Semtex may be stable for an explosive, but that doesn't mean you can play soccer with it. The plane lurched again and I was sure that the next sound I'd hear would be a loud thud, followed swiftly by the trumpets of angels. I flailed around the floor, the bomb a few inches away. As the plane shifted again, I dove on it, got it in my paws, then jumped back and slapped it against the door.

I think I creased the tape to make it stay, but all I really remember is launching myself in the opposite direction.

By the time it blew, I was at the middle galley. I fell or was pushed down by the blast-probably the first-then rebounded up, bolting for the cabin. The hatchway had a hole about the size of a watermelon, but it was still locked closed; I had to reach through and yank the d.a.m.n thing open.

The pilot mumbled manically at the controls. I think he was probably praying to Allah, telling him to get those virgins lined up because he was thirty seconds from paradise. So much for the mystery of how the hijackers got their weapons aboard: The pilot had brought them in himself.

The bomb was in the flap where I'd left it. I yanked the timer off, disabling it. As I did, the pilot pushed the aircraft toward the green, brown, and gray patchwork of j.a.pan's countryside. He was praying so loud and so fast it sounded as if he were singing a rap song.

Two hard punches to the side of the head failed to shut him up, much less get him to let go of the wheel. I tried to grab hold of his neck, determined to pull his head off if I had to. The aircraft began to pull up sharply, and between my strength and the changed momentum, his neck snapped. Blood and vomit spit out over the controls.

I scrambled into the copilot's seat, trying to grab control of the plane. You'd probably love for me to tell you how I leveled the sucker off, took a sharp right, then flew the four or five hundred miles to Tokyo, setting the big jet down on the runway as lightly as a pro.

I'd love to tell you that, too. Problem is, what I know about flying a 777 would fit into the period at the end of this sentence.

Trace, a steward, and a Chinese kid who looked maybe fourteen pushed into the c.o.c.kpit as I was trying and not really succeeding to level it off. The kid was a Taiwanese air force trainee-not a full-fledged pilot, but a h.e.l.l of a lot more knowledgeable than I was. I gave up my seat chop-chop, and he leveled us off nearly as fast.

Meanwhile, the steward played with the radio. A ground controller screamed at us in j.a.panese and English to acknowledge. When we did, he told us that a pair of fighters was about thirty seconds away from blowing our wings off.

I respectfully requested that they not do that.

Our cadet managed to land us safely at Misawa Air Base in northern j.a.pan. Misawa was chosen because it's huge-we had ten thousand feet to go squish on. The kid used all but the last three inches to stop us. But stop we did, and in one piece.

Two crew members and three pa.s.sengers were killed by the hijackers, and three more were severely wounded. About three dozen other people were banged up with sc.r.a.pes and bruises. One guy had a heart attack but survived. Besides the guy I had taken out in the c.o.c.kpit, four of the terrorists were dead when we landed. Two others died within a few hours of landing.

The last goes on trial in two weeks. I can't be there, but maybe I'll get an invitation to watch his execution. Even better would be joining the firing squad.

After the many h.e.l.ls of Royal Thailander 1313, the remaining connections to Italy were mercifully boring. A few double Bombays helped smooth the way; an upgrade to first cla.s.s, courtesy of a word from a Kunika supervisor, gave Trace and me room to stretch out. I arrived in Rome like many before me-ready to rip, ravage, and burn.

Doc and Danny were waiting by the gate when Trace and I cleared customs.

"Heard you had a fun time," said Doc. "You catch the news?"

"Are we in it?" asked Trace.

"Only as a footnote."

There had been two other hijacking attempts in the past twenty-four hours in Asia. And at New York City's John F. Kennedy Airport, security people grabbed teams of suspected terrorists just as they were going through the gates. Some of our friends at NATO had told Doc that an attempt in London had been scuttled, but the arrests were being kept quiet while the investigation proceeded.

"Saladin sent you another fax with a Web site, and this time he copied all the Arab news services," said Danny. "The war is coming."

"That's all he said?"

"That and the usual c.r.a.p about how great G.o.d is. Be nice for once if they left G.o.d out of it," he added, handing me a printout of the pages. It was the usual terse diatribe, continuing over five pages in eight-point type.

"Pus Face called you around the time the hijackings started," added Doc. "He was frantic. Said he needed to talk to you. He's in Rome somewhere."

"Lucky him."

"Maybe he wants to thank you for saving j.a.pan," said Trace. It was pretty obvious she was being sarcastic; everyone knew Pus Face had no idea where j.a.pan was.

I thought about calling Pus Face-for about ten seconds. Even though personally he couldn't stand me, our earlier conversations had made it clear that he thought I knew what I was doing. He also wanted to make a splash big enough to earn himself another star. So maybe-emphasis heavily on maybe-he might help me do what needed to be done: Go directly to the pope and tell him what I suspected. I wanted St. Peter's shut down and searched immediately-by anyone other than Vatican security.

But after ten seconds I realized that as ambitious as he was, Pus Face was still a general, and when they'd pinned those stars on his coat they'd increased his risk aversion exponentially. Therefore I stuck with my original plan: heading to the American emba.s.sy to lay the case out to the amba.s.sador. He seemed somewhat more reasonable, didn't hate my guts, and even read books, for Christsakes. So I figured he had to have at least a fourth grade education, twice Pus Face's.

As luck would have it, who did I meet in the hall of the U.S. emba.s.sy? Pus Face, who had penciled in his own tete-a-tete with the amba.s.sador. Before I could say h.e.l.lo-or better yet, turn and walk in the other direction-he grabbed my arm and began running at the mouth about how the sharp work of Pus Men across the globe had stopped the so-called Saladin dead in his tracks.

I have to admit I was taken off guard. Not by his claim, but by his garlic breath. The scent was so strong he would have been barred from a battlefield under the Geneva Convention.

"You caught Saladin?" I said, stepping back and gasping for air.

"Caught him? No. But I put the alert out. I got the ball rolling."

"Well, good for you, General. Who is he, anyway?"

"Who's who?"

"Saladin. Who is he?"

"A bin Laden wannabe," said Pus Face.

"When is he going to strike next?"

"He's not. The raids today-it's over for him."

"You sure?"

The corner of Pus Face's mouth quivered. Doubt had managed to sneak into the vast empty void between his ears. Once there it echoed against the hard walls and grew so loud that even he couldn't pretend not to hear it.

"You tell me," he said. "You're the d.a.m.n expert."

"Saladin is still alive."

"What? Where?"

"I thought you had him cornered."

"Don't be a wisea.s.s, Marcinko."

"It's in my job description." All right, I was a little over the top. But he made it hard to resist.

"Tell me something I don't know."

"You know so little," I told him. "I wouldn't know where to begin."

Pus Face followed me into the amba.s.sador's private office suite. He shined a smug mug at the amba.s.sador, hoping to suggest that I was just a lunatic off the reservation. I just charged ahead, laying out my theory as briefly as I could, admitting that I didn't have concrete proof but arguing that this was a case where it was better to be safe than sorry. The basic calculus ran like this: Backa.s.s had staged the incident at St. Peter's so he could move enough explosives into the building to destroy it. He'd probably intended on using the stolen nuke-at that point I had only thin circ.u.mstantial evidence to link him to the operation at Sicily. But he would definitely have a backup plan. Or several.

"Our best bet here, Mr. Amba.s.sador, is to go directly to the pope, lay out the situation, and ask him to shut down the cathedral. Then bring a neutral third party to search it and provide security until Easter Sunday: the Day of 'their' choosing, the holiest day on the Christian calendar."

"What sort of neutral party?"

"SEAL Team Six. Elements of the Ranger Regiment should be used. If it were up to me, no one would be allowed in or out of Vatican City until every brick in the cathedral and surrounding buildings has been X-rayed, tagged, and numbered."

The amba.s.sador looked as if I'd punched him in the gut. He was unable to speak for a moment-just long enough for Pus Face to blurt, "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Dosdiere as Saladin? Give me a break."

"Which leg?"

I wasn't joking.

"Why would the Vatican hire a terrorist to head their security force?" Pus Face continued. "It's ridiculous. He's not even Muslim."

"He is a Muslim, whether he practices or not. He told me himself his father was from Africa. Check his resume. He has ancestors in both religions. It's possible that I'm wrong," I told the amba.s.sador, turning to him, "but this is where the logic takes us. 'The day of their choosing' has to be Easter, because it's the most symbolic day in the Christian faith."

"That was just a mistake in the way they wrote it," said Pus Face. "I've seen that Web page. It was some sort of Freudian slip. They've already shot their wad, Marcinko. We stopped them. We nailed them. You just can't accept it. Of course not, because it means you're out of a job."

Right. Like terrorism would cease with the arrests of a few dozen or few hundred or few thousand slime bags.

"If St. Peter's blows up, who's going to take responsibility?" I said. I figured this would get him to shut up; in my experience career bra.s.s are a h.e.l.l of a lot more motivated by fear of being blamed for a catastrophe than the hope of scoring a big win. But Pus Face had apparently already done the blame math.

"St. Peter's is not our problem," he said. "It's Dosdiere."

"He is the problem."

"What if we lay out some of what you've told us," suggested the amba.s.sador. "To Dosdiere and his boss to see what he says. Not telling them we think he's behind it all," added the amba.s.sador quickly. "But enough to persuade him to authorize an independent search. We could tell him we think his organization has been penetrated-which is true. We just don't say that we think it was penetrated from the top. His reaction may show where the truth is. And we'd have the cardinal he answers to make sure the threat was taken seriously."

I had thought of that myself, but I was afraid that it would be too easy for Backa.s.s to deflect. He might launch his own "investigation," effectively squashing it. He might ignore the warning, or he might push his timetable up. I didn't know the cardinal whom he answered to, or how he would react. We needed to isolate Backa.s.s from the security apparatus while the basilica was searched. The only way that was going to happen would be to lay out the whole situation-and not to a mid-level functionary, but to the man at the top.

"Going directly to the pope-it's a really big step, d.i.c.k," said the amba.s.sador. "Really big. I'd have to get permission from Washington just to consider it."

"I think we should do more than just consider it. Today's Thursday-I think this is going down Sunday."

"All you have here, with due respect, is a set of gut feelings," continued the amba.s.sador. "We don't have any evidence linking Saladin to the attempted theft in Sicily."

"Will you talk to Washington?"

"Will you get more evidence?"

"I'll try."

The amba.s.sador nodded. "All right. So will I. But we're going to need more than a gut feel in the end."

"There's one gut call you better hope I'm right on," I said. "That he'll wait until Easter Sunday."

Evidence. Well, I wanted it too. Immediately after our meeting, I went off to use the emba.s.sy's secure communications center. Officially, I wanted to brief Homeland Insecurity on the situation in Asia. Unofficially, I wanted to light a fire under Shunt, the detective we'd hired to help trace Saladin's money route, and every member of the intelligence community I knew. Connect Saladin to the Sigonella incident, connect Backa.s.s to the faxes I got, find some evidence that tied the whole d.a.m.n thing into a little bow for the powers-that-be-it was going to take a smoking gun on that order of magnitude to make believers out of Pus Face and his brethren. The problem is that undeniable proof doesn't just drop into an investigator's lap, even if he's busting his (or her) hump to get it. I cajoled, I roared, I kidded-they would do their best, and that was all I could ask.

I'd sent Trace, Doc, and Danny over to St. Peter's to look over the cathedral and see if they could find anything obviously out of place. By the time I was done at the emba.s.sy, they had each taken two or three full tours. We rendezvoused at a trattoria across the Tiber for an info dump and vino rosso.

"A lot of guys in dresses," sneered Trace. "G.o.d knows what they're hiding between their legs." Everyone laughed, but it wasn't a joke. There was no telling what sort of weapons the thick clerical robes might hide, as I'd already found out.

Backa.s.s had increased security measures at the church. Among other things, he moved the bomb and weapon scanners out into the piazza, added bomb-sniffing dogs, curtailed the number of tourists allowed inside at any one time, and installed roughly two hundred plainclothes security men and women in and around the cathedral. How many of those new security people might be ringers was anyone's guess.

"They could take the place over with a dozen people," said Danny. "Less, really. It'd be a real mess getting them out, because everywhere you look, everything you touch, it's worth a fortune. You have to think twice about tossing a grenade if you're going to blow up some priceless artwork."

"They did that already," I told him. "That's small potatoes. Saladin doesn't think big. He thinks colossal. He has to outdo bin Laden. That's why he wanted the nuke. Whatever he replaced it with will be just as big."

"Unless he completely called it off," said Doc. "Live to fight another day."

"Well, if he put a bomb in there, it would be big enough to wipe the building out. Bin Laden took down the World Trade Center, so he has to do at least that here," said Trace. "I mean-it should be obvious, right? We should be able to find it."

"That's what I'm thinking," I told her. "Did you?"

"Plenty of places were you could put little bombs," said Doc. "But to wire the whole place?"

"If he did that, we should see it," said Danny. "We have to poke around a little more than you can do on a public tour."

"It would be a big bomb," said Trace. "Huge."

"And obvious," I said. "Which is why we've missed it so far. We have to get back in there and look more carefully."

"No more tours, though," said Doc. "They've been suspended."

"I don't like tours anyway."

"There are so many security officers in there, though, they're tripping over each other," said Danny. "How do we get by them?"

"We don't." I smiled, and drained my wine.

Four hours later, two members of the Vatican security service came off duty. They hopped into a taxi a block from St. Peter's. Their driver was a typical Rome cab driver in nearly every respect: He muttered to himself, drove like a f.u.c.king madman, and considered red lights a challenge to his manhood.

The one thing that wasn't typical about him was the fact that he took the shortest possible route to their destination. This was because the driver-Io-was directed via a small ear set hidden below my raghead's turban. Doc was on the other side of the radio, using a map and a GPS device to tell me where to go.

Which just happened to be a club where a large group of security members hung out. (How lucky, right? Except this was my fifth trip of the night, and all the others had been to very dull apartment buildings.) The place was the Roman equivalent of a cop bar back in the States. During the day it was on the froufrou touristy side, serving weak drinks in frosted gla.s.ses. Around nine or ten o'clock the tourists went back to their hotels and a blue-collar crowd began drifting in. There were a lot of cops, ranging from military police or carabinieri to rent-a-cops.

One thing there wasn't a lot of was women, so when a golden-haired beauty in a low-slung miniskirt walked in, she pretty much had every eye in the place focused on her. Then again, Trace has that effect in most places.

Doc and I were watching from the far end of the bar. We'd been waiting for Trace to come in for about ten minutes. Two security people were sitting next to us, and both had Vatican IDs clipped on with the flimsiest alligator clips to their pants pockets. Italians like to claim that, since everyone in the country starts drinking in the womb, no one ever gets drunk. It's a myth, as anyone who's ever been to an Italian wedding can attest, but who were we to point that out? Neither man would have felt a train as it rumbled over their foreheads.

Doc was a bit more subtle than a train. He got up a little wobbly, muttering in Italian that he had to use the head, apologizing as he rebounded off our leering friends en route to the restroom. By the time he reached it, their IDs were in his pocket.

Trace sat at a table the size of an ashtray. Her skirt rode a little higher with each breath she took. Two waiters rushed over. She ordered the house specialty, an orange-red frothy thing called Rutto, which is Italian for burp. The place fell silent as the waiters raced each other back to the bar.

I got up and walked to a table at the other end of the bar, smiling at the two women who were there-both of whom had Vatican security tags on chains around their necks.

"Ciao," I said to the women.

One gave me a stiff, stuck-up smile and put her nose into her wine gla.s.s. The other told me my face looked familiar though she knew I wasn't from the area.

"e vero," I said. "It's true. I'm American. I've been here on an exchange studying security with the Italian state police and tonight's my last night. I have a plane in a few hours."