by Declan Finn
He sighed. “But we were found. In fact, we were discovered by one of the men we were trying to kill, one of Himmler’s top men. He was technically a second-in-command, but he was in operations, a man named Hans Franke. Only myself and an RAF flyboy named Sinclair made it out. The rest of my men.” The glow in James’ eye had dimmed. “We were separated, but most were machine-gunned. If not, they wouldn’t have made it through interrogation.”
Xavier “XO” O’Brien nodded, and asked knowingly, “And why didn’t you tell anyone?”
James raised a brow. “Didn’t I say that His Holiness asked me not to? He made us swear to never mention the mission, no matter what was said about him or demanded of us. The man had saved my life twice. Once landing in Italy, and then being dragged out of Germany. I couldn’t refuse him. I managed to make my way out, with a little assistance, into Spain and into South America, then up into the States, and they sent me back out into the field.”
Shushurin nodded slowly, looking from XO to James. “Then why are you telling us now?”
Sean nodded at the reasonable question, and then caught something wrong.
“Simple,” James answered. “I’ve wanted to speak since 1945. Every other academic in the field has earned my wrath time and time again, but I held back.” He looked at his grandson and nodded at him. “Now it sounds like my silence will get someone killed. Eugenio, Pius, wouldn’t have wanted that. He even said that martyrdom wasn’t something you could impose on others. He wouldn’t have wanted my silence to cost lives.”
Sean frowned to himself, trying to be subtle about it as he thought through.
The Pope nodded. “I know. The Church as a whole would have spoken out earlier, but the scandal wouldn’t have been acceptable then. Compromising neutrality in a war by assassinating the legal head of state? No, it wouldn’t have looked proper.”
Manana Shushurin turned to the Pope. “You knew?”
The Pope shrugged. “We heard stories, but we had no proof. Not that anyone had gone looking until Hochhuth’s play had come out, and by then there were no written documents for this sort of thing, and in an organization that lives as much on paperwork as the Church, no one would believe we could order a pizza without needing five pounds of paper.”
“Sure feels like it some days,” Xavier muttered.
“No comments from the Jesuit in the corner,” Sean muttered.
Sean thought back of the last few conversations, and the events that led up to this meeting, and tried to figure out if what he saw made any sense. He wasn’t sure it did.
James Ryan nodded. “There was no paperwork that I know of, and I’m aware of plenty of paperwork that had been burned. We were summoned, we left, and we memorized very little. Somehow the instructions had been sent on ahead of us. We never needed to carry anything on us that could give us away.”
Maureen McGrail smiled. “By any chance would one of the priests you came in contact with be named Father Harrington?”
He cocked his head. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess,” she said. “He was killed last week.”
Sean Ryan knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t place it. It was almost a beep …
XO sighed. “Harrington was coming to Rome to face down the devil’s advocate in the Pius XII canonization, possibly to discuss what you just told us.”
Goldberg, who didn’t want to believe any of this, leaned back in her chair. “Which means whoever is killing these folks knows about the attempted assassination. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to kill you yet.”
James smiled. “People have tried to kill me twice in the past few weeks, one time just before I got on the plane to come here.” He leaned over with a smile and said to Sean, “When you also asked about Pinchas Lapide, I thought you might know everything already.”
Murphy furrowed his brow. “Why?”
The old man looked to the man from Mossad, his eyes flickering like electrical bolts. “Because Lapide came to my house once after the war, when he was looking up old veterans, and specifically asked me about the assassination attempt. I told him to never come back, sorry, but I couldn’t tell anyone.”
Murphy cursed. “That’s why the file on Lapide’s book notes was closed — he knew about the attempt. Everyone did. Everyone…” he trailed off a moment. “Everyone in the Office knew.” He blinked. “But if we knew, why the hell didn’t anyone say something?”
XO smiled. “Because they were asked by Pope John XXIII to keep silent.” He puffed on his cigarette and continued.
Sean knew what it was now, an earpiece! “Figlia,” Sean said, reaching into his pockets. “Could you shut down your local comm systems for a few moments? Maybe five seconds?”
Figlia shrugged. “Sure. Why?”
“Trust me.”
Figlia did, and immediately Sean leapt up and screamed, “Turn your earpieces off, everyone!” he shouted in perfect Italian to the Swiss Guards. In his right hand, in his pocket, he pressed the button on a short-range jamming device, making everyone with a working transmission receiver get a sharp piercing noise resembling a tea kettle blasting into the ear.
Manana Shushurin winced in pain, grabbing her head.
The very next thing Sean did was lunge forward and ram his fist into the face of Manana Shushurin with all the grace of a bullet car.
Scott Murphy threw himself on top of Sean, but the stuntman threw him off, and raised a communications earpiece in his hand. “This is what she had in her ear.” He looked at Murphy. “Tell me, Mossad, if you’re her partner, who’s she transmitting to? And who’s talking to her?”
* * *
Upstairs, Ioseph felt the blast in his ears, ripping everything apart. His men fell to their knees, and they had to tear out their earpieces. He had turned off his communications network, as Sean had told Figlia to do, but only for the five seconds Sean had asked for.
The bastard mick left on a jamming device! “Everyone!” he snapped to the men nearest him, “attack!”
* * *
The first man who charged into the reception hall had something of a chance. He swept into the room, two pistols already drawn. With arms wide open as he passed the threshold, he casually fired a round into the head of a Swiss Guard on either side of the doorway. His arms closed together, killing another two. Four had been killed with head shots before any had a chance to draw a weapon…
Except for Sean Ryan, who already had a gun in his hand, and fired — one bullet per eye.
The remaining Swiss Guards had all dropped their medieval weapons and drawn their modern ones, running directly for the Pope.
Giovanni Figlia snapped, “Get him out of here!” He drew his beam Taser gun the size of a Maglite. “Redeploy around the room, see if we can’t box them in when they try again.”
The Swiss Guards, XO and Figlia were halfway towards the back exit when two men appeared in the doorway, firing with Uzis. Three guards were killed before Figlia shot one gunman in the head. The other wheeled around the doorway, biding his time for reinforcements.
Figlia growled, ran at an acute angle toward the door, and then hurled himself sideways like in the soccer days of his youth. And, as in his days on the pitch, he found an opening for his goal in midair, seeing just far enough beyond the doorway to see the killer, and fired as he fell toward the floor. He slid across the marble and rolled to one knee, just in time for another gunman to wheel around to replace his fallen comrade, and fire.
* * *
Wilhelmina Goldberg had her gun out before the fifth Swiss Guard had died, and scanned the room for any other entrances and exits she might have missed. She found Sean on one knee, holding his pistol in classic combat style, using two chairs as a shooting platform.
“Well, Sean,” Goldberg said, “you seem to have hit on something. You think you disoriented their attack?”
Sean growled. “Only three down. If I’d planned this, I’d have at least a dozen.”
Maureen McGrail was also in moti
on, heading directly for the side exit the first shooter had entered. She flattened herself against the wall, waiting for someone else to come in.
“Villie,” Sean said, “go with Maureen, into the hallway, clear the way, and make sure no one else is coming in. If not, we’ll see what else can be done.”
Abasi asked, “And myself? What would you have me do?”
Sean handed him the handgun as he pulled out another. “I’ve got a million of them. Stay here and cover Gianni’s flank.” He looked to Scott Murphy and frowned.
The Mossad agent had been silent for the last sixty seconds. Even when the bullets started flying, he merely stared at the unconscious Shushurin, his eyes wide and unblinking.
Murphy didn’t even have words for what was happening at that precise moment. She was with the other side? That didn’t make any sense, did it? She had saved them multiple times — why would she do that if she were the enemy? Granted, he knew how undercover work went — you befriended the enemy, even as you planned to take them out. But to save them all, even though they were going to be slaughtered? He was somewhere between being lost in an enigma like Winchester House, and having all his organs kicked out through his stomach, leaving him hollow inside.
Sean lightly tapped him on the skull with the pistol. “You all right?”
Murphy stopped staring at Shushurin, only to stare blankly at Sean. “I’m… I just… I have no idea what’s happening.”
Sean frowned. “Look on the bright side, neither do I.” He tossed him a gun. “Try not to blow your foot off.” He thought a moment, realizing he hadn’t brought enough weapons for everyone… for once.
Sean gave another look around the area, sweeping it with his eyes, making certain that the area was secure — Figlia had the gunmen at his end contained — before he turned his attention to his grandfather…
James Ryan was still on the floor, his upper torso covered in blood.
Sean turned to the old man, ignoring the firefight just thirty feet away. He whipped out a handkerchief and pressed down on the wound. “How are you feeling?”
James’s eyes flickered, and he looked up at Sean with his blue eyes and smiled. “I got them, Sean.” His eyes glowed with mirth. “We got the bastards… before they could get me.” His mouth wavered, but the smile remained. “You know now. They’ll pay.”
Sean smiled. “That you did. We know now, and they’re screwed.” He combed away a loose strand of hair from his grandfather’s forehead. “Don’t worry, they missed most of you. You weren’t gotten as bad as you gave.”
James gave a chuckle that turned into a cough. “Sorry… I took them with me. I missed a straightforward TKO… heh.” Blood came out of his mouth, a single drop at the corner of his lip. “I love you, boy…”
At which point a light went out in his eyes, his head rolled to one side, and James Sherman Ryan died.
* * *
Scott Murphy pretty much ignored the scene going on behind him and concentrated on holding the flank along with Hashim Abasi. He looked down at Manana Shushurin briefly, and saw her eyes open, looking right at him. He was about to say something when he saw that look in her eyes — all of the lights in her eyes had gone out. They resembled the eyes of a refugee who had lost everything, especially hope.
Murphy had collected his thoughts just before she gave him a solid uppercut, using that momentum to roll to her feet and run for the platform exit at the front of the room — the one place no one had thought to run to yet.
Murphy picked himself off the floor after a moment and blinked, just in time to see Shushurin hit the exit. For a reason Murphy couldn’t imagine, whether it was rage, or concern, or just plain autopilot, he gave chase.
* * *
Sean stared for a moment at his dead grandfather, a man who had meant more to him than his own father. James had taught him honor, morality, patriotism, and everything it took to make a good human being, when his own father was merely a shadow of the man that his father had been.
Sean quietly and calmly took his hand away, took James’s hands and laid them on his chest. Sean looked up, his eyes alive with malice. Murphy and the traitor were both gone.
“It seems we are alone,” Abasi told him.
Sean glared, and even though he did not look, Abasi felt the gaze. “I don’t care if he’s in on it with her, or she’s by herself, we need them both. The first guy came prepared to take on all of us and twelve Swiss Guards. He’s got to have enough artillery to hold down the fort.” He glanced over his shoulder back at the six remaining guards firing down the back hallway.
Abasi finally spared him a glance, looking directly into Sean’s eyes, a sight of rage that made him wish he hadn’t looked. “What about you?”
Sean picked up one of the discarded halberds. “I’m good.”
He switched the halberd to a two-handed grip, stood, and ran after Scott Murphy and Manana Shushurin. Either she had been involved in killing his grandfather, or they both were.
Either way, someone would pay.
Chapter XX: A Pius Army
Outside, the entire Vatican security office went insane in a matter of moments. After Giovanni Figlia shut down the communications net for more than five seconds, everyone not in the papal reception hall charged toward the building. All of them had been dressed as civilians, meaning to blend in with the tourists, all wearing jackets, which meant that they each carried a submachine gun underneath, in addition to those who were already suiting up inside the office of the Swiss Guard in full body armor, picking up assault rifles, beam Taser rifles, net casters, microwave cannons, and enough gas to clear out most of Rome.
However, on top of the reception hall were ten men, all of them very good at what they did, which was kill people. Each of them had an AK-78, a very accurate assault rifle if fired on semiautomatic. This was how the leader of the squad fired it directly into the heart of Jacob Trainor, the first Swiss Guard to fall. He had also been the only guard dressed in formal wear, since he was going to take his wife out to the ballet that evening.
The Swiss Guards all stopped and hesitated, wondering about the position of the sniper. When all ten men atop the roof and two men in the main doorway fired, the guards quickly pulled back to the colonnade, where the bullets bounced off the marble.
They quickly radioed for sniper assistance, and a position was quickly decided on — they would shoot from the office of the Pope.
“We’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Who has five minutes?”
* * *
The first gunmen Maureen McGrail and Wilhelmina Goldberg came across wheeled around a corner, weapon out, aiming directly at McGrail. McGrail stepped into the weapon, knocking it aside with the palm of her left hand, and sent a deadly shot for his throat with stiff fingers. He tucked his chin, making her fingers hit bone along his jawline, and he hip-checked her into the wall.
His partner, however, was right around the corner and moved a second behind him. The second gunman paused, raised his weapon from McGrail to Goldberg. Goldberg lunged for him. The gunman kicked for her head with enough force to take it off her shoulders. Goldberg dove at the last second, making the kick miss her by a hair, landed on her side and rolled onto her back before he could step on her, then fired three shots up into him. The first shot he felt enter his groin and bounce off his vest into his chest. The next two shots went up his anal sphincter and into his spine.
McGrail absorbed the impact against the wall easily, her shoulders and buttocks taking the brunt of it — it was the same position as though she had been thrown on the floor. She fired a backhanded fist into his nose, breaking it sharply, and jabbed the stiff fingers of her left hand into his diaphragm. His eyes widened for a moment as he lost all control of his breathing. She reached forward, grabbed his head with both hands, and twisted before he could bring his gun to bear. His neck broke with a resounding crack.
McGrail looked around. “Villie?”
Goldberg looked up from the floor. “
A little help here?”
McGrail reached down and lifted the second dead gunman off Goldberg. Goldberg nodded. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
Wilhelmina Goldberg turned her attention to the man she had just killed and picked the radio transmitter from the dead gunman’s belt.
“Now if Sean had turned off his darn jamming device, we could at least send for help.”
“Well, it’s probably the only reason these people can’t be coordinated,” McGrail told her. “Can you cut through Sean’s jamming?”
Goldberg frowned. “Maybe. I went to the Secret Service from the NSA. If you need a radio put together with spit, bailing wire and a combat knife, you call me. The problem is, anyone we called for help would probably be the bad guys themselves, and I’m reasonably certain we don’t want to do that.”
McGrail went through her dead gunman and took his primary weapon and his sheathed combat knife. “You want?”
Goldberg shrugged. “Sure.” She glanced at her would-be killer once more. “Does your guy have a secondary weapon?”
She nodded. “A Stechkin.”
“Just like Manana’s.”
* * *
Scott Murphy ran after Manana Shushurin through the hallway. He remembered his weapons training well enough that he knew to hold the gun low, and how to chamber the round and turn off the safety, but he wasn’t certain he could hit her without coming to a stop and taking the time to aim. Given her speed, he concluded that coming to a stop would mean she’d just keep running and probably get away.
I just have to chase her until she stops and faces me. And do I really want to draw down on a fully-trained, highly intelligent assassin who had arms training from conception?
Murphy turned off his mind, because he knew the answer already. There was only one thing he wanted at the moment: the truth. He had fallen for the woman in more ways than one — her story, her cover, her information, her looks, and the lights in her eyes… that look of joy in her face …