The Fourth K (7 page)

The overpowering fragrance of the multitudinous flowers washed over him and he was reminded of his mother and father and the heavy scents they always wore to mask the odor of their plush and pampered Mediterranean flesh.

And then the vast crowd in their Easter finery began shouting “
Papa, Papa, Papa!
” Standing in the lemon light of early spring, stone angels above their heads, the people chanted incessantly for the blessing of their Pope. Finally two red-robed cardinals appeared and stretched out their arms in benediction. Then Pope Innocent was on the balcony.

He was a very old man dressed in a chasuble of glittering white; on it was a cross of gold, the woolly pallium, embroidered with crosses. On his head was a white skullcap and on his feet the traditional low, open red shoes, gold crosses embroidered on their fronts. On one of the hands raised to greet the crowd was the pontifical fisherman’s ring of Saint Peter.

The multitude sent their flowers up into the sky, the voices roared in ecstasy, the balcony shimmered in the sun as if to fall with the descending flowers.

At that moment Romeo felt the dread these symbols had always inspired in his youth, recalling the red-hatted cardinal of his confirmation, who was pockmarked like the Devil, and then he felt an elation that lifted his whole being into bliss, ultimate joy. Romeo tapped the shoulder of the man on his left to send the radio signal.

The Pope raised his white-sleeved arms to answer the cries of “
Papa, Papa!
” to bless them all, to praise the Eastertide, the Resurrection of Christ, to salute the stone angels that rode around the walls. Romeo slid his rifle out from beneath his coat; two monks of his cadre in front of him knelt to give him a clear view. Annee placed herself so that he could lay his rifle across her shoulder. The man on his left flashed the radio signal that would set off the mined figurines on the other side of the square.

The explosions rocked the foundations of the square, a cloud of pink floated in the air, the fragrance of the flowers turned rotten with the stench of burnt flesh. And at that moment Romeo, rifle sighted, pulled the trigger. The explosions on the other side of the square changed the welcoming roar of the crowd to what sounded like the shrieking of countless gulls.

On the balcony the body of the Pope seemed to rise up off the ground, the white skullcap flew into the air, swirled in the violent winds of compressed air and then drifted down into the crowd, a bloody rag. A wail of horror, of terror and animal rage, filled the square as the body of the Pope slumped over the balcony rail. His cross of gold dangled free, the pallium drenched red.

Clouds of stone dust rolled over the square. Marble fragments of shattered angels and saints fell. There was a terrible silence, the crowd frozen by the sight of the murdered Pope. They could see his head blown apart. Then the panic began. The people fled from the square, trampling the Swiss Guards who were trying to seal off the exits. The gaudy Renaissance uniforms were buried by the mass of terror-stricken worshipers.

Romeo let his rifle drop to the ground. Surrounded by his cadre of armed monks and nuns, he let himself be swept out
of the square into the streets of Rome. He seemed to have lost his vision and staggered blindly; Annee grasped him by the arm and thrust him into the waiting van. Romeo held his hands over his ears to shut out the screams; he was shaking with shock, and then with a sense of exaltation followed by a sense of wonder, as if the murder had been a dream.

On the jumbo jet scheduled from Rome to New York, Yabril and his cadre were in full control, the first-class section cleared of all passengers except Theresa Kennedy.

Theresa was now more interested than frightened. She was fascinated that the hijackers had so easily cowed her Secret Service detail by simply showing detonation devices all over their bodies, which meant that any bullet fired would send the plane flying into bits through the skies. She noted that the three men and three women were very slender with faces screwed up in the tension shown by great athletes in moments of intense competition. A male hijacker gave one of her Secret Service agents a violent push out of the first-class cabin and kept pushing him down the open aisle of the tourist section. One of the female hijackers kept her distance, her gun at the ready. When a Secret Service agent showed some reluctance to leave Theresa’s side, the woman raised her gun and pressed the barrel to his head. And her squinting eyes showed plainly she was about to shoot; her lips were parted slightly to relieve pressure from the clenching of the muscles around her mouth. At that moment Theresa pushed her guard away and put her own body in front of the woman hijacker, who smiled with relief and waved her into the seat.

Theresa watched Yabril supervise the operation. He seemed almost distant, as if he were a director watching his actors perform, not seeming to give orders but providing only hints, suggestions. With a slight reassuring smile he
motioned that she should keep to her seat. It was the action of a man looking after someone who had been put in his special care. Then he went into the pilots’ cabin. One of the male hijackers guarded the entry into first class from the tourist cabin. Two women hijackers stood back to back in the section with Theresa, guns at the ready. There was a stewardess manning the intercom phone that relayed messages to the passengers under the direction of the male hijacker. They all looked too small to cause such terror.

In the cockpit Yabril gave the pilot permission to radio that his plane had been hijacked and relay the new flight plan to Sherhaben. The American authorities would think their only problem was negotiating the usual Arab terrorist demands. Yabril stayed in the cabin to listen to the radio traffic.

As the plane flew on there was nothing to do but wait. Yabril dreamed of Palestine, as it had been when he was a child, his home a green oasis in the desert, his father and mother angels of light, the beautiful Koran as it rested on his father’s desk always ready to renew faith. And how it had all finished in dead gray rolls of smoke, fire and the brimstone of bombs falling from the air. And the Israelis had come, and it seemed as if his whole childhood was spent in some great prison camp of ramshackle huts, a vast settlement united in only one thing, their hatred of the Jews. Those very same Jews that the Koran praised.

He remembered how even at the university some of the teachers spoke of a botched job as “Arab work.” Yabril himself had used the phrase to a gunmaker who had given him defective weapons. Ah, but they would not call this day’s business “Arab work.”

He had always hated the Jews—no, not the Jews, the Israelis. He remembered when he was a child of four, maybe five, not older, the soldiers of Israel had raided the settlement
camp in which he went to school. They had received false information, “Arab work,” that the settlement was hiding terrorists. All the inhabitants had been ordered out of their houses and into the streets, with their hands up. Including the children in the long yellow-painted tin hut that was the school and lay just a little outside the settlement. Yabril with other small boys and girls his age had clustered together wailing, their little arms and hands high in the air, screaming their surrender, screaming in terror. And Yabril always remembered one of the young Israeli soldiers, the new breed of Jew, blond as a Nazi, looking at the children with a sort of horror, and then the fair skin of that alien Semite’s face was streaming with tears. The Israeli lowered his gun and shouted at the children to stop, to put down their hands. They had nothing to fear, he said, little children had nothing to fear. The Israeli soldier spoke almost perfect Arabic, and when the children still stood with their arms held high, the soldier strode among them trying to pull down their arms, weeping all the while. Yabril never forgot the soldier, and resolved, later in life, never to be like him, never to let pity destroy him.

Now, looking below, he could see the deserts of Arabia. Soon the flight would come to an end and he would be in the Sultanate of Sherhaben.

Sherhaben was one of the smallest countries in the world but had such an abundance of oil that its camel-riding Sultan’s hundreds of children and grandchildren all drove Mercedeses and were educated at the finest universities abroad. The original Sultan had owned huge industrial companies in Germany and the United States and had died the single most wealthy person in the world. Only one of his grandchildren had survived the murderous intrigues of half brothers and become the present Sultan—Maurobi.

The Sultan Maurobi was a militant and fanatically devout Muslim, and the citizens of Sherhaben, now rich, were equally devout. No woman could go without a veil; no money could be loaned for interest; there was not a drop of liquor in that thirsty desert land except at the foreign embassies.

Long ago Yabril had helped the Sultan establish and consolidate power by assassinating four of the Sultan’s more dangerous half brothers. Because of these debts of gratitude, and because of his own hatred of the great powers, the Sultan had agreed to help Yabril in this operation.

The plane carrying Yabril and his hostages landed and rolled slowly toward the small glass-encircled terminal, pale yellow in the desert sun. Beyond the airfield was an endless stretch of sand studded with oil rigs. When the plane came to a stop, Yabril could see that the airfield was surrounded by at least a thousand of Sultan Maurobi’s troops.

Now the most intricate and satisfying part of the operation, and the most dangerous, would begin. He would have to be careful until Romeo was finally in place. And he would be gambling on the Sultan’s reaction to his secret and final checkmate. No, this was not Arab’s work.

Because of the European time difference Francis Kennedy received the first report of the shooting of the Pope at 6:00
A.M
. Easter Sunday. It was given to him by Press Secretary Matthew Gladyce, who had the White House watch for the holiday. Eugene Dazzy and Christian Klee had already been informed and were in the White House.

Francis Kennedy came down the stairs from his living quarters and entered the Oval Office to find Dazzy and Christian waiting for him. They both looked grim. Far away on the streets of Washington there were long screams of
sirens. Kennedy sat down behind his desk. He looked at Eugene Dazzy, who as chief of staff would do the briefing.

“Francis, the Pope is dead. He was assassinated during the Easter service.”

Kennedy was shocked. “Who did it? And why?”

Klee said, “We don’t know. There’s even worse news.”

Kennedy tried to read the faces of the men who stood before him, feeling a deep sense of dread. “What could be worse?”

“The plane Theresa is on has been hijacked and is now on its way to Sherhaben,” Klee said.

Francis Kennedy felt a wave of nausea hit him. Then he heard Eugene Dazzy say, “The hijackers have everything under control, there are no incidents on the plane. As soon as it lands we’ll negotiate, we’ll call in all our favors, it will come out OK. I don’t think they even knew Theresa was on the plane.”

Christian said, “Arthur Wix and Otto Gray are on their way in. So are CIA, Defense, and the Vice President. They will all be waiting for you in the Cabinet Room within the half hour.”

“OK,” Kennedy said. He forced himself to be calm. “Is there any connection?” he said.

He saw that Christian was not surprised but that Dazzy didn’t get it. “Between the Pope and the hijacking,” Kennedy said. When neither of them answered, he said, “Wait for me in the Cabinet Room. I want a few moments by myself.” They left.

Kennedy himself was almost invulnerable to assassins, but he had always known he could never fully protect his daughter. She was too independent, she would not permit him to restrict her life. And it had not seemed a serious danger. He could not recall that the daughter of the head of a nation had
ever been attacked. It was a bad political and public relations move for any terrorist or revolutionary organization.

After her father’s inauguration Theresa had gone her own way, lending her name to radical and feminist political groups, while stating her own position in life as distinct from her father’s. He had never tried to persuade her to act differently, to present to the public an image false to herself. It was enough that he loved her. And when she visited the White House for a brief stay, they always had a good time together arguing politics, dissecting the uses of power.

The conservative Republican press and the disreputable tabloids had taken their shots, hoping to damage the presidency. Theresa was photographed marching with feminists, demonstrating against nuclear weapons and once even marching for a homeland for Palestinians. Which would now inspire ironic columns in the papers.

Oddly enough, the American public responded to Theresa Kennedy with affection, even when it became known she was living with an Italian radical in Rome. There were pictures of them strolling the ancient streets of stone, kissing and holding hands; pictures of the balcony of the flat they shared. The young Italian lover was handsome; Theresa was pretty in her blondness with her pale milky Irish skin and the Kennedy satiny blue eyes. And her almost lanky Kennedy frame draped in casual Italian clothes made her so appealing that the caption beneath the photographs was drained of poison.

A news photo of her shielding her young Italian lover from Italian police clubs brought back long-buried feelings in older Americans, memories of that long-ago terrible day in Dallas.

She was a witty heroine. During the campaign she had been cornered by TV reporters and asked, “So you agree
with your father politically?” If she answered “yes” she would appear a hypocrite or a child manipulated by a power-hungry father. If she answered “no,” the headlines would indicate that she did not support her father in his race for the presidency. But she showed the Kennedy political genius. “Sure, he’s my dad,” she said, hugging her father. “And I know he’s a good guy. But if he does something I don’t like I’ll yell at him just as you reporters do.” It came off great on the tube. Her father loved her for it. And now she was in mortal danger.