The Sam Gunn Omnibus (86 page)

“Where did you get the bright idea
of suing the Vatican?”

“Oh, that!” Sam visibly relaxed,
eased back in his chair and swiveled around from side to side a little.

“Yes, that,” I snapped. “What kind
of a brain-dead nincompoop idea is that?”

“Nincompoop?” He looked almost
insulted. “Been a long time since I heard that one.”

“What’s going on, Sam? You know a
private citizen can’t sue a sovereign state.”

“Sure I know that.
I’m
not suing the Vatican. The sovereign nation of Ecuador is suing. I’m merely
acting as their representative, in my position as CEO of Ecuador National Space
Systems.”

I
sank back in my
chair, thinking fast. “The Vatican isn’t a party to the International Court of
Justice’s protocols. Your suit is null and void, no matter who the plaintiff may
be.”

“Christ, Jill, you sound like a
lawyer.”

“You can’t sue the Vatican.”

Sam sighed and reached out one hand
toward the keyboard on his desk. He tapped at it with one finger, then pointed
to the display screen on the wall.

The screen filled with print, all
legalese of the densest kind. But I recognized it. The Treaty of Katmandu, the
one that ended the three-way biowar between India, China and Pakistan. The
treaty that established the International Peacekeeping Force and gave it global
mandatory powers.

“‘All nations are required to
submit grievances to the International Court of Justice,’“ Sam quoted from the
treaty,” ‘whether they are signatories to this instrument or not.’“

I
knew it as well
as he did. “That clause is in there to prevent nations from using military
force,” I said.

Sam gave a careless shrug. “Regardless
of why it’s in there, it’s there. The World Court has jurisdiction over every
nation in, the world. Even the Vatican.”

“The Vatican didn’t sign the
treaty.”

“Doesn’t matter. The treaty went
into effect when two-thirds of the membership of the UN signed it,” Sam said. “And
any nation that doesn’t obey it gets the Peacekeepers in their face.”

“Sam, you
can’t
sue the Pope!”

He just gave me his salesman’s
grin. “The nation of Ecuador has filed suit against the Vatican State. The
World Court has to hear the case. It’s not just my idea, Jill—it’s the law.”

The little sonofabitch was right.

I
EXPECTED SAM
would invite me to dinner. He did,
and then some. Sam wouldn’t hear of my staying at a hotel; he had already
arranged for a guest suite for me in the presidential palace. Which gave the
lie to his supposed surprise when I had arrived at his office, of course. He
knew I was coming. It sort of surprised me, though. I wouldn’t have thought
that he’d want me so close to him. He had always managed to slip away when I’d
pursued him before. This time he ensconced me in presidential splendor in the
same building where he was sleeping.

I
should have been
suspicious. I’ve got to admit that, instead, I sort of half thought that maybe
Sam was getting tired of running away from me. Maybe he wanted me to be near
him.

He did. But for his own reasons, of
course.

When we ate dinner that evening it
was with the President of Ecuador himself: Carlos Pablo Francisco Esperanza de
Rivera. He was handsome, haughty and kind of pompous. Wore a military uniform
with enough braid to buckle the knees of a Ukrainian weightlifter. Very elegant
silver hair. A noble profile with a distinguished Cast
i
lian nose.

“It is an extremely serious matter,”
he told me, in Harvard-accented English. “We do not sue the head of Holy Mother
Church for trivial reasons.”

The fourth person at the table was
a younger man, Gregory Molina. He was dark and intense, the smoldering Latino
rebel type. Sam introduced him as the lawyer who was handling the case for him.

We sat at a sumptuous table in a
small but elegant dining room. Crystal chandelier, heavy brocade napkins,
damask tablecloth, gold-rimmed dishes and tableware of solid silver. Lavish
Christmas trimmings on the windows; big holiday bows and red-leafed poinsettias
decorating the dining table.

Ecuador was still considered a poor
nation, although as the Earth-bound anchor of Sam’s space operations there was
a lot of money flowing in. Most of it must be staying in the presidential
palace, I thought.

Once the servants had discreetly
taken away our fish course and deposited racks of roast lamb before us, I said,
“The reason I came here is to see if this matter can be arbitrated without
actually going to court.”

“Of course!” said
El
Presidente.
“We would like nothing better.”

Sam cocked a brow. “If we can
settle this out of court, fine. I don’t really want to sock the Pope if we can
avoid it.”

Molina nodded, but his burning eyes
told me he’d like nothing better than to get the Pope on the witness stand.

“I glanced through your petition
papers on the flight down here,” I said. “I don’t see what your insurance
claims have to do with the Vatican.”

Sam put his fork down. “Over the
past year and a half, Ecuador National Space Systems has suffered three major
accidents: a booster was struck by lightning during launch operations and
forced to ditch in the ocean; we were lucky that none of the crew was killed.”

“Why were you launching into stormy
weather?” I asked.

“We weren’t!” Sam placed a hand
over his heart, like a little kid swearing he was telling the truth. “Launch
pad weather was clear as a bell. The lightning strike came at altitude, over
the Andes, out of an empty sky.”

“A rare phenomenon,” said Molina. “The
scientists said it was a freak of nature.”

Sam resumed, “Then four months
later one of our unmanned freight

carriers
was hit by a micro-meteor and exploded while it was halfway to our lunar mining
base. We lost the vehicle and its entire cargo.”

“Seventy million dollars, U.S.,”
Molina said.

President de Rivera’s eyes filled
with tears.

“And just six months ago a lunar
quake collapsed our mine in the ring-wall of Aristarchus.”

I
hadn’t known
that. “Was anyone killed?”

“The operation was pretty much
automated. A couple technicians were injured,” Sam said. “But we lost three mining
robots.”

“At sixteen million dollars apiece,”
Molina added.

The president dabbed at his eyes
with his napkin.

“I don’t see what any of this has
to do with the Vatican,” I said.

The corners of Sam’s mouth turned
down. “Our mother-loving insurance carrier refused to cover any of those
losses. Claimed they were all acts of God, not covered by our accident policy.”

I
hadn’t drunk any
of the wine in the crystal goblet before me, so there was no reason for me to
be slow on the uptake. Yet I didn’t see the association with the Vatican.

“Insurance policies always have an
Acts of God clause,” I said.

“Okay,” Sam said, dead serious. “So
if our losses were God’s fault, how do we get Him to pay what He owes us?”

“Him?” I challenged.

“Her,” Sam snapped back. “It. Them.
I don’t care.”

President de Rivera steepled his
long, lean fingers before his lips and said, “For the purposes of our
discussion, and in keeping with ancient tradition, let us agree to refer to God
as Him.” And he smiled his handsome smile at me.

“Okay,” I said, wondering how much
he meant by that smile. “We’ll call Her Him.”

Molina snickered and Sam grinned.
El Presidente
looked puzzled; either he didn’t appreciate my humor or he didn’t understand
it.

Sam got back to his point. “If God’s
responsible for our losses, then we want to get God to pay for them. That’s
only fair.”

“It’s silly,” I said. “How are you—”

Sam’s sudden grin cut me off. “The
Pope is considered to be God’s personal representative on Earth, isn’t he?”

“Only by the Roman Catholics.”

“Of which there are more than one
billion in the world,” Molina said.

“The largest religion on Earth,”
said the president.

“It’s
more than that,” Sam maintained. “Nobody else claims to be the personal
representative of God. Only the Pope, among the major religious leaders. One of
his titles is ‘the vicar of Christ,’ isn’t it?”

The
two men nodded in unison.

“The
Catholics believe that Christ is God, don’t they?” Sam asked.

They
nodded again.

“And
Christ—God Herself—personally made St. Peter His representative here on Earth.”

More
nods.

“And
the Pope is Peter’s descendent, with all the powers and responsibilities that
Peter had. Right?”

“Exactly
so,” murmured
El Presidente.

“So
if we want to sue God, we go to his personal representative, the Pope.” Sam
gave a self-satisfied nod.

Only
Sam Gunn would think of such a devious, convoluted scheme.

“We
cannot sue the Pope personally,” Molina pointed out, as earnest as a missionary,
“because he is technically and legally the head of a state: the Vatican. A
sovereign cannot be sued except by his own consent; that is ancient legal
tradition.”

“So
you want to sue the state he heads,” I said.

“The
Vatican. Yes.”

“And
since an individual or corporation can’t sue a state, the nation of Ecuador is
entering the suit.”

Sam
smiled like a Jack-o’-lantern. “Now you’ve got it.”

I
PICKED MY way through the rest of the dinner in
stunned silence. I couldn’t believe that Sam would go through with something so
ridiculous, yet there he was sitting next to the president of Ecuador and a
fervent young lawyer who seemed totally intent on hauling the Pope before the
World Court.

I
wondered if the fact that the present Pope was an
American—the first U.S. cardinal to be elected Pope—had anything to do with the
plot hatching inside Sam’s shifty, twisted, Machiavellian brain.

After
the servants had cleared off all the dishes and brought a tray of liqueur
bottles, I finally gathered enough of my wits to say, “There’s got to be a way
to settle this out of court.”

“Half
a billion would do it,” Sam said.

He
hadn’t touched any of the after-dinner drinks and had only sipped at his wine
during dinner. So he wasn’t drunk.

“Half
a billion?”

“A
quarter billion in actual losses,” Molina interjected, “and a quarter billion
in punitive damages.”

I
almost laughed in his face. “You want to punish God?”

“Why
not?” The look on his face made me wonder what God had ever done to him to make
him so angry.

President
de Rivera took a silver cigarette case from his heavily braided jacket.

“Please
don’t smoke,” I said.

He
looked utterly shocked.

“It’s
bad for your lungs and ours,” I added.

Sighing,
he slipped the case back into his pocket. “You sound like my daughter.”

“Thank
you,” I said, and made a polite smile for him.

“Do
you think we can settle out of court?” Sam asked.

“Where’s
the Pope going to get half a billion?” I snapped.

Sam
shrugged good-naturedly. “Sell some artwork, maybe?”