A Pius Man_A Holy Thriller

by Declan Finn

  Scott Murphy let out a relaxed breath and moved back to the chair, next to Shushurin. “While I think of it, maybe we should ask how anyone found out about Sean’s theory in time to attack him.”

  Shushurin nodded as though the entire previous conversation hadn’t even happened. “And while I think of it, who were you talking with, Father Williams? The one you stopped with today?”

  Frank blinked, almost bemused. “Him? No one important. Just a weekly penitent. He prefers a more informal setting than churches. It helps him talk more freely.”

  Shushurin nodded, thought a moment. “So, that only leaves how they knew about Sean’s theory without an insider.”

  Sean shrugged. “I suppose it’s possible that they were watching to see who came out that they could pick off. I mean, we’ve run out of suspects. Can even Mr. Paranoid Mossad Person agree that the Pope isn’t a suspect?”

  Murphy looked to his boss. “I don’t know. Can I?”

  Bishop O’Brien nodded. “I think so.”

  “I am so glad you think I am innocent,” came the thick accented voice of Pius XIII. He sidestepped into the doorway, directly behind XO.

  Commandatore Figlia sighed. “Per favore, Your Holiness, can you stop being so quiet?”

  Pius XIII waved it away. “I like hearing what my clergy say about me.” He looked around the room and closed the door behind him. He noted Captain Wayne. “Frank’s father?”

  Wayne smiled. “No, he’s the father, I’m just the dad.”

  “Ah, of course. You also worked with Mr. Mossad?”

  Goldberg raised her hand. “Excuse me, but what is this ‘Mr. Mossad’ business?”

  The Pope glanced her way. “That is his name, Scott ‘Mossad’ Murphy, as opposed to your infamous John ‘Taliban’ Walker.”

  Scott Murphy winced. He had kept at least his name safe. Now he’d been outed by the Pope?

  “Charming,” Goldberg murmured.

  Sean interjected, “To get back to the topic of a few minutes ago, it looks like everyone is cleared of being a spy …”

  Sean Ryan looked at the agents from the BND, Interpol, Mossad, Vatican Intelligence, the Vatican’s Central Office of Vigilance, the Secret Service, the Egyptian police force, and quickly said, “Well, no one’s a spy working for the bad guys, anyway.” He smiled. “Does anyone else feel like we’ve assembled the Avengers?”

  Goldberg growled. “But we’re no closer to who the enemy is. It’s not like they signed their names or left a card. We have an Italian assassin meeting with Father Williams in one week and a different silver-haired priest the next — given that a man with the same hair color attacked Sean—”

  “We can assume that they are all the same person,” Abasi concluded.

  * * *

  Ioseph Andrevich Mikhailov loaded his weapon. He checked his watch, then turned to his men.

  “Our ‘Little Gentleman’ will be a little slow this evening, so we can all take off. When I hear back from our insider, I’ll notify you of your assignments based on the intel I get. We’ll move within the next day or two. They’ve either come to the wrong conclusion, or they’re on to us. It doesn’t matter. Either way, it’s too late for them to do anything. All that matters is that we do what we came to do.

  “We will kill the Pope.”

  * * *

  Sean nodded at Abasi’s statement. “That’s a good guess.” He looked at his watch. “I suppose that it’s time we all get the heck out of here. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starved.”

  Goldberg laughed a little, and the others all turned to her. She blinked, then noted the attention. She smirked ruefully. “I was hoping for a slightly more dramatic reveal, but I suppose that now is as good a time as any.”

  For once, for the first time in what felt like weeks, everyone in the room but Wilhelmina Goldberg looked confused. She gave a pleasant sigh. “Well, this is far more enjoyable than being left in the dust by all of you. I’m not a spy, or a bodyguard, or a tactician. I’m a researcher, a computer geek.”

  Giovanni Figlia slumped back into his chair, clearing his throat. He had been tired of everyone running roughshod over his office for the past thirty-six hours. “Agent Goldberg, if you do not mind, per favore, I do not want you to turn into Signor Ryan on us.”

  Sean started and blinked, as though being awoken from a deep sleep. “Excuse me?”

  Abasi raised his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat, stifling a laugh. “You were a little, um… over dramatic during your presentation of research.”

  McGrail snickered. “Wasn’t it more like melodramatic and over-delivered?”

  Goldberg cut in before she was talked to death. “I figured I’d save the best for last. You see, I came across a name in the archives that just smacks of irony — the authorization of funds for a mission led by a James Ryan.” Goldberg laughed at it, and even Figlia gave a relaxed grin.

  In fact, everyone smiled — except for Sean.

  A voice cold enough to frighten the damned souls in the ninth circle of Hell said, “Say that again.”

  Goldberg stopped laughing and blinked. “There was an authorization note for funds backing a trip for someone named James Ryan.”

  Sean straightened, and he reached for his cell phone like some would reach for a weapon. He calmly flipped open the cell. He looked to the Pope and O’Brien. “Who hired me?”

  The Pope and the head of the Office of Vigilance exchanged a glance. Figlia answered. “The Pacelli family is paying for you—”

  “I know that,” Sean interjected. “I said who hired me. Why was I hired?”

  Figlia leaned back in his chair. “Again, the Pacellis. You came highly recommended—”

  Sean jabbed the cell in his direction like a knife. “Why did they want me?”

  Figlia blinked, mouth open. “You know, I had not thought of that.”

  The Pope shrugged. “We had assumed that your reputation preceded you.”

  Sean blinked. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “They didn’t want me because of my reputation; there are plenty of people on the continent. Why get an American? Because they know my family, they’ve dealt with us before. The Pacelli family knows someone in my family.”

  Wilhelmina Goldberg nodded slowly, thinking that Sean had completely lost his mind — assuming he ever had much of it to start with. “Um, okay, that’s good,” she said in the voice the Secret Service used when dealing with the deranged. “I’m sure the Pope can call them. Isn’t that right, sir?”

  “Don’t bother,” Sean Ryan snapped as he dialed. “I know exactly who it is — there’s only one option that makes any sense. That’s why they came after me before. These buggers didn’t come after me just because I knew something. They came after me because I know someone who does.”

  Abasi nodded slowly, not certain whether or not Goldberg’s assessment was off. “That’s good. Who?”

  Sean raised his cell phone to his ear. “Villie said it before, James Ryan… my grandfather.” Sean waited a few rings. “I was going to call him before I was shot at, since his resume is—”

  * * *

  The sirens passed by his house, and he sighed, remembering things past.

  James Sherman Ryan had hit eighty-five not too long ago, and was fast approaching death, as he liked to put it. The old man was of medium height and build for a younger man, and amazingly strong for one of his age. His face was heavily crinkled with smile lines, and his electric blue eyes twinkled under the airport lights. His hair was solid gray, as if the last of the color hung on for dear life. His limbs were spindly but his torso was thick, bordering on bulky. Most of the muscles weren’t as firm as they once were, and he had a noticeable limp from a war wound involving shrapnel.

  He had moved to London five years before to try and remember some of the oddness of his youth after the war. The days in the Office of Strategic Services had been fun, and far more dangerous than he had been allowed to tell. There were things h
e did and people he killed that he still wasn’t allowed to reveal, in part because he had performed operations with members of the British SAS, and thus under the British Official Secrets Act, which put him under a vow of silence until the year 2045.

  But the British weren’t all that bad, certainly not half as bad as the French. He had spent time in Paris after freeing the city. The Parisians had been spitting on him and the other American soldiers. Everyone claimed to be part of the resistance, and many of them really had no problem walking people to the death camps, loading them on trains for somewhere else.

  The memories of London were far friendlier, especially since he met his wife there, producing little Clarence Ryan, not to mention finding his movie career after the war. He wasn’t all that thrilled that his son had gone into Holly-wierd like he had — by that time, Hollywood had become filled with rejects from the Communist Party, and the Screen Actors Guild had paychecks drawn from Moscow.

  But at least here is nice. He reached over to his nightstand, opened the drawer, and pulled out his Colt 1911A .45, his constant companion since the war, cleaned daily, and fired at least once every month.

  The gun was still in his hand when the phone rang. “Hello?” he answered.

  Half a continent away, Sean turned away from the rest of the room, head bowed as he concentrated on the call. “Hi, Granddad, how’re you doing?”

  James blinked. “I was about to hit the sack… Sean, right? Not your dad… What’s the matter? You said you’d be out of touch for a while.”

  Sean smiled. “You served in the OSS, right?”

  Silence. “I was in the operations division. Why?”

  “Were you ever in Italy? I’m in Rome right now, and there’s something that involves a man named Lapide, Pius XII and—”

  “I’ll be on the first plane.”

  Sean wasn’t shocked by the reaction, but just nodded. “Gotcha. Before you hang up! Watch your back, there are people dying over this.”

  After a moment, James Sherman Ryan laughed. “Sean! Of course they are, you’re involved! Anything else?”

  “Only if you knew an Israeli diplomat named Lapide.”

  It was at that point that the door of James’ bedroom smashed in. There was death, smoke, and the smell of gun smoke in the air within seconds.

  * * *

  Sean A.P. Ryan looked at the cell phone in his hands as the line exploded in gunfire. He blinked, caught with the look of a stunned deer. The gunshots were loud enough that he needed to jerk the phone away from his head, and even the others in the office could hear through the receiver.

  And then it went dead.

  Sean hit redial, ignoring the others, hoping that by ignoring them, he could reach his grandfather by sheer force of will. After the ninth ring, he turned to the others. “Everyone grab a phone. I’ll tell you what to dial. Whoever gets through first, wins.”

  Everyone stared at him a moment, looking as though he had grown six feet and sprouted horns. He narrowed his eyes into slits. “Now, dammit!”

  * * *

  The phone rang in the London home of James Sherman Ryan, war hero and actor, and there was no answer in the dead silence after the gun battle, such as it was — however, there was no contest between four heavily-armed and well-trained assassins versus one old World War II vet with a handgun. The faint smell of gunshot residue hung in the air, and a body was atop the phone, gun still clasped in its cold dead hand. After a moment, a survivor decided to answer, and picked it up.

  “Hello?” he grumbled, disguising his voice.

  “Hello, is this James Ryan?”

  “Um, yes.” He didn’t recognize the voice. Was this just a telemarketer with bad timing? “And you are?”

  “I’m Superintendent Maureen McGrail, Interpol, aren’t I calling on behalf of your grandson? Are you all right?”

  “Tell Sean that this old man still knows how to take care of himself.”

  “Granddad,” came Sean’s voice, “you okay?”

  He blinked for a moment, uncertain of what to do. He cleared this throat, and James Sherman Ryan spoke with his normal voice. “I blew the bastards away — they hit my bedroom, emptied enough bullets to shred my mattress, but I was in the room across the hall, in the guest room I use for storage! I stepped in and fired with my old .45; I think I got three out of four before they even noticed me. Can you imagine? They only sent four, and after I took on an entire squad of Nazi bastards with my Thompson, a box of hand grenades and an anti-tank Piet. Maybe I should’ve showed them my Congressional Medal of Honor before I blew them all to hell, eh? Ha!”

  It was times like this that merely affirmed Sean’s belief that a lot of genes skipped a generation between James and himself. “I’m surprised they didn’t see it themselves before going after you — they knew me and my patent disrespect for national landmarks. They were waiting for me at one point, like they knew I’d be there.”

  “Ah well, don’t worry about it, I beat those bastards back like disobedient dogs. I’ll be down there, don’t worry about it. See you soon. Bye.” He hung up, looked at the bodies in his bedroom. “Maybe I should call the cops before I go. They’re not going to like this, no, not at all. Heck, I think they’re still on my case for the last time this happened… maybe I should’ve told Sean about that, too.”

  * * *

  Sean gently lowered the phone, letting out a breath. “Anyway,” he said, speaking as though nothing had happened, “I’ve left out a bit of info. My grandfather served in Rome in World War II as part of the OSS. He’s flying in tomorrow, and he can fill us all in from there.”

  Murphy said, “Great. In that case, we can do some of that thinking later. Maybe all of you can tell me exactly what you know about the Pope — Pius XII, I mean.”

  Goldberg laughed. “You’re going to want a seat.”

  Chapter XIX: A Pius Plan

  Hours later, Scott Murphy nearly fell into the chair in his hotel room. “Well, it looks like Pius XII is going to be canonized after all.”

  “Looks that way,” Shushurin agreed, taking her shirt off.

  Murphy blinked, noted the black bra, and quickly reverted to looking at her eyes only.

  She caught his quick, reflexive action, and laughed. “Are you always this cautious?”

  “Well,” Murphy said. He slid down in the seat. His head came to rest on the back of the chair, looking at the ceiling. He tried to make it look casual, but it was obvious he was uncomfortable. “I’d generally at least appreciate your form, but I try not to do that with women who can shoot me. No offense.”

  She smiled, grabbed her gun, and put it on the nightstand next to the bed. “None taken. Besides, I get leered at every day, and hell, I can strip naked and not mind — that’s the training. Learn to not mind being naked before the enemy, because stripping you naked to shame you is a common interrogation tactic.”

  Murphy chuckled as he studied a crack in the ceiling. “Yes, but I should theoretically have more respect for you than an interrogator, right?”

  “I’d certainly hope so. But then again, if I found someone who respected me, I wouldn’t be single.” Shushurin paused for a moment. “All right, but the rest of them are married.”

  He laughed and finally let himself look at her, keeping his eyes locked above her neck. “Well, I’ve got some vacation time coming up soon enough, if you want to… what is that phrase? Oh, yes, ‘have some coffee sometime.’ ” He stopped and laughed. “Wow, I can’t ever say that with a straight face.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “And you’re a spy?”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  Shushurin lightly laughed. She unhooked the bra and casually slipped on a t-shirt. He jerked himself away from her, fumbled for his pipe next to him.

  “You are easy, aren’t you?” she asked from behind him.

  He looked up, sensing it was safe, and then smiled awkwardly. Shushurin was wearing only her black underwear and a t-shirt that said “Shuck me, suck me, eat me r
aw,” and under it said “(New Orleans Oysters).”

  He laughed. “Cute shirt.”

  Shushurin did a mock-sigh. “I’m so glad I’m not trying to seduce you — it would be an act of utter frustration.”

  He gave a self-depreciating smile. “Probably. Then again, if you did, I’d probably die from either shock or delight.”

  Shushurin laughed. “You really are a little weird. But you’re cute anyway.”

  “So I’ve been told by an extremely reliable and attractive source,” he looked at his watch, “about thirty hours ago.”

  She did the math in her head and stretched out on the bed. “Give or take.”

  He let his eyes wander briefly over her body, part in appreciation, partly in analysis, and found she was an enhanced stereotype of every romance novel known to man: long legs, good measurements, flawless face, soft skin, and from what he could tell, a very trim stomach. She didn’t have full lips, but they were thick enough to exist without being thin.

  In short, she really should have been breaking hearts in high school, not arms. Well, I hope she wasn’t doing that literally, though with her training she might have been.

  Murphy noted that she had made certain her gun was between her and the door before she lay down — leaving the side of the bed away from the door free for him. Still trying to protect the poor little spy, are we?

  He gave his next move some thought, figuring he should stay fully dressed, just in case something went bump in the night, so he could easily move while Shushurin bumped right back at them.

  Murphy placed his pipe on his nightstand, slipped off his shoes, and slipped onto the covers next to her. He looked at her for a long moment. He could feel her next to him – feel her body heat, smell her delightful perfume, and felt his heartbeat accelerate.

  I should have stayed in the chair. This is too close to temptation. “What do you intend to do with me?”

  Shushurin turned onto her side, propping her head on one hand. Her smile was amused, and her eyes twinkled. “What do you mean?”