Part 8 (2/2)
Slowly the light began to move 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 b.u.t.ton.
Harry saw the light alter its track and s.h.i.+ft 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 away 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 pus.h.i.+ng from the outside in, toward the back of his brain.
”STOP!” Harry screamed. ”MY G.o.d! STOP! PLEASE!”
”Where is he?” Male.
”Where is he?” Female.
Thomas Kind s.h.i.+fted 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. 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! G.o.d! G.o.d! STOP IT! STOP IT! PLEASE!-PLEASE... PLEASE... PLEASE...”
CLICK.
The light went out.
22.
Rome. Harry Addison's room, the Hotel Ha.s.sler.
Thursday July 9, 6:00 A.M 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. Just in case he came back. 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 pa.s.sionate 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 a.s.sisi 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 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 now.
Roscani was a cop, and cops got killed all the time. It was a truth drummed into you day after day at the inst.i.tute. 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, 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 fallen comrade-one who might have been only a year on the force, a rookie on foot patrol, but who was still a member of the brotherhood.
<script>