Chapter Two

 

Vatican - Easter Sunday, March 22

The gates of the Vatican beckoned to all who felt the call of the Church, and Ibrahim heard the call. He had come for the Church. His electric wheelchair moved silently with the crowd, and he nodded his twisted head in thanks to people who let him pass. The Easter crowd was heavy with the faithful, and Ibrahim might not be much, but he was faithful to God.

He was a poster child for mobile medical technology. His frozen right hand clutched a small joystick that guided his electric chair into St. Peter’s Piazza. Two plastic tubes trailed from his nostrils to a pair of oxygen tanks secured to the arm of the chair, and he clutched a palm-sized chunk of plastic that he pressed to the front of his throat when he wanted to speak. While no words ever came out of his mouth when he spoke, a hollow, mechanical croak came from the device when it detected vibrations from his ruined throat and vocal cords.

But Ibrahim’s infirmities meant nothing this morning.  He had rarely felt more alive, and had rarely felt closer to his God. What did a few physical problems actually mean in the full eternity of man’s existence?  Man is not body, but immortal soul. Bodies come. Bodies go. Was that not what all religions taught? Even the false religions? The pagans? The Heathen? And hadn’t he sacrificed his body in the service of God?  The closer he approached the ancient seat of Christianity, closer he came to God.

He slowed the chair when the crowd began to bunch in front of the security stations. Since it was a major feast day, more than 300,000 people would flock to the Vatican.  After terrorists had stormed the Pope’s residence the previous year, thirty stations had been strung across the entrance to St. Peter’s Square

Checking all visitors was a physical impossibility without greatly restricting the access of the faithful to the Vatican.  But all packages, strollers, and wheelchairs were checked. Also, anyone who simply looked wrong was checked. Anything from furtive eye movement to bulky clothing was a reason for a check. Wear a long coat, and get checked. Carry an umbrella, and get checked. Push a baby carriage, and get checked. Most people simply passed through under the eyes of the guards. But there were other eyes, too.  Metal detectors, explosives sniffers, facial scanners, heat detectors and infrared cameras targeted each person coming through the stations.

Ibrahim steered his chair toward an additional station located to the left of the others that handled the many people who were disabled or unable, for whatever reason, to efficiently move through the normal stations. The Vatican Security chief was very pragmatic. He simply figured he should move all the problems out of the general flow of people so everyone wasn’t inconvenienced by the few. Fewer distractions meant his people could do a better job.

He waited behind two wheelchairs and a bent old woman with a walker furiously fingering her beads and mumbling her prayers. The guards were very methodical, checking the chairs and gently peeking under the blankets that covered crippled or missing legs.

A guard caught Ibrahim’s eye and waved. “Happy Easter, my friend! Good to see you.”

Ibrahim smiled and brought the voice amplifier to his throat. “Grazzi, Paulo,” the machine squawked. Paulo laughed and waved again, hardly understanding anything that machine was saying. He had seen Ibrahim every morning he had been on duty for the past year. The old man showed up for morning mass at St. Peter’s like clockwork. Once, while checking Ibrahim, Paulo had mentioned that his wife had just given birth to their first baby. The next day Ibrahim handed him a gift-wrapped statue of St. Christopher for the baby. 

While the guards checked the woman with the beads in front of Ibrahim, he lurched with a hacking cough that racked his whole body. He brought a small towel up to his face to catch the spittle that dripped from his lips down the front of his shirt.  When security let the woman pass through, the two guards regarded Ibrahim with some hesitation. Small clots of blood stained the towel and dangled from his chin. Mucus slowly rolled from his nose, and the hand with the towel twitched violently.

Paulo and two other guards stood helplessly by his side. They all wanted to help, but didn’t have a clue what to actually do.

 “My friend,” said Paulo leaning over the chair, “are you alright? What can we do?”

Ibrahim feebly waved the hand with the towel dismissively, just missing Paulo, who skipped back to avoid contact with the dirty, wet cloth.

He rammed the amplifier to his throat. “I’m Ok. Ok.  Just a bit of a cough. A chill, maybe. You know? The air? But it is God’s air, no? Will we complain about God’s air? Today of all days? Isn’t today a great day?” He looked up sideways at the guards. “God will understand, won’t he?”

Paulo eyed him with sympathy.  “Yes, yes. God understands.”

But when Paulo reached his scanner toward the chair to begin the security check, Ibrahim jerked horribly, croaked, and vomited all over himself and the chair. For a big man, Paulo pivoted like a cat to avoid the mess. He was quick, but not quick enough to avoid getting his leg and shoes sprayed.

Ibrahim quietly sobbed with embarrassment and apologized. He was sorry, so very sorry. He feebly wiped at the ticket he clutched in one hand, the ticket that would allow him access to the special wheelchair section in St. Peter’s.

The officer in charge of the station signaled Paulo to move Ibrahim and his chair to the side so he wouldn’t cause a backup in the line. Then he radioed for a nurse from the nearby aid station to check the poor man in the wheelchair.

When the nurse finished cleaning Ibrahim and determined he was not in any real physical distress, she wished him a happy Easter, gave him back his cleaned ticket and a fresh hand towel, put a cool bottle of water in his cup holder, and let him proceed into the Piazza toward the huge Basilica of St. Peter. Ibrahim thanked her and said he was going to God soon. The nurse thought she had never seen such simple and pure faith. So little time left for him in this life, yet such faith!

Of the 300,000 people who entered the Vatican state that day, Ibrahim was the only one who passed through security without being checked.

 

*     *     *

Callahan walked along the top of the colonnade surrounding the huge Piazza in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. He shared the top of the colonnade with 140 silent companions, all statues. He leaned up against St. Hubald and watched a group of spiky-haired teens who actually seemed a bit self-conscious in the middle of the huge crowd that gathered every Easter morning. The purple Mohawk hairstyles, unwashed black T-shirts, and studded belts set them apart. But terrorists rarely made a spectacle of themselves. “Look for the quiet loner,” his instructors had said. “Most people come to events with someone else, right?  They come with a wife, or children, or their parents. Some even come with their dogs. Face it, terrorists don’t drag Mama along when they want to shoot the president or blow up Congress. Don’t get sucked in by the obvious. It steals your attention. If you let your attention be stolen, you’ve already lost.”

A day like today was as bad as it could get. St. Peter’s could hold 60,000, and the Piazza that fronted it could handle another 300,000. On Easter they swamped the Vatican, and God only knew how many of them were deranged, criminals, certified nut cases, or terrorists. How many are in any group of 300,000?

He dealt with the terrorists. Let the shrinks and the cops take care of the nuts and crooks. His job here was to provide the final, floating level of protection that just might catch the terrorist who slipped through all the other security nets.  He looked for what the rest of the system overlooked. And since Costa Rica he knew what the rest of the system didn’t.

Officially, he wasn’t at the Vatican since he was a Templar. But Zurich had connived to get Alberto Mancini, another Templar, into the number-two position in Vatican security, and he put Callahan on as a consultant.

“Hell,” said Mancini, “if Zurich can bend the rules, so can I. And we sure need the help.” 

The mere presence of a Templar inside the Vatican was a violation of a six hundred-year-old Concordat between the Church and the Templars, and now there were two. But that was something for the Pope and the Templar Master to hash out. He just went where they told him to go.

“We know there is an Al Qaeda attack coming,” Mancini told him, “but we don’t know when, we don’t know where, and we don’t know how. When you put all that together, it means we really don’t know squat.”

“Zurich doesn’t have anything better than that?” asked Callahan. He knew they did, but was under orders to pretend he didn’t.

Mancini shrugged. “Who knows what Zurich has? They might have the terrorists’ battle plans on an animated PowerPoint presentation. But you know how it is between the Templars and the Vatican. Zurich might know, but that doesn’t mean Zurich will tell.”

This was a terrorist’s dream come true, thought Callahan. All these people stuffed in a confined space were sitting ducks. Mortars, RPGs, guns, bombs, anthrax? Anything would work. He caught himself, stopped day-dreaming about terrorists, and started looking for them.

Everyone thought security was pretty good until last year when the gun battle erupted at the papal residence. Four terrorists had been killed by Vatican Security in a pitched battle, but before they died they had killed ten Vatican staff, fifteen tourists, and two armed security guards.

After that fiasco, heads had rolled and careers were just memories. The professionals tried to employ all the modern tactics, but they ran straight into a brick wall named Pope Pius XIII.

“St. Peter’s is the house of God, and the Vatican is the seat of God’s church,” he had screamed at his aides and the Italian generals. Anyone meeting the Pope for the first time was always amazed such a fragile body could produce such a screeching bellow.

“I will not have the faithful denied access to the Lord,” he continued. He pointed his thin, shaking finger at the security chiefs. “It’s your job to make this work.  We are not running a football game or a rock concert here. Don’t you even have a clue about what we are doing here? We are doing the work of the Lord. And the people will not be prevented from coming to the Lord.”  He slammed his tiny fist down on his desk and most of his aides expected the hand to shatter. “Now do it!”

So, Callahan kept looking, knew it was coming, and just hoped he found it before it found him.

 

*     *     *

Bishop Santini turned in front of the full-length mirror in his small Vatican apartment and frowned at what he saw. He expected the tall and trim athlete he remembered. Instead, a gray, skinny, stooped old man looked back. He really wasn’t old, but he looked it and he felt it. He placed his hand firmly on his midsection and straightened his shoulders. Better, much better, but it hurt his back too much.

He unbuttoned his cassock and threw it into a chair. He was one of twenty privileged cardinals and bishops concelebrating Easter mass with the Pope in St. Peters, and he would look his best no matter what he had to do. God deserved it. The Pope deserved it, and, Santini smiled, his career deserved it.

He had just adjusted the complicated laces on his back support when someone thumped on his door. It wasn’t a polite knock, applied with the deference and discretion owed a man of his standing. No, it was a rough thumping like someone trying to hammer down the door.

Santini grabbed a robe, jerked open the door with a snarl, and stopped in his tracks. A large and round man wearing filthy coveralls stood in front of him.  He held his hat in one dirty hand and offered a half salute with the other.

“Good morning, Excellency,” the man said in strangely accented and broken Italian and English. “Isn’t it a fine Easter morning today?”

Santini just stared.

The man shifted on his feet and scratched at his face. “Excellency, I really don’t know how to say this. I mean we worked all night. It’s just not our fault, you see,” the man stammered. “This stuff is so old, and sometimes… well, you know… some things are just in God’s hands. You know what I am trying to say?”

Now Bishop Santini could smell him as well as see him, and the odor drove him back a step. “Just stop right where you are. Tell me who you are and what you want.” Command came easily to Santini.

The man shifted his feet around a bit. “Excellency, I’m afraid a large pipe… you know the one running under the Vatican Library? Well, it had a problem, and well… can those old books be cleaned? I mean not all of them were… Some are just fine. We wiped some of them off with a rag.”

Santini’s heart raced. “Are you telling me there is a broken pipe in the Vatican Library?”

“Why, yes, Excellency.” The man looked surprised. “That’s what I have been telling you.”

The Vatican Library? Santini’s library? He thought of the priceless collections housed in the Vatican Library. It held material going back thousands of years that could never be replaced. The Church housed its official archives there, and its collection of art, literature, theology, and philosophy was world class. Manuscripts came from China, India, the Renaissance, and the Reformation, a collection started when the rest of the world was barely bathing. The Church had led the way. As the bishop in charge of the day-to-day operation of the library, Santini was responsible for every single scrap of paper in the collection. He was the scholar.

He snatched up whatever he found in his closet and shot questions at the man who still hovered in the door.  “When? What collection? How much damage? Why didn’t you call me?”

The man clasped his hands in front of his chest and said, “Excellency, I don’t know. It’s… it’s a big sewer pipe and it’s a big mess.” The man laughed. “Ha, it shows a whole different side of the Vatican.” He waved his hands, shook his head, and shrugged at the same time. “My partner should have closed the main valve by now, so it has probably stopped flowing.” He snorted again. “I hope nobody flushes.”

The bishop’s hands shook with so much anger he could hardly tie his shoes. “Probably! Probably! It has probably stopped? Probably! You idiot!” He grabbed a large key ring, slipped an electronic card key on a lanyard over his head, and pushed out the door as fast as his once-strong legs could take him, down the corridor of the small residence he shared with other privileged Vatican officials. “Come with me,” he ordered. “We have to get there now.”

“Excellency, some of the rooms… you know? They have fancy new locks. You have those keys?”

“Yes, you moron.” Santini looked back.  “I have every key for the library and those new security locks.”

“Excellency, wait. Wait.” The man gestured with both hands. “Come this way. I have a maintenance cart out back. Come. It will be quicker than fighting our way through all those Easter people. They’re everywhere.”

The maintenance cart was a small, three-wheeled van with a single seat for the driver. Santini stopped and looked at the fat man. “And how do we both fit in there? You can hardly fit yourself.”

“Excellency. In the back. There is room in the back. We do it all the time.  Hurry. We can be there in no time. Yes? Don’t sit on my lunch. Please.” The man huffed heavily, held open the back door, and gestured for Santini to enter.

Santini heaved himself into the back, muttering all the way, “I’ll have your job for this. Somebody will pay. Do you know what is in the Vatican Library collection?”

“Yes, Excellency. Books. But hurry. We will be there in no time.” The man shut the door on the bishop, glanced around, slipped a padlock through the hasp, and clicked the lock shut.

 

*     *     *

St. Peter’s Piazza is an ellipse stretching for 196 meters on the long axis, and 148 meters on the short axis. Each time Ibrahim crossed it on his way to St. Peter’s he marveled at its openness and beauty. Unity, harmony, variety, and balance. It was built by masters. Crossing the short axis of the square, he skirted to the left of Caligula’s huge obelisk. Built for the Pharaohs, then it was Caligula’s, and now it was the Pope’s, he thought. Who gets it next? Then the imposing dome of the Basilica disappeared behind the immense façade as he closed on the church.  A stairway stretching the full width of the church gently led worshippers through the portico to the main front doors. He always approached the church straight on, as if he still had a fully functioning body and could proudly walk up those stairs with the body God gave him. But, as he always did, he turned left when he reached the first stair, and guided his chair toward a ramp that gave access to strollers and wheelchairs.

When he reached the portico, he turned his chair to watch the thousands of people around him. How many were in his position? He watched the men, women, old, young, all colors and nationalities. Most were white, but the mix of nonwhites demonstrated the reach and power of this Church. He knew he would soon see God. But how many of these others were in a similar situation? How many would welcome it? How many would run from it? Ah, can’t outrun the hand of God.

He passed through the portico, and just inside the Door of Good and Evil, he gave his ticket to a guard who gingerly held it by the edges while he looked it over.  “This way, Sir,” said the guard who led Ibrahim up the nave, the main aisle of the church. St. Peter’s didn’t actually have aisles since its huge interior had neither pews nor permanent seating. But ropes and barricades divided the floor space into different areas so the crowds of worshippers could be accommodated in an orderly manner.

Ibrahim edged into a state of religious excitement he had never experienced. He could hear his heartbeat, feel his body merging with the mystical.  The position and privilege his location in the church gave him was unbelievable. He was directly behind the VIP section and no more than forty feet from the papal altar under its huge canopy where the mass would be celebrated. The Pope had ordered this special section for the handicapped since they were God’s most beloved.

He calmed himself by repeating a series of prayers he had known since childhood. Over and over he prayed until he had some control over his physical and mental processes.

Now there were other wheelchairs in the special section and the rest of the church had filled to capacity. Sixty-thousand people were waiting for the procession that would bring the Pope and the most important cardinals of the Roman church. This was Easter, and Easter was their day. The day Christ rose from the dead was the day their church was born. The risen Christ. The risen Church. Without Easter, it was all nothing. What good was a dead God?

A trumpet fanfare and the bellowing organ pipes announced the start of the procession. The choir joined in, the music rose, and all heads turned back to glimpse the beginning of the procession.  Ibrahim was next to the rope that separated his section from the aisle down which the princes of the Holy Roman Catholic Church would come. Since his neck no longer turned, he moved his joystick to spin his chair in place.

A large, frowning cardinal in red robes led the group into the church. A very well fed cardinal, thought Ibrahim. He was surprised the man could actually clasp his hands in front of his stomach. Behind him, fourteen young men in black cassocks, white surplices, and gold collars carried candles mounted in gold stands. Another eight red cardinals followed, then six priests carrying incense burners on long chains.

The Pope’s palanquin followed behind them, surrounded by identically dressed security men whose jackets were cut to conceal anything from an Uzi to a broadsword. Ibrahim figured there must be at least thirty of them. And the bearers of the palanquin itself were giants. Each man looked like he could carry the whole thing alone. They have learned to take the threats seriously, he thought, but how seriously? Ibrahim knew God protected his servants. He said so.

When the Pope passed by Ibrahim, he could have easily reached out and touched the giant bearers.  He could barely glimpse the Pope by bending himself to the side so his eyes might look where his bent neck couldn’t point his head. He locked eyes with the Pope for a moment and saw the Pope quickly move his hand in a cross directed at Ibrahim. He had received a papal blessing. Ibrahim bowed his head.

For the next hour Ibrahim was locked inside himself in solitary prayer, noticing little around him, and ignoring the music and pageantry cascading through the church. He failed to notice the cardinals and bishops who helped the little Pope celebrate the mass. He ignored the Pope’s sermon on peace among all nations and religions, redistribution of wealth, global warming, and an end to all immigration barriers. He paid no attention to the arcane pecking order around the altar. And he dismissed the thirty gray-clad security men who surrounded the altar.  He figured there were probably a couple hundred mixed in with the crowd, so why fixate on the obvious ones?

In the middle of sixty-thousand people, Ibrahim was alone with God. God spoke to him.

 

*     *     *

When Bishop Santini felt the cart stop, he twisted the handle and pushed on the door. It shook, but wouldn’t open. He kicked it. Nothing.  Santini mashed his head sideways against the truck’s small window and saw they were in a maintenance garage beneath one of the buildings. He watched the man peel off his coveralls and stuff them in a suitcase on the floor. Now he was dressed in the clerical garb of a Roman Catholic priest, black suit, black shirt, Roman collar, and black shoes.  He pulled a gold Rolex from his pocket and slipped it on. For such a large man, the suit was well tailored and fit surprisingly well.

The man shut the overhead garage door, then opened the back door of the van.

“Get out and shut up,” said the man. “Now, listen carefully. My name is Hammid. Let’s try to be civilized. I tell you what to do, and you do it. It’s that simple.” He opened the van door and stood back, pointing a long-barreled pistol at the bishop. “What we have to do will be done. We can do it the hard way, or we can do it the easy way. The choice is yours. Now, think before you start talking.” His speech was no longer broken Italian and English. The English was fluent and British, but there was something else there.

A third person sat whimpering on a small bench, blind-folded and gagged, her wrists and ankles tied with duct tape. He couldn’t make out her face. She wore the modified habit of Catholic nuns, a simple blue dress, white head scarf, and a silver cross around her neck.

“Please put this on one wrist.” He tossed Santini a pair of handcuffs. “And then secure the other around that pole with Sister Jeanette.”

Nobody ever talked to him like that, but he was sure he was the intellectual superior, so he had to remain calm. Santini silently fumed, but cuffed himself to the pole, laid a hand on Sister Jeanette’s shoulder, and whispered, “It will all be alright, Sister. Let’s be calm. The Lord is with us.” 

Then he faced Hammid and drew himself to his full height, in spite of the shooting pain in his back. “And you have trapped me here for some purpose, I presume?”  He looked around and saw the normal clutter of a maintenance shed. Tool boxes, pipes, lumber, electrical wiring, and a riding lawn mower sat around in no particular order. Light came from two bare bulbs dangling from ceiling cords. The place smelled like fertilizer, and the floor was covered with small wood chips.

Hammid laid the gun on a workbench and leaned back against it. He said nothing, sure Santini would speak first. The pompous fool thought he was in charge.

“You have kidnapped me.” Santini broke first. “You should know I am to celebrate Easter Mass with the Holy Father today. People will be looking for me.” The instant he said that, he felt like a fool.

And Hammid regarded him as a fool. “Shut up, bishop,” snapped Hammid. “Sister Jeanette is under death sentence, and she will die. She has one chance.” He pointed at Santini. “You.”

“Me?” said Santini. “What are you talking about?”

Hammid took a large folding knife from a front pocket and flicked it open with his thumb. “But, her death will be quite a show, bishop, and you will watch, piece by piece…” He stuck the knife in the bench just out of Santini’s reach.

“She’s really a well put-together woman, wouldn’t you say?” He leered at Santini. “Why don’t you just slide a hand up under her skirt, bishop? Nobody’s here but us. Maybe it would pass the time?” Sister Jeanette’s whimpers rose in pitch. “Never felt the gentle caress of a bishop, Sister?”

Santini recoiled. “No. No. I’ll do whatever you want. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“Excellent, bishop. It’s really very simple. The three of us will go to the Vatican Library. You will let us in. You will take me where I want to go. I will take what I choose. Then I will leave you and Sister Jeanette alive and in the library while I leave.”

The man was mad, thought Santini. He couldn’t possibly get away with this. Santini reviewed the procedures the security experts had set up for just this situation. His job was to cooperate, use the proper code words with the guards, let the thief take whatever he wanted, let him leave, and allow security to handle him. Don’t antagonize him. Cooperate. Stay calm.

“Do you understand the situation, Bishop Santini?”

Santini slid the handcuff down on the pole and sat on the bench next to Sister Jeanette. “Yes. I understand. You’re in charge, you have the gun, you have us at your mercy.”

“Correct. I agree. In that case, can we just sit quietly until it’s time to go?”

 

*     *     *

Ibrahim roused himself from his prayers and panicked, afraid that he had missed the most important part of the mass, the consecration, when the Pope would transform bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.  No, he relaxed a bit. God was with him. He hadn’t missed it, but it was coming soon.

 

*     *     *

Mancini’s voice crackled in Callahan’s ear. “Callahan, meet me by the handicapped security check. On the far south side. No rush. Take a walk by all the checkpoints on the way.”

“See you there.”

 He left his stone companions, descended from his perch on the colonnade, and ambled slowly through the Easter crowd. He heard agents barking at each other through the tiny earpiece he wore. It was so hi-tech, it didn’t even have a cord dangling from his ear into his jacket. He controlled channels with a tiny remote device in his hand, and spoke into a microphone concealed under his collar.  With his sport shirt, baseball cap, baggy pants, and lightweight coat covering a nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson, he looked like a thousand other guys.

He made his way to the end of the line of security stations and walked from one station to another. Most people just walked through, unaware of the high-tech scanning aimed at them. But each was x-rayed, bomb sniffed, heat-scanned, and photographed coming through the gates. The pictures were instantly digitized and matched against a database of known terrorists, criminals, and anyone who might have a grudge against the church. Some were asked to leave, however, they had never caught a known terrorist this way.

Callahan just watched. If there was an improvement to be made, he noted it, and would take it up later with Mancini. Nothing was to be gained by tinkering in the middle of a major operation.

Mancini was already waiting when Callahan arrived at the handicapped station, and the guards were laughing and motioning for Paulo, one of the Vatican guards, to keep his distance.

“Looks like your men have a problem with personal hygiene,” said Callahan, jerking his head toward Paulo.

Paulo shrugged and gave a somewhat helpless look.  Mancini walked over to Paulo and started to ask what he had done to deserve such treatment. But he didn’t have to ask. It was obvious.

“My God, Paulo, you sleep in a dumpster? You smell like crap.”

Mancini backed up and motioned for Paulo to keep his distance. The other guards laughed even more.

“Hey, what can I say?” said Paulo. “I’m doing my job as usual, in my normal exemplary manner, and this little guy in a chair barfs all over me. Look at these pants. They’re ruined. And you better believe I’m putting in for the cost. These pants aren’t cheap. And the shoes?” He lifted one foot up and slightly tilted the shoe. “How can I ever wear them again?”

Mancini joined the guards in their laughter. “Ah, you obviously are especially gifted in dealing with the public,” he responded.

“I thought I knew this guy,” Paulo said.  “He always seemed harmless. What I didn’t know is that he eats barf beans for breakfast. God, I stink.”

 “Get out of here.” Mancini waved a hand in front of his nose. “And go back to the locker room. Change your clothes. Take a shower. If the captain says anything, tell him I ordered you. You’re scaring away the faithful. Go.”

“Thanks. I won’t be gone long.” Paulo gathered up his things and started toward the barracks.

“Wait a minute.” Callahan looked around and motioned Paulo to him. This time he didn’t flinch when the guard approached. “This guy who did this? You knew him?”

“Yes, Sir,” said Paulo. “He came through here just about every morning I was on duty for the last year or so.”

“Did he ever have this kind of problem before?” Callahan asked.

“No. He was all messed up. You know? All bent and crippled. But he never went on a puking rampage before.”

 “Italian?”

Paulo paused. “No, I don’t think so. But his voice is all messed up and he uses one of those gizmos you hold up to your throat.”

“Hair color?”

“Black.”

“Complexion?”

“Caucasian, but on the darker side. Like maybe Greece, Sicily, or… maybe an Arab?”

“Did you give the guy the full treatment today? Did you check him out?” Callahan waited while Paulo looked around nervously.

“Well, I started to check him then he let loose on me. I mean, look at me. The nurse sort of cleaned him. I guess. Then he sort of…” Paulo stammered.

“Did you check him or not?” Callahan demanded, remembering what the Hashashin in Costa Rica told them. Then he turned his scowl on the other guards, who had suddenly become serious. “Did anyone check this guy?”

Their faces gave him the answer.

Mancini was already running and trying to give orders into his lapel mic at the same time. Callahan easily passed him.

Mancini shouted into his microphone, running between the south Piazza fountain and knots of slow moving tourists. “Code RED RED RED. Mancini. Handicapped section Basilica. Wheelchair suspect. Older male. Surround and immobilize. Bomb threat.” The central radio dispatcher picked up the emergency call, punched a programmed button alerting all units, and immediately passed the details to the Pope’s personal protection detail. But by then they were acting.

The Vatican Security Chief grabbed a blast blanket hidden under an ornate bench and sprinted toward the Pope, thirty feet away. At the same time, other units started well-rehearsed emergency procedures. Rooftop snipers scanned sectors, gates to St. Peter’s Piazza rolled shut, and rough men staged in buildings grabbed weapons and headed for doors.

Callahan had his gun drawn, cleared the top of the first set of steps leading into the portico of the great church, and motioned for the plainclothes guards at the entrance to follow. Mancini was one flight of steps below him, with nearly fifty armed guards sprinting behind him.

 

*     *     *

The Pope solemnly moved to the center of the altar to begin the consecration phase of the mass. Ibrahim knew what was coming and his joy was unbounded. Feeling nearer to God than he had ever been, he began to loudly cough, rasp, and strangle in huge gasps of air. Bloody flecks dotted the clean towel the nurse had given him and a stream of saliva ran from a corner of his mouth.  People around him leaned away, but since they too were confined to wheelchairs, there wasn’t much they could do.

Ibrahim turned his chair toward the aisle and became entangled with the velvet rope that set off the wheelchair section. An usher came down the aisle and asked if he could help. Ibrahim held the voice amplifier to his throat, coughed, nodded, and pointed down the aisle to the doors at the front of the Basilica.  The usher unclipped the velvet rope and moved it out of Ibrahim’s path. He moved his chair into the aisle. The front door lay to his left, and the altar to his right. The Pope had begun the consecration.

Ibrahim held up a hand to the usher and pushed the joystick to rotate the chair toward the Pope. The usher understood. Even though the poor man was in distress, he did not want to miss the consecration and elevation of the body of Christ. It was a papal mass after all, and Easter too.  The usher went down on one knee as the Pope bent over the sacred bread and said the words of consecration that would transform the bread into the body of Christ.

Ibrahim’s coughs and gasps were now silent. With a cardinal assisting on each side, the Pope elevated the round white wafer of unleavened bread, the body of Christ, above his head. And Ibrahim felt God flow through his body as he too elevated his arms. But he held not a sliver of bread, not the body of Christ, but his two oxygen tanks.

The guards needed no radio alert. They moved as a single, well-trained unit.

Ibrahim saw four large guards rushing toward him, and felt more behind him crashing through the crowd. A man with a heavy blanket fixed his eyes on the Pope and smashed through Cardinals and archbishops clustered tightly on the altar. It was only seconds since Mancini had sounded the alarm, seconds to reach the Pope, seconds to reach Ibrahim, seconds to live, and seconds too late. He saw a gun swinging toward him. Then another. Everything moved in slow motion. But it, too, was too late.

God transfused him. He had God’s strength. His broken body was God’s body. He was whole again. He could feel it. He heard a familiar voice crying out clearly for the first time in years, his voice. His voice speaking for God. His voice filling the entire giant Basilica. His voice rebuking the unbelievers, infidels, and enemies of God.

“Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! God is Great!”

He pressed the small button under his thumb and detonated the twenty-four pounds of C-9 elevated over his head.

Ibrahim saw God.

 

*     *     *

 “What’s that?” shouted Santini.

Hammid ignored him, went to the door, and scanned the area while keeping his captives in sight.

“It’s our cue. Don’t worry. It’s simply the electrical substation serving the Vatican. A small explosion. The Pope will have to use a flashlight for a while.” He threw the handcuff key to Santini. “Now, unlock yourself and Sister Jeanette. You will go first, followed by me and Sister Jeanette.”

Santini unlocked them and guided Sister Jeanette by the elbow. “Have faith, my child. God is with us.”

Hammid stood at the door with his hand out. Santini gave him the handcuff key. “The guards at the library have redeployed to defensive positions,” Hammid said.  “That means we will have the library to ourselves. What a pleasant surprise. Bishop, are you ready? Shall we go? Sister, please?”

 Redeployed? What does that mean? Now what, thought Santini. Just cooperate. Pray for the strength to keep Sister Jeanette and the library safe.

 

*     *     *

The staff entrance to the library was just a short walk from the shed. They heard sirens in the distance, and security people raced past them as they made their way along the walkway.

Nobody paid any attention to them when Santini used his blue card key and the lock hissed open onto a small lobby. Nobody was there to pay attention. The guard station was abandoned. Santini had never been told about redeployment if the Vatican came under serious attack. Since the library was closed for Easter, the building was now deserted.

 “Don’t turn around, Bishop. Eyes straight ahead.”

A few seconds later, Hammid said, “Ok, look at me and pay attention.”

When he turned back, he saw Hammid wearing a soft-brimmed hat with netting hanging all around the face and neck. But Sister Jeanette had a cloth bag over her head and Hammid was tying the drawstring and a long leash snuggly around her neck.

 “I think this will defeat any high-tech cameras while we do our work. And bagging Sister Jeanette will keep her from wandering off. And your cooperation will keep Sister Jeanette’s blood off the polished floor. Do you understand?”

Santini kept his eyes straight ahead. “I understand. What do you want?”

“Take us to room H21.”

Room H21? Santini raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. H21 held Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Papal manuscripts being reexamined and cataloged. Over the years the library had used too many different indexing systems, and now he was supervising a massive effort to install a single computer system that not only categorized an item with a permanent collection number, but also held its location. Room H21 held manuscripts that had previously been properly cataloged, plus others that had been discovered incorrectly stored in other collections.

 Santini led them through the echoing reading room that would be filled with scholars on any other day, and up two flights of stairs. Now there was nothing to do but follow instructions. No guards, no protocols, no prearranged signals, and no help.

He stopped before a plain door, slipped his card in the slot and pushed the door open. “Room H21,” he said. What could he want in there?

“Now block the door open with that chair.”

Santini moved the chair and let the door close on it.

“Now back to the main reading room. You too, Sister.” He waved the gun at Santini.

Hammid tossed him the handcuffs when they reached the reading room. “Get under the table, and lean back against the table leg. Put your arms though that support and lock up.”

When Santini had securely handcuffed himself to a sturdy table leg in the main reading room, Hammid stuck him with a small syringe.  Santini resisted, then relaxed, then wondered why Sister Jeanette had a frog tattoo on her ankle. A frog?

Five minutes later, Hammid untied the sack on Sister Jeanette’s head. She put on a bee-keeper hat like Hammid wore, then pulled the sack off her head and under the beekeeper veil so no camera could catch her face. She shook her hair out, reached under the veil and carefully removed the duct tape from her mouth and eyes.

“Well, that worked out pretty well,” Jean said. “The guy was gentle as a lamb when he thought the good nun was going to get her throat cut.” She looked sideways at Hammid. “In fact, I was worried for a while.”

“Had to be convincing. It did work out. You never can tell what people will do when only their own life is at stake. That guy might have gone to his grave rather than let us into his precious library.” He nudged Santini with his foot, but got no reaction. “Couldn’t risk that, could we?”

“Let’s get moving here,” she said. “I don’t want to get caught when those guards get back. How long can it take to get a substation back on line?”

“Oh, I think we have time,” replied Hammid.

They returned to room H21 and Jean started looking through the stacks and folders. The room wasn’t cluttered, but it was a temporary sorting and cataloging room. When the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Papal collection was finished, it would be moved to its new home, and the room would be temporary host to another collection being cataloged.

Hammid stood before a work table and looked at a few brown pages with their cramped Latin script. “Can you really read this old stuff? I mean, does any of this make sense to you?”

“Hammid, now’s not the time to be checking my credentials and qualifications. Just leave me alone and I’ll get what we came for.”

“Ok. I’m going to take a look outside. If you need me, call me on the cell phone.”

“Ok. I think I understand how things are arranged here. It shouldn’t be long.”

When Hammid left, Jean consulted a listing that hung on a clipboard on the wall and pulled out several long, flat document drawers before she found the one she wanted. She wore cotton gloves over the latex gloves both she and Hammid had worn so she didn’t damage anything in the collection. She had no patience for unwitting vandalism.

She pulled the drawer out, laid it on the work table, and lifted the lid off the drawer. She dug through a pile of ancient manuscripts, most in Latin, until she found what she wanted. So, this was the Treaty of Tuscany. Her research showed no mention of it in any history book, no references in any libraries, no articles about it, and nobody looking for it. It had been forgotten. As far as the world was concerned, this treaty had never existed. Yet here it was in front of her.

The data slip with it said it had been found between the pages of a Sixteenth Century collection of biblical commentary, and was awaiting examination by a curator.  That meant the Vatican Library really didn’t know what it was. That happened. Things were “discovered” in old collections all the time. It was in surprisingly good shape for a manuscript drawn up in 1189. The parchment was brown with age and the ink had faded, so she took a magnifying glass from a work table and bent over the treaty.

The center of the treaty was too dark to read, but she knew from experience that it would be readable under the proper filtering light.

But when she finished reading the Latin that was readable, she knew why it had been forgotten, and why it should probably remain forgotten. She also knew why certain people desperately wanted it remembered. What had she gotten herself into? Who was Hammid? Really? But there was no turning back now.

Back to work. It was unusual in another way, too. The page was about twenty-two inches long, and that wasn’t unusual. But what was unusual was that only half of the page had been taken by the script and the seals of the signatories. The other half was blank.

She pulled a small, but very high resolution Nikon from her bag and took several pictures of the treaty in its original condition. Then she went to work. When she was finished, a plastic sleeve with the treaty went into a leather case. Then she securely taped a plastic bag to her thigh, high up under the nun’s habit she wore. 

Hammid came back just as she dropped her dress. “Got it?” he asked.

She held up the leather case. “Right here. Want to take a look?”

“No. You can show it to me back at the hotel.” He took the leather case from her and they headed back the way they had come.