135

Beijing, China. Still Friday, July 17. 9:40 a.m.

'James Hawley. An American hydrobiological engineer,' Li Wen said in Chinese. His mouth was dry and he was soaked with sweat. 'He… he lives in Walnut Creek, California. The procedure came from him. I… I… didn't know what they were. I… thought they were a new test… for wa… water toxicity…'

The man in the army uniform who stared at Li Wen across the hard wooden table was the same man who had demanded he confess what he had done six hours earlier in Wuxi. The same man who had handcuffed him and accompanied him on the military jet to Beijing and taken him here to this brightly lit cement-block building somewhere on the air base where they had landed.

'There is no James Hawley of Walnut Creek, California,' the man said softly.

'Yes, there is. There has to be. I did not have the formulas, he did.'

'I repeat… there is no James Hawley. It has already been checked out from the papers you provided us.'

Li Wen felt the breath go out of him as suddenly he realized he'd played the fool the entire time. If something went wrong he alone was the one who would pay for it.

'Confess.'

Slowly Li Wen looked up. Just behind the man at the table was a videocamera, its red light on, recording what was happening. And behind the camera he could see the faces of a half dozen uniformed soldiers – military police, or, worse, men like his interrogator, members of the Ministry of State Security.

Finally he nodded, and looking directly into the camera, told how he had introduced his 'snowballs' – the deadly, nonmonitored constituent polycyclic, unsaturated alcohol – into the water systems. Explaining extensively and in scientific terms the details of the formula, what it was designed to do, and how many it was expected to kill.

As he finished, wiping sweat from his forehead with the palm of his hand, he saw two of the uniformed men suddenly step forward. In an instant they had him on his feet and he was marched through a door and down a dimly lit concrete corridor. They went for twenty or thirty feet before he saw a man step out of a side door. The soldiers froze in surprise. In an instant the man had stepped forward. He had a pistol in his hand, a silencer on the barrel. Li Wen's eyes went wide. The man was Chen Yin. His finger squeezed back on the trigger and he fired point-blank.

PTTT! PTTT!

Li Wen was blown backward, his body twisting away from the soldiers, his blood splattering across the wall behind him.

Chen Yin looked at the soldiers and smiled, then started to back away. Suddenly his grin turned to horror. The first soldier was raising a submachine gun. Chen Yin backed away.

'NO!' he screamed. 'NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTA-' Suddenly he turned and ran for the door. There was a sound like a dull jackhammer, the first shots spinning Chen Yin around, the last taking off the top of his head just over his right eye. He, like Li Wen, was dead before his body hit the ground.

136

Rome. 4:15 a.m.

Harry was in the bathroom shaving, getting rid of the beard. It was dangerous because he would be exposing the face the public knew from the Gruppo Cardinale television spots and from the newspapers. But he had no choice. Few if any Vatican gardeners, Danny had said, wore beards.

Hercules sat at the kitchen table watching tiny whiffs of steam rise from the steaming cup of black coffee he held between his hands. Elena was across from him, as silent as he, her coffee untouched.

Fifteen minutes earlier Hercules had left the bathroom – a treat so rare and luxurious he'd spent half an hour there to enjoy all of it, sit and wash in a tub of hot water, and shave as Harry was now. And when Harry was done, that would give them something else in common. Not only bold and brave crusaders about to march on a foreign land, but they would also both be freshly shaven when they did. A little thing maybe, but like a uniform, it added to the brotherhood and tickled Hercules no end.

Scala saw the front door open and the two come out. The only distinction between Harry Addison and an ordinary priest on his way to early mass was the long coil of climbing rope over his shoulder. That, and the dwarf who swung alongside him on crutches, his movements strong and smooth, like those of a gymnast.

They were leaving Via Nicolo V; he saw them cross onto Viale Vaticano and then turn left in the darkness, moving west, along the Vatican wall toward the tower of San Giovanni. It was twenty minutes to five in the morning.

Eaton – sitting behind the wheel of the Ford, using a monocular nightscope – saw them leave, too. The crippled dwarf as much a puzzle as the coil of rope.

'Harry and a dwarf.' Adrianna was awake and alert and had glimpsed them in the brief seconds when they'd passed under a streetlight before vanishing again in the dark.

'But no Father Daniel, and Scala hasn't made a move.' Eaton put away the nightscope.

'Why the rope? You don't think they're-'

'Going in after Marsciano?' Eaton finished Adrianna's sentence. 'And the police are letting them…'

'I don't get it.'

'Neither do I.'

137

A pickup truck rattled past carrying firewood. Then the street was dark again, and Harry and Hercules stepped from the angle in the Vatican wall they had hidden behind.

'You know what that wood is for, Mr Harry?' Hercules whispered. 'Pizza ovens all over the city. Pizza.' He winked. 'Pizza.' Abruptly he gave Harry his crutches and turned to the wall. 'Boost me up.'

With a glance back down the street, Harry picked Hercules up by the waist and lifted him toward a ledge that ran the length of the wall halfway up. Hercules strained to reach it, then did. In an instant he was up and balancing on it.

'Crutches first. Then the rope.'

Crutches handed overhead, Harry tossed the coil of rope. Grabbing it, Hercules shook out a few feet, put a loop around his shoulder and dropped the free end to Harry.

Taking hold, Harry felt it tighten. Above him, Hercules smiled, then waved him up. Ten seconds later Harry had walked up the wall and stood on the ledge beside him.

'No legs, Mr Harry, but the rest of me like granite, eh?'

'I think you like this.' Harry half grinned.

'We are in search of the truth. And no goal is more honorable, is it, Mr Harry?' Hercules' eyes bore into Harry's, the pain of a lifetime in them. Then, as quickly, he looked to the top of the wall.

'Another boost, Mr Harry. This time is trickier. Lean your back to the wall and keep your balance or we both go down.'

Putting his back against the wall, Harry dug his heels into the narrow stone ledge.

'Go,' Harry whispered. Immediately he felt Hercules' hands on his shoulders, felt him pull up. Then the rope coil brushed across his chest, and Hercules' deadened feet banged over his face, then his weight vanished. Quickly Harry looked up. Hercules was kneeling on top of the wall.

'Crutches,' he said.

'How's it look?' Harry handed them up.

One arm tucked through his crutches, Hercules peered over the side and into the Vatican gardens. The tower loomed behind some trees, not thirty yards away. Turning, he gave Harry the thumbs up.

'Good luck.'

'See you inside.' Hercules winked.

Then Harry saw him twist a turn of rope over a jutting corner of the wall, jab his arm through the crutches and disappear over the top.

For the briefest second Harry hesitated, then with a look back down the street, he jumped. Hitting the ground, he rolled over once and was up. Brushing off his jacket, tugging the black beret over his forehead, he walked quickly back down Viale Vaticano, the way he had come. Scala's Calico automatic was in his belt, Adrianna's cell phone in his pocket. Ahead of him, the buildings were stark black against the eerie pale of the brightening sky.