The Guardian (10 page)

“Okay,” said Jonathan. “Where in France?” “He not know. Just France. That all he say,” the cabbie said, still breathing hard.

“They had to file a flight plan.” Jonathan was now getting annoyed. “What does the flight plan say?”

“That just it!” The cabbie seemed to finally get his breathing back to normal. “They do make ah … what you call it?”

“Flight plan?”

“Yeah, flight plan. It only say they go to France.” The cabbie looked at Jonathan as if he was as confused about it as they were.

Jonathan pulled a wad of hundred-dollar bills out of his pocket. The cab driver’s eyes lit up. Jonathan peeled off eight of them and handed them to the man.

“Thanks for your help,” he said. He stood there for a moment. A thought hit him. “Say, slick, how’d you like to make another stack of those?” He pointed to the bills he’d just handed him.

“Jess! Jess! What you need? Private plane? I know other guy!”

“No. I’ve got my own plane. Here’s the deal.” Jonathan put his arm around the driver’s shoulder. He wanted to make sure he had his attention. They started to walk toward the entrance to the terminal. “Eventually that plane is going to have to call back here and tell your tower where it’s going. When they do, I want you to call me.”

They were inside now. Jonathan walked over to the far wall. It was lined with lockers. He opened one and stuck another eight hundred dollars in it. He closed the door and pushed the lock button. A printed receipt ejected from the slot in the door. He tore the receipt in half, keeping the half with the combination written on it. He took out a pen and wrote down a phone number on the other half. He handed it to the cab driver.

“When you call me with the information I need, I will tell you what the combination of this locker is. You will just have made another month’s salary. Take a vacation, move, whatever you want to do with it. I don’t care. Just whatever you do, don’t ever call that phone number again unless you hear from me first. Got it?”

“What phone number? I don’t remember any phone number!” The driver smirked at Jonathan.

Jonathan looked at Larry again and jerked his thumb at the driver. “I mean it. I really like this guy!”

J
onathan checked the chamber of the 9mm again for the fourth time. It was still loaded. It was one of the perks of having your own plane. You could sit in your seat and fiddle with your gun.

As the private jet soared high above the ocean, he sat there toying with the weapon. It made him comfortable to have it in his hands. He hated flying. Playing with his gun was one of the few things he could do to occupy his time. It kept his mind off of the fact that he was forty thousand feet above the ground with nothing between him and a bottomless ocean except a few thousand pounds of metal and two roaring engines.

Larry was snoring in the seat across from him. He had already nudged him twice. The only thing he hated worse than flying was someone who could sleep on a plane. He had never been able to.

He got up and holstered the pistol. He unfastened his seat belt and headed for the lavatory. At least the weather had let up. For a while there, he thought they were going down. The captain kept blabbering over the intercom that it was only a little turbulence and that they would be clearing it soon. Not soon enough.

He finished his business and washed his hands. As he made his way back to his seat, he felt the vibration in his pocket. He pulled the satellite phone out and pushed the S
END
button.

“This is Jonathan.”

“Ah, jess. Dis is your cab driver. I find out where your plane go!” “Yeah, well, let’s have it.” Jonathan sat down and grabbed his little notebook and a pen from his jacket. “Pau, France.” The cab driver waited.

“Okay, slick. Good job. I’ll get in touch with you if I need anything else.”

“Ah … what about da money?” The cab driver asked hesitantly. “I stick my neck out for you, remember?”

“Oh yeah. Sorry about that, slick. Here ya go.”

Jonathan read the six-digit combination to the young man. When he was finished, he simply ended the call. He didn’t say good-bye or any other pleasantries. He leaned over to where Larry was again snoring, rather loudly now, and nudged him again. A little harder this time, just for fun. Nothing. The big, musclebound idiot hardly moved.

“Get up!” Jonathan smacked him in the back of the head. Apparently Larry was a heavy sleeper.

Larry smacked his lips and sat up, looking confused. “What? Are we there?”

“No, not yet,” Jonathan said. “I just found out where we’re going. I need your laptop.”

“Dude! You woke me up for that?” Larry was agitated. “It’s right here.” He pointed to the seat beside him.

“No, you idiot. I woke you because when we get there, it’s gonna be bedtime. If you sleep now, you won’t be tired. I can’t take the chance of you being jet-lagged. So do whatever you need to do to stay awake for the next couple of hours until we land. Besides, you sounded like a chain saw over there. You were getting on my nerves.”

Larry mumbled something to himself and reached across the seat to grab his computer bag. He handed the laptop to Jonathan then got up from his seat and headed to the lavatory. As he walked to the back of the plane, he began to wonder why he took this job.

The Vatican

The dining hall was filled with people. Groups from the media, the ambassador’s entourage, a few select Vatican employees, many prominent cardinals, and the pope were all seated among the beautifully decorated tables in the hall.

Once everyone had arrived, the pope asked everyone to take their assigned seats. He wanted to make a few announcements and say a blessing over their fellowship time and the meal that was to be served. Once he was finished, he informed everyone they would all be excused to mingle for the next thirty minutes. Dinner would be served promptly at seven thirty.

The pope had barely finished his prayer when Cardinal Wickham stood from his seat and made a beeline for the other side of the room. He nonchalantly wiped the bead of sweat that had formed on his brow as he pushed and excused his way through the crowd. The man he was headed to see stood talking to a group of people with his back turned toward him. Before he even reached his target, the man turned to face him with a big smile.

“Hello, Louis! So nice to see you.”

“Excuse us, please.” Cardinal Wickham led his guest by the arm outside the main dining hall. “What’s the hurry, Louis?”

“What are you doing here?” Cardinal Wickham looked petrified. “I mean, how can you be here?”

“Louis, please,” the man said calmly, “don’t make a scene.” The man nodded to a few guests walking past them.

“Again, what are you doing here?” Louis whispered frantically. “How am I supposed to explain who you are if anyone asks?”

“Not my problem! Make something up. I do love a good lie!” The man gave a giddy smile.

“I don’t understand.” The cardinal was dumbfounded. “How can you be here? I mean, in this place. I mean—”

“Louis, contrary to popular belief, I can go just about anywhere I want. I mean, this is practically home for me! Except for”—he paused for a second—”a few minor details.”

“Minor!” Louis half shouted.

“Look, Louis. Calm down. You are only drawing attention to yourself. I’m here because I understand you have found a new recruit.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.” “Yes you do. He’s one of your order.” “You mean Joseph?”

“The one and only! I do like him, Louis. He’s very goal oriented. My kind of guy!”

“What about him?”

“Well, when you put your little plan into action, you’re going to need someone to take ol’ fatso’s place over there.” He pointed to Pope Paul VII. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose I am.”

“Yes you are.”

“And I suppose you’ve decided you would like it to be Joseph?”

“Louis, you’re
so
good at this! Yes. I would like it to be Joseph.” “Why? Why him?”

“Oh, come on, Louis. You’ve thought about it. You know his background. You know that ever since he became a priest, all he’s ever thought about was being the pope. And since you make such a good secretary of state and all, I think Joseph would be perfect!”

“Well, for your information, I don’t know that he’s the right guy.”

“Now you’re just being petty, Louis. Don’t be such a child. And for
your
information, I think he’s perfect. Seeing as how it’s me who gets to make those kinds of decisions, I say it’s Joseph. Understood?” The man stared Cardinal Wickham down with a menacing look. The cardinal didn’t say a word. “Good! Then it’s settled. Bring him to me. I would like to meet him.”

“What, you mean now?”

“No. Not now. After dinner. Bring him to Mad Jack’s. That’s that pub you like to hang out in, right?” “Yeah, I guess.”

“Good. Then I’ll see you later. Say around eleven?” Louis nodded.

“Good. I think I’ll go take a walk around the place. It’s been a
really
long time since I’ve been here!”

The man turned around and was gone. Louis stood there, leaning against the wall. He pushed himself off and headed to the restroom. He needed to splash some water on his face. Suddenly, he didn’t feel all that well.

A few minutes later, just as everyone was taking their seats for dinner, Cardinal Wickham reentered the hall. He made his way over to a table that was situated just to the left of his and placed his hand on the shoulder of Cardinal Joseph McCoy.

Joseph turned to see who it was. “Cardinal Wickham! Nice to see you. This is Raul. He is part of the ambassador’s party.”

Cardinal Wickham exchanged pleasantries with the man seated with Joseph. After doing so, he leaned in over Joseph’s shoulder so he could whisper. He cupped his hand over Joseph’s ear so no one else could hear and whispered the words he knew Joseph McCoy had longed to hear for most of his life.

“Joseph, how would you like to be the next pope?”

A
nna had finally given up on the big, soft blanket she’d been wrestling with. She tossed it over to the side of the couch and decided to find something to do. That didn’t work out that well either. At thirty-seven thousand feet inside a small jet, there wasn’t a whole lot one could do. She had grown tired of watching the satellite TV. She got bored with the book, the same one she’d been trying to read now for almost six months. And she was getting agitated at the pecking sound that was coming from Father Vin’s computer. There was a magnetic chessboard sitting on the little coffee table in front of the couch. She moved the pieces around until she got tired of that. She opened the fridge, saw there wasn’t anything there she wanted, and then closed it again. She opened the two or three cupboards, got the same result, and then closed them. She opened the fridge again. Still nothing there. She let out a long sigh and just decided to pace back and forth throughout the cabin.

“You’re gonna wear out a path right through the bottom of the plane if you keep that up,” said Father Vin, not even looking at her.

“I can’t help it, Vin. I’m bored to death! There isn’t anything to do on this plane.”

“I’m afraid you’ll just have to get used to that, Anna. You’ll probably spend a lot of time on this plane over the next few years.”

She settled back on a seat. “I shouldn’t complain. I’m going to France—who would have thought? I still can’t believe it was so easy to find my grandparents’ place of marriage.”

Father Vin smiled indulgently. “Checking that online genealogy site was your idea. And it was a good one.”

“How much longer till we get there?”

Father Vin looked at his watch. “About another hour and a half.”

“Aghh! I’m gonna go stir crazy!”

Anna threw her arms up in the air and started pacing again. She was definitely going to add some things to this plane once she had access to her money. She couldn’t think of anything at the moment, but she was absolutely going to make sure she had things to keep her occupied from now on.

Father Vin closed the lid on his laptop and slid it into the leather pouch of his computer bag. He stood from his chair and walked behind Anna into the kitchen area. He fixed himself a cup of coffee and grabbed one of the cookies on the counter. He watched as Anna now picked up a magazine and flipped through it for the third time.

“Anna, let me show you something.” He finished his cookie, brushed the crumbs off of his chin, and stepped around the leather chair into the sitting area. He walked over to the wall of the plane and sat down on the couch. “Sit here with me.” He patted the cushion beside him. He leaned forward and reached his arm up under the bottom of the couch. “Give me your hand.” He reached out and took Anna’s hand with his free hand and pulled it under the couch to where he was already reaching. “There. You feel that?”

Anna’s fingers felt a bump on the underside of the couch. “Yeah. What is it?”

“Push it.”

“What do you mean, push it?” “It’s a button, Anna. Push up on it.”

Anna pushed the button and heard a
click
. Nothing happened at first. She thought Vin was playing some kind of joke on her, when suddenly she felt something move under her fingers. Some kind of hidden panel was concealed under the couch. As she reached her hand inside the small chamber, she felt the touch of cold steel.

“Careful, girl. It’s loaded.” Father Vin gently placed his hand over Anna’s as it rested on the gun. “Feel this?” Father Vin moved Anna’s hand over a canvas-type material.

Anna nodded and said, “Yeah, what is it?”

“That is a specially designed holster,” said Father Vin. “It’s tilted at a forty-five-degree angle so you can grab it and pull it straight out from under this couch. To release the strap, you just do this.” Vin grabbed Anna’s fingers again and moved them over the canvas holster to the locking strap. He used her fingers to unsnap it. The snap gave way and the pistol slid out into Anna’s hand.”

“Whoa! That’s way cool!” Anna said, amazed.

“Now, gently, just bring your arm out like this,” said Father Vin.