The Second Messiah

Ryan checked the locks and saw scrape marks on the surrounding paint. He rattled every lock. They were secure. “It looks as if someone’s tried to pry open the boxes to get at the weapons.”

“Cassini.”

“Who else?”

The other guards thoroughly searched the room and checked the doors before Butoni said, “Every door’s locked. I don’t think Cassini hung around.”

But Ryan was already darting back into the secret passageway. “He must be headed for the Sistine.”

And Ryan plunged frantically down the winding steps, Butoni and the guards hard on his heels.

Moments later Ryan came to another landing and a wall panel. He turned the handle on the panel and pushed. The panel didn’t budge. He slammed his shoulder against it and saw a crack appear, light spilling in from a hallway beyond. Butoni and the others joined him.

Ryan said, “There’s something shoved against the panel. Give me a hand here, Angelo.”

Butoni pushed his shoulder against the panel and both men heaved. The panel opened another inch. Ryan peered through the crack. “Curse it anyway. It looks like a bench is wedged against the door. Get back.”

Ryan gestured for everyone to step back and he took a short run at the door and kicked it with the flat of his shoe. He felt the wood tremor and the object behind the panel appeared to budge. Encouraged, he shouldered the panel again and again. “Come on, give me a hand, all together now, heave.”

A sweating Ryan, Butoni, and the others pushed and shoved, until at last the panel scraped open at least a foot and a half. Ryan squeezed through the gap, followed by the others.

They found themselves in a corridor. Soaring white plaster walls and stained-glass windows. Across the hall was a pastel blue door, an entrance into the Sistine Chapel.

A muffled cry of agony rang out. It seemed to echo from the chapel.

“Oh no!” Ryan uttered, and sprinted across the marble floor toward the blue door.

126

Ryan pushed open the door and stormed into the Sistine, the others behind him.

Ryan’s face was misted with sweat and as he scanned the room everything seemed to happen in a kind of slow motion. Afterward, he would recall that what he saw was so disturbing and absurd. In this wonderful place of peace and solitude with its fragrant smell of incense, here he was clutching a loaded Glock, his sights searching out a target, which he soon found.

A disturbing sight caught his eye near the altar.

Cassini.

He was kneeling over John Becket’s body, which was spread-eagled on its back on the marble tile. Cassini clutched a blade in both hands. He stabbed it into Becket’s chest, again and again, the pope’s white gown awash with crimson.

“Cassini!” Ryan’s alarmed cry echoed around the chapel like an explosion.

Cassini’s head snapped around, his eyes blazing with a deranged look, something close to madness, his own gown spattered with blood.

“Cassini, for pity’s sake, stop!” Ryan screamed.

But Cassini ignored him and raised his hands to again bury the blade in the pope’s body.

In an instant Ryan squeezed the Glock’s trigger once, then once again, and two powerful .40-caliber rounds thudded into Cassini’s chest and head. The force sent his body flying back across the altar, the shots exploding around the Sistine like bursts of thunder, the shock waves rippling and dying over the dazzling visions of Michelangelo’s Apocalypse, the Creation, and the Flood.

127

The Lear jet entered Lebanese airspace just after 3:30 A.M., skimming above the clouds at twenty thousand feet.

Sitting in a leather passenger seat in the luxurious private cabin, Hassan Malik wore an expensive linen suit and shirt, Italian handmade shoes, and his Patek Philippe watch.

On the tray in front of him lay the curved Arab knife that had once belonged to his father, and to Nidal. The thought of his beloved Nidal lying cold as marble in a desert grave sent a ghostly chill down Hassan’s spine. His eyes moistened.

He slid the curved blade from its scabbard and the polished metal gleamed, the edge scalpel-sharp. An aide came through the cabin. “A call from Rome, sir. And the captain says we should be landing in thirty minutes.”

Hassan slammed the blade into the scabbard. “Good. Tell Bruno to come in here.”

“Yes, sir.” The aide left.

Hassan took the satellite phone. He listened to the voice at the other end as it spoke for several minutes, and when the conversation ended, Hassan said, “Mille gratzi. I appreciate the news. Arrivederci.”

The line clicked dead and Hassan put aside the phone as the door to his private cabin snapped open. The Serb appeared. “You wanted me, Mr. Malik?”

Hassan picked up the curved Arab blade in its scabbard and tossed it to the Serb, who caught it. “Wake up Cane and bring him here. Then you know what to do.”