Part 46 (1/2)

Harry got to his feet, picking up the Calico as Roscani came nearer. He started to say something, then froze, staring up the hill behind him.

”Look out!” Harry yelled.

Roscani spun. The two black suits Hercules had sent running toward the helicopter pad were rus.h.i.+ng toward them. They were thirty yards away, coming through the smoke.

Roscani glanced at Hercules. His face was ashen, his hand over his stomach, a circle of blood widening from it.

”Get out of here!” Roscani yelled, turning and dropping to one knee. His first shot hit the lead black suit in the shoulder, spinning him around, the second kept coming.

Behind him Harry heard a barrage of gunshots. He could feel bullets whizz by inches away as he bent to pick Hercules from the ground. As he did, he suddenly remembered Marsciano.

”Eminence-,” he said, looking up.

There was no one. Marsciano was gone.

157.

ROSCANI LAY p.r.o.nE IN THE GRa.s.s. THE FIRST black suit was fifteen yards away sprawled on his back and moaning, the second was facedown in the gra.s.s not more than ten feet from Roscani, his eyes open but lifeless, blood slowly oozing from a hole between his eyes.

Taking a chance there had been only the two, Roscani rolled over and looked down the hill in the direction Harry had carried Hercules. He could see only the swirl of smoke that instead of dissipating was becoming thicker.

Getting up cautiously, he glanced around for more black suits, then went to the dead man in front of him. Taking the man's gun, Roscani slipped it in his belt, then moved off toward the black suit still lying moaning on the ground ahead.

10:55 A.M A.M.

”Danny.” Harry's urgent voice came over the open phone line. ”Where are you?”

”Close to the station.”

”Get on the freight car. I've got Hercules, he's been shot.”

Elena stopped. They were at the edge of the trees and behind a hedge across from the Vatican City Hall and the Mosaic Studio.

Directly ahead was the railroad station, and to the right of it she could see a part of the freight car. Then came the blast of an air horn, and a dirty, bright green work engine chugged slowly into view. Abruptly it stopped, and a lone man with white hair walked out from the station, a clipboard in his hand. Stopping at the track he seemed to note the number painted on the engine, then moved to it and climbed aboard.

”I don't know if Hercules is going to make it.”

Elena glanced at Danny. They could both hear the fear, the desperation in Harry's voice.

”Danny.” Harry's voice came again. ”Marsciano's gone.”

”What?”

”I don't know where, he went off on his own.”

”Where were you when he did?”

”Near Vatican Radio. We're pa.s.sing the Ethiopian College now....

Elena, Hercules is going to need you.”

Elena leaned into the phone. ”I'll meet you, Harry. Just be careful...”

”Danny-Roscani's here, so is Thomas Kind. I'm sure he knows about the train. Watch it.”

”DON'T MOVE!” Roscani commanded, his Beretta held military style in both hands and pointed at the moaning black suit.

As he drew closer, Roscani could see the man on his back. One leg was twisted under him, and his eyes were closed. Now he could see a bloodied hand limp across his chest; the other was out of sight beneath him. The man was going nowhere. In the distance came the sound of the train whistle. It was the second blast within seconds. Roscani turned quickly, looking through the smoke in its direction. Harry and Hercules had to be going toward it. Maybe Marsciano, too, and Father Daniel and Elena Voso. That meant there was every chance Thomas Kind was going there as well.

Instinct made Roscani turn back. The black suit was raised up on an elbow, an automatic in his hand. Both men fired at the same time. Roscani felt a jolt. His right leg collapsed under him, and he went down. Rolling over, he came up on his stomach firing. There was no need, the black suit was dead, the top of his skull blown away. Grimacing, Roscani struggled to his feet, then, crying out, slumped back down. A patch of red spread across the beige material of his upper pant leg. He'd been shot in his right thigh.

THERE WAS A deafening roar, and the whole building shook.

”Va bene,”-Okay-crackled through Farel's radio.

Farel nodded and two jumpsuited Swiss Guards carrying automatic rifles pushed open the rooftop door. And they went out into smoky daylight, the guards first and then Farel, holding firmly onto the Holy Father's arm, guiding the white-clad old man out.

A dozen more heavily armed Swiss Guards were on the ancient rooftop as they crossed it, moving hastily toward the Italian Army helicopter balanced on the edge of the terrace wall, its rotors slowly turning. Two army officers waited in its open doorway, two of Farel's black suits with them.

”Where is Palestrina?” the pope asked Farel, looking around, fully expecting his secretariat of state to be waiting to leave with him.

”He said to tell you he would join you later, Holiness,” Farel lied. He had no idea where Palestrina was. Had not communicated with him in the last half hour at all.

”No.” The Holy Father suddenly stopped at the helicopter's open door, his eyes fixed on Farel's.

”No,” he said again. ”He will not join me. I know it, and he knows it.”

With that, Giacomo Pecci, Pope Leo XIV, turned away from Farel and let the black-suited Vigilanza help him into the helicopter. Then they and the Italian Army officers followed him onboard. The door closed, and Farel moved back, waving to the pilot.

A thundering roar was followed by an immense blast of wind, and Farel and the Swiss Guards ducked away as the machine lifted skyward. Five seconds, ten. And then it was gone.

158.

MARSCIANO HAD SEEN THE TOWERING FIGure through the smoke at the same moment Hercules had thrown his crutch at the black suit. Seen him come up the hill on the far side of the Vatican Radio tower, moving steadily toward it. In that instant Marsciano knew he would not be on the train when it left. Father Daniel or not, Harry Addison and the curious, miraculous dwarf or not, there were other things here. Things that he, and he alone, had to deal with.

PALESTRINA NO LONGER wore the simple black suit with its humble clerical collar; instead, he was dressed in the vestments of a cardinal of the Church. A black ca.s.sock with red piping and red b.u.t.tons, a red sash at his waist, a red zucchetto on his head. A gold pectoral cross that hung from a gold chain around his neck.

He had paused at the Fountain of the Eagle on his way there, finding it easily, even in the dense smoke. But for the first time ever, the aura of the great heraldic symbol of the Borgheses, which had always touched him so deeply and so personally, from which he had drawn strength and courage and cert.i.tude, failed him. What he gazed upon was not magic, did not feed the secret warrior-king in him, as it always had. What he gazed upon was the ancient statue of an eagle. A sculpture. An adornment atop a fountain. Nothing.

A great breath was expelled from within him, and, hand over nose and mouth against the horrid, acrid smoke, he moved on toward the only refuge he knew.

He could feel the thrust of his giant body as he moved up the hill. Feel it even more as he threw open the door and started up the steep, narrow marble stairway toward Vatican Radio's upper floors. More still as he pushed, heart pounding, lungs bursting, to kneel finally on the black marble floor before the altar of Christ in the tiny chapel just off the empty and vacant broadcast rooms.

Empty. Vacant.

Like the eagle.