Day Of Confession

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.

Da

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 Da

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 Da

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 Mado

Then, following Da

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 Da

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.

Da

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

Da

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.'

Da

'I just like baseball. I collect a lot of caps.' Da

'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.

Da

The man gri

Elena took the wheelchair and they started off. Then suddenly Da

'Stop,' he said.

Eaton and Adria