a bank account… He did not have four thousand dollars for a rifle. Or the equivalent of one thousand dollars in cash to pay for the rental of an apartment.'

'You keep contradicting yourself, Detective. You tell me the only fingerprints on the murder weapon belonged to Valera and in the same breath want me to believe it was my brother who pulled the trigger. And then you carefully explain how he could afford neither the gun nor the apartment. Where are you coming from?'

'The money came from someone else, Mr Addison.'

'Who?' Harry glanced angrily at Pio, then back to Roscani.

The policeman stared for a moment and then his right hand came up, smoke rising from the cigarette between his fingers, the fingers pointed directly at Harry.

'You, Mr Addison.'

Harry's mouth went dry. He tried to swallow but couldn't. This was why they had so carefully met him at the airport and brought him to the Questura. Whatever had happened, Danny had become a prime suspect and now they were trying to tie him in. He wasn't going to let them. Abruptly he stood, pushing his chair back.

'I want to call the U.S. Embassy. Right now.'

'Tell him,' Roscani said in Italian.

Pio moved from the window and crossed the room. 'We did know you were coming to Rome. And what flight you were on, but it wasn't for the reason you thought.' Pio's manner was easier than Roscani's, the way he stood, the rhythm of his speech — or maybe it was just that he sounded American.

'Late Sunday we requested help from the FBI. By the time they found where you were, you were on your way here.' He sat down on the edge of Roscani's desk. 'If you want to talk to your embassy you have every right. But understand that when you do, you will very quickly be talking to the LEGATS.'

'Not without a lawyer.' Harry knew what the LEGATS was. It stood for legal attaches, the name for FBI special agents assigned to U.S. embassies overseas who work in liaison with the local police. But the threat made no difference. Overwhelmed and shocked as he was, he wasn't about to let anyone, the Rome police or the FBI, continue this kind of questioning without someone very well versed in Italian criminal law standing beside him.

''Richieda un mandato di cattura.'' Roscani looked at Pio.

Harry reacted angrily. 'Talk in English.'

Roscani stood and walked around his desk. 'I told him to call for an arrest warrant.'

'On what charge?'

'—A moment.' Pio looked at Roscani and nodded toward the door. Roscani ignored him and kept staring at Harry, acting as if Harry himself had killed Cardinal Parma.

Taking him aside, Pio said something in Italian. Roscani hesitated. Then Pio said something else. Roscani relented and they went out.

Harry watched the door close behind them and turned away. The long-haired woman at the keyboard was staring at him. Ignoring her, he walked to the window. It was something to do. Through its heavy glass he could see the narrow cobblestone street below and across it a brick building. At the far end was what looked like a fire station. It felt like a prison.

What the hell had he walked into? What if they were right and Danny had been involved with the assassination? But that was crazy. Or was it? As a teenager Danny had had problems with the law. Not much, but some, like a lot of restless kids. Petty theft, vandalism, fighting, just generally getting into trouble. It was one of the reasons he had gone into the marines, as a way to get some discipline in his life. But that had been years ago; he was a grown man when he died and a priest for a long time. To envision him as a killer was impossible. Yet — and Harry didn't want to think about it, but it was true — he would have learned how in the Marine Corps. And then there was the phone call. What if that had been why he had called. What if he had done it and there was no one else he could talk to?

There was a sound and the door opened and Pio came in alone. Harry looked past him, waiting for Roscani to follow but he didn't.

'You have hotel reservations, Mr Addison?'

'Yes.'

'Where?'

'At the Hassler.'

'I will arrange to have your luggage taken there.' Reaching into his jacket, Pio took out Harry's passport and handed it to him. 'You'll need it when you check in.'

Harry stared at him. 'I can go…?'

'You must be tired — from your grief and from your flight.' Pio smiled gently. 'And from a confrontation with the police you were hardly prepared for. From our view necessary perhaps, but not very hospitable. I would like to explain what has happened and what is happening… Just the two of us, Mr Addison… A quiet place at the end of the street. Do you like Chinese?'

Harry kept staring. Good cop, bad cop. Just like in the U.S. And right now Pio was the good one, the friend on Harry's side. It was why Roscani had led the questioning. But it was clear they weren't quite done with him and this was their way of continuing it. What it meant was, bottom line, he had no choice.

'Yeah,' he said finally, 'I like Chinese.'

'MERRY CHRISTMAS from the Addisons' Harry could still see the card, the decorated tree in the background, the posed faces smiling from it, everyone wearing a Santa Claus hat. He had a copy of it somewhere at home, tucked in a drawer, its once bright colors slowly fading, now almost pastels. It was the last time they were all together. His mother and father would have been in their mid-thirties. He was eleven, Danny eight, and Madeline almost six. Her sixth birthday was January first, and she died two weeks later.

It was Sunday afternoon, bright and clear and very cold. He and Danny and Madeline were playing on a frozen pond near their home. Some older kids were nearby playing hockey. Several of them skated toward them, chasing after the puck.

Harry could still hear the sharp crack of the ice. It was like a pistol shot. He saw the hockey players stop short. And then the ice just broke away where Madeline was. She never made a sound, just went under. Harry screamed to Danny to run for help, and he threw off his coat and went in after her. But there was nothing but icy black.

It was nearly dark when the fire department divers brought her up, the sky beyond the leafless trees behind them a streak of red.

Harry and Danny and their mother and father waited with a priest in the snow as they came across the ice toward them. The fire chief, a tall man with a mustache, had taken her body from the divers and wrapped it in a blanket and held it in his arms as he led the way.

Along the shore, a safe distance away, the hockey players, their parents and brothers and sisters, neighbors, strangers watched in silence.

Harry started forward, but his father took him firmly by the shoulders and held him back. When he reached shore, the fire chief stopped, and the priest said the last rites over the blanket without opening it. And when he had finished, the fire chief, followed by the divers still with their air tanks and wet suits, walked on to where a white ambulance was waiting. Madeline was put inside and the doors were closed and the ambulance drove off into the darkness.

Harry followed the red dots of taillights until they were gone. Finally he turned. Danny was there, eight years old, shivering with the cold, looking at him.

'Madeline is dead,' he said, as if he were trying to understand it.

'Yes…' Harry whispered.

It was Sunday, January the fifteenth, nineteen seventy-three. They were in Bath, Maine.

Pio was right, Ristorante Cinese, Yu Yuan, on Via delle Quattro Fontane was a quiet place at the end of the street. At least it was quiet where he and Harry sat, at a highly lacquered back table away from the red-lanterned front door and spill of noontime customers, a pot of tea and large bottle of mineral water between them.

'You know what Semtex is, Mr Addison?'

'An explosive.'

'Cyclotrimethylene, pentaerythritol tetronitrate, and plastic. When it goes off it leaves a distinctive nitrate residue along with particles of plastique. It also tears metal into tiny pieces. It was the substance used to blow up the Assisi bus. That fact was established by technical experts early this morning and will be announced publicly this afternoon.'

The information Pio was giving him was privileged, and Harry knew it, part of what Pio had promised. But it told him little or nothing about their case against Danny. Pio was just doing what Roscani had done, giving him only enough information to keep things going.

'You know what blew up the bus. Do you know who did it?'

'No.'

'Was my brother the target?'

'We don't know. All we know for certain is that we now have two different investigations. The murder of a cardinal and the bombing of a tour bus.'

An aging Oriental waiter came up, glancing at Harry and grinning and exchanging pleasantries in Italian with Pio. Pio ordered for both by rote, and the waiter clapped his hands, bowed crisply, and left. Pio looked back to Harry.

'There are, or rather, were, five ranking Vatican prelates who serve as the pope's closest advisers. Cardinal Parma was one. Cardinal Marsciano is another…' Pio filled his glass with mineral water, watching Harry for a reaction that never came. 'Did you know your brother was Cardinal Marsciano's private secretary?'

'No…'

'The position gave him direct access to the inner workings of the Holy See. Among them, the pope's itinerary. His engagements — where, when, for how long. Who his guests would be. Where he would enter and exit what building. The security arrangements. Swiss Guards or police or both, how many — Father Daniel never mentioned things like that?'

'I told you, we weren't close.'

Pio studied him. 'Why?'

Harry didn't respond.

'You hadn't spoken to your brother for eight years. What was the reason?'

'There's no point getting into it.'

'It's a simple question.'

'I told you. Some things just build up over time. It's old business. Family things. It's boring. Hardly about murder.'

For a moment Pio did nothing, then picked up his glass and took a drink of mineral water. 'Is this your first time in Rome, Mr Addison?'

'Yes.'

'Why now?'

'I came to bring his body home… No other reason. The same as I said before.'

Harry felt Pio starting to push, the way Roscani had earlier, looking for something definitive. A contradiction, a diverting of the eyes, a hesitation. Anything to suggest Harry was holding something back or was flat out lying.

'Ispettore Capo!'

The waiter came grinning, as he had before. Making room on the table for four steaming platters, setting them between the men, chattering in Italian.

Harry waited for him to finish, and when he left, looked at Pio directly. 'I'm telling you the truth. And have been all along… Why don't you keep your promise and tell me what you haven't, the particulars of why you think my brother was involved in the cardinal's murder?'

Steam rose from the platters, and Pio gestured for Harry to help himself. Harry shook his head.

'All right.' Pio took a folded sheet of paper from his jacket and handed it to Harry. 'The Madrid police found it when they went through Valera's apartment. Look at it carefully.'

Harry opened the paper. It was an enlarged photocopy of what looked like a page taken from a personal phone book. The names and addresses were handwritten and in Spanish, the corresponding telephone numbers to the right. Most, from the heading, seemed to be from Madrid. At the bottom of the page was a single phone number, to its left was the letter R.

It didn't make sense. Spanish names, Madrid phone numbers. What did it have to do with anything? Except that maybe the R at the bottom of the page referred to Rome, but the number beside it had no name at all. Then it came to him.

'Christ,' he said under his breath and looked at it again. The telephone number beside the R was the one Danny had left on his answering machine. Abruptly he looked up. Pio was staring at him.

'Not just his phone number, Mr Addison. Calls,' Pio said. 'In the three weeks leading up to the killing, Valera placed a dozen calls to your brother's apartment from his cellular phone. They became more frequent toward the end, and of shorter duration, as if he were confirming instructions. As far as we've been able to tell, they were the only calls he made while he was here.'

'Telephone calls do not make killers!' Harry was incredulous. Was this it? All they had?

A newly seated couple looked in their direction. Pio waited for them to turn back, then lowered his voice.

'You were told there is evidence of a second person in the room. And that we believe it was that second person and not Valera who killed Cardinal Parma. Valera was a Communist agitator, but there is no evidence he ever fired a gun. I remind you your brother was a decorated marksman trained by the military.'

'That's a fact, not a connection.'

'I'm not finished, Mr Addison… The murder weapon, the Sako TRG 21, normally takes a .308 Winchester cartridge. In this case it was loaded with American-made Hornady 150-grain spire-point bullets. They are bought primarily at specialty gun shops and used for hunting… Three were taken from Cardinal Parma's body… The rifle's magazine holds ten rounds. The remaining seven were still there.'

'So?'

'Valera's personal phone directory was what sent us to your brother's apartment. He wasn't there. Obviously he had gone to Assisi, but we didn't know that. Because of Valera's directory we were able to get a warrant to search…'

Harry listened, saying nothing.

'A standard cartridge box holds twenty rounds of ammunition… A cartridge box containing ten Hornady 150-grain spire points was found inside a locked drawer in your brother's apartment. With it was a second magazine for the same rifle.'

Harry felt the wind go out of him. He wanted to respond, to say something in Danny's defense. He couldn't.

'There was also a cash receipt for one million seven hundred thousand lire — just over one thousand U.S. dollars, Mr Addison. The amount Valera paid in cash to rent the apartment. The receipt had Valera's signature. The handwriting was the same as that on the telephone list you have there.

'Circumstantial evidence. Yes, it is. And if your brother were alive, we could ask him about it and give him the opportunity to disprove it.' Anger and passion crept into Pio's voice. 'We could also ask him why he did what he did. And who else was involved. And if he had been trying to kill the pope… Obviously we can't do any of that…' Pio sat back, fingering his glass of mineral water, and Harry could see the emotion slowly fade.

'Maybe we will find out we were wrong. But I don't think so… I've been around a long time, Mr Addison, and this is about as close to the truth as you get. Especially when your prime suspect is dead.'

Harry's gaze shifted off, and the room became a blur. Until now he had been certain they were mistaken, that they had the wrong man, but this changed everything.

'What about the bus…?' He looked back, his voice barely a whisper.

'Whatever Communist faction was behind Parma's murder, killing one of their own to shut him up? … The Mafia doing something else entirely? ... A disgruntled bus company employee with access to, and knowledge of, explosives? … We don't know, Mr Addison. As I said, the bombing of the bus and the cardinal's murder are separate investigations.'

'When will all this be made public?'

'Probably not while the investigation continues. After that we will, in all likelihood, defer to the Vatican.'

Harry folded his hands in front of him and stared at the table. Emotions flooded. It was like being told you had an incurable disease. Disbelief and denial made no difference, the X rays, MRIs, and CT scans stared back from the wall just the same.

Yet, for all of that — for all the evidence the police had presented, one solid piece stacked upon another, they still had no absolute proof, as Pio had admitted. Moreover, no matter what he had told them about the substance of Danny's phone message, only he had heard Danny's voice. The fear and the anguish and the desperation. It was not the voice of a murderer crying out for mercy to the last bastion he knew, but of someone trapped in a terrible circumstance he could not escape.

For some reason, and he didn't know why, Harry felt closer to Danny now than he had since they were boys. Maybe it was because his brother had finally reached out to him. And maybe that was more important to Harry than he knew, because the realization of it had come not as a thought but as a rush of deep emotion, moving him to the point where he thought he might have to get up and leave the table. But he hadn't, because in the next moment another realization had come: he wasn't about to have Danny condemned to history as the man who had killed the cardinal vicar of Rome until the last stone had been turned and the proof was absolute and beyond any doubt whatsoever.

'Mr Addison, it will be another day at least, perhaps more, before the identification procedures are complete and your brother's body can be released to you… Will you be staying at the Hassler the entire time you are in Rome?'

'Yes…'

Pio took a card from his wallet and handed it to him. 'I would appreciate it if you kept me informed of your movements. If you leave the city. If you go anywhere where it would be difficult for us to reach you.'

Harry took the card and slipped it into his jacket pocket, then his eyes came back to Pio.

'You won't have any trouble finding me.'

Euro Night Train, Geneva to Rome.

Tuesday, July 7, 1:20 a.m.

Cardinal Nicola Marsciano sat in the dark, listening to the methodic click of the wheels as the train picked up speed, pushing southeast out of Milan toward Florence and then Rome. Outside, a faint moon touched the Italian countryside, bathing it in just enough light for him to know it was there. For a moment he thought of the Roman legions that had passed under the same moon centuries before. They were ghosts now, as one day he would be, his life, like theirs, scarcely a blip on the graph of time.

Train 311 had left Geneva at eight-twenty-five the night before, had crossed the Swiss-Italian border just after midnight, and would not arrive in Rome until eight the next morning. A long way around, considering it was only a two-hour flight between the same cities, but Marsciano had wanted time to think and to be alone without intrusion.

As a servant of God he normally wore the vestments of his office, but today he traveled in a business suit to avoid attracting attention. To that same end his private compartment in the first-class sleeping car had been reserved under the name N. Marsciano. Honest, yet simple anonymity. The compartment itself was small, but it provided what he needed: a place to sleep, if he ever could; and, more important, a moving station to receive a call on his cellular phone without fear it would somehow be intercepted.

Alone in the darkness, he tried not to think of Father Daniel — the accusations of the police, the evidence they had discovered, the bombed bus. Those things were past, and he dared not dwell on them, even though he knew at some point he would have to confront them again personally. They would have everything to do with his future, the future of the Church, and whether either could survive.

He glanced at his watch, its digital numbers a transparent green in the dark.

1:27

The Motorola cell phone on the small table beside him remained silent. Marsciano's fingers drummed on the narrow arm of his chair, then pushed through his gray-white hair. Finally he leaned forward and poured what was left of the bottle of Sassicaia into his glass. Very dry, very full-bodied, the stately red wine was expensive and little known outside Italy. Little known because the Italians themselves kept it a secret. Italy was filled with secrets. And the older one got, the more there seemed to be and the more dangerous they became. Especially if one were in a position of power and influence, as he was at age sixty.

1:33

Still the phone remained silent. And now he began to worry that something had gone wrong. But he couldn't let himself think that way until he knew for sure.

As he took a sip of the wine, Marsciano's gaze shifted from the phone to the briefcase lying flat on the bed beside it. Inside, tucked away in an envelope beneath his papers and personal belongings, was a nightmare. An audiocassette that had been delivered to him in Geneva Sunday afternoon during lunch. It had come in a package marked URGENTE and had been delivered by messenger with no return address or indication of who had sent it. Once he had listened to it, however, he knew instantly where it had come from and why.

As president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, Cardinal Marsciano was a man in whose hands rested the ultimate financial decisions for the investment of the Vatican's hundreds of millions of dollars in assets. And as such, he was one of the very few who knew exactly how much those assets were worth and where they were invested. It was a position of solemn responsibility and by its very nature open to those things men in high station are always heir to — the corruption of mind and spirit. Men who fell to such temptations usually suffered from greed or arrogance or both. Marsciano was afflicted by neither. His suffering came from a cruel intermingling of profound loyalty to the Church, grievously misplaced trust, and human love; made worse, if that were possible, by his own high position within the Vatican.

The tape recording — in light of the murder of Cardinal Parma and the timing of its delivery — only pushed him farther into darkness. More than simply threaten his own personal safety, by its very existence it raised other, more far-reaching questions: What else was known? Whom could he trust?

The only sound was that of the wheels passing over the rails as the train drew ever closer to Rome. Where was the call? What had happened? Something had to have gone wrong. He was certain now.

Abruptly the phone rang.

Marsciano was startled and for a moment did nothing. It rang again. Recovering, he picked up.

'Si.' His voice was hushed, apprehensive. Nodding almost imperceptibly, he listened. 'Grazie,' he whispered finally and hung up.

Rome. Tuesday, July 7, 7:45 a.m.

Jacov Farel was Swiss.

He was also Capo dell'Ufficio Centrale Vigilanza, the man in charge of the Vatican police, and had been for more than twenty years. He had called Harry at five minutes after seven, waking him from a deep sleep and telling him it was imperative they talk.

Harry had agreed to meet with him, and now, forty minutes later, was being driven across Rome by one of Farel's men. Crossing the Tiber, they drove beside it for a few hundred yards, then turned down the colonnaded Via della Conciliazione, with the unmistakable dome of St Peter's in the distance. Harry was certain that was where he was being taken, to the Vatican and to Farel's office somewhere deep inside it. Then abruptly the driver veered off to the right and through an arched portal in an ancient wall and into a neighborhood of narrow streets and old apartment buildings. Two blocks later he made a sharp left to stop in front of a small trattoria on Borgo Vittorio. Getting out, he opened the door for Harry and escorted him into the trattoria.

A lone man in a black suit stood at the bar as they came in. His back to them, his right hand rested beside a coffee cup. He was probably five foot eight or nine, heavy-set, and what little hair he might have had left had been shaved to the skull, leaving the top of his head shining, as if it had been polished, in the overhead light.

'Thank you for coming, Mr Addison.' Jacov Farel's English was colored by a French accent. His voice was husky, as if he'd chain-smoked for years. Slowly the hand pulled away from the coffee cup and he turned. Harry hadn't been able to see the power of the man from the back, but he could now. The shaved head, the broad face with the flattened nose, the neck as thick as a man's thigh, the burly chest tight against his white shirt. His hands, big and strong, looked as if they'd spent most of their fifty-odd years wrapped around the handle of a jackhammer. And then there were his eyes, deep-set, gray-green, unforgiving — abruptly they flashed toward the driver. Without a word, the driver took a step backward and left, the click of the door sounding behind him as it closed. Then Farel's eyes shifted to Harry.

'My responsibilities are different from those of the Italian police. They protect a city. The Vatican is its own state. A country inside Italy. Therefore I am accountable for the safety of a nation.'

Instinctively Harry glanced around. They were alone. No waiter, no barman, no customers. Just he and Farel.

'The blood of Cardinal Parma splattered my shirt and my face when he was shot. It also fell on the pope, soiling his vestments.'

'I'm here to do anything I can to help.'

Farel studied him carefully. 'I know you talked to the police. I know what you told them. I read the transcripts. I read the report Ispettore Capo Pio wrote after he met with you privately… It's what you didn't tell them that interests me.'

'What I didn't tell them?'

'Or what they didn't ask. Or what you left out when they did, purposely, or because you didn't remember or perhaps because it didn't seem important.'

Farel's presence, considerable before, now seemed to fill the entire room. Harry's hands were suddenly damp and there was sweat on his forehead. Again he looked around. Still no one. It was after eight. What time did the staff come to work? Or people come in off the street for breakfast or coffee? — Or had the trattoria been opened for Farel alone?

'You seem uncomfortable, Mr Addison…'

'Maybe it's because I'm tired of talking to the police when I've done nothing and you people keep acting like I have...

I was happy to meet with you because I believe my brother is innocent. To show you I'm willing to cooperate any way I can.'

'That's not the only reason, Mr Addison…'

'What do you mean?'

'Your clients. You have to protect them. If you had called the United States Embassy as you threatened — or arranged for an Italian lawyer to represent you in your talks with the police — you knew there was a very good chance the media would find out… Not only would our suspicions about your brother be made public, they would learn about you as well. Who you are, and what you do, and who you personally represent. People who would not want to be linked, however distantly or innocently, to the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome.'

'Who do you think I represent that would—?'

Farel cut him off abruptly, naming half a dozen of his superstar Hollywood clients in rapid succession.

'Should I keep on, Mr Addison?'

'How did you get that information?' Harry was shocked and outraged. The identity of his firm's clients was carefully guarded. It meant Farel had not only been digging into his background but also had connections in Los Angeles capable of getting him whatever he asked for. A reach and power that in themselves were frightening.

'Your brother's guilt or innocence aside, there is a certain practicality to things… That's why you're talking to me, Mr Addison, alone and of your own free will and will continue to do so until I am done with you… You have to protect your own success.' His left hand found its way up to caress his skull just over his left ear. 'It's a nice day. Why don't we go for a walk…?'

The morning sun was beginning to light the top floors of the buildings around them as they came out and Farel turned them left, onto Via Ombrellari — a narrow cobblestone street without sidewalks, the apartment buildings interrupted here and there by a bar or restaurant or pharmacy. A priest walked by across from them. Farther down, two men noisily loaded empty wine and mineral water bottles into a van outside a restaurant.

'It was a Mr Byron Willis, a partner in your law firm, who informed you of your brother's death.'

'Yes…'

So Farel knew that, too. He was doing the same thing Roscani and Pio had done, trying to intimidate him and get him off guard, let him know that no matter what anyone said, he was still a suspect. That Harry knew he was innocent made little difference. Law school years had made him more aware than most of the long history of jails, prisons, and even gallows that had been peopled with the guiltless, men and women charged with crimes far less grievous than the one being investigated here. It was unnerving, if not frightening. And Harry knew it showed, and he didn't like it. Moreover, Farel's digging into his professional world gave everything a calculated spin. One that gave the Vatican policeman added power, because it let him into Harry's inside life and proved to him he had nowhere to go.

Harry's concern about publicity had been one of the first things he'd addressed yesterday, as soon as he'd left Pio and checked into his hotel, calling Byron Willis at his home in Bel Air. By discussion's end they'd enumerated, almost word for word, the reasons Farel had just given for Harry's keeping a low profile. They'd agreed that, tragic as it was, Danny was dead, and since whatever involvement he'd had or not had in the murder of Cardinal Parma was being kept quiet, it was best for all of them to let it stay that way. The risk that Harry's clients might be revealed and his situation exploited was something neither they, nor he, nor the company needed, especially now, when the media seemed to rule everything.

'Did this Mr Willis know Father Daniel had contacted you?'

'Yes ... I told him when he called to notify me of what had happened…'

'You told him what your brother said.'

'Some of it… Most of it… Whatever I said, it's in the transcripts of what I told the police yesterday.' Harry felt the anger begin to rise. 'What difference does it make?'

'How long have you known Mr Willis?'

'Ten, eleven years. He helped me get into the business. Why?'

'You are close to him.'

'Yes, I guess…'

'As close to him as to anyone?'

'I guess so.'

'Meaning you might tell him things you would tell no one else.'

'What are you getting at?'

Farel's gray-green eyes found Harry's and held there. Finally his gaze moved off and they continued to walk. Slowly, deliberately. Harry had no idea where they were going or why. He wondered if Farel did, if it was simply his manner of interrogation.

Behind them, a blue Ford turned the corner, drove slowly for a half block, then pulled over and stopped. No one got out. Harry glanced at Farel. If he was aware of the car, he didn't acknowledge.

'You never spoke with your brother directly.'

'No.'

Farther down, the men loading bottles finished, and their van pulled from the curb. Parked beyond it was a dark gray Fiat. Two men sat in the front seat. Harry glanced back. The other car was still there. The block was short. If the men in the cars belonged to Farel, it meant they had essentially sealed off the street.

'And the message he left on your answering machine… you erased.'

'I wouldn't have done it if I had known how things were going to turn out.'

Abruptly Farel stopped. They were nearly to the gray Fiat, and Harry could see the men in the front seat watching them. The one at the wheel was young and leaned forward in his seat almost eagerly, as if he hoped something would happen.

'You act like you don't know where we are, Mr Addison.' Farel smiled slowly, then swept his hand at the yellow stained and paint-peeled four-story building in front of them.

'Should I?'

'Number one-twenty-seven Via Ombrellari — you don't know?'

Harry looked down the street. The blue Ford was still there. Then his eyes came back to Farel.

'No, I don't.'

'It's your brother's apartment building.'

Danny's apartment was on the ground floor, small and exceedingly Spartan. Its cubicle of a living room faced a tiny back courtyard and was furnished with a reading chair, small desk, floor lamp, and bookcase, all of which looked as though they had come from a flea market. Even the books were secondhand, most of them old and dealing with historical Catholicism, with titles such as The Last Days of Papal Rome, 1850-1870, Plenarii Concilii Baltimorensis Tertii, The Church in the Christian Roman Empire.

The bedroom was sparer yet — a single, blanket-covered bed and a small chest of drawers, with lamp and telephone on top, which served as a bedside table. His closet was as meager. A suit of the classic priest's vestments — black shirt, black slacks, and black jacket all on one hanger. A pair of jeans, a plaid shirt, worn gray sweat suit, and pair of old running shoes. The chest of drawers revealed a white clerical collar, several pairs of well-worn underwear, three pairs of socks, a folded sweater, and two T-shirts, one with the logo of Providence College.

'Everything just as he left it when he went to Assisi,' Farel said quietly.

'Where were the cartridges?'

Farel led him into the bathroom and opened the door of an ancient commode. Inside were several drawers, all of which had locks that had been pried open, presumably by the police.

'The bottom drawer. In the back behind some toilet tissue.'

Harry stared for a moment, then turned and walked slowly back through the bedroom and into the living room. On the top shelf of the bookcase there was a hot plate he hadn't noticed before. Beside it was a lone cup with a spoon in it, and next to that a jar of instant coffee. That was it. No kitchen, no stove, no refrigerator. It was the kind of place he might have rented as a freshman at Harvard, when he had no money at all and was enrolled only because he'd earned an academic scholarship.

'His voice—'

Harry turned. Farel stood in the bedroom doorway watching him, his shaved head looking suddenly too large and disproportionate to his body.

'Your brother's voice on the answering machine. You said he sounded frightened.'

'Yes.'

'As if he might be afraid for his life?'

'Yes.'

'Did he mention names? People you would both know. Family? Friends?'

'No, no names.'

'Think carefully, Mr Addison. You hadn't heard from your brother in a long time. He was distraught.' Farel stepped closer, his words running on. 'People tend to forget things when they're thinking about something else.'

'If there had been names I would have told the Italian police.'

'Did he say why he was going to Assisi?'

'He didn't say anything about Assisi.'

'What about another city or town?' Farel kept pushing. 'Somewhere he had been or might be going?'

'No.'

'Dates? A day. A time that might be important—'

'No,' Harry said. 'No dates, no time. Nothing like that.'

Farel's eyes probed him again. 'You are absolutely certain, Mr Addison…'

'Yes, I'm absolutely certain.'

A sharp knock at the front door drew their attention. It opened, and the eager driver of the gray Fiat — Pilger, Farel called him — entered. He was even younger than Harry had first thought, baby-faced, looking as if he were barely old enough to shave. A priest was with him. Like Pilger, he was young, probably not thirty, and tall, with dark curly hair and black eyes behind black-rimmed glasses.

Farel spoke to him in Italian. There was an exchange, and Farel turned to Harry.

'This is Father Bardoni, Mr Addison. He works for Cardinal Marsciano. He knew your brother.'

'I speak English, a little, anyway,' Father Bardoni said gently and with a smile. 'May I offer my deepest condolences…'

'Thank you…' Harry nodded gratefully. It was the first time anyone had acknowledged Danny in any context outside of murder.

'Father Bardoni has come from the funeral home where your brother's remains were taken,' Farel said. 'The necessary paperwork is being processed. The documents will be ready for your signature tomorrow. Father Bardoni will accompany you to the funeral home. And the following morning, to the airport. A first-class seat has been reserved for you. Father Daniel's remains will be on the same plane.'

'Thank you,' Harry said again, right now wanting only to get out from under the overbearing shadow of the police and take Danny home for burial.

'Mr Addison,' Farel warned, 'the investigation is not over. The FBI will follow up for us in the States. They will want to question you further. They will want to talk to Mr Willis. They will want the names and addresses of relatives, friends, military associates, other people your brother may have known or been involved with.'

'There are no living relatives, Mr Farel. Danny and I were the last of the family. As for who his friends or associates were, I couldn't say. I just don't know that much about his life… But I'll tell you something. I want to know what happened as much as you do. Maybe even more. And I intend to find out.'

Harry looked at Farel a beat longer. Then, with a nod to Father Bardoni, he took a final look around the room, a last, private moment to see where and how Danny had lived, and started toward the door.

'Mr Addison.'

Farel's voice rasped sharply after him, and Harry turned back.

'I told you when we met that it's what you haven't said that interests me… It still does… As a lawyer you should know the most insignificant pieces sometimes make the whole… Things so seemingly unimportant, a person might pass them on without realizing it.'

'I've told you everything my brother said to me…'

'So you say, Mr Addison.' Farel's gaze narrowed and his eyes grasped Harry's and held there. 'I was washed with the blood of a cardinal. I will not bathe in the blood of a pope.'

The Hotel Hassler.

Still Tuesday, July 7. 10:00 p.m.

'Great! Great! I love it! … Has he called in? … No, I didn't think he would. He's where? … Hiding?'

Harry stood in his room and laughed out loud. Telephone in hand, his shirt open at the neck, sleeves rolled up, shoes off, he turned to lean against the edge of the antique desk near the window.

'Hey, he's twenty-four, he's a star, let him do what he wants.'

Signing off, Harry hung up and set the phone on the desk among the pile of legal pads, faxes, pencil stubs, half-eaten sandwich, and crumbled notes. When was the last time he'd laughed, or even felt like laughing? But just now he'd laughed, and it felt good.

Dog on the Moon was a monster hit. Fifty-eight million dollars for the three-day holiday weekend, sixteen million more than Warner Brothers' highest estimates. Studio number crunchers were projecting a total domestic gross of upward of two hundred and fifty million. And as for its writer-director, Jesus Arroyo, the twenty-four-year-old barrio kid from East L.A. Harry had found six years ago in a special writing program for troubled inner-city teenagers and had mentored ever since, his career was blasting off the planet. In little more than three days he had become the new enfant terrible, his golden future assured. Multi-picture contracts worth millions were being overtured to him. So were demands for guest appearances on every major television talk show. And where was baby Jesus in all this? Partying in Vail or Aspen or up the coast looking at Montecito real estate? No? He was — hiding!

Harry laughed again at the purity of it. Intelligent, mature, and forceful as Jesus was as a filmmaker, at heart he was really a shy little boy who, following the biggest weekend of his career, could not be found. Not by the media, not by his friends, his latest girlfriend, or even his agent — whom Harry had been on the phone with. No one.

Except Harry.

Harry knew where he was. Jesus Arroyo Manuel Rodriguez was his full name, and he was at his parents' house on Escuela Street in East L.A. He was with his mom and his hospital custodian dad, and his brothers and sisters, and cousins and aunts and uncles.

Yes, Harry knew where he was, and he could call him, but he didn't want to. Let Jesus have his time with his family. He'd know what was going on. If he wanted to be in touch he would be. Much better to let him celebrate in his own way and let all the other stuff, including the congratulatory call from his lawyer, come later. Business did not yet rule his life as it did Harry's and the lives of most everyone else who was a success in the entertainment world.

There had been eighteen calls waiting for him to return when he'd checked in yesterday. But he'd answered none of them, just gone to bed and slept for fifteen hours, emotionally and physically exhausted, the idea of business as usual impossible. But tonight, after his encounter with Farel, work had been a welcome relief. And everyone he'd talked to had congratulated him on the big success of Dog and the bright future of Jesus Arroyo, and had been kind and sympathetic about his own personal tragedy, apologizing for talking business under the circumstances and then — all those things said — talking business.

For a time it had been exhilarating, even comforting, because it took his mind off the present. And then, as he'd ended the last call, he realized no one he had talked to had any idea that he was dealing with the police or that his brother was the prime suspect in the assassination of the cardinal vicar of Rome. And he couldn't tell them. As much as they were friends, they were business friends, and that was all.

For the first time, it came to him how singular his life really was. With the exception of Byron Willis — who was married and had two young children and still worked as many hours as Harry did and maybe more — he had no genuine friends, no soul mates of any kind. His life moved too quickly for those kinds of relationships to develop. Women were no different. He was part of Hollywood's inner circle, and beautiful women were everywhere. He used them and they used him; it was all part of the game. A private screening, dinner afterward, sex, and then back to business; meetings, negotiations, telephones, maybe seeing no one at all socially for weeks at a time. His longest affair had been with an actress and lasted little more than six months. He'd been too busy, too preoccupied. And until now it had seemed all right.

Turning from the desk, Harry went to the window and looked out. The last time he'd looked, the city had been a dazzle of early-evening sun. Now it was night, and Rome sparkled. Below him, the Spanish Steps and the Piazza di Spagna beyond teemed with people — a mass congregation of coming and going and just being, with little collections of uniformed police here and there making sure none of it got out of hand.

Farther away he could see a convergence of narrow streets and alleyways, above which the orange-and-cream-colored tile rooftops of apartments, shops, and small hotels fingered out in ancient orderly blocks until they reached the black band of the Tiber. Across it was the lighted dome of St Peter's, that part of Rome where he'd been earlier in the day. Beneath it sprawled Jacov Farel's domain, the Vatican itself. Residence of the pope. Seat of authority for the world's nine hundred and fifty million Roman Catholics. And the place where Danny had spent the final years of his life.

How could Harry know what those years had been like? Had they been enriching or merely academic? Why had Danny gone from the marines to the priesthood? It was something he had never understood. Not surprising, because at the time they were barely talking, so how could he have asked at all without sounding judgmental? But looking out now at the lighted dome of St Peter's, he had to wonder if it was something there, inside the Vatican, that had driven Danny to call him, and afterward sent him to his death.

Who or what had he been so frightened of? And where had it originated? At the moment, the key seemed to be the bombing of the bus. If the police could determine who had done it and why, they would know if Danny himself had been the target. If he had been the target, and the police knew who the suspects were, then they would all be a major step closer to confirming what Harry still believed in his heart — that Danny was not guilty and had been set up. For some unknown reason altogether.

Once more, he heard the voice and the fear.

''I'm scared, Harry… I don't know what to do… or… what will happen next. God help me.'

11:30 p.m.

Harry wound his way down the Via Condotti to the Via del Corso and on, unable to sleep, looking in shop windows, just wandering with the late crowd. Before he'd gone out he'd called Byron Willis in L.A., telling him about his meeting with Jacov Farel and alerting him to the probability of a visit from the FBI, then discussing with him something deeply personal — where Danny should be buried.

That twist — one that, in the crush of everything, Harry hadn't considered — had come in a call from Father Bardoni, the young priest he'd met at Danny's apartment, informing him that, as far as anyone knew, Father Daniel had no will, and the director of the funeral home needed to advise the funeral director in the town where Danny was to be interred about the arrival of his remains.

'Where would he want to be buried?' Byron Willis had asked gently. And Harry's only answer was 'I don't know…'

'You have a family plot?' Willis had asked.

'Yes,' Harry had said. In their hometown of Bath, Maine. In a small cemetery overlooking the Kennebec River.

'Would that be something he would like?'

'Byron, I… don't know…'

'Harry, I love you and I know you're pained, but this is going to have to be your call.'

Harry had agreed and thanked him and then gone out. Walking, thinking, troubled, even embarrassed. Byron Willis was the closest friend he had, yet Harry had never once spoken to him of his family in more than a passing way. All Byron knew was that Harry and Danny had grown up in a small seacoast town in Maine, that their father had been a dockworker, and that Harry had received an academic scholarship to Harvard when he was seventeen.

The fact was, Harry never talked about the details of his family at all. Not to Byron, not to his roommates in college, not to women, not to anyone. No one knew about the tragic death of their sister, Madeline. Or that their father had been killed in a shipyard accident barely a year later. Or that their mother, lost and confused, had remarried in less than ten months, moving them all into a dark Victorian house with a widowed frozen-food salesman who had five other children, who was never home, and whose only reason to marry had been to get a housekeeper and baby-sitter. Or that later, as a young teenager, Danny had been in one scrape after another with the police.

Or, that both brothers had made a pact to get out of there as soon as they were able, to make the long grimness of those years a thing of their past, to leave and never come back — and promised to help each other do it. And, how, by different routes, both had done so.

With that in mind, how in hell could Harry take Byron Willis's suggestion and bury Danny in the family plot? If he wasn't dead it would kill him! Either that or he'd come up out of the grave, grab Harry by the throat, and throw him in instead! So what was Harry supposed to tell the funeral director tomorrow when he asked Harry where the remains should be sent after they and Harry arrived in New York? Under different circumstances it might have been amusing, even funny. But it wasn't. He had until tomorrow to find an answer. And at the moment, he hadn't a clue.

Half an hour later Harry was back at the Hassler, hot and sweaty from his walk, stopping at the concierge desk to get his room key, and still with no solution. All he wanted was to go up, get into bed, and drop into a total escape of deep, mindless sleep.

'A woman is here to see you, Mr Addison.'

Woman? The only people Harry knew in Rome were police. 'Are you sure?'

The concierge smiled. 'Yes, sir. Very attractive, in a green evening dress. She's waiting in the garden bar.'

'Thank you.' Harry walked off. Someone in the office must have had an actress client visiting Rome and told her to look Harry up, maybe to help take his mind off things. It was the last thing he wanted at the end of a day like this. He didn't care who she was or what she looked like.

She was sitting alone at the bar when he came in. For a moment the long auburn hair and emerald green evening dress threw him off. But he knew the face, he'd seen her a hundred times on television, wearing her trademark baseball cap and L. L. Bean-type field jacket, reporting under artillery fire from Bosnia, the aftermath of a terrorist bomb blast in Paris, refugee camps in Africa. She was no actress. She was Adrianna Hall, top European correspondent for WNN, World News Network.

Under almost any other circumstance Harry would have gone out of his way to meet her. She was Harry's age or a little older, bold, adventuresome, and, as the concierge said, very attractive. But Adrianna Hall was also media, and that was the last thing he wanted to deal with now. How she found him he didn't know, but she had, and he had to figure out what to do about it. Or maybe he didn't. All he had to do was turn and leave, which was what he did, glancing around, acting as if he were looking for someone who wasn't there.

He was almost to the lobby when she caught up with him.

'Harry Addison?'

He stopped and turned. 'Yes…'

'I'm Adrianna Hall, WNN.'

'I know…'

She smiled. 'You don't want to talk to me…'

'That's right.'

She smiled again. The dress looked too formal for her. 'I'd had dinner with a friend and I was on my way out of the hotel when I saw you leave your key with the concierge … He said you told him you were going for a walk. I took a chance you wouldn't go too far—'

'Ms Hall, I'm sorry, but I really don't want to talk to the media.'

'You don't trust us?' This time she smiled with her eyes. It was a kind of natural twinkle that teased.

'I just don't want to talk… If you don't mind, it's late.'

Harry started to turn, but she took his arm.

'What would make you trust me — at least more than you do now?' She was standing close, breathing easily. 'If I told you I knew about your brother? That the police picked you up at the airport? That today you met with Jacov Farel…?'

Harry stared at her.

'You don't have to gape. It's my business to know what's going on… But I haven't said anything to anyone but you, and I won't until an official okay is given.'

'But you want to see what I'm about anyway.'

'Maybe

Harry hesitated, then smiled. 'Thanks — but as I said, it's late…'

'What if I told you I found you very attractive and that was the real reason I waited for you to come back?'

Harry tried not to grin. This was the kind of thing he was used to at home. A direct and very confident sexual come-on that could be done by either male or female — and taken by the other party either in fun or seriously, depending on one's mood. Essentially it was a playful crumb tossed out to see what, if anything, would happen next.

'On the one hand I'd say it was flattering. On the other I'd say it was a particularly underhanded and politically incorrect approach to pursuing a story.' Harry put the ball back in her court and held his ground.

'You would?'

'Yes, I would.'

An elderly threesome came out of the bar and stopped beside them to talk. Adrianna Hall glanced at them, then looked back to Harry, dipped her forehead slightly and lowered her voice.

'Let me see if I can give you a slightly different approach, Mr Harry Addison… There are times when I just like to fuck strangers.' She never took her eyes from him when she said it.

Her apartment was small and neat and sensual. It was one of those things, sex that comes right up from nowhere. Heat that just happens. Somebody strikes a match, and the whole place goes up.

Harry made it clear from the beginning — when he'd answered her and said, 'So do I' — that the subject of either Danny or the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome was off limits, and she'd agreed.

They'd taken a cab, then walked a half block, talking about America. Mostly politics and sports — Adrianna Hall had grown up in Chicago, moving to Switzerland when she was thirteen. Her father had been a defenseman for the Chicago Blackhawks and later a coach for the Swiss national team — and they were there.

There was a click as she closed the door. Then she turned and came to him in the darkness. Mouth open, kissing him roughly, her tongue exploring his. The back of his hands so gently and expertly running over the top of her evening gown, teasing her breasts. Feeling her nipples harden as he did. Her hands opening his slacks, taking down his shorts. Taking his hardness in her hand, stroking him, then lifting her skirt and rubbing him against the thin silk of her underwear. All the while kissing and deep breathing as if it were for all time. And Harry slipping off her underwear, sliding her dress over her head. Unhooking her bra and throwing it into the darkness as she eased him down onto the couch, slipping his shorts from his ankles and moving up, taking him into her mouth. His head rolling back, letting her, then raising up on his elbows to watch as she did. Thinking he had never felt so enormous in his life. Finally, after minutes, easing her head away, lifting her up, carrying her through the orderliness of the living room — a giggle in the dark as she gave him directions — down a short hallway to her bedroom. Waiting, vamping really, as she pulled a condom from a nearby drawer — swearing under her breath, struggling to tear open the foil — then, succeeding, taking it out, and easing it down around him.

'Turn over,' he whispered.

Her smile enraptured him as she did, so that she faced the head of the bed. And he mounted her from behind, feeling the insertion into her warmth, beginning the stroking, the slow in and out, that he sustained almost forever.

Her moaning stayed in his mind for a long time. By Harry's count he'd come five times in two hours, not bad for a thirty-six-year-old. How, and if, she kept score of her own orgasms he had no idea. What he remembered was her not wanting him to fall asleep there. Just kissing him once more and telling him to go back to his hotel, because in two hours she had to get up and go to work.

Wednesday, July 8, 4:32 a.m.

Harry's last glance at the clock. Time crept. If he slept at all, he didn't know. He could still smell Adrianna's perfume, almost masculine, like citrus and smoke. Getting up, going to work in two hours, she'd said. Not just to work like most people, but to the airport and a plane to Zagreb and then into the Croatian backcountry for a story on human rights abuses committed by Croats against Croatian Serbs who had been driven from their homes and slaughtered. It was who she was and what she did.

He remembered, somewhere during their circus, breaking his own rule of not talking about Danny and asking what she knew about the investigation into the bombing of the Assisi bus.

And she'd answered directly, not once, even in tone, accusing him of trying to use her. 'They don't know who did it…'

He'd looked at her in the darkness — her bright eyes watching his, the gentle rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed — trying to judge if she was telling him the truth. And the truth was, he couldn't tell. So he let it go. In two days he would be gone, and the only time he would see her again would be on television, in her baseball cap and L. L. Bean field jacket, reporting some kind of struggle from somewhere. What mattered now, as he watched her, moved down to caress her breast, encircle its nipple with his tongue, was that he wanted her once more. And once more after that. And then again, until there was nothing left, everything gone from his mind but this thing that was Adrianna. Selfish, yes. But it wasn't entirely one-sided. The idea, after all, had been hers.

Running his fingers slowly up the inside of her thigh, he'd heard her whimper as he reached the sticky wetness where her legs came together. Fully aroused, he was easing up, about to mount her, when abruptly she shifted, rolling him over and getting on top, pulling his erection sharply inside her.

Moving back, she dug her feet into the tuft of the bed and then leaned forward, hands on either side of his head, eyes wide open, watching him. Slowly she began her work, sliding up and down the length of him. Masterfully. Her full weight behind each calculated thrust. And then, like a rower listening to the cadence of her coxswain, she picked up the beat. Moving faster and faster. The jockey testing the heart of the creature beneath her. Riding loud and hard and with no mercy. Until she became the thoroughbred herself. Pounding the inside rail. Tasting the Crown and thundering savagely toward the finish. In the blink of an eye she'd made it a new game. What before had been desire had suddenly become a leviathan competition.

Nor had she made a mistake in choosing Harry. Long ago having vowed to master the fine art of 'swordsmanship', he watched her every move, then met her stride for stride. Thrust for thrust. Beast against beast. A heart-stopping, all-out match race. A thousand to one as to who would explode first.

They crossed the line together. A howling, sweating, photo finish of orgasmic pyrotechnics that left them sprawled side by side and gasping for air, wholly spent, their inner workings worn raw. Quivering in the dark.

Harry had no idea why, but in that moment a far-off part of him stood back and wondered if Adrianna had picked him — not because he might be a lead player in a major story and it was secretly her style to establish an early personal relationship — not either because she simply liked to have sex with strangers — but for another reason altogether… because she was afraid of going to Zagreb, because maybe this was one time too many and something would happen and she would die somewhere in the Croatian countryside. Maybe she wanted to breathe as much of life as she could before she went. And Harry just happened to be the one she chose to help her do it.

4:36

Death.

In the dark of room 403 at the Hotel Hassler, there were shutters closed, drapes drawn against the approaching dawn, and yet sleep still did not come to Harry. The world spun, faces danced past.

Adrianna.

The detectives Pio and Roscani.

Jacov Farel.

Father Bardoni, the young priest who was to escort him and Danny's remains to the airport.

Danny.

Death.

Enough! Turning on the light, Harry threw back the covers and got up, going to the small desk by the telephone. Picking up his notes, he reviewed business deals he'd worked in the hours before he'd gone out. A television contract to pick up a series star for a fourth year at an increase of fifty thousand per episode. An agreement for a top screenwriter to do a month's polish on a script that had been rewritten four times already. Writer's fee, five hundred thousand dollars. A deal in the works for two months for a major A-list director to shoot an action film on location in Malta and Bangkok for a flat fee of six million against ten percent of the first dollar box office gross, finally done. Then undone a half hour later because the male star, for reasons unknown, abruptly pulled out. Two hours and half a dozen phone calls later, the star was back in, but by now the director was considering other offers. A call to the star at lunch at a trendy West L.A. restaurant, another to the studio head in his car somewhere in the San Fernando valley, and still another to the director's agent ended in a four-way conference call to the director at home in Malibu. Forty minutes later the director was back on the picture and getting ready to leave for Malta the following morning.

By the time it was over, Harry had negotiated deals worth, give or take, seven and a half million dollars. Five percent of which, roughly three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, went to his firm, Willis, Rosenfeld and Barry. Not too shabby for somebody working on anxiety, autopilot, and very little sleep in a hotel room halfway around the world. It was why he was who he was and doing what he did… and why he was paid what he was paid, plus bonus, plus profit sharing, plus… Harry Addison had gotten out of his hometown in a big way… Suddenly it all felt very hollow and unimportant.

Abruptly he shut out the light and closed his eyes against the dark. When he did, shadows came. He tried to push them away, tried to think of something else. But they came anyway. Shadows moving slowly along a distant iridescent wall, then turning and coming toward him. Ghosts. One, two, three, and then four.

Madeline.

His father.

His mother.

and then

Danny…

Wednesday, July 8, 10:00 a.m.

Their footsteps were silent as they came down the stairs. Harry Addison, Father Bardoni, and the director of the funeral home, Signore Gasparri. At the bottom Gasparri turned them left and down a long, mustard-colored corridor with pastoral paintings of the Italian countryside decorating the walls.

Deliberately, Harry touched his jacket pocket, feeling the envelope Gasparri had given him when he'd come in. In it were Danny's few personal belongings recovered at the scene of the bus explosion — a charred Vatican identification, a nearly intact passport, a pair of eyeglasses, the right lens missing, the left cracked, and his wristwatch. Of the four, it was the watch that told most the true horror of what had happened. Its band burned through, its stainless steel scorched, and its crystal shattered, it had stopped on July 3 at 10:51 a.m., scant seconds after the Semtex detonated and the bus exploded.

Harry had made the burial decision earlier that morning. Danny would be interred in a small cemetery on the west side of Los Angeles. For better or worse, Los Angeles was where Harry lived and where his life was, and despite the emotional ride he was on now he saw little reason to think he would change and move elsewhere. Moreover, the thought of having Danny nearby was comforting. He could go there from time to time, make certain the grave site was cared for, maybe even talk to him. It was a way that neither would be alone or forgotten. And, in some ironic way, the physical closeness might help assuage some of the distance that had been between them for so long.

'Mr Addison, I beg you' — Father Bardoni's voice was gentle and filled with compassion — 'for your own sake. Let past memories be the lasting ones.'

'I wish I could, Father, but I can't…'

The thing about opening the casket and seeing him had come only in the last minutes, on the short drive from the hotel to the funeral home. It was the last thing on earth Harry wanted to do, but he knew that if he didn't do it, he'd regret it for the rest of his life. Especially later on, when he got older and could look back.

Ahead of them, Gasparri stopped and opened a door, ushering them into a small, softly lit room where several rows of straight-backed chairs faced a simple wooden altar. Gasparri said something in Italian, and then left.

'He's asked us to wait here…' Father Bardoni's eyes behind his black-rimmed glasses reached out with the same feeling as before, and Harry knew he was going to ask him again to change his mind.

'I know you mean well, Father. But please don't…' Harry stared at him for a moment to make sure he understood, then turned away to look at the room.

Like the rest of the building, it was old and worn with time. Its plaster walls, cracked and uneven, had been patched and patched again and were the same earthen yellow as the hallway outside. In contrast to the dark wood of the altar and the chairs facing it, the terra-cotta floor seemed almost white, its color faded by years, if not centuries, of people coming to sit and stare and then leave, only to be replaced by others who had come for the same reason. The private viewing of the dead.

Harry moved to one of the chairs and sat down. The grisly process of identifying and then examining the bodies of those killed on the Assisi bus for explosive residue had been managed quickly and pragmatically by a larger-than-usual staff at the request of an Italian government still shaken by the murder of Cardinal Parma. The task completed, the remains had been sent from the morgue — the Istituto di Medicina Legale at the City University of Rome — to various funeral homes nearby, there to be placed in sealed caskets for return to their families for burial. And despite the investigation surrounding him, Danny had been treated no differently. He was here now, somewhere in Gasparri's building, his mutilated body, like those of the others, sealed away for transport home and final disposition.

Harry could have left it that way, maybe should have left it that way — his casket unopened; just taken him back to California for interment. But he couldn't. Not after all that had happened. What Danny looked like didn't matter. He needed to see him one last time, to make one final gesture that said, I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me. I'm sorry we somehow got locked into the bitterness and misunderstanding we did. That we never got to talk about it, or work through it, or even try to understand… To say simply, Goodbye and I love you, and always did, no matter what.

'Mr Addison' — Father Bardoni had moved up and was standing beside him — 'for your own good… I have seen people as strong and determined as you crumble as they witness the unspeakable… Accept God's way. Know your brother would want you to remember him as he was.'

There was a sound as the door behind them opened and a man with close-cropped gray-white hair entered. He was nearly six feet tall and handsome and carried with him an aura that was both aristocratic and at the same time kind and humane. He wore the black cassock and red sash of a cardinal of the Church. A red zucchetto was on his head, and a gold pectoral cross hung from a chain around his neck.

'Eminence…' Father Bardoni bowed slightly.

The man nodded, his eyes going to Harry. 'I am Cardinal Marsciano, Mr Addison. I came to offer my deepest sympathies.'

Marsciano's English was excellent, and he seemed to be comfortable speaking it. The same was true of his manner; his eyes, his body language, everything about him comfortable and comforting.

'Thank you, Eminence…' Friend of power brokers and world celebrities, Harry had never once been in the presence of a cardinal, let alone a man of Marsciano's stature within the Church. Having been brought up Catholic, no matter how nonreligious, how totally non-churchgoing he was now, Harry was humbled. It was as if he were being visited by a head of state.

'Father Daniel was my personal secretary, and had been for many years…'

'I know…'

'You are waiting here now, in this room, because it is your wish to see him…'

'Yes.'

'You had no way of knowing, but Father Bardoni called me while you were with Signore Gasparri. He thought perhaps I would have better luck in dissuading you than he.' The slightest hint of a smile rose then left. 'I have seen him, Mr Addison. I was the one the police asked to identify the body. I have seen the horror of his death. What the proud inventions of mankind can do.'

'It doesn't matter…' Marsciano's presence aside, Harry was resolute; what he had chosen to do was deep and very personal, between Danny and himself. 'I hope you can understand.'

Marsciano was silent for a long moment. Finally he spoke. 'Yes, I can understand.'

Father Bardoni hesitated, then left the room.

'You are very much like him,' Marsciano said quietly. 'That is a compliment.'

'Thank you, Eminence.'

Immediately a door near the altar opened and Father Bardoni entered, followed immediately by Gasparri and a heavy-set man wearing a crisp white jacket who pushed a hospital gurney. On it was a small wooden coffin no bigger than a child's. Harry felt his heart catch in his throat. Inside it was Danny, or what was left of him. Harry took a deep breath and waited. How do you prepare for something like this? How does anyone? Finally he looked to Father Bardoni.

'Ask him to open it.'

'Are you certain?'

'Yes.'

Harry saw Marsciano nod. Gasparri hesitated, and then in one motion leaned forward and removed the lid from the casket.

For a moment Harry did nothing. Then, steeling himself, he stepped forward and looked down. As he did, he heard himself gasp. The thing was on its back. Most of the right torso was gone. Where there should have been a face there was a crushed mass of skull and matted hair, with a jagged hole where the right eye would have been. Both legs had been sheared off at the knee. He looked for the arms, but there were none. What made the whole thing even more obscene was that someone had pulled on a pair of underpants, as if to protect the viewer from the indecency of the genitals, whether they were there or not.

'Oh, God,' he breathed. 'Oh, fucking God!' Horror and disgust and loss swept over him. The color drained from his face, and he had to put out his hand to keep his balance. Somewhere he heard the rattle of Italian, and it took a moment before he realized Gasparri was talking.

'Signore Gasparri apologizes for what your brother looks like,' Father Bardoni said. 'He wants to cover him again, to take him away.'

Harry's eyes lifted to Gasparri. 'Tell him no, not yet…'

Fighting everything in him, Harry turned to look at the mutilated torso once more. He had to pull himself together. To think. To say silently to Danny what needed to be said. Then he saw Cardinal Marsciano gesture and Gasparri move forward with the lid. At the same time something else registered.

'No!' he said sharply, and Gasparri froze where he was. Reaching out, Harry touched the cold chest, then ran his fingers down under the left nipple. Suddenly he felt his legs turn to rubber.

'Are you all right, Mr Addison?' Father Bardoni moved toward him.

Abruptly Harry pulled away and looked up. 'It's not him. It's not my brother.'

Harry didn't know what to think or how to feel. That it might be someone other than Danny in the casket had never occurred to him. That after everything — the police work, the investigations by how many agencies, the recovery of the personal articles, the identification of the body by Cardinal Marsciano, the death certificate — they could have made this kind of error was unconscionable.

Cardinal Marsciano put a hand on his sleeve. 'You are weary and filled with grief, Mr Addison. In circumstances like this our hearts and emotions do not always let us think clearly.'

'Eminence,' Harry said sharply. They were all staring at him — Marsciano, Father Bardoni, Gasparri, and the man in the starched white jacket. Yes, he was tired. Yes, he was filled with grief. But his thinking had never been clearer in his life.

'My brother had a large mole under his left nipple. It's called a third breast. I've seen it a thousand times. Medically it's known as a supernumerary nipple. As a kid Danny drove my mother crazy showing it to people. Whoever's in that casket has no mole under his left nipple. That person is not my brother. It's as simple as that.'

Cardinal Marsciano closed the door to Gasparri's office, then gestured toward a pair of gilded chairs in front of the funeral director's desk.

'I'll stand,' Harry said.

Marsciano nodded and sat down.

'How old are you, Mr Addison?'

'Thirty-six.'

'And how long has it been since you last saw your brother without his shirt or with it, for that matter? Father Daniel was not merely an employee, he was a friend. Friends talk, Mr Addison… You had not seen him for many years, had you?'

'Eminence, that person is not my brother.'

'Moles can be removed. Even from priests. People do it all the time. I should imagine you, in your business, would know that better than I.'

'Not Danny, Eminence — especially not Danny. Like most everyone else, he was insecure growing up. What made him feel better about himself was when he had things other people didn't. Or did things differently from those around him. He used to drive our mother crazy opening his shirt and showing it to people. He liked to think it was some kind of secret baronial mark, and that he was really descended from royalty. And unless he changed deeply and immeasurably since then, he would never have had the mole removed. It was a badge of honor, it kept him apart.'

'People do change, Mr Addison,' Cardinal Marsciano spoke gently and quietly. 'And Father Daniel did change a great deal in the years I knew him.'

For a long moment Harry stared, saying nothing. When he did speak, he was quieter but no less adamant. 'Isn't it possible there was a mix-up at the morgue? That maybe another family has Danny's body in a sealed casket without knowing it? … It's not unreasonable to imagine.'

'Mr Addison, the remains you saw are those I identified.' The cardinal's response was sharp, even indignant. 'Presented to me by the Italian authorities.' No longer the comforter, Marsciano had suddenly become acerbic and authoritative.

'Twenty-four people were on that bus, Mr Addison. Eight survived. Fifteen of the dead were positively identified by members of their own families. That left only one…' For the briefest moment Marsciano's manner reverted, and his humanity returned. 'I, too, had hopes that a mistake had been made. That it was someone else. That perhaps Father Daniel was still away, unaware of what had happened.

'But I was confronted by fact and evidence.' Marsciano's edge returned. 'Your brother was a frequent visitor to Assisi and more than one person who knew him saw him get on the bus. The transport company was in radio contact with the driver along the way. His only stop was at a toll station. Nowhere else. Nowhere where a passenger could have gotten off prior to the explosion. And then there were his personal belongings found among the wreckage. His glasses, which I knew only too well from the many times he left them on my desk, and his Vatican identification were in the pocket of a shredded jacket still on the remains… We cannot change the truth, Mr Addison, and mole or not, and whether you want to believe it or not, the truth is he is dead… what is left of his physical being embodied in the remains you have seen…' Marsciano paused, and Harry could see his mood shift once more and something darker come into his eyes.

'You have encountered the police and Jacov Farel. So have we all… Did your brother conspire to kill Cardinal Parma? Or perhaps even the Holy Father? Did he actually fire the shots? Was he, at heart, a Communist who despised us all? I cannot answer… What I can tell you is that for the years I knew him he was kind and decent and very good at what he did, which was controlling me.' The hint of a smile flickered, then left.

'Eminence,' Harry said, intensely. 'Did you know he'd left a message on my answering machine only hours before he was killed?'

'Yes, I was told…'

'He was scared, afraid of what would happen next… Do you have any idea why?'

For a long moment Marsciano said nothing. Finally he spoke, directly and quietly. 'Mr Addison, take your brother from Italy. Bury him in his own land and love him for the rest of your life. Think, as I do, that he was falsely accused and that one day it will be proven so.'

Father Bardoni slowed the small white Fiat behind a tour bus, then turned onto Ponte Palatino, taking Harry from Gasparri's and back across the Tiber to his hotel. Midday Rome was loud, with bright sun and filled with traffic. But Harry saw and heard only what was in his mind.

'Take your brother from Italy and bury him in his own land,' Marsciano had said again as he'd left, driven away in a dark gray Mercedes by another of Farel's black-suited men.

Marsciano had not talked of the police and Jacov Farel without purpose; his not answering Harry's query, too, had been deliberate. His charity had been in his indirectness, leaving it to Harry to fill in the rest — a cardinal had been murdered, and the priest thought to have done it was dead. So was his colleague in the murder. So, too, were sixteen others who had been on the Assisi bus. And whether Harry wanted to believe it or not, the remains of that priest, the suspected assassin, were officially and without question those of his brother.

To make certain he understood, Cardinal Marsciano had done one more thing at the last: turned and looked at Harry severely as he'd walked down the steps to his car, his glance more telling than anything he'd said or implied. There was danger here, and doors that should not be opened. And the best thing Harry could do would be to take what had been offered and leave as quickly and quietly as possible. While he still could.

Ispettore Capo, Gianni Pio

Questura di Roma

sezione omicidi

Harry sat in his hotel room, turning Pio's card over in his hand. Father Bardoni had dropped him off just before noon, saying he would pick him up at six-thirty the following morning to take him to the airport. Danny's casket would already be there, checked in. All Harry would have to do would be board the plane.

The trouble was, even in the shadow of Marsciano's warning, Harry couldn't. He could not take a body home and bury it for all time as Danny's when he knew in his heart it was not. Nor could he take it home and, by burying it, make it easy for the investigators to officially close the book on the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome; an act that, for all intents, would brand Danny forever as his killer. And this, after his meeting with Marsciano, was something Harry was more certain than ever was not true.

The problem was what to do about it, and how to do it quickly.

It was twelve-thirty in the afternoon in Rome, three-thirty in the morning in Los Angeles. Whom could he call for help there right now who would be able to do anything other than be sympathetic? Even if Byron Willis or someone in the office could arrange for a prominent Italian attorney to represent him in Rome, it wouldn't happen in the next few hours.

And even if it did, then what? They would meet. Harry would explain what had happened. And he would be back to square one. This wasn't simply about a misidentified corpse, it was about an investigation of murder on the highest levels. In no time, they would all be under an intense media spotlight, and he, his firm, his clients would make world news. No, he had to find another way. Come from the inside, ask the help of someone who already knew what was going on.

Again Harry looked at Pio's card. Why not the Italian homicide investigator? They had developed a relationship of sorts, and Pio had encouraged further communication. He had to trust someone, and he wanted to believe he could trust Pio.

12:35

Someone in Pio's office who spoke English said the ispettore capo was out but took Harry's name and number, saying he would call back. That was all. That he would call back. No idea when.

12:55

What to do if Pio doesn't call? Harry didn't know. The best he could do was put his faith in the policeman and his professionalism and hope he would call back sometime before six-thirty tomorrow morning.

1:20

Harry had taken a shower and was shaving when the phone rang. Immediately he picked the receiver from the mount over the sink, smearing it with Ralph Lauren gel.

'Mr Addison—'

Jacov Farel — Harry would never forget the voice.

'Something new has come up concerning your brother. I thought it might interest you.'

'What is it?'

'I'd rather you saw for yourself, Mr Addison. My driver will pick you up and take you to a site near the scene of the bus explosion. I will meet you there.'

'When?'

'Ten minutes.'

'All right, ten minutes.'

The driver's name was Lestingi or Lestini. Harry didn't quite get the pronunciation, nor did he ask again, because the man apparently spoke no English. Dressed in aviator sunglasses, off-white polo shirt, jeans, and running shoes, Harry simply got into the rear seat of a maroon Opel and sat back as they drove off, staring at the blur of Rome as they wound through it.

The idea of another encounter with Farel was disturbing enough, but projecting what he might have found at the site of the explosion troubled Harry even more. Obviously, whatever it was would not be something in Danny's favor.

Up front, Lestingi or Lestini, in the trademark black suit of Farel's soldiers, slowed for a toll plaza, took a ticket, and accelerated out onto the Autostrada. Immediately the city fell away. Ahead were only vineyards and farms and open land.

As the Opel pushed north, with only the hum of its tires and the whine of its engine for sound, as they passed signs for the towns of Feronia, Fiano, and Civitella San Paolo, Harry thought about Pio and wished it had been he who had called him and not Farel. Pio and Roscani were tough policemen, but at least there was something human about them. Farel — with his presence and bulk and raspy voice and the way his glassy stare cut through you — seemed more like some kind of beast, ruthless and without conscience.

Maybe it was because he had to be. Maybe it was because, as he said, he was accountable for the safety of a nation — and of a pope. And maybe, over time, that kind of strain and responsibility unknowingly turned you into something that, at heart, you were not.

Twenty minutes later Farel's driver swung off the Autostrada, paid the toll, and they moved off once more, turning onto a country highway, passing a gas station and a large building housing farm equipment. Then there was nothing but the road and cornfields on either side of it. They drove on, a mile, then two, then three. The bus had blown up on the Autostrada, and they were rapidly moving away from it.

'Where are we going?' Harry asked suddenly.

The driver looked at him in the rearview mirror and shook his head. 'Non capisco inglese.'

In the last minutes they had passed no other traffic. Harry looked over his shoulder, then out through the windshield. The corn was lush, higher than the car. Dirt farm roads cut off left and right, but they kept on. Five miles now. Harry's uneasiness grew. Then he felt the car begin to slow. He watched the speedometer drop, 80 kilometers, 60, 40, 20. Abruptly the driver swung right, turning off the highway and starting down a long, rutted lane. Instinctively, Harry glanced at the door locks to see if they were down, if the driver controlled them electronically from up front.

There were none.

Only holes in the leatherette trim where they'd been. Then he realized this was a police car, and the rear seats of police cars never had door locks, were always locked, could be opened only from the outside.

'Where are we going?' Harry said it louder this time. He could feel the thump of his heart against his chest, the stick of sweat on his palms.

'Non capisco inglese.'

Again the driver glanced at him in the mirror. Then Harry saw his foot press down on the accelerator. The car picked up speed, bucking and jolting over the uneven road. Corn rows flew past. Behind them was a curtain of dust. Harry put out a hand to keep his balance. Sweat trickled down from under his arms. For the first time in his life he felt real fear.

Without warning the road turned, and they rounded a bend. Ahead was a clearing and a modern two-story house. A gray Alfa Romeo was parked in dry grass alongside a tiny three-wheel farm vehicle. The Opel slowed and then slopped. The driver got out and walked around the car, his footsteps crunching on the gravel. Then he pulled the door open and motioned for Harry to get out.

'Fuck,' Harry swore under his breath. He got out slowly, watching the man's hands, trying to decide what to do if he moved them. Then he saw the door to the house open. Two men came out. Farel was one and — Harry felt a huge surge of relief cut through him — Pio was the other. A man and two young boys followed. Harry looked off and at the same time let out a deep sigh. Behind the house, on the far side of a row of trees, traffic flowed on the Autostrada. They had done nothing but make a large circle off the highway and come up on the house from behind.

'The ispettore capo will tell you.' Farel's eyes held on Harry, but only for a moment. Then he turned, and he and Pio walked to the rear of the Alfa Romeo. It was only as Pio opened the trunk that Harry realized both men wore surgical gloves and that Pio carried something in a clear plastic bag.

Putting whatever it was in the trunk, Pio pulled off the gloves and found a notebook. Filling out some kind of form, he signed it and handed it to Farel, who scrawled his own signature on it, pulled off the top copy, and, folding it, slid it into his jacket pocket.

With a nod to the man who had followed them from the farmhouse, Farel glanced once more at Harry, then got into the Opel. There was a roar of engine and spinning of wheels in the gravel and then Farel and the man who had driven Harry out from Rome were gone, with only swirling dust to suggest they'd been there at all.

'Grazie,' Pio said to the man standing with the two boys.

'Prego,' the man said, then gathered the youngsters and took them back into the house.

Pio looked to Harry. 'The boys are his sons. They found it.'

'Found what?'

'The gun.'

Pio took Harry to the back of the car and showed him what he'd put in the trunk. It was what remained of a pistol, sealed inside a clear evidence bag. Through the plastic, Harry could see a small automatic with a silencer attached to the barrel. Its blue metal was scorched, its polymer grips all but melted.

'It's still loaded, Mr Addison.' Pio looked at him. 'It was probably thrown clear when the bus overturned; otherwise the ammunition would have gone off and the weapon would have been destroyed.'

'Are you concluding that it belonged to my brother?'

'I'm not concluding anything, Mr Addison. Except, most pilgrims to Assisi do not carry automatic pistols mounted with silencers… For your information, the make is a Llama 15. Small-frame autopistol.' Pio slammed the trunk shut. 'It was made in Spain.'

They rode without speaking. Past the high cornstalks. Down the dirt road. The Alfa banging over its ruts. The dust kicking up behind them. At the country highway, Pio turned left, toward the entrance to the Autostrada.

'Where's your partner?' Harry tried to break the quiet.

'At his son's confirmation. He took the day off

'I called you…'

'I know — why?'

'About what happened at the funeral home…'

Pio made no reply, just kept driving, as if he were waiting for Harry to finish.

'You don't know?' Harry was genuinely surprised. He was certain Farel had learned of it and would, at the very least, have informed Pio.

'Know what?'

'I was at the funeral home. I viewed my brother's remains. The body is not his.'

Pio's head came around. 'Are you certain?'

'Yes.'

'The funeral home made a mistake…' Pio half shrugged. 'Unfortunately it happens. It is especially understandable under the circum—'

Harry cut him off. 'The remains are the same as those Cardinal Marsciano identified at the morgue.'

'How do you know?'

'He was there, he told me.'

'Marsciano came to the funeral home?'

'Yes.'

Pio seemed genuinely surprised, his reaction honest and instantaneous. It was enough for Harry to tell him the rest. In thirty seconds he explained about Danny's mole and the reasons why he would never have had it removed. About his private meeting with Marsciano in Gasparri's office, and the cardinal's insistence that the body was his brother's and that he accept the fact and get out of the country with it while he could.

Pio stopped at the tollbooth, picked up a ticket, and swung them onto the Autostrada toward Rome.

'You're certain the mistake is not yours…'

'No, it's not.' Harry was adamant.

'You know his personal belongings were found where the remains were recovered…'

'I have them here.' Harry touched his jacket. The envelope Gasparri had given him was still in his pocket. 'His passport, watch, his glasses, the Vatican ID — they may have been his. The body isn't.'

'And you think Cardinal Marsciano knows that…'

'Yes.'

'You are aware he is one of the most powerful and prominent men in the Vatican.'

'So was Cardinal Parma.'

Pio studied Harry, then glanced in the rearview mirror. A dark green Renault was a half mile back, holding speed with them, and had been for some time.

Pio looked back to the road ahead, accelerating past a truck hauling lumber, then pulled into the lane in front of it.

'You know what I would be thinking if I were you.' Pio kept his eyes on the road.

'Is my brother still alive? And if he is, where is he?'

Harry looked at Pio, then turned away. That Danny might still be alive was a thought that came the moment he realized the corpse was not his. But he hadn't let himself think about it. Couldn't let himself think about it. Danny had been on the bus. Those who survived were accounted for. So, for Danny to still be alive wasn't possible. Any Bore than it was possible for Madeline to have remained Vive all that time under the ice. Yet Harry had stayed there watching, an eleven-year-old shivering in his wet and freezing clothes, refusing to go home and change, while the fire department divers worked. Yes, Madeline was down there in the icy, black water, freezing cold and wet as he, but she was still alive, he knew it. But she wasn't. And neither was Danny. To even consider it, was not only unrealistic, it was also far too painful and self-defeating.

'Anyone would have thought about it, Mr Addison. When there is a change of facts, hope is natural. What if he were still alive? I would like to know that too… So, one way or another, why don't we attempt to find out?' Pio smiled, not unselfishly, and glanced in the mirror once more.

They had reached the bottom of a long hill with the lumber truck now almost a mile behind. Then Pio saw a car come into the passing lane beside it, accelerate, and then cut back into the travel lane in front of it.

The green Renault.

It was after four when they came off the Autostrada, moving with traffic down Via Salaria toward the center of the city. Pio had been alert the whole time, watching the green Renault in the mirror. He'd been expecting it to follow them off at the toll exit and was prepared to radio for assistance if it had. But it hadn't and instead stayed on the Autostrada.

Still, its presence, the way it had remained with them for so long made him nervous, and he kept an eye on the road behind them as he unveiled his thoughts to Harry.

The idea, he told him, would be to use the gun found at the bus site as a reason to keep Harry in Rome for further questioning and to once again visit the victims of the Assisi bus. Querying the survivors to determine if any had seen a man with a gun onboard; a question that would not have come up earlier because there had been no reason to suspect a gunman and because most still suffered from some degree of shock. There was a chance, of course, the gun had been used against a passenger, but because of the silencer, the others would not have heard it. It would have been a bold move, one made by a professional. But done right, in all probability it would have worked. The victim, appearing to be doing nothing more than sleeping, would not have been found until the bus had reached the terminal and everyone else had gotten off and dispersed.

Using that possibility as justification would give them a chance to carefully reexamine everyone. The living and the dead. They would start with the eight survivors and go from there. Some were still hospitalized, others had been sent home. If Father Daniel was not among them — and Pio was certain he would not be — then they would move on to the dead, professing to be looking for gunshot wounds, something that could have easily been overlooked earlier, considering the condition of the corpses and the gun's small caliber. In that way each set of remains could be carefully examined once more, this time from a different perspective, because they would be looking for one person in particular, Father Daniel. And, if after everything, his body was still not there, then it would be safe to begin to suspect that the accused killer of the cardinal vicar of Rome was still somewhere among the living.

Roscani would know their real purpose, but only he. No one else would be told, not even Farel.

'I must tell you truthfully, Mr Addison.' Pio stopped for a red light. 'We can go just so far before Farel finds out. When he does, he may terminate everything.'

'Why?'

'Because of what Cardinal Marsciano said to you. Because if what has happened has to do with Vatican politics, Farel will end it right there. The case will be closed, and we will have no authority to pursue it. The Vatican is a sovereign state and not part of Italy. Our job is to cooperate with the Holy See and help them any way we can. And if they do not invite us in, we cannot go.'

'Then what?'

The light changed, and Pio moved the Alfa Romeo off, shifting through the H of the manual transmission. 'Then nothing. Unless you go to Farel. And Farel, I can assure you, will not help you.'

Harry saw Pio glance in the mirror again. He had done it several times while they were on the Autostrada, and he'd thought nothing of it. A driver being cautious. But now they were on city streets, and this was the third time in the last few minutes.

'Something wrong?'

'I don't know…'

A small white Peugeot was two cars behind them. Pio had been watching it ever since they'd turned onto Via Salaria. Now he turned left onto Via Chiana and then right onto Corso Trieste. The Peugeot moved out in traffic, staying with them.

Ahead was a cross street bordering a small park, and Pio took it fast, downshifting suddenly and making a sharp right without a signal. The Alfa leaned heavily, its tires screeching. Immediately Pio slowed, his eyes on the mirror. The Peugeot came into view but did not turn, just continued on.

'Sorry.' Pio accelerated again. They were in a quiet neighborhood separated by the park. Old buildings interspersed with new. Big trees, lush bushes, and everywhere oleander in bloom. Pio turned a corner and again glanced at the mirror.

The Peugeot.

It had just cut in from a side street and was accelerating toward them. Instinctively Pio slid a 9mm Beretta from a clip under the dash and put it on the seat beside him. At the same time he reached for the car's radio.

'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.

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 strong and handsome and deeply tanned. 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, during a short respite from her duties. She had seen the bulge under his hospital jacket and knew he had a pistol there.

The turning of Michael Roark done, Elena checked the fluid in the IV, then smiled at Marco and thanked him. Afterward she went into the next room, which was where she could sleep or read or write letters, and where she would be immediately available at any moment.

Her room, like Roark's, was a hospital room with its own toilet and shower, small closet, and bed. She was grateful especially for the toilet and shower, where, unlike in the communal bathrooms of the convent, she could be totally alone. Her being, her body, her thoughts private, except to God.

Now, as she closed the door and sat down on the bed, intending to write a letter home, she glanced at the red glow of the audio monitor on the bedside table next to her. The sound of her patient's steady breathing was clearly audible, the monitor's electronics so advanced that it seemed almost as if he were there beside her.

Lying back against the pillow, she closed her eyes and listened to his breathing. It was strong and healthy, even vital, and she began to imagine that he was there, alongside her, alert and well, as muscular and handsome as she knew he must have been before his injuries. The longer she listened, the more sensual his breathing seemed to become. In time she began to feel the press of his body against hers. Felt herself breathing with him, as if the rise and fall of their chests were the same. Her breathing became deeper, overriding his. She felt her own hand touch her breast, and she reached out, wanting to touch him and to keep touching him, exploring him in a way far more provocative and passionate than any way she had when she cared for his wounds.

'Stop it!' she whispered to herself.

Abruptly she got up from the bed and deliberately went into the bathroom to wash her face and hands. God was testing her again, as He had been more and more frequently over the past two years.

When exactly the feelings had begun she wasn't sure, nor had there been anything in particular to precipitate them. They had just started, rising seemingly from nowhere. And they'd astonished her. They were deep and sensual and erotic. Profound physical and emotional hungers she'd never experienced in her life. Feelings she could talk to no one about — certainly not to her family, who were strict and tradition bound in the way of old Italian Catholic families; certainly not to the other nuns, and most assuredly not to her mother general — yet the feelings were just the same and made her pulse with an almost unmanageable desire to be unclothed and in a man's arms, and to be a woman with him in the fullest sense. And, increasingly, not just a woman, but one wild and lusty, like the Italian women she'd seen in the cinema.

There had been times early on when she'd passed the emotions off as nothing more than the extension of an adventurous spirit; one that had always been physical and brave and, on occasion, overly impulsive. One time, visiting Florence as a teenager, and to the horror of her parents, who were with her, she'd run to a car that had just been in a terrible collision with a taxi, pulling the unconscious driver from it seconds before it burst into flame and exploded. Another time, when she was older, she'd been on a picnic with nursing nuns from St Bernardine and had climbed to the top of a hundred-foot radio tower to bring down a young boy who had scaled it on a dare, but who, once at the top, had become frozen with fear, unable to do more than cling there and cry.

But finally she'd realized physical courage and sexual desire were not the same. And with that she'd suddenly understood.

This was God's doing!

He was testing her inner strength, and her vows of chastity and obedience. And each day He seemed to test her a little more. And the more He did, the more difficult it became to overcome. But somehow she always did, her subconscious suddenly making her aware of what was happening, enabling her to abruptly bring herself back from the edge. The same as she had now. And, in doing so, giving her the courage and conviction to know she had the fortitude to withstand His purposeful temptations.

As if to prove it, she let her mind go to Marco standing guard outside the door. His strapping body. His bright eyes. His smile. If he was married he hadn't said, but he wore no wedding ring, and she wondered if he spent his off hours bedding women at will. He was certainly handsome enough to do so if he wanted. But, if he did, he would do so with other women, not her. To her he was simply a man doing his job.

Seeing him in that light, she knew it was safe to think about him any way she wished. He said he had been trained as a nursing aide, as supposedly the others had been. But if he was only that, why did he carry a pistol? That question alone made her think of the others — the stocky Luca, who came on at eleven at night on the shift following Marco's, and Pietro, who began at seven in the morning when Luca left. She wondered if they were armed as well. If they were, why? In this peaceful seacoast town, what threat could there possibly be?

Rome, 6:45 p.m.

Roscani walked around the car. Outside, beyond the police barricades, faces stared at him, wondering who he was, if he was anyone of importance.

A second body had been found in the bushes just off the sidewalk twenty feet behind the Alfa. Shot twice. Once in the heart, once above the left eye. An elderly man with no identification.

Roscani had left it to Castelletti and Scala, the other ispettori capi from homicide. His principal interest was the Alfa Romeo. Its windshield cracked, its front end was smashed into the truck it had hit full on, just missing the gas tank behind the driver's door.

Pio's body had still been there when he arrived. He'd studied it without touching, had it photographed and videotaped, and then it was taken away, the same as had been done with the body in the bushes.

There should have been a third body, but there wasn't. The American, Harry Addison, had been riding with Pio, coming back into the city from the farmhouse location where they had recovered the Spanish-made Llama pistol. But Harry Addison was gone. So was the pistol, the ignition keys still in the trunk lock, as if someone had known exactly where the gun was and where to find it.

Inside the Alfa, what appeared to be the murder weapon, Pio's own 9mm Beretta, lay on the backseat on the driver's side, as if it had been casually tossed there. Bloodstains were on the passenger side, on top of the seat by the door, just below the headrest. Shoe prints were in the carpet beneath it — not terribly distinct, but there just the same. Fingerprints were everywhere.

Tech crews were dusting, taking samples, marking them, putting them in evidence bags. Police photographers were on the scene as well. Two of them. One taking photographs with a Leica, the other making a video record with a modified Sony Hi-8.

And then there was the truck — a large Mercedes delivery vehicle reported stolen earlier that afternoon, its driver long gone.

Ispettore Capo Otello Roscani got behind the wheel of his dark blue Fiat and drove slowly around the barricades and past the faces watching him. The glare of police work lights illuminated the scene like a movie set, filling in the darkness for the faces and providing additional light for media cameras, which were there in frenzy.

'Ispettore Capo!'

Voices shouted. Men and women. Who did this? Does it have to do with the murder of Cardinal Parma? Who was killed? Who was suspected? And why?

Roscani saw it all, heard it all. But it didn't matter. His mind was focused on Pio and what had happened in the moments immediately preceding his death. Gianni Pio was not a man to make mistakes, but late this afternoon he had, somehow letting himself be compromised.

At this point — without an autopsy, without lab reports — questions were all Roscani had. Questions and sadness. Gianni Pio was godfather to his children and had been his friend and partner for more than twenty years. And now, as he headed back across Rome toward the Garbatella section, where Pio lived — going to see Pio's wife and his children, where Roscani knew his own wife already was, giving what little comfort she could — Otello Roscani tried to keep his personal feelings at a distance. As a policeman he had to, and out of respect for Pio he had to, because they would only get in the way of what had become his primary objective.

The finding of Harry Addison.

Still Wednesday, July 8. Same time.

Thomas Kind stood in the darkness, watching the man in the chair. Two others were in the room with him, dressed in coveralls, standing somewhere behind him. They were there to help if he needed it, which he would not. And to do the work afterward, which should be simple enough.

Thomas Kind was thirty-nine, five foot ten and very slim, a hundred and forty pounds at most, and in superb condition. His hair was cut short and jet-black, as were his slacks, shoes, and sweater, which made him difficult — if not impossible — to see in the darkness. Besides the paleness of his skin, the only color about him was the deep blue of his eyes.

The man in the chair stirred, but that was all. His hands and feet were bound and his mouth closed, pinched tight by thick tape.

Thomas Kind stepped closer, watched for a moment, then walked completely around the chair.

'Relax, comrade,' he said quietly. Patience and calmness were everything. It was how he lived each day. Even tempered, waiting for the satisfactory moment. It was the sort of thing Thomas Jose Alvarez-Rios Kind, native Ecuadorean born of an English mother, might put on his resume. Patient. Painstaking. Well educated. Multilingual. Add to that, one-time actor — and also one of the world's most-hunted terrorists.

'Relax, comrade.' Harry heard the phrase again. A male voice, the same as before. Calm, even. In accented English. And Harry thought he felt someone moving past him, but he couldn't be sure. The throbbing of his head overrode everything. All he knew was that he was sitting up and that his hands and feet were bound and there was tape across his mouth. And then there was the darkness. Yet there was nothing on his head, no blindfold, no cap. Nothing at all. But no matter how he twisted or turned, the blackness was all-pervasive. No shadows, no light spill from behind a door seam. Only dark.

He blinked. Then blinked again, twisting his head from side to side. Determined to be wrong. But he wasn't wrong. And it suddenly came to him that whatever had happened, wherever he was, whatever day this was, he was blind!

'No! No! No!' he screamed, his voice garbled by the tape covering his mouth.

Thomas Kind stepped closer.

'Comrade,' he said with the same unhurried quietness. 'How is your brother? I understand he is alive and well.'

Immediately the tape was torn from Harry's mouth. And he cried out as much in surprise as from the sting of it.

'Where is he?' The voice was closer than it had been.

'I don't… know… if… he's alive…' Harry's mouth and throat felt like sandpaper. He tried to make enough moisture to swallow but couldn't.

'I asked about your brother… where he is…'

'Could – I – please – have some – wa – ter?'

Kind lifted a small remote control. His thumb found a button and touched it.

Instantly, Harry saw a pinpoint of light shining in the distance and he started. Did he really see it, or was it an illusion?

'Where is your brother, comrade?' This time the voice came from behind his left ear.

The light began to move slowly toward him.

'I…' — Harry tried again to swallow — 'don't… know…'

'Do you see the light?'

'Yes.'

The pinpoint came closer.

'Good.'

Kind's thumb slid to another button.

Harry saw the light alter its track and shift ever so slightly. Moving toward his left eye.

'I want you to tell me where your brother is.' The voice had changed sides and whispered in his right ear. 'It's very important that we find him.'

'I don't know.'

The light was now moving toward his left eye alone and growing steadily brighter. The throbbing inside his head had been forgotten with the terror of his blindness. But with the light it began again. A slow, steady drumming that grew stronger with the approaching luminescence.

Harry jerked sideways, trying to turn his head, but something hard prevented it. He twisted the opposite way. Same thing. Then he pressed back. But nothing he did could turn him from the light.

'So far you have not felt pain. But you will.'

'Please—' Harry turned his head as far as he could, squeezing his eyes closed.

'That won't help.' The timbre of the voice was suddenly different. The first voice had been a man's, this time it sounded like a woman's.

'I – have – no – idea if – my broth – er is – even – alive. How could I – know – where he – is?'

The light's pinpoint narrowed, its beam rising up, moving over Harry's left eye, searching, until it found the center.

'Don't, please…'

'Where is your brother?'

'Dead!'

'No, comrade. He's alive, and you know where he is…'

The light was only inches away now. Becoming brighter. And brighter. Its pinpoint sharpened even more. The pounding inside his head grew. The light came closer, a needle pushing from the outside in, toward the back of his brain.

'STOP!' Harry screamed. 'MY GOD! STOP! PLEASE!'

'Where is he?' Male.

'Where is he?' Female.

Thomas Kind shifted from one voice to the other, playing both man and woman.

'Tell us and the light will stop.' Male.

'The light will stop.' Female.

The voices calm, even quiet.

The pounding became thunderous. Louder than anything Harry had ever heard. An enormous booming drum inside his head. And the light crept on toward the center of his brain, a white-hot needle searing toward the sound. Trying to mate with it. Brighter than anything he'd ever seen, or could ever imagine. Brighter than a welding arc. The core of the sun. Pain became everything; it was so terrible he was certain even death would not end it. He would take its horror with him into eternity.

'I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW! GOD! GOD! STOP IT! STOP IT! PLEASE! — PLEASE… PLEASE…'

CLICK.

The light went out.

Rome. Harry Addison's room, the Hotel Hassler.

Thursday July 9, 6:00 a.m.

Nothing had been touched. Harry's briefcase and working notes were on the table next to the telephone as he'd left them. The same for his clothes in the closet and his toiletries in the bathroom. The only difference was that a bug had been placed in each of the two telephones, the one by the bed, the other in the bathroom, and a tiny surveillance camera had been mounted behind the light sconce facing the door. This was part of the plan put in motion by Gruppo Cardinale, the special task force set up by decree of the Italian Ministry of the Interior in response to passionate appeals by legislators, the Vatican, the carabinieri, and the police in the wake of the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome.

The murder of Cardinal Parma and the bombing of the Assisi bus were no longer separate investigations but were now considered components of the same crime. Under the umbrella of Gruppo Cardinale, special investigators from the carabinieri, Squadra Mobile of the Italian police, and DIGOS, the special unit that investigates criminal acts with suspected political motive, all reported to the head of Gruppo Cardinale, ranking prosecutor Marcello Taglia; and while the highly respected Taglia did indeed coordinate the activities of the various police agencies, there was no doubt in anyone's mind who Gruppo Cardinale's true 'Il responsabile', the man in charge, was — Ispettore Capo Otello Roscani.

8:30 A.M.

Roscani stared, then turned away. He knew all too well what the circular saw did in an autopsy. Cutting into the skull, taking the cap off so that the brain could be removed. And then the rest of it, taking Pio apart almost piece by piece, looking for anything that would tell them more than they already knew. What that might be Roscani didn't know, because he already had enough information to establish Pio's killer beyond what he believed was reasonable doubt. Pio's 9mm Beretta had been confirmed as the murder weapon, and several clear prints had been found on it. Most were Pio's, but two were not — one, just above the left grip, the other on the right side of the trigger guard.

A query to the Los Angeles bureau of the FBI had, in turn, accessed the files of the California Department of Motor Vehicles in Sacramento, requesting a copy of the driver's license thumbprint of one Harry Addison, 2175 Benedict Canyon Drive, Los Angeles, California. Less than thirty minutes later, a computer-enhanced copy of Addison's thumbprint had been faxed to Gruppo Cardinale headquarters in Rome. The whorl pattern and measured ridge tracings matched perfectly with those on the print lifted from the left grip of the gun that had killed Gianni Pio.

For the first time in his life Roscani grimaced at the sound of the saw as the morgue doors closed behind him, and he walked down the hallway and up the steps of the Obitorio Comunale. Something he had done a thousand times in his career. He had seen policemen dead. Judges dead. The bodies of murdered women and children. Tragic as they were, he'd been able to distance himself professionally. But not this time.

Roscani was a cop, and cops got killed all the time. It was a truth drummed into you day after day at the institute. One you were supposed to accept going in. It was tragic and sad, but it was reality. And when it came, you were supposed to be prepared to deal with it professionally. Pay homage and move on; without anger, outrage, or hatred for the killer. It was part of what you were trained for in the career you chose.

And you thought you were trained — until the day you walked around your partner's body and saw the blood and shredded flesh and shattered bone. The grotesque work the bullets had done. Then saw it all over again when the medical people began their work in the morgue. That was when you knew you weren't prepared for it at all. No one could be, no matter what he was trained for, or taught, or what anyone else said. Loss and rage stormed through you like wildfire, overtaking everything. It was why — whenever cops were killed — every policeman who could, from every district reachable, sometimes from across continents, came to the funeral. Why five hundred uniformed men and women on motorcycles were not uncommon, riding in solemn procession in honor of a comrade who might have been only a year on the force, a rookie on foot patrol.

Angrily Roscani shoved open a side door and stepped into the morning sun. Its warmth should have been a welcome relief from the coldness of the rooms below, but it wasn't. Taking the long way around the building, he tried to let his emotions fade, but they didn't. Finally, he turned a corner and walked down a ramp to the street where he'd parked his car. Sadness and loss and anger were crushing him.

Leaving his car, he stepped off the curb, waited for traffic to pass, then crossed the street and started to walk. He needed what he called 'assoluta tranquillita', a kind of splendid silence, that quiet time when you were alone and could think things through properly. Especially now, time alone to try and walk off the emotion, to begin to think things through as an investigator for Gruppo Cardinale, not as the shattered, enraged partner of Gianni Pio.

Time for silence and to think.

To walk and walk and walk.

Thomas Kind pulled back a window certain and watched as the men in coveralls emerged from the building and took Harry Addison across the courtyard. He had what he needed from him, or at least as much as he was going to get; now the men in coveralls simply needed to get rid of him.

Harry could see only from his right eye. And that was more shadow than image. His left eye had no feeling or sight whatsoever. His other senses told him that he was outside and being walked across a hard surface by, he thought, two men. Somewhere he had the vaguest memory of sitting on a stool or something like it, of taking directions and saying words out loud that were spoken to him through an earphone by the same voice that had spoken to him before. He remembered that only because of the fuss someone else had made about fitting the device in his ear. Most of the argument was in Italian. But part had been fought in English. It was the wrong size. It wouldn't work. It would show.

Abruptly a male voice beside him spoke sharply in Italian — the same man, he thought, who had argued about the earphone while trying to fit it. A moment later, a hand shoved him from behind and he nearly stumbled. His recovery cleared his thoughts enough to tell him that while his hands were still bound behind him, his feet had been freed. He was walking on his own, and he thought he could hear traffic. His mind cleared to another level, telling him that if he could walk, he could run. He couldn't see and he had no use of his hands. The hand shoved him again. Hard. And he fell, crying out as he hit and felt his face scrape the pavement. He tried to roll over, but a foot stamped on his chest, holding him there. Somewhere nearby came the sound of a man straining, then there was a clank, and he heard something heavy, like iron scraping stone, sliding past his ear. Then he was lifted up by his shoulders and put over an edge. His feet touched steel and he was forced down the rungs of a ladder. Instantly what little light there was faded, and stench dominated everything.

A second male voice farther off cursed and then echoed. There was the sound of rushing water. The smell was overpowering. And then Harry knew. He'd been brought into the sewer. An exchange came in Italian.

'Prepararsi?'

'Si.' The earphone voice.

Harry felt a jarring between his wrists. There was a snap, and his hands came free.

CLICK. The unmistakable metallic sound of a gun being cocked.

'Sparagli.' Shoot him.

In reflex reaction Harry stepped backward, throwing his hands in front of his face.

'Sparagli!'

Immediately there was a thundering explosion. Something slammed into his hand. Then his head. The force threw him backward into the water.

Harry did not see the face of the gunman who stepped over him. Or of the other man who held the flashlight. Harry did not see what they saw; the enormous volume of blood covering the left side of his face, matting his hair, a trickle of it washing away in the flow of water.

'Morto,' a voice whispered.

'Si.'

The gunman knelt down and rolled Harry's body over the edge into a deeper, faster rush of water, then watched as it floated away.

'I topi faranno il resto.'

The mice will finish it.

The Questura, police headquarters.

Harry Addison sat there, a bandage over his left temple, dressed in the off-white polo shirt, jeans, and aviator sunglasses he wore when he left the Hotel Hassler at little after one-thirty in the afternoon yesterday. Nearly thirty hours earlier.

The fifteen-second video of the fugitive Harry Addison had come anonymously to Sala Stampa della Santa Sede, the press office of the Holy See, at 3:45 that afternoon, with a request it be sent immediately to the pope. Instead it had been put on a shelf and not opened until approximately 4:50. Immediately it had been sent to Farel's office and, after being viewed by a junior staff member, sent to Farel himself. By six o'clock Farel, Gruppo Cardinale prosecutor Marcello Taglia, Roscani, along with Castelletti and Scala, the homicide detectives assigned to Pio's murder, and a half dozen others were sitting in the dark of a video room viewing it together.

'Danny, I'm asking you to come in… To give yourself up.' Harry spoke in English, and an interpreter from Roscani's office translated into Italian.

As far as they could tell, Harry was sitting on a high wooden stool in a darkened room, alone. The wall behind him appeared to be covered with a textured and patterned wallpaper. That and Harry, his dark glasses, and the bandage on his forehead were all that was visible.

'They know everything… Please, for me… Come in… please… Please…' There was a pause and Harry's head started to come up as if to say something more, then the tape abruptly ended.

'Why wasn't I told the priest might still be alive?' Roscani looked at Taglia and then Farel as the lights came up.

'I learned of it only moments before this video was brought to my attention,' Farel said. 'The incident happened yesterday, when the American asked that the casket be opened, and when it was, swore the remains were not those of his brother… It could be the truth, it could be a lie… Cardinal Marsciano was there. He felt the American was emotionally overwrought. It was only this afternoon, when he learned of the circumstances of Pio's death, he sent Father Bardoni to tell me.'

Roscani got up and crossed the room. He was irritated. This was something he should have been told of immediately. Besides, there was no love lost between him and Farel.

'And you and your people have no idea where the video came from.'

Farel's eyes locked on Roscani's and stayed there. 'If we knew, Ispettore Capo, we would have done something about it, don't you think?'

Taglia, slim and dressed in a dark pinstripe suit, and with a bearing that suggested an aristocratic upbringing, intervened and spoke for the first time.

'Why would he do it?'

'Ask for the casket to be opened?' Farel looked to Taglia.

'Yes.'

'From what I was told he was overcome with emotion; he wanted to see his brother to tell him good-bye… Blood runs deep, even with murderers… Then when he saw the body was not Father Daniel, he reacted in surprise, without thinking.'

Roscani came back across the room, working to ignore Farel's abrasiveness. 'Suppose that's true and he made a mistake — why, a day later, does he assume the man is still alive and beg him to come forward? Especially when he's wanted for murder himself?'

'It's a gamble,' Taglia said. 'They're worried that if he is alive, what he might reveal if he is caught. They have his brother call him in so they can kill him.'

'This same brother who so emotionally asked to look at a hideous corpse now wants to kill him?'

'Maybe that was the reason.' Farel sat back in his chair. 'Maybe it was more calculated than it appears. Maybe he had a sense that everything was not as it seemed.'

'Then why did he say so out loud? Father Daniel was officially dead. Why didn't he leave it that way? It's not likely the police would search for a dead man. If he were alive, he could have gone after him quietly.'

'But where to look?' Taglia said. 'Why not let the police help find him?'

Roscani shook a cigarette from a pack and lit it. 'But they send the video to the pope instead of here. Why? There's been enough publicity, they know who we are.'

'Because,' Farel said, 'they want it released to the media. Gruppo Cardinale might do it, they might not. By sending the video to the Holy Father, they hoped he would intervene personally. Ask me to pressure you to release it. All of Italy knows how shocked and horrified he was by the cardinal vicar's murder and how much it would mean to him to have his assassin caught and brought to justice.'

'And did he ask you?' Roscani said.

'Yes.'

Roscani stared at Farel for a moment, then walked off.

'We have to assume they've calculated the odds. They know if we choose not to give it to the media, we would be losing a major chance to have the public help us fish for him. If we do, and he is alive and sees the story on television or reads about it in the newspapers and decides to do what his brother asks, we might very well get to him before they do. Thereby giving him the chance to tell us the very thing they are so concerned about.'

'Evidently it is a chance they are willing to take,' Taglia said.

'Evidently…' Putting out his cigarette, Roscani let his eyes wander from Taglia to Farel and then to Castelletti, Scala, and the others.

'There is one other concern.' Farel stood up, buttoning his suit coat. 'If the media are given the video, we must provide a photograph of the priest and, more significantly, details of what, until now, has been highly confidential… the Vatican cleric who murders a Roman cardinal… I have consulted with secretariat of state Cardinal Palestrina, and he agrees that no matter the pope's personal feelings, if this becomes public, the Holy See will be exposed to a scandal unknown for decades. And at a time when the Church's influence is quite the opposite of hugely popular.'

'Dottor Farel, we're talking about murder.' Roscani was looking directly at the Vatican policeman.

'Be respectful of your personal passions, Ispettore Capo. You will remember that they, among other things, were why you were not selected to head the investigation.' Farel stared at Roscani for a long moment, then turned to Taglia.

'I am confident you will make the right decision…'

With that, he walked out.

Once again Roscani had to work to ignore Farel. The Vatican policeman was gruff, direct, abrasive when it suited him, putting the Holy See before anything else, as if it and only it had any stake here. It was what you got when you dealt with him, especially if you were from a police force outside his control, and if you were, like Roscani, a person far more introspective, and a great deal less political. Roscani's daily life was devoted to grinding it out and doing the best job he possibly could, whatever it was and whatever it took. It was an attribute he'd learned from his father — a taskmaster and maker and seller of leather goods who had died of a heart attack in his own shop at eighty while trying to move a hundred-pound anvil; the same attribute that he tried to instill in his sons.

So, if you were like that and you realized it, you did your best to disregard people like Farel altogether, and devote your energies to things more positive and useful to what you were doing. Like Scala's comment after Farel had gone, about what they had seen on the video, pointing out the bandage on Harry Addison's forehead and suggesting that most probably he had been injured when Pio's car collided with the truck. If so, and if a medical professional had treated him and they could find that person, it would give them a direction the man had gone.

And Castelletti, not to be outdone, had picked up the videocassette itself and written down the manufacturer and manufacturer's batch code number printed on the back. Who knew where a trace like that could go, what it might turn up? Manufacturer, to wholesaler, to a store chain, to a certain store, to a clerk who might remember selling it to someone in particular.

And then the meeting was over, with the room emptying of everyone but Roscani and Taglia, Taglia with a decision to make, Roscani to hear it.

'You want to give the video to the media. And, like the TV show America's Most Wanted, let the public help us find them,' Taglia said softly.

'Sometimes it works.'

'And sometimes it drives fugitives farther from sight… But there are other considerations. What Farel was talking about. The delicate nature of the whole thing. And the diplomatic implications that could rise between Italy and the Vatican… The pope may wish one thing personally, but Farel did not mention Cardinal Palestrina for no reason … He is the real keeper of the Vatican flame and how the world views the Holy See.'

'In other words, diplomatically, scandal is worse than murder. And you are not going to release the video.'

'No, we are not — Gruppo Cardinale will continue to treat the hunt for fugitives as classified and confidential. All pertinent files will continue to be protected.' Taglia stood. 'I'm sorry, Otello… Buona sera.'

^'Buona sera…'

The door closed behind Taglia, and Roscani was left alone. Frustrated, emasculated. Maybe, he thought, his wife was right. For all his dedication, the world was neither just nor perfect. And there was little he could do to change it. What he could do, however, was to stop railing so hard against it; something that would make his life and his family's a little easier. His wife was right, of course. But the reality, as they both knew, was that he could do as little to change himself as he could the world. He had become a policeman because he did not want to go into his father's business and because he was just married and wanted stability before starting a family, and because the profession itself had seemed both exciting and noble.

But then something else had happened: victims' lives began to touch his on an everyday basis, lives torn apart, ripped often irreparably by senseless violence and intrusion. His promotion to homicide made it worse: for some reason, he began to see the murdered, whatever their age, not so much as themselves but as someone's children — his own, at three or four or eight or twelve — each deserving to live life to its end without such terrible and vicious interruption. In that, Cardinal Parma was as much a mother's son as Pio had been. It made finding the guilty all the more imperative. Get them before they did it again. But how often had he gotten them, only to have the courts, for one reason or another, let them go? It had driven him to rail against injustice, within the law or without. He was fighting an unwinnable war, but the thing was, he kept fighting anyway. And maybe the reason he did was simply that he was his father's son and, like him, had grown up to be a bulldog.

Abruptly, Roscani reached out and picked up the TV's remote, then pointed it at the large-screen television. There was a click as it came on. He hit rewind and then play and watched the video again. Saw Harry on the stool, saw him talk behind dark glasses.

'Danny, I'm asking you to come in… To give yourself up … They know everything… Please, for me… Come in… please… Please…'

Roscani saw him pause at the end, then start to say something more just as the tape itself ended. He hit rewind once more and played it again. And then again. And again. The more he watched, the more he felt the anger build inside him. He wanted to look up and see Pio come through the door, smiling and easy as always, talking about his family, asking Roscani about his. Instead he saw Harry, Mr Hollywood in sunglasses, sitting on a stool, begging his own brother to give himself up so that he could be killed.

CLICK.

Roscani shut off the television. In the semidarkness the thoughts came back. He didn't want them to, but they did. How he would kill Harry Addison when he got him. And there was no doubt at all that he would get him.

CLICK.

He turned the TV back on and lit a cigarette, forcefully blowing out the match afterward. He couldn't allow himself to think like that. He wondered how his father would have reacted if he had been in his place.

Distance was what he needed. And he got it by playing the tape again. And once more. And once more after that. Forcing himself to watch it coldly, analytically, the experienced policeman looking for the smallest piece of something that would help.

The more he watched, the more two things began to intrigue him — the textured, patterned wallpaper barely visible behind Harry; and what happened just before the end, when Harry's head started to come up with his mouth open as if to say something more, but he never did because the tape finished. Sliding a small notebook from his jacket, he made a note.

—Have video image computer enhanced/wallpaper.

—Have English-speaking lip reader analyze unspoken word(s).

REWIND.

PLAY.

Roscani hit the mute button and watched in silence. When it was finished, he did the same thing and watched it again.

Rome. The Vatican Embassy to Italy, Via Po. Same time.

In their first public appearance since the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome, the pope's remaining men of trust — Cardinal Umberto Palestrina, Cardinal Joseph Matadi, Monsignor Fabio Capizzi, and Cardinal Nicola Marsciano — mixed freely with the members of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, who were in Rome for a meeting on economic relations with emerging nations, and who had been invited to an informal cocktail party given by Archbishop Giovanni Bellini, the apostolic nuncio to Italy.

Of the four it was the Vatican secretariat of state, the sixty-two-year-old Palestrina, who seemed most at ease. Dressed not in the clerical garments the others wore but in a simple black suit with white Roman collar, and unmindful of the plainclothes Swiss Guards watching the room, the cardinal moved affably from one guest to the next, chatting energetically with each.

Palestrina's size alone — two hundred and seventy pounds over a six-foot seven-inch frame — turned heads. But it was the unexpected intensity of the rest of him — the grace with which he moved, his broad smile and riveting gray eyes under an unruly shock of stone-white hair, the iron grip of his hand as he took yours, addressing you directly and most often in your own language — that so took you off guard.

To watch him work the room, and revel in it — renewing old friendships, making new ones, then moving on to the next, made him seem more a politician on the stump than the second-most powerful man in the Catholic Church. Yet it was as a representative of that Church, of the pope himself, that he and the others were here, their presence, even in the shadow of grave tragedy, speaking for itself, reminding all that the Holy See was tirelessly and unremittingly committed to the future of the European Community.

Across the room, Cardinal Marsciano turned from the representative of Denmark and glanced at his watch.

7:50

Looking up, he saw Swiss investment banker Pierre Weggen enter the room. With him — and immediately causing a turn of heads and a very noticeable drop in the conversation level across the room — were Jiang Youmei, the Chinese ambassador to Italy, his foreign minister, Zhou Yi, and Yan Yeh, the president of the People's Bank of China. The People's Republic of China and the Vatican did not have official diplomatic relations, and had not since the Communist takeover of China in 1949, yet here were its two ranking diplomats to Italy and one of the new China's most influential business leaders striding into the Vatican Embassy in public view with Weggen.

Almost immediately Palestrina crossed to greet them, bowing formally then smiling broadly and taking the hand of each, and afterward motioning for drinks and chatting happily as if they were his old and dear friends. Chatting, Marsciano knew, in Chinese.

China's expanding relationship with the West, coupled with its rapid emergence as a towering economic power, had had little or no effect on the all-but-nonexistent relations between Rome and Beijing. And while there remained no formal diplomatic communication between them, the Holy See, under Palestrina's careful posturing, was attempting to pry open the door. His immediate goal was to arrange a papal visit to the People's Republic.

It was an objective that had far-reaching implications because, if his overture was accepted, it would be a sign that Beijing was not simply opening its doors to the Church but was ready to embrace it. Which was something, Palestrina was certain, China had no intention of doing — today, tomorrow, or, in all likelihood, ever; making his objective exceedingly ambitious at best. Yet, the secretariat of state was no wallflower. And moreover, the Chinese were here, and publicly.

That they were here was due chiefly to Pierre Weggen, with whom they had worked for years and whom they trusted implicitly. Or, as implicitly as any Oriental trusted any Westerner. Seventy, tall, and genteel, Weggen was a pre-eminent international investment banker. World renowned and immensely respected, he functioned primarily as liaison between major multinational companies looking to create global working partnerships. At the same time, he continued to work as a private counselor to longstanding clients and friends; the people, companies, and organizations who, over the years, had helped build his reputation.

It was a client base that had always been and still remained confidential. The Vatican was among them. And Nicola Marsciano, the man responsible for Vatican investments, had spent the entire afternoon sequestered in a private apartment on Via Pinciana with Weggen and a battery of lawyers and accountants he'd brought with him from Geneva.

For more than a year Marsciano and Weggen had been belt-tightening the Holy See's portfolio, narrowing the range of investments to focus on energy, transportation, steel, shipping, heavy equipment; corporations, companies, and spin-off companies that specialized in major international infrastructure development — the building and rebuilding of roads, waterways, power plants, and the like in emerging nations.

The Vatican's investment strategy was the kingpin in Palestrina's mandate for the future of the Holy See, and was why the Chinese had been invited here to mingle and why they had come, to show that China was a modern country that shared the same economic concerns for emerging nations as did her European friends. The invitation had been out of goodwill, giving the Chinese a way to quietly intermingle and to discreetly establish a presence — and at the same time to be stroked by Palestrina.

Yet emerging nations in the plural was not on Palestrina's agenda. One nation, in the singular, was: China herself. And outside of a very few — Pierre Weggen and the pope's remaining men of trust — no one, not even the Holy Father, had any idea of the secretariat's real objective, which was to see the Vatican become a wholly anonymous yet major partner and influencer in the future of the People's Republic, economic and otherwise.

The initial step was tonight, with the hand holding of the Chinese. The second would take place tomorrow, when Marsciano would present the newly revised 'Emerging Nation Investment Strategies' to a commission of four cardinals charged with him in overseeing the Church's investments for ratification.

The session would be tumultuous because the cardinals were conservative and not open to change. It would be Marsciano's job to convince them, to show in exhaustive detail the regions their extensive research had targeted — Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Russia. China would be there, of course, but hidden within the sweeping term Asia — Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, China, South Korea, Taiwan, India, etc.

The trouble was it was a deliberate fabrication. Unethical and immoral. A calculated lie designed to give Palestrina exactly what he wanted without ever divulging it.

Moreover, it was only the beginning of Palestrina's plan. China, the secretariat understood all too well, was, for all its openness, still at heart a closed society, tightly controlled by an authoritarian Communist guard. Yet authoritarian or not, China was modernizing quickly; and a modern China with one-quarter of the world's population and its accompanying economic clout would, with little doubt and in little time, become the most formidable power on earth. With that truth came the obvious — control China and you control the world. And that was the heart and soul of Palestrina's plan — the domination of China in the next century, reestablishing the Catholic Church and its influence in every city, town, and village. And, within a hundred years, to create a new Holy Roman Empire. With the people of China answering no longer to Beijing but to Rome, the Holy See would become the greatest superpower on earth.

It was madness, of course — and to Marsciano an all-too-clear illustration of Palestrina's progressively deranged thinking — but there was nothing any of them could do about it. The Holy Father was enamored with Palestrina and had no knowledge of his plan whatsoever. Furthermore, slowed by precarious health and an exhausting daily schedule, and trusting Palestrina as he would trust himself, the pope had all but handed the global directives of the Holy See over to his secretariat of state. So to go to the Holy Father would be doing nothing more than going to Palestrina himself because, if called, the secretariat would deny everything, and his accuser would be summarily shipped off to a parish unknown and never heard from again.

And therein was the true horror of it. Because, with the exception of Pierre Weggen, who believed in Palestrina fully, the others — Marsciano, Cardinal Matadi, Monsignor Capizzi, the remaining three most influential men in the Catholic Church — were all in one way or another terrified of Palestrina. Of his physical size, of his ambition, of his exceptional ability to find a man's weakness and then exploit it to further his own ends, and — perhaps most frightening of all — the tremendous force of his character once you became the focus of his attention.

They were terrified, too, of the madmen who worked for him: Jacov Farel, who was, on the one hand, the very public and outspoken chief of the Vatican police, and on the other, the secretive and ruthless henchman to Palestrina's ambition; and the terrorist Thomas Kind, who had assassinated Palestrina's archfoe, Cardinal Parma, in their presence and in the presence of the Holy Father, and in the presence of Palestrina, who had ordered it done, and then calmly stood beside him as he was shot down.

Marsciano had no idea how the others felt, but he was certain none despised his own weakness and fear more than he.

Once again he looked at his watch.

8:10

'Eminence.' Pierre Weggen approached with Yan Yeh. The president of the People's Bank of China was quite short, and trim, his dark hair flecked with gray.

'You remember Yan Yeh,' Weggen said.

'Of course.' Marsciano smiled and took the Chinese banker's hand firmly. 'Welcome to Rome.'

They had met once before, in Bangkok, and except for a few terse moments when Palestrina had purposefully challenged the banker about the future of the Catholic Church in the new China and been told coldly, directly, and authoritatively that the time was not right for a rapprochement between Beijing and Rome, Marsciano had found Yan Yeh to be personable, outgoing, even witty, and with seeming genuine concern for the well-being of people, whoever they were.

'I think,' Yan Yeh said, a twinkle in his eye as he lifted a glass of red wine and touched it to Marsciano's, 'the Italians should give us Chinese a good lesson in wine making.'

Just then Marsciano saw the papal nuncio enter and approach Palestrina, taking him aside, away from the Chinese ambassador and foreign minister. The two spoke briefly, and he saw Palestrina glance his way before leaving the room. It was a small gesture, insignificant to anyone else. But for him it was everything, because it meant he had been singled out.

'Perhaps,' Marsciano said, turning back to Yan Yeh, 'an arrangement could be made.' He smiled.

'Eminence.' The nuncio touched the cardinal's sleeve.

Marsciano turned. 'Yes, I know… Where do you want me to go?'

Marsciano stopped briefly at the bottom of the stairway, then walked up. At the top, he turned down a narrow hallway, stopping at an elaborately paneled door. Turning the knob, he entered.

The late sun cut sharply through the lone window dividing the ornate meeting room in half. Palestrina stood on one side of it, partly in shadow. The person with him was little more than a silhouette, but Marsciano didn't need to see him to know who it was. Jacov Farel.

'Eminence… Jacov.' Marsciano closed the door behind him.

'Sit down, Nicola.' Palestrina gestured toward a grouping of high-backed chairs that faced an ancient marble fireplace. Marsciano crossed the shaft of sunlight to do as he had been asked.

As he did, Farel sat down opposite him, crossing his feet at the ankles, buttoning his suit coat, then his gaze coming up to Marsciano's and holding there.

'I want to ask you a question, Nicola, and I want you to answer with the truth.' Palestrina let his hand trail lightly across the top of a chair, then took hold of it and pulled it around to sit down directly in front of Marsciano. 'Is the priest alive?'

Marsciano had known, from the moment Harry Addison declared the remains were not his brother's, that it was only a matter of time before Palestrina came with his questions. He was surprised it had taken this long. But the interval had given him the chance to prepare himself as best he could.

'No,' he said, directly.

'The police believe he is.'

'They are wrong.'

'His brother disagreed,' Farel said.

'He merely said the body was not that of his brother. But he was mistaken.' Marsciano worked to seem dispassionate and matter-of-fact.