A Pius Legacy

by Declan Finn

  He thought a moment, and pondered what he would do if he were shooting against himself.

  He smiled. This time, Mikhailov ran down the stairs, grabbed the rail and used it to swing around, slapping the gun out of Ryan’s hands. Mikhailov slammed into Ryan, and the two of them went down the stairs in a heap.

  Mikhailov landed on top of Ryan, pounding down. Ryan slipped the punches twice, deflecting the blows with his hands, cocking his head one way and then another. Ryan lashed out at the Russian’s eyes with his left, and his right slipped under Mikhailov’s leg. A moment later, the bodyguard pulled off the floor with his right leg, throwing with his arm, rolling Mikhailov off of him.

  Mikhailov went with the roll, letting the momentum send him clear of any follow up Ryan had. He came to his feet and went at Ryan again. The smaller man charged him in kind.

  The fight on the security cameras was a blur, and only a professional martial artist could have followed what came next. The mercenary led with a right uppercut for Ryan’s stomach, which was deflected with a sweep of his left arm. Ryan threw a right punch straight for Mikhailov’s face. The Russian slipped the punch by moving his head to one side, but Ryan clamped his hand down on his shoulder and pulled Mikhailov into his right knee. Mikhailov tightened his stomach muscles just in time, and drove a left roundhouse into Ryan’s side, just missing the kidney.

  Mikhailov continued the charge, lifting Ryan off of his feet and slamming him against the wall. Ryan slapped both hands down on his back and pushed down as his knee came up, catching the Russian full in the face. Mikhailov’s head snapped back, but his hands had already latched on to Ryan’s belt—from the side and the back—and his body followed through on his commands even as his conscious mind reeled from the blow. He spun, hurling Ryan across the landing, and sent him sprawling along the floor.

  Ryan landed as best he could, and he was on his feet in time for the next attack to come at his head. Ryan blocked a right hook, and shot out with a simultaneous gut shot, striking in Mikhailov’s hardened abs, but followed up with a left cross that socked the Russian solidly across the face and sent him spinning.

  Mikhailov spun with it, his right elbow coming around to catch Ryan in the temple. Ryan leaned back just in time, the elbow grazing his skull, but the arm flashed straight, snapping a back fist into his face. Ryan reeled back and Mikhailov used the opportunity to kick. Ryan’s calf came up to block it, more out of instinct than out of any conscious effort on his part. So was Ryan’s follow-up kick, catching the lower abdomen of his attacker.

  Ryan dove for his rifle, grabbing it as he rolled past and headed for the stairs, firing a blind burst as he charged up the staircase. He made it to the landing and twisted, rolling out of his adversary’s line of sight a split second before Mikhailov fired after him. He waited a moment before he leapt up the stairs backwards, a trick he had learned during his years as a stuntman.

  Once he waited another moment, he had to decide between killing Mikhailov and saving the Pope… Wow, like that’s a choice?

  He cursed and fired off an HE round before running the other way.

  Ryan stopped at the first level with the power running and quickly slapped a shaped charge on the door, then tied it to the door handle, making certain no one could take it off. Once he had turned it on, no one could turn it off without a full bomb-disposal team.

  The door at the next landing was already open and he was ready to fight, weapon raised and ready.

  Thankfully, everyone in front of him was a priest.

  Pieczenik took one look at him and smiled. Then the Bishop for the Gypsy vicariate reached into his knife belt, held it up by the point, and hurled it straight at him.

  The former stuntman dropped, and the knife handle smacked right between the eyes of a gunman who had been directly behind him.

  Ryan looked up, over his shoulder. Hmm. I wonder where he came from. Then he glanced at the priest. “Thanks.”

  Fr. Evan Nolan translated to the Gypsy. Then translated back, “You’re welcome.”

  Ryan scrambled up the stairs, hoping that he hadn’t made any mistake about bringing the other priests. “Where’s Fr. Frank?”

  Nolan looked behind him to see Cardinal Sin running forward. “Back with the Pope.”

  Ryan nodded. “Hold the fort.”

  As he ran, four more men started coming down the stairs. Pieczenik hurled the next knife, and the first soldier was nailed between the eyes with a knife handle. The next one came down the stairs, knocking aside the knives with her rifle, leading the way as her fellow soldiers charged behind her.

  Cardinal Sin leapt forward and grabbed the forward defender before her backup could bring their guns to bear. He grabbed the gun and fell back, dragging the woman with him. They rolled down the stairs, and Sin hurled her into a wall.

  Another soldier had to act as deflector as the Gypsy priest attacked once more, only to have Cardinal Harsharan Khan reach forward and snag the gun with the crook of his cardinal’s staff and pull, dragging him off his feet and down the stairs. Khan pushed back, slamming the staff into his solar plexus, then cracking it over his head.

  The fourth guard ran down the stairs, leapt onto his colleague’s bent back, over Khan’s shoulders, past Sin, and cracked his rifle butt against Piecznik’s face. He whirled on Fr. Nolan of the NYPD, and tried for an overhead swing. But Nolan had stepped inside the swing, and the guard’s wrists came down on the solid police baton.

  Fr. Nolan smiled, then backhanded him with the baton.

  Cardinal Sin grabbed the soldier by the shoulders, kneed him in the stomach, then hurled him down the stairs, knocking him out. About the same time, Cardinal Khan clubbed his attacker once more with his staff, dropping him.

  Sean Ryan appeared in the doorway with Fr. Williams and the Pope in tow. “Nice to see you. Having fun without me?”

  “Quite,” Fr. Nolan answered.

  “So glad.” He gestured up with the rifle. “Up the stairs, everyone, before more people get curious.”

  Ryan led the way, rifle first. He took the stairs two and three at a time, slowing only at landings when he spiraled around to head up the next flight. The priests followed immediately behind him, with the Pope in the middle, and Fr. Williams, with his non-lethal weapon, took up the rear.

  “May I ask, Mr. Ryan,” the Pope began, “why did you not bring more people?”

  “Didn’t need them,” Ryan muttered. “Besides, I needed a team comprised of people who weren’t compromised.” He paused at the next landing, slowly checking around the bend before proceeding. “I wasn’t going to risk anyone else. Manana is already screwed with her government; Goldberg and the rest were going to be in further trouble if they were even spotted in the country. Heck, I only managed to get in because I was kidnapped myself.”

  Pius smiled. “So I had heard.”

  Ryan stepped on the ground floor landing, then paused a moment. He checked up the stairs, making certain that nothing would be there to ambush them. That done, he moved towards the door, slowly opening it—first a crack, then an inch, then a foot, then the whole way.

  He looked back and waved the entourage through. He stayed at the door as they passed, unwilling to risk having someone come down the stairs at the wrong time.

  That done, Ryan led the way to the front doors.

  Then they found a slight problem.

  The entire street was crawling with policemen in SWAT gear and military weaponry, aiming for the front door. In addition, there was an Apache helicopter overhead with Hellfire missiles and a heavy-caliber chain gun.

  Ryan blinked. Apaches were American helicopters. They hadn’t been sold to the French for years, mainly because the French had been selling, not buying, weaponry for years.

  I guess they decided to start spending the Papal booty early. Ryan was about to drop his weapons when the chain gun opened fire. It was a 30mm anti-tank gun.

  Ironically, it was the same type of gun that had killed Giovanni Figlia.


  * * *

  In Rome, Matthew Kovach grimaced. He had taken possession of Dr. Gerrity’s notes—what little were left after his room had been blown up—and decided to follow the citations, and follow research he had not yet had the time to follow up on. The man had been busy, certainly, and had the dates he wanted to look at out-lined in advance.

  All Matthew had to do was follow the paper trail.

  And since the Pius XII issue would certainly come up in the next trial session tomorrow, it would certainly be asked on all the talk shows today.

  And it would help to point out that the people putting the Pope on trial had killed a scholar to cover up the truth about a good man, in order for them to get away with a glorified bank heist.

  And he was going to get them for it.

  He looked into the shelves, searching for that damned box. He straightened and slapped his head on the underside of a shelf, bringing the whole thing down on top of him.

  And that was the entire shelf, loaded with hundreds of pounds of paper, most of which, thankfully, fell off on the way down.

  Kovach fell on his back with the shelf on top of him. He looked up at the ceiling for a while and sighed.

  Scott Murphy ran inside, looked at all the boxes of paper, and then Matthew on the floor. He ran and dropped to his knees beside him. “Are you all right?”

  Kovach looked at him and said, “I’ve been assaulted by more serial killers, murderers, and terrorists than you can think of, and that was only high school. This is nothing.”

  Murphy cocked a brow. “Your books are real, aren’t they?”

  The author looked at him. “Have you been listening to anything I’ve said lately? You’re a spy, for God’s sake! Mani is distracting, but come on, you had to have heard some of what I’ve said.”

  “You never said anything about terrorists, though.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t want to get my head blown off by a certain relative. You want to help me up now?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  Kovach reached up to grab the back of the shelf, and lifted…then stopped. He grabbed what felt like laminated paper and pulled, sliding the document out from the shelf. The shelf fell on him, again, and he didn’t notice.

  Kovach’s eyes lit up. “YES!”

  Murphy looked down at him. “Something you found?”

  Matthew Kovach chuckled, which grew to a laugh, which blew to hysteria. “St. Thomas A. Dooley, Patron Saint of Spies, has just smiled down on us all, my friend. I need to blow someone out of the water.”

  “Don’t you have to get up first?”

  “Details, details!”

  Murphy shook his head. “Authors… What is it?”

  “Remember how your girlfriend said that Markist Soviet spies hid documents here, for later retrieval if need be?” He flashed him the paper. “I just found one. And now the throne of Satan trembles, and the parliaments of dictators run for cover, because the sainted hand of the dead will reach out and crush the evil of the living.” He slapped both hands on the marble floor and pushed, sliding himself out from under the shelf, then stood. “I need to see O’Brien, even Shushurin.”

  “Hmm, they’re busy.”

  Kovach stopped and blinked. “Okay. I’ll take McGrail or Williams.”

  “Umm…they’re busy too.”

  “Ryan?”

  “Ditto.”

  “Scott, what the hell are they all doing?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me.”

  * * *

  The Apache helicopter fired with its anti-tank gun a split second before all the other gunman could.

  Ryan flinched, bracing for impact…

  After a moment, he opened his eyes.

  The Apache fired into the Belgians.

  A second helicopter descended to rooftop level. The side door opened and Captain Wayne Williams fired with the copter’s machine gun as Manana Shushurin slid down the rope to the street, carrying an MP5 submachine gun.

  One of the soldiers in the street charged the priests who had been held at gunpoint moments ago, hoping to get the Pope.

  Someone rappelled down the side of the low building atop the bunker and literally landed on top of the attacker. She wrapped her legs around the man’s neck and twisted, breaking it.

  Maureen McGrail slid to the ground as Manana moved in. McGrail slung her own MP5 over her shoulder. “Hi, Sean.”

  Sean Ryan beamed, confused, right before he hugged her off the ground. “I’ve never been so happy to see you before in me life, darling.”

  “You didn’t think that we’d let you do something this stupid without us, now did you?”

  Ryan laughed. “God, I love you people,” he called out over the roar of automatic fire. He glanced up to see Captain Williams practically dangling out of a helicopter with a full light machinegun.

  “I won’t tell Inna,” Maureen smiled.

  “Now let’s get out of here,” Manana Shushurin said as she came to their side.

  The seven of them followed the two women to the second helicopter, and grabbed a hold before being pulled up.

  The helicopter flew away as the gunship covered their backs.

  Ryan looked at Maureen, Manana, and Captain Wayne Williams. “How did you know where we’d be?”

  Wayne smiled. “I think we should let our co-pilot tell you.”

  The man in the co-pilot’s seat turned. “I am not the copilot, I’m just sitting here,” Xavier O’Brien said. He stood, letting the elder Williams sit. “You used Wilhelmina Goldberg to get in contact with Blaine Lansing, who she had met in the Pope’s computer.”

  Pius nodded. “Ah, the FBI fellow.”

  “Goldberg asked him where you were, he told her, she told us, and here we are.”

  Ryan sighed. “Okay, thanks. By the way, who are the guys in the other helicopter?”

  XO laughed. “I called my friends in Polish Special Forces, veterans of Gulf II. Hope you don’t mind.”

  Epilogue

  Checkmate

  After the plane landed in Italy, they transferred to a helicopter to take them directly to the Vatican. Ryan, the Pope, and the others came out of the helicopter with broad smiles, quite jocular…even if two of Ryan’s original ecclesiastical SWAT team needed occasional translations through Latin.

  And there, already waiting for them, was Matthew Kovach. He stood at the helipad, formerly a tennis court until John Paul II. He smiled brightly, but with a strong undercurrent of sadness behind the eyes; he tried to hold on to the round-shouldered, shy, goofy, absent-minded author persona, and failed.

  He was also overshadowed by the sprinting form of Scott Murphy. The pale, Mossad officer dashed past him and nearly tackled Manana as she stepped out of the helicopter.

  Scott hugged her tightly, as though reassuring himself she was there.

  Manana hugged him back just as hard.

  Sean Ryan walked past them. His electric blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “Will you people get a room already?”

  She glanced at him, muttered something in Russian, and then kissed Scott.

  The Pope leaned over to Ryan and asked, sotto voce, “They only met last week?”

  Ryan shrugged. “Time flies with you’re getting shot at.”

  At that moment, Inna Petraro rushed Ryan and squeezed him for all she was worth. “I was worried.”

  Ryan smiled into her hair. “Sorry, I thought it would be faster than that.”

  Kovach smiled as he approached. “What, you mean I don’t get a hug?”

  The two couples paused only long enough to glare at him, and he sighed, shook his head, and looked at the Pope. “How was the flight?”

  Pius smiled. “Very well, Master Kovach, and how is life here? I hope you have enjoyed Vatican hospitality.”

  The author smiled and nodded. “Quite. The staff is friendly, the food’s good, and I’m not shot at all that much. Have a pleasant stay at the Hague? You looked like you had fun.”
>
  Pius nodded. “Oh yes, I’m a Jesuit, I’ve been trained for a rather different kind of combat, but your version does have its satisfactions.”

  “Ah…by the way, I’ve got a document or two you might want to look at later on.”

  “Why not now?” Ryan asked.

  “You haven’t been listening to the news?”

  Capt. Wayne Williams smiled. “We were in an Apache. It doesn’t quite get CNN.”

  Kovach glared at the army man, then looked back to the Pope. “You were ‘arrested’—”

  “Kidnapped,” Xavier O’Brien interjected.

  “—under a United Nations version of the American RICO laws,” Matt continued. “Your organization does the ‘crime’ of, well, pick something—”

  Wayne chuckled, “Being pro-life, pro-family, anti-Jihadist.”

  Maureen McGrail arched a brow. The dying helicopter blades still whipped around her black raincoat. She nodded, and whispered, “Don’t forget ‘anti-Women.’”

  “—and everything involved in committing that crime is forfeit,” Kovach finished, despite the interruptions.

  Fr. Williams, his violet eyes dark with worry, frowned slightly. “Would that mean that anything used in transmitting dogma would be taken?”

  The author nodded. “Bingo. You see, I just had an enlightening press conference in my hotel lobby.”

  His agent groaned weakly. “Matthew, what did you do now?”

  “Very little,” he confessed. “However, under the newly adopted, international version of the US Racketeering In Corrupt Organizations, all funds made and facilities used by the Vatican are to be confiscated, and the position of Pope to be handed over to a ‘Provisional Government,’ because the World Court has just outlawed the Catholic Church as an intrinsically corrupt organization.”

  Captain Williams laughed. “Oh? And what are they going to do about that? Sanction Rome?”

  Kovach looked at his watch. “In about one to three months, they’re going to invade. They’re going to ‘arrest’ everyone here, and use force ‘only if we resist arrest.’” He snorted. “Considering their last ‘arrest’—of you, Your Holiness—we can guess what that means.”