Part 24 (2/2)

Slowly Roscani started up the path after them. They had been there for more than two hours and nothing had been found. Two hours wasted. If he was wrong, he was wrong. And he needed to leave it and move on. Still- Turning, he looked back. There was the boathouse and beyond it the lake. To his right he could see the dogs and the armed carabinieri carabinieri almost to the villa. Edward Mooi was out of sight. almost to the villa. Edward Mooi was out of sight.

What had he missed?

To the left of the villa, between it and the boathouse was the stone landing with its ornate bal.u.s.trade where the hydrofoil captain had said he put the fugitive priest and the others ash.o.r.e.

Once again Roscani looked to the boathouse. Absently his fingers went to his mouth, and he took a pull from his phantom cigarette. Then, his eyes still on the boathouse, he dropped the imaginary cigarette, ground it out with his toe, and walked back and went inside.

From the top of the stairs he saw nothing but the motorboat moored to the dock below and the equipment needed to tend it. At the far end, the rectangular opening to the lake. The same as before.

Finally, he went down the stairs and walked along the dock beside the boat. Bow to stern. Stern to bow. Looking. For what, he didn't know. Then he climbed onboard. Studied the interior of the hull, the seats, the c.o.c.kpit. The dogs had complained but found nothing. He could see nothing. A boat was a boat, and he was wasting his time. He was about to step over the side and back onto the dock, when he had one last thought. Crossing to the stern, he looked down at the twin Yamaha outboard engines. Kneeling, he reached over the side and gingerly ran his hand down the lower leg of each, touching the side panels between the power head and the water where the exhaust line ran.

Both were warm.

74.

8:00 A.M A.M.

ELENA VOSO CROSSED THE SQUARE AND started down the steps toward the lake. Shops catering mainly to tourists lined either side of the walkway down. Most of them were already open. Salespeople and customers alike, cheery, smiling, seeming happy about the prospects for the day.

In front of her Elena could see the lake. Boats crisscrossed on it. Across the street at the bottom of the stairs she could see the hydrofoil landing, and she wondered if the first hydrofoil had come yet, if Luca and Marco and Pietro were already in Como or maybe at the station, waiting for the train to Milan. At the bottom of the stairs was something else too-the Hotel Du Lac-and even now she wasn't certain what she would do when she got there.

After Edward Mooi left the grotto in the motorboat, Elena had taken Salvatore and Marta to where Michael Roark, or-and now she had to think of him this way-Father Daniel, was. He had been awake and moved up on one elbow, watching as they came in. Elena had introduced Salvatore and Marta as friends, saying she had to leave for a short while and they would care for him until she got back. Even though he was beginning to regain full use of his vocal chords and could talk for short periods of time, Father Daniel had said nothing. Instead his eyes had searched hers, as if somehow he knew she had found out who he was.

”You will be all right,” she'd said finally and left him with Marta, who had mentioned that his bandages should be changed and said that she would do it herself, indicating she had some training in medical care.

And then Salvatore had led Elena into a part of the caves she had not seen before. A twisting, turning route through a series of stone corridors ending, finally, at a cage-like service elevator that took them up several hundred feet through a natural cut in the granite.

At the top they had emerged into a heavy thicket and walked down a forest path to a fire road. There Salvatore had helped her into a small farm truck, told her how to get to Bellagio and what to do once she reached it.

Well, now she had reached it and was almost to the bottom of the steps across from the Hotel Du Lac when she saw them-police. They were right in front of her-an ambulance and three police cars and a crowd of onlookers directly across the street near the boat landing at the edge of the lake. To her left was the little park with the public telephone she had been instructed to use to call Father Daniel's brother at the hotel.

”Someone drowned,” she heard a woman say, and then other people pushed past her, coming down the steps, rus.h.i.+ng to see what had happened.

Elena watched for a moment, then glanced toward the telephones. Father Daniel was in her care, Edward Mooi had said. Maybe so, but reason told her that when she got the chance she should go directly to the police. Whether her mother general knew what was going on made no difference. Nor was it her business what Father Daniel had done or had not done. That was what the law was for. He was wanted for murder and so was his brother. There were the police. All she had to do was go.

And she did, moving away from the phones, crossing the street toward them. As she reached the far curb, a loud noise went up from the crowd at the water's edge. More people hurried past, anxious to see what was going on.

”Look!” someone said, and Elena saw police divers in the water near the boat landing lift a body from the lake. Policemen onsh.o.r.e hefted it from them and put it down on the landing. Another rushed to throw a blanket over it.

That breathless moment in time, that uncounted second, when the public glimpses the suddenly dead and becomes instantly silent, froze Elena Voso where she stood. The body fished from the lake was that of a man.

Luca Fanari.

75.

HARRY WATCHED THE POLICE AND THE CROWD across the street a moment longer, then turned from his hotel room window to look back at the television. Adrianna in her L. L. Bean field jacket and baseball cap stood in a pouring rain outside the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization. A major story was coming, piecemeal, from mainland China. Unofficial reports from the city of Hefei in eastern China indicated that a major incident had taken place concerning the area's public water supply-thousands of people were rumored to have been poisoned and more than six thousand were already dead. Both Xinhua, the New China News Agency, and the Chinese Central Broadcasting Bureau dismissed the reports as unfounded.

Abruptly Harry hit the MUTE MUTE b.u.t.ton and Adrianna was silenced. What the h.e.l.l was she doing in Geneva reporting on an ”unfounded” incident? b.u.t.ton and Adrianna was silenced. What the h.e.l.l was she doing in Geneva reporting on an ”unfounded” incident?

Unsettled, he glanced back out the window. Then at the bedside clock.

8:20 A.M A.M.

No calls. Nothing. What had happened to Edward Mooi? Had he not reread the fax? And now Adrianna was in Geneva when she should have been in Bellagio. Crazily, he felt abandoned. Left in a tiny hotel room while the world went on.

He turned back to the window. As he did, a police car pulled up directly across the street. The doors opened, and three men in plainclothes got out and headed for the boat landing. Harry's heart stopped. The man walking first, leading the others, was Roscani.

”Jesus.” Instinctively he twisted back from the window. At almost the same instant there was a knock at the door. Every nerve stiffened. The knock came again.

Quickly he went to the bed, opened the suitcase, and took out the sheet of paper with Edward Mooi's telephone number. Ripping it in pieces he went into the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet.

The knock came once more. Softer this time. Not the authoritative strike of the police. Eaton-of course. Harry relaxed, then walked to the door and opened it.

A young nun stood there.

”Father Roe?”

Harry hesitated. ”Yes...”

”I am nursing sister Elena Voso...” Her English was accented with Italian but clear nonetheless.

Harry stared, unsure.

”I would like to come in.”

He looked past her to the hallway. He saw no one.

”All right...”

Harry stepped back as she came in, then watched her turn and close the door behind her.

”You phoned Edward Mooi,” Elena said, carefully.

Harry nodded.

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