Vatican Knights (5 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

Annapolis, Maryland

September 23, Late Morning

Yellow
DO-NOT-CROSS tape had been set around the perimeter of the governor’s estate.
The Forensics Unit had already staked their claim, combing and sweeping every
inch of the interior. Using high-intensity lamps, which passed varying
wavelengths and colors of light over all surfaces, the team sought to identify
latent friction-ridge prints, which could point out certain types of trace and
biological evidence.

Other investigators used
mini-vacs, typical hand-held vacuums with sterilized bags, to pick up trace
evidence such as dust, dirt and cellular matter. In the governor’s bedroom, a CSI technician was carefully going over the area to acquire possible prints for the VMD, or
vacuum-metal deposition device. Unfortunately, in most crime scenes, more than
97% of all prints were indigenous, 2% either contaminated or untraceable, and
less than 1% traceable.

When Special Agent Punch Murdock
of the president’s Secret Service detail was halted at the entrance door by
D.C. Metro, he flashed his credentials and was allowed to pass. He was a man of
simian build and pug-like features. His nose angled badly to one side from too
many years in the ring, something he never had corrected since it served as a
personal badge of honor and exhibited something savage about him. His eyes also
appeared wild and untamed, yet they were alert and all-seeing as Murdock
absorbed every detail of the governor’s bedroom. He made his way toward a
technician who was running a scanner slowly over the surface of a nightstand.

When Murdock spoke, he did so with
an inflection acquired from growing up in the mean streets of the city’s
toughest neighborhoods. His accent maintained a rough edge that served to
intimidate and repel those he encountered rather than to magnetize them. Moving
closer to the technician, Murdock leaned forward until he was level with the
technician’s ear. “How’s it going, buddy?”

The forensics investigator
continued to examine the surface of the nightstand with meticulous study.
Beside him, the covers of the governor’s bed were in disarray. “It’s going,” he
said.

“Any traces of blood?”

“Not up here.”

“Thanks.”

Murdock exited the room and worked
his way through a mass of investigators, some wearing gloves and paper booties,
others taking photos from numerous angles and viewpoints. In the kitchen, the
body of Darlene Steele lay on the floor in a supine position, the lids of her
eyes at half-mast. A medical examiner was inspecting a bloodless hole in the
middle of her forehead. In the back of her head, the pared flesh formed a
blooming rose petal of pulp and gore. Carefully, the medical examiner picked
alien particles from the edges of the wound with tweezers and placed them in a
small vial.

A second examiner stood at the
Jackson Pollack wall of design making a critical examination of the blood
spatter pattern, trying to determine the angle of the shot from the
configuration of blood and tissue and errant hairs that had dried on the wall.
To the examiner, there was nothing artistic about the killing or the star-like
motif that clung to this canvas.

Murdock looked on with detachment.
He had seen this many times over his twenty-five years in law enforcement and
had steadily learned how to disengage his emotions from the many bloodbaths
visited.  

A man wearing a gray suit and
maroon tie moved next to Murdock with pen and pad in hand, his face having the
fresh-scrubbed look of youth, movie star good looks, and frosty blue eyes that
absorbed everything with photo-like retention.

“You’re Punch, right? Punch
Murdock?”

Murdock stepped away without
responding. The last thing he needed right now was some kid latching onto his
lapels. 

The young man followed, keeping up
with Murdock‘s quick pace. “My name’s Melvin Yzerman,” he said.

“Yeah, well, good for you, kid.”

“I’m from the
Washington Post
.”

Murdock stopped in his tracks. He
knew what was coming. “How did you get in here?”

“That’s not important. What is
important is a comment from you regarding your team. As chief of the
president’s security detail, how do you feel about your team—”

 
“Okay, you’re out of here.”

“—being killed by terrorist
extremists?”

“Go on, get out of here!”

“And as head of the detail, why
weren’t you—”

“Are you deaf, kid? Get out of
here!”

“—with your team at such a
critical moment?”

“Officers!”

“Answer me that, Agent Murdock.
Just give me a simple comment.”

Responding to Murdock’s call, two
officers from the D.C. Metro Unit entered the room, one with an extended baton
in his hand.

“Which one of you D.C. clowns let
this idiot from the
Post
in here?” Murdock’s face was red, the man
livid. Spittle flew from his lips as he spoke. “This is a secured area, even
from the press! Get this piece of crap out of here and maintain the premises.
Nobody in or out unless they’re from county, state, or law enforcement! Got
it?”

The officers, galvanized by
Murdock’s tone, grabbed the reporter by the back of his arm and began to usher
him from the room.

“Murdock!” Yzerman said over his
shoulder. “Do you want to make a comment about your team’s inadequate
protection of the pope? Any comment at all?”

Murdock stood silent as he watched
the officers force the man toward the exit. He weighed the reporter’s question
in his mind, the words bearing an uncomfortable heft.

Fighting for calm, Murdock closed
his eyes and stood waiting for tranquility to wash over him, for the anger to
melt away. He stood in silence, only for Yzerman’s questions to bounce back and
strike a chord that would stay with him throughout the day and establish a mood
that would remain raw and irritable.

Entering the spacious dining room
where the bodies of Agent Cross and the downed terrorists lay, their remains
draped with sheets, Murdock examined his surroundings. From the East Wall the
gallery of governors stared omnisciently at him. Murdock looked at the oil paintings
with a less than appreciative eye, knowing the truth of what they had witnessed
would forever remain unspoken. Dismissing the paintings, he turned a keen eye
back to the scene.

Tony Denucci was an investigator
for the FBI who specialized in kidnappings. As a youth he was tall and broad
with strong facial features. Now he was tall and gangly with a face that had
grown long and jaded from witnessing too many tragedies. When he walked he did
so with a stoop, his body bowing in the shape of a question mark. Over the
years he had become nothing more than a husk of his former self. 

Murdock clapped his old friend on
the back. They had come up together from the academy some twenty-four years
ago, each rising from the trenches to become experts in their respective
fields. “How you doing, Tony?”

Denucci looked at him with the
red, rheumy eyes of an alcoholic. “Hey, Punch.”

“Got anything?”

“Nine dead all together,” he said.
“Two cops, four agents, the governor’s wife, and two intruders. You might want
to take a look to see who they are.”

Murdock already knew who they
were; the whole world did. They were the self-proclaimed warriors from the
Soldiers of Islam.

Murdock raised the sheet from the
first body, saw it was Cross, and immediately covered him back up. Upon
examining the other two, there was no doubt they were of Middle-Eastern
descent. He also noticed the ink on their fingertips was still wet. Their
prints had already been taken and were now being processed through the FBI’s
watch list and Interpol systems. Whoever they were would not remain a mystery
for long.

Murdock got to his feet as Denucci
continued to offer more information, using his pen as a pointer. “It looks as
if the whole detail was taken by surprise,” he told him. “Not a single man’s
weapon was drawn, with the exception of that agent lying over there.”

“That would be David Cross. A good
man.”

“Other than him, it looks as if
they were all killed before they knew it.”

Murdock ambled around the scene
with his hands dug deep within the pockets of his overcoat. “Are you doing the
Incident Report for Pappandopolous?”

Denucci nodded. “Yeah. And you?”

“The president wants a first-hand
account of what happened here. He doesn’t want to wait for the preliminaries.”

Denucci stepped carefully around the
bodies and made several notations in his pad. “Sad thing, isn‘t it?”

Murdock agreed.

“What’s even sadder is that we
never saw it coming.”

“And there was nobody in the
vicinity that saw or heard anything?”

“Nobody.”  Denucci pointed his pen
at the oil paintings. “It’s too bad
they
couldn’t tell us anything,
huh?” 

Murdock just laid a hand on his
old friend’s shoulder. “Look, Tony, if something comes up will you let me know?
Give me something to go on?”  

“Sure. If something comes up.”

Murdock gave him a wink. “Thanks,
buddy. And hey, don’t be a stranger. Let’s go on a booze cruise some time and
tell war stories.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Murdock exited the Governor’s
Mansion and took stock. Beyond the police tape, the mob of onlookers had grown
exponentially since he entered the house. Vans with microwave dishes now lined
up by the dozen, the emblems of major networks stenciled on their sides.
Newscasters and journalists tried to press their way through the line, their
mics held out in a desperate bid to pick up an informative byte from the
officers that maintained the perimeter.

Murdock knew the situation was
going to demand long hours on little sleep, something his body was no longer
equipped for at the age of fifty-four.

For almost twenty-five years he
had moved up through the ranks with the same aggression he managed in the ring,
with tenacity and posturing. He was finally rewarded with a position in the
president’s Secret Security detail in 1990, then became the detail’s chief in
2002.   

But with responsibility comes
accountability. And when one holds the reins of the team he drives, and if the
team should stumble gravely in its efforts, then the accusing finger inevitably
points back at the driver. In Murdock’s case, he could already sense the
political finger pointing in his direction, identifying him as the party
responsible for the death of his team and the kidnapping of the pope.

Reaching inside the inner pocket
of his overcoat, he grabbed his pack of smokes, withdrew a cigarette, and
smoked it slowly, wondering how long it would take for the ax to fall upon his
once illustrious career.

CHAPTER NINE

The White House

September 23. Noon

The
Situation Room was the nerve center of presidential crisis management. It sat
directly below the Oval Office and could seat twenty-four people.

CIA
,
FBI and Homeland Security dignitaries sat at the table, along with President
Burroughs, Vice President Jonas Bohlmer, Chief Presidential Advisor Alan
Thornton and Attorney General Dean Hamilton. Normally a room to sequester
members of the Pentagon and Joint Chiefs of Staff to determine the potential
for war, President Burroughs distinguished the kidnapping of the pope as a
non-military issue after a quick briefing with the military principles. The officers
remained seated as mere spectators now, as President Burroughs turned his
attention to the members of the intelligence community.

With his sleeves rolled to his
elbows as if gearing up to engage in blue-collar labor, the president possessed
the appearance of someone who was aware of being under a worldwide microscope.
Despite the American policy of never negotiating with terrorists, the president
could almost feel the Sword of Damocles falling on an international scale if
his administration refused to bend to the will of the Soldiers of Islam.

“All right, people,” he said.
“Settle down.”

The room fell silent as something
indescribably awkward hung in the air. It was something like tension, but
thicker and far more palpable. “Last night,” he began, “or this morning,
however you want to look at it, I lost four good men to the hands of
terrorists. Now can anybody here tell me how a cell could succeed in taking out
my
people in
my
backyard without any prior intelligence?” Despite
his efforts to remain in control, his tone became angry, menacing, each word
louder than the previous. “Anybody?”

Nobody dared to proffer an answer.
The assembled dignitaries silently stared at the sheets of paper in front of
them.

“Talk to me, people! I didn‘t
bring you in here to clam up.”

Attorney General Dean Hamilton
initiated a response. “Mr. President, if I may.”

“Please.”

“After what happened at the
Governor’s Mansion, we immediately processed the identities of the two Arabs
found in the house and got hits on both of them.” He looked at his intel sheet.
“One was al-Hashrie Rantissi, a Jordanian national with ties to al-Qaeda.”

“So al-Qaeda is behind this?”

“We’re not totally sure,” he said.
“The other Arab, al-Bashrah Aziz, is a Saudi national who also has ties to
al-Qaeda.”

The president appeared puzzled.
“So how are we
not
sure that this is the doing of al-Qaeda if both men
have ties to the organization?”

CIA
Director Doug Craner leaned forward, placed his glasses on the tabletop, and
spoke pointedly. “Because, Mr. President, our intel tells us that there was
absolutely no discussion in the chat rooms prior to this incident. The only
activity occurred after the incident was broadcast by the news media.”

“Which means what?”

“It means, Mr. President, that
there seems to be confusion among the terrorist organizations as to who is
responsible. The activity on the web indicates curiosity rather than
culpability. We think this action was conducted by the Soldiers of Islam as a
rogue group working independently from al-Qaeda.”

“New blood, then?”

“Yes, sir. And we don’t know how
they’ll conduct themselves since we have no knowledge or insight about their
activities. All we can say, Mr. President, is that when we got the strikes on
al-Hashrie and al-Bashrah, we were able to bring up their profiles.”

Craner gave stapled copies of his
report to an aide, who handed them out to everybody at the table. On the front
page was a photograph of al-Hashrie Rantissi, taken two years ago when he
entered the United States.

“Al-Hashrie,” he continued,
gleaning from memory, “is a Jordanian national who came to this country two
years ago, after serving a six-month stint in an al-Qaeda training camp located
along the Afghan border. The other body identified, al-Bashrah, helped
al-Hashrie form a sleeper cell in Utah, along with six others. For the past two
years, they have remained dormant.”

“Until now?”

“Until now—yes, sir.”

“And the other six?” asked the
president.

“Through our intel sources we were
able to confirm and identify each member of the cell. We obtained warrants and
raided their residences. Unfortunately for us, the areas were sanitized. The
computers left behind were useless; the hard drives were completely fried.”

The president remained
disconcertingly quiet. After a moment’s hesitation he said, “So at least we
know who the other six are—the Soldiers of Islam.”

“Yes, sir. They’re all on the
FBI’s watch list.”

The president glanced at his
watch, knowing that the world was waiting for a televised response regarding
the kidnapping. At the moment he had nothing to offer, the Soldiers of Islam
having yet to make any demands. “When they call,” he said almost too quietly,
“are we to bend in our policy of non-negotiation?”

“We’re not talking about an
expendable here,” said Thornton, his advisor of three years, whose numerous
accolades for political achievements covered the walls of his office. “We’re
talking about the pope. And if we allow these terrorists to harm him due to
our
unwillingness to bend, we would most likely come under extreme criticism from
our allies. The voices of over a billion Catholics have the power to be heard.”

“I agree,” said the
president.      

Thornton turned to President
Burroughs with an expression of defeat. “So I believe the answer is yes, Mr.
President. We’ll need to make concessions. Perhaps many.”

The president seemed to focus on
an imaginary point on the tabletop. “That’ll be your department, Dean,” he
said. “You’re the attorney general. The FBI is your gig.”

The president turned to Hamilton
with a no-nonsense look. His tone indicated that he would not tolerate
mistakes. “This is not to be turned into another Waco or Ruby Ridge. Is that
understood?”

“Clearly, Mr. President.”

“Options, then.”

Hamilton wasn’t through. “I say we
bring in Shari Cohen,” he said. “Anybody who knows her can tell you there is no
one more suited to handle this situation than her. She’s at the top of her game
and perhaps the best this country has to offer.”

The president appeared to ponder
this, tapping a finger against his chin.

Shari Cohen was the Bureau’s top
negotiator for the Hostage Rescue Team based in the Washington Metropolitan
Field Office. She also held the title of Assistant Director of the FBI’s CIRG,
or Critical Incident Response Group. And when time permitted, she worked in
collaboration with Homeland Security, educating their agents who worked in
counterterrorism.

Then, “I agree with your
assessment. Bring her in.”

Vice President Bohlmer
vociferously stated his objection. “Mr. President,” he said, “Have you
forgotten the demographic we’re dealing with here? We’re talking about a
male-dominated regime that recognizes women as property. To put in a female
negotiator and someone of Jewish faith on top of it—no offense to Ms. Cohen or
to her religious heritage or abilities—to negotiate with Islamic terrorists is
an assured insult to their principles. And in recompense for our actions, you
can be certain that they
will
kill Pope Pius.”

President Burroughs appeared at a
crossroads. “Second option, then.”

“I would suggest Billy Paxton.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Fully qualified. Very good.”

“But he’s not Cohen.”

“No, sir. But Paxton is not too
far behind. In fact, he committed his talents to a hosting country and
Congressional approval on two separate occasions to free up American hostages.”

President Burroughs remained
silent and nibbled softly on his lower lip. “Then we’ll use Paxton as the
figurehead with Cohen working in Paxton’s shadow. But I want Cohen to maintain
control of the unit.”

 “Mr. President,” Bohlmer
immediately protested, “I really have to object to this. If the Soldiers of
Islam find out that Cohen is involved—”

“Your objection, Jonas, is duly
noted. Thank you.” Then to the room in general, “Further advice as to
direction?”

Thornton leaned forward with the
points of his brows dipping sharply over the bridge of his nose, as if he had
given the matter considerable thought. “I suggest, Mr. President, that we at
least try to appear committed to the policy of not negotiating with terrorists.
We don’t want to open the door to every degenerate group in the country who has
demands to make. We’ll need to set up an international coalition and make it
clear that any concessions or compromises are made by the international
community. That way, if something should go wrong, the blame cannot rest solely
on the shoulders of the United States.” 

“In other words, you’re saying
that we should set up a situation so that all nations are involved—just in
case.”

“Yes, sir. That would take care of
international ostracism if the pope’s safety cannot be secured.”

“You don’t sound very optimistic.”

“I’m just covering all the bases,
sir.”

President Burroughs began to drum
his fingers against the tabletop, his mind working. “Then get every
international liaison involved,” he finally said. “I want their opinions, their
suggestions, and I want it understood that we’ll share common responsibility in
this matter whether the outcome is good, bad or indifferent.”

“Understood.”

“I also want direct lines to my
office from every liaison involved. And I want to know everything that’s going
on, twenty-four-seven.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ll inform the media of only
what we want them to know. Let them know that this is an international effort.
If something should ultimately go wrong, I do not want this madness to fall on
our
shoulders.”

The president searched the faces
around him. “Per the guidelines of the Patriot Act, I want all agencies to work
together on a constant basis. I want everybody on the same page. The CIA Advance Team will monitor all chat lines abroad to gather whatever intel is available and
network the information to everybody involved. Is that understood?”

There was mumbled agreement.

“That’s it, people. Today you
start earning your keep. So go out there and do what you do best.”

There was an immediate movement of
forces, some already on cell phones instructing aides to contact international
liaisons, others calling to gather a writing staff to generate material for the
media.

As the Situation Room emptied,
President Burroughs sat quietly digesting all that had occurred. This was
strictly politics, and he recognized his own role, in spite of his subjective
feelings. There was absolutely no concern about the fate of the pope. The
meeting was about saving face in the eyes of the international community. The
life of Pope Pius was a secondary issue.  

Feeling dirty, the president
closed his eyes and sighed.