A Pius Man_A Holy Thriller Read online

  “Indeed,” Pius agreed. “My question then becomes, who would know you that well, Mr. Ryan?”

  Sean shrugged, pleased to realize that he hadn’t had to say a darned thing… he was never a real actor, but he had been known to suck the air out of a room if he were given half a chance. “Anyone who can read a newspaper.”

  Hashim Abasi leaned back in the couch and crossed his legs, leaning an elbow on the back. “And how did you and Ms. McGrail meet, if I may ask?”

  Sean smiled. “There were two bozos who wanted to recruit me into their rather pathetic IRA cell — made up of two members. Maureen here was sent in to arrest them both. Our paths crossed, and she’s wanted to stop knowing me ever since.”

  McGrail nodded. “Isn’t that a little true? No offense, Sean, but aren’t you a real pain?”

  Sean smiled. “That I am. Can I take you to your hotel room?”

  “Wouldn’t it be nice to have another target if someone else starts shooting at me?”

  Sean took her bag and waved her through the door first. “See, Maureen, I keep telling you, you should use handguns a little more. Get used to the bullets.”

  Sean closed the door behind him.

  The Pope stared at the closed door a moment before turning to the other three left in the room and said,

  He slid down into the seat McGrail had just evacuated. “Now, Giovanni, what is going on? First, the killings were about the Vatican Archives; perhaps a serial killer watching the vault. Now, someone has murdered an eyewitness coming in to talk about Pius!” He emphasized by slamming a huge fist into the chair arm, cracking the wood in the arm. “I want answers, Gianni. I want any theories you have on the matter.”

  Figlia nodded slowly. “My first thought would be that this is about Pius XII — it’s the link between Maureen’s dead priest and Gerrity. I would presume it is also the link to Yousef.”

  Goldberg took a deep breath. “Here’s my problem — it’s the next century, is all of it really worth killing over now? Who would bother?”

  The Pope smiled at her. “Who wouldn’t? There are a lot of people who do not like the Catholics, my young friend. If there is absolute proof that Pius XII helped the Nazis, it would do amazing harm to the Church. However, if it is the opposite, then the Church would get to discredit many of its most vocal enemies.”

  Hashim Abasi shrugged. “Perhaps. If you want to list the suspects merely by your enemies, where do we start? Sudan? The Middle East? I believe the Russians have outlawed the existence of the Catholic Church in Russia, and they would most certainly desire any excuse to keep it that way. Let us not forget that the Chinese lock up Catholics in order to maintain their stranglehold on the people; ideology only has one true adversary—”

  “Differing ideologies,” the Pope finished. He leaned forward towards Goldberg, explaining gently. “The American Church may be the worst ideologists of all. They push for birth control in every eventuality, whether ‘needed’ or not, ignoring statistical advantages of natural family planning over condoms and pills; they want abortion to be a sacrament, ignoring many of the side effects. It is harder and harder to keep them from going schismatic.”

  Giovanni Figlia winced. “I cannot say for certain, but it may have gotten worse because of the Pope taking the name of Pius XIII.”

  The Pope nodded. “But Americans do not say anything, lest they be accused of racism.”

  Abasi said “And let us not forget that Middle East fanatics would love to put your head on a stick. One plotted to kill John Paul II.” He shrugged. “Of course, let’s not discuss what the Mossad would do with any information against Pius XII, shall we?”

  Goldberg’s eyes widened, and her jaw went slack — unsure whether to laugh or yell. “You’re thinking Mossad?”

  He shrugged again. “I’m from Egypt. Israelis are always the first suspects.” He laughed bitterly. “The second suspects are my own people.”

  The Pope sighed deeply. “That is the problem with being a universal organization.”

  Goldberg smiled. “That you’re also a universal hemorrhoid?”

  The Pope nodded. “And that is if we are doing nothing but good. By the way, Miss Villie, you are a pious Jew?”

  Her amused look was replaced with a scowl. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He smiled. “Mossad reserves the right to call upon any Jew on the planet at any time to come to their aid. If there is any Mossad involvement in this…”

  “Tag,” Figlia added, “you’re it, as you Americans say.”

  The Pope shrugged. “It is just a thought. But, if you wish to get back to a list of people who hate Catholics, start with anyone who ever raised a gun in Northern Ireland. The German government would like nothing better than to shove the entire Holocaust onto our shoulders. The French have made similar noises against us. Then again, they’ve hated us since, oh, about 1791.” Pius merely looked at them casually, leaning back in the chair, which creaked under his weight. “Then there are the others.”

  Goldberg blinked. “What others?”

  Figlia felt his headache returning. “There are some true Church fanatics out there. Freaks would be your word; there are people still in revolt over the Council of Trent. If something really condemned Pius XII, they would want to get their hands on it; and if it cleared him …”

  Wilhelmina Goldberg raised an eyebrow. “You suspect this would clear him because you work here, and he’s been the biggest proponent of papal authority in… how long?”

  The Pope shook his head. “If Eugenio Pacelli was a monster, it would have been safe to say so after he died. Everyone who damns Pius XII praises his immediate successor, because he started Vatican II. This line of thought ignores that the second most quoted authority in Vatican II is Pius XII.

  “If I am wrong, and Pius was a monster, why did all of this not come up when he died? Why did most people get their anti-Pius bias from a play in the 1960s? However, if I’m right, anyone with an opposing opinion would just be ignored, as everyone and everything defending Pius has been. Now, who is organized enough to plan that attack on the Steps? And who wants to keep the Pius secret a secret?”

  Goldberg smiled. “Why not you folks? After all, you are a tightly knit organization.”

  Pope Pius XIII, aka Joshua Kutjok, the leader of a billion Catholics, stared at her for a long moment, a smile on his lips, and then he laughed. “My dear woman, we don’t belong to an organized religion, we are Catholics! We have always allowed anyone in, from Oscar Wilde to the American Kennedy family! Yes, we look organized from the outside, but liquor up some of our staff, you’ll get a different story altogether.”

  * * *

  Manana leaned her shoulder against one of the columns in St. Peter’s Square as both she and Murphy stood outside the papal residence. Her rich brown hair bunched up around her as she settled in. As Shushurin had guessed, Figlia had retreated back to his own office as soon as he returned from the shootout. Murphy had picked the location to keep them as far from the residence as possible while still keeping it within a line of sight.

  “Scott ‘Mossad’ Murphy?”

  Murphy leaned back against the opposite column. “When I told my boss I wanted to be the antidote to John ‘Taliban’ Walker, he said that I would be ‘Mossad.’ ”

  “Even though you call it ‘The Office?’ ”

  He chuckled. “Scott ’The Office’ Murphy doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

  She smiled at him. “And where do you generally operate, because, frankly…?”

  Murphy shrugged. “I can blend in well when I want to. Not bad for being an accountant.”

  Shushurin’s almond-shaped eyes widened. “And you’re in the field?”

  “Well, last year I became the accountant for the headquarters of the American Nazi Party in Chicago.”

  She laughed in anticipation of what was to come. “You bankrupted them?”

  “Nope. I drained enough of their cash to put them on serious life support, but
leaving them enough money to survive.” He shrugged. “As my boss says, ‘There’s nothing like a Nazi parade to increase contributions to the Jewish Defense League.’ ”

  Shushurin frowned. “So you’re part accountant and part… field agent? I’m trying to figure out how you’re qualified for operations.”

  Murphy smiled gently. “I’d been working forward to this job for a long time. From the moment I saw 9-11 happen. I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Kill terrorists. Sure, I couldn’t do anything that athletic, but I could take their money. As Murphy’s Law of spying goes, Shakespeare was wrong – you don’t shoot all the lawyers, you shoot the accountants, because they’re the ones who know where to find the money.”

  Murphy grinned suddenly. “The Israelis took one look at me and wondered exactly what planet I was from. They decided to give me an assignment I’m sure was meant to send me screaming out of town, assuming I survived. They threw me into a refugee camp.”

  Shushurin’s mouth dropped open. “How’d you walk out?”

  He laughed. “With a collection of firing pins for AK-108s and –74s, the names and contacts of several terrorist cells backed by Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and the detonators on several suicide bomber kits.”

  She looked at him a moment with a new found respect. “Detonators?”

  Big grin. “Mom let me play with her bomb disposal kit while I was growing up. As she watched, of course.”

  “And the firing pins?”

  He shrugged. “I asked.”

  “And you survived the camp. How?”

  He chuckled. “Have you ever walked Cambridge at night?”

  “Now that’s impressive.”

  “Until you realize that I cut a wrong wire on one of those detonators, and that I should’ve been blown up that evening. But, the bomb itself was wired wrong.”

  “So you spend your time making the world free from terrorists?”

  He shook his head. “No, that’s how I get paid. I spend my time with books and makeup experiments with CIA DAGGER disguise kits.”

  She smiled. “I’d think that a man like you would at least hang out in a bar.”

  “Of course, I was in college once. Unfortunately, bar buddies are not who you can discuss your day job with, and my professional friends… are professional. It’s not like there are Office field trips to Syria. I …” He paused. “Is someone coming out of the residence?”

  Shushurin looked. “How did you—?”

  “Natural born spy. They didn’t pick me for my looks.” Or my target practice, either.

  * * *

  Sean AP Ryan had Maureen McGrail’s bag over his shoulder as he went first through the door of the papal residence, moving between two Swiss Guards with halberds. He looked up at the ten-foot poles topped with an axe, the back end hooked, meant to take cavalrymen off their horses.

  Wow, wouldn’t it be something to have a fight scene with one of those?

  “Doing choreography?”

  Sean smiled at McGrail. “Ah, Maureen, you know me so well. How’s life been?”

  “Hasn’t it been grand all of this started? How’s Inna?”

  He smiled broadly. “We’re getting married. I finally said to heck with it and the plans will be finalized as soon as I get back.”

  “And when will that be?”

  Sean shrugged. “Oh, probably in another month, once I finish teaching the locals to kick some ass. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be shot at every day this week. I’m not getting paid for it this time.”

  A corner of McGrail’s lip curled. “Isn’t it nice to be so mercenary?”

  He waved it off. “Nah, it’s just the way my luck works — I get paid to be shot at, I will be shot at, guaranteed.”

  “You!” a voice boomed.

  Sean stopped and glanced to a set of red robes emerging from between the columns; robes which hid a large ugly man with a broken nose, eyes the color of fecal matter, and a haystack of hair much the same color.

  Sean smiled. “Can I help you, Cardinal?”

  Cardinal Cannella sneered. “Are you the one responsible for the disaster at the Spanish Steps?”

  Sean glanced at McGrail. “They know my handiwork.”

  Cannella stabbed a finger into his chest, and Sean instinctively grabbed the finger and bent it backwards, dropping the Cardinal to his knees. The Swiss Guards dropped their halberds from a standing position to their hands, the hooks poised to yank the bodyguard away from the Cardinal.

  Sean stopped, looked at the guards and smiled before he even noticed he had dropped the Cardinal. He smiled sheepishly and let go. “Sorry, but you shouldn’t do things like that to a guy like me — I know how to break someone’s hand in such a way that it would never set, and I can do that before I even know I did it. So be more careful next time, won’t you?”

  The Cardinal stood, grasping his hand as if it were already broken. “You thug! I demand the two of you arrest him!” he yelled at the guards. The two blond Swiss took one look at the Cardinal and shrugged before moving back into position.

  Sean shook his head. “They don’t arrest people, and they’re smart enough not to bother — they know me.” He grinned at the man, and decided to tweak him. “By the way, are you anyone important?”

  “Cardinal Alphonse Cannella! I organize the Vatican Archives! I know the Pope!”

  “So do I, what’s your point? In fact, I just left him, and he doesn’t look too happy, but you’re welcome to annoy him at your own peril, and …” Sean stopped in mid-sentence. “You’re the Cardinal from Boston, aren’t you? You’re one of the freaking Markist brothers!”

  Cannella glared. “That’s no way to address a prince of the Church!”

  Sean cocked his head. “You don’t even rate a duchy… unless, of course, you mean you’re a prince of the church of darkness, which I can understand. You see, I know someone named Matthew Kovach. Name ring a bell?”

  Cannella paled. “You know that, that—”

  “Author?” Sean smiled evilly. “Yes, I know him very well,” he said, leaning in close. “I know all of the dirty little secrets from your order, and I don’t think you want me to discuss them here, do you?”

  “I should sue you for defamation of character!”

  “You have to have character first.”

  Cannella glared and stepped around Sean to walk straight into the papal residence. Sean laughed.

  “Old friend?” Maureen asked.

  Sean smiled. “Nah. It’s just that Inna represents an author who’s the archenemy of the Markists. Let’s get you to the hotel before something else goes wrong.”

  * * *

  Shushurin sighed. “I wonder what all that was about?”

  “Who is this Ryan, anyway?” Murphy asked. “You said he was a little nuts?”

  Shushurin nodded, then waved her hand to motion him to lower his voice. “He also has good hearing.” She looked out to make sure Sean and McGrail had disappeared. “He’s a former Hollywood stuntman turned mercenary… same danger, better pay.”

  “Then what’s he doing in Rome?”

  “Training the priests to defend themselves.”

  “Ach,” a new voice added in a bad Irish brogue. “Don’t forget the brothers and nuns.”

  Shushurin and Murphy turned to look down the barrel of a Taser beam gun held by a short man with bright blue eyes that held their own demented glow.

  “Hi,” Sean began, his voice normal. “I guess you two already know me. How about you both introduce yourselves?”

  Both Shushurin and Murphy tensed, ready to dodge out of the way, and Sean shook his head. “Look behind you. I’d like to introduce you to Superintendent McGrail of Interpol, and she’s more dangerous than I am.”

  Murphy paused a second and checked his own internal sonar. “Damn.” To Shushurin: “I told you you’re too distracting; I can generally hear them coming.”

  She shrugged. “So can I.”

  Sean cleared his throat. “Ex
cuse me, but you can both beat yourselves up later. Besides, I used to hear dog whistles before one of the pyrotechnic guys overstuffed a charge right next to my ear.” He cleared his throat. “Right now, I want to know who the hell both of you are, because I’m getting damned close to marching you up to the Pope and saying, ‘Looky here, we wanted people who knew me, and son of a bitch, guess who I found talking about me not a hundred yards from the front door.’ Who are you and where are you from?”

  Shushurin looked to Murphy. “You want to tell him?”

  Murphy looked at her blankly. “You think that either one of us can trust him?”

  “He’s been entrusted with bigger secrets,” she said. “You know that there’s an actress related to one of your guys?”

  Murphy nodded, slowly, pondering the Hollywood actress related to Mossad officers. Then he blanched, remembering an incident when she had been under fire while attending Harvard. “You mean, this is the guy who—”

  She nodded. “Yup.”

  Sean groaned, still holding the beam weapon. “You mean he’s Mossad?” Ryan glanced at Murphy again. “You know, that’s funny—”

  Murphy’s eyes flared. “Yes, I know I don’t look Jewish, damm it.”

  The stuntman cocked his head. “Touchy… you must be part of the Goyim Brigade.”

  His eyes widened. “You know about the Goyim Brigade? She didn’t even know about it until I explained it.”

  Sean thought a moment. “So what? Mossad certainly doesn’t share everything with their German colleagues from the Bundesnachrichtendienst.” His eyes flickered to the woman.

  Shushurin nodded. “Very good.”

  She studied Sean a moment, and did the math, working the angles on how to best get Murphy out of the way, and remove the threat at the same time. Shooting him wouldn’t be optimal, but getting caught wasn’t supposed part of her mission profile.