A Pius Man_A Holy Thriller

by Declan Finn

  He nodded. “Good idea. Can you get us into the archives?”

  Figlia shrugged. “I am a police officer, not an academic.”

  Sean wheeled on Father Frank. “You’re in with the Pope, right?”

  The priest cocked his head. “In what way?”

  Sean rolled his eyes. “You’re obviously his point man in certain situations, and that means Special Operations — and don’t give me that look, I don’t mean intelligence, I mean Special Conversions and Tactics or something like that.”

  Father Frank chuckled. “I’m sure His Holiness would like the acronym SCAT less than SWAT.”

  Sean waved it away. “SWAT for you would be more like a Vatican Anti-Vampire Squad. Get us into the Vatican Archives for Pius XII — we’re looking at them tomorrow.”

  “They’re not all organized yet, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  Sean’s eyes narrowed and he leaned in to the priest. “If Pius wants this thing solved, he’ll let us in. Or we’ll break in, and don’t think I won’t.”

  “You can’t even speak Italian.”

  He grinned. “I’ll learn. Get moving. I want to start when daylight comes.”

  Father Frank shrugged. “If you insist.” The man in black faded into the night.

  Once Sean was certain the priest disappeared, he whirled on Goldberg. “You never mentioned what Mossad had to say.”

  Goldberg blinked, then took a step back, gun hand bracing to go for her weapon. He was less erratic than before, but it hadn’t helped. “I’ve been looking into a name, Pinchas Lapide, Israeli diplomat. Lapide apparently has something to do with this, but Israel seems to have locked down his archives, so no one in intelligence knows exactly what’s in them, unless they own Mossad. I’m having the goy look check it further. He’s already put in an application. However, Lapide’s already written a book on the topic.”

  Sean shook his head. “I’ll do that. You speak Italian. I’m guessing you can read it, so you’ll be needed in the archives tomorrow, as will most of us. I don’t,” he lied, “so unless it’s not in English, I’ll do it. So read through them tomorrow, I’ll start on the Lapide book as soon as I find a copy.” He was about to move off and stopped. “By the way, Villie, you’ve got Mossad’s number? I want you to ask him something.”

  * * *

  Manana Shushurin leaned up against the side of a building. She glanced up and down the street — what street was it anyway?—and touched her handgun to reassure herself it was there.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to kill people,” he joked. He looked back at her, ignoring his surroundings for once. He lightly touched her arm. “Something wrong? You look tired.”

  She smiled weakly. “I just feel stupid for killing that gunman. If we took him alive, he would’ve talked and we could all go home.”

  He shrugged. “So we’re all here a little longer. You’re assuming that he didn’t have a cyanide cap or something. I mean, those things are common enough in our business, and he didn’t even have to bother hiding it in his tooth. He could have swallowed rat poison and we’d not have been able to do too much about it.”

  She gritted her teeth. “But he wanted me to kill him,” she argued. “If I didn’t get him, he would have killed Ryan, and I probably still would have wound up shooting him anyway.”

  Murphy smiled. “I don’t think that Mr. Ryan is too much concerned that you killed the prick. Sean didn’t seem all that put out by it, to tell the truth, although I wonder exactly what would put him out.”

  Shushurin pumped her fists at her side, wanting him to understand. “But damn it, I didn’t have to. I could have aimed for something else on him.”

  Murphy looked at her a moment, then laughed. She gave him a glare. “What’s so funny?”

  He pointed. “You! You save someone’s life by taking out a bad guy, so what? We’re here a little longer, big deal. You’re more concerned by the fact that you put the critter down than by the fact that you saved someone in the process. Lighten up.”

  She stared a moment, then smiled. He could see the tension seeping from her body. “Did you just call him a critter?”

  He nodded. “Cop talk for scumbag. What? My family’s crawling with cops. You think I’d speak in Yiddish?”

  “You’re in Mossad, I’d think so.”

  “You’d also believe that a dyslexic rabbi would go around saying yo? Oy!”

  She grinned, and his heart melted.

  Wow, I almost forgot for a moment that she’s God-awfully gorgeous, emphasis on the awe. He let his hand drift from her arm up to her cheek. “Hey, you do good work, don’t forget that.” After a moment, he slid his hand down her cheek, around to the back of her neck, leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

  Shushurin gave no resistance. When he drew back, he didn’t step away, but he reluctantly took his hand off her person, taking the smell of her light, sugary perfume onto his hand.

  She stared deeply into his eyes. “Does that mean you want to change your mind about the arrangements for bed?” she asked, laughter in her voice.

  “Sure, why not? I managed to keep my chastity at Harvard of all places, and I’m so tired, not even a woman as beautiful as Helen of Troy could get me to do much more than collapse.”

  Shushurin grinned. “At least I’m not that pretty. I don’t even have a face to launch a dozen fishing boats.”

  “No, you have a face to launch the D-Day invasion. I think they could take Helen’s pursuers any day of the week.”

  His phone rang, and he hesitated. Damn, that was bad timing. He flipped it open. “Murphy here. Agent Goldberg, how nice to hear from you again. What about the Hall of Righteous Gentiles?… Not to my knowledge. They usually plant a tree for each Jew that the gentile in question has saved. Trust me, if Pius XII had a few trees there, I think I would have heard about it. But I’ll check it out.”

  Murphy disconnected, looked up at Shushurin and smiled. “Could we put a pin in this for a moment? I’ve got to make another call.”*

  Sean Ryan sat on the steps of Saint Peter’s, and waited, his phone next to his ear. Sooner or later, the other end had to pick up.

  “Hello?”

  Sean’s face broke out into a grin. “Hey, grandpa. How are you doing?”

  In his home in London, James Ryan laughed. “I’m still alive. You won’t get your hands on my millions this week.”

  Sean chuckled. “I could say the same. Though to be honest, I’m wondering who goes first.”

  “Hmm. I’ve seen your clippings. That’s a good question.” James gave a great belly laugh. “So, what gets you calling at this hour? You usually just send me a letter.”

  “You know I’m in Rome right now?”

  “I figured from the postal stamps. And the turnaround time in mail delivery.”

  Sean nodded, mostly to himself. “You were in Rome during the war, right?”

  James hesitated for a long moment. “I spent a few months. Sure. Why?”

  “Anything interesting happen while you were there?” Sean prompted. “Did you meet the Pope, perhaps?”

  “I met a few interesting people.”

  Sean could hear the smile in his grandfather’s voice. “Right. Anything interesting happen on your end lately?”

  “Oh, two men tried to mug me last week.”

  Sean’s smile dropped. “Were you okay?”

  James gave another great laugh. “Of course I was. They didn’t expect your Christmas present. Boy, were they surprised.”

  Sean breathed out a sigh of relief. The Christmas present had been a walking stick that had an iron core down the center. “Did they walk away?”

  “Nope,” James said, matter-of-factly. “The London cops are pissed at me. And they took away your gift.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get you another one. I still know the guy.”

  “That means I’ll be able to see you again sometime soon. Good.”

  “Soon enough. When I wrap this thing u
p in Rome, I’m going to come visit. Heck, give me a few days, I’ll take a break and come see you forthwith.”

  “I look forward to it, Sean-boy. And maybe then I’ll tell you something about my time in the Eternal City.”

  * * *

  On the other end of the phone, Mikhailov growled. Insiders. “Why the hell did you show up?”

  “I’ve been everywhere else,” came the reply. “It would look suspicious if I wasn’t there.”

  “You were at the other attack today.”

  “Which I also didn’t ask you to do,” the other replied. “I ask again, are you trying to get me killed? Or is this the way you pull all of your operations — kill first, ask later? Fine, you didn’t plan the attack, but you were there, you were in it. I warned you about Ryan and McGrail, I didn’t say act on the information. Every time you ignore me and go after someone else, they piece together more and more. They know there’s an insider somewhere Goldberg is American Secret Service, McGrail is Interpol, and Sean Ryan is neutral. That doesn’t leave very many choices. At the moment, he’s the one I’m worried about.”

  “He worried me, too, until I tossed him off the roof with a grenade in his pocket.”

  There was a pause. “He’s still alive.”

  Ioseph fumed. “WHAT! And don’t you laugh at me. I can hear you smiling you useless… How is he still alive?”

  “He’s very resourceful.”

  “I’ll make sure he dies next time,” he growled.

  “You will do no such thing!” his informant told him. “I’m the one on the inside, and you’re not going to jeopardize me any further, do you understand? Every time you do something like that, it tightens the noose, and they keep picking up more information about you.”

  “But he guessed at our program.”

  “No! He guessed at the nature and training of your men, and you just confirmed his suspicions. Anything else would further exacerbate the situation.”

  “We can’t get a signal from the guys we sent after the old man in London.”

  There was a moment of silence. “It looks, then, like Mr. Ryan’s resourcefulness is genetic, doesn’t it?”

  * * *

  The Egyptian police officer slid back into bed. There was little Hashim Abasi could do about going immediately to sleep, but he decided to try anyway. His first day was supposed to be simple: look around, observe security, and work out logistics. But no, he had to get involved in some sort of Western conspiracy theory out of one of their Oliver Stone films.

  He sighed gently, trying not to let anything perturb him further… especially not his roommate.

  Thinking of which… Abasi looked to his left, noting Sean Ryan sitting up in bed, fingers laced together, eyes closed, falling into his own head. Abasi didn’t actually think that the odd bodyguard could stop and spend time in thought — he seemed more the type to shoot first, second, and third, only to ask questions later on, if at all, if anyone was still alive.

  Abasi smiled. Isn’t that what you thought of her at first?

  Abasi thought a moment about his wife, and dismissed Sean Ryan as being Irish, like her, only much, much stranger, and more stereotyped. His wife had explained to him about a certain type of Irish Catholic — boisterous, charismatic, with occasional bouts of brooding. Either his wife was correct, or the entire island was nuts, which was not outside the realm of possibility.

  But, then again, Abasi did stone her to death in public. There had been no choice. So, there was all kinds of strangeness on this Earth. His associates would almost certainly frown on him for that, just as much as he perceived Sean Ryan as being odd.

  Abasi rolled over and smiled as he settled deeper into the bed, thinking of his wife’s jet-black hair, brown eyes, and pale skin He tried to forget the rocks he had thrown at her head, preferring to remember her as she’d been before. But that was life.

  * * *

  Giovanni Figlia slipped into the temporary bedroom for the evening. Veronica Fisher was already waiting. Her brown hair was tied up in a ponytail, and a book lay open in her lap. Her black t-shirt read, in Italian, “Dead men tell no tales — unless you’re in forensics.”

  “The kids have been tucked away?” he asked.

  Fisher looked up and smiled. “A while ago. What’ve you been doing?”

  Figlia sat on the edge of the bed. “Talking with the police. Thankfully, I still have friends from the old days; otherwise, we’d still be out there, cleaning up Ryan’s mess.”

  “Hey, you did it, so don’t worry.”

  He smiled. “I wish I could. All of these bullets and bombs just a hundred yards away from the Pope’s front door… a good way to lose a pontiff.”

  She shrugged. “I suppose.” She looked around the room. “And he’s got a real nice arrangement here… where did he manage to find a king-sized bed as hard as a sheet of wood?”

  Figlia chuckled. “Well, it’s the smallest he could get without falling off the edge, and he prefers private ascetic arrangements. This is assuming he even uses it, since no one knows exactly when or if he sleeps.” He turned to look at her. “So, what do you think about the entire ordeal?”

  She shrugged. “You seem to be piling up the bodies lately. The two you sent me earlier today were well-developed, physically fit, and probably able to rip a man’s arm off. They look vaguely Slavic, but I’ll need a specialist to take a gander at their facial features before I cut them open. We can do DNA, if we have a few days.”

  Giovanni Figlia nodded slowly. Russians again. Maybe Ryan was right.

  Giovanni Figlia smiled. “No kidding.”

  Chapter XVI: A Pius Beginning

  Scott “Mossad” Murphy awoke, a little confused. Somehow, he had gone to bed with a ravishing brunette.

  Then he realized he had gone to bed fully clothed, and it made more sense. He remembered last night only a little after he called in to Tel Aviv. When he asked about the file on Pius XII, he was almost laughed off the phone, but he made the call, as he promised Agent Goldberg. For some reason, he failed to see how any of Goldberg’s requests made sense. First an Israeli diplomat, and then a file from the Hall of the Righteous Gentiles; if there was a connection, he wasn’t seeing it. Maybe Pius XII was the link between Lapide and Goldberg — Pius seemed to be the primary link to everything.

  Next time, Murphy was going to get an explanation from Goldberg. Or, better yet, I’ll simply ask Tel Aviv. After all, if the two are connected, then they’d know.

  He nuzzled deeper into the softness, wrapping his arms around what he thought was the pillow. He paused for a moment, and gave the matter some thought. He was lying on a warm surface, and didn’t think that it was his own body heat. He slowly slid one hand up the object, and felt that his “pillow” had ribs. He hesitated a little more, and realized that during the night, his head had settled directly on top of Manana Shushurin’s chest.

  Oh crap, I am so freaking dead. Let’s see if I can disengage before she wakes up.

  Murphy was about to move when he felt his hair move slightly, as if someone was gently running the tips of fingers along his scalp, and trying not to let him notice.

  She’s running her nails through my hair? What do I look like, a puppy?

  “Are you awake yet?” she whispered.

  Murphy slowly raised his head, keeping his eyes closed. “I think so, though I’m hoping I’m just dreaming; otherwise, I need to offer a few explanations.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I had the sensation of resting on a very soft pillow that’s firm under the surface, and I’m hoping very hard that it was a pillow — if not, you could probably just twist my head off and be done with it.”

  She ruffled his hair. “You’re sweet, and dead wrong, by the way. I maneuvered you during the night — if someone burst through the door while we slept, I had my arm wrapped around you, and could merely roll off the bed, taking you with me, grab my gun, and return fire. Why do you think I sat in the bed first, on the side facing the door? Eve
ryone else has been attacked lately, why should we be exempt?”

  He pushed himself to his hands, disentangling himself from Shushurin. He allowed himself to look her in the eyes, using his peripheral vision to make certain she was clothed. “Because we’re following the investigators, staying far behind the front line of the investigation? No one attacks the researchers.”

  She cocked her head. “Tell that to the Vatican archivist. Or David Gerrity, or Yousef.”

  He paused for a moment. “Point taken. Dr. Almagia was the archivist servicing Gerrity and Yousef; he’d know what they were both looking at. Stealing the archive logs would make no sense without killing him off, too.”

  She nodded. “But that still doesn’t exempt us from attack.”

  He laughed and rolled onto his backside, sitting up straight, his legs crossed. “Slight problem with your whole theory. I never get attacked. Never. Even on the Spanish Steps, I wasn’t being shot at, and neither were you until you opened fire. The odds of being attacked are slim. Besides, my Office prides itself on not being caught often.” He combed his fingers through his hair. “Although, to tell the truth, I’m a little worried that your guys found out about this before mine did. The Office is usually very good at anticipating problems.” He shrugged. “But then, I’m a goy, what would I know?”

  Shushurin raised a brow. “They keep you out of the loop?”

  Murphy shrugged. “If they did, how would I know? I’m an accountant, not a gunner. I blend in, play with money, incite a riot or two, funnel out information, recruit informants, and disappear.” He smiled. “At least you get to shoot people occasionally.”

  Shushurin chuckled. “Not really. Mostly, I read intelligence reports, and hit the weights or the shooting range. I’m sure you get routine training in at least hand to hand, right? Even target practice?”

  “Um… I know how to fire a gun… I can’t just, well, hit anything with it. I can run really fast, though.”

  She smiled gently. “That’s all right, I’ll protect you.”

  He laughed. “You mean from the evil super-spooks Ryan was talking about?”