“Any other conceptual problems?” Jack asked.
Father Tim laughed. “The Council of Vienna! How did you forget that, Jack?”
“What?” Alden sputtered in annoyance.
“Eighteen-fifteen. Everybody knows that! After the final settlement of the Napoleonic Wars, the Swiss had to promise never to export mercenaries. I’m sure we can finesse that. Excuse me, Dr. Alden. The Pope’s guard detachment is composed of Swiss mercenaries. So was the French king’s once—they all got killed defending King Louis and Marie Antoinette. Same thing nearly happened to the Pope’s troops once, but they held the enemy off long enough for a small detachment to evacuate the Holy Father to a secure location, Castel Gandolfo, as I recall. Mercenaries used to be the main Swiss export, and they were feared wherever they went. The Swiss Guards of the Vatican are mostly for show now, of course, but once upon a time the need for them was quite real. In any case, Swiss mercenaries had such a ferocious reputation that a footnote of the Council of Vienna, which settled the Napoleonic Wars, compelled the Swiss to promise not to allow their people to fight anywhere but at home and the Vatican. But, as I just said, that is a trivial problem. The Swiss would be delighted to be seen helping solve this problem. It could only increase their prestige in a region where there is a lot of money.”
“Sure,” Jack observed. “Especially if we provide their equipment. M-1 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, cellular communications....”
“Come on, Jack,” Riley said.
“No, Father, the nature of the mission will demand some heavy weapons—for psychological impact if nothing else. You have to demonstrate that you’re serious. Once you do that, then the rest of the force can wear the Michelangelo jump suits and carry their halberds and smile into the cameras—but you still need a Smith & Wesson to beat four aces, especially over there.”
Riley conceded the point. “I like the elegance of the concept, gentlemen. It appeals to the noble. Everyone involved claims to believe in God by one name or another. By appealing to them in His name ... hmm, that’s the key, isn’t it? The City of God. When do you need an answer?”
“It’s not all that high-priority,” Alden answered. Riley got the message. It was a matter of official White House interest, but was not something to be fast-tracked. Neither was it something to be buried on the bottom of someone’s desk pile. It was, rather, a back-channel inquiry to be handled expeditiously and very quietly.
“Well, it has to go through the bureaucracy. The Vatican has the oldest continuously-operating bureaucracy in the world, remember.”
“That’s why we’re talking to you,” Ryan pointed out. “The General can cut through all the crap.”
“That’s no way to talk about the princes of the church, Jack!” Riley nearly exploded with laughter.
“I’m a Catholic, remember? I understand.”
“I’ll drop them a line,” Riley promised. Today, his eyes said.
“Quietly,” Alden emphasized.
“Quietly,” Riley agreed.
Ten minutes later Father Timothy Riley was back in his car for the short drive back to his office at Georgetown. Already his mind was at work. Ryan had guessed right about Father Tim’s connections and their importance. Riley was composing his message in Attic Greek, the language of philosophers never spoken by more than fifty thousand people, but the language in which he’d studied Plato and Aristotle at Woodstock Seminary in Maryland all those years before.
Once in his office, he instructed his secretary to hold all calls, closed the door, and activated his personal computer. First he inserted a disk that allowed the use of Greek characters. Riley was not a skilled typist—having both a secretary and a computer rapidly erodes that skill—and it took him an hour to produce the document he needed. It was printed up as a double-spaced nine-page letter. Riley next opened a desk drawer and dialed in his code for a small but secure office safe that was concealed in what appeared to be a file drawer. Here, as Ryan had long suspected, was a cipher book, laboriously hand-printed by a young priest on the Father General’s personal staff. Riley had to laugh. It just wasn’t the sort of thing one associated with the priesthood. In 1944, when Admiral Chester Nimitz had suggested to Francis Cardinal Spellman, Catholic Vicar General for the U.S. military, that perhaps the Marianas Islands needed a new bishop, the Cardinal had produced his cipher book and used the communications network of the U.S. Navy to have a new bishop appointed. As with any other organization, the Catholic Church occasionally needed a secure communications link, and the Vatican cipher service had been around for centuries. In this case, the cipher key for this day was a lengthy passage from Aristotle’s discourse on Being qua Being, with seven words removed and four grotesquely misspelled. A commercial encryption program handled the rest. Then he had to print out a new copy and set it aside. His computer was again switched off, erasing all record of the communique. Riley next faxed the letter to the Vatican and shredded all the hard copies. The entire exercise took three laborious hours, and when he informed his secretary that he was ready to get back to business, he knew that he’d have to work far into the night. Unlike an ordinary businessman, Riley didn’t swear.
“I don’t like this,” Leary said quietly behind his binoculars.
“Neither do I,” Paulson agreed. His view of the scene through the ten-power telescopic sight was less panoramic and far more focused. Nothing about the situation was pleasing. The subject was one the FBI had been chasing for more than ten years. Implicated in the deaths of two special agents of the Bureau and a United States Marshal, John Russell (a/k/a Matt Murphy, a/k/a Richard Burton, a/k/a/ Red Bear) had disappeared into the warm embrace of something called the Warrior Society of the Sioux Nation. There was little of the warrior about John Russell. Born in Minnesota far from the Sioux reservation, he’d been a petty felon whose one major conviction had landed him in a prison. It was there that he had discovered his ethnicity and begun thinking like his perverted image of a Native American—which to Paulson’s way of thinking had more of Mikhail Bakunin in it than of Cochise or Toohoolhoolzote. Joining another prison-born group called the American Indian Movement, Russell had been involved in a half-dozen nihilistic acts, ending with the deaths of three federal officers, then vanished. But sooner or later they all screwed up, and today was John Russell’s turn. Taking its chance to raise money by running drugs into Canada, the Warrior Society had made its mistake, and allowed its plans to be overheard by a federal informant.
They were in the ghostly remains of a farming town six miles from the Canadian border. The FBI Hostage Rescue Team, as usual without any hostages to rescue, was acting its role as the Bureau’s premiere SWAT team. The ten men deployed on the mission under squad supervisor Dennis Black were under the administrative control of the Special Agent in Charge of the local field office. That was where the Bureau’s customary professionalism had come to a screeching halt. The local S-A-C had set up an elaborate ambush plan that had started badly and nearly ended in disaster, with three agents already in hospitals from the auto wrecks and two more with serious gunshot wounds. In return, one subject was known dead, and maybe another was wounded, but no one was sure at the moment. The rest—three or four; they were not sure of that either—were holed up in what had once been a motel. What they knew for sure was that either the motel had a still-working phone or, more likely, the subjects had a cellular “brick” and had called the media. What was happening now was of such magnificent confusion as to earn the admiration of Phineas T. Barnum. The local S-A-C was trying to salvage what remained of his professional reputation by using the media to his advantage. What he hadn’t figured out yet was that handling network teams dispatched from as far away as Denver and Chicago wasn’t quite the same thing as dealing with the local reporters fresh from journalism school. It was very hard to call the shots with the pros.
“Bill Shaw is going to have this guy’s balls for brunch tomorrow,” Leary observed quietly.
“That does us a whole lot of go
od,” Paulson replied. A snort. “Besides, what balls?”
“What you got?” Black asked over the secure radio circuit.
“Movement, but no ID,” Leary replied. “Bad light. These guys may be dumb, but they’re not crazy.”
“The subjects have asked for a TV reporter to come in with a camera, and the S-A-C has agreed.”
“Dennis, have you—” Paulson nearly came off the scope at that.
“Yes, I have,” Black replied. “He says he’s in command.” The Bureau’s negotiator, a psychiatrist with hard-won expertise in these affairs, was still two hours away, and the S-A-C wanted something for the evening news. Black wanted to throttle the man, but he couldn’t, of course.
“Can’t arrest the guy for incompetence,” Leary said, his hand over the microphone. Well, the only thing these bastards don’t have is a hostage. So why not give ’em one? That’ll give the negotiator something to do.
“Talk to me, Dennis,” Paulson said next.
“Rules of Engagement are in force, on my authority,” Supervisory Special Agent Black said. “The reporter is a female, twenty-eight, blond and blue, about five-six. Cameraman is a black guy, dark complexion, six-three. I told him where to walk. He’s got brains, and he’s playing ball.”
“Roger that, Dennis.”
“How long you been on the gun, Paulson?” Black asked next. The book said that a sniper could not stay fully alert on the gun for more than thirty minutes, at which point the observer and sniper exchanged positions. Dennis Black figured that someone had to play by the book.
“About fifteen minutes, Dennis. I’m okay ... okay, I got the newsies.”
They were very close, a mere hundred fifteen yards from the front door of the block building. The light was not good. The sun would set in another ninety minutes. It had been a blustery day. A hot southwesterly wind was ripping across the prairie. Dust stung the eyes. Worse, the wind was hitting over forty knots and was directly across his line of sight. That sort of wind could screw up his aim by as much as four inches.
“Team is standing by,” Black advised. “We just got Compromise Authority.”
“Well, at least he isn’t a total asshole,” Leary replied over the radio. He was too angry to care if the S-A-C heard that or not. More likely, the dumbass had just choked again.
Both sniper and observer wore ghillie suits. It had taken them two hours to get into position, but they were effectively invisible, their shaggy camouflage blending them in with the scrubby trees and prairie grass here. Leary watched the newsies approach. The girl was pretty, he thought, though her hair and makeup had to be suffering from the dry, harsh wind. The man on the camera looked like he could have played guard for the Vikings, maybe tough and fast enough to clear the way for that sensational new halfback, Tony Wills. Leary shook it off.
“The cameraman has a vest on. Girl doesn’t.” You stupid bitch, Leary thought. I know Dennis told you what these bastards were all about.
“Dennis said he was smart.” Paulson trained the rifle on the building. “Movement at the door!”
“Let’s everyone try to be smart,” Leary murmured.
“Subject One in sight,” Paulson announced. “Russell’s coming out. Sniper One is on target.”
“Got him,” three voices replied at once.
John Russell was an enormous man. Six-five, over two hundred-fifty pounds of what had once been athletic but was now a frame running to fat and dissolution. He wore jeans, but was bare-chested with a headband securing his long black hair in place. His chest bore tattoos, some professionally done, but more of the prison spit-and-pencil variety. He was the sort of man police preferred to meet with gun in hand. He moved with the lazy arrogance that announced his willingness to depart from the rules.
“Subject One is carrying a large, blue-steel revolver,” Leary told the rest of the team. Looks like an N-Frame Smith.... “I, uh—Dennis, there’s something odd about him ...”
“What is it?” Black asked immediately.
“Mike’s right,” Paulson said next, examining the face through his scope. There was a wildness to his eyes. “He’s on something, Dennis, he’s doped up. Call those newsies back!” But it was too late for that.
Paulson kept the sight on Russell’s head. Russell wasn’t a person now. He was a subject, a target. The team was now acting under the Compromise Authority rule. At least the S-A-C had done that right. It meant that if something went badly wrong, the HRT was free to take whatever action its leader deemed appropriate. Further, Paulson’s special Sniper Rules of Engagement were explicit. If the subject appeared to threaten any agent or civilian with deadly force, then his right index finger would apply four pounds, three ounces of pressure to the precision set-trigger of the rifle in his grasp.
“Let’s everybody be real cool, for Christ’s sake,” the sniper breathed. His Unertl telescopic sight had crosshairs and stadia marks. Automatically Paulson reestimated the range, then settled down while his brain tried to keep track of the gusting wind. The sight reticle was locked on Russell’s head, right on the ear, which made a fine point of aim.
It was horridly comical to watch. The reporter smiling, moving the microphone back and forth. The burly cameraman aiming his minicam with its powerful single light running off the battery pack around the black man’s waist. Russell was speaking forcefully,, but neither Leary nor Paulson could hear a word he was saying against the wind. The look on his face was angry from the beginning, and did not improve. Soon his left hand balled into a fist, and his fingers started flexing around the grips of the revolver in his right. The wind buffeted the silk blouse close around the reporter’s bra-less chest. Leary remembered that Russell had a reputation as a sexual athlete, supposedly on the brutal side. But there was a strange vacancy to his face. His expressions went from emotionless to passionate in what had to be a chemically induced whipsaw state that only added to the stress of being trapped by FBI agents. He calmed suddenly, but it wasn’t a normal calm.
That asshole S-A-C, Leary swore at himself. We ought to just back off and wait them out. The situation is stabilized. They’re not going anywhere. We could negotiate by phone and just wait them out....
“Trouble!”
Russell’s free hand grabbed the reporter’s upper right arm. She tried to draw back, but possessed only a fraction of the strength required to do so. The cameraman moved. One hand came off the Sony. He was a big, strong man, and might have pulled it off, but his move only provoked Russell. The subject’s gun hand moved.
“On target on target on target!” Paulson said urgently. Stop, you asshole, STOP NOW! He couldn’t let the gun come up very far. His brain was racing, evaluating the situation. A large-frame Smith & Wesson, maybe a .44. It made big, bloody wounds. Maybe the subject was just punctuating his words, but Paulson didn’t know or care what those words were. He was probably telling the black guy on the camera to stop; the gun seemed to be pointing more that way than at the girl, but the gun was still coming up and—
The crack of the rifle stopped time like a photograph. Paulson’s finger had moved, seemingly of its own accord, but training had simply taken over. The rifle surged back in recoil, and the sniper’s hand was already moving to work the bolt and load another round. The wind had chosen a bad moment to gust, throwing Paulson’s aim off ever so slightly to the right. Instead of drilling through the center of Russell’s head, the bullet struck well forward of the ear. On hitting bone, it fragmented. The subject’s face was ripped explosively from the skull. Nose, eyes, and forehead vanished into a wet red mist. Only the mouth remained, and that was open and screaming, as blood vented from Russell’s head as though from a clogged showerhead. Dying, but not dead, Russell jerked one round off at the cameraman before falling forward against the reporter. Then the cameraman was down, and the reporter was just standing there, not having had enough time even to be shocked by the blood and tissue on her clothing and face. Russell’s hands clawed briefly at a face no longer there, then went still.
Paulson’s radio headset screamed “GO GO GO!” but he scarcely took note of it. He drove the second round into the chamber, and spotted a face in a window of the building. He recognized it from photographs. It was a subject, a bad guy. And there was a weapon there, looked like an old Winchester lever-action. It started moving. Paulson’s second shot was better than the first, straight into the forehead of Subject Two, someone named William Ames.
Time started again. The HRT members raced in, dressed in their black Nomex coveralls and body armor. Two dragged the reporter away. Two more did the same with the cameraman, whose Sony was clasped securely to his chest. Another tossed an explosive flash-bang grenade through the broken window while Dennis Black and the remaining three team members dove through the open door. There were no other shots. Fifteen seconds later the radio crackled again.
“This is Team Leader. Building search complete. Two subjects down and dead. Subject Two is William Ames. Subject Three is Ernest Thorn, looks like he’s been dead for a while from two in the chest. Subjects’ weapons are neutralized. Site is secure. Repeat, site secure.”
“Jesus!” It was Leary’s first shooting involvement after ten years in the Bureau. Paulson got up to his knees after clearing his weapon, folded the rifle’s bipod legs, then trotted toward the building. The local S-A-C beat him there, service automatic in hand, standing over the prone body of John Russell. It was just as well that the front of Russell’s head was hidden. Every drop of blood he’d once had was now on the cracked cement sidewalk.