by John Whitman
“Was she told to give that false lead on purpose?”
Yes, Khalid sobbed, ashamed but unwilling to bear any more pain. His employers had set up a separate attack, hoping that if the authorities were following the C–4, they would travel in that direction. The NTSB agent had been used to validate that plot.
“How many people did you operate on aside from Christie?”
Khalid hesitated, but only until Nina rested her toe on his broken ankle. “Four. But there were
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only supposed to be three. One of them blew up accidentally.”
Abdul Ali. None of them understood how it happened. He was the first recipient, and he had been done early on so that his arm would have plenty of time to heal. He had come into Los Angeles for work and to prepare for the conference, but something had caused the receiver in his arm to trigger the detonator. The whole plane had gone down, and they had needed to find a replacement.
“Who was the replacement?”
“I don’t know. Really!” he pleaded when she raised her foot. “I didn’t know any of them. All I know is that one of them had no idea he was involved. They created credentials for me at Cedars and I went in to do the operation. He had no idea what had happened to him. The other two were part of the plan.”
“Tell me about them.”
“One of them was a Muslim. The other was American. He looked kind of familiar to me, but I don’t know where from.”
Nina crouched down beside him. “I need more than that, Khalid,” she said sweetly.
He looked up at her in fear and hatred. “I don’t know any more. I didn’t know them. I never knew their names.”
“Tell me who you worked for. Who hired you to do this?”
“It began with Yasin,” Khalid admitted. “But years ago. He got the idea to deliver a bomb this way, and he told me he wanted me to do it. I moved here, to the U.S., to be ready. And then one day I got the message to start the work.”
“Did Yasin come here to coordinate it?”
“I didn’t work with Yasin after that,” Khalid answered. “There was someone else. A non-Muslim.”
“What non-Muslim?” Nina asked.
“I don’t know. Yasin approved him. I didn’t ask any more than that.”
Nina tried to think of who was left. There were no non-Muslims on her original suspect sheet. She decided to call Bauer.
2:31 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles
After flashing his badge, and with some additional help from Harry Driscoll, Jack had managed to scrounge a change of clothes from the hotel management. He was dry, but that was the best that could be said for him. Every muscle in his body was sore; every bone felt bruised. It occurred to him with great irony that he had recently told Christopher Henderson that he enjoyed overseas work with the CIA because that’s where the action was.
Driscoll’s phone rang again as he was dressing, and he listened to Nina debrief him on the Khalid interrogation. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jack had hoped that Khalid himself was the mastermind behind the whole plot, but that was not the case.
“We know there’s a third bomber out there, based on clues and the leftover C–4,” Jack said. “You can’t get any more information out of him?”
“I’ve already leaned on him,” she replied blandly. “He’ll go into shock soon.”
“Keep at it. We need to know who the final bomb is.”
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“Agreed, but the Pope is safe, isn’t he? If he’s at St. Monica’s, surrounded by his people, he’s as safe as he can be.”
2:43 P.M. PST St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles
Michael admired and hated Yasin with a passion that rivaled his love for the true church. Yasin had built backup after backup into his plan, and it was working now to perfection. Of course, it had been Michael himself who executed that plan, but the brainchild had been Yasin’s. Michael had always assumed that, once the Pope had been killed, he himself would find Yasin and kill him, to eliminate the threat of any future blackmail. Now he wondered quite honestly if he was up to the task.
A few moments later, the Pope’s retinue arrived at St. Monica’s. Michael had arrived seconds before, and he was already posting his own security people all around the cathedral. As the three black Broncos appeared, and the Pope, shielded by his men, was hustled into the great chapel, Michael shook hands with Giancarlo.
“That was quite a scare,” he said.
“More than a scare,” Giancarlo said. He turned to speak to several of his Swiss Guards, then he turned back. “We will be here for only an hour. I have radioed to the Vatican’s private airplane. It is being prepared now. We will head to the airport and get back to Rome.”
Michael made himself look perplexed. “Do you think there is more danger?”
“I don’t know,” Giancarlo admitted, “but as the Arabs say, ‘Trust God, but tether your camel.’ After what has happened here in the last twenty hours, the safest place for us is St. Peter’s. In the meantime, is the entire facility secured?”
“Yes,” Michael said.
2:50 P.M. PST St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles
A new arrival entered through a small door in the north wall of the cathedral grounds, a door that should have been locked and guarded by Michael’s men, but it was not. He closed the door quietly and stepped behind a small bird-of-paradise. As planned, a plastic bag lay there. He quickly slipped on a black suit similar to the kind worn by the plainclothes Swiss Guards. In just a few minutes he was ready.
This would be a good end, a final part to play.
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THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 3 P.M. AND 4 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
3:00 P.M. PST St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles
“I would like to be alone for a moment, Giancarlo,” John Paul said. “Except for Cardinal Mulrooney. Please ask him to come.”
Giancarlo could not fully honor that request. He refused to leave the Pontiff unguarded. But he ordered his men to guard all the doors to the cathedral, and they had left him alone at the altar. Despite the pain in his knees, John Paul knelt at the altar and put his head in his hands.
What, what, O Lord, was he to do with such hatred? That someone would blow himself up to stop him from holding a peace conference was, to him, practically inconceivable. He had gone out of his way to invite diverse opinions and represent all possible sides of the argument. And still it was not enough.
“Your Holiness?”
John Paul looked up to see Mulrooney, tall and lean and hawkish, standing over him. “Your Eminence. Please, sit with me.”
Mulrooney sat, and for a moment, John Paul knelt beside him in silence. Finally: “Giancarlo spoke with an American agent. Do you know the man actually carried the explosives inside his body?”
“Horrible,” Mulrooney whispered.
“It may surprise you to hear me say this, Allen, but I believe our differences to be petty. In the face of this sort of unspeakable hatred, the schism in the church is meaningless.”
Mulrooney shifted ever so slightly.
“It’s true,” John Paul said. “We must get past them if we are to survive. What unites us is greater than what divides us. A war is coming, and we must prevent it.”
“I support you, Your Holiness. But why are you telling this to me?”
“Because I know you are a leader of the schismatics.”
The statement hung there in that sanctified air. “Your Holin—”
“Please do not waste my time or yours by denying it,” John Paul said. “You believe I am a heretic. A traitor to the church.”
Mulrooney felt the blood rise into his cheeks. This damned old man had done it to him again, looking so frail but then challenging him so directly. “This really can’t be the best time to discuss this . . .”
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“What better time?” the old man said. “The world is
entering a religious war, my friend. How will we help if we are at war within ourselves?”
Mulrooney realized where the Pope’s thoughts were leading him. “I was not there, Your Holiness, but I was told the bomber was a Muslim, not a Catholic.”
“He was neither,” John Paul said. “Whatever he was, whoever he worked for, he was not a man of God. Men of God reject violence. That will be all, Your Eminence.”
3:10 P.M. PST Outside St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles
Jack, Harry Driscoll, and Dan Bender pulled up to the cathedral and got out. “Are you really expecting trouble here?” Driscoll asked. Jack laughed. “There’s been nothing but trouble here.”
At the front of the cathedral, they were met by one of the Swiss Guards. He detained them briefly until a radio call to Giancarlo cleared them.
The chief of the Swiss Guards met them in the courtyard. He shook Jack’s hand with both of his and said, “I did not have time to thank you properly before. You saved his life. Millions will thank you for it.”
“I think there’s one more bomber. And we still haven’t found out who is transmitting the signal.” He explained the design of the bomb found in Father Collins. “Someone set that bomb off, probably someone at the reception itself, since they would have waited until the bomber was next to the target.”
“No one from the reception is here,” Giancarlo said. “We’ve evacuated the entire cathedral except for our people.”
“You have a plan for evacuating him from here?”
“Yes,” Giancarlo said simply. “In approximately an hour. Come with me to the library. Tell me what you know.”
3:15 P.M. PST Chapel at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles
Michael walked around the outside of the chapel. There was a guard there, one of the Swiss Guards from the Pope’s retinue. Michael smiled and nodded to him. “I am making my rounds,” he said simply. “To check security.”
“Giancarlo does the same,” the man replied.
Michael smiled again and whipped his hand across the man’s neck. The small blade sliced his throat like butter. The man gurgled once, his eyes staring wildly, then he fell on his face.
Michael moved on to the next one.
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3:19 P.M. PST Library at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles
“The problem is not knowing the source of the threat,” Giancarlo said as Jack finished his debrief.
“Well, ultimately it’s Yasin, but he’s got someone here working for him,” Jack said with both determination and weariness in his voice. “I’ve been chasing them down all night. Whoever set this up has run me around in circles. But I’ll come across them eventually.”
3:21 P.M. PST Chapel at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles
John Paul sat in silent meditation for quite some time, searching his soul for some answer. He was aware of his own arrogance, to think that he could solve problems that had plagued the world for hundreds of years. But if not he, then who?
He heard footsteps approaching. At first he ignored them, assuming they were a guard checking on him. But the footsteps stopped, and after a few minutes the Pope was drawn out of his meditation. He looked up. There was a man sitting in one of the pews, smiling. He was dressed like a Swiss Guard, but John Paul knew that he was not.
“Who are you?” the Pope asked.
“My name is Mark Gelson.”
3:28 P.M. PST Library at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles
“I talked with my headquarters on the way over,” Jack continued. “All we know of the third bomber is that he is probably Caucasian. The problem is, we don’t have any Caucasian suspects at all on our suspect list. Not unless you can think of anyone, Harry.”
“This bomber poses a danger,” Giancarlo agreed. “I’m just not sure—”
“I can’t think of anyone,” Harry mused.
“Me neither.”
“Unless it’s Mark Gelson,” Harry finished.
That brought Jack up short. “Gelson? He’s no one.”
Giancarlo looked at them both. “Do you mean Mark Gelson, the American actor?”
“Yeah, but it—”
“He is a schismatic,” Giancarlo said. “He belongs to a sect of Catholicism that rejects everything and everyone that came out of Vatican II. His father actually founded the sect. They’re about twenty thousand strong in the United States. We’ve had Gelson on our watch list for several years.”
3:31 P.M. PST Chapel at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles
“He was a good man, my father,” Gelson was saying. “What you did broke him. He never wanted to cause
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a schism and form the Tridentine Society, and hated himself for it. But you gave him no choice.”
John Paul had the urge to run, but it had been years since he had run anywhere. Besides, he abhorred the idea of an inelegant death. “My son,” he said, “there are many who disagree with parts of Vatican II. The Society of St. Pius X, for instance. But they do not resort to violence. There are cardinals in the Vatican itself who share the schismatic view, but they try to voice their opinions within the church.”
“How much good does it do them?”
“To kill over matters of religion, this is the problem with the world. Our enemies twist their religion and use it as an excuse to kill. We must not do the same.”
Gelson laughed. “The history of the church is the history of killing those who stray and refuse to rejoin the fold. I don’t see why you should be any different.”
“And you would take your own life along with mine?” “I was ready to,” Gelson said. “But now I don’t have to.”
“What of your reputation?” John Paul asked.
Gelson laughed again, this time bitterly. “My reputation. Yes, I am putting at risk my reputation as a broken-down former action hero who talks about blowing people up when he’s drunk. I’ll risk it.”
“Still, you will be known as a murderer.” “Among those I love, I’ll be a hero. The man who killed the heretical Pope.”
3:40 P.M. PST Courtyard at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles
Jack and the others followed Giancarlo across the courtyard. “I’m sure the Holy Father would like to thank you in person. First let me enter the chapel to see if he has finished his medi . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Something?” Jack asked.
“My men.”
Giancarlo bolted forward, with Jack and the others racing behind.
They burst into the chapel to see two men standing over the Pope. Jack recognized Gelson immediately. The other man looked familiar to Jack, but he had no time to dwell on it as the man raised his gun to the Pope’s head.
“No!” Giancarlo shouted. His own weapon was out immediately and he fired, knocking Michael off his feet. Gelson jumped back, terrified by the loud noise. Jack and the others surged forward. Michael was not dead. He sat up and steadied his semi-automatic again. By the time he squeezed the trigger, Giancarlo had thrown his body over the Pope.
Jack stopped and put Michael in his sights, but gunfire erupted all around him. He fired as he dove for the cover of the church benches. More security men, the same ones who had attacked him last night. He hoped Driscoll and Bender had found cover.
Why would Mulrooney’s security team try to kill the Pope?
Schismatics. The single word came to him, then
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disappeared as he sat up and fired toward a man at a side door. The man fell away and did not reappear.
Jack glimpsed Bender, still standing in the open, pouring rounds at Michael. He knew what the Mossad agent was trying to do. If he kept Michael’s head down, the man might not be able to shoot at his target.
It worked, but Bender paid a price for his bravery. Bulky and exposed, he was an easy target. A few seconds after he fired, red flowers blossomed on his chest and he fell to his knees.
By that time Jack was up and v
aulting over the pews. He saw the security chief fire point-blank toward the Pope, and he assumed the Pontiff was dead, but he kept moving and firing. The assassin went down again, and then crawled for cover. He was wearing some kind of body armor. Gelson squealed and ran toward the altar, with Michael close behind him. Bullets still burned through the air all around.
“Driscoll! Left side!” he yelled, and turned to the right, firing at any angle from which bullets seemed to come. The return fire ceased as the security men retreated.
Jack grabbed Giancarlo. The Swiss Guard was heavy and lifeless as Jack dragged him off the Pope, who cowered beneath, covered in blood. “Are you hit!” he yelled.
“It’s his blood,” John Paul said. “His blood!”
“Driscoll?” Jack called out.
“Here,” Harry called from behind him. “But I caught one.” Jack turned. Harry was holding his gun in his left hand. His right arm hung limp and loose at his side.
It was swelling hugely from the biceps down, where a bullet had torn away most of the muscle and shattered the bone.
“Jack,” Driscoll said, “I think they’re coming back.”
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THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 4 P.M. AND 5 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
4:00 P.M. PST Courtyard at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles
Pembrook and Wittenberg were still alive. Gelson, too, but Gelson wasn’t much of a fighter.
“What are we doing?” Gelson whined. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“He’s not dead,” Michael snarled. “That damned bodyguard shielded him. He’s not dead!”
“It’s too late,” Gelson said. “It’s all gone to hell.”
“Wittenberg, far side. Go in when you hear the gunfire. Pembrook, with me.” Wittenberg nodded and hurried around the corner of the building.
“He got Aimes and Duvaine on the move,” Pembrook said. “He’s better than us.”