The Second Messiah (58 page)

RYAN PUSHED OPEN
the door and stormed into the Sistine, the others behind him.

Ryan’s face was misted with sweat and as he scanned the room everything seemed to happen in a kind of slow motion. Afterward, he would recall that what he saw was so disturbing and absurd. In this wonderful place of peace and solitude with its fragrant smell of incense, here he was clutching a loaded Glock, his sights searching out a target, which he soon found.

A disturbing sight caught his eye near the altar.

Cassini.

He was kneeling over John Becket’s body, which was spread-eagled on its back on the marble tile. Cassini clutched a blade in both hands. He stabbed it into Becket’s chest, again and again, the pope’s white gown awash with crimson.

“Cassini!” Ryan’s alarmed cry echoed around the chapel like an explosion.

Cassini’s head snapped around, his eyes blazing with a deranged look, something close to madness, his own gown spattered with blood.

“Cassini, for pity’s sake, stop!” Ryan screamed.

But Cassini ignored him and raised his hands to again bury the blade in the pope’s body.

In an instant Ryan squeezed the Glock’s trigger once, then once again, and two powerful .40-caliber rounds thudded into Cassini’s chest and head. The force sent his body flying back across the altar, the shots exploding around the Sistine like bursts of thunder, the shock waves rippling and dying over the dazzling visions of Michelangelo’s Apocalypse, the Creation, and the Flood.

THE LEAR JET
entered Lebanese airspace just after 3:30
A.M.
, skimming above the clouds at twenty thousand feet.

Sitting in a leather passenger seat in the luxurious private cabin, Hassan Malik wore an expensive linen suit and shirt, Italian handmade shoes, and his Patek Philippe watch.

On the tray in front of him lay the curved Arab knife that had once belonged to his father, and to Nidal. The thought of his beloved Nidal lying cold as marble in a desert grave sent a ghostly chill down Hassan’s spine. His eyes moistened.

He slid the curved blade from its scabbard and the polished metal gleamed, the edge scalpel-sharp. An aide came through the cabin. “A call from Rome, sir. And the captain says we should be landing in thirty minutes.”

Hassan slammed the blade into the scabbard. “Good. Tell Bruno to come in here.”

“Yes, sir.” The aide left.

Hassan took the satellite phone. He listened to the voice at the other end as it spoke for several minutes, and when the conversation ended, Hassan said, “Mille gratzi. I appreciate the news. Arrivederci.”

The line clicked dead and Hassan put aside the phone as the door to his private cabin snapped open. The Serb appeared. “You wanted me, Mr. Malik?”

Hassan picked up the curved Arab blade in its scabbard and tossed it to the Serb, who caught it. “Wake up Cane and bring him here. Then you know what to do.”

Jack woke with a blinding headache. He felt a sinking sensation. He blinked open his eyes. He was covered with a blanket and seated in a large, comfortable leather seat in what appeared to be a private aircraft. The dimly lit cabin had similar plush seats on both sides of the narrow aisle. Darkness raced beyond the oval windows.

He had a faint recollection of telling Hassan everything, then the Serb jabbed him with a hypodermic before they had dragged him from Hassan’s mansion to a helicopter. After that he blacked out. He heard a sigh and turned his head.

Yasmin lay on the seat next to him, a blanket draped over her body. He could hear her breathing softly, her dark eyelashes closed, her beautiful face angelic in sleep. He smelled the almond scent of her. He couldn’t help but reach out to stroke her hair. She murmured in her sleep. He thought,
Who is she?

Across the cabin, he recognized two of Hassan’s bodyguards, tough-looking men in suits who lounged in their seats. One slept, his arms folded and his head thrown back, mouth open as he snored. The other man was awake and watchful, and stared blankly at Jack.

A cabin door behind him opened. The Serb appeared. “So, you’ve decided to join us again. How do you feel, Cane?”

“Like I’ve been kicked by a camel.”

The Serb grinned and pulled away the blanket. “And the fun hasn’t even started yet.” He grabbed Jack viciously by the hair and dragged him up. “Move. Someone wants to talk with you.”

JACK WAS PUSHED
into another cabin. Hassan sat in a leather seat, his expression blank. The Serb forced Jack into the seat opposite and withdrew, leaving them both alone.

Jack said to Hassan, “What’s happening? Where are you taking me?”

“Back to my homeland, Cane. We’ll be landing shortly.”

“You’ll be arrested. Mossad will find you. They’re not stupid—”

“I’m well aware of Mossad and their ways. We’re not landing in Israel. But over the border in Jordan, at a private airfield.”

“And the plan is?”

“To retrieve the scroll. The desert is the Bedu’s home, Cane, and always has been. No Israelis or border patrols will ever stop that. But we’ll remain near the border with Israel, for safety.” Hassan held up the satellite phone. “The call has already been made to have someone bring the scroll to us.”

Hassan snapped his fingers. Jack looked up. Behind him the Serb had reappeared in the cabin doorway, holding a savage-looking curved Arab blade. The Serb grabbed Jack by the hair, yanked back his head, and held the knife against his throat.

Hassan said, “Just a friendly warning. If you’ve lied to me about the location of the scroll, Bruno will slit your throat.”

“I told the truth.”

The Serb let go of Jack’s hair and stepped back.

Jack said to Hassan, “Why does the scroll still matter to you if the Vatican opens its archives?”

Hassan tossed the satellite phone on the seat opposite. “So you
claim
. But I wouldn’t count on that, Cane. The news I heard from Rome is that your friend Becket was stabbed by a knife-wielding madman and is not expected to live. Whoever succeeds Becket, I doubt that he’ll be willing to be assassinated for the sake of revealing the truth.”

Jack said in disbelief, “You’re lying—”

“I have no cause to. No doubt it’ll soon be in every newspaper in the world. Nothing will change in the Vatican now, not ever. You say you left the parchment hidden under the gravel at your parents’ grave. It makes sense.” Hassan nodded to the Serb, who disappeared a moment, then reappeared with Yasmin, who stepped into the cabin.

Hassan said to her, “Well? Has Cane told the truth about where he buried the parchment?”

Yasmin’s face was pale with torment as she stared over at Jack, then turned to answer Hassan. “I was with him at the gravesite. For a time he had his back to me, so he could have hid something under the gravel.”

“One good truth deserves another.” Hassan forced a smile, stood, and put his arm around Yasmin, whose brown eyes never left Jack’s face. “It’s time I introduced you to my sister.”

MONSIGNOR SEAN RYAN
clutched his hands together in prayer and paced the corridor outside the emergency room in Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital.

He prayed with every step.

Prayer was a habit with him: he prayed every single morning, afternoon, and night. But at that moment, the focus of his prayer was John Becket.

Ryan felt a sickness in the pit of his stomach and looked down at his clutched hands. They were shaking. He had killed Cassini. The team of paramedics and doctors who came to attend to the pope had pronounced the Sicilian cardinal dead.

“He was probably dead before his head even hit the marble altar,” a medic later observed, seeing the massive wounds the .40-caliber slugs had inflicted on Cassini’s skull and chest.

Ryan still felt shaken. He had taken a life. His cloud of depression was made only worse by his knowledge that the pope was not expected to live through the night.

Ryan was drawn to a blaze of light beyond the corridor windows and paced over to the glass. The world had gone raving mad.

Powerful television arc lamps illuminated the hospital. The parking lot was a chaos of media crews, TV vans with satellite dishes, and heaving crowds, all eagerly awaiting news.

Ryan knew from the Vatican Press Office that more than a thousand carabinieri and police were drafted to keep back the surging masses. But still the crowds came, to gape, to pray, to wait—the fearful, the hopeful, the curiosity seekers, the doomsday mongers.

A mute TV hung from a corner ceiling of the corridor. It caught Ryan’s eye for the umpteenth time in the last half hour. The screen spewed out file footage of Pope Celestine and the Vatican, live shots of the hospital, and interviews with every religious commentator on the planet giving their two cents’ worth.

Ryan turned back as a surgeon wearing a blood-spattered green gown came out through the double doors of the emergency room. The man crossed the corridor and bought a coffee from a vending machine. Then he stepped toward an open window, lit an illicit cigarette, and inhaled deeply. Ryan noticed that about Italian doctors: so many of them had the nicotine habit.

He saw the surgeon pace the floor as he drew hard on his cigarette. The man’s expression was bleak, edgy. Ryan recognized him as one of the ER team attending John Becket. Ryan saw the surgeon glance over at him. Their eyes met. No words were spoken, but Ryan raised an eyebrow in query.
How goes it?

The surgeon gave a slight shake of his head—
it doesn’t
—then he stubbed out his cigarette and returned briskly through the ER’s swinging doors.

A rush of footsteps sounded in the corridor and Ryan looked round. A tall, unshaven priest rushed up, clutching at least three cell phones and looking harried. The Vatican press officer, Father Joe Rinaldi, asked anxiously, “Any more news, Sean?”

“I was told to expect the worst. He’s in a coma. Clinging to life by a thread.”

Rinaldi dabbed his face. “I better prepare the press releases. It’s sheer madness outside. I had to switch off my cell phones for a few minutes, just for a break. Every TV and news editor in the world is jamming the lines looking for an update. What have the surgeons said?”