Somehow, Yasin had known of this. Maybe a guilty priest had confessed, or an abused child had found his way to him. Michael didn’t know, and never would. But Yasin had shown him several letters, and video footage that a priest had taken of one of the… incidents. The evidence was damning.
Even so, Michael would never have let himself or the church be blackmailed, until he realized what Yasin was proposing: the assassination of Pope John Paul II. And, better yet, an assassination that Michael could blame on the Muslims, who were more than willing to take credit for it. For Michael, it was a wondrous triptych: the death of the heretical Pope; the awakening of Christians to the threat of Islam; and the ability to escape unsuspected. All he had to do was agree to work with Yasin.
It had seemed easy, all those months ago. And, in fact, it had all gone smoothly until just a few days ago. Yasin had warned them that the Federal government might track the crate of C–4, so they had created a red herring with three fundamentalist Islamists who, while totally innocent, fit the profile the Americans feared. Then, for good measure, Michael had used a very strong contact within the schismatic movement to create another false trail with the Hell’s Angels. And, finally, there was the real plot. These three channels had worked to confuse and befuddle the Federals. Yasin had called it, jokingly, his unholy Trinity. Michael had not appreciated the humor.
There was a buzz throughout the room, and Michael heard a voice whisper into his earpiece: “His Holiness is arriving.”
The crowd parted, as though unseen hands were separating them. Reluctantly, Michael felt that will and moved with Mulrooney to one side. A set of tall doors opened inward, and the Pope entered, followed by four or five cardinals who had traveled from Rome. There was no music, no pomp of any kind, in fact. John Paul eschewed it. But the wizened old man entered with such understated authority that one could not help but feel a sort of tremble in the air, as though music was playing somewhere. “The song of an invisible choir,” some writer had described it. Michael grimaced.
The Pope stopped a few feet into the room, raised his hands, and spoke a short blessing. “May God in all his graciousness bless the attendees, and the purpose of this conference. Amen.” By long-standing agreement, he had kept his prayer neutral and, therefore, to Michael’s way of thinking, vacuous.
As soon as the Pope had finished, a line formed to greet him. As Cardinal of the host city, Mulrooney was among the first, and soon he had knelt before John Paul and kissed his ring. As he stood, he canted forward and whispered, “Your Holiness, please forgive me. Something urgent is calling me back to St. Monica’s.”
John Paul looked up at him with those piercing eyes. “Very well, Your Eminence.” As Mulrooney tried to disengage himself, the Pope held his hand in a viselike grip. “God alone decides our destinies, Your Eminence. May you see the true path he has set for you.”
Then he let go.
“There’s got to be someone!’ Jack said, feeling frustrated.
“You’ve got the whole list in front of you, Jack,” Jamey Farrell said through his cell phone. “I’m running everyone through every database I can find, but it’s not like the Vatican’s people haven’t done this. This list has been vetted by everyone all the way up to God!”
Jack tried not to let his frustration spill over onto Jamey Farrell. She wasn’t the cause of it. He was pissed that he’d interviewed Gary Khalid — sat in the man’s house, in fact — and never realized he was a prime suspect. The other side was kicking his ass on his case, and he was tired of it.
“Keep checking,” he said. He gave her the contact information for Carlos at the National Security Agency. “Call him. He’ll give you a hard time, but ignore it. Ask him to run everyone through every source he’s got.”
“You want me to ask a guy I’ve never met to run a hundred people through everything everywhere?”
“Unless you have a better idea,” Jack said. “I’m getting desperate.” He thought of the fail-safe implanted into Collins, set for five-thirty. He was guessing he didn’t have that much time.
Pope John Paul spent a moment with each person who had come to the conference. The truth was, as far as he was concerned, this
John Paul glanced over the shoulder of the American televangelist who was speaking to him, and saw a bearded imam partway down the line. He thought he recognized the man and dragged his name out of memory: al-Hassan. He’d read the man’s book. It had been an unforgiving but insightful critique of the West’s view of Islam. Exactly the sort of man John Paul needed at his side. He was eager for al-Hassan to make his way forward.
Jack pulled up to the valet stand at the Four Seasons. He and Driscoll flashed their badges and hurried into the elegant lobby. There was a trim, well-dressed man standing by the elevators, and Jack approached him. “Federal agent Jack Bauer,” he said in a low voice. “I need to get up to the conference.”
The man studied Jack’s credentials carefully, and did the same with Driscoll’s. He also looked into Jack’s eyes, as though trying to read something else there. Then he muttered into the mic in his sleeve. Finally, he stepped aside, and Jack entered the private elevator that rose to the hotel’s penthouse.
When the elevator door opened, he was greeted by a thin, unimposing man, but Jack’s instincts told him this was a man to be reckoned with.
“Your credentials, please,” he said. Jack and Harry both complied. When Giancarlo had examined them to his satisfaction, he escorted them down the hallway — not the reception room, but the adjacent security office.
“Giancarlo,” Jack said as soon as they were inside, “I don’t know how to impress on you the urgency—”
“You have already impressed this on me,” the other man said in finely accented English. “My job is the security of His Holiness, and I have told him already my opinion.”
“Then let’s get him out of here,” Jack said. “Drag him kicking and screaming if you have to—”
Giancarlo’s look was reproachful. “Clearly, that cannot be done. The Holy Father has committed his life to this peace effort.”
“And we’re all in the business of making sure his life is long enough to see it through. Look, let’s make it simple. Just pull the fire alarm or something. Have someone get sick. It doesn’t matter how, just get the Pope out of that room.”
Giancarlo looked at Jack with sympathetic eyes. “I admire your desire, but I cannot do it. His Holiness has expressly forbidden anything that will damage the peace effort.”
“Goddamned martyrs.” That was Harry Driscoll, muttering under his breath. He realized he’d spoken aloud only when everyone looked at him. He shrank back as much as a two-hundred-pound man could. “Just thinking out loud,” he apologized, but Jack knew he was right.
The serenity of Giancarlo was starting to annoy Jack. The Vatican man said, “It is odd, isn’t it, that in our line of work we give our lives freely, but we call the sacrifices of others selfish.”
Jack replied, “Because when we die, it doesn’t turn the politics of the world upside down.”
Detective Mercy Bennett looked at the note attached to the file on her desk. She buzzed her captain. “Hey, Cap, what is CTU? I have a note here to call them.”
The captain made a low, quizzical noise, trying to remember it himself. “Oh, yeah. Counter Terrorism Unit, or something like that. New protocol. Anything we get that might involve religious fundamentalists, we send them a Post-it note.”
“Religious fundamentalists?” she asked.
“Really, we’re talking about Islamic nutcases who want to blow themselves up,” the captain said in his own inimitable style. “But we can’t say that on the record. Anyway, just buzz them with the info.”
Mercy shrugged and redialed. It took several rings for someone to answer. “Jamey Farrell.”
“Mercy Bennett, LAPD,” she said. “Listen, I got word to call you guys. We picked up a body earlier. We haven’t done forensics on it, but we ran prints. The deceased is Abdul al-Hassan.”
There was a pause. “Um, okay. Anything else?”
