"I was just thinking of something," said Trace as we waited for our drinks to arrive. "Weren't the sc.u.mbags in Rome using the same guns?"

"A couple. The others had Beretta 12Ss." Our drinks arrived.

"So were these guys. Two Minimis were found in the car, and they were firing some in the castle." She reached into her jeans and pulled out a pair of sh.e.l.ls. One was from a 5.58 x 45mm NATO round-Minimi ammunition-and the other was or at least appeared to be 9 x 19mm Parabellum of the type used in the submachine gun.

"Those size bullets can fit in all sorts of weapons," I reminded her.

"We can have some ballistics tests done," she said. "It's like fingerprinting a gun."

"I doubt the same guns were used."

"But we would know they were the same type."

"It doesn't prove anything, Trace."

"Boy, you're negative." She took a sip of her wine, eyes flashing. "It would be interesting to know, wouldn't it?"

"Interesting, yes. But we need bullets, not sh.e.l.ls."

"Ought to be easy to get. I would definitely check with the Rome police to see if there's a connection."

"The investigation is actually in the Vatican's jurisdiction." I pulled out my sat phone. Dinner in Italy is a leisurely affair; it could be hours before anything actually arrived. Figuring that I might just as well put the time to good use, I dialed Backa.s.s to make sure ballistics tests were done on the gun.

Backa.s.s was traveling, and the two a.s.sistants I talked to knew jack and said less about what was going on with the investigation. I left my number and forgot about him-until ten minutes later, when the phone rang and his truly came on the line.

"Trouble seems to follow you around the world," said Backa.s.s, who'd heard of our Sicilian adventures. He claimed to have been wondering about a connection with the Vatican thugs on his own and would be in the area to consult with the local carabinieri in the next few days. "Maybe we can meet for dinner," he said. "I know a very good seafood restaurant. The calamari is a dream."

Backa.s.s may not have been much of a security chief, but he would have made a h.e.l.l of a restaurant critic. I told him I'd need a rain check, then asked what else he knew about the terrorists who'd struck at the Vatican. The answer was not much. Two of the dead tangos had been in Spain before the attack-they'd gotten there from Morocco. The others had been more careful about erasing their paths. The attempts to trace the weapons and other items they had hadn't turned up much either. The Minimis were part of a batch of fifty-six guns shipped to Indonesia a year before. They were purchased under a military aid contract (three guesses whose tax dollars ultimately paid for the weapons) and then subsequently "misplaced." Not all of the weapons, incidentally, had ended up in terrorists' hands; two had been used in a bank robbery in Singapore a month earlier. The authorities there had already done a great deal of legwork trying to track them back to the source, but had come up empty.

The incident at the church had helped Backa.s.s get some of the money he needed and allowed him to finally overhaul the security structure at the basilica, bringing in his own people and taking direct control of security there. But he was also feeling serious pressure from above to discover who was responsible for the attack. While the pope had issued a "prayer of forgiveness" for the slimers, the prelates around him wanted justice. I suspected that they also wanted Backa.s.s's head for failing to protect the world's most important Catholic Church.

He mentioned Saladin-the Web page implying that he was behind the attack was now common knowledge-but then dismissed him as a crank.

He wasn't too confident about that, though, because he asked if I agreed.

"He's definitely a crank," I told him. "The question is, what else is he?"

"Yes." Backa.s.s thought it over. "Others have taken credit as well. But there don't seem to be any real leads."

I mentioned the neofascists who were hoping for a new Mussolini, more to see his reaction than from any evidence they were involved.

"You believe P2 exists, then," said Backa.s.s.

"I keep an open mind on all conspiracy theories."

"You should on them. Definitely."

"Would they shoot up St. Peter's?"

He gave me a mealy-mouthed answer to the effect that it couldn't be ruled out. Personally, I wasn't sure that any such animal existed. But if it did, all of the theories I had heard had it being virulently anti-Communist and proCatholic Church, to the point of including at least one bishop. Even a dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist would have trouble believing that the people behind P2 would shoot up St. Peter's.

"The investigation is not in my hands," admitted Backa.s.s. "I must concentrate on what I can control. I'm taking steps to strengthen security in the future."

Good idea. Make sure you get that barn door good and secure now that the horses are out.

Doc woke me up the next morning with a phone call from Kabul, the garden spot of exotic Afghanistan. He'd been in the city all of two hours, but he'd already done a month's worth of work.

"We got one," he said. "Dead, though."

"Real shame."

"Yeah. Everybody here is broken up about it."

The dead man had been trying to plant a Claymore mine rigged with a remote triggering device in a road near one of the installations outside the city where Red Cell trainers were doing their thing. Maybe he thought the fact that it was past 1 a.m. made him invisible, or he thought that too many government contracts have made my people start acting like actual government employees, punching the clock at four. In any event, one of the skeleton crew we'd left behind had seen the a.s.shole through a night optical device, got the idjit on tape-don't want to be accused of hurting sc.u.mbags without a legal reason to do so-and then led two of the people we were training out to try and capture him. He wanted him alive for the information value, a sound decision.

The team started to sweep around, looking to see if the man with the mine had friends watching his back. He did-and being good friends, they hit the plunger as they took off, killing their comrade. Our guy got a few slugs into the back of their vehicle, but they were too far away to be caught.

Claymore mines are an old but solid weapon that date to a discovery during World War II by a hun and a Hungarian, namely Schardin and Misznay, who figured out how to do a lot of damage with metal when it goes boom. When hordes of Chinese came pouring over the North Korean border in that little brush-up over there, the U.S. Army took their ideas and used them to narrow the odds. The weapon sprays metal b.a.l.l.s in an arc, as opposed to a circle, allowing the people on the right side of it not to get any boo-boos. The "cla.s.sic" Claymore or M18A1 was used in Vietnam; packed with seven hundred steel ball bearings it could make mincemeat of a patrol trying to sneak up on an American position or infiltrating down a trail. It's simple to set up, as long as you know what the words "Front Toward Enemy" mean. (Or, the special West Virginia version: "If the contour of the mine fits the curve of your forehead-it's facing the 'bad guys.' If the contour faces away from you-you're going to eat it!") Our dead tango had the bad fortune of being on the wrong side of the weapon when it went off. Claymore wounds are not very pretty, and comparing his body to Swiss cheese would not be inappropriate. However, he was so close to the weapon that, while the ball bearings literally took his head off, they left his face almost unscathed. This made it easier for our guy to identify him as one of the employees he'd been a.s.signed to train.

Nice, huh? But not shocking. Nor was it all that surprising that the man's background had not been checked by the people who hired him, who would have found with very little effort that it was entirely fictional, right down to the address he gave as his home. But by the time Doc landed in Kabul, our man had tracked down the place in Kabul where Ali Goatf.u.c.k had lived with two roommates-undoubtedly the ones who had pulled the trigger on him.

In America, these sorts of leads would, presumably, get an army of FBI agents checking through records and trying to trace Ali Goatf.u.c.k back three generations to a shepherd in Istanbul. In Afghanistan, Doc couldn't get even a yawn out of the local police chief, who admittedly had better things to do than worry about who a dead raghead really was.

On the other hand, Afghanistan not being America, there was no problem with pulling apart Goatf.u.c.k's crib. Among the things that Doc discovered were some folded Egyptian pound notes and a Cairo phone number. The number belonged to a rug merchant. Doc hadn't had any time to check further, but was ready to hop a plane to Cairo to do so.

"That's all right," I told him. "I'll pay him a visit myself. I'm leaving for Cairo in a few hours."

I gave him a quick brain fart to bring him up-to-date. Doc served in Cairo as command master chief of the Navy medical lab, which means not only does he know where all the bodies are buried but he put a few of them there himself. He suggested that he come over to back me up just in case things got interesting, and I agreed on the condition that our Afghanistan operations were squared away before he left. I knew they would be; Doc has that sort of effect on people. We arranged to meet in Cairo in two days UNODIR-unless otherwise directed.

He gave me a quick-for Doc-rundown of possible sources and a heads-up on where to stay, eat, and find good Western booze at a decent price. If Doc ever gets tired of working for me, he could make a good living as a tour guide. He knows more about most places around the world than the natives.

Trace wanted to play tail gunner on the Cairo jaunt as well, but there were too many loose ends to be tied up in Sicily. For one thing, there was a good possibility the tangos might try another run at Sigonella. Psychologically, the base security people might let their guard down after thwarting the theft-not intentionally, of course, but some things are just human nature. I wanted Trace to kick b.u.t.t and keep that from happening.

I also suggested that talking to Don Alberti again might be worthwhile, if done under the right circ.u.mstances.

"You think I can just put on a short skirt, waltz in there and sit on his lap, and he'll tell me everything he knows?" she asked.

"I wouldn't sit on his lap. His son's lap, maybe."

Trace gave me one of her sarcastic smiles. A woman as smart and tough as she is doesn't have to use s.e.x as a weapon, but when she does the effect is devastating.

I suggested that she borrow a pair of plainclothes carabinieri as escorts, but she just scowled.

"I don't need eye candy," she told me. "You go on to Cairo. I can handle the Mafia on my own."

I did an MTT exercise (mobile training team) with the Egyptian army in the early 1980s when I was commanding officer of SEAL Team Six. We worked with elite members of the military, bringing them up to speed in a number of areas. We did our maritime work at the Suez Ca.n.a.l, and I vividly remember diving over the tanks at the bottom of the ca.n.a.l, a strange and, in its way, beautiful sight. We did weapons training in the outskirts of Cairo, out past the "City of the Dead." Our sightseeing included walking along the grandstands where the crazies shot Sadat for trying to do the right thing for his countrymen and make peace with Israel.

"City of the Dead" probably sounds like a tourist attraction, and in a way it is-if you're a terrorist pilgrim looking to pick up pointers or maybe recruit some fresh blood. Calling it a slum for the living doesn't quite do it justice. Calling it a six-square-mile gaping hole to h.e.l.l is more accurate. Houses built of mud lean against mausoleums, and the stench of s.h.i.t, p.i.s.s, and sweat hangs over the place like a thick swarm of mosquitoes. I highly recommend visiting the place if you're ever in Egypt: it'll tell you exactly why you're d.a.m.n glad to be an American.

The City of the Dead is not high on the list of tourist attractions, however, and it wasn't on the bus tour I signed up for immediately after checking in at my Cairo hotel. Then again, I only got as far as the second stop. Having made sure that I wasn't being followed, I left the group and walked over a few blocks to the office of Mouhadmam Jamal, an Egyptian whom I first met on the MTT a.s.signment. At the time, Jamal was an enlisted aide to a well-connected colonel; he left the military and joined the Egyptian intelligence service or Mukhabarat El-Aam shortly afterward. He and I have kept in touch over the years, mainly through I-scratch-your-back/you-

scratch-mine arrangements.

"d.i.c.khead!" yelled Jamal when he spotted me in the hall. "You're two hours early!"

"My camel had the wind at its back, goat breath."

We exchanged a few more terms of endearment on our way to his office. Nothing makes me feel at home like a few curse words from an old friend. I gave him the name and address we'd connected to the phone number Doc had found in Afghanistan.

"Doesn't strike me," said Jamal. Like most well-educated Egyptians, he speaks English very well but occasionally produces odd phrases, mixing American and Egyptian colloquialisms together. "Why is it important?"

"Someone's been giving my people a hard time and I'm trying to find out why." I explained a bit more of the background, though I didn't mention the possible connection with Saladin.

Jamal told me it would take him a few hours to look into things, and offered to meet later at a cafe where we could share a traditional hookah-the communal pipe so popular with Egyptians. I don't smoke-except after s.e.x, and then I don't look-but I told him I'd meet him anyway. In the meantime, I thought I'd look into buying a new pair of boots.

M.E. Boots & Gear was located in a cramped suite of offices a few blocks from the boat landing on the Giza side of the Nile River. From their Web site, I'd gotten the impression that they had a ma.s.sive warehouse, but in reality the business held on to very little stock, functioning more as a middleman processing orders than as a reseller. Or at least that was the impression I received from the vice president of sales, who took one look at the Rolex peeking out from the sleeve of my finely tailored business suit and immediately decided he was my best friend. His enthusiasm dimmed slightly when he heard my cover story. I was playing the role of an overseas rep for a high-end boot manufacturer in the States who found himself in Cairo unexpectedly and decided to see if I couldn't drum up a little business. It wasn't the product that bothered him but the location where it had been made; American goods, he explained, were difficult to sell without being relabeled locally.

"And how would that work?" I asked innocently. His enthusiasm returned-relabeling could bring a hefty profit-and within a few minutes we were chatting about the market. One thing led to another...but what it didn't lead to was information on who had bought the Bota shoes.

"I do not believe I'm familiar with that line," he said.

"They're one of our main compet.i.tors," I said. "I understand the shoes have become popular in different parts of Asia and Africa. If I could show my boss definite sales they had made-"

"We have handled very excellent boots by Scarpa," he said.

"Do you have hard numbers?"

He shrugged apologetically, saying that "my girl" who keeps the files was out. I got the impression she was out indefinitely; the place looked like Rogue Manor after a hurricane or staff party, take your pick. I let him deflect the conversation, looking for a way to circle back. Before I could find one, two men walked into the outer office, jabbering loudly in Arabic about a deal for some Nike knockoffs.

"Could you excuse me for a moment?" he asked. "I have to consult with these gentlemen."

I got up to leave but he insisted that I stay put; it would only take him a few minutes. He closed the door behind him as he went out.

It took me about thirty seconds to find a bank statement I could use to check into his accounts-one sat two sheets down in the "out" basket on his desk. Unfortunately, the files in the cabinet nearby were not only in Arabic but were very haphazard and disorganized: nothing under "s" for sc.u.mbags or the Arabic equivalent. Nor was there a file for Bota that I could find before he returned.

I took his card, promising to send a few samples of our wares in a few days when I returned home. With some time to kill before I was due to check with Jamal, I crossed back to central Cairo and went over to what is known as Downtown, an enclave of dusty gyp joints and high-cla.s.s, overpriced shops. I was supposed to meet Jamal up by the American University in an hour and a half; with that much time to kill I figured I could wander into the rug merchant's shop and get a quick recce in. Along the way I practiced some of my gutter Arabic, refining the Egyptian accent on a cafe waiter and a man selling beads at a street corner. My Middle Eastern language skills are self-taught; I won't fool anyone into thinking that I'm a native, but I can make myself understood well enough to get a good deal on a camel. More important, I can understand the lingo sufficiently to avoid being stuck with a three-legged one.

For some reason I'd had the notion that the rug shop would be a small stall, a typical mom-and-pop outfit catering to tourists. But the place turned out to be a large warehouse which, according to the Arabic sign, dealt only wholesale. I adapted my earlier cover story accordingly, strolling in as an importer-exporter who dealt with furniture stores in North America and Europe. I started out in French, claiming to be Belgian, and then worked over to English as the international language. The conversations got me to a friendly, chubby man who claimed to be the brother of the owner, who was off on a buying expedition. I'll spare you the gab; the bottom line was that I didn't find out anything a subpoena could be hung on back in the States.

Fortunately, I wasn't operating back in the States. My real purpose was to examine the security arrangements. These consisted of metal locks and an extremely primitive wire-and-magnetic contact system, the sort of thing I learned how to get around when I was nine or ten years old. I poked through a few dozen silk rugs making sure there were no video cameras hidden in the ceiling or covert motion detectors on the overhead beams. Then I bid Amir's brother adieu and headed over to my rendezvous with Jamal.

Many Egyptians like to smoke a flavored tobacco called "shisha." The stuff is extremely powerful, along the lines of hashish (not that I would know). To make it more palatable-I guess-they put it in a special water pipe called a hookah. The tobacco is actually roasted on charcoal instead of being lit, and the water filters and cools the smoke. If you're into that sort of thing-and I'm not-it's supposed to be a great experience.

Jamal offered me a smoke but I politely declined. The coffee in Cairo's more than enough to give you a buzz; it's stronger than h.e.l.l and filled with sugar. A few sips will cure all that ails you.

Jamal had not been able to find anything of worth about the business or its owner, Amir Husni Bakr. The business did not have a file, and neither did Amir. But perhaps there was a reason: Amir's cousin was an up-and-coming Egyptian deputy navy minister named Abu Bakr.

Whose responsibilities, as it happened, included overseeing Egypt's submarines.

I tried not to jump to any conclusions as I shook the information tree for background on Bakr. You didn't become a deputy minister in the Egyptian government without being well connected, and Bakr had links in every direction: business, military, government. He was either distantly related to half the government or had gone to school with them, or both. He liked to throw lavish parties and was known to steer big contracts to friends. He wasn't married, and had a reputation as a ladies' man.

The one thing he didn't seem well known for was his religious beliefs. Not one of the people I spoke to, from an Egyptian general to a nurse Doc had recommended as the queen of Cairo gossip, remembered him expressing any sort of spiritual sentiment.

Which put only a slight dent in the theory that he might be Saladin. I decided that I ought to go over to his cousin's rug shop and ask a few penetrating questions. Unfortunately, by the time I got there the place was locked up tight and everyone had gone home.

Shame, really. Though that is often the case at 1 a.m., even in Cairo. But seeing as how I was already there, I saw no reason not to proceed on my own.

Defeating wired burglar alarms on windows is as easy as cutting gla.s.s; it took all of thirteen seconds to hot-wire a connection that made it easy for me to push inside. Once inside, I secured the window and set up my own burglar-alarm system-a motion detector with wireless alert connected to an earbud to let me know if my back was exposed. Then I went to work.

My first stop was in the back office. The company had only one computer, which made my first job relatively easy. I slipped a disk into the 3.5 drive and booted it up, watching as a program written by Red Cell's resident computer geek examined the machine's capabilities. The machine had a CD-RW drive, meaning that it could write on CDs, which was what made the next step very easy. (Better would have been a DVD-RW drive, which would have made the operation faster, but you can't have everything.) I tapped a few keys and the CD drawer opened. Within thirty seconds, the computer was recording the contents of its hard drive onto a set of disks I'd brought along.

Shunt compares the program to a standard backup routine like Norton Ghost. It scans the drive, compresses the contents, then spits it onto the blank CDs. The program is entirely automated; the hardest part is standing there feeding it CDs every few minutes. Unfortunately, it's limited by the speed of the drive and the capacity of the CDs; even though it's sophisticated enough to not to copy standard things like Microsoft Windows or Office, rifling through ten gigabytes of data or so and spitting it onto a bagful of CDs takes time.

Rather than putting my thumbs up my nose while I waited, I rifled the desk drawers, looking for something useful. I found a checkbook and removed the last page of checks for reference. Then I went over to the file cabinets and started scouting through them. Boring stuff, except for the vintage Playboy s in the bottom left-hand drawer.

It took nearly an hour for the program to lap up everything potentially interesting. When it was finally done, I backed out of the program, took my disk out, and turned the computer off. Then I pulled out the computer and turned it around, trying to figure out which one of the wires at the back went to the keyboard.

No, I wasn't overcome by geek l.u.s.t or a perverted desire to view electronic couplings. I needed to install the hardware key logger I'd brought along. Key loggers keep a log of every stroke on a keyboard, recording everything a user types. Key loggers were invented by spy agencies years ago to steal computer secrets. Businesses use them now to spy on workers. You can buy fairly effective models over the Internet if you're so inclined. They come in both hardware and software versions. The one in my pocket was a bit of a hybrid, a hardware model that could dump its captured keystrokes over the Internet. This avoided detection by the common software scanners. A command program was stored in the Windows program file area, replacing legitimate but seldom-used files in the Tour folder-and yes, if I were you, I'd look into deleting some of those files on your computer first thing in the morning.

In order to work, the logger had to sit between the keyboard and the computer. Installing it was a snap-or would have been if I could have gotten the plug from the keyboard to release from the computer.

Getting things out of holes is usually not my problem. Obviously, Mr. Murphy had secured this one with a daub of Krazy Glue-the connection just would not come off. Finally, I took out my knife and helped it along, trying to find just the right amount of pressure to get it out of the machine. This involved tremendous willpower-I was sorely tempted to teach the computer the proper meaning of "reboot" with the heel of my shoe. It snapped out at last. I worked the hardware logger into the computer first, then went through another finger dance to get the keyboard cord in place. Just as I finally got it back together, the buzzer in my ear attached to the motion detector went off-I had company.

One of these days, Mr. Murphy and I are going to have a very serious discussion.

I put the computer back and tiptoed to the door. I still had to install the software portion of the logger, but even if I'd wanted to make a run for it, that wouldn't be a good idea-two flashlight beams slashed across the open s.p.a.ce, zeroing in on the office.

Employees looking to get a jump on the next day tend to turn the lights on. Same with security guards.

Flashlights are used by thieves...and intelligence agents sent to plant bugs.

Sap in one hand, pistol in the other, I stepped back behind the door and waited. Whoever they were, I didn't intend to introduce myself. The world would certainly be better off with two less thieves, and the same could probably be said for two members of the Egyptian internal security apparatus. But shooting them here would add all sorts of unnecessary complications. There was a narrow s.p.a.ce next to the row of filing cabinets to my right; it wouldn't completely hide me, but it would make me less likely to be spotted if they closed the door. On the other hand, I couldn't pop them over the head from there; if they saw me I'd have to shoot them.

Call it a consolation prize. I made it to the corner as the first beam of light entered the room. I took a diver-sized gulp of air and held it, watching as another beam of light entered and found the phone on the desk. A moment later, two men entered the room. They were black-baggers from the Egyptian secret service, here to plant a bug in the office to capture conversations. (The phone lines would have been tapped outside or at the central phone office.) They entered the room together; one moved toward the desk and the other- The other took a few steps inside and turned around, his back about three inches from my nose.

He didn't believe in deodorant. Which was unfortunate.

I held the sap up, ready to strike. I honestly thought I'd be using it any second, and two or three times raised my hand ever so slightly, building up the momentum to give it just the right body English. But he didn't turn around, and his partner concentrated on planting his bug at the bottom of the phone. When he was done, he grabbed the flashlight, made a quick pa.s.s at the files on the wall opposite me, then left. His partner never turned around.

I rebooted the computer and installed the software, once again using a script Shunt had devised to automate the procedure. When the computer beeped to show that it was working, I retrieved my CD and shut it down. By 4 a.m. I was back at the hotel, enjoying a nightcap before turning in for a few winks before sunrise. But there is no rest for the wicked-my satellite phone began ringing before I could even slip between the sheets. (I'd say "jammies" but you all know I sleep in the raw just in case I get lucky.) It was Danny with an update. They had a lead on Goatf.u.c.k and had worked out a plan to get him.