Squinting against the glare of the sun, he. looked down the narrow road toward the railroad station, the way they would go later. Almost directly across, beyond the bushes where the second group of black suits were secreted, he could see the landing pad for the papal heliport. In the other direction, to his right and beyond the trees, was another tower building, Vatican Radio. He looked at his watch.

9:07 a.m.

Danny and Elena came in through the main entrance to the Vatican museums with the three other wheelchair couples who had been on the shuttle bus with them: a retirement-age American couple – the man in an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap who kept staring at Danny and his New York Yankees cap, as if he either recognized him or had had enough of museums and touring and simply wanted to talk baseball, his wife, plump and smiling pleasantly, pushing him in the wheelchair; a father and his son, probably twelve, wearing leg braces, seemingly French; a middle-aged woman caring for an elderly white-haired woman, apparently her mother, and apparently English, though it was hard to tell because the older woman was so abrupt with the younger.

One by one they went through the line to buy museum tickets and then were instructed to wait for the elevator that would take them all to the second floor.

'Stop over there. Closer to the door,' the white-haired English woman snapped at her daughter. 'Why you insisted on wearing that dress when you know I don't like it is beyond me.'

Elena adjusted the camera bag over her shoulder, glancing at Danny's as she did. They were nondescript black nylon camera bags any tourist might carry, but inside them, instead of cameras and film, were cigarettes and matchbooks; the olive oil and rum-soaked rags rolled up and packed in the plastic Ziploc baggies; and the four Moretti beer bottles – two in each case – plugged and wicked, with the same incendiary fluid.

There was a dinging sound, a light came on, and the elevator door opened. They waited while a few people got out, and then entered, squeezing in together, with the white-haired woman pushing ahead.

'We will be first, if you don't mind.'

And she was, and in the order of things, this made Elena and Danny last, forcing them to press in against the others, with the doors closing against their backs. Had they been first, or even second or third, and turned around like the others, Danny might have seen Eaton, with Adrianna. Seen him turn from the ticket window and glimpse them inside the elevator just as the doors closed.

143

Harry walked slowly inside the basilica, moving just behind a cascade of Canadian tourists, stopping, as they did, to look at Michelangelo's Pieta, his impassioned statue of the Madonna with the dead Christ. Then he eased away from the Canadians to the center of the nave, casually studying the interior of the towering dome, finally bringing his gaze down to the papal altar and Bernini's Baldacchino, the grand canopy over it.

Then, following Danny's directions, he moved off alone.

Crossing to the right, passing the wooden confessionals, looking easily at the sculptures of the saints Michele Arcangelo and Petronilla, he reached the monument of Pope Clement XIII. Just past it, he found a protrusion of wall. Turning measuredly around it, he saw a decorative drapery that looked as though it hung from a solid wall.

Glancing back and seeing no one, he pushed quickly through it to a narrow hallway and walked to the door at the end of it. Opening it, he walked down a short stairway to another door at the bottom and went out, finding himself instantly out of doors and squinting in the bright sunshine of the Vatican gardens.

9:25 a.m.

9:32 a.m.

Elena pushed open the emergency exit door, carefully holding it with her foot, while she put a piece of clear plastic tape over the latch to make certain it wouldn't lock behind her.

Satisfied, she stepped out into the daylight and let the door close behind her. Then she walked off, glancing up at the second floor of the building she had just come out of, where she had been moments before when she'd left Danny alone in a hallway outside a men's rest room near the entrance to the Sistine Chapel – the same hallway to which she would return a few minutes later.

Adjusting the camera bag over her shoulder, she walked quickly across a small courtyard and out into a convergence of tended walkways, lawns, and ornamental hedges that was one of the many entrances to the Vatican gardens. Ahead, on her right, was the split stairway rising to the Fountain of the Sacrament.

She moved toward it quickly but carefully, looking around every so often as if unsure where she was going, knowing that if she was stopped she would say simply that she had taken a wrong door from the museums and was lost.

Climbing the stairs to the right, she entered the area of the fountain proper and turned right again to see a number of large planters near the base of a conifer. Again, she looked around, puzzled, as if she were indeed lost. Then, seeing no one, she took a black nylon waist pack from her camera case and tucked it carefully behind the planters at the base of the tree. Standing, she looked around once more, and went back the way she had come, passing through the courtyard, then pulling open the door and peeling the tape from the latch. Reentering the building, she let the door close behind her, and then took the stairs to the second floor.

144

9:40 a.m.

Danny opened the door to the men's room stall cautiously and peered out. Two men stood at urinals, another was picking his teeth in the mirror. Opening the stall door wider, he wheeled himself to the men's room door and tried to push it open. It didn't work. Someone was on the other side trying to come in. Danny looked back. The other men were still there. Neither was watching him.

'Hey!' A voice came from the far side of the door.

Danny moved back, not knowing what to expect, his hand going to the camera bag to fling it if he had to.

The door swung open and another man in a wheelchair came through from the other side – the American from the shuttle bus, wearing the L.A. Dodgers cap. The man stopped dead in the doorway, the two of them chair to chair facing each other.

'You really a Yankees fan?' The man was looking at his baseball cap, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. 'You are, you're crazy.'

Danny looked past him into the hallway. People moved back and forth in a steady stream. Where was Elena? They were on a tight clock. Harry would already be outside crossing the Vatican gardens looking for the waist pack.

'I just like baseball. I collect a lot of caps.' Danny moved his wheelchair back. 'You come in. I'll go out.'

'What teams you like?' The man didn't budge. 'Come on, talk the game. Tell me the teams. Which league, American or National?'

Suddenly Elena appeared in the hallway behind the Dodgers fan.

Danny looked at the man and shrugged. 'Since we're in the Vatican I guess I ought to pick the Padres as my favorite… I'm sorry, I have to go.'

The man grinned broadly. 'Why, sure, pal, go ahead.' Abruptly he pushed into the men's room and Danny went out.

Elena took the wheelchair and they started off. Then suddenly Danny put his hand on the wheels, slowing the chair.

'Stop,' he said.

Eaton and Adrianna Hall were crossing at the far end of the hallway in a crowd, alert, moving quickly, looking for someone.