by Declan Finn
Goldberg winced. Not only because the President was that closed-minded about it, but because she had had the same impression not a week ago. “Well, Mr. President, there is no such thing as historians who have a consensus. On pretty much anything. Even if they all agree on what happened, they don’t all necessarily agree on why it happened.”
The President stared at her for a moment with a look she could only classify as haughty. “Tell me less about history, and more about current events, Agent Goldberg. Like who was driving an armored SUV down the Spanish Steps.”
“Do you know about a man named Sean A.P. Ryan?”
* * *
“Sean Ryan? The American bastard?” Interpol Captain Seamus O’Connor said. “Really?”
Interpol officer Maureen McGrail smiled at her superior officer. She could understand the man’s issue; Sean Ryan had been a slight pain in her behind on a trip to America not too long ago. “Aye, sir. The very same.”
“What the bloody heck is he doing in Rome?”
Maureen shrugged. Her raven-black hair fell over her shoulders. “Training priests and nuns in self-defense.”
“But this man lists his resume in body count and property damage.”
She nodded. “They didn’t ask us when he was hired. Anyway, he had heard I was en route and wanted to pick me up from the airport. He was behind the wheel when we were shot at.”
“Suddenly, all of these shootouts make a lot more sense.”
“More or less. Anyway, the gunmen were waiting for us. And we got away by the skin of our teeth.” And one or two other people involved. But I won’t drag in Mossad, and the less said about Manana Shushurin, the better.
“And you were there just to ask some questions about a priest—why would anyone want to take a shot at you along with the rest of these jokers?”
“The priest killed in Dublin was murdered because he was going to testify on the Pope Pius XII canonization. He was an eye witness to events in Rome at the time. He was even involved in an attempt to assassinate Hitler.”
O’Connor blanched. “What?”
“You’re aware that the Vatican and much of the clergy were involved in hiding escaped POWs in Rome, aren’t you?” she asked, her bright green eyes lighting up.
“Who isn’t? Wasn’t it an Irishman in charge of a few thousand of them?”
“Aye,” Maureen confirmed, “and wasn’t he a Hugh O’Flaherty?” She blinked as she started to fall into her native Irish ability to answer questions with questions. If I keep this up, this will take forever. “Well, there was a plan to take a team of POWs, send them into World War II Germany, and kill Hitler and as much of his high command as possible.”
“And how did you find out about this?” O’Connor asked.
“We came across another Ryan while digging through the archives. Apparently, Pope Pius XII’s family, Italian nobility, recommended Sean Ryan because they knew his grandfather James. James Ryan was still alive and well, despite best efforts to the contrary.” Maureen’s heart dropped as she considered the old man with the twinkle in his eye, and a .45 in his suitcase. “He came, told us about the assassination plot, and we were attacked again. We lost Sean’s grandfather.”
O’Connor nodded. “Sorry to hear that. Do you know who’s behind it?”
“Three countries that we know of—China, North Korea, and North Sudan.”
O’Connor smiled. “And aren’t those all of the people that the Pope has been focused on lately?”
“Yup.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“The leader of the mercenaries is dead. Any plan of theirs is out in the open, and dismantled. What more can be done?”
O’Connor raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you still in Rome? Didn’t you find out why your victim was killed? Isn’t it obvious a hitman was hired by these countries, or subcontracted by the mercenaries? Aren’t you done now? Is there anything you haven’t told me that I should know?”
“Of course not. Not a thing.” Except for Manana Shushurin.
* * *
“Tell me more about this Manana Shushurin,” the head of the CIA asked Captain Wayne Williams Sr., US Army (Ret.).
“She has all the looks of a Russian mail-order bride, with the brains of an intelligence analyst and the skills of a field operative,” the old spy told him. Captain Williams was a sixty-year-old man with the body of a forty-year-old assassin.
“Sounds like a daughter-in-law,” Weaver joked. DCI Charles Weaver was built like a refrigerator with a basketball for a head. His pro-wrestler build had been an asset in the Navy SEALs, and there had been more than one person who had called him “Stone Cold” as a nickname.
“Nah. Frank’s a priest, and Junior is busy,” Wayne said. “Unfortunately, it’s a long story.”
Weaver smiled. “I’ll find the time.”
“Have you ever heard of a Cardinal named Canella?”
The Director of Central Intelligence nodded. “I remember. There was a drug smuggling ring that had given money to the Cardinal’s diocese.”
Wayne nodded. “Cardinal Canella is a member of the Markist Brothers—a German religious organization created in 1958, the year Pope Pius XII died. Apparently, during the transition between Popes, someone slipped in documents saying the Pope signed off on the society.”
Weaver frowned deeply. “That means the Pope didn’t approve of them?”
“You got it, Charlie. It’s a Soviet front organization created over fifty years ago. By all accounts, from the Church’s viewpoint, the Markists are a dying organization—have been pretty much from day one, but they’ve gone into a rapid decline over the past twenty years.”
“Because they lacked any control from Moscow,” DCI Weaver concluded. “And how does he connect to a major shootout in the Vatican, resulting in several dead Swiss Guards and at least two civilians on the deck?”
“James Ryan and Dr. David Gerrity,” Wayne supplied. “Cardinal Canella now has new handlers—same as the old handlers. The plan included killing the Pope, and allowing someone more reasonable to take his place—someone from the Markists. John Paul II, however, lived, and the Soviet plan couldn’t work. However, the mercenaries upgraded the plan, and sold it to the highest bidder.”
Weaver nodded to himself, thinking over the agenda of the new Pope, and who he could have offended badly enough to kill him. “Let me guess, some of his old adversaries in Sudan don’t want him doing to them what JPII did to the Soviets? The Norks and the PRC as well?”
“Bingo, old buddy,” Wayne said casually. “They connected through the old Soviet terror network. The plan was to essentially take over the Vatican, raid their museums—which are worth billions—and do their best to destroy the structure of the Church.”
“And the two dead?” Weaver asked.
“One, David Gerrity, was a researcher on Pius XII. Part of their plan involved defaming Pius as a Nazi, and wiping out everyone who might be considered a reliable source to the contrary. James Ryan was murdered because he was an eyewitness to Pius’s…charity.”
DCI Charles Weaver nodded. “And the mercenaries is where Manana Shushurin comes in?”
“We have about a dozen of the shooters,” Wayne confirmed. “However, they, and she, were part of a training program for Soviet children, some kind of youthful assassin program.”
Weaver blinked. “That can’t be good.”
The DCI’s old friend smiled slyly. “You got it. Other than that, we’ve contained the situation, and the Pope is talking with the Italian Prime Minister and the Italian Ambassador to the UN as we speak. They’re bringing charges against the bastards, and see if they can’t get them to back off… at least for the moment. We’re not sure exactly what’s after that, but one thing at a time.”
Weaver laughed. “Are you kidding, Wayne? Is this what retirement looks like to you?”
Wayne grinned. “I only do this a few times a year now, instead of a few times a month.”
DCI Charles
Weaver rolled his eyes. “One thing: who’s interrogating the prisoners?”
“Italian police. Damnit.” Wayne muttered the last under his breath. “Here’s a question for you—how the hell did this happen, Charlie?”
He shrugged. “I wish I knew. We heard nothing, either electronically or from any of our sources within the old Soviet bloc countries. It’s possible that the communication went primarily via courier.”
“Courier? Hand-delivered all the way? Do you know how long that would take?”
Weaver nodded. “A long time, given the distances involved. But 9/11 had been planned five years in advance. Besides, they could have just used Instant Messaging.”
Wayne raised his brows. “I might be old about these sorts of things, but I thought NSA had a way to track Internet communications. They tracked Bin Laden’s email before the New York Times blew that information.”
“Yes, but there are too many Instant Messages across the world at once to read, and if they don’t use key phrases, that makes it totally impossible. There are millions, if not billions, of permutations to make this work without ever once catching the attention of Electronic Intelligence. Such are the limits of ELINT.
“As for the Human Intelligence, I can only assume you’d need to be a founding member of al-Qaeda, or a member of this select Russian spy cell, in order to be in the loop. The ‘super-spies’ sound like they were all raised together, if not since birth then not long after. There are millions of things that could have gone wrong on this one.”
Wayne frowned. “Are we going to fix it, Charlie?”
Weaver shook his head. “You know the President. If we can’t hit it with a drone strike, we don’t touch it. Europe and the UN will have to be the adults on this one.”
Wayne winced. “So we’re doomed.”
DCI Weaver didn’t answer. “What about Manana Shushurin?”
“She was blackmailed into cooperating, and for a little extra stick, her father threatened her mother as well,” Wayne told him. “She could have killed my son, let any of these people die, but she saved them—risking her mother’s life, as well as her own future. Now that she’s in our ‘custody,’ and her mother will be under Mossad protection, we’ve broken his hold on her.”
Wayne’s solid blue eyes hardened. “We will turn her over to no one, do you understand that, Charles? No one. Don’t tell the Germans, we’re better off letting them think she’s either dead or out of contact. Scott Murphy promised her immunity, and I don’t want to blow it.”
The DCI nodded. “Understood. I won’t tell anyone who doesn’t need to know. That includes the President.”
Wayne gave a little half-smile. “You expect him to call the Germans immediately after you tell him?”
He smiled. “Exactly. Best not to confuse Barry with details.”
“Understood. So what would you do? Let Cofer Black and his Blackwater buddies in on this?”
Weaver smiled, considering the old Agency hand Cofer Black was once notorious for simplifying problems in a permanent manner. “I want to at least give Cofer someone to attack first.”
Wayne nodded. “Understood. I used to run some missions for him back in the day, and to tell the truth, I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side, ever.”
DCI Charles Weaver shuddered a little. “I know. Me too.”
“You have anyone you can put on this?”
“I have a few. With luck, this is over.”
Wayne grimaced. “If it’s not, it’s going to get very, very messy.”
Chapter V
Requiem
Day 3, cont
After assisting in the take-down of the operatives running loose in Rome, Manana Shushurin went out on her own recognizance through Vatican City, with Scott “Mossad” Murphy as her own personal escort.
Manana was, not to put too fine a point on it, beautiful. Her skin was a light olive, and her face was defined by well-crafted cheekbones that gave her eyes a subtle almond shape. Her eyes were a rich, dark brown, her brunette hair fell in ringlets towards full breasts, and her body was a registered lethal weapon. When she worked for the BND, German intelligence, she had been full-time analyst, part-time field agent.
Until her past caught up to her.
It was actually rather ironic. She had been raised to be a killing machine, and yet she was being guarded by a former accountant, and possibly the only man in the Israeli Institute of Intelligence who couldn’t fire a gun accurately to save anyone’s life.
Scott’s brown-blond hair had profoundly confused his enemies, and the various dyes he employed made him excellent for work around the world. His skin was pale, and his eyes were dark enough blue to appear dark brown in poor lighting, which he always managed to find in the West Bank. He of medium height, almost like he had suffered from slight malnutrition in his youth—his family had always thought a genetic aberration, given that both of his parents and all of his five siblings had been basketball players.
“Does anyone really think that you’ll be able to stop me if I wanted to get away?” she asked him as they walked through the Borgia gardens.
He smirked. “Actually, they probably think that I can run fast enough to get someone to stop you. And I know you best.”
Manana looked at him and smiled, thinking over the past few days. When she was first partnered with him, her main concern had been keeping suspicion off of herself. Over the course of a few days, her priorities changed—to try and not fall in love with him. She failed in both cases. “Well, you probably know more about me than most of my friends and coworkers.”
Scott raised a brow. “Do you know how depressing that is? I’ve not even known you a week.”
“Trust me, you have no idea how aware of it I am.” They both sat on a bench, facing each other. “The only other person who knows any of this is my mother, and God only knows what will happen to her if my father were still alive.”
Murphy sighed, pondering her father. “Thankfully, his men haven’t said anything, nor asked for an attorney, mainly because that would be traceable when the legal fees were paid.”
“Maybe we should take them out of police custody?”
He shook his head. As part of Mossad—Goyim division—Scott knew that sometimes the police were useful. Besides, he wasn’t going to have them transferred into makeshift jail cells in the Vatican. “Captain Williams was CIA, so he should have at least a rudimentary knowledge of interrogation.”
He put his hand on hers and gave her a small smile. “Don’t worry, I already sent a letter through the chain of command requesting immediate extraction of your mother, and XO already put in his own recommendation. Mossad will have it handled within the next day or two, maybe sooner.” He glanced at his watch. “Give it five hours, they’ll have surveillance on her, and this time tomorrow a full plan should be in place and executed.”
She smiled at him. “You could’ve just left it to XO. He said he would do it.”
He nodded. “I know, but the more signatures, the better.”
She squeezed his hand. “There would have been less risk for you. O’Brien could take the heat all by himself and weather it fine; you’re a little better lined up on the firing line if I decided to bolt, or stab you in the back.”
Scott laughed. “I know you wouldn’t stab me in the back … you’d shoot me in the front. That’s what’s so nice about you—you’re at least straightforward about it.”
Manana arched her eyebrows at him. “You’re a very strange man, you know that?”
“Thank you,” he said brightly, amused.
She shook her head. “Why are you still even talking with me? I nearly killed you.”
Murphy shook his head. “First of all, I said I was in love with just what I saw of you, and most of that was not an act. You saved Sean Ryan even when it was in your best interest for him to die—and he was about a second away from killing you himself. You saved everyone on the Spanish Steps when it was near-suicide.” He shook his head. “You’re a hero
. You almost screwed that up, but you didn’t. Hell, I’m certain you didn’t even know that your father was about to send in a hit team that morning to get James Ryan and the rest of us.”
Manana lowered her eyes. “Not that moment, no, but I knew he’d try again sooner or later.”
He nodded. “But you were there, and you were armed, and I know that you would have been the first to fire back at them had Sean not disabled you before the gunmen came in.”
“How do you know?”
He laughed. “To start with, your training.”
Manana raised a brow. “If I went by my training, I should have drawn my gun and taken out as many of you as I could.”
He shook his head. “Your training is to shoot at whoever’s shooting in your general direction first, and anything else requires thought. They knew that, and they were counting on killing all of us, including you, otherwise they would have told you about the hit in advance.”
His eyes widened, and hers did at the same time.
And they were both struck with the same thought. If Mikhailov and company were going to kill Manana, then what else had her father and his mercenaries been prepared to do? He drew his cell phone and punched in the country code for Germany. “What’s your mother’s home number?”
She told him, and he dialed quickly. It was picked up on the second ring. A deep male voice answered. “Guten tag?”
“Ja, guten tag,“ Murphy began. “Eich Frau Shushurin ah raum?”
Manana smiled, not wanting to tell him that he just asked if Mrs. Shushurin was at room instead of at home. Her smile and her eyes dimmed when his face fell.
“Ja… ja… ven? Ja… danke.” Murphy hung up and looked at Manana, his mouth open.
“When did it happen?”
He met her eyes, and he would’ve smiled at her reading him like a book, but it wasn’t the time. “Shot on Friday night … right after Mikhailov’s assault on Sean Ryan. She went … quickly.”
She closed her eyes and held her breath before slowly letting it out. “What time?”
“Nine-fifteen is when the neighbors heard some suspicious noises the night of the Spanish Steps shootout. That’s the most accurate they can be right now.”