Authors: Michael C. Grumley
33
As the spiritual leader
of over one billion Catholics worldwide, Pope Pius XIV was arguably the most
recognized and influential person on the planet.
As the latest in a line of successors to
Saint Peter, to whom Jesus gave the
keys of Heaven
, the Pope was also
one of the most protected individuals on that planet.
The level of security
required to ensure his protection at all times was an enormous challenge, one
that fell on the shoulders of Dario Burk, the head of the Pontifical Swiss
Guard, the sole military arm in charge of protecting the Pope since the 15
th
century.
Their efforts to protect a
leader who liked to maintain a level of human touch at every turn made their
job far more difficult to deal with than any other security team,
anywhere.
And a sudden public appearance
of the Pope in another country was Burk’s worst kind of problem.
He hung up the phone
with Carolina Flores, the Director of the Secret Service, and leaned back in
his chair.
This was going to be a
nightmare.
Being surrounded by
thousands of people, outdoors in an open area, was bad enough.
But adding several other high ranking political
figures, including the U.S. President, was like pouring fuel on a fire.
On top of it all was
the crisis emerging from the church bombings and the mass hysteria spreading
across the United States.
God forbid
should an attack happen in another country; the panic could go global.
They had to get the Pope in front of this,
but the danger was significant.
The only
possibility was to revert back to more conservative and, frankly, older
tactics.
No one within a twenty meter
perimeter, no touching, and no one within two hundred meters who had not been
patted down.
But even those
precautions barely relieved his anxiety.
Flores assured him there would be spotters and sharp shooters on almost
every rooftop in a six block radius and every item larger than an apple would
be physically examined by weapons inspection teams.
Then there were the Popemobiles with their
bullet-proof Plexiglas and reinforced, armored side panels.
Frankly, to put him into anything less
visible would just add to the fear and nervousness of the public.
Burk looked at the
phone.
It had been his twenty-eighth
call to Flores in just two days.
Everything he and his team could think of had been addressed as well as
it could be, given the compressed timeline.
But Burk knew it wasn’t the things he could think of that worried
him.
It was the things he couldn’t
foresee that kept him up at night.
They had less than
twenty-four hours before they were due to be in the air.
He knew he would not be able to sleep through
any of them.
34
Kim Darlington stood at
the window in her office, looking slightly pale.
Never before had she opened a case for a
missing officer, let alone three.
She
felt sick to her stomach.
Griffin and
Buckley had now been missing for four days, and Cheryl Roberts for three.
And so far, they had no leads.
She looked down at the dark street a few
floors below, and watched the cars and people passing back and forth.
It had to have something to do with that
social worker and the little girl they were protecting.
But how?
They both disappeared shortly after the attack at the safe house,
which meant they could be anywhere.
There was no word from any of them.
No phone records, no credit card activity, and no eye witnesses.
In the end, she hated doing it, but nothing
got people’s attention like an abducted child.
Darlington turned from
the window and stood over her desk.
Her
eyes had just wandered to her laptop screen which had her email program open,
when she noticed a new email had arrived from her FBI friend in Boston.
The one from which the chaplain had asked for
help.
At that moment,
something occurred to her.
Why hadn’t
she thought of that?
She quickly
leaned down and scanned the email before picking up the phone.
The chaplain!
The phone rang several
times before Chaplain Wilcox answered.
“Hello?
This is Douglas
speaking.”
“Hi Chaplain, this is
Kim Darlington.”
“Oh, hi Kim,” he
replied.
“I’m glad you called.
I’m on my way back to the hotel and was
getting ready to call you.”
He sighed on
the other end of the phone.
“I heard
about the investigation.
I’m very
distraught.
Do you have any more
information?”
“I’m afraid not,”
Darlington said, pulling her handset cord with her as she stepped back to the
window. “We’ve got over a hundred officers on it now though.
We’ll find them.”
“Good.”
The chaplain’s voice was low and didn’t sound
very confident.
He had seen enough
missing person’s cases to know if they didn’t have any leads after the first
three days, the odds were not good.
“What can I do?”
“Well, it’s funny you
should ask.
I called for two
reasons.
First, when was the last time
you talked to Cheryl?”
“Let’s see.”
The chaplain stopped to consider.
“I believe it was Tuesday evening.
We met at the library.
She wanted to talk about the bombing at Saint
Patrick’s.”
Darlington
frowned.
“Why did she want to talk about
Saint Patrick’s?”
“She said she thought
there may have been a connection with one of her cases, the one with the little
girl.”
Darlington froze.
The Baxter girl!
“What did she say?”
“Mmm…we didn’t really
get that far.
She said they had a girl
and her social worker in protective custody and someone was chasing them,”
Wilcox said.
“We were supposed to talk again
the next day.”
Darlington sat down in
her chair and rested an elbow on her desk.
“How was her case connected to the explosion?”
“That I’m afraid I
don’t know,” the chaplain replied.
“And
I don’t think she knew either.”
Darlington remained
still, listening and thinking.
She
twirled a strand of her thick, curly hair and leaned back.
If Roberts thought the bombing was
related, and she was working the Baxter case with Griffin and Buckley, then the
bombing may very well be a link to their disappearance.
But what was it?
What had Roberts learned?
Darlington
frowned.
She just didn’t have enough
yet.
She took a deep breath and changed
the subject.
“Okay, well listen, I just
got some information back from my friend in Boston.
Are you ready?”
“Yes, of course.”
Darlington looked back
at her computer screen and the email.
“She didn’t have much, but what she did have may leave you with more
questions than answers.
The man’s name
is Aaron Bazes.
He’s from Israel and,
you’re right, he has one serious security clearance.
In fact, he’s got an ambassador level
passport which means he pretty much comes and goes as he pleases.”
“Wow,” the chaplain
replied through the phone’s earpiece.
“That’s not all.
My friend says his passport has a special
flag on it.
She says that if it’s
scanned by anyone, it says ‘not to be delayed or detained.’”
“Delayed or detained,”
Wilcox repeated.
“I’ve never heard of
that before.”
“Neither have I.”
“So what else did she
find on him?” he asked.
“That’s it.”
“That’s it?
What do you mean?”
Darlington shook her
head.
“I mean that’s it.
That’s all she could get.
A name, picture, his country and
clearance.
She has a physical
description, but you already know what he looks like.”
“Wow,” the chaplain
said again.
“That’s not a lot.
He’s from Israel and can go wherever he
wants.”
His voice disappeared for a
moment while he mulled it over.
“So,
what was he doing poking around the bomb sites?”
“You got me,”
Darlington said.
“Hmm…”
He realized that Kim was right.
He did have more questions than answers.
“Okay, I’ll have to think on this a bit.
I was hoping for more.”
“Sorry Padre.”
Another light on her phone lit up, and she
looked at the number.
“I’m sorry Padre,
I’m getting another call.
I’ll call you
when I have more.”
“Okay, no
problem.”
Darlington clicked over
to the other line.
“This is Kim.”
“Hi Kim, I have a call
coming in.
From a Mike Ramirez.”
Darlington recognized
the name of the computer forensics expert that had come to see her.
“Okay, put him through please.”
She waited for the line to transfer before
answering.
“Kim Darlington speaking.”
“Hello Ms. Darlington,
this is Mike Ramirez.
We met a couple
days ago when I came in.”
“Yes, I remember.”
Mike cleared his
voice.
“I wanted to call and tell you
about something.”
“Okay,” Darlington
said.
“So, I was telling you
that I hadn’t heard from Detectives Griffin or Buckley.”
Darlington leaned
forward on her desk.
“Correct.”
“Right, well I saw your
announcement tonight on the news, about your investigation, and I think there’s
something odd here,”
Ramirez explained.
She raised an eyebrow.
“What is that?”
“So,” Ramirez
continued, “the other day when I got back to my office, after speaking with
you, I wrote a small program.
I was
thinking I could create an app that would periodically parse through the server
logs and search against their phone numbers and, if it found anything, to email
me.”
Darlington perked
up.
“Did you find something?”
“I believe so,” Ramirez
answered.
“I got an email not too long
ago.”
“What did it say?”
asked Darlington, now eagerly leaning into the phone.
“It shows Detective
Griffin’s phone connected briefly to a cell tower, which means if it was turned
off before, then it was just turned on.”
Darlington suddenly
stood up.
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not.”
Ramirez was staring at his screen on the
other end of the phone.
“I’m guessing it
was turned on for about six or seven minutes before it was turned off again.”
“Where?
Can you tell where they are?!” Darlington
almost yelled into the phone.
Ramirez was expecting
this as her first question.
“Well, I can
tell you what tower they connected to, but unfortunately I can’t pinpoint their
location.”
Darlington’s heart was
racing.
“That’s a start.”
“Maybe,” replied
Ramirez.
“What do you mean
maybe?”
“They were connected to
the tower for several minutes, but the weird part is where the tower was
located.”
Darlington squinted her
eyes.
“Where
was
the tower
located?”
Ramirez had checked his
data three times.
He had to be sure
about this.
“China.”
“China?”
She hoped she hadn’t heard him right.
“China,” he
confirmed.
“And it gets stranger.
His phone was turned on, sent and received a
text message, and then turned right back off.”
35
Sarah sat patiently on
Christine’s lap as Christine brushed her wet hair.
Avery was straightening their bed atop the
large sofa while Rand stood near the kitchen window, looking outside into the
forest.
He turned and looked at Sarah
with her blond hair combed straight down, then calmly returned his gaze to the
window.
Avery patted the
blankets and stood up.
“Sarah, would you be okay out here if I took a
quick shower?” Christine asked, peering around the side of her tiny
shoulder.
“Sure.”
She set the brush down
and began to stand up when Sarah whispered into Christine’s ear.
Christine looked at Avery then back to
her.
“I don’t know,” she
whispered back.
“Ask him.”
Still shy, Sarah looked
at Avery who was watching her with interest.
After appearing to contemplate something, she slowly walked across the
room to him.
Avery bent down slightly as
she approached.
“Can we please play checkers
again?” she asked.
Avery gave her a hard
stare which turned into a soft grin.
“Do
you promise to take it easy on me?”
Sarah smiled.
“Yes.”
Avery straightened with
a satisfied look and motioned to the small table in the kitchen.
“Do you remember how to set it up?”
Sarah smiled and
trotted over to a shelf and retrieved the game, then began laying it out on the
table in front of Rand who was watching her with a grin.
Christine had noticed that Rand’s stone like
expression softened when he watched Sarah.
Christine looked at
Rand and Avery.
“That okay?”
They both nodded.
“I got the things you asked for and left them
in the bathroom.” Avery said.
Christine opened her
other eye and then carefully handed the .40 caliber Springfield back to
Rand.
“How was that?”
“Good, but remember to
keep your shoulders more forward.”
“It’s a lot to
remember,” she said with a frown.
Rand took the gun,
smoothly replaced the magazine, and slid it back into his holster without
looking.
“I think I’m just going
to need a lot more practice.”
“We don’t have much
time,” he replied.
Christine gave him a
hopeful look.
“Maybe whoever was doing
this is gone.
Maybe he was one of the
men that you killed.”
He shook his head.
“It hasn’t happened yet.”
“What, what hasn’t
happened?”
Rand squinted and
peered out over the field.
“I don’t know
exactly.
But it’s coming.
And I must be there.”
“And what if you’re
not?”
He turned and looked at
Christine solemnly.
“Then I fail.
I fail her, and I fail
him
.
I fail everyone.”
Christine took a deep
breath.
She had wanted to say something
for a while.
“Listen, I have to admit
I’m still struggling with this.
I mean
God and this constant battle of good and evil; it’s a little hard to imagine.”
Rand stared at
her.
“Do you believe in God?”
“Of course I do.”
“Do you believe he
cares for you?”
Christine nodded.
“I do.”
“And do you believe
evil is real?”
“You mean like Satan
and demons, that sort of thing?”
“If that helps.”
She sighed and folded
her arms.
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
“Then why is it such a
leap?
If you can believe that he created
you, why are you unable to believe that he also fights for you?”
“I don’t know,” she
said with a shrug.
“I guess that’s just
not how I learned it.”
“You learned
wrong,”
Rand replied, reaching down to
pick up his AR-15 assault rifle.
He
turned it over and checked the chamber.
“What’s that supposed
to mean, ‘I learned wrong’?”
“The religious teachings that most people
believe in today are far from the truth.
The Bible was not intended to be a book of interpretation.
Interpretation and time are the enemies of
truth.
What you have today is a version
of the Bible that has been twisted so many times that it can now be used to
vindicate almost anything.
It’s no
longer the true word of God.”
Christine tilted her
head, her arms still folded.
“Then what
is
the truth?” she asked.
He began turning away
but then stopped abruptly and looked at her.
“The truth?
The truth is that
your God fights for all of you, for all of his children, and he’s
losing
!”
Christine stepped
back.
“Losing?
I thought he was all powerful.”
“He is.
But evil is far stronger than anyone
believes.
They’ve successfully led you
all down a road of sloth and apathy, a path you are all too eager to travel.
Even your churches have strayed.
They have compromised for little more than to
guarantee their tithe, and now even they struggle to fill their seats.
The number of God’s children who still speak
to him is diminishing.”
Rand looked away
with a look of disgust on his face.
“He
fights for you, but who fights for him?
I mean
really fights!”
Christine frowned and
looked out over the open field in front of them.
Another thick wall of trees stood behind them
and separated the pair from the cabin.
“Maybe it’s the suffering,” she said.
“Maybe it’s the pain of watching terrible things happen in this world,
like millions of innocent people being wiped out by horrible dictators, or
thousands of children being molested and ruined for life.
Or maybe it’s the countless people wasting
away, dying of cancer right in front of the ones who love them most.”
She looked back at him.
“I think it can be easy for people to lose
faith when they see things like that every day.”
“That may be true,”
Rand replied, slinging the rifle over his shoulder.
“Except for one thing.”
Christine looked at him
expectantly.
“Those are not God’s
decisions or choices.
He’s not the one
making those things happen.
It’s
them.
God is the one trying to stop it.
He has a plan, but he’s losing the
fight.
He’s losing the fight, because
he’s
losing his children
.”
Rand began walking back
when Christine called after him.
“Rand.”
He turned back to face
her.
“If he chose me,” she
said with a solemn expression, “then
I’ll
fight
.”
The sun finally dropped
behind the mountains as Christine and Rand walked in through the front door to
find Avery and Sarah making dinner in the small kitchen.
Sarah stood beside him on a folding stool,
reaching almost to his shoulder.
She was
looking inside a large pot and had dropped the dried pasta in
just as Christine cleared her voice.
Sarah looked up and
climbed down the stool to run over.
“What are you doing?”
Christine asked with a smile.
“I’m helping Avery
cook,” she explained.
“We’re making
pasta.”
Avery smiled from his
spot next to the stove.
“She likes to
cook too.”
“Wow.” She looked down
as Sarah hugged her.
“That’s very
impressive.”
Sarah looked up at
Christine and then over to Rand.
“Dinner
is going to be ready in ten minutes,” she said.
“Twenty
minutes
,”
corrected Avery.
“Dinner’s going to be
ready in twenty minutes!”
Christine laughed while
Rand smiled.
They watched Sarah run back
into the kitchen.
“She’s a great kid,”
Christine said.
“Indeed.”
Over her shoulder,
Christine realized the TV was still on in the other room.
She walked over to it and grabbed the remote
control, trying to turn it off, but accidentally hit the wrong button which
changed the channel instead.
Two news anchors
instantly filled the screen, talking about the first New York church
bombing.
But it was what Christine saw
on the screen next, and more specifically what was pictured at the top, that
caused her to freeze.
Pictured on the
screen were headshots of three people she knew!
“...Griffin, Michael
Buckley, and Cheryl Roberts, all officers from downtown’s 19
th
Precinct have been confirmed missing for three days.
The statement was issued today by the
precinct’s Deputy Inspector Kim Darlington.”
Christine gasped and
turned around to face Rand as the anchor continued on the screen.
“The department
reported that there are no leads as of yet, but confirmed the three officers
were working together on a case involving a woman and child.”
“Oh my god!” Christine
took a step back and placed a hand on her chest after pictures of her and Sarah
also appeared on the television screen.
“Police say the
woman, Christine Rose, may have abducted the girl who was at the time under
police custody…”
“No!” Christine
cried.
“No!
You’ve got to be kidding!
I’m WANTED?!
What the hel-”
She turned to look
at Rand again and found that Avery was now standing next to him, peering at the
screen too.
“…ask that if anyone
has any information that they call the number below…”
Christine leaned
forward and turned the sound down just as Sarah grabbed her hand.
“Those are the men who
helped us at the hide house,” she said.
Christine was staring
at the screen, speechless.
“Aren’t they?”
Sarah asked expectantly.
Christine nodded.
“Yes.”
Sarah studied Christine
and spoke softer. “Did something happen to them?”
Christine looked at
Rand and Avery again and then finally down to Sarah.
“Maybe.”
“Did the red ones get
them?”
Christine covered her
mouth with her other hand as her eyes began to fill with tears.
“It’s only begun.”
Rand said quietly.
Christine took a few
steps and collapsed down onto the couch.
Still holding her hand, Sarah silently climbed onto Christine’s
lap.
She tried to wrap her other tiny
arm around her.
“My god, what’s
happening?”
Christine cried out through
her tears.
Both men looked at her
quietly, and Rand took a step forward.
“It’s okay; we’re safe here for now.”
Christine blinked and
suddenly looked up at Rand with a frightened expression.
“Oh my god!
Danny!”
She pointed to the
screen.
“Danny!”
“What?”
“Oh no!
Oh no!”
she said, feeling a sickening sensation spreading through her gut.
“We’re in trouble.”
Rand and Avery looked
at each other.
“What do you mean?”
She abruptly stood up,
still holding onto Sarah.
“He texted
me.
HE TEXTED ME!”
Neither of the men were
following.
Christine took a deep breath
and tried to slow down.
“He
texted
me.
Danny.
Yesterday.
I accidentally turned my phone on, and a text from Danny came through.”
Rand and Avery’s eyes
widened.
“What did you do?”
Her face filled with
guilt.
“I replied.”
Rand raised his
voice.
“You did what?”
“I’m sorry,” Christine
cried.
“I didn’t know.
I just told him that I was fine and would
contact him later.”
Rand instantly had his
gun in his hand without Christine even having seen it drawn.
He turned to Avery just as all the lights
went out, and the cabin was plunged into darkness.