Lying on the cold stone floor, he couldn’t see it, but he could feel it begin. It was subtle at first, but steadily growing stronger. His hands were beginning to tremble.
47
Benecke walked into the large office and stood before Carolina Flores who was on the phone. She was tall with straight hair and motioned him to a seat in front of her desk. After a few minutes, she hung up and shook her head.
“Hello Ron,” she said with a sigh. “Things are going downhill fast. The riots are spreading, and Italy is losing control.”
Benecke knew what she was referring to. The first riots to take to the streets were in Italy, not far from Vatican City. They spread quickly through the other European countries, then across to Mexico and Brazil. If the number of rioters multiplied as quickly as they did in Italy, the other governments would have little hope of stopping them.
He looked at her for a long moment, trying to think about the best way to tell her. His drive over to CIA headquarters in Langley was full of questions, and given their friendship, she was the first person he needed to talk to, and fast.
She watched Benecke curiously as he took a deep breath. “What is it?”
“I need to tell you something,” he said quietly. “And then we need to get everyone together.”
Flores leaned forward. “Okay. And who is everyone?”
Benecke frowned. “The Joint Chiefs…and probably the President.”
Less than an hour later, Flores and Benecke climbed out of the President’s Marine One helicopter and descended the steps onto the green grass of the White House back lawn. The high pitch of engines faded as they ducked under the slowing rotors and were ushered toward the large glass doors, where more of Flores’ agents stood waiting for them.
They were escorted downstairs to the Cabinet Room where the others were waiting. The Chief of Staff met them at the door and waved them in. Flores and Benecke looked around the table and nodded to the others, all of whom they knew well.
As they sat down and scooted forward, they were informed the President and Vice President were on their way down.
Flores and Benecke nodded to Marc Ha, the CIA Director, on the other side of the table, then to the other seven men at the table, comprising the President’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sam Foley, the Secretary of Defense, with his balding hair and hawkish eyes, was sitting next to Ha and nodded back, peering out from under thick grey eyebrows.
Less than a minute later, the President entered the room followed by the Vice President. President Lee was tall and lean and had the distinction of choosing the country’s first female Vice President. Glena Ward, who followed him in and sat down at the table next to him, was no puppet or figurehead for the VP position. She was as tough as anyone in the room.
The President leaned forward and put his elbows on the dark mahogany table. “Okay, let’s hear it.”
Benecke glanced at Flores, the only person who knew what he was about to say, and then back to the President. “I’ll make it short sir,” he said. “We have evidence that we believe identifies the Pope’s murderer.”
Lee raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Really? Who is it?” With all that was going wrong at the moment, he was excited at the prospect of removing at least some of the pressure he was under from the other countries. The case was not going quickly enough for anyone.
Benecke didn’t reply immediately. “Mr. President, I think it’s better if I share the evidence.”
The President looked puzzled but gestured to continue.
Benecke reached into his pocket and pulled out a small digital audio player. “As you know, four of the Swiss Guard were killed in the same room with the Pope.” He paused and looked around the table. “It appears that one of them managed to start a recording on his phone before he died.”
Everyone gave a surprised look as Benecke put a recorder gently on the table in front of him. “The recording is almost four minutes long and ends with the final slaying of Pope Pius.” Benecke waited a moment for questions, and hearing none, he reached forward and pressed the play button. The recording started abruptly, and a deep voice could be heard clearly in mid-sentence.
“-you lay there on the floor slowly bleeding to death, and asking yourself how in the world we ever got past your security. The reason is because we were the security.”
There was a long pause and everyone instinctively looked at Benecke’s device on the table.
“Are you wondering why yet? Of course you are. Let’s just say…this is payment for services rendered. A debt, if you will.”
“Listen to me. Just keep him alive and unharmed. If you keep him unharmed, they will give you anything you ask. Anything!”
“Oh, I know.”
Everyone in the room jumped when they heard two successive gunshots, and a few seconds later two more.
“Paid in full.”
Benecke pressed the button again, stopping the recording. He looked at the President whose face, like everyone else’s, looked ashen. No one moved; they simply could not believe what they had just heard.
“Is that,” Lee began, with a whisper, “Bill Zahn’s voice?!”
Benecke nodded. “Yes, it is.”
The room was silent again. After a long wait, Ward spoke up. “Are you sure?”
“We analyzed the audio multiple times and each time the characteristics were a perfect match.”
“There’s no possible chance it’s someone else?” Ha asked from across the table.
Benecke shook his head. “Very little.”
“How little?” President Lee said, raising his voice.
“As in practically none, sir.”
“My god.” Lee closed his eyes and leaned his face into his hands. “Where…is Zahn now?”
“His plane took off almost two hours ago on a flight south. He will reach international waters in a little over thirty minutes.”
“Why in god’s name…” Lee’s voice trailed off. He looked up and back at Benecke and Flores. “Tell me you’re right about this. Tell me there is no way in hell you’re wrong.”
“We’re right, sir.”
Ward cleared her voice and spoke up with a more objective tone. “This may be a dumb question, but exactly how much do we know about Zahn? I mean, really know.”
Benecke placed a thick folder on the table and pulled out some papers. “He’s held three other government positions of significance over the last twenty-two years of service. The first was in the DOD for nine years as a nuclear and weapons inspector, then in the NSA for six years running their data encryption department, and the rest of his time in the State Department, as a political liaison and second in command.”
Ward shook her head. The man was plugged in. “So, you’re saying that Zahn, a high ranking member of the government, murdered the Pope. Why in the world would he do that?”
“I cannot even begin to imagine,” the President said shaking his head.
The Chief of the Army spoke up. “This just doesn’t make any sense. We’ve got to have something wrong here.” They all turned back to Benecke.
He cleared his throat and went back to his folder. This time he pulled out several copies of paper and passed them around. Everyone picked theirs up and studied it. They were pictures, small pictures, that were arranged to fill the single page, and in each picture was a small group of men at different angles and different locations. “These are photos from the Cathedral of Saint John. As you all know, installing security cameras where none are present is common procedure for this level of protection. The four men you see in these images are the same men that we believe carried out the assassination If you look closely at the tallest of them, it’s Zahn.”
Simultaneously everyone stared harder at their picture. “Jesus,” whispered Foley.
“Okay, he was there,” Ha said. “How do we know they were the ones that did it?”
Benecke looked around the room. “Do you notice anything strange about these pictures?”
Everyone c
ontinued to peer at them. Ha looked up. “I recognize the man to Zahn’s left in pictures four and five.”
“That is Kia Sarat,” Flores spoke up. “He is Zahn’s right hand man and has been working with and for him for years. He checks out.”
“What about the other two?” asked the President.
Flores took a deep breath. “Their ID’s initially checked out, but now that we’ve had some time to do some digging, we’re finding discrepancies.”
“Discrepancies?” barked the head of the Army. General Hall was a bear of a man. Both tall and muscular, he looked like he could still get into the ring with someone half his age.
Flores spoke up. “One of the men we thought was named Ahmad, but we now believe he is Ferran Kamal, the nephew of an Islamic terrorist by the name of Malik. The fourth man, Iman, we believe also has a radical background.”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs rolled his eyes. “And these guys just walked right by you?”
“We don’t have time,” Flores shot back with a look of irritation, “to do an exhaustive background check on every single person!”
Landeen, the Chairman, did not back down. “Well, why the hell NOT?! What the hell good is your check if we can’t tell whether they’re friend or foe until the damn attack is over?”
Flores was not intimidated. “Because they weren’t passing through security! They were security!”
Everyone at the table froze. “What was that?” asked Vice President Ward.
Flores turned to address her. “What I’m saying is, these were not normal clearance checks. Those are for people not on the security team. But Zahn and his men were part of the security team. Almost all major departments were.” She motioned to the recorder. “Zahn said it himself.”
“Why the hell was the State Department part of the security team? They have no military authority,” Foley said.
“Technically, they didn’t have to sir,” Benecke answered. “The passage of the Patriot Act was intended to improve communication by breaking down walls between government departments. The State Department does have some international authority, but the Patriot Act, in an effort to force the departments to exchange information more freely, essentially equalized them as part of a larger cooperative system. Security has been flattened, which means having Zahn and his team there was completely acceptable. This is why Ms. Flores’ teams in the Secret Service had no reason to further investigate them.”
Foley shook his head. “Christ! You’re telling me that these bastards got through because of a giant loophole in the law?”
“Yes, sir.”
Foley rolled his eyes and looked back to the President.
“Several of my team saw them there,” Flores continued. “But they never saw them again, even when my men were getting everyone out.”
“And there is also the oddity in the pictures,” reminded Benecke. Everyone remembered his question and looked back at their sheets of paper.
Ha finally looked up. “I don’t see it. What stands out?”
“They are the only ones in the pictures wearing long coats.” The realization struck them all at once. It was clearly out of place and they could see it. “Those coats are not just hot; they’re also long enough to hide AK-47s beneath them. And the AKs are another item. They’re old, but they’re extremely reliable. And Islamic freedom fighters have tens of thousands of them.”
President Lee leaned back in his chair. “Is that it?”
Benecke glanced again at Flores. “No, sir. We’ve gotten information on a few diplomatic missions that Zahn had made for the State Department. It looks as though some of those meetings may have never taken place.”
“What?” Ward said. “He never went there?”
“Not exactly, ma’am,” Benecke replied. “He was certainly there, as we can tell from the plane’s navigation and GPS history, but it looks like he may not have actually been talking to the people we thought he was talking to.”
Ha leaned forward. “You told me yesterday Zahn wanted a drone. And that you later gave him access to an Apache and a Blackhawk.”
Benecke nodded.
“So what was that for and who was aboard?” Ha pressed.
Benecke frowned. This was the part he was truly dreading. The reluctant admission that he had inadvertently helped Zahn.
“He said he was after some individuals involved in an assassination attempt.”
“Dear god,” the President moaned.
Ha continued. “And who did you put onboard that Blackhawk helicopter?”
Benecke lowered his head. “A Delta team.”
The President stood up and walked to the window. He stared straight out across the lawn at the trees beyond. “Do you have any idea,” he said, “what everyone is going to think when they find out we killed the Pope? That the United States Government killed their Pope?” He shook his head. “God almighty. This is going to start a war.”
The room remained silent as everyone contemplated what the President said. Lee almost chuckled out of sheer exasperation when he turned around. “Well, I guess we’re damn lucky we have the biggest military on the planet, because we are sure as hell gonna need it now.”
Benecke looked around the room and then at the President. He raised his hand gingerly. The President looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“Sir,” Benecke started. “We have a little time to figure out what our explanation is. Not much but a little. Might I suggest, whatever that is, it will look far worse if Zahn escapes as well?”
The President squinted his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that, whatever our story is, I think it would be very bad if Zahn were still alive to dispute it, let alone offer details we don’t want known.”
Silence filled the room until Landeen broke it. “I agree.”
“So do I,” added Ha. The President looked at the others in the room who nodded their agreement.
“So, we take him out while we still can.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned to Will Douglas, the Air Force Chief. “Where’s the nearest base, Will?”
Douglas, the tallest and youngest of the chiefs, responded immediately. “MacDill, sir. Near Tampa Florida. We have F-16s on the ground that should be able to reach them before they leave US air space.”
The President absently reached up and rubbed an eye. Things were moving damn fast. But Benecke was as sharp as they came. He was still new to the post, and while not much for playing politics, he hadn’t been wrong yet. Then again, was it possible he wanted to put it all on Zahn because he’d helped the man? Doubtful. He was a straight shooter, and Lee was sure he was right. Zahn did this, and now they had to clean up the mess as quickly as possible. How he was going to explain this to the world, he had no idea.
The President gave Douglas a solemn nod. “Bring ‘em down.”
48
The early spring was affecting Florida just as much as the rest of the East Coast, and the temperature was almost 90 degrees when the two pilots sprinted across the hot tarmac at MacDill in their flight suits. Barely out of breath, each reached the ladder for their plane and walked in a tight circle underneath, quickly checking the weapon racks and pneumatic pressures. Satisfied, they grabbed their steel ladders and climbed into their cockpit. They had very little time, but the preflight check was something every pilot did religiously, even those with a crew.
Once inside, they finished connecting their harnesses and zipped their G-suits up the rest of the way. Their crew chiefs quickly appeared over them atop the ladder and forcefully strapped them in. The chiefs then grabbed and attached the G-suit hoses to their left console before slapping their pilot on the head and climbing down to remove the ladders.
Inside, the pilots finished adjusting their switches and trim adjustments before putting their helmets on and attaching their oxygen hoses to the harnesses. They brought their main power online only seconds apart as every movement had long since become simple muscle memory.
Finally, after starting their main engines and with clearance from the tower, both planes immediately pulled forward and headed for the runway with the second pilot falling in behind the first. All told, both planes were airborne in less than six minutes.
The Boeing 757 was the preferred aircraft for heads of state, including the office of the State Department. With a twin jet design, the plane carried two crew members and up to 280 passengers in the single aisle fuselage. The 757 was also capable of almost 4,000 nautical miles, depending on variant, which gave it an impressive range.
This 757 was traveling due south at 530 miles per hour when the F-16 fighters appeared and fell in directly behind it. The lead pilot verified the 757’s call letters near the tail and gradually faded back to within a quarter mile.
The pilot spoke into his microphone. “MacDill, this is Falcon’s Talon, do you copy?”
“Copy Talon,” came the reply.
“Aircraft sighted,” he said, “identification is November-Six-One-Seven-Alfa-Juliet.”
“That is affirmative, Talon. Repeat, identification is affirmative.”
The pilot nodded and switched frequencies. He shifted in his seat then stretched out his hand and relaxed it again around the stick. “Aircraft November-Six-One-Seven-Alfa-Juliet, this is Colonel Ainsworth of the United States Air Force. You are instructed to change course and return to MacDill Air Force Base immediately. I repeat, you are instructed to change course. Confirm.”
Ainsworth waited for a response. After thirty seconds he hailed again. “I repeat, Aircraft November-Six-One-Seven-Alfa-Juliet, this is Colonel Ainsworth of the United States Air Force. You are instructed to change course. You are to confirm immediately.”
Amid the Shadows Page 21
