What he said also answered why so many people had sheltered, cared for, and protected Father Daniel and lied about it: because Cardinal Marsciano had asked them to.

Marsciano's shadow was huge. A Tuscan farm boy with roots deep in the Italian soil, a man of the people who had been loved and admired as a priest long before he'd risen to his high place inside the Church. It was a given that when such a man asked for help, it would be dispensed without question, a 'why?' never asked, that it had been done never revealed.

And Palestrina, as evil architect of it all – somehow, for some reason, involved in the mass deaths in China – and as a major figure in global diplomacy, was certain to have contacts that could have put him in touch with an international terrorist like Thomas Kind.

Furthermore, Cardinal Marsciano controlled the real purse strings of the Holy See, the type of huge financial base Palestrina would need to realize some immense ambition.

Harry could see Roscani weighing what he had said and wondering whether to believe him. To win him over, to have him fully on his side with no doubts at all, Harry knew he had to give him something else.

'A priest who worked for Cardinal Marsciano came to Lugano where we were hiding,' Harry said, his eyes locked on Roscani's, 'and asked my brother to come back to Rome. He did that because Cardinal Palestrina threatened to kill Marsciano if he didn't. So he came and told us. He arranged for a Mercedes and provided Vatican license plates and a place for us to stay when we got here… This morning I went to his apartment. He was dead. His left hand had been cut off… I was scared as hell and ran away… I'll give you the address, you can-'

Roscani cut him off. 'We know about the license plates, Mr Addison, and we know about Father Bardoni.'

'What do you know?' Harry pressed, emphatically. 'That it was Father Bardoni who found my brother still alive in the pandemonium of the hospital after the bus explosion? Found him, and got him out of there in his own car. Took him to the home of a doctor friend outside Rome and saw that he was cared for until he could make arrangements for the hospital in Pescara and the people to protect him there? – Do you know that, Ispettore Capo?' Harry stared at Roscani, letting what he'd said penetrate, then his manner softened and he finished. 'I'm telling you the truth about the rest.'

Castelletti was turning now, heading up Viale dell'Oceano Pacifico and back toward the Tiber.

'Mr Addison, do you know who killed Father Bardoni?' Roscani said.

'I have a good idea. The blond man who tried to kill us in the grotto in Bellagio.'

'Do you know who he is?'

'No…'

'Does the name Thomas Kind mean anything to you?'

'Thomas Kind?' Harry felt the name stab through him.

'Then you know who he is-'

'Yes,' he said. It was like asking if he knew who Charles Manson was. Not only was Thomas Kind one of the most publicized, brutal, and elusive outlaws in the world, Co some he was one of the most romantic. 'Some,' meaning Hollywood. In the last months, four major movie and television projects had been announced with Thomas Kind spinning as the central character. And Harry knew firsthand, because he'd been involved in negotiating two of them, one for a star, the other for a director.

'Even if your brother weren't confined to a wheelchair, he is in a very dangerous situation… Kind is ingenious in finding people he wants to find. As he proved in Pescara and Bellagio, and now here, in Rome. I would suggest you tell us where he is.'

Harry hesitated. 'If you take Danny in, it's even more dangerous. Once Farel knows where he is, they'll kill Marsciano and then they'll send somebody after Danny wherever you've got him. Maybe Kind, maybe somebody else…'

Roscani hunched forward, his eyes on Harry. 'We'll do our best not to let that happen.'

'What does that mean?' Suddenly a red flag went up. Harry's palms felt sticky, and there was sweat on his upper lip.

'It means, Mr Addison, there is no evidence that what you've said is true. There is, however, substantial evidence to prosecute both you and your brother for the crimes of murder.'

Harry's heart jumped for his throat. Roscani was going to arrest him right then. He couldn't let it happen. 'You are willing to let the prime witness be killed without any attempt to stop it?'

'There is nothing I can do, Mr Addison. I have no authority to send people into Vatican territory. No power to arrest, if I did…' Roscani's words, how he said them, at least showed Harry that he did believe his story. At least he wanted to.

'If we tried to extradite any of them,' Roscani continued, 'Marsciano, Cardinal Palestrina, or Farel,… it wouldn't work. In Italy it is the judge who must prove a suspect guilty 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. The investigator's mandate, my mandate' – he gestured toward the front – 'and that of Scala and Castelletti and the others of Gruppo Cardinale is to collect evidence for the prosecutor, for Marcello Taglia… But there is no evidence, Mr Addison, and therefore no grounds whatsoever… And with no grounds, to accuse the Vatican?' Roscani's voice trailed off. 'You are a lawyer, you should understand.'

Roscani's eyes had remained on Harry the entire time. And in them Harry saw volumes: anger, frustration, emasculation, a sense of personal failure. Roscani was fighting himself and his own position.

Slowly, Harry pulled away from Roscani to see Scala and Castelletti in pale silhouette to the glare of the midday Roman sun. He could feel the same emotion in them. They had come to the end of the line. Politics and law had overridden justice. The only thing they could do was what their jobs allowed. And that meant prosecuting him and Danny. As well as Elena.

In that moment Harry knew that it had come back to him. That somehow he had to turn around or they were all lost. He and Danny and Elena and Marsciano.

Deliberately, he looked back to Roscani.

'Pio and the cardinal vicar… The killings in Bellagio and the other places… All the crimes were committed on Italian soil…'

'Yes,' Roscani nodded.

'If you had Cardinal Marsciano. And if he would talk to you and to the prosecutor about those crimes. If he named names and said why. Would you have enough for extradition?'

'It would still be very difficult.'

'But it might work.'

'Yes. Except that we don't have him, Mr Addison. And we can't get him.'

'What if I could?'

'You?'

'Yes.'

'How?'

Scala turned in his seat. Harry saw Castelletti find him in the mirror.

'At eleven o'clock tomorrow morning, a work engine is going into the Vatican to pick up an old freight car and bring it out… Father Bardoni set it up as a way to try and get Marsciano out… Maybe I can find a way to still make it happen. I would need your help. But it would be on this side of the Vatican walls.'

'What kind of help?'

'Protection for me and my brother and Sister Elena. By you three. Nobody else. I don't want Farel finding out… You give me your word nobody will be arrested until we're done, I'll take you to where they are.'

'You are asking me to break the law, Mr Addison.'

'You want the truth, Ispettore Capo. So do I…'

Roscani glanced at Scala, then looked back to Harry. 'Continue, Mr Addison…'

'Tomorrow, when the engine takes that freight car out of the Vatican, you follow it until it stops. If it works, Cardinal Marsciano and I will be inside it. You take us back to where Danny and Sister Elena are. Give Danny and the cardinal time together alone, whatever it takes, until he is ready to make a statement. Then you come in with your prosecutor.'

'What if he chooses to say nothing?'

'Then our agreement's over and you do what you have to do.'

For a long moment Roscani sat stone-faced, and Harry wasn't sure if he would give him what he was asking or not. Finally, he spoke.