Smiling gently at Michael Roark's gaze, she looked up to see Marco watching her as well. Two men examining her at the same time – the thought tickled her, and she grinned. Then quickly she looked away, embarrassed she had reacted so openly. She saw for the first time that dark curtains covered the van's rear windows. Turning back, she looked at Marco.

'Why are the windows covered?'

'The truck was rented. It came that way.'

Elena hesitated. 'Where are we going?'

'Nobody told me.'

'Luca knows.'

'Then ask him.'

Elena glanced forward at Luca at the wheel, then back to Marco. 'Are we in danger?'

Marco grinned. 'So many questions.'

'We are directed to leave, suddenly, almost in the middle of the night. We drive as if to make it impossible to follow us. The truck windows are covered over, and you… carry a gun.'

'Do I…?'

'Yes.'

'I told you I was a carabiniere…'

'Not anymore.'

'But still on reserve…' Abruptly Marco turned toward the front. 'Luca, Sister Elena wants to know where we're going.'

'North.'

Crossing his arms over his chest, Marco leaned back and closed his eyes. 'I'm going to sleep,' he said to Elena. 'You sleep, too. We have a long way to go.'

Elena watched him, then looked to Luca at the wheel and saw his features briefly as he lit a cigarette. She had seen the bulge under his jacket as he helped load her patient into the truck, verifying what she had suspected earlier, that he carried a gun as well. And though no one had mentioned it, she knew Pietro, the morning man, was following in his car behind them.

Beside her Michael Roark had closed his eyes. She wondered if he was dreaming, and if so, what his dreams might be like. And where they were taking him. Or if he was simply going without knowing, as she was, down a darkened road toward a destination unknown, in the company of armed strangers.

And she wondered, as she had before, who he was that he would need such men. She wondered who he was at all.

29

Rome, same time

Suddenly there was the sensation of being walked on by hundreds of tiny feet. Light, nimble feet. Small. Like those of rodents. With what seemed like superhuman effort Harry opened one eye and saw them. Not mice.

Rats.

They were on his chest, his midsection, on both legs. Fully aware, he shouted. Screamed. Trying to shake them off. Some disappeared, but others clung there. Ears up. Watching him with tiny red eyes.

Then he smelled the stench.

And remembered the sewer.

Everywhere was the sound of rushing water, and he felt the wet and realized he was in the water and it was washing past him. Raising himself up, he turned his head and with his one good eye saw more of them. Hundreds. Higher up on dry ground. Watching, waiting. It was why more hadn't come. They were aware of the water, too. Only the bravest had ventured across the shallow flow where he was.

Above him was the semicircle of ancient stone that made up the ceiling. And the same stone supplemented by worn concrete lined the walls of either side and the sluice where he lay. Here and there dim lightbulbs encased in wire provided the illumination for what little vision he had.

Vision.

He could see!

At least a little.

Lying back, he let his right eye close, and abruptly everything faded. For a moment he remained still, then, gathering himself, opened his left eye.

Black. Nothing at all.

Immediately he opened his right eye and the world came back. Dim lights. Stone. Concrete. Water.

Rats.

He saw the two closest to his right eye inch forward. Noses moving. Teeth bared. The bravest of the brave. As if they knew. Take out that eye and he would see nothing at all. He was theirs.

'GET AWAY!' he screamed and tried to struggle up. He felt their claws dig and hold, staying where they were.

'GET AWAY! GET AWAY! GET THE FUCK AWAY!'

He thrashed from side to side, his voice echoing off the stone. Trying with everything to throw them off. Then he fell sideways into deeper water. He felt it rush over him, the force taking him with it. He was sure he felt them let go. Sure he heard their shrill squeaks as they tried to make higher ground without drowning. Sure he heard the hundreds of others shrieking in a terrible uproar of shared fear. He opened his mouth, bellowing against the sound, trying to get air. But it filled with water and he choked as he was swept away. The only thing clear in his mind was the taste of it; foul and filled with his own blood.

30

Friday, July 10, 1:00 a.m.

A hand touched Harry's face, and he groaned, shivering. The hand retreated, a moment later to return with a damp cloth to wipe his face and again clean the wound on his forehead. Then moving a little to scrub gently the dried blood that matted his hair.

Somewhere far off came a vague rumbling and the ground shook, and then both sound and movement stopped. Then he felt a tugging at his shoulders and he opened his eyes, or rather the one eye that could see. When he did, he started. An oversized head stared down at him, the eyes glistening in the dim light.

'Parla Italiano?' A man was sitting on the ground beside Harry, his voice high-pitched and accented in a strange, singsong way.

Harry turned his head slowly to look at him.

'Inglese?'

'Yes…' Harry whispered.

'American?'

'Yes…' Harry whispered again.

'Me, too, once. Pittsburgh. I came to Rome to be in a Fellini movie. I never was. And I never left.'

Harry could hear the sound of his own breathing. 'Where am I…?'

The face smiled. 'With Hercules.'

Suddenly another face appeared, looking down at him, too. It was that of a woman. Dark skinned, maybe forty, her hair turned up in a bright bandana. Kneeling down, she touched his head, then reached across and lifted his left hand. It was bandaged heavily. Her eyes went to the man with the enlarged head, and she said something in a language Harry had never heard. The man nodded. The woman glanced back at Harry, then stood abruptly and left. After a moment there was a sound like a heavy door opening and then closing.

'You have the use of only one eye… But soon the other will come back. She has said so.' Hercules smiled again. 'I am to wash your wounds twice every day and to change the bandage on your hand tomorrow. The one on your head can remain for a time… She has told me that, too.'

Again came the rumbling and again the ground shook.

'This my house. Where I live,' Hercules said. 'A boarded-up part of the Metro, an old work tunnel. I have existed here for five years – and no one knows. Well, except for a few such as her… Pretty good, eh?' He laughed and then reached out and pulled himself up with an aluminum crutch. 'I have no use of my legs. But my shoulders are huge and I am very strong.'

Hercules was a dwarf. Three and a half feet, four feet tall at most. His head was large, almost egg shaped. And his shoulders were huge, as were his arms. But that was most all of him. His waist was tiny, his legs little more than spindles.

Limping to a darkened wall behind him, Hercules plucked something from it. When he turned back, he had a second crutch.

'You were shot…'

Harry stared blankly. He remembered none of it.

'Very lucky. The gun was small caliber. The bullet hit your hand and bounced off your head… You were in the sewer. I fished you out.'

Harry stared at him with his one good eye, uncomprehending, his mind straining to adjust, as if fighting to come out of a deep sleep, to move from an endless dream to reality. For some reason his thoughts went to Madeline, and he saw her, arms and legs askew, her hair floating out from her head in the black water under the ice, and he wondered if this was what it had been like for her – moving from some kind of terrifying reality to a dreamlike state, shifting back and forth between one and the other until she went finally into her last deep sleep.