'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 tranquillita 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, 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. His eyes were on the road in front of him, his thoughts 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 their agreement became moot. Three miles south of Chiasso the traffic slowed, narrowing ahead 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…'