'Roscani and Castelletti,' Adrianna said as the blue Alfa Romeo pulled in and stopped behind the Fiat.

Now the Fiat's door opened, and they saw Scala get out and go to the Alfa. The men chatted for a few moments, then Scala went back to the Fiat and drove off.

'This is a timing thing,' Eaton said. 'Harry Addison goes out two hours ago and doesn't come back. Now Roscani shows up. He's gotta be waiting for Father Daniel to make the next move and make certain nothing happens when he does-'

There was a shrill chirp as Eaton's beeper suddenly went off. Immediately he picked a two-way radio off the seat beside him and clicked it on.

'Yes-'

Adrianna saw his jaw tighten as he listened.

'When?'

Eaton's jaw strained more, and she could see him grind his teeth.

'Not a word from our office, we know nothing about it. – Right.' Abruptly he clicked off and stared into space.

'Li Wen confessed to poisoning the lakes. A few minutes later he was shot and killed by an assailant who was then killed by the security force. Convenient? – Whose stamp does that echo?'

Adrianna felt the chill. 'Thomas Kind…'

Eaton turned back toward the apartment building. 'I don't know what the fuck Roscani's thinking, but if he lets them go into the Vatican after Marsciano, there's every chance somebody's going to get killed, especially if Thomas Kind is in there waiting.'

'James,' Adrianna warned suddenly. An abrupt movement down the street had caught her eye.

Roscani was getting out of his car, looking around, a cell phone to his ear. Castelletti was getting out, too, walking along the sidewalk, an automatic held down alongside his leg. He was looking up at the buildings on either side of the street as if he were Secret Service.

Now Roscani was talking into the phone, nodding, then looking up and motioning to Castelletti. Immediately they both got back into the Alfa.

At the same moment the front door to number 22 Via Nicolo V opened, and a bearded man in a wheelchair and wearing a Hawaiian shirt was pushed into the morning sunshine by a young woman in jeans and sunglasses. The man had a camera case in his lap, the woman carried another over her shoulder.

'It's fucking him,' Adrianna breathed. 'The woman has to be Elena Voso.'

There was an abrupt squeal of tires as Roscani swung the Alfa from where it was parked. Cutting directly across the street, he swerved sharply, then pulled abreast of the wheelchair couple, slowing and staying with them as they moved along the sidewalk toward the Vatican as if they were tourists out for an early stroll.

'Christ, he's going to baby-sit them right into St Peter's.'

Eaton was turning the ignition key, starting the engine, his fingers already tugging at the gearshift. Slowly he eased the green Ford out and down Via Nicolo V. He was angry and frustrated and helpless; the most he could do without creating an international incident was keep the Alfa in sight.

They were turning now, moving from Largo di Porta Cavalleggeri onto Piazza del Sant' Uffizio, a stone's throw from the southern colonnade and the entrance to St Peter's Square. Instinctively, Roscani glanced in the mirror. A green Ford was twenty or thirty yards behind them. It was moving slowly, at the same speed they were. Two people were in the front seat. At his glance, the passenger in the Ford suddenly looked down. Then he saw Elena turn the wheelchair left, heading directly for the colonnade. Again, Roscani looked in the mirror. The Ford was right there, swinging left behind him. Then suddenly it turned right and sped off and out of sight.

Eaton raced on for two short blocks, then turned a quick left and then left again onto Via della Conciliazione. Accelerating past a tour bus, he cut sharply into the right lane and brought the Ford to an abrupt stop in a taxi zone directly across from St Peter's.

In an instant he and Adrianna were out of the car, ignoring the angry shouts of a cab driver for leaving the Ford in the taxi zone, and dodging traffic as they ran toward the crowded square. Reaching it, they pressed desperately through the mass of tourists, looking for a woman pushing a wheelchair. Suddenly a loud claxton horn signaled a warning. They looked up to see a small shuttle bus bearing down on them, leaving the square. Lettering on the shuttle's front read Musei Vaticani – Vatican Museums. Beneath it was the familiar blue logo with the white wheelchair, which was the international symbol for the handicapped. Quickly they stepped out of the way, letting it pass. As it did, Adrianna caught the briefest glimpse of Father Daniel seated at a window near the front. Then the shuttle turned onto the street and crossed the piazza where they had left the car.

Fifty yards away, Harry traversed the square in a crowd heading for the basilica, Scala's pistol in his waistband, the black beret pulled almost rakishly over his forehead, and the papers Eaton had provided in his pocket identifying him as Father Jonathan Roe of Georgetown University, just in case. Unseen beneath the priest's clothing, he wore chinos and a work shirt. Danny's clothes from the apartment on Via Nicolo V.

Reaching a flight of steps, he climbed them with the crowd and then stopped. In front of him several hundred more people were massed, waiting for the doors to the basilica to open. It was now eight-fifty-five. The doors would, be opened at nine. Two hours exactly before the work engine came. Head down, praying someone wouldn't suddenly look over and recognize him, Harry took a deep breath and waited.

Hercules crouched in the battlements of the ancient fortified wall abutting the Tower of San Giovanni. He was at the rampart's far end, right at the tower itself and maybe twenty feet beneath its tiled, circular roof.

It had taken nearly three hours to work his way up the far side of the wall, handhold to handhold, using the morning shadows to hide him. But then he'd made the top and scrambled to where he was now, cramped and thirsty, but precisely where he was supposed to be and when he was supposed to be.

Below, he could see two of Farel's black-suited men hidden in bushes near the tower entrance. Two more waited behind the cover of a high hedge across the narrow roadway. The main door, directly beneath him, appeared unprotected. How many more black-suited men were inside the tower he had no way of knowing. One, two, twenty, none? What was clear was what Danny had predicted: the black suits would stay back and out of sight, spiders hoping their prey would unwittingly lurch into their web.

Danny! Hercules grinned. He liked that, calling a priest by his first name, the way Mr Harry had. It made him feel like part of the family, one in which he somehow wished he belonged. And for now, for today at least, he decided he did belong. It was that important. The stalwart dwarf who'd been abandoned by his family shortly after his birth and who had made his own way ever since, taking life as it came, all the while refusing to be its victim, suddenly found himself longing to belong. It surprised him because the pain and want were much more acute than he could have imagined. It told him one thing: he was much more human than he supposed, no matter what he looked like. Harry and Danny had included him because they needed him for what he could do, and that, in itself, gave him purpose and dignity for the first time in his life. They had entrusted him with their lives, and Elena's life, and that of a cardinal of the Church. Whatever happened, at whatever cost to himself, he would not let them down.