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.

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 in the distance, 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 dashing 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 God!' 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 overpass, 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?

The pain in his leg excruciating, Roscani alternately walked, then stopped to rest, then walked on again, his right hand pushing 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.

'Halt! Hands up!' a voice suddenly barked out of the smoke in Italian.

Roscani froze where he was. Then he saw a half dozen men with rifles step out of the gloom in front of him. They had blue shirts and wore berets. They were Swiss Guards.

'I am a policeman!' Roscani yelled back. He had no idea whether they were under Farel's direct orders or not, but he had to take the chance they were not in the same group as the black suits.

'I am a policeman!'

'Hands up! Hands up!'

Roscani stared, then slowly raised his hands. A moment later the Beretta was jerked away. Then he heard one guard speak into a two-way radio.

'Ambulanza!' the man ordered urgently. 'Ambulanza!'

Thomas Kind shut the railroad station door behind them, and suddenly they were inside the cavernous building that had once been the pope's marble-walled gateway to the world. Daylight streamed in from the windows above, sending a cascade of brightness like theater spotlights along the center of the floor. But other than that and the dim light coming from the window looking out to the tracks, the inside was dark and cool. And, if it mattered, preciously free from the smoke.

'Now.' Kind released his grip on Elena and stepped back, looking at Harry. 'Your brother was coming for the train. Since it's still here, we will assume he is still coming.'

Harry's eyes traveled over Kind slowly, as if he were trying to find a spot where he was most vulnerable. Then, behind Kind and through an open door, he saw a white shirt suddenly move out of sight. The trouble was he gave it too much attention.

'So?' Kind said sharply. 'Perhaps your Father Daniel is here already…' Abruptly he raised his voice. 'You, in the office, come out!'

Nothing happened.

Slowly Adrianna shifted position, moving a step closer to Kind. Harry looked at her, wondering what she was doing. She looked back and shook her head.

'Come out!' Kind commanded again. 'Or I will come in.'

Time froze, and then a shock of white hair slowly appeared. And then they saw the rest of the stationmaster. White shirt, black trousers. A man easily in his late sixties. Kind motioned him forward. The man came out slowly. Frightened, staring, confused.

'Who else is here?'

'-No one…'

'Who opened the gates?'

The man raised a hand and pointed to himself.

Harry could see Kind's eyes move back in his head and he knew he was going to shoot. 'Don't!'

Kind looked at him. 'Where is your brother?'

'Don't kill him, please…'

'Where is your brother?'

'-Don't know…' Harry whispered.

Kind half smiled, his finger squeezed the trigger and there was the muffled sound of a jackhammer.

Elena watched in horror as the stationmaster's white shirt exploded in red. The old man held his stance for a moment then staggered backward, and, turning, fell sideways into the doorway of his office.

Abruptly Harry pulled Elena to him, turning her away from the terror.

Again Adrianna moved her position, another step closer to Thomas Kind.

'You want my brother, I'll take you to him.' Harry said abruptly. There was no doubt at all that Thomas Kind was altogether insane, and if Danny suddenly showed up, he'd kill them all with the snap of a finger.

'Where is he?' Thomas Kind slid a fresh clip into the machine pistol.

'Outside – near the gate. The train was going to stop to pick him up…'

'You're lying.'

'No.'

'Yes. The gates open and close into the wall. There's nothing there. No place to wait.'

Suddenly Kind was aware of Adrianna's drawing closer and he turned toward her.

'Careful-,' Harry warned.

'What are you doing?' Kind said.

'Nothing…' She moved closer still, a half step, no more. Her eyes were locked on Kind's.

'Adrianna, don't.' Again Harry warned her.

Adrianna stopped. She was five feet from Kind, no more. 'You are the one who killed the cardinal vicar of Rome.'

'Yes.'

'In the last few minutes you killed four more people…'

'Yes.'

'And when you find Father Daniel you'll do the same to him… and then us…'

'Perhaps…' Thomas Kind smiled, and Harry could tell he was enjoying every moment of it.

'Why?' Adrianna said sharply. 'What does it all have to do with the Vatican and the poisoning of the lakes in China?'

Harry looked at her, wondering what she was doing. Why she was pressing Kind when he had the gun and she had nothing at all to gain.

Then he realized. The same time Kind did.

'You're taping this, aren't you? You're wearing a lipstick camera, you've got a video rolling…' Kind smiled, wholly amused, amazed at his own revelation.

Adrianna smiled. 'Why don't you answer the question and then we'll talk about it…'

The next happened in a nanosecond. Thomas Kind lifted the machine pistol. There was the sound of the dull jackhammer. A look of complete surprise swept over Adrianna. She half stumbled, then fell backward.