Authors: Andrew Mayne
S
ERGEANT
S
CHWEIGER HOLDS
his phone aloft to give us a clear view of Caravaggio's clear plastic-covered painting
The Crowning with Thorns
while Lieutenant Häupl swings his metal crowbar at the wall across from where the pope made his most recent erratic speech.
Having found the acoustic device in Majorca, we have enough cause to call in all our resources.
Painted plaster fragments go flying, bouncing off the sheets they've hastily arranged to protect the rest of the Kunsthistorisches Museum's exhibits.
There had been a brief debate as to whether or not they should remove the priceless art from the gallery. But waiting for curators to properly move and stow the collection would be too time-consuming. I also got the feeling that if the tactical unit was going to get blown to hell, they'd at least like something nice to look at in the afterlife.
Ratner hides his face behind his hands as the wall begins to crumble. The other agents look equally concerned. I've only been in their unit less than a day and I already have them ordering up the destruction of major European monuments.
To the Austrian authorities, the mere suggestion that there may be some illicit electronic device concealed within the walls has sent the Austrian Special Unit into overdrive.
Häupl has made a fist-sized opening. He reaches up with his thickly armored hand and peels away a sheet of plaster. Men dressed like large beetles stand around with heavy metal shields to form a barrier in the event of a blast. They all look identical in their heavy tactical gear. We can only tell them apart because Häupl appears slightly taller and thinner.
The device Gustavo uncovered in Majorca was one of the technologies I'd been researching. “If you set up series of transducers like that,” I'd explained to the Secret Service agents, pointing to the image on my laptop screen. “You can project sound. You can't hear anything at the point of emission, but the small discs form a full sound wave at a distance. I think your tech people use something similar for embassy security to disperse protestors by blasting really annoying sounds.
“Only this can be used for more devious purposes than crowd control. Like my demo with Ratner, if you speak to someone using this it'll sound like your voice is coming from them. No one else will hear it. It'll drive them nuts. You can take it a step further and modulate someone's voice as they speak. Think of auto-tune music. But instead of making a bad singer sound good, you're using their voice to shape different words. You can then make words appear to come out of their mouth, which in some instances triggers people to try to make their speech match. It's like a short-circuit of the speech center.”
“And someone is doing this to the pope?” asks Carver, unable to take his eyes off the destruction going on thousands of miles away.
“That's what I think we found in Majorca. It's what I think we'll find here.” I hope. But feel guilty for hoping, knowing the deeper implication.
Ratner sits on the edge of a table biting his thumbnail. Our Skype scavenger hunt has quickly spiraled from something that felt like a telephone prank to what could become a major
international incident if we end up embarrassing the Austrian police.
He looks at me sharply. The implication is, I better be right. The reality is that this will fall on his head. As much as he'd like to see me proven wrong here, he knows this part of the operation is ultimately under his jurisdiction. He can finger-point all he wants, but it'll just make him look bad. Not that there won't be serious repercussions for me. I really, really don't want to have to explain another failure to Breyer. I've only been here a couple of hours and already I've put millions of dollars of priceless art in jeopardy halfway around the world.
Häupl tears away another piece of drywall. Bare concrete blocks are visible through the gap. He opens up the gash above and below. There's electrical conduit, but nothing else. He steps away from the damage and takes off his gloves to wipe the sweat from under his safety goggles.
Schweiger faces the camera and speaks in accented English. “Should we have found it by now?”
The wall looks just like a ripped-up wall. There's no hexagonal arrangement of discs. “One second.” Oh, man. I feel like there's a piano on a thin rope over my head. “Do we have a layout of the exhibit hall?”
A tablet displaying a diagram is handed to me. Diagonal lines connect the pope's position to the points on the wall where the transducers would need to be. It should be right in front of us, except it isn't there.
My skin burns with the feeling of a thousand disappointed eyes watching me, even though there's only two dozen people in the room. Well, I guess there's the people in Austria and all the chiefs watching the live feed.
I can only imagine the reaming that's in store for me.
“Nice going,” hisses Ratner, seeing the desperation on my face. “The FBI have the money to pay for this?”
“It was a good call, given what we found in Majorca.” Carver tries to reassure me.
“I can't wait to see this one on
Drudge Report
tomorrow.” Ratner seems almost gleeful, then has a second worried thought. “I'm not taking the heat for this, Blackwood.”
“Is everything okay?” asks Häupl as he steps in front of the video. I can see his reddish hair just under his helmet.
“Yes,” I lie, staring down at the image on the tablet. Something seems a little odd. “Lieutenant Häupl, how far is it from wall to wall?”
He motions to a sergeant. The other man comes running over with a tape measure and they unwind it from wall to wall. “Twelve meters,” Häupl reads.
Embarrassment completely washes over me. I may have just botched this. It could have been portable equipment that was loaded out. I look down at the tablet again. The number matches. “Hold on,” I turn to the Hamed, who made the layout. “Is this in feet?”
“Oh shit!” she replies.
I make the adjustment on the tablet. “Lieutenant Häupl, I got the measurement wrong. Could you try a foot, I mean, um, thirty centimeters, to the left?”
This wouldn't be the first time US-European disaster was caused by a mistake in metric versus US customary units.
He hesitates, then throws up his hands. “Plaster is cheap.” He slams the crowbar into the new coordinates, creating a new hole. The plaster falls away. Still no discs.
“How big of a hole do you want to dig yourself, Blackwood?” Ratner chortles.
This is a nightmare I don't get to wake up from. I'm pretty sure I'd rather be giving a speech in my underwear right now.
Häupl pulls away chunks of cinder block, widening the gap. “Would this be inside the wall, perhaps?”
“Maybe,” I reply. Anything to give me a chance to think. Where are bomb threats when you need them? Damn it, that's not funny.
“I'm about to call this,” Ratner threatens.
“I believe I'm in charge here,” Häupl responds over the video stream. “I'll keep going until the lady is satisfied.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Häupl.” I gratefully smile and ignore Ratner.
In Häupl's case, it's not that he necessarily believes me, it's that he had better turn over every possible stone. He doesn't have the luxury of pushing this down the line.
Ratner's thumbs type away on his phone. No doubt already trying to cover his ass.
Häupl steps back to survey the fallen plaster. He strips off the heavy protective sleeves on his arms then walks back to the wall. He shoves his bare hands into the space behind the wall, making a face as he strains.
“Please don't electrocute yourself,” Carver pleads quietly. Hands steepled under his nose like he's praying, I know exactly how he feels.
“
Ich habe etwas gefunden
!” Häupl shouts.
“What's that mean?” Ratner leaps from the edge of the table.
“He says he found something,” translates Schweiger, still holding his phone.
“
Ein metall sechsecks
. . .” Häupl calls out to his team. “A metal hexagon of some kind. Is this what you were looking for?”
“
Ja
,
ja
,” I reply.
There are smiles all around the room. Hamed claps me on the shoulder.
Häupl and his team bring out their explosive swab kits and a fiber-optic camera to get a better look at the device.
Our reaction is muted while we wait for the results. While we're safe here, our Austrian friends could still be in peril.
Häupl looks up from a handheld monitor. “It doesn't appear to be explosive. But we will proceed cautiously.”
“Please do. And thank you,” I reply.
“No, thank you.” He nods, then turns back to dismantling the device.
Carver sees my grim face. “What's the matter? I've never seen someone proven so right.” He steals a glance at Ratner.
Ratner gives me a shrug and pockets his phone. I guess he's decided not to finish covering his ass.
“Do you understand what this means?” I ask.
Ratner replies gravely, “Yeah, I do.” He looks over at Carver. “They could have killed the pope anytime they wanted. Instead of some electronic what-not, that could have been a wall full of shape charges and metal bearings. If they just wanted to kill him, they'd have done it already. Blackwood's right. They want to ruin him first by making him look insane or possessed before they do the big number. The real showstopper.” He points to the map of Miami on the wall. “There will be one hundred thousand people inside that stadium and another two hundred thousand right outside it. And who knows how many more millions watching around the world.” He shakes his head, staring right at me. “Christ. Jesus Christ. This is going to be bad, isn't it?”
Ratner may be an asshole, but he's not an idiot. Even he can see the situation we're in.
I shake my head in return. “It started by turning a sheriff into a homicidal maniac and blowing up a church using human fat. I have no idea how this is going to end.”
A
FTER WE'VE TAKEN
this upstairs to our respective superiors, we regroup to assess how circumstances have changed.
One thing is certainly different: I've earned some respect around here. Nobody can deny the threat posed by somebody who was able to smuggle a large electronic warfare device into one of the most heavily protected museums in the world.
“Our adversary has nearly infinite resources,” I explain to the task force. “She's wealthy, she has men ready to die for her and she makes it a daily habit to evade the United States government. X-20 has rapidly become one of our biggest security threats because of her. We can't underestimate her.”
“Bin Laden tried to kill US presidents, as did Hussein,” interjects Ratner.
Seriously? I still have to plead my case to him? “Bin Laden was operating from a cave in the middle of nowhere, in constant hiding. Marta Rodriguez has a two-hundred-foot yacht and walks openly in the streets of Mexico.” Or she did, until I ID'd her. But I don't have to point this out. “The financial resources under her control are probably in the billions. If you can imagine it, she can buy it. We've lost wars to countries with less resources.”
“Crap. The Atomic Colombian scenario.” Carver sighs in frustration. He notices some blank stares and elaborates. “That was one of our fears in the '90s. What would happen if a cartel
got hold of a nuclear device? Obviously there'd be no profit in it for them. But if they wanted a bargaining chip in case of capture, a warhead would be hard to argue with. It turned out to be mostly an empty threat, because most of those guys didn't even have high school educations and wouldn't know an isotope from a popsicle. That said, it was a concern.” He looks to me. “Is a WMD a potential threat here?”
Oh, fuck.
My mind never even went there.
I think this through out loud. “I don't know. I wouldn't suspect that's the case. Although she was able to arrange for a large amount of C4 to show up in my basement, putting over a hundred civilians in the line of fire. I think this is personal. This will likely be an attack on the pope directly. She has no problem harming bystanders, but they're not her target. As far as I know. But let's not rule anything out. I guess we need to at least make the CIA aware of this.”
“Why didn't she take her shot before?” Carver points out.
I'd been trying to put myself inside Marta's head. It's one thing to dissect methods after the fact, like I had to do with the Warlock. This is different. The means aren't as important as the motive. What does she want? “She wants something public. She doesn't just want to kill the man, she wants to take out the entire concept of the papacy. She wants to destroy the idea. She wants to destroy his mind before she destroys his body.”
“I think you've lost us there,” Ratner interrupts. “Her people are Catholics for the most part. Why would any of them in X-20 support her in this?”
“First of all, I don't think the bulk of X-20 knows what's going on. Second, I imagine they feel a stronger allegiance to their gang than to anything else. Tixato, their biggest recruiting ground, feels very betrayed by the Church and the government. Believe it or not, Marta is one of the biggest benefactors there and in
other areas. She's won those people over with orphanages and schools. Not to mention buying off politicians. But third, these people are just as complicated as anyone else. Mexican socialists tried to drive the Catholic Church out of Mexico a hundred years ago. Wherever one group has power, another group resents that power. According to intelligence, many X-20 hardliners practice indigenous beliefs. A lot of them felt abandoned when an earthquake hit the region. X-20 is their religion.”
“So what's she going to do?” Carver brings things back to the point at hand.
“I don't know. This all has to be building toward something. Right now she has the pope questioning his own sanity. Inside the Vatican they're actually debating if he's possessed or not. Farfetched as that seems, even Mother Teresa once subjected herself to an exorcism. Even the Church's most famous members believe they're vulnerable. This is something Marta has worked on for years.
“If I had to take a guess, the method of murder she's devised will be something dramatic, even biblical, in nature. When she can get someone else to do the killing, like Sheriff Jessup, or get Groom to kill himself, she'll do that. But with the Pope, I think it's about striking at his innermost fear. Right now he's doubting himself. When it's time to kill him . . .” I pause for a moment. “She'll want him, and everyone who witnesses it, to believe God has passed judgment on him.”
“And not Satan?” Ratner asks half seriously.
I ignore his tone. “The attacks at the church and Groom's suicide all have the overt implication that a demon was involved. The trouble with the Bible is that it's hard to tell the difference between an angel and a demon from their acts alone. Archangel Gabriel is supposed to bring about the destruction of Jerusalem. Sodom and Gomorrah were visited by angels before God destroyed them.
“Rodriguez is toying with people who literally believe this. If she had just killed them outright, she wouldn't have the satisfaction of them thinking in their dying moments that they are bound for hell. In a sense, she's trying to destroy their souls. In the case of the pope, she wants him to think he's finally experiencing God's wrath.”
Ratner groans. “Oh, so we're looking for a weapon of wrath.”
“Remember, it's not about how we see it. It's about what the pope experiences and what that means. She's been very careful with her methods so far, so she can instill a sense of the supernatural. But, yes, it will be some kind of weapon of wrath.”
I look around the room. There are more than a few unconvinced faces. “Think about it this way: You've heard all the horrible ways that drug cartels torture and kill people. Even the extremes the mafia goes to. It's not just for show. The people who run these organizations succeed by thinking of the most horrific and dramatic way to kill their enemies. It's not just advertising. They enjoy this. Marta is very smart, very rich and about the most sadistic person you can imagine.
“We can do the standard security screenings, although I doubt our bomb sniffers or sniper lookouts can spot what she's up to. This is going to be unconventional in the extreme.”
Carver shakes his head. “The White House has been very clear they want this visit to proceed. Unless we have a credible reason to think there's going to be an attack at the festival, we can't call off his appearance. Do you think we can find some shred of proof?”
We can't wait for the evidence to be a dead man. “I don't know. We can show that he's been targeted, but there's no clear proof that he's going to be a target here.”
“What do we do? If you don't think he's going to be killed in any way we understand, how can we stop that from happening?” Ratner complains.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Despite the question of whether or not he was involved in Marty's death thirty years ago, the pope is still a guest of the United States and it's my duty to protect him, even if it means putting my own life on the line. I've had to do perp walks where the people we transferred were some of the most heinous you could imagine: child killers and serial murderers. Still, we'd put them in bulletproof vests because there was a chance someone might take a shot at them. Even for dirtbags like that, we'd form a human shield in open spaces to guard them. Our lives were used to protect theirs.
“I think we only have one choice.” I try to find the right way to express what I'm thinking. “We let her succeed.”