"How could it be anything else?" bragged Eleazar. "It's forged from the coins that paid for an entire religion.
25
Killing in the Name of Now As he reached the square Konstantin realized the extent of the crowd. It wasn't just people lining either side of the street anymore. More than two thousand people had crushed into the small square to witness the benediction. They were talking, excited. It took him a moment to realize what they were saying. The murmur ran through the crowd: "Papa is coming." He looked at his watch, then up at the huge clock above the door of St. Florin's church. It was a pointless gesture now. The clock on the church's facade and his watch said the same thing. Time had run out.
He looked around at the faces of the people. He knew what he was looking for. It was a curious truth that you could see people steeling themselves to kill. It wasn't just the perspiration; it was in the eyes. They tended to stare straight ahead, focusing on something directly in front of them, unable to look away from it. They didn't glance around the crowd, which was a natural thing. People's minds were curious; they were drawn to look at all of the different faces, but not someone about to commit murder. A killer's focus was absolute. It was understandable with a suicide bomber, not wanting to see the faces of the lives they were about to end, but with a killing like this, in front of the eyes of the world, it wasn't guilt and shame that kept him from looking, it was determination. A man driven to this kind of murder was almost assuredly driven by fanaticism. Be it the West Bank, Madrid, or the Twin Towers, religion was at the root. Religious extremists, knowing that they were about to die, would be offering a prayer to their chosen deity, squaring it away with them one last time before meeting face to face. So he was looking for someone staring straight ahead, lips moving as they mumbled their final prayer.
He looked up at the guards assembled on the stage. Every one of them stared eyes front. They didn't look left or right. They didn't glance down at their shoes.
He was too far away to see if any of them was perspiring unduly, but given the weight of their brightly colored uniforms and the weight of the halberds they held, and the fact that if the BKA had done their job and spread the warning to them that there was an assassin in the crowd, it was a safe bet they were all sweating more than usual.
It was a curious thing, how so many people put so much of their faith in an old man who couldn't speak their language and had no real way to relate to their lives. Every kind of person was out there in the crowd waiting for the cavalcade to go by.
Konstantin pushed his way into the crowd. There had to be agents in there. If Sir Charles had called in his favors, the entire congregation had to be crawling with BKA men. He saw bikers in their leathers, mothers in summer dresses stooped over their strollers, and boys in German soccer jerseys, and those few desperate enough to come looking for a miracle, hoping Papa's touch might help their children stand up out of their wheelchairs and walk. He didn't see anyone who was obviously police. He didn't see anyone overly anxious. He didn't see anyone moving sluggishly, either drunk or stoned. That was another thing, a man about to commit suicide, no matter how faithful he was to the cause, didn't want to be having second thoughts. So more often than not they would be under the influence of some narcotic stimulant in those final minutes. He looked back at the guards on and around the stage. For the life of him he couldn't see the difference between them. There was no one man who seemed more stressed or less alert than the others.
Konstantin pushed his way through the people, trying to work his way closer to the stage. He wanted to be right at the front when the gun fired its round into the tree. He looked up at the other trees in and around the square. Each one had been strung with the same bird feeders. They were full of birds. He didn't know if that meant there were more guns primed to fire into these other trees, or if they were relying upon the domino effect to carry the startled panic from one tree to the next.
Down the line he heard voices singing hymns. There was something about songs of praise that lifted the voices of even the worst singers and made them beautiful when they came together.
The murmurs of those closest to him intensified as a car came slowly down the middle of the road and turned into the square. It was a black BMW with its windows blacked out. It was the trailblazer. Konstantin watched it approach, trying to think of ways he could get close to the agents in the car to identify himself. It didn't slow and it didn't stop. He watched it pass him and then follow the curve of the railings to park behind the side of the church, out of sight.
Two more cars followed it a few minutes later.
A fourth car came. The sun glinted off the tinted windshields. Four agents walked beside this one, keeping pace with the black BMW. They scanned the crowd, never once allowing their gaze to settle. They were alert. They knew there was a threat. The old man had done his part. The warning had reached the BKA. That was all he could do from Nonesuch; the rest was up to Konstantin. The movement of the agents was synchronized. When one looked left, the other looked right so that together their field of vision was complete. There were no blind spots. They moved with an easy strength, but he could see the tension in their bodies. They were primed, ready for the slightest noise, the first sudden movement; anything that was out of place. They were trained to read the crowd and recognize the signs. More than just body language, this was about the split second between life and death.
A hundred yards after the car came the first of the foot patrol, Swiss Guard walking in their ceremonial uniforms like a marching band. They didn't look half as professional, aware or as imposing as the BKA men to Konstantin's trained eye. He knew that the Guard were professional soldiers, but there was something cartoonish about their appearance that made it easy to underestimate them--which made it the perfect cover for his assassin.
And then the crowd in front of him burst into cheers and applause as the Popemobile came around the corner. Konstantin's heart sank. He was still less than halfway to the stage. He felt the weight of people press up behind him and tried to go with it, hoping it would carry him through a few ranks closer to the front, like riding a crowd at a rock concert. He dropped his shoulder slightly, turning side on to the stage. He didn't want to start pushing people and making a scene, but he would if he had to.
The converted Mercedes Benz turned into the square.
Konstantin could see the white-haired old man in his seat waving slightly to the people as the car drove by. He looked serene, beatific. Even behind the glass there was a calm about him that touched the crowd. All of the crowd save Konstantin. His nearness only heightened his sense of desperation. He needed to get to the front. He needed to be there.
The car swept around the skirt of the crowd, already halfway to the stage.
Konstantin abandoned any pretense of calm and forced his way between the people in front of him. He knew what it would look like to the BKA agents. They'd see a desperate man forcing his way to the stage. They'd see his determined stare, his perspiration and his erratic breathing, and they would think he was their man. He lips weren't moving, but he had no way of knowing just how good the agents actually were, and whether they would see the difference between a man trying to do everything in his power to stop an assassination and an assassin fixated on the kill.
There were fifteen or sixteen rows of people between him and the stage.
"Excuse me, sorry, excuse me, danke," he said, pushing his way between a young family come to see the service, when he realized his lips were moving. They were moving all the time, his apologies like a mantra that from a distance would almost certainly look like a fanatic's prayer.
He shoved the back of the man in front of him, forcing his way between him and the woman at his side. The man stumbled forward, reaching out for support and shoving the man in front of him as he tried to catch his balance. The effect of the shove rippled throughout crowd. Konstantin tried to duck away from the man as he turned to face him. He barked something at him in German. Konstantin ignored him. He only h
ad eyes for the stage. He knew people were looking at him. He didn't care. He had maybe two minutes before the Pope walked onto the stage, six more until the gunshot was timed to go off and all hell broke loose.
He risked a backward glance, up in the direction of the window of number 13 with the sniper rifle, then stared straight ahead.
There were three television cameras, one set up on a crane, the other two on the left side of the square, looking out at the crowd. One of them seemed to be pointed directly at him. He realized that back in the mobile broadcast control trailer some very anxious people were staring at their screens, seeing him, and fearing the worst.
The Popemobile pulled up alongside the red carpet that led up to the stage steps. Two BKA men, bulky beneath their well-cut suits, moved quickly toward the back of the car and opened the door, stepping back so the Holy Father and the two Swiss Guards sitting inside with him could emerge. The guards were the first out. The second man turned and held out a hand for the Pope to take to steady himself as he walked down the short flight of steps, then stepped back as he turned and held his hand up to the crowd in blessing and welcome.
Konstantin's view was partially obscured. He could only see the Pope from the collar of his Fanon, the two super-posed cloaks sewn together around his throat, and up. The precious miter, his conical headdress meant Konstantin could follow him as he walked through the crowd and climbed onto the stage. A papal throne had been set up in the center of the stage, and the Swiss Guard assembled at either side of it.
On the top step, the Pope turned to the people, again holding out his hand as they cheered and applauded. It struck the Russian as dreadfully wrong that a holy man should be accorded the same sort of frenzied welcome as a pop star.
He was six rows from the front.
He needed to be closer, but the people were packed in so tightly now he found himself having to move sideways along the line as he looked for a gap to squeeze himself through.
Up on the facade of St. Florin's church the huge iron minute hand of the clock juddered forward another minute, coming to hang over the Pope's head like some huge sword of Damocles. Konstantin was breathing hard, forcing himself to keep it regular: in and out, hold, in and out. In and out, hold, in and out.
He knew exactly what he looked like.
He didn't care.
In six minutes the Pope would be dead if he didn't stop it.
The Vicar of Christ walked to the center of the stage, coming up to the microphones. He leaned forward and, holding both hands up palms toward the congregation, said, "Thank you." He spoke in English, not German, not Latin, and not his native Italian. Up close Peter II, the man they called Peter the Roman, was older than he appeared in any of the photographs Konstantin had seen of the man. Indeed, he had aged since his election to office on the death of Benedict XVI a little over a year before.
Five minutes.
Peter II crossed himself then leaned on the lectern, supporting himself by grasping both sides of the stand. "Dear brothers and sisters," the Holy Father said, his voice carried by the microphones to the far reaches of the crowd. He offered them all a smile. Konstantin's eyes roved wildly from the Pope to the faces of the guards around him, looking for the traitor. "This evening we share between us is truly extraordinary, not for the sky beneath which we stand, nor for the friends at our sides, for both of which give thanks, but for the blazing light of the Risen Christ, which defeats the darkest power of evil and death and rekindles hope and joy in the hearts of believers. Look to the sky, see the failing sun and the rising moon, their light never fails us, for theirs is the light of the Risen Christ.
"Dear friends, let us pray together to the Lord Jesus so that the world may see and recognize that, thanks to his passion, death and resurrection, what was destroyed is rebuilt; what was aging is renewed and completely restored, more beautiful than ever, to its original wholeness." He lowered his head.
Everyone in the crowd did likewise, except for Konstantin, the BKA agents and the Swiss Guard on the stage.
Konstantin forced his way closer to the stage as the murmured prayers rose to exhort the heavens. Konstantin had a single prayer on his lips, but God wasn't listening, and the press of people mocked him. He risked a sideways glance and saw two of the black-suited BKA men pushing into the crowd behind him, and another running along the side toward the stage. They were hunting him. They hadn't drawn their guns. Yet.
He was two people from the stage.
The guards on either side of the Pope stared at him.
Konstantin stared back, trying to read murder in their faces. Any one of them could have been capable of the killing. That was the chilling realization he had as he got close enough to really see them. They were the same. Face by face there was nothing different in the way they looked at him. Any one of them, or all of them, could have been the assassin.
Or none of them.
He could be wrong.
No. The Sicarii made themselves invaluable to their targets. They stood at their side as best friends, then slipped their daggers into their "friends." This place, this crowd was perfect.
But that didn't mean he couldn't have been played by Devere, steered into another mistake--this one fatal. The man was playing a long game, and each move was thoughtful and well planned. The set-up here was perfect. It could have been a fake, luring him into the open, turning him into the "assassin" and allowing the BKA to take him out, allowing the Pope to die another day when their guard was down.
He glanced to the right and saw two more BKA agents running along the side of the crowd, following the route the cars had taken to the stage. The pair had their guns drawn and held low so as not to startle the crowd.
They were staring at him as they ran.
He pushed between another couple with their heads bowed in prayer. He didn't let them slow him. He couldn't afford to. He looked up at the big clock. He had a minute. Two. It was difficult to tell precisely. There would be a small disparity between the timer, his watch and the church clock, but he had no way of knowing precisely how big it would be until the gunshot came. And by then it would be academic.
There was less than a minute.
He reached the stage as the first of the BKA men reached the steps.
Four things happened at once. The gunshot cracked, followed a fraction of a second later by two more, and the trees exploded in feathers and fear, a hundred birds startled into flight. Peter II's head came up, his prayer broken. There was naked fear in his eyes. He knew tsound. Of course he knew it; it was hard-coded into the DNA of every man, woman and child under the sun. He stopped talking, so the speakers all around the square fell silent. There was a lull for a heartbeat as the shock registered, then people reacted, torn from their prayers by the unmistakable sound of the gunshot. At first there were screams of shock as the birds exploded from the trees, then the screams changed in nature and pitch from confused to frightened. On the stage the Swiss Guard reacted, lunging forward to protect the Holy Father. Konstantin saw the glint of silver in the nearest guard's hand.
He couldn't let the man reach the Pope--even though that meant throwing himself up onto the stage.
Konstantin shouted out a warning as he hit the red cloth of the stage.
He thought a second silent prayer then, gambling that the BKA agents wouldn't take a shot through the crowd for risk of hitting some innocent bystander. In their place he would have taken the shot, risking the collateral damage to protect the principal. He had to hope they were better men than he was. Because that was what it was going to come down to: How much did they value human life? Pope Peter II's, his, the crowd's? For this instant, this second, everything hung in the balance. Another shot would almost certainly cause a stampede as frightened people ran for their lives, and in such a tight enclosure more than a few of them would be hurt in the crush.
Konstantin hit the stage and rolled, coming up on his knees, hands pressed flat against the red cloth.
Two of the Swiss Guard reacted w
hile the others seemed trapped in indecision. They came forward to stop him, halberds leveled at his chest. The only other guard moving reached the Pope and seemed to be protecting him from the madman that had rushed the stage. Konstantin saw the silver dagger clenched in his fist.
He didn't have a choice. He didn't even have time to reach around and pull his Glock. All he could do was launch himself toward the Pope and pray his momentum took the pair of them out of the range of the Judas dagger.
He threw himself at the pair of them full on, hitting the old man in the chest, both hands hard to the ribs and barreling him off his feet. The collision sent all three of them--Pope, assassin and savior--sprawling. Konstantin fell on top of the old man, his weight throwing him down hard. They landed on the red carpet together. All around them screams and shouts erupted. He couldn't hear any individual words. He didn't need to. There was no doubting what they were for.
It didn't matter.
He had done it. He had reached the Holy Father in time. He had beaten the clock, beaten the assassin. He had saved Peter II's life. He closed his eyes, waiting for the hands to grab him and haul him off the white-haired Pontiff. He felt the man breathing beneath him. It wasn't a smooth regular rise and fall of the chest; it was erratic, desperate, like a man struggling desperately to draw his next breath.
Konstantin rolled away from the old man.
It wasn't his weight that had winded the priest.
There was blood on his hands when they came away from the Pope. He looked down at him. The old man lay sprawled across the red of the stage. It took Konstantin a second to see it. There was blood where the silver blade had pierced the Pope's white cassock. The hilt of the damned dagger jutted out through the purple tippet wrapped around Peter II's neck, driven in through the gold cross woven into the cloth. There was a lot of blood, too much. The gold and purple quickly stained red as the blood pumped out through the wound. The Holy Father clutched at the dagger's hilt. His lips moved. Konstantin heard the barest whisper of a prayer on his lips: "Father, forgive . . . know not . . . what . . ." It was the last prayer of Jesus as he hung dying on the cross, the prayer to his father to save the souls of his murderers.
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