God's Lions - The Dark Ruin (22 page)

McCulley glanced over at the man with the short-cropped military-style haircut seated next to him. “Since I’ve just arrived from out of town, I’m going to defer any questions concerning the pope’s alleged disappearance to our trusted friend, Commander Francois Leander, the head of the Swiss Guard.”

The raspy voice once again sounded from the back of the room. “I would think this matter would fall under the auspices of the Vatican’s intelligence section, Cardinal McCulley. Surely you can tell us something of this mystery without deferring to the Swiss Guard.”

Turning in his seat, McCulley knew without looking that the gravelly voice belonged to Cardinal Serafino ‘Fino’ Acone, a Dominican cardinal with a mysterious past who rarely visited Vatican City, much to the relief of the other cardinals in the room.

McCulley exhaled impatiently. “May I remind you, Cardinal Acone, that the Vatican’s intelligence service is tasked only with information gathered outside the borders of Vatican City. However, in answer to your question, none of our sources have heard anything of value pertaining to the pope’s sudden disappearance. As of late we’ve been working overtime in our efforts to prevent attacks against the Church from terrorist networks around the world who are involved in an all-out war against the followers of Christ. Just last week, Muslim extremists in Nigeria killed over five hundred Christians in separate church bombings. My plane had just landed there when I was informed of the pope’s disappearance. If you want to ask questions about security here in Vatican City, I would once again invite you to direct your questions to Commander Leander of the Swiss Guard.”

Without waiting for Acone to respond, Francois Leander stood and pointed to a color-coded map of Vatican City on the large screen behind the podium. “Over the course of the past two years, we’ve been upgrading our security capabilities to match those of any government on Earth, and the facility we are now sitting in is the result of just one of those upgrades. In addition to the hundreds of human eyes watching everything that goes on inside the walls of Vatican City, we have installed cameras on every rooftop and in every imaginable corner of every building. We’ve also added the most advanced biological, chemical and radioactive scanners currently available, and we feel confident that our sensors can sniff out any potential threat within a mile of Saint Peter’s Basilica. Added to that, anyone entering or leaving Vatican City is carefully screened and is subject to a full body scan, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The rest is classified.”

Cardinal Acone stood once again to hurl a patronizing comment at Leander. “Then pray tell, Commander Leander, how, with all of this security, could the Holy Father disappear into thin air?”

Leander’s eyes didn’t blink. “That I cannot tell you, Cardinal. We’ve looked at all the digital recordings and were able to document the movements of the Holy Father up until the time he disappeared. Up to now we’ve found nothing out of the ordinary. As for Cardinal Amodeo, he refused a Vatican security detail when he left for Turkey with Bishop Morelli on an archaeological dig. We currently have men on the ground there who are now working with Turkish authorities in a search that encompasses almost five hundred square miles.”

“Well, clearly something has happened to both the pope and Cardinal Amodeo ... yet you with all of your high tech security measures appear to have failed miserably.”

Leander remained ramrod straight, his eyes locked with those of Acone. “Yes ... clearly something has happened, Cardinal. When Father Corelli went to awaken the Holy Father for breakfast two days ago, he was nowhere to be found. Apparently his bed had not been slept in, and even the nuns who watch over him saw and heard nothing out of the ordinary during the night. As far as Cardinal Leo is concerned, he was in a very remote part of Turkey. We’re hoping that he is just out of reach and will be contacting us soon.”

“Or with his girlfriend,” Acone’s raspy voice responded.

Leander paused as he gripped the seat in front of him to avoid becoming embroiled in a verbal conflict with the cardinal. “Are there any other questions?”

Cardinal Tucci blinked at the two men as he mopped the sweat from his brow once again and looked out at a sea of questioning eyes facing the podium. “I believe the commander has told us all that he knows, and at this point I think we should let him get back to his work. Thank you, Francois. We are all aware of how hard you and your men work to protect the Holy City.”

Holding his back erect, Leander gathered up his briefing papers and left the room just as a young priest walked up on stage and handed a note to Cardinal Tucci.

“Ah ... good. It appears that Cardinal Delacroix has just arrived in Vatican City, as has Bishop Morelli. As soon as they join us we shall begin the vote.”

The ship-sail outline of the towering Rock of Gibraltar appeared to be floating on the horizon when the Israeli sub
Tekuma
rose from the depths and bobbed at the rendezvous point. Less than a minute later, the sea boiled a hundred yards away when the bow of the
HMS Ambush
shot into the air and splashed back down with all the force of a giant whale breeching the surface.

For several minutes the officers of the two subs stared at one another through their binoculars, each wondering if they were following the correct protocol for a secret meeting at sea between two submarines from different countries. With their sophisticated sonar, each had known the exact position of the other when they had approached the rendezvous point below the surface, but because the encrypted satellite phones they normally used on the surface had been compromised, they were forced to use powerful lights to flash messages to one another across the water.

Finally, the captain of the British sub gave the order, and within minutes a rubber boat from the
Ambush
was motoring through the swells toward the
Tekuma
. Standing on the deck of the Israeli sub and breathing in fresh air for the first time in two days, Leo and Lev counted two British crewmembers and nine passengers. In addition to Alon and the four Israeli security men who had accompanied him to Paris, they could see John and Ariella, Eduardo Acerbi, plus someone else.

“Who’s that tall guy sitting behind Ariella?” Lev asked.

Leo strained to see. “I don’t believe it! That’s Pope Michael!”

Lev’s eyes widened. “What the ...

As soon as the small boat had closed to within twenty yards of the
Tekuma
, the two men could clearly see Pope Michael clinging to the side, his blond hair blowing in the wind as he ignored the sea spray stinging his eyes.

Transfixed by the scene, Leo found himself holding back when the nine passengers clamored aboard the Israeli sub and waved to the British sailors who were already heading back toward the
Ambush
at full speed.

“Leopold ... are you alright?”

Stirred from his reverie, Leo saw that the pope was standing right in front of him. “Your Holiness ... yes, of course. I was just surprised to see you here.”

“We have much to discuss, Cardinal. Everything will be revealed in time.”

The Klaxon dive horn on the
HMS Ambush
interrupted the reunion on the deck of the
Tekuma
as everyone watched the British sub disappear beneath the blue surface of the Mediterranean Sea in a frothy swirl, the only sign that remained of the sub’s brief visit with the surface.

As soon as they were gone, Leo saw the Israeli submariners pointing at a sail that had suddenly appeared on the horizon—and it was headed straight for them. Strangely, the
Tekuma
made no attempt to evade being spotted by the approaching sailboat, for its arrival had been planned well in advance. Closing in on the sub, the forty-five-foot sloop was only a boat-length away when her crew turned into the wind and quickly lowered the sails before motoring up alongside the sub’s black hull and bobbing to a stop.

“What’s this?” Leo asked. He watched fascinated as a scraggly-looking young man and a girl wearing a T-shirt over a tiny bikini expertly tied the bow and stern lines to the sub’s retractable cleats before hopping onboard—all without being challenged by the Israeli crew.

After two days without a smoke, Lev lit one of his beloved stogies with a match. “Must be a couple of Danny Zamir’s people.”

“That would be my guess,” Alon said. “Those people have Mossad written all over them.”

The group continued to watch as the
Tekuma’s
security officer climbed up on deck and consulted with the young couple before walking over to speak with Lev. “We’re transferring all of you to the sailboat. As you’ve probably already guessed, Professor, that hippie-looking couple are employed by the Mossad, and you’ll be sailing with them the rest of the way into the harbor at Gibraltar. You’ll all have to hurry, because we’re sitting in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and we don’t have much time. We have to submerge before the next surveillance satellite passes overhead six minutes from now.”

“That’s cutting it pretty close,” John said.

“Yes it is my young friend. That’s why you need to hurry.”

The security officer frowned at the military shirts and pants worn by the group that had just arrived from the
Ambush
. “Why did they do that?”

“Do what?” John asked.

“Why did the British crew give you clothes like that to wear?”

“Our clothes were wet so they gave us these.”

“We need you to look like tourists on holiday. If anyone’s paying attention when you arrive in Gibraltar, those uniforms will give the entire mission away.”

Listening to the conversation, the scraggly-looking man yelled from the sailboat. “Satellite in five minutes! Don’t worry about what they’re wearing. We have civilian clothes down in the forward locker. Get those people onboard now!”

Two minutes later the sailboat was backing away from the
Tekuma
as the sub’s ballast tanks flooded and she dove below the surface with a full minute to spare before the surveillance satellite came into range and snapped a picture of a lone sailboat gliding peacefully over the swells of the Mediterranean.

As soon as the sailboat rounded the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula, the group rummaged through a pile of loose-fitting, summery clothes in the sailboat’s forward locker, all the while speculating about the prospects of cold beer and boiled shellfish in a seaside café after they docked. Motoring through the narrow channel lined with sharp rocks, the youthful skipper expertly guided the boat into the crowded civilian yacht harbor and docked in a pre-arranged slip manned by a lone customs officer who quickly cleared them with a wink.

Handing out baseball hats and sunglasses to further disguise their disembarking passengers, the two Mossad agents pointed to a white van parked at the end of the dock. By now it was high noon, and it was obvious that there would be no cold beer or boiled shellfish waiting for them in some picturesque seaside café as they climbed into the van.

Towering above them, the famous outline of the Rock of Gibraltar dominated the scene as the van’s driver weaved his way through tight crowded streets before stopping at the base of the rock next to a nondescript metal warehouse surrounded by a chain link fence. Looking above their heads from inside the van, Alon remarked that a single bolder falling from above would almost certainly take out a large portion of the building they were obviously preparing to enter.

“Really, Alon,” Ariella giggled. “Are potential falling boulders really part of your constant threat assessments?”

“You know, Ariella,” Alon said, sliding the van’s door open, “you just reminded me that I’m starting to miss Nava. That’s exactly the type of thing she would say to me right about now.”

Alon’s comment about missing Nava had jolted Leo with the sudden realization that Evita was probably only a few hundred miles away across the Spanish border. It actually felt like his heart was aching. He wanted to walk away and hail the closest taxi. In a few minutes he could be at the airport, and in a few hours he could be holding her in his arms, whispering into her ear that they would never be apart again.

“What’s inside?” Lev asked the driver, the sound of his voice suddenly vaporizing Leo’s thoughts of romantic escape.

The driver turned in his seat. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

Lev pointed through the windshield at the front of the warehouse. “I asked what’s inside.”

“Oh ... the warehouse. It’s only a front. Once we’re inside we’ll be taking the train.”

“The what?”

“You’ll see.”

Alon looked back at the four Israeli security men and instinctively reached for the Sig 9mm pistol tucked into his waistband as they entered the warehouse and walked between stacks of wooden crates to a glass-enclosed office. Once everyone was inside, the driver closed the door and hit a switch behind a file cabinet. Instantly the windows turned opaque. He then hit another switch and the entire back wall began to slide away, revealing a dimly lit tunnel and a small electric engine attached to three open cars on a narrow track that stretched off into the distance.

“Hop in everyone.” The driver hit another switch and the false wall behind them slid shut with a definitive metal clang.
No walking away now.

“You sound British,” Leo heard Alon say to the driver. “We were under the impression that this was an Israeli operation.”

“I’m as British as they come, mate. My name is Graham Childs. The Rock of Gibraltar is British territory, and I work for MI6 as a field analyst. That means I gather information in a field office instead of being cooped up in a cubicle at headquarters back in London.” Childs looked around at the strange group staring back at him, especially the old man and the tall guy with the piercing blue eyes. “I would have thought that at least some of you would have figured out by now that this is a joint British and Israeli operation. I mean, what with two subs from both our countries working together to bring you here. Didn’t Mr. Zamir tell you anything?”