Damn that detective, Michael thought. Damn his son. Damn those boy-fucking priests who can’t keep their hands to themselves. And damn me for not killing Biehn when I had the chance.
Jack had no way of knowing, but he parked in exactly the same spot that Don Biehn had used hours earlier. After freeing Biehn’s feet, he pulled the man out of the car and escorted him down the street. Biehn was looking haggard, almost a walking corpse, except for his eyes, which were bright with an unhealthy glow.
“I meant it,” Jack warned, speaking for the first time since they’d left Dortmund’s. “You give me the slightest bit of trouble, and I’ll shoot you. I’m already in enough trouble over this. Shooting you is not going to make it all that much worse.”
“I’m thinking,” Biehn said in a hollow voice, “that you and I aren’t that much different. I’m throwing everything away for something really important to me. You look like you’re willing to do the same. I’m doing it for Aaron. What’s your story?”
Jack shrugged. “A terrorist kicked my dog when I was a kid.”
“No, really. Why risk your career?”
“Because someone has to care more about saving the world than saving his job.”
“Exactly!” Biehn laughed. “I knew it. You’re the hero of the story.”
“I guess that makes you the villain,” Jack answered.
“Nope, but I bet you’re about to meet him.”
Jack didn’t stand on ceremony. He led Biehn straight through the cathedral and into the grounds beyond. Biehn seemed to know his way around the place, and led Jack past the rectory to the small house standing alone at the far corner of the cathedral grounds. Lights were on in the house, and there was a man standing in front. He looked utterly dumbfounded by the appearance of the two men. “We need to see the Cardinal,” Jack said simply. “It’s urgent.”
“I’ll have to—”
But Jack hadn’t stopped walking. He brushed right past the guard and pulled on the door of the house. It was unlocked and opened easily onto a small hallway. Jack, still holding tightly to Biehn’s arm, walked down the hallway and turned left into the first lighted room, to find himself staring at an utterly average man. He had the look of a man of about sixty; his hair was medium brown and only slightly thin on top; he was of average height and medium build. Jack was immediately reminded of one of his daughter’s old “Felt Friends,” ambiguous human figures that could be dressed up in different costumes with different expressions. This man could have been dropped into the suit of a Washington politician, or a sales clerk at Nordstrom’s, or an Iowa farmer’s overalls, and he would have blended perfectly.
The nondescript man looked shocked, but said nothing to the newcomers. He looked past Jack, to the flustered guard who was coming up behind.
“I’m sorry, Your Eminence,” the guard said. “He just walked right past. I didn’t expect—” “Apologize later,” Jack interrupted. “You’re Cardinal Mulrooney?” The man, wearing black slacks and a white shirt, unbuttoned, nodded. “Tell me what this is about.” “It’s about the perverts who abused my son!”
Biehn shouted. Jack should have known he’d find the energy to work himself back into a frenzy. “The ones you knew about!”
Mulrooney was extremely self-disciplined. For a man interrupted at such a late hour, and so accused, he remained impressively calm. Jack saw the Cardinal’s eyes dart from Jack, to Biehn, to the placement of his hands behind his back, noting everything. But he said to both of them, “Are you the two who killed Father Giggs?”
“No,” Jack replied. “I’m—”
Jack felt the change in air pressure more than he heard anything. The men who rushed in through some unseen door were quiet as wraiths. Jack was already dropping to a crouched position as the first pffft! pffft! sounds of bullets leaving silencers spat into the room. As the rounds thudded into the wall behind him, Jack already had his own gun out and put two rounds into the lead man. The report of his SigSauer was loud and alarming in the otherwise quiet room, and seemed to shock everyone into the reality that there was a real gunfight going on. Mulrooney dove for the floor. Biehn dropped heavily to the ground. The flustered guard flung himself backward, terrified of friendly fire.
The newcomers were all dressed in black, nonmilitary attire. As the first man dropped under Jack’s fire, the second stumbled over him. Jack fired again, blasting the enclosed room with noise, but the third attacker had rolled around the corner in the hallway. Jack saw the muzzle of his gun stick itself blindly around the corner. He rolled away, entering fully into Mulrooney’s living room.
Jack glanced at Biehn. He was lying facedown on the floor over a widening pool of blood. “Stop!” Jack shouted. “I’m a Federal agent!” Pfft-thunk! Pfft-thunk! Silenced rounds sought him out, finding the floor and walls around him. “Federal—!” but he lost his voice as he rolled to the far corner to avoid a dangerous angle as one of the attackers moved down the hall, “slicing the pie” to cover more of the space with his muzzle.
Jack realized that these gun-happy security men were going to kill him first and ask questions later. He was sure Biehn was already dead. Jack fired several rounds into the hallway, then fired two more into a window behind him. He leaped up and hurled himself through the shattered glass. He hit the ground hard on the other side, making an awkwardly timed roll through some kind of wet ground cover. He couldn’t be sure over the noise he was making, but he thought he heard more silenced rounds discharge behind him. As he stood and bolted for the cover of a nearby tree, he heard a definitive cough, a sound he recognized as the report of a weapon whose silencer has worn out its usefulness. They were still shooting at him. They weren’t protecting the Cardinal. They were trying to kill him.
Jack’s mind transitioned smoothly from the problem-solving, fact-finding mode of an investigator to the hunter-killer instincts that had served him well during his time in Delta Force. He swung around to the other side of the bole of the tree and leveled his weapon. The first man who tried to climb through the window after him fell back. Jack hesitated for only a moment to see if anyone was foolish enough to try that way again. No one appeared. Jack moved backward, dropped to one knee, then rose and retreated farther. He heard sounds in the darkness and knew that he was being hunted.
Michael checked to make sure Don Biehn was dead, then checked his fallen operative, also dead, before moving out onto the grounds where his team was hunting the Federal agent. They had only a few moments left — not to let him escape, but to kill him and claim that they did not know who he was. The opportunity had been ripe when the man first entered: an armed intruder, a man wanted for the murder of a priest. Michael had been hoping they would show. He’d put his least experienced man on the Cardinal’s door and pulled back the additional security put in place after Giggs’s murder. He had been hoping to lure Biehn in. The appearance of the Federal agent had been unwelcome but not unexpected.
“Station One, this is Station Four,” someone whispered into his earpiece.
“Station One here. Go,” Michael said softly into his collar mic.
“He’s over the wall,” his man said. “Station Five is down.”
“Roger,” Michael replied. “Maintain a perimeter. I’m going back to the residence.”
Michael hurried back across the lawn. He had to admit he was enjoying himself. He liked this upfront tactical work much more than the idea of assassination, which he found necessary but repugnant. He jogged into the house, where two of his men stood, weapons drawn, with Mulrooney crouched down below them. It was hardly a fitting position for a Cardinal of the church, but it kept him safe. Michael motioned for them to be at ease, and they allowed Mulrooney to stand. “Check upstairs,” he said to them, and the two men nodded and left the room.