Part 47 (1/2)

”All right-”

Putting both hands on the freight car's floor, Adrianna pulled herself up and in. Then she turned and Harry set Hercules in her arms.

The dwarf coughed, grimacing as she strained to lift him. Then she had him up, and Harry was coming into the dimly lit car behind her. Suddenly he froze.

Thomas Kind stood directly in front of him. Elena was with him, eyes wide with fright, an ugly machine pistol to her head.

160.

11:04 A.M A.M.

SCALA LEANED ON THE HOOD OF ROSCANI'S blue Alfa, a set of binoculars trained on the distant gates. All he could see was the slight bend of the tracks as they curved inside the wall and a small part of the station but that was all. Behind it everything, despite the new breeze, was still thick smoke. Castelletti stood halfway down the tracks in front of him, staring at the same gape in the wall. Despite the wail of sirens, they had heard the gunshots, and as much as they knew their job was to wait for the train to come out and follow it to where it stopped, both had to work with all they had not to rush in after Roscani. But they couldn't, and they knew it. All they could do was watch and wait.

”YOU HAVE A GUN, Mr. Addison. Please give it to me.”

Harry hesitated; Kind pushed the machine pistol up under Elena's ear.

”You know who I am, Mr. Addison.... And what I will do...” Thomas Kind's voice was calm, a slight smile crossing his lips.

Slowly Harry reached into his belt and lifted out the Calico.

”Put it on the floor.”

Harry did, then stood back.

”Where is your brother?”

”I wish I knew...” Harry's eyes went to Elena.

”She doesn't know either,” Thomas Kind said with the same calm. Elena had been alone, running to the freight car, when Kind suddenly came down over the edge of the wall and grabbed her, demanding to know where Father Daniel was. She had no idea, she told him defiantly. The father had gone one way, she another. She was a nurse, Father Daniel's brother was bringing a wounded man to the train. And that was where she was headed, to give the service that was needed.

It was at that moment, when he had Elena by the arm and saw both the dread and the fiery resolve in her, that Thomas Kind felt the sudden savage rush of his addiction come back. He could taste it in his mouth and feel the arousal it gave him. In that instant he knew his retreat from it had ended.

”We are going to find your brother, Mr. Addison,” Thomas Kind said thinly, his calmness turned to ice.

Harry barely heard, his attention on Elena; he was staring at her, trying somehow to comfort her while at the same time find a way to get her out of Kind's grasp. Then, out of nowhere, a man appeared in the freight car's open doorway.

It was Eaton. ”Vigili del fuoco!” Fire department, he said quickly and with authority.

”What are you doing here?” Eaton demanded in Italian. He was playing it very carefully, not looking at Thomas Kind at all, but addressing them as a group, as if the machine pistol in Kind's hand didn't exist.

”Taking a journey.” Kind smiled easily.

Eaton's automatic appeared from nowhere. The move was professional, calculated, and controlled, going for a single shot between the terrorist's eyes.

Thomas Kind barely blinked. A short burst from the machine pistol took Eaton just under his nose, blowing him out of the freight car doorway backward and across the tracks in a wash of blood and bone, and sending the automatic flying out of sight.

Elena stiffened in horror. Kind tightened his hand over her mouth.

Adrianna remained frozen where she was. She showed no expression at all. Hercules was on the floor in between Harry and Adrianna, Kind and Elena, his breath held, knowing what they all knew: another squeeze of Kind's finger and any or all of them were dead.

161.

”ADRIANNA-” SUDDENLY THE VOICE OF THE Skycam pilot came through Adrianna's open phone line, the sound tinny and distant, coming from the cell phone in her jacket pocket.

”Adrianna-we're holding just outside the Vatican wall at fifteen hundred feet. The train hasn't moved. You still want us to stay on it?”

”Let the women go.... Let them take Hercules...,” Harry said again.

Suddenly Elena moved toward Hercules. Kind swung the gun.

”Elena!” Harry yelled.

Elena froze where she was. ”He's going to die if he doesn't get help.”

”Adrianna-,” the Skycam came again.

”Tell him to get off the train and cover the crowds outside St. Peter's,” Kind said quietly. ”Tell him.”

Adrianna stared at Thomas Kind for a long moment, then lifted the telephone and did as she was told.

Kind took a step toward the door and looked up. Saw the Skycam helicopter break its holding pattern, fly east and then swing north to hover over St. Peter's. Thomas Kind looked back. ”Now, we're going to get out of the train car and go into the station.”

”He can't be moved...” Elena was looking up at Kind, pleading for Hercules.

”Then leave him.”

”He'll die.”

Harry saw Kind's finger dance nervously over the machine pistol's trigger.

”Elena, do as he says.”

THEY MOVED ALONG the tracks quickly, Kind keeping Elena close, then Harry and Adrianna. Suddenly there was movement at the front of the engine. Two sets of feet were suddenly turning and running away.

Thomas Kind took a half step forward. The train's engineer and brakeman were das.h.i.+ng toward the open gate in the Vatican wall. Kind's eyes swung back to freeze on Harry in a deadly warning not to move, then he simply skewed the machine pistol sideways, turned to look, and fired two short bursts. The brakeman and then the engineer went down like suddenly dropped sacks of flour.

”Mother of G.o.d!” Elena crossed herself.

”Move,” Kind commanded, and they crossed in front of the engine. ”In there,” he said next, indicating a painted door leading into the station itself.

As they moved, Harry saw the wide open gate in the Vatican wall, and, at the far end of the overpa.s.s, where the old tracks met the main line, a parked car with two men standing outside it, looking toward them.

Scala. Castelletti.

Roscani was still somewhere inside. Where? Where?

THE PAIN IN HIS leg excruciating, Roscani alternately walked, then stopped to rest, then walked on again, his right hand pus.h.i.+ng hard, as a pressure point against the wound in his thigh. He thought he was moving toward the railroad station, but he was no longer sure, the smoke and the trauma of his wound working to disorient everything. Still, with the Beretta in his free hand, he stumbled determinedly on.