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"For Christ's sake, don't kill him!" he roared. There was a scream and the gunfire stopped. A voice from the far lawn shouted back in Italian.
"Too late, signore. He had a weapon and was firing at us, severely wounding Paolo in the leg. He was exposed; we shot him."
"Bring the package here and take Paolo to a doctor! Hurry!" Brandon returned to the silent cardinal, now covered by Togazzi's gun.
"I'd like nothing better than to turn you over to the Pope myself.
Unfortunately, there are more pressing matters."
"I shall do the honors, old friend," said Don Silvio.
"I could use a blessing or two."
A guard raced up the gangplank, the package from Barcelona in his hand. He brought it to Scofield, briefly explaining that he was rushing back to take his wounded colleague to a "private doctor" known personally to his don. Brandon tore apart the thick, padded manila envelope and removed a portion of the pages inside. He sat in a deck chair, reading, aware that Cardinal Paravacini was staring at him.
After several minutes of slowly turning the pages, Scofield put the material on his lap and looked over at the cardinal.
"Quite some change, isn't it, priest?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," replied Paravacini.
"I
never read whatever's there, for it does not belong to me. If you'll notice, the envelope is addressed to a Del Monte and that is not my name. Mail, like the confessional, is confidential."
"Really? Then why was it opened?"
"A courtesy of my late young employee whom you murdered. I shall pray for his soul, even for the souls of those who killed him, as Jesus prayed for the Roman crucifiers."
"That's beautiful. But why did your young employee bring this to you?"
"You'd have to ask him; unfortunately you cannot. I assume it was mistakenly routed to my postal box in Bellagio, which I use when away from Rome."
"Del Monte doesn't remotely resemble Paravacini."
"In haste, mistakes are made, especially when a young man zealously tries to serve his far-older superior."
"He was a priest then?"
"No, he was not. He was a promising youngster who unfortunately strayed from his faith as well as the law-" "Your Eminence," Togazzi interrupted curtly, "you're wasting your breath, and your lies only add to your sins. I took photographs, from Milan and your first courier to the third driving to Bellagio, where there was no stop at a postal box. Before we veered away I photographed your employee. He was wearing a clerical collar and turning off on the Paravacini road."
"You shock me, Don Silvio. These are things I know nothing about, and the only answers are with a dead man, murdered by this mad American."
"Don't waste your time, either, old friend," said Togazzi, addressing Brandon.
"We have ways of dealing with such monumental ipocriti.
What was the change you mentioned a few minutes ago?"
"It's not good news," answered Scofield, picking up the papers in his lap.
"They've moved up the schedule-he, Matareisen, has moved it up. . Here, listen to this.
"I will announce a new date soon, possibly from another location. I cannot reach our man in London and that concerns me. Was he trapped by Mi-Five? If so, did he break? His wife claims to know nothing, but then she never did. It's all very unsettling. In the following pages you will find the coded shortwave transmissions for the sectors as they are triggered. They are only wide areas, your memory must recall the specifics. Use your computer access for deciphering. If I do decide to relocate, it will be one of many possibilities, all sufficiently equipped, and a place where no one will find me. Stay at your post. The moment has come. The world will change." That's the end of it, no signature, of course, but it's Matareisen. The exquisite irony is that Guiderone, his own man, if not his superior, killed their mole in London, the man he can't find. The only aspect more exquisite is the job I did on Leonard Fredericks, separating the two fuckers.... I know you won't be offended by my language, priest, you've symbolically done the same to your Church."
"I'm not only offended," said the handsome, well-spoken cardinal, his voice icelike, "I'm outraged. I'm not only a prince of that holy Church, I've dedicated my life to her. To associate me with some wild global economic conspiracy is sheer nonsense and the Holy Father will certainly understand. This is just another anti-Catholic diatribe, we suffer from them constantly."
"Oh, boy, Cardinal-baby, you just really blew it. Who said anything about global economics?"
Paravacini's head snapped around toward Bray, his eyes wide. He was trapped and he knew it.
"I have nothing more to say."
"Then I'll just have to mess up your face until you do." Scofield put the papers and the envelope on the deck, got up from the chair, and menacingly approached the prince of the Church.
"No need to bruise your frail hands, old friend," broke in Togazzi, walking away from the railing, "I gave the camera to one of my men.
For the record, I'm sure he'll take a picture of the body on the lawn, and together with the other photographs, the sequence will be clear.
He'll bring the camera to me and you'll hold the Barcelona envelope in front of our errant cardinal. The evidence will be irrefutable."
"Certainly convincing," agreed Brandon.
"Also, I have friends of friends in the curia. This traitor to his faith will be the disgrace of the Church, a pariah in his own world."
Suddenly, without warning, Cardinal Paravacini leaped up from his chair, wrestling the gun from old Togazzi's hand. Before Scofield could react, the priest turned the weapon on himself, the barrel at his temple. He fired, shattering his skull into a thousand fragments.
"Morte prima di disonore, " said Don Silvio, looking down at the befouled corpse.
"It's an Italian expression, you know, from the sixteenth century."
"
"Death before dishonor,"
" said Brandon quietly.
"The tattoo trade has made it banal, but this is what it's all about. He had power, wealth, and enormous influence in and out of the Church. Stripped of all that, there was nothing."
"Rispetto," offered Togazzi.
"He had respect and without respect he lost his manhood. Above all, an Italian male, especially a priest, must keep his m
anhood."
"So much for the Italian branch of the Matarese. We'd better fly this material to the computer wizards in Amsterdam. Maybe they'll come up with something. It's all we've got." The shipboard telephone rang, startling both men. Five rings echoed throughout the yacht before Brandon found it. "Buon giorno," he said, prepared to hand over the phone to Togazzi if the Italian was spoken too rapidly. Instead, the words were in precise if accented English, the voice that of a woman.
"You have shed the blood of a Paravacini, a man of great honor. You will pay."
Inside the mansion, standing by a library window, the housemaid hung up the phone while putting down binoculars on a nearby table. Tears fell down her cheeks; her lover was gone and with him a way of life she would never know again.
You three have to get back to London," said Frank Shields over the phone to Pryce in Philadelphia.
"Right away."
"What about Wahlburg?"
"We're taking care of that. Our people have already been there, removed the body and all signs of the suicide. Nothing will reach the media, he's just disappeared."
"Nobody else lived there?"
"Just a butler or a manservant or whatever you call them who had a room down the hall from Wahlburg. He was a trained male nurse, and Wahlburg was somewhat of a hypochondriac. His wife died several years ago, and his two daughters are married and live in Los Angeles and San Antonio. We've got a clear field; the telephone answering machine is covered by an out-of-town message."
"What do you think will happen?"
"I think, and hope, that his three Matarese friends, Fowler, Whitehead, and Nichols, will go out of their minds when they can't reach him. And if you did your job in New York and Palm Beach, they'll assume the worst and start looking for sanctuary. That's when mistakes will be made."
"I did my job, Frank. Now what's this about London?"
"Hold on to your hats or sit down. Matareisen escaped from Mi Five "Impossible!" roared Pryce.
"All too possible," replied Shields.
"I won't go into the particulars,
but he got away and is presumed to be en route to somewhere in Europe."
"Good Christ!"
"There's more. Scofield and his friend Togazzi found the Matarese connection in Milan. It was the Cardinal Paravacini you spoke about in your debriefing."
