by Declan Finn
The large Pope smiled at them unpleasantly. “Please, put down your weapons, and surrender.”
The one in the middle grinned at him, raised his gun, and fired into the Pope’s chest.
* * *
Murphy had apparently chased Shushurin into a dead end, sort of. Basically, Murphy stood at the corner of two hallways, and cut off both of her exit routes, while Shushurin was at the opposite corner of the square. She could come around from either side, but she would have to pass by him either way.
Murphy’s pistol was ahead of him, one hand on the pistol grip, the other hand cupping the first. He remembered the basic form from his training, but if it came to real gunplay, he would last about two gunshots. Probably both to the back of my head. “Mani,” he called down the hallway, “I just want to talk.”
“About what?” her voice came from around the corner. The only exit other than going directly past him was to his right. Murphy turned toward it, gun at the ready, steadily making his way down the hall toward her voice.
“I think the truth would be a very good place to start,” he called back. He slowly lowered himself to one knee, not to steady his aim, but hoping to make himself a smaller target
“Everything I told you was true,” her voice echoed back. It sounded sad and lonely.
Murphy smiled. “I think you might have left out a few things.”
There was a moment of silence. Her voice came around the bend in the hallway. She spoke slowly and carefully. “After I joined BND, my father came back. He told me if I didn’t help him, he’d make my history public knowledge; what the Soviets trained me for, all of it. I’d be ruined at best, jailed at worst — he even has fake documents about my training and ‘proof’ of my continued Russian employment.”
Murphy winced. He liked her father less and less. He shifted to steady his stance. “What did he want you to do?”
“Give him information, until now,” Shushurin answered. “On this mission, he sent me to keep tabs on you. He had me share everything with him — gave me the equipment, the money. The transmitters, bugs, phones, all on a shared frequency so he could listen in.”
Murphy nodded to himself. That explained a lot. The gunmen knew to be set up at the Spanish Stepsbecause they were attached to the bug Murphy had placed on the car, the one he got from her. Sean Ryan and McGrail had been attacked shortly after they had caught him and Shushurin. Murphy had heard from Goldberg about Sean’s idea of a Soviet training regimen — then Sean was attacked. He had initially thought that the German BND had merely given her a bigger budget than Mossad allowed him… but she had talked about paying for the hotel with money “by other means.”
Meaning the bad guys. And that’s why she was so down after saving Sean Ryan in the alleyway two nights ago — she had been expected to kill him. One problem. He flipped a mental coin and started working his way down the hall to his right, very, very slowly. “There’s a hitch in your story, Manana. The Spanish Steps? You could’ve plead ignorance and let Ryan drive into the trap. We’d have been too late to do anything. Father Williams was there, but you couldn’t have known that. Even if you did, you had no way of knowing he’d draw enough fire to get them out alive. Why did you rush to save them?”
“I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, dammit,” she objected down the hall. “I could not save Gerrity, but I could stop them from killing anyone else.”
Murphy nodded slowly. “And what did you tell your… father?”
Shushurin laughed bitterly. “That I had to keep my cover with you. Thankfully, Father Williams arrived, or it would’ve been suspicious driving them all off by myself.”
“Hmm… and they would’ve known you weren’t playing along with them,” Murphy concluded. “Nice version of events. Now what?”
“And now,” she replied, her voice filled with sorrow, “you’ll all have to die. If you don’t, I’m dead. So is my mother.”
“There’s another way,” he said, edging closer toward her voice, gun ahead of him. “You could come to work for the Office. We’ve employed worse. I’ll vouch for you. You get immunity, your mother gets protection, and we walk away. If you want, I’ll put you up in my place until you get on your feet — you could have my bed, I’ll take my couch, and I have a nice bottle of Sabra we can crack open.… Come on, what do you say?” He paused.
The hammer of a gun was cocked not five feet behind him. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
* * *
Kevlar does not stop a bullet dead in its tracks. According to the laws of physics that is impossible. The most it can do is diffuse the power of the bullet by spreading it out along the Kevlar armor. The size of an AK-74 bullet, for example, translated into, roughly, a 30 caliber round. However, like any other bullet, it travels at hundreds of meters per second. The power of that is translated to the smallest point of the tip of that bullet.
The very point of Kevlar is to take that power, and spread it from an area 7.62 millimeters around into an area equal to that of the bulletproof vest. Usually, that meant a feeling like being slapped in the chest by a three square foot slab of sheet metal, going at ten miles an hour. The result usually meant broken ribs and a torso the color of a giant bruise. It would suck, but the wearer would live.
However, that was only for a regular bulletproof vest, fit to match the normal human torso.
If the Kevlar vest was over six feet tall, and more than three feet wide, the damage is even more distributed. And when it hits an object weighing over three hundred pounds, much of it solid muscle, the damage is even more limited.
Which is the only reason that Pope Pius XIII, born Joshua Kutjok, was able to simply stand there, looking down at his chest, after having three rifle bullets pumped into his torso. It didn’t even knock him down, just made him stagger backwards a little.
The man who shot him, as well as his two companions, had already moved along, leaving him for dead.
When His Holiness realized that he was alive, he turned on his attacker. Both hands grabbed the stock of the barrel as the assassin passed by him, and jerked the assault rifle out of his hands.
The assassin gaped as his AK disappeared from his grasp. He didn’t really even notice when the Pope thrust the rifle butt straight into his jaw, the power of the impact crushing the bone, snapping his head around. He was unconscious before he even hit the floor.
The assassin’s two companions were caught equally off-guard when the Pope wielded the rifle like a baseball bat. The wooden stock smacked against one man’s hip, dislocating it with a crack. The Pope shoved the wounded assassin into the one left standing, and bowled both of them over.
When the other killer, pinned by his fallen comrade, tried to bring his weapon to bear, the Pope put his foot down — right onto the barrel of the gun, pinning it. With one last swing, the Pope used the gun like a golf club, driving it in between the man’s legs.
The assassin went cross-eyed, and passed out.
The Pope, panting, looked at the three men and gasped, “And that… is how we do it… in Sudan.”
He dropped the gun, and moved to the cloud of smoke, and the noises of Abasi in struggle.
And stopped as the smoke cleared, revealing another gunman, his handgun raised, pointed at the Pope’s head.
* * *
The Egyptian police officer struck his opponent with an uppercut, then clamped down with his hand on the gunman’s shoulder, continuing to punch him with his left fist. His adversary kneed him in the stomach, and Abasi fought to hold on, biting the bastard’s arm, and not letting go. The gunman roared. They landed on the floor, rolling, punching, kicking, all professionalism gone. With one proper punch, Abasi broke one of his attacker’s ribs, while the other man went for more damage around the face, usually punches that turned into slaps. Abasi reached up to gouge out the man’s eyes, and when the attacker waved the hands away, Abasi changed the direction of his thrust …
Abasi swept his hands outward, grabbing the gunman’s arms and pulling him
close, slamming his forehead into the bastard’s nose, before literally biting into his throat, pulling with his teeth.
As they continued to struggle, Abasi thought. Where’s the Pope?
* * *
As the smoke cleared, and Abasi still grappled with his attacker, the gunman the Pope had hit with the smoke grenade was already standing, holding a gun on him.
He smiled, coming closer to the Pope. “Hello, Your Eminence.”
Pius XIII cocked his head. “You call a Cardinal ’Your Eminence.’ I’m ‘Your Holiness.’”
“I hear that you like to shuck the formality of the title,” he replied in unaccented English.
“Shuck yourself.” The Pope’s eyes narrowed. “For you, I will make an exception. What do you want to do now? Kill me?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. Sergei,” he gestured to the man who had shot the Pope before, “forgot himself. The point now is to kill the investigators; they might be believed. They’ve heard the truth, and can’t be allowed to live. Anyone who lives will come back for you. I’ll kill anyone who’s left.”
A soft, gentle voice said, “I’d like to test that theory.”
With an impressive whirl, the gunman wheeled behind the Pope, gun to his head.
Pius XIII cocked an eyebrow as he saw Father Frank Williams, holding a Stechkin.
* * *
“The marble walls around here provide an excellent echo effect,” Manana Shushurin told Murphy, her gun at his head.
The Mossad agent let his handgun fall to the ground. “You want me on one knee or two?”
“Either will do,” Shushurin answered.
Murphy sank to both knees, hands up, staring straight at the wall. “I used to do this as an altar boy. I think I can manage.”
He waited for a count of ten, swiftly going through an Our Father in his head before he asked, “Are you going to shoot me, or just stand there?”
She blinked. “I’m getting to it.”
Murphy sighed. “Mani, do me a favor, and kill me now.”
She smiled oddly. “You in a hurry?”
“No. But after falling in love with a woman just in time to have her pull a gun on me, I don’t want this around the Office.” He smiled sadly. “It should have occurred to me that there was more to you being single. While your father had control over you, you couldn’t allow anyone in. Generous and understanding of you.”
Murphy put one hand on the ground, and slowly turned himself around to face Shushurin. He wound up looking down the barrel of her Stechkin. It looked much larger from this angle — like an artillery piece. “Besides, you have to kill me now. If you’re going to do it, I want you to at least have a fighting chance of getting away. If you’re not going to do it, then …”
He let himself relax. The rest of his life was out of his hands. “Make up your mind, Mani. You know better than I do that you need to hurry.”
She let out an unsteady breath. The lights in her eyes were dim now. “I know,” she said softly, almost weakly. “I just …” She cleared her throat, and her voice broke as she said, “I don’t want to, Scott.”
Murphy forced his eyes to lock onto hers. “Fine, Manana, then don’t! Save yourself and leave, or defect, or… or… darn, I should be able to come up with another option.”
“You mean aside from fighting me?”
He snickered. “You’re kidding, right?” He looked down at his pale, scrawny form, then looked up at her again. “This is not the body of a Sean Ryan. I’m not a hero, Mani. And besides, even if I could, I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”
Shushurin smiled at last, and her gun slowly lowered.
Murphy pushed off the ground with enough force to send him within arm’s length of her ankles. He grabbed them and pulled sharply, sending her off her feet. He scrambled over her body as the bullet passed through where her head had been moments before.
Murphy glared at Sean Aloysius Patricus Ryan, who held himself in the perfect gunman’s stance, the stuntman’s eyes alight with rage.
Murphy’s eye twitched. “What the hell are you doing, Sean?”
Sean Ryan scowled at Murphy. “Saving your life, you fool.”
The Mossad spy merely kept up the glare. “I just got her to defect, you schmuck.”
Sean shifted his aim, and Murphy couldn’t tell if it was at him or Shushurin. “And my grandfather just got his chest blown out.” He cocked the gun. “You want to talk reason with me now, Mr. Golden Goy? You want to explain why I shouldn’t kill you for bringing her and her buddies within spitting distance of my grandfather?”
“No,” said a voice from behind him. “But I probably should.”
Sean grimaced, and didn’t even look behind him. “Bishop O’Brien, what the hell are you doing?”
The bishop paused for a moment to light a cigarette. “There were better things I could do than stand around waiting to be shot at. Given your reputation, it was safer following you.” He took a drag and let it out slowly. “You generally have a method of clearing dangers away.” He let out a puff of smoke. “How are you, Scott?”
Murphy glared around Sean. “Boss, stop acting like an XOB — I mean SOB — and cut out the wiseass routine.”
“It’s not a routine,” Xavier answered. “I’m a Jesuit.”
Shushurin pushed her gun away from her so that it slid across the floor. “Scott, get off me.”
He looked down at her. “He’s going to kill you.”
She smiled, her starlit eyes shining once more, and kissed him gently on the lips. “He’s going to blow through you to get to me, and that would pretty much miss the point of the last five minutes. So get off before I toss you off.”
Murphy complied, sliding off her. She easily flipped to her feet and turned to Sean. “If you want to kill me, please, do it; when my bosses find out about me, I am going to be shot. So go right ahead, save them the trouble.”
Sean smiled evilly. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Why not? You’re already tempted, aren’t you?”
Bishop O’Brian calmly stepped next to Sean. “Mr. Ryan, I’m certain you’re not into ‘vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,’ but—”
Sean spared him a glance. “Retribution is not vengeance. Vengeance is overkill. Retribution is just payment for what one has earned. Re-tribute, re-payment, same Latin roots.”
Shushurin was about to interrupt, when she suddenly caught the motion ahead of her, behind O’Brien and Sean Ryan. Her entire universe tunneled down to the hallway directly ahead of her — all three of them.
She saw the gun, the priest, the stuntman, and the motion just beyond. As quickly as possible, with reflexes that some would have thought surpassed the speed of lightning, Manana Shushurin leapt forward. She pushed off of her right foot, twisting and extending her left side forward. Her left hand closed around Sean Ryan’s gun and pushed it to her right, moving it off line. Her right hand grabbed the gun as well as she slammed into Sean, toppling him. She straightened both of her arms, pushing the gun straight up. Her finger slid over his in the trigger guard, and she squeezed once, twice, and eventually, six times.
Sixty feet down the hall, a man dressed in a Swiss Guard uniform, holding an MP5 submachine gun, fell to the ground, quite dead.
Sean stared in disbelief at the dead man, half-stunned that the bastard had even managed to wake up after he had put him down not five minutes before.
Bishop O’Brien hadn’t moved from his position, and calmly inhaled on his cigarette. “What were you saying, Mr. Ryan?”
* * *
The gunman smiled at Father Frank, still holding onto the Pope. The priest seemed confident about the way he held his weapon, but the Russian mercenary was doubly so about his position. “You can’t kill me, priest, we both know that. Your vows forbid it. So just throw away the gun, and we’ll call it a day.”
The priest smiled serenely, his violet eyes glowing with peace. This was wildly out of place, considering that he held the pistol before him like a prof
essional who had only practiced an hour ago. “I doubt it.”
The hostage taker smiled. “Fine, put up the gun or I’ll simply kill your boss.”
Frank Williams nodded. “I will be happy to do so.”
He raised the muzzle of the gun, and fired on full automatic, emptying the entire magazine. The gunman looked up as the sound of shattering crystal filled the room. The giant crystal chandelier above him broke off its chain and came hurtling down directly at him.
The Pope twisted, striking at the hostage taker before leaping aside. The gunman, dazed by the papal punch, barely had time to react before the chandelier crushed him.
The two priests looked at the damage, breathing heavily. After a moment of examination, Father Frank sighed. “I thought he would be able to leap away faster than that.”
The Pope rose to his feet, brushing off his robes. “You’re forgiven. Say two Hail Marys and call it a day.”
He nodded again, about to berate himself again for not taking him alive, and paused. “Do you hear that?”
Pius XIII cocked his head, and heard thumping and growling. “Abasi!”
The Pope and Frank ran for the Egyptian policeman, and got there in time to see Abasi holding the gunman high above his head and slamming him into the wall. When the attacker still thrashed about, he hurled him headlong into the opposite wall.
Abasi stared at him for a moment, breathing heavily. When his opponent didn’t get up again, Abasi turned to the two priests. He wiped away blood from his forehead, reached to get a handkerchief from his suit jacket pocket, and discovered that it, like half of the jacket, was covered in blood.
“Don’t worry, it’s not mine,” Abasi told them. He straightened, and winced painfully. “But I may be wrong.”
The three of them walked — or in Abasi’s case, limped — into the center of the main hall.
The first thing the Pope did was move to James Ryan’s body and say, “Ego te absolve in nomine Patris et Filii et Spritus Sancti,” the words of last rites.
By the time he was done,