by John Saul
“We’re standing by at the Common right now,” the announcer, a petite brunette, said. “Pope Innocent Fourteenth is expected to arrive at any moment.” The camera panned to the left, and behind her were shoulder-to-shoulder crowds of people packing the park in front of a big stage, completely surrounded and roofed with Plexiglas, with what looked like the entire Boston police force acting as crowd control. “His Holiness will come down from St. Isaac’s Preparatory Academy, along with three of the school’s students whom the Pope has asked to serve with him at this morning’s Mass. In a major break with tradition, we are told that two of the students are girls.”
Teri’s pulse suddenly quickened, and she raised the head of the bed a little higher and brought the small handheld speaker closer to her ear, dialing up the volume as she did so.
“Here comes the motorcade, now,” the announcer said, as three black limousines moved slowly down Spruce Street. “The stage has been set up so that the first glimpse the crowd will get of His Holiness will be when he steps through the backdrop behind the altar onto the stage itself. We’re told this is primarily a security precaution, though it certainly heightens the drama, too. Doesn’t it, Cliff?” she added, turning to a blond man standing next to her.
“It certainly does, Annette,” Cliff Whoever-he-might-be picked up. “From our vantage point, though, we’ll be able to see the Pope disembark from his car, which should happen in just a moment or two.” There was a slight pause, and just as Annette was opening her mouth to fill the silence, Cliff spoke again. “Yes, here are the cars now.”
The door of the first limo opened and a man in a black suit got out, quickly surveyed the area around the small motorcade, and went to the second car.
Holding open its back door, he stood respectfully as the Pope, clad in a white cassock and a brilliantly jeweled surplice, stepped out.
Then the doors of the third limousine opened, and Teri saw Father Sebastian Sloane step out.
He was followed by two girls, one of whom Teri recognized as the girl Ryan had introduced Tom and her to.
Her heart was racing now, and when Ryan himself finally stepped out of the limousine, Teri knew she’d been expecting it. But why?
What was he doing with the Pope?
He hadn’t even been at St. Isaac’s two weeks! Why would they have chosen him to serve at the altar with the Pope? He barely even knew the sequence of the Mass!
She struggled against the pain of her sore muscles and cracked ribs and sat up straight, staring at the television screen in numb disbelief as the three teenagers, all of them dressed in bright red cassocks with white surplices over them, moved toward the Pope, who took their hands and greeted each one warmly.
The camera pulled back to reveal the Pope, a Cardinal, and the three students moving toward the stairs at the back of the stage.
But what about Father Sebastian Sloane?
There! As the camera pulled even farther back, Teri saw the priest at the top of the screen. But he wasn’t moving toward the Pope; instead he had turned the other way, away from the stage, away from the limousines and was now hurrying across Beacon Street, where another man was waiting.
Teri stared at the other man, unable to believe her eyes.
It couldn’t be.
It was impossible.
But it was true.
Tom Kelly greeted Father Sebastian Sloane with a quick pat on the back, then both he and Sloane ducked under the cordon that blocked both Beacon Street and the sidewalk, and vanished into the crowd.
And at the moment they disappeared, Teri knew:
Something horrible was about to happen.
“Call the police!” she shouted. “For God’s sake, someone call the police!” Ignoring the pain wracking her body, she swung her legs off the bed and put her feet on the floor, but her knees buckled when she tried to stand.
She grabbed at the table, which rolled away from her and banged into the wall, then flailed at the IV stand, catching her hand on a tube as she lost her balance.
Both she and the stand crashed to the floor, and white hot pain shot through her elbow. “Help!” she screamed, fighting against the pain that threatened to knock her out. “Somebody—please! Call the police!”
Two nurses rushed in, saw what had happened, and began trying to disentangle her, but Teri brushed them away. “Leave me alone,” she wailed, pointing at the television. “Call the police! Something terrible is going to happen to the Pope!”
As the nurses stared at her uncomprehendingly, Teri curled up on the floor, the pain in her body and her soul too enormous to handle.
It was her fault—whatever was about to happen was all her fault. And not only was it going to happen to the Pope, it was going to happen to Ryan, too.
With a terrible certainty, Teri McIntyre knew that she was about to watch her son die.
CHAPTER 65
RYAN MCINTYRE STEPPED through the curtain onto the stage. Sofia Capelli was two steps ahead of him, Melody Hunt two behind. Once all three of them were in place, the Pope himself would step through the curtain, but even before the appearance of the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, the roar of the crowd was already setting not only the Plexiglas shields to vibrating, but the stage as well. The trembling of the floor beneath his feet, combined with the steadily building wave of noise rising over him, made Ryan step reflexively back; he might have fallen off the stage had Melody not instantly offered her support, steadying him so smoothly that he regained his balance before he’d completely lost it.
He looked out over the sea of people—more people than he’d thought the Common could even hold—all of them on their feet, cheering and clapping and waving signs offering the Pope a welcome in half a dozen languages. Some were even standing on their chairs, while the limbs of every tree sagged under the weight of even more people.
Yet even as Ryan gazed out at them, the roar began to fade from his consciousness, and a quiet serenity fell over him. Soon all of this would end, and the man in the cassock and miter—the man who led these misguided followers—would die for the glory of Allah. So, too, would Ryan and he would secure an eternity filled with Allah’s rewards for his martyrdom.
The roar of the crowd swelled as Ryan sensed that the Pope had joined them on the stage, and the man whose ring he had kissed only a little while ago stepped between himself and Melody to the front of the stage to acknowledge the welcome he was being given.
Now Ryan stood behind the Pope, Sofia to his right, Melody to his left.
The Pope raised his arms in benediction to the assembled, and the roar grew even greater. Then the Pope spoke his first words into the tiny microphone clipped to his vestments, and as his voice boomed out through the massive speaker system the crowd instantly quieted.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” he intoned, his voice carrying easily to every corner of the Common.
In unison, every person Ryan could see crossed themselves exactly the way Ryan and Melody and Sofia were crossing themselves. But the throng beyond the shield was following the lead of their Pope, while the three young people behind it were obeying the instructions of Father Sebastian Sloane.
“You must be perfect in every detail,” he’d whispered to the dark force he had harnessed within each of them. “Until the moment comes, perform the infidel rite, but think only of Allah. Allah, and me.”
“Amen,” the combined voice of the multitude intoned.
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all,” the Pope proclaimed.
“And also with you,” the crowd responded.
Obeying the instructions of the dark force within him, Ryan turned to light the candles on the altar, Melody and Sofia flanking him, the Pope still facing the crowd. As they stepped toward the altar, they turned to smile at each other in anticipation of the moment so soon to come. Then, in unison, they lit the candles. Ryan felt the same serenity in the two girl
s that imbued his own soul. They—as he himself—were ready.
“Let us pray to the Lord.”
As one, the multitude bowed their heads and stood so silently that when a flock of pigeons suddenly rose into the air, Ryan could hear the flutter of their wings. As the birds vanished beyond the treetops, the Pope began to pray, his voice full and rich.
Before bowing his own head, Ryan looked out to the front row of seats, where Father Sebastian would be sitting with the rest of the school. But the chair the priest had been assigned was empty. Father Laughlin was there, and Sister Mary David, and Brother Francis, and all the other priests and nuns Ryan had come to know over the last two weeks, but Father Sebastian seemed to have vanished.
He couldn’t have, of course—he had to be there somewhere.
Ryan scanned the side sections, searching for the priest, and at the far end of the second row he saw a single man whose head wasn’t bowed. It was him! It was Father—
But it wasn’t! It wasn’t Father Sebastian at all.
Instead, Ryan found himself staring into the face of his own father. His father, in his uniform, his hat on his head!
No! It was impossible—it had to be a trick of the light!
Ryan looked away, but almost instantly his eye was caught by the glint of sunlight reflecting off some kind of polished metal, and when he looked to see what it was, he saw another unbowed head, this one halfway back in the seats, on the opposite side.
And again, Ryan would have sworn he was looking at his father.
The man, the sun still glinting off the medals on his chest, smiled at Ryan, and nodded slightly.
What was wrong? What was happening? He shouldn’t be seeing his father at all. He should be seeing Father Sebastian!
A burning sensation grew in his chest.
The Pope finished his prayer, then turned toward the enormous Bible on the altar as the Boston Children’s Choir, dressed in blue robes with gold trim, began to sing Ave Maria.
The moment was approaching.
Ryan’s heart quickened as Father Sebastian’s voice whispered in his memory, repeating the instructions over and over.
The timing had to be perfect. One slip, and it could all go wrong. He eased slightly toward Melody, drawn to her now as he had been since the moment he’d first seen her.
The moment was very close now; the “amen” from the crowd that would mark the end of the next prayer would also mark the moment when he and Melody and Sofia would press the buttons that had been sewn into the sleeves of their cassocks.
The moment when they would greet Allah and receive his gifts.
The choir finished, and the crowd stood silent, muted by the beauty not only of the song, but of the voices that had sung it.
The Pope turned to the altar, and the waiting Eucharist. “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, Creator of the fruit of the Earth. The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,” he said. He picked up the small silver pitcher and poured a drop of water into the chalice of wine.
“Lord wash away my iniquity, cleanse me from my sins.” The Pope washed his hands in the basin set upon the altar for that purpose, then dried them on a linen towel.
“Let us pray.”
Ryan looked beyond the edge of the stage.
Once more his father was smiling at him, and once more he felt the burning in his chest. It wasn’t possible—it couldn’t be his father—and yet it was, and he was looking directly into Ryan’s eyes, and he was raising his hand to his chest as if he were feeling the same burning that was now searing Ryan’s heart.
Without thinking, Ryan raised his right hand, and slipped it beneath the surplice and between the buttons on the cassock.
His fingers closed on the silver crucifix.
The crucifix his father had promised would protect him.
The crucifix he had intended to leave hidden in the wall.
Now, with his father’s eyes fixed on him, with his father smiling at him, and with his father’s gift clutched in his hand, a new energy flooded through him, bursting from his heart and his soul to flow through his body.
And he realized what he and Melody and Sofia were about to do.
Ryan stared at his father, who was now standing at the very edge of the stage. He was reaching out to Ryan, as if to put his hand right through the Plexiglas, to touch him.
Ryan’s gaze shifted to Sofia. Her fingers were twitching, and he saw them disappear into the sleeves of her cassock.
The sleeves where the triggers were hidden.
He turned the other way; Melody, too, was slipping her fingers into her sleeves.
He heard the Pope begin the doxology. The last four lines of the prayer had begun.
“I will praise Thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart.”
Ryan’s gaze flashed back to his father, and everything inside him changed. His right hand still clutching his father’s crucifix, he reached over with his left and grabbed Melody’s hand, feeling the energy of the silver cross flow through his arm and hand into her own. Melody’s eyes widened, and she looked at him in terror as comprehension suddenly dawned in her mind.
“And I will glorify Thy name forevermore.”
Ryan and Melody lunged toward the Pope. As his lips formed the final word, they threw themselves on him, toppling him near the end of the altar and onto the floor, all of them falling just as Sofia, still heeding only the instructions Father Sebastian had planted in her mind, pressed the buttons in the cuffs of her cassock.
The concussion of the twin bombs exploding knocked the breath from Ryan, and for an instant he lay paralyzed, certain he was dead. But a moment later he felt the crucifix in his right hand; felt Melody stir beside him. Beneath them, the Pope struggled, and Melody began to pull away from him, trying to free herself from Ryan’s grip so the fallen Pope could recover himself. But if he let go of her hand—
Still holding Melody with his left hand, Ryan released his grip on the silver crucifix and tore her cassock away with his right. Flinging it to the far end of the stage, he ripped off his own and a moment later it fell onto Melody’s, both the cassocks lying in a crumpled heap, the full Mass on the altar itself standing between them and the Pontiff.
“Bombs,” Ryan whispered, his voice nearly failing him. He clutched at the crucifix once more, and again it lent him the energy he needed.
“We were supposed to kill you,” he whispered to the Pope, who was now on his knees, steadying himself against the altar with his right arm as he reached out to Melody with his left. “Father Sebastian—”
His voice broke, and suddenly all he wanted was to see his father again. He turned away from the kneeling Pontiff, but when he tried to search for the man who only a moment ago had been reaching out to him, all he saw was the Plexiglas shield, smeared with the flesh and blood of Sofia Capelli.
Beyond the shield, the crowd was screaming and backing away, crushing against the temporary fencing, but Ryan barely saw any of it. Then there were security men in black suits swarming everywhere, and someone was helping Ryan to his feet and someone else was tending to Melody and a dozen people seemed to be crowded around the Pope and the altar was dripping with blood and bits of Sofia’s flesh and hair and clothing clung to the purple curtain behind the altar and—
Ryan was going to faint.
He knew it; knew it as certainly as he’d ever known anything in his life. He was going to faint, and there was nothing he could do about it.
And then, as the darkness began to close in around him, it happened again.
His father was right there, standing at the end of the stage, watching him.
Making certain he was all right.
And then, as his father looked down on him one last time, the faintness drained away from Ryan, and he nodded to his father.
Everything, he knew, was finally going to be all right.
EPILOGUE
ROME † SIX MONTHS LATER
RYAN PRESSED HIS back against the cold stone wall of the catacomb
and tried to control his rising panic, but the same bitter taste at the back of his tongue, the same hammering heart and the same cold sweat he remembered from being in the tunnels under St. Isaac’s Academy were starting to overwhelm him.
But he wasn’t at St. Isaac’s anymore—all that was over, and half a year had passed, and until an hour ago he’d thought Rome was the most beautiful place he’d ever seen. For almost a week he and his mother had been touring the city, seeing not only the fountains and piazzas and ruins everyone else saw, but things no one else ever saw: rooms in the Vatican to which the public was never invited, but which the Pope had led them through, explaining everything they were seeing, taking a whole day simply to show Ryan and his mother the heart of the Eternal City. “And you must see the catacombs,” he’d told them at the end of that day. “No visit to Rome is complete without it. It is only there that you will truly understand what our earliest believers suffered for the true faith.”
So they came to the catacombs today, and now everything that had happened at St. Isaac’s was flooding back to him as he tried to walk with his mother and their guide sixty feet beneath the streets of the ancient city.
Dim light bulbs were strung every twenty feet or so, but they emitted no more light than had their counterparts in the maze of tunnels beneath the school, and he could barely see anything except the next bulb. Between those small beacons, the darkness closed around Ryan with a cold fist.
It was as if he was caught once again in one of the horrible nightmares he’d had at school. Once again he was lost in the dark, trying to navigate dark tunnels, feeling eyes everywhere, watching him from somewhere beyond the reach of his own eyes.
He gulped at the musty air, trying to rid himself of the rising panic, and looked around for his mother and their guide. Faint tendrils of their voices echoed from somewhere in the distance, but they had vanished into the darkness ahead.
He needed to catch up.
But just like in a nightmare, he couldn’t make his feet move; it was as if they were mired in thick mud.
