He walked in the door and entered a world entirely disconnected from the last few hours. In this world, bacon sizzled on a frying pan, channel four was broadcasting local news and traffic alerts, and Teri Bauer was trying to get Kim out of the bathroom.
“It’s not that bad, Kimmy. Just come on!” She smiled at Jack as she saw him, then rolled her eyes, pointed to her chin, and mouthed the word pimple.
“It’s huge!” Kim Bauer wailed from behind the bathroom door. “It’s a volcano.”
“It’s stress,” Teri said. “Last night was tough on everyone because of Aaron. Let me put some cover-up on it.”
There was a pause, followed by a soft click as Kim unlocked the bathroom door. Teri threw her arms around Jack, kissed him, and said, “Eggs on the table. Teen crisis in the bathroom.” She paused. “Did you know about Aaron Biehn?”
Jack nodded. “I heard.” “I want to know about it. After she’s gone.” Teri vanished behind the door.
Jack went into the kitchen and sat down at the small table there. The scrambled eggs were a little cold, but he didn’t care. He felt as though he hadn’t been home in weeks. While he ate, he listened to the news, simply because it sounded so wonderfully mundane: traffic on the I–10, a fight between the mayor and the city council. These were the crises most people faced. And they seemed to Jack as trivial as a pimple on the chin. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.
He finished the eggs and decided that he would take a nap for a few minutes.
15. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 8 A.M. AND 9 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Jack stretched out on the couch in his living room and pushed the cushion under his head. And then his cell phone rang.
“Bauer,” he said unhappily.
“This is Jamey Farrell over at CTU.”
“If this is about paperwork or reports, I’ll come in and answer questions in a couple of hours,” he grumbled, his eyes still closed.
“Nothing like that,” she replied. “It’s about the plastic explosive you brought in.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do we care if some is still missing?”
Jack opened his eyes. “What makes you think it’s missing?”
“I just analyzed the crate, and the volume of each brick of C–4. Even accounting for the bricks you dealt with, I think there still could have been several bricks left, maybe up to ten pounds of it.”
Now Jack sat up, rubbing his eyes and trying to shake the sleep off his brain. “But you don’t know that, right? That crate must have been a lot more full with the stuff I brought in.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jamey said. “But you know how a room looks bigger sometimes after you put furniture in it? Same with this box. I put the C–4 back in it, and no matter how I stuffed it, there are obvious spaces left. I did the math, too. Maybe ten pounds.”
Jack didn’t want to hear it. “The stuff Smithies had? The stuff that blew up Ramin?”
“Factored in.”
“That is not what I want to hear,” Jack admitted.
“Don’t shoot the messenger. What do you want to do about it?”
Jack laughed. “Who says it’s my decision?”
“I didn’t ask anyone,” Jamey said. “You just seemed like the guy who wants to know.”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “All right. I’m coming in.”
Rabbi Dan Bender rarely used e-mail. He didn’t trust it. Words sent electronically were as permanent as if they’d been etched in stone. He would certainly send nothing confidential over the Internet, and Rabbi Bender was in possession of many, many secrets.
He had written the first draft of the letter to his brother on stationery, but in the end he decided against it. He needed to be sure his brother received this message, and the post between Los Angeles and Jerusalem had never been one hundred percent reliable. But, as he had already told himself, e-mail was like graven stone. His brother would see it eventually.
This is what he typed into his computer:
Dear Sam, I hope Miriam is feeling better. You’re both in my thoughts and I pray for her remission.
In the meantime, I want to send you a note of apology, and possibly a goodbye. I can’t tell you why I am apologizing. You may or may not hear about it. But there is a distinct possibility that you won’t hear from me after today, so I wanted to express my feelings.
You were always a better Jew than I. Even Dad thought so, although of course he was too much of a mensch to say it. You were a better rabbi, too. But there are reasons for that, some of which may become apparent to you. But among the unsaid reasons is this: you are a righteous man. In the end, I find that I am not. If I were righteous, I would not be doing what I’m going to do today.
I hope you’ll forgive me. With all my love, from your brother, Dan
He reread the short message several times, wishing he could write more. His finger hovered over the send button for a moment. Then he clicked it, and the deed was done.
“I hope you’ll forgive the cautions,” said the Pope to Amy Weiss. “There was a disturbance here last night.”
“No problem,” Amy said, although in fact the whole affair had disturbed her. Her interview had been scheduled for two weeks; she’d passed through the background check the Vatican had required. One would have thought the metal detector and the bag search would have been enough. But the thin, soft-spoken man had come along with a nun in tow and had insisted on a complete search of her clothing and person. If all Amy had been after was the puff piece, she would have walked out. But she was now on the trail of a legitimate page one story. “In fact, I’d like to ask about that.”
The Pope’s eyes twinkled charmingly as he replied in his softly accented English, “I find the Unity Conference to be a much more pleasant topic, don’t you?”
Amy felt the force of his charm and his authority, and tried to resist it. “Well, the two are related, aren’t they? Do you consider the attacks here last night to be a threat? Are they related?”
“That is a question for a policeman, not a priest,” John Paul said dismissively. “In any case, the conference will not be stopped. It is, I believe, the most important thing in the world.”
“This conference?” she asked.
“Its purpose,” John Paul said, putting a hand on her arm gently, almost pleadingly. “East and West; Christian, Muslim, and Jew. They are at war, or they soon will be. It is a war that may cover the world in flame. It must be averted.”
Amy wanted to talk about the murders; she had been told to talk about the murders. But this old man, so small and yet so infused with power, charmed her with his sincere and plaintive voice. “But the Catholic Church has been the cause of strife, hasn’t it? Are you the appropriate party to end it?”
John Paul smiled. “Who better?”
Jamey Farrell spent several minutes updating Christopher Henderson on her recent findings. Henderson looked terrible, but then she probably didn’t look fresh as a daisy herself. She’d seen Henderson dozing on the couch in his office, but she knew from experience that that sort of sleep had little lasting effect.
“This is the case that won’t die,” Henderson grumbled as she finished. “Why couldn’t it have just ended when we arrested the Sweetzer Three?”
Jamey shrugged. “I’m not a field operator, but if you ask me, I think someone’s been expecting us to come along. I think we’re chasing lots of decoys.”
Henderson shook his head. “Those bikers weren’t a red herring. They were really going to blow up the city’s water reserves.”