"American? Your Italian is very good," she said, pushing a curl back from her face. "Oh!" she said, realizing who I was.

"Sshhh," I told her, patting her hand. "I don't like a fuss."

Within a few minutes, Gina and her friend Maria were telling me that security had been greatly increased since my adventures. There was, however, a great deal of friction between some of the veterans and the newcomers; a.s.signments had been shuffled and reshuffled, and the general chaos that accompanies any reorganization ruled. I grilled them gently, trying to find out as many details as I could without tipping my suspicions. I knew I couldn't trust anyone who worked for Backa.s.s at this point.

My aim was to get their ID, not get into their pants. Of course, it could be argued that the latter would inevitably lead to the former. But Mr. Murphy, watching the encounter with great interest, decided to intervene before I made the argument.

Actually, he decided to cough.

Doc had just returned to the bar when the man sitting next to him bent over and started coughing. My first thought was that it was Doc, running a diversion; I waited a beat or two before turning and looking to see what was going on. By then, the man was red in the face, clearly choking.

Doc sprang to his feet, put his fists into the guy's diaphragm, and began doing the Heimlich. The guy sputtered, then shot something out of his mouth. At the same time, someone on the other side of the bar got up, walked across the room, and b.u.mped into Doc-grabbing his wallet from the back of his pants.

Or rather trying to. He got about two feet before Doc grabbed him by the back of the collar. The pickpocket was a thin toothpick of a guy, and Doc flung him to the floor as if he were a piece of sopresetta being laid on a hard roll.

The cougher darted toward Doc, fist loaded up for a sucker shot to the back of the head. He missed his intended target, however-I arrived in time to throw him off course, sticking my foot out and pushing his rear to add momentum as he flew by. He rocketed into one of the large windows at the front of the room, tumbling into the street with a tremendous clatter, shattering the thin plate of frosted gla.s.s.

If I had it to do over again, I would have adjusted my aim and sent him into the nearby tables or maybe the bar. Not because of the damage, but because I had inadvertently helped the sleazeball escape. He rolled onto to his feet and ran down the sidewalk to a small Vespa scooter nearby. The pickpocket squirmed from Doc's grasp and squirted out the door after him.

Had to be the world's dumbest thieves, right, picking a cop bar to run their routine?

You'd think that. Almost certainly it would have been a suicidal move in the U.S. or any other civilized nation. But Italy is a world unto itself, and rather than hop up and help us, the cops in the bar began arguing about who was ent.i.tled to make the arrest.

The owner, meanwhile, had more immediate concerns than justice. He jumped up and down in front of Doc with his palm out, demanding he pay for the broken window. Unfortunately, the man didn't understand English, and was so excited that Doc couldn't understand his Italian. So I stepped in to translate, using sign language: I threw him out the other window.

Doc and I left immediately. Trace followed a few seconds later, having clipped two more IDs in the chaos.

I learned back in my Red Cell days that it's generally not necessary to doctor photo IDs. Ninety percent of the security people you'll encounter won't even bother checking the postage stampsized face on the card. Holding your thumb over the photo takes care of the other ten percent.

We sketched out a plan for a sneak and peek inside the basilica, making refinements based on what the two ladies had told me and what Doc had overheard from the men at the bar. The toughest part of the job was meeting the grooming standards and finding the right shade of blazer to wear. G.o.d knows you wouldn't want a security person in sky blue when cerulean went better with the drapes.

Despite all the feelers I'd put out earlier in the day, nothing firm came back. Shunt, though, came back with an interesting observation after a.n.a.lyzing the communications system used by some of the different terrorist groups we thought were a.s.sociated with Saladin, including our Afghan friend Ali Goatf.u.c.k and the Thai crazies. They relied on fake email addresses to send coded* messages the intel people believed were related to funding transactions. While the intelligence professionals concentrated on figuring out what the codes meant, Shunt looked at the addresses themselves. Some were set up through public services that didn't require much in the way of identification, and others in companies and organizations that had been hacked into. According to Shunt, in most cases this wasn't "real" hacking; the accounts were simply stolen and used before the system operators caught on, usually for about a week or so. Most corporate email systems used very simple security procedures, and even those with sophisticated firewalls could often be breached without detection or fancy computer work. (An obvious example that won't give away the family jewels: Many notebook computers used by corporate types have a security protocol that uses a special key or encryption code to communicate with the office network. The encryption prevents people from driving up and tapping into the network with a "foreign" computer. But since the stolen notebook already has the key aboard, it gets right on.) Someone at the NSA (No Such Agency, of course) had tracked down the physical locations of some of the systems used. His reasoning was that, even though you could break into a computer from anywhere, you'd probably want to know a little something about the organization that used it first. Besides, it was possible that employees or others there were somehow involved. The NSA a.n.a.lyst found computers in most of Europe and Asia, Morocco and Egypt. He couldn't see a pattern, and he gave up after finding and cataloging the physical location of fifty systems. But looking at the list, Shunt realized that twenty were a.s.sociated in some way with the Catholic Church. He also believed that the others were taking advantage of a hole in the programming for VPN firewalls in the same way.

When he started to get into the technical aspects, I brought him back to target.

"Are the Catholic Church systems especially vulnerable?"

"No way, Dude. The thing about this system, like, is that it doesn't give itself away if you're on the outside. So like, I'm dialing in, right? I can't figure out that they're using the set of appliances and software that's vulnerable."

"You can't guess?"

"Uh, technical answer, or short answer?"

"Short."

I could hear the disappointment in his voice. "You could guess. But, like, if you knew ahead of time, you wouldn't worry about, like, a white hat inside trying to trap you. See, because you could be traced when you come back to pick up the email. Like, you could get by that, right? But uh, it could be a pain in the a.s.s like, make you work a bit. Most people are like, you know, lazy. Like why work extra when you could be playing Doom, you know?"

Shunt continued with some qualifiers, listing the arguments against a connection with Backa.s.s. But then he gave a strong argument in its favor: The Vatican computer systems had been overhauled a few months after the security chief took over the job.

Admittedly, none of this tied Backa.s.s into the terrorist network directly, but it was one more promising link. I told Shunt to check Backa.s.s's resume and see if any other company he'd worked for before coming to the Vatican had been used.

"On it, Dude. And like, should I check the systems to see if there's like, anything else incriminating, like?"

"Is the pope Catholic?"

"Uh?" Shunt thought about it. "Is that like, a trick question?"

Program note for pagans: Good Friday is the day that the Romans took Jesus up the hill and draped him across the cross. It's a huge day at St. Peter's and at most Catholic churches, where the event is remembered with a number of solemn services. The Vatican had curtailed these because of security concerns, canceling most. Still, a good-sized crowd filled the chapels at the side of the church, praying and celebrating ma.s.s as preparations for Easter continued in the rest of the church.

Large platforms topped by decks of seats filled the center of the basilica. These looked more like bleachers than pews, and would be filled by VIPs (mostly high-ranking clergy) at the special Easter midnight ma.s.s Sat.u.r.day night. Security guards formed a ring around the bleachers, standing every five feet or so, arms folded, tight-lipped, and bored. Another ring of guards, these s.p.a.ced every ten or twelve feet, stood around the sides of the cathedral, never blocking the views of the side altars but not exactly un.o.btrusive either. It was as good a psychological show as I'd seen in a while, but that was all it was-a show. Security had already been broken by three ersatz guards, who mingled with the other groups of floaters in the building, ogling tourists and extending their frowns into every conceivable corner.

Those three were Trace, Doc, and Danny.

Where was I, you ask?

Don't ask me, ask the convivial Paulist priest, who had credentials from the Vatican telephone service and was prowling, or rather inspecting, the back areas of the cathedral to make sure that cell phones would be automatically disconnected. Like many of his brethren, the father had found his true vocation after working in the world, and brought his skills in telecommunications to the service of the Lord. His English had the accent of America, where he had spent his youth; his Italian tended to be selective, depending on the circ.u.mstances. The good father could explain this with the steady gaze and quiet air that only faith and a loaded handgun can bring to a man.

The ca.s.sock chafed a bit, but that's a personal problem.

The most obvious place for a bomb would be under the grandstand pews. Velvet draperies hung down at the sides and back, so if you stuck something underneath, it could just sit there undetected until curtain time. But a team of security people were checking this out often enough for Danny and Doc to join in. Using their eyes as well as a pair of "sniffers" that could detect the molecules used in explosives, they'd come up empty. So had checks in the slightly less obvious hiding places, like confessionals and back rooms. It was my job to look in places that would be even less obvious.

The gear I had in my hand looked like a portable radio set and came complete with a pair of headphones. It was useless for detecting cell phone signals, but it was just the thing to check interior cavities where a bomb might be hidden. The people at Law Enforcement Technologies say it's just a sophisticated version of the stud finders professional carpenters use in older homes so they can do maximum damage when hanging a picture. Sensitive enough to detect the difference between a solid marble pillar and one filled with plastic explosive, it couldn't actually identify the explosive. For that, I'd have to use the sophisticated "sniffer" I had strapped beneath my cloak, which might not work if the bomb had been sealed to prevent detection. But first things first.

I searched the central area of the church, walking along the long aisle created by the ma.s.sive pillars. A pair of large bombs here would kill the most people and have a good chance of bringing the building down. The stone piers would make it possible to set up a fairly large bomb panel in a rectangular shape. Replacing the large panels-they're bigger than a man-would not be easy, but could have been done under the cover of repairing the damage made by the machine-gun bullets.

The pillars were solid. A few hours of inspection didn't turn up anything in the walls either, or the altars, or anywhere else for that matter.

Obviously, I was missing something. I decided to go back to square one and turned the unit off, trying to look at the interior of the church the way Saladin might. How would he blow it up?

If Backa.s.s was Saladin, he'd be looking at it from about five-eight. So I squatted and tilted my head to the side slightly, turning to the right. At which point I found myself staring eye to eye with Backa.s.s himself.

I doubt most people would have recognized me dressed as a priest. Anyone who knows me well would insist the robes would disintegrate as soon as they touched the flesh. Backa.s.s, unfortunately, didn't know me that well. He scowled, then stepped forward, two gorilla-sized bodyguards tripping over their long simian arms to keep up.

"Just the man I was looking for," I said, raising myself to my full height.

"Why are you dressed in priest's robes?"

"I've been feeling a little spiritual. What did you bring in here after the attack three weeks ago?"

"We've increased security, as you can see. Though obviously we haven't done as good a job as we should." He turned around, playing the concerned security chief. "How many of your people have infiltrated our ranks? I owe you a debt of thanks."

Backa.s.s pointed at one of his supervisors. Before he could begin to berate him, I grabbed Backa.s.s's shoulder and spun him around. "Are you out to a.s.sa.s.sinate the pope? Or do you just want to destroy the building and kill a few thousand priests and nuns?"

Something flickered across Backa.s.s's face. But then it was gone.

"Take Mr. Demo d.i.c.k and his people out of the cathedral and off Vatican property," he said. "Be careful not to stand too close. There's a good chance G.o.d will strike him with a thunderbolt if He sees him on sacred ground."

"You were supposed to gather evidence, not cause a major diplomatic incident with the Catholic Church!" yelled Pus Face an hour later at the emba.s.sy. The American amba.s.sadors to Italy and the Vatican stood uncomfortably a few feet away. The amba.s.sador to the Vatican, a short man of about eighty, looked so pale he looked as if he'd fade into the air any moment.

"You went too far, Marcinko," continued Pus Face. "Too far."

"No, I didn't go far enough."

Pus Face was so mad, his hair vibrated with anger. Unlike Danny, Doc, and myself, Trace had been apprehended by members of the Swiss Guard. Though not under Backa.s.s's jurisdiction, the captain of the Swiss Guard complied with the directive that she be kicked out of Vatican City and added his own, demanding to know who her commander was before letting her go. Pus Face had subsequently been called by every available official in the Holy See, who promised that his superiors would hear of the sacrilege his "deputy" had committed. Apparently one or two had succeeded in locating someone at the Pentagon-probably a janitor-and Pus Face had already received two emails directing him to explain himself.

"I think perhaps I should take the lead on this," said White, the amba.s.sador to Italy. "Maybe d.i.c.k and I should discuss this alone."

The other amba.s.sador didn't need any more of a hint; he sprinted out of the room and down the hall. Pus Face's eyes whirled as he did the internal calculus. On the one hand, he wanted to strangle me; on the other hand, p.i.s.sing off the amba.s.sador would only remove any possibility of having him bail him out. He finally clamped his teeth together and began grinding them furiously as he walked away.

"You wouldn't believe the phone calls I've had," said White when the others were gone. He went to the credenza at the side of the room, opening it to reveal a bar. "I don't think there's a Catholic in the country who hasn't complained." He smiled and added, "You're used to this, aren't you?"

"It can happen."

"I'm not used to it. This isn't exactly a high-pressure job under normal circ.u.mstances. Although the fact that I raised three girls has given me some perspective." He pulled over one of the leather-bound chairs and sat down. "Is Dosdiere definitely Saladin?"

"I'd like to say definitely, but I can't." I updated him on Shunt's theory.

"Still not much, huh?"

"No, sir. But I wouldn't go to ma.s.s at midnight if I were you."

"I'll back you on this, d.i.c.k. I already have. But there's only so much we can do. The Vatican claims it's taking precautions, and of course Dosdiere is outraged. Did you call him Saladin?"

"No, as a matter of fact I didn't. It was probably obvious that I suspect him."

"He wants you fired."

"Good thing I don't work for you."

"Good thing all around." The amba.s.sador smiled. "At least they've called a security alert. They'll search the church inch by inch."

"They have already. Several times."

"I have to say, I hope you're wrong."

"I wouldn't mind being wrong. I hope I am."

By the time I got out of the emba.s.sy, it was after eight. I was supposed to rendezvous with the rest of my team near Fontana di Trevi, Quirinale-Trevi Fountain-in a tourist quarter dominated by the huge statue of partying Roman G.o.ds. Trace and Danny were standing at a souvenir shop, trying to decide whether to buy a pair of coffee mugs with the Colosseum on them, or go with the set of the Forum. Doc was engaged in a discussion on cameras with two English tourists nearby. I pa.s.sed by them and walked down two blocks to a small cafe. The gang filtered in a short while later, having circled around to make sure no one was followed.

"Well, you were a bad boy, weren't you?" said Trace, pulling out her chair. "Did Pus Face spank you?"

"I've been excommunicated."

"I got a hit on the sniffer under the dome," said Doc. "It was just momentary. I was trying to adjust the sensitivity when the supervisor came up. I palmed my security badge and played tourist. Then they sounded the alert and cleared the place, and I got nabbed, along with Danny."

I pulled out a tourist schematic of the basilica and had Doc show us where he'd gotten the alert. It was about halfway between 46 and 42-the canopy to the Papal Altar (46) and St. Peter's Chair (42), the Scud missile at the back of the church.

"I didn't get a hit there," said Trace. "You sure?"

"I don't know. It wasn't a strong hit. It might even have come off of someone's clothes." Doc may not be a technophobe but he's close, and if anyone would have had problems with the equipment it would be him. And even if he had been operating it under perfect conditions, a transitory alert is not exactly a smoking gun.

This probably isn't a good place to go into detail about portable (or standing, for that matter) explosive detectors. The truth is that even the best of the units-and Law Enforcement Technologies' stuff is among the best, along with devices made by Global Security Solutions and a few other very specialized, very advanced companies-can give false positives. In general, they're best used in relatively closed s.p.a.ces or at very close range, checking a car or a piece of luggage, for example. We were pushing our unit to the very edge of its capability, if not beyond.

Still...

"The altar right under the dome is cordoned off," said Danny. "How close were you?"

"At the velvet rope."

"Those four pillars, the pieces that hold the canopy over the altar-they'd be perfect spots to put a bomb," said Trace.

"If you had enough explosive, you could take out the pope-and blow off the dome," added Doc. "A good enough explosion there, everything above comes tumbling down."

"I think we should take this to the amba.s.sador," said Danny. "Demand a sweep."

"No. Backa.s.s will just do it himself," said Trace. "And claim it was fine."

"We could go on Italian TV and demand that the place be inspected," said Danny. "Put a little pressure on them through the media."

"That's a good idea-unless we're wrong," I said. "Then we've blown our only shot. We have to find the bomb ourselves."

"How are we getting in?" said Danny. "They have all our photos except for Trace's. They're watching the streets, the square, every alley-the security people all have photos, and video cameras, even in the sewers."

"We'll just find an easier way to drop in," I told him. "No big deal."

It was a little more involved than I thought it would be. Pus Face had sent out a series of directives to the effect that I was a raving lunatic, not to be trusted. This increased the degree of difficulty as I lined up the resources I needed, making people who wanted to help me have to go through a few more hoops. By the time we got everything together, it was nearly nightfall Sat.u.r.day, only a few hours before the VIPs would begin filtering in for midnight ma.s.s. I like to work at night, but I can do without the tight deadlines.

Among the many questions we weren't able to answer at the time was how Backa.s.s intended on getting out of Vatican City, either before or after the attack. The original Saladin wasn't a suicide bomber and Backa.s.s didn't strike me as one either. We couldn't figure out what the escape plan was, but if it involved either of the Holy See's 737s, Backa.s.s was s.h.i.t out of luck. Several key components in both aircraft were removed Sat.u.r.day afternoon. It's amazing how much access coveralls and a few smudges of grease on your face can provide.

There are two types of high-alt.i.tude jumps, and each has its own special pleasures. High-alt.i.tude, high-opening jumps-HAHO for short-are a little like parasailing adventures. You jump out of an aircraft, deploy your chute, and basically turn yourself into a glider. Depending on the circ.u.mstances, you may fly forty miles to your destination. I wouldn't necessarily term it leisurely-for one thing, if the mission calls for a HAHO jump, there's a real good chance some of the folk down there have guns-but the pace is steady and as predictable as this sort of work can get, a.s.suming the chute opens when it's supposed to.

The alternative is a high-alt.i.tude, low-opening (HALO) jump. The beginning and end of this jump are the same as in a HAHO-you get off the plane, you land on the ground. In between though, you're not pretending to be a glider. You're a rock.

Or two rocks in this case: Trace went out with me, falling from the back of a specially rigged MC-130 made available with Frankie's help and completely and totally without the authorization of Pus Face, Kohut, c.r.a.pinpants, or any of the other names that may or may not have appeared in the paperwork. Gravity tugged us to the tune of 180 miles an hour.* We were aimed at a sparkle of light smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. That was Rome-St. Peter's was about the size of one of the molecules inside the period.

Yeah, I know it looks like fun-and it is. But don't let anyone tell you that a night jump into an urban area from the stratosphere is easy. It ain't. On the other hand, waiting to deploy until we were about five hundred feet off terra firma made it impossible for the two anti-aircraft batteries the Italians had moved in to spot us.

I got the audible tone in my headset and deployed. In the s.p.a.ce between pulling the ring and feeling the ball-crunching tug that told me I'd deployed, I consoled myself with the realization that I was exactly on beam for the spire at the top of the basilica dome. If the chute didn't deploy, I'd end up as d.i.c.k on a stick.

It did deploy, with a hefty pull. It's not always an advantage to have big b.a.l.l.s, but it's better than the alternative, all around.

I took my mind off my pain by making sure Trace's chute had opened, then got serious about landing. St. Peter's loomed a hundred feet away. I tipped the canopy to straighten my aim, riding down almost precisely on target. I opened my arms and hooked onto the funnel-like mast at the very top of the cupola: bull's-eye.

Trace came in a few feet below and to the right, grabbing onto the upper crown of the cupola. We climbed down on opposite sides to the top of the large pillars that form the crown base. This was our most vulnerable thirty seconds-we had to stow our chutes quickly without losing them or falling off the cathedral. We were visible from the roofs of most of the nearby buildings, and the only thing in our favor was the utter audacity of what we were doing.

Which was why, frankly, I figured Mr. Murphy would show up. He didn't, though. I got my chute stowed easily, tucking it between the railings, then secured a rope to the rail and another forty feet to a second railing, this one at the base of the pillars themselves.

If you've never seen the cathedral and its dome, picture a large beach ball with a toilet paper tube on top of it. The beach ball sits in the middle of a hat box, which is perched on a giant footlocker. We were at the base of the toilet paper tube. A narrow observation deck rings the cupola, with pillars on the outside and windows. Inside, a set of stairs with more than three hundred steps leads through the narrow cavity down to the base of the dome.