Jack felt some of the energy drain out him, and he tried to put a mental stopper in the leak. It had been a long night, and he still couldn’t catch up to the plastic explosives, or the actual plot. Every time he caught up with some of it, more seemed to be missing.
Jamey had long ago given up any thought of going home, so it didn’t bother her when Jack Bauer called. “I need everything you can get me on Sam Col
lins, a priest at St. Monica’s in Los Angeles, and I mean everything, including his medical records. He had surgery on his arm recently and I want all that information as well.”
“Give me ten minutes and I’ll tell you how much money he got from the tooth fairy,” Jamey said. She started typing.
Jack hung up and turned back to Dr. Siegman. “Doctor, I’m assuming that this was done with the man’s cooperation, yes? There’s no way this was done without his knowledge?”
Siegman looked startled, as though she hadn’t even considered the possibility. “Well, I guess it’s possible, once someone’s under, but what doctor would do that? Besides, you’d have to be a complete idiot. There’d be a lot of discomfort.”
Jack nodded his understanding and moved on. “Harry, we’ve got to figure out what the motive is, and the target. You know the Pope is in town, right?”
“Yeah, half our unit is assigned to it this week. He would be the obvious target. But a priest kill the Pope?”
“Maybe he’s a renegade,” Jack said. “Someone was telling me just recently about a group of people called schismatics who—”
“Yeah, they don’t think there’s been a real Pope since Vatican II,” Dr. Siegman said. “Usually very orthodox Catholics.”
“Are you Catholic?” Jack asked. “Me? I’m Jewish. But my sister married a Catholic, and he’s a schismatic. Family dinners are murder.”
Jack felt all the pieces fall into place. If Jamey came back with information connecting Collins to the schismatics, then he had his target and his motive. It was possible — although he felt the stretch here — that this Catholic renegade had contacted Yasin to learn how to plan the attack. Mercenary work wasn’t Yasin’s style, but he might be unable to resist a chance to help strike a major symbol of Western civilization like the Pope. If that was the case, then they might have nipped this whole incident in the bud.
Jamey Farrell called back a moment later and gave him a preamble. “I don’t think this is what you wanted to hear.”
Harry eavesdropped on the conversation, but Dr. Siegman returned to her examination of the bullet-damaged receiver.
“What I want to hear is that the priest was part of a renegade sect that hated and opposed the Pope and wanted him replaced. It’d also be like whip cream on top if, say, Yasin’s phone number appeared a few dozen times in Collins’s phone logs.”
“How about a guy so squeaky clean you could eat off his stomach. This guy, Collins, was a friggin’ saint.”
“He was a child-molesting monster,” Jack replied.
“Well, not according to any record of him anywhere that we can dig up. Grew up in Orange County, went to a Catholic high school where his grade point average was exactly that — average. Served as Vice President on the student council, played on the baseball team. College at Pepperdine. Seminary school after that. His name is listed on the boards of about fifty charitable organizations. I can’t even find a friggin’ parking ticket on this guy.”
“He can be all that and still hate the Pope,” Jack said.
“He could,” Jamey retorted, “or he could be cochair of something called the Eternal City Project, which raises money for underprivileged Catholic kids to go to Rome and see the Pope. Not to mention having received a meritorious service award from the Council of Bishops, which was presented to him by, um, yeah, the Pope himself two years ago.”
“Jesus,” Jack muttered, no pun intended. “All this is so much easier if he just hates the Pope. That would explain my target. Without that, I have no idea why a priest turned himself into a human bomb.”
“All that motive could still be hidden under this stuff,” Jamey pointed out. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“By the way,” Jack asked, “is there any way at all, any possible way, that you were off in your calculations, and that the box of C–4 was missing only a pound or so?”
“No way. If that thing was packed full, then ten pounds is missing.” She paused. “You saying there aren’t ten pounds where you are?”
“Yeah.”
“This case just won’t die, will it?” she asked.
“Medical records?”
“He checked into Cedars-Sinai a month ago after a car wreck. I have all the records from that surgery online.”
Jack thanked her and hung up. He was aware that Harry Driscoll and Dr. Siegman were staring at him, but he ignored them. He had to think, and his insights were coming few and far between. He wished he’d had at least a few minutes of sleep when he’d been home — not for his own comfort, but so that his brain would have had time to reset. Maybe it’d be working better now.
“Okay,” he said at last. “This is what we have to go on. There is roughly ten pounds of plastic explosives out in the open. Some fraction of that is here, in Father Collins’s arm. The rest isn’t enough to do any huge damage to any buildings or important structures, so we can rule out that sort of terrorist attack.
“Father Collins apparently had no motive to murder anyone, and was working toward becoming the next Mother Teresa. But we know that’s not true because he stuck a bomb in his arm. I’m going back to the office to start working on this.”
“Mr. Bauer?” Dr. Siegman said, holding up the tiny electronic device. “This might interest you. You should take it and have it double-checked, because I might be wrong about this thing.”
“It’s not a receiver?”
“Oh, it’s definitely a receiver. But unless I’m mistake, there’s also a little timer built into it. A kind of fail-safe, maybe.”
“A timer.”
“Set to go off at five-thirty today.”
19. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 12 P.M. AND 1 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Rabbi Dan Bender had to admit that he was enjoying himself. It had been years since he’d attended a truly splendid party, and the reception that preceded the official start of the Unity Conference was nothing if not splendid. Clerics and holy men from a number of religions were in attendance — not just rabbis, imams, and Christian clergy, but also a few Sikhs, Hindus, and Buddhists. The Dalai Lama had been invited, but was unable to attend due to illness.
Although he tried not to appear obvious about it, he searched the crowd for Father Collins. He didn’t like the man, but for reasons obvious to himself, Bender felt it very important to know the man’s whereabouts.
He could not find Collins, which concerned him very much. But he did spot Abdul al-Hassan who, quite out of character, was standing by himself near a tall indoor plant in a large pot. Bender sidled over to him. “I’ve never known you to avoid a crowd, Abdul, at least not when you thought you could turn it into an audience.”
Abdul turned on him sharply, and for the briefest of moments, Bender thought he saw real hatred in the Muslim’s eyes. But the emotion, whatever it was, vanished in a flicker. “Well, I suppose I am just trying to hold back,” he said quietly. “This is the Christians’ affair, after all. It would not be good to step on toes.”