It had not been as hard to track Yasin as the Arab liked to think. Yasin had visited the United States several times to strike the bargain with Michael and Gelson, and each time he had met them at a different location, but always within an hour’s time of the phone call. Michael had simply triangulated the area, which was somewhere near the airport. On subsequent occasions, and with some trial and error, he had staked out various arteries into the area and was able to follow Yasin to Playa del Rey.
Michael drove there now in the silent car, with Pembrook lost in thought and Gelson rubbing his left arm, which had suddenly become an alien object attached to his body. He wanted it off.
“We need to get to your doctor,” Gelson said for the tenth time. “He needs to get this thing out of me.”
“Khalid is either dead or in prison,” Michael said. “But we can ask Yasin. He is the contact.”
They exited the 405 and drove on surface streets down into the suburb of Playa del Rey, between the airport and the ocean.
“Yeah, I got ’em,” Jamey Farrell said to Jack Bauer on the phone. “At least I think I do. We’re making some assumptions here. Specifically, what I have here is a cellular signature very similar to the one emitted by the one the coroner dug out of the body. If that’s them, then they are headed down by the airport.”
“Trying to get on a plane,” Jack said from St. Monica’s. “No, more like going to ground. They’re in Playa del Rey, it looks like.” “Got it. Let me know when you have a definite location.”
Jack hung up and turned his attention back to the questioning of Cardinal Mulrooney. He’d been too exhausted to handle it himself, so he’d turned it over to Nina.
“…as I’ve said, I had no idea, none, that this was going to happen. It’s horrific,” the Cardinal was saying, now indignant after being asked for the fourth time.
“But it looks like the guy in charge was your security chief, Mr. Mulrooney—”
“Cardinal Mulrooney. Or Your Eminence.”
“Okay, Mr. Mulrooney. You hired him. He worked directly for you.” “Many people work directly for me. I can’t be held responsible for all their actions, too.” Nina added, “And he was a schismatic. You also are a schismatic, is that true.”
“No!” Mulrooney said. “Not when you ask like that. I have expressed my unhappiness over some of Rome’s changes. But that doesn’t mean I joined a cult.”
“Mr. Mulrooney,” Nina said confidentially, “frankly, it’s not going to look good for you. The leader of your church, a man with whom you have had strong political disagreements, is attacked while in your care, by your security guards. That’s a lot of circumstantial evidence.”
Mulrooney stiffened. “I am in God’s hands. And I want my lawyer.”
Harry Driscoll could hear the paramedics working around him. He had the vaguest sensation of some kind of mask over his face, and he could hear watery breathing that must have been his own.
But he didn’t feel pain, and something told him he would never feel pain again. He thought back to the beginning of his troubles, standing at the door of Don Biehn’s home. He hadn’t wanted to open that door. Part of him still wished he hadn’t, but that was water under the bridge, now. Doors open; we move through them. That was how life worked.
Though his eyes were closed, Driscoll saw a new door appear before him. When it first appeared, Harry was filled with dread. He did not want to approach it. But the door came inexorably closer, and the nearer it came, the less Harry feared it. It was, after all, only a door; and Harry was a detective. Opening doors was his job.
The door opened, and Harry Driscoll stepped through.
Jack was watching Mulrooney walk away of his own free will. If Jack had had his way, the Cardinal would have been wearing handcuffs. Not for the assassination attempt — Jack thought he was lying, but who knew? — but for the children who had been molested. He was sure Mulrooney had been complicit there. If it were true, Jack thought he ought to be destroyed.
One of the paramedics stepped into his field of vision. “Sir, I’m sorry. Your partner, Detective Driscoll. He just died. I’m sorry. We tried.”
Jack grimaced. Losing Driscoll was a blow, not just to him, but to decency in general. There was no way that Harry Driscoll should die and Mulrooney should walk away. Then he suddenly thought of something he could do to point justice in the Cardinal’s direction. As he did it, Nina’s cell phone, which he was holding, rang.
“Playa del Rey,” Jamey said. “1622 Reina Avenue.”
“Good.” All the fatigue fell away as Jack jumped to his feet. He was going to end this once and for all.
24. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 5 P.M. AND 6 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Yasin heard the knock on the door and reached for his gun. He was in the upstairs room of the house, in the back; the room that made for the quickest getaway. He was inclined to simply bolt — no one in the entire world had reason to knock on this door — but something about the gentility of the knock kept him from fleeing. He figured it was a salesman of some sort, and he would ignore it. But to make sure, he walked as quiet as a cat to the front part of the house and peeked through the curtained window at the top of the stairs, which gave him a view of the porch below.
“Oh, shit,” he growled. He always liked swearing in English better than Arabic. This knock he could not ignore.
Yasin hurried downstairs and opened the door. They stood at his threshold like the three wise men of the Christian tale, or maybe like the three parts of the Catholic god that Yasin found so blasphemous. How could Allah be divided into three parts?
“Get inside,” he said, and closed the door behind them. When they were inside, he pointed his gun at them. “What are you doing here? I won’t even ask how you found this place. What are you doing here?”
Michael ignored the gun and sat down on the couch. The house was sparsely furnished, but there were a few pieces of furniture and some pictures to avoid curious questions. “It all went sideways,” he said. “The Pope is still alive. Your man, al-Hassan, got blown up but no one else did. We tried to kill the Pope back at St. Monica’s but some government agent stopped us.”
Yasin closed his eyes deliberately, then opened them after a moment. “I told you not to underestimate the Federal agents. They are not always brilliant, but some are tenacious.”
Michael didn’t need to be reminded of that. “We need a way out, and you are our best chance.”
Yasin scoffed. “I can’t help you. If you’ve ruined things this badly, I may have trouble myself getting out.” There were ways. The border with Mexico was porous. That was how he had reentered the United States several times after 1993. But he did not relish these alternate routes. “You must have set up your own exit plan.”
“I did,” Michael said. “But it involved confusion and misdirection because of al-Hassan and Collins and Gelson.”
“And I want this out now,” Gelson demanded, holding up his left arm and revealing, for the first time, the wicked scar from his operation. “I was willing to trade my life for the heretic’s, but that chance is gone. I want this out.”
Yasin ignored Gelson. Gelson, though he was in his fifties, reminded him of the young suicide bombers from Gaza, so eager to prove their religious faith, so willing to give their lives. They were useful fools.
Superficially, Yasin was calm and collected. He offered them water and some leftover Chinese food. He suggested they sit down. But the wheels in his head were spinning. How could he get rid of them? How could he escape? He was sure his window of opportunity was growing narrower by the second.
“Tell me what they know,” Yasin said.
Amy Weiss was not allowed inside the cathedral, though she’d tried several times to sneak around, over, and under the crime scene tape. Finally she’d given up, and stood outside the tape at the entrance to the cathedral,
