I think there still could have been several bricks left, maybe up to ten pounds of it.”
Now Jack sat up, rubbing his eyes and trying to shake the sleep off his brain. “But you don’t know that, right? That crate must have been a lot more full with the stuff I brought in.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jamey said. “But you know how a room looks bigger sometimes after you put furniture in it? Same with this box. I put the C–4 back in it, and no matter how I stuffed it, there are obvious spaces left. I did the math, too. Maybe ten pounds.”
Jack didn’t want to hear it. “The stuff Smithies had? The stuff that blew up Ramin?”
“Factored in.”
“That is not what I want to hear,” Jack admitted.
“Don’t shoot the messenger. What do you want to do about it?”
Jack laughed. “Who says it’s my decision?”
“I didn’t ask anyone,” Jamey said. “You just seemed like the guy who wants to know.”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “All right. I’m coming in.”
Rabbi Dan Bender rarely used e-mail. He didn’t trust it. Words sent electronically were as permanent as if they’d been etched in stone. He would certainly send nothing confidential over the Internet, and Rabbi Bender was in possession of many, many secrets.
He had written the first draft of the letter to his brother on stationery, but in the end he decided against it. He needed to be sure his brother received this message, and the post between Los Angeles and Jerusalem had never been one hundred percent reliable. But, as he had already told himself, e-mail was like graven stone. His brother would see it eventually.
This is what he typed into his computer:
Dear Sam, I hope Miriam is feeling better. You’re both in my thoughts and I pray for her remission.
In the meantime, I want to send you a note of apology, and possibly a goodbye. I can’t tell you why I am apologizing. You may or may not hear about it. But there is a distinct possibility that you won’t hear from me after today, so I wanted to express my feelings.
You were always a better Jew than I. Even Dad thought so, although of course he was too much of a mensch to say it. You were a better rabbi, too. But there are reasons for that, some of which may become apparent to you. But among the unsaid reasons is this: you are a righteous man. In the end, I find that I am not. If I were righteous, I would not be doing what I’m going to do today.
I hope you’ll forgive me. With all my love, from your brother, Dan
He reread the short message several times, wishing he could write more. His finger hovered over the send button for a moment. Then he clicked it, and the deed was done.
“I hope you’ll forgive the cautions,” said the Pope to Amy Weiss. “There was a disturbance here last night.”
“No problem,” Amy said, although in fact the whole affair had disturbed her. Her interview had been scheduled for two weeks; she’d passed through the background check the Vatican had required. One would have thought the metal detector and the bag search would have been enough. But the thin, soft-spoken man had come along with a nun in tow and had insisted on a complete search of her clothing and person. If all Amy had been after was the puff piece, she would have walked out. But she was now on the trail of a legitimate page one story. “In fact, I’d like to ask about that.”
The Pope’s eyes twinkled charmingly as he replied in his softly accented English, “I find the Unity Conference to be a much more pleasant topic, don’t you?”
Amy felt the force of his charm and his authority, and tried to resist it. “Well, the two are related, aren’t they? Do you consider the attacks here last night to be a threat? Are they related?”
“That is a question for a policeman, not a priest,” John Paul said dismissively. “In any case, the conference will not be stopped. It is, I believe, the most important thing in the world.”
“This conference?” she asked.
“Its purpose,” John Paul said, putting a hand on her arm gently, almost pleadingly. “East and West; Christian, Muslim, and Jew. They are at war, or they soon will be. It is a war that may cover the world in flame. It must be averted.”
Amy wanted to talk about the murders; she had been told to talk about the murders. But this old man, so small and yet so infused with power, charmed her with his sincere and plaintive voice. “But the Catholic Church has been the cause of strife, hasn’t it? Are you the appropriate party to end it?”
John Paul smiled. “Who better?”
Jamey Farrell spent several minutes updating Christopher Henderson on her recent findings. Henderson looked terrible, but then she probably didn’t look fresh as a daisy herself. She’d seen Henderson dozing on the couch in his office, but she knew from experience that that sort of sleep had little lasting effect.
“This is the case that won’t die,” Henderson grumbled as she finished. “Why couldn’t it have just ended when we arrested the Sweetzer Three?”
Jamey shrugged. “I’m not a field operator, but if you ask me, I think someone’s been expecting us to come along. I think we’re chasing lots of decoys.”
Henderson shook his head. “Those bikers weren’t a red herring. They were really going to blow up the city’s water reserves.”
“I didn’t say red herrings. I said decoys. We chased that threat because it was real, but it’s got nothing to do with some other plot. Something we haven’t found yet.”
“Your missing C–4.”
“Jesus, I hope you’re wrong,” said Jack Bauer, walking into the room. “I’ve been shot at enough for one day.”
“You got here fast,” Henderson noted.
Jack shrugged. “It’s easy if you ignore all the traffic laws.” He sat down on the couch where Henderson had earlier slept. “Look, how sure are we about this? Aren’t you guys the ones who said the Ramin and Muslim connection was a different plot that had already been stopped?”
“Director Chappelle, not me,” Jamey said. “And all I’m really saying is that there is still C–4 missing. And that there was a Muslim connection at the start.”
“But no suspects left,” Jack said. “And no target.”
Nina Myers walked into the middle of the conversation. “I have a new suspect for you.” She described her surveillance of Diana Christie.
When she was done, Jack tried to rub away his headache. “None of it makes sense. What the hell would an NTSB investigator be doing with a small-time arms dealer? And what does it mean for us? The lead she gave us from that conversation was real! It put us in Dean’s way.”
“Jamey thinks decoys,” Henderson said.
Jack considered this. “Yasin. He knows we know he’s in the country. That’s why Ramin’s dead. Maybe he expected it, and planned this. But it’s pretty elaborate.”
“Not so much,” Nina said. “All it really took was giving away some of the C–4 to someone who wanted to do something with it. And maybe asking them to plan their event for today. Yasin’s attack may be on a different day entirely.”
Jack shook his head. “Ramin thought today, and he was on that side of the equation. Okay.” He gathered himself with a breath. “Are we back at square one again?”
His answer came in the form of his ringing cell phone. He gestured an apology when he saw the number, then answered. “Hey, Harry.”
“Jack, you heard what happened to me?” Driscoll said quickly. When Jack replied in the negative, Harry filled him in, and Jack felt the aching pulse in his forehead increase. Biehn. Jack hadn’t thought of Biehn in a couple of hours. There was a connection between Biehn and Yasin that he hadn’t resolved yet. Biehn claimed he’d been kidnapped when he got close to Collins. Now Driscoll had been ambushed when he arrested Collins, and the priest
