at the bottom of his heart. Its tail resided at the very bottom of his spine and wriggled there, sending shivers up his back and making his lower half feel somehow cold and wet.
Aaron tugged at his shirt again and walked into the den where his father was watching
“Dad…” Aaron began.
“Yep,” his father said, eyes still on the television. There was a good-looking girl in a bikini walking along the beach.
“I… I need to talk to you about something.” He paused. His dad nodded. “It’s… about church.”
“You gotta go, pal,” Don Biehn said. “I’m sorry about that. You and I will both hear an earful from Mom if you—”
“Not about that. Dad, it’s about Father Frank. It’s about the priests.”
Don Biehn glanced sidelong at his son. “They’re not perfect, Aaron, no matter what they think. Don’t ever let them fool you. Forgive the expression, but don’t take everything they say or do as the gospel truth.”
Aaron blushed. “Um, yeah. Okay. Thanks, Dad.” He turned away.
His Holiness Pope John Paul II, the Vicar of Rome, washed his hands after using the bathroom in the cloister of St. Monica’s Cathedral. Such acts had humbled him during the course of his many years as leader of the Catholic Church. Each year on Holy Thursday, he washed the feet of the poor, and that was supposed to remind him that Christ himself had practiced such humility. But, though he never would have admitted it aloud, the practice had taken on too much of the feeling of ceremony, of show. He did not feel humble on Holy Thursday, he felt like an actor.
But these human acts, these needs of the body that had not ended when he was made Pope, and indeed became more difficult as time passed, constantly reminded him of his frailty. There was a Zen saying he had always liked: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” He liked that.
There were those among his cardinals who would have frowned at his use of the Zen maxim, but he was a pluralist, this Pope. Through all the years of his religious life, from altar boy to Pontiff, he had never forgotten the original meaning of that word
The Pope walked gingerly out into the small hallway and thence to the sitting room, each step a quick but careful feat of engineering for his ancient body. His once-straight spine had long ago curled like the pages of a well- read paperback. His knees hurt. His hands were gnarled as the bark of pines back in his childhood home of Krakow.
Cardinal Mulrooney was waiting for him in the sitting room. As the Pope entered, Mulrooney stood. The Cardinal towered over the shrunken Pope.
“Your Holiness,” Mulrooney drawled.
“Your Eminence,” the Pope said in his distinctly accented English. “Was the reception well attended?”
“A full house, Holy Father,” Mulrooney said. He placed strong emphasis on the titles, like a man uncomfortable with them, grasping them firmly to maintain control. “The papers will carry a good story about the event.”
The Pope tottered over to a chair and sat down, and Mulrooney swept toward a seat opposite. “That is quite an achievement,” the Holy Father said, his tiny eyes glittering, “despite your disapproval. And your attempts to undermine the Unity Conference.”
The tiniest quiver ran along Mulrooney’s thin lips. He cursed himself inwardly. This was the Holy Father’s latest weapon, and he should have been better prepared. John Paul gave the appearance of a doddering old fool. He often used this facade to lay traps for those he mistrusted.
“You are mistaken, Holy Father,” Mulrooney said at last. “I am as much a supporter of your peace efforts as any—”
“I am old, Your Eminence,” the Pope said impatiently. “I don’t have time for games. Nor do I have the interest I once had.” His face had collapsed in on itself, a caved-in melon. But his eyes gleamed out of the wreckage like two bright wet seeds. “You disdain my efforts. You disdain me.”
Mulrooney smoothed the hem of his black shirt. “Your Holiness, it was you who chose to hold the Unity Conference here, in my diocese. You insisted.”
“The United States is the logical place to begin,” John Paul said wearily. “And either New York or Los Angeles was the logical city.” The Pope sighed. “War is coming, Your Eminence. War of a kind we have not seen before. Someone must defuse it, and I intend to put the full power of the church behind the efforts of peace.”
Mulrooney felt the Pope’s words resound in his chest. Even in his failing years, John Paul was a powerful orator. A man did not become Pope without mastering the tools that bent others to his will. “But some of those you want to make friends with are the enemies of the church. I don’t know how we can make peace with enemies.”
“There is no point in making peace with friends, Your Eminence.”
Mulrooney scratched his nose to hide his sneer. There was no use debating with this old man. The truth was, as unsupportive as the Holy Father thought he was, Mulrooney’s true animosity went much, much further.
John Paul seemed to read his thoughts. “I wonder, Your Eminence, if this is the extent of your rebelliousness, or if we are only scratching the surface?”
Something clutched at Mulrooney’s stomach. He ignored it. “Your Holiness?”
John Paul’s eyes bored into him. “There are rumors.”
Mulrooney brushed them aside. “You know better than any of us that the church is a political animal. There are always rumors.” When John Paul continued to stare, Mulrooney added, “I swear, Your Holiness, that I am loyal to the church, and to its Pope.”
John Paul nodded. “That will be all. For now.”
Aaron Biehn sat in the tub of warm water. The snake slithered inside his body. He could feel it in his heart, wriggling through his guts, its tail dampening and violating the base of his spine. He shuddered.
He had hoped that telling his father would give him some relief. He wanted to be held, to be told it wasn’t his fault. He wanted something… something he hadn’t gotten, because he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He wanted a hug that would squeeze the snake out of him.
But then his father would tell people. And he, Aaron, would have to talk about it to strangers. And friends. And confront Father Frank. And others. He would be asked what had been done to him. He would have to use words he did not want to use. Say things he did not want to say. He would be asked if he had wanted it. Someone would say that he had wanted it. He shivered.
The snake squirmed joyfully, horribly, inside him. The snake would love the attention. Feed on his despair. Like a snake eating a cat that ate the rat, it would swallow his humiliation whole and digest it slowly, growing fatter as it did, so that even when the public humiliation passed, the snake would still be there, consuming him from inside.
He could not bear that. He had to get the snake out of his body now. He could not stand to be violated any longer. Aaron sat up in the tub and fumbled with his father’s shaving kit.
“Remember to check for the Adam’s apple,” Jack Bauer said, leaning into Harry Driscoll’s office.
Driscoll looked up from his desk, which was crammed face-to-face with another empty desk in the tiny office. He grinned. “Like I said, it wasn’t the Adam’s apple that bothered me, it was the rest of the equipment.”
Jack laughed. It was an old joke, inspired by an old story from when Driscoll was a detective in Hollywood
