Authors: Rick Mofina
74
Aboard the papal helicopter, over Montana
As the papal squadron of helicopters pounded east over the Great Plains, Walker’s stomach roiled with dread.
In the wake of the latest situation reports, he feared he’d missed a key piece of data, something that could link the fragments of intelligence that were causing mounting concern in the White House.
Was a threat emerging?
As the world rushed beneath him in a patchwork of cattle ranches, wheat and barley fields, Walker racked his brain.
But it was futile.
The answer he sought was lost out there in the neverending grassland.
As they neared Cold Butte, he glanced at the pope and his advisors looking down from their windows.
Mile after mile, traffic was gridlocked.
Walker caught a glimpse of smoke billowing from a fire and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. Looked like a serious wreck due west of the town, maybe twenty miles.
Walker checked his BlackBerry. Montana Highway Patrol had just sent a preliminary report. Two fatalities. No IDs confirmed. Vehicle a rental. Investigation con tinues. MHP also reported a noninjury collision be tween a charter bus and RV. Walker had holstered his BlackBerry when it vibrated with a new message, a supplemental to the double fatal, addressed only to Walker.
The MHP note came with urgency, saying RCMP Corporal Graham needed to speak with Walker.
Graham?
Walker took a second to recall their meeting in his office.
The note said Graham needed to talk about his case.
That would be the Ray Tarver matter, Walker re membered. He’d had the Intelligence Division look into it, albeit grudgingly. They’d found nothing to support Tarver’s grand conspiracy.
Walker had given Graham a hard time in D.C., so he’d give him a call. Give him one minute of his time.
Walker reached for his phone and dialed Graham’s cell-phone number but couldn’t get through.
He’d try again later.
75
Cold Butte, Montana
Graham drove toward the house not knowing what he would face.
Given that the Tarvers had been murdered, that he and Maggie could’ve been killed in the suspicious car crash, every instinct told him to hold off.
He had no backup, no complaint history on the resi dence, no weapon, no radio, no jurisdiction and no choice but to keep going.
Besides, he really didn’t care much about his own safety.
As his car came to a stop, he scanned the area for dogs, listening for the telltale jingle of a collar or chain as he got out.
“Hello!”
Nothing. He whistled. Still no sign of a dog.
The grass under his feet was worn to an earthen path to the house, a yellow double-wide with bone-white trim. It had flower boxes under the windows. The redchecked gingham curtains did not stir when he came to the side door and knocked.
No response. Nothing but the wind combing the grasslands.
He knocked again, listening for sounds of move ment. Pressing his ear to the door. This time he heard a soft hum coming from inside.
The drone of a conversation.
He continued knocking with no response. It puzzled him because he could hear people inside talking.
“Hello!”
He walked around the outside of the house to the rear, coming to a small deck and patio doors. They were open to what Graham figured was a living room, judging from the view the curtains allowed each time a breeze flut tered.
He heard people talking in the house.
Graham cupped his face against the screen and called inside.
No response.
The prairie winds pushed the faint tapping of the distant helicopters across the plain while he peered into the house. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkened interior. Looking directly through the imme diate room, down a hallway, he saw a door.
It was partly open.
Enough to frame an arm draped from a bed.
“Hello! I’m Corporal Graham of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I am checking on the welfare of Logan Conlin, or Logan Russell. Jake, Burt? Can you hear me? Can anyone hear me?”
The arm didn’t move.
Someone sleeping? Passed out? Hurt?
A new sound.
Somewhere in the house a telephone began ringing. It rang six times then stopped. The person in the bed didn’t move.
Under the circumstances, Graham believed he faced a life-and-death situation and drove his foot through the screen and entered. Knowing he could be taken for an intruder, he identified himself as he proceeded, his senses heightened.
The first room he entered was a living room with no one present.
Adjoining it was the kitchen.
Graham scanned everything quickly; the kitchen table was clear, clean. So was the counter. He glimpsed letters, bills, all addressed to Burt Russell. Graham passed the empty living room, a desk, a laptop, the TV—the source of the voices. Live news coverage of the papal visit. Before moving on to the occupied bedroom, he made a very fast sweep of the other rooms, calling out as he progressed.
The bathroom was empty.
The nearest bedroom was vacant except for card board boxes and a mattress against the wall.
The next bedroom was vacant but gave him pause.
Clothes scattered everywhere, small jeans, a T-shirt; next to the bed, a framed photo of Jake and Logan Conlin in front of a rig with the Rockies behind them. Jake was bald with a beard—aka
Burt Russell.
As Graham moved to the occupied bedroom, the TV droned with a woman’s voice. Graham was focused on the bedroom and did not comprehend the faint mono logue that began:
“…I am Samara. I am not a jihadist…”
76
Lone Tree County Fairgrounds, Montana
Cold Butte came into view as the papal helicopter de scended on the small town.
Below, traffic had swallowed the community. Walker and the others marvelled at the site for the outdoor Mass behind the school in the Buffalo Breaks.
A one-hundred-foot cross had been erected over the stage supporting the altar. The venue was in a valley offering a natural bowl. Walker had advanced the site several times when it was empty, checking vantage points and rises.
Now, over one hundred thousand people were gath ered, awaiting the pope. His stomach lifted as the heli copter swooped and banked for landing at the Lone Tree County Fairgrounds.
After touching down in the rodeo park, the pope and Vatican officials were greeted by an assembly of local dignitaries. Afterward, papal security officials gathered behind closed doors in the main pavilion building.
Walker expected that they would first go through a very quick, final rundown of the pope’s agenda for the visit, assignments and areas of joint and specific respon sibility.
That didn’t happen.
Colby was on his cell phone. He’d been receiving a steady stream of calls from Washington, the gravity of the latest developments weighing on his face as he waved Walker over to join him in a tight group of Vatican and security officials.
The heat of their ongoing debate was intense.
Monsignor Paulo Guerelli, one of the most impor tant members of the pope’s inner sanctum, was shak ing his head.
“What Washington is suggesting is impossible based on the facts, Agent Colby.”
“I am conveying White House concerns, Monsignor. Please understand that in light of the intelligence reports, it is regrettably but strongly advised the Vatican consider canceling today’s events.”
“Is there a clear threat that will result in harm to those around the Holy Father?”
“No, we cannot say that with absolute certainty.”
“Have you found physical evidence or confirmation of some sort?”
“No, Monsignor, nothing conclusive yet, but urgent analysis is ongoing, arising from a number of disturb ing incidents that have the White House concerned.”
“Has the White House no confidence in its Secret Service?”
Colby let that one go. He was in the middle of a po litical firefight.
“Yes,” Guerelli said, “these incidents. You’re refer ring to the strange substances in Washington and here
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in Montana. And, the alleged plan for a strike extracted from Issa al-Issa.”
“Correct.”
“Have any of these incidents been linked?”
“No, not yet, but it’s felt the risk is extreme.”
Guerelli took a few seconds for consideration.
“Agent Colby, every time the Holy Father meets the public he faces risk,” Guerelli said. “In Seattle, we had two incidents that appeared deadly but ultimately had no impact on the Holy Father’s mission.”
“Yes.”
“The Holy Father has traveled the world and faced many threats. For some two thousand years the papacy has faced wars, attacks, assassination. It is not a weak institution that is easily frightened.”
Colby ran his hand over his face.
“But, Monsignor.”
“Your job is to protect the pope. Your team is doing it well. We request that you keep doing it in order for the Holy Father to complete his ecumenical work. Tell the White House we will now proceed. We’re running behind and the Holy Father is eager to meet the children of the choir.”
Guerelli and the other Vatican officials left to join the pope in a private room where he was reviewing his speech to honor Sister Beatrice.
“I don’t like this.” Lloyd Taylor, a senior agent, shook his head. “Think back to Dallas and how Kennedy refused the bubble on the car. Can we get a vest on him?”
Colby shook his head.
“We tried. He refuses it.”
“To cancel now,” Taylor said, “would not only dent the morale of the Secret Service, but it would embar rass the nation.”
Colby nodded.
“It’s beyond us. This administration is terrified. It would rather send the pope back to Rome pissed off than send him back in a coffin.”
Colby called a quick last-minute briefing of all the senior security people. They went through the pope’s itinerary and everyone’s responsibility.
Then they secured him into the popemobile and mar shalled the security vehicles.
Amid several streams of radio cross talk by the Secret Service, FBI, Lone Tree County sheriff’s dep uties and Montana Highway Patrol, the motorcade left the fairgrounds.
Walker was in the second SUV behind the com mand vehicle.
As the parade moved through streets lined with cheering crowds, his heart started beating faster.
77
Cold Butte, Montana
Struggling to get to the school, Maggie crunched a foot here, banged a shoulder there as she pinballed forward, refusing to be halted.
She was very near to Logan. She could feel it. Nothing could stop her.
A helicopter thudded by at low level going east to west. Then another. The excitement mounted. Maggie contin ued moving through the crowd, listening to fragments of reports spilling from radios tuned to live news coverage.
“…we’re expecting the papal helicopter to land mo mentarily at the Lone Tree County Fairgrounds outside of town…the popemobile motorcade will take a threemile route from the fairgrounds through the town of Cold Butte to the school…after he visits the school the pontiff will go directly behind it to the sweeping valley known as the Buffalo Breaks where he’ll celebrate Mass for a crowd estimated at seventy-five thousand, no, an update, that’s one hundred thousand….among the ac tivities inside the school a children’s choir will perform three songs for the pope….”
Maggie navigated her way to the edge of the school’s boundary and as she looked through the crowd toward the parking lot she saw a flash of yellow.
A school bus fully loaded with parents and children had arrived at the barricaded checkpoint. Police and soldiers armed with M16s and wearing combat gear slowly guided it into the parking lot for inspection.
Two teams of sniffer dogs probed the bus while soldiers used extended mirrors to scrutinize the under carriage, and under the hood. Their serious work con trasted with the ecstatic young faces in the bus windows exchanging joy and returning waves to the happy crowd.
The bus was some twenty yards away across the street from Maggie.
She thrust closer to the barricade, ignoring protests of people who had claimed their spots at sunrise.
She didn’t care.
She pushed her concentration full bore from window to window to window.
She gasped.
Maggie screamed Logan’s name before the cognitive process was done.
He was on the bus!
Waving and smiling from the window, just as he’d done a lifetime ago on the last day they’d been together at home. Only now, Logan hadn’t seen Maggie yet.
“Logan!”
Maggie shoved through the crowd to the barricade.
“Hey, lady!”
“What the—”
“I have to get to my son, please let me through! Logan!”
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“Where’s she going? Call that officer! She’s crazy!” The passengers were directed to step off the bus for further inspection. They formed a neat line before entering the school. Parents were formally dressed, children wore their Sunday best—boys in blazers, white shirts and ties, girls in white dresses.
Stone-faced soldiers and police officers guided them through metal detectors, boys and girls extended their arms, removed shoes, jackets as security wands passed over them and dog handlers patrolled at close proximity.
Once he was cleared, Logan moved with the line toward a school entrance.
Maggie was going to lose him.
“Logan!”
He turned at the sound of shouts but did not see Maggie as she launched herself over the metal barri cade, stumbled onto the cleared road and ran toward him calling his name.
People yelled to police and pointed.
At that moment, officers and soldiers rushed Maggie, reaching for their weapons. Radios crackled with rapidfire transmissions.
Security breach Sector 27! We have a security breach at 27!
A Montana Highway Patrol he licopter turned and pounded toward the scene. TV news cameras wheeled, focused, capturing a hysterical woman running across the empty road to the school live on network television. A cameraman said calmly into his headset, “Alert New York, we’ve got something here.” On the school roof, FBI sharpshooters advised that they had “the target” in the crosshairs of their scope and could drop it in a heartbeat.
“Standing by for green,” one FBI shooter whispered
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into his headset, then placed his finger on the trigger of his rifle.
A rookie Montana patrolman, who was a former tackle from Missoula, got to Maggie first. He took her to the ground hard. His six-foot-four-inch body covered hers and in one smooth motion he got one metal cuff on her right wrist.
The chopper whooped above.
Other officers swarmed the scene.
Standing there in his new blazer, Logan had wit
nessed the incident, but without recognizing that the woman at the center of it was his mother.
Maggie screamed for him, reaching through a forest of legs and boots toward him with her soon-to-be-cuffed left hand. But his eyes never found hers. The prop wash from the chopper was deafening, but Maggie saw a question form on his face just as a hand clamped his shoulder and turned him from her, nudging him into the school.
The hand belonged to the person in the picture in the truck stop restaurant.
Samara.
Across the chaos, the two women met in one intense gaze.
Anguished mothers from different worlds, heart broken by events not of their making, willing to pay any price for their family. Samara’s eyes were fixed with purpose, forged in some hellfire of unwavering love that burned into Maggie’s.
“That woman abducted my son!” Maggie shouted. “She could threaten the pope! You have to arrest her! You have to alert Special Agent Blake Walker! Now! Logan!”
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None of the deputies, troopers or agents understood Maggie over the chopper, let alone gave a second thought to her words.
To them
she
was the threat.
Maggie offered little resistance as they pulled her to her feet, told her of her rights as they completed hand cuffing her hands in front of her.
“You have the right to remain silent…”
“Logan!”
As Samara entered the school with Logan, she took a deputy and a Secret Service agent aside and showed them several badges of identification.
“I’m a nurse with the county helping with this event,” Samara said, then nodded to Maggie. “That woman is psychologically disturbed. She came to the school last week and indicated that she would ‘get rid of the pope’ if he ever came here.”
The deputy and agent nodded as they copied Samara’s ID information, took notes then reached for their microphones.