Day of Confession (24 page)

64

Como, Italy. Still Monday, July 13. 7:00
P.M
.

A TROUBLED AND ANXIOUS ROSCANI WORKED his way across a jammed, hastily set-up communications room deep inside Como’s central carabinieri headquarters. A dozen uniformed officers manned phone banks set on desks in the middle of the room, while as many others hacked at computer terminals plopped down haphazard, wherever they could fit into the too-small quarters. Others still—anxious, smoking, drinking coffee—moved in between. It was a war room set up in hours to coordinate an all-out manhunt after a search of Villa Lorenzi turned up no sign of the fugitive priest.

Roscani’s destination was an enormous map of the Lake Como area that covered one entire wall. On it, pinpointed with small Italian flags, were the locations of roadway checkpoints where heavily armed Gruppo Cardinale personnel were stopping and searching every vehicle passing through—a major undertaking, considering the variety of terrain and the number of roads that could be used as escape routes.

Bellagio was at the northern tip of a landmass triangle that jutted northward into the lake. The lake itself extended farther north, while at the same time spilling, in long fingers, down either side of the triangle to Lecco on the southeast and Como on the southwest, with Chiasso and the Swiss border just inland and northwest of it.

Because of its location, Chiasso was the most obvious exit point and was heavily manned, but there were other places still within Italy where the fugitives might hole up and hide to wait out a search. The towns of Menaggio, Tremezzo, and Lenno across the lake to the west. Bellano, Gittana, and Varenna to the east. And then those, like Vassena and Maisano, within the triangle and still others to the west.

It was a massive and intense operation that disrupted almost every household and business in the region; a condition exacerbated by an all-out invasion of the media. They were betting that the alleged assassin of the cardinal vicar of Rome was on the brink of capture and were broadcasting it live to the world.

Roscani was hardly new to large operations, and the disruptive circus atmosphere was part of it. But no matter how well things were organized, their very size made them cumbersome. Things rushed at you, decisions had to be made quickly and by any number of people. Mistakes were inevitable. Under fire you didn’t have the
assoluta tranquillità
to be quiet and think things through properly, try to find the logic and approach that could make the difference between success and failure.

A sudden noise at the back of the room made Roscani look up. For an instant he saw a gaggle of media people in the hallway outside shouting questions as Scala and Castelletti came in with the captain and two members of the hydrofoil crew who had allegedly ferried Father Daniel and his medical entourage to Bellagio and Villa Lorenzi.

Roscani followed them across the room and into an alcove where a
carabiniere
pulled a sliding curtain to give them privacy.

“I am Ispettore Capo Otello Roscani. I apologize for the disorder.”

The hydrofoil captain smiled and nodded. He was probably forty-five and looked fit. He wore a dark blue double-breasted naval jacket over the same color trousers. His crewmen wore light blue short-sleeved shirts with epaulettes on the shoulders and the same dark blue pants.

“Would you like coffee?” Roscani asked, at their obvious nervousness. “A cig—” Roscani caught himself, then grinned. “I was going to offer you a cigarette, but I have just quit smoking. In all this bedlam, I’m afraid that if I let you smoke, I might give in and join you.”

Roscani smiled again and he could see the men relax. It was a calculated gesture on his part, designed for the effect it had, yet he wasn’t so sure it wasn’t the truth. Still, his admission had put the men at ease, and over the next twenty minutes he learned the particulars of the voyage from Como to Bellagio and was given detailed descriptions of the three men and the woman who had accompanied the man on the gurney. He also learned one other singular piece of information. The hydrofoil had been hired the day before the trip. It had been done through a travel agency in Milan at the behest of a Giovanni Scarso, a man claiming to represent the family of a man badly injured in an automobile accident who wanted him transported to Bellagio. Scarso had paid cash and left. It was only when they had approached Bellagio that one of the men accompanying the sick man had directed them away from the main landing and farther south, to the dock at Villa Lorenzi.

When the session had finished, there was no doubt in Roscani’s mind that he had been told the truth and that the patient the crew of the hydrofoil had brought to Villa Lorenzi had indeed been Father Daniel Addison.

Turning to Castelletti and asking him to go over the details once more, Roscani thanked the captain and his crewmen and then left, pushing out from behind the curtain and walking back into the clamor of the war room. Then, as quickly, he left it.

Walking down a narrow corridor, he entered a lavatory, used the urinal, washed his hands, and splashed water on his face. And then, certain it was impossible in this situation to think without a cigarette, he pressed two fingers against his lips and inhaled deeply between them. Sucking in the phantom smoke, feeling the imagined rush of nicotine, finally he leaned back against the wall and used the
assoluta tranquillità
of the rest room to think.

This afternoon he and Scala and Castelletti and two dozen
carabinieri
had scoured every inch of Villa Lorenzi. Yet they had found nothing. Not a trace of Father Daniel or the people with him. That an ambulance might have been waiting somewhere on the villa’s grounds and the party simply loaded their patient onboard and escaped was not possible, because Villa Lorenzi had only two access ways, the main driveway and a service road, and both were gated, with the gates operated from inside the villa. A vehicle could not enter or leave without the knowledge and assistance of someone inside. And, according to Mooi, this had not happened.

Of course, as cooperative as Mooi had seemed, he could have been lying. Moreover, there was always the possibility someone else had helped Father Daniel escape without Mooi’s knowledge. And then there was the last, the possibility the priest was still there and hidden away and they had missed him.

Once again Roscani inhaled phantom smoke through his fingers, dragging deep into his lungs. At dawn, he and Scala and Castelletti along with a select force of
carabinieri
would go back to Villa Lorenzi unannounced and search again. This time they would take dogs, and this time they would leave nothing unturned, even if they had to dismantle the villa stone by stone to do it.

65

“CHIASSO… ,” HERCULES SAID AS THEY MOVED away from Milan and up the A9 Autostrada in heavy summer traffic, his eyes intent on Harry at the wheel of the dark gray Fiat Adrianna had left parked across from the railroad terminal in Rome, the keys tossed under the left rear wheel as she’d promised.

Harry didn’t respond. He was watching the road in front of him, his mind focused on getting to the city of Como, where he was to meet Adrianna; and then, somehow, across the lake to the town of Bellagio, where Danny presumably was.

“Chiasso,” he heard Hercules say again, and he looked over abruptly to see the dwarf staring at him.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Did I help you get this far, Mr. Harry? Find your way out of Rome. Onto the Autostrada. Making you go north when you wanted to go south…. Without Hercules you would be coming up on Sicily, not Como.”

“You were magnificent. I owe you everything I am today. But I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Harry suddenly cut right and in behind a fast-moving Mercedes. The drive was taking much too long.

“Chiasso is on the Swiss border…. I would like you to take me there. It’s why I came.”

“So that I would drive you to Switzerland?” Harry was incredulous.

“I am wanted for murder, Mr. Harry…”

“So am I.”

“But I cannot put on the clothes of a priest and pass for someone else. Nor does a dwarf travel by bus or train unnoticed.”

“But he could by private car.”

Hercules smiled conspiratorially. “None had been available until now…”

Harry glared at him. “Hercules, this is not exactly a pleasure tour. I’m not on vacation.”

“No, you are trying to get to your brother. And so are the police. On the other hand, Chiasso is hardly much farther than Como. I get out, you turn around and go back. Nothing to it.”

“What if I said no?”

Hercules rose up indignantly. “Then you would be a man whose word cannot be trusted. When I gave you those clothes, I asked you to help me. You said, “I will do the best I can. I promise you.’”

“I meant with the law and in Rome.”

“Under the circumstances I think it would be more sensible for me to take the help now, Mr. Harry. An extra twenty minutes out of your life.”

“Twenty minutes…”

“Then we are even.”

“All right, then we’re even.”

Very shortly afterward they passed the Como exit, and very soon after that their agreement suddenly became moot. Ahead of them the traffic to Chiasso slowed, narrowing into one lane. Then it stopped. And Harry and Hercules stared into an endless succession of brake lights. Then, in the distance, they saw them. Flak-jacketed, Uzi-carrying policemen walking slowly toward them in the traffic, looking into each vehicle they passed.

“Turn around, Mr. Harry. Quick!”

Harry backed up a few feet, then slammed the Fiat into drive and, with a sharp squeal of tires, swung it in a sharp U-turn, accelerating back the way they had come.

“What the hell was that?” Harry glanced in the mirror.

Hercules said nothing, instead punching on the car’s radio. A scan of stations found a newscaster rattling in Italian. The border at Chiasso was a massive police checkpoint, Hercules translated. Every vehicle was being turned inside out in the hunt for the fugitive priest, Father Daniel Addison, who had somehow eluded the police at Bellagio and was thought to be attempting a border crossing into Switzerland.

“Eluded them?” Harry turned to look at Hercules. “Does that mean somebody actually saw him?”

“They didn’t say, Mr. Harry…”

66

Como. 7:40
P.M
.

THE FIAT WAS STOPPED JUST OFF THE AUTOstrada on the main road leading into Como. Hercules had asked Harry to pull over, and Harry had. And now they sat together for one last time, the soft yellow of the evening sky filling the car with a delicate light and standing in sharp contrast to the harshness of the ongoing stream of bright headlights passing by outside.

“Police or no police, Chiasso is too close not to try…. You understand, Mr. Harry…”

“I understand, Hercules…. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to do more…”

“Then good luck, Mr. Harry.” Hercules smiled and suddenly put out his hand, and Harry took it.

“You, too…”

And like that, Hercules was out of the car and gone. Harry watched for a moment as he crossed the street in the path of oncoming traffic. At the far curb, he looked back and grinned, then swung away on his crutches into the growing twilight. Walking, if that was the word, to Switzerland.

Ten minutes later Harry parked the Fiat on a side street down from the railroad station and wiped the steering wheel and gearshift clean of his fingerprints with a handkerchief. Getting out carefully, locking the car, he made his way to Via Borsieri and then onto Viale Varese, following the street signs for the lake and for Piazza Cavour. He walked at the same pace as the people around him, trying to blend in, to seem nothing more than a priest out to enjoy the warm summer evening.

Now and again someone would nod or smile as he passed. And he would return the pleasantry, and then turn casually and glance back, make sure one of them hadn’t recognized him or told others, or wasn’t coming back for a closer look.

Crossing a square, watching the signs, he was suddenly aware of people walking more slowly, the crowd thickening. Ahead he could see people gathered at a news kiosk. As he neared, he saw Danny’s face staring from the late editions. Each paper carried nearly the same headline:

SACERDOTE FUGGITIVO A BELLAGIO?

Was the fugitive priest in Bellagio?

Quickly he turned away and walked on.

Turning down one street and then another, Harry tried to follow the confusion of signs toward the lakefront and the Piazza Cavour. Dodging a chattering couple walking hand in hand, he turned a corner and stopped. The street directly ahead was blocked off by police barricades. Beyond them were police vehicles, media vans, and satellite trucks. Farther down he could see police headquarters.

“Christ.” Harry waited a half second, then moved on, trying to regain his composure. Ahead was a cross street and he went left on a whim, certain he’d find himself back at the police barricades or the kiosk or even the railroad station. Instead he saw the lake, traffic flowing along the boulevard at its edge. Immediately in front of him was a street sign for the Piazza Cavour.

Another half block and he was on the boulevard. To his right was the Palace Hotel, a huge brownstone with a busy outdoor café in front. Festive music played. People ate and drank, white-aproned waiters moving among them. They were normal, everyday people, doing everyday things, yet never knowing how close they sat to a potential climax of the first order had but one of them recognized the bearded priest in the black beret walking past them and sounded the alarm. In seconds the street would be filled with police. It would be like an American action movie. A Gruppo Cardinale showdown with a cop killer, the outlaw brother of the assassin of the cardinal vicar of Rome. Flashing lights. Helicopters. Chiseled extras running everywhere with machine guns and flak jackets. A Lee Harvey Oswald ride at an amusement park. Watch the bad guy get it from all sides. Buy your tickets, be there when it happens.

But none of them did. And then Harry was gone, just someone else walking by. A moment later he turned a corner and entered Piazza Cavour. Directly ahead was the Hotel Barchetta Excelsior.