John Paul’s eyes bored into him. “There are rumors.”
Mulrooney brushed them aside. “You know better than any of us that the church is a political animal. There are always rumors.” When John Paul continued to stare, Mulrooney added, “I swear, Your Holiness, that I am loyal to the church, and to its Pope.”
John Paul nodded. “That will be all. For now.”
Aaron Biehn sat in the tub of warm water. The snake slithered inside his body. He could feel it in his heart, wriggling through his guts, its tail dampening and violating the base of his spine. He shuddered.
He had hoped that telling his father would give him some relief. He wanted to be held, to be told it wasn’t his fault. He wanted something… something he hadn’t gotten, because he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He wanted a hug that would squeeze the snake out of him.
But then his father would tell people. And he, Aaron, would have to talk about it to strangers. And friends. And confront Father Frank. And others. He would be asked what had been done to him. He would have to use words he did not want to use. Say things he did not want to say. He would be asked if he had wanted it. Someone would say that he had wanted it. He shivered.
The snake squirmed joyfully, horribly, inside him. The snake would love the attention. Feed on his despair. Like a snake eating a cat that ate the rat, it would swallow his humiliation whole and digest it slowly, growing fatter as it did, so that even when the public humiliation passed, the snake would still be there, consuming him from inside.
He could not bear that. He had to get the snake out of his body now. He could not stand to be violated any longer. Aaron sat up in the tub and fumbled with his father’s shaving kit.
“Remember to check for the Adam’s apple,” Jack Bauer said, leaning into Harry Driscoll’s office.
Driscoll looked up from his desk, which was crammed face-to-face with another empty desk in the tiny office. He grinned. “Like I said, it wasn’t the Adam’s apple that bothered me, it was the rest of the equipment.”
Jack laughed. It was an old joke, inspired by an old story from when Driscoll was a detective in Hollywood Division and Bauer was LAPD SWAT. The two men shook hands. Driscoll was shorter than Jack, but nearly twice as wide, a black fireplug with a cheesy mustache. He clasped Harry’s outstretched hand.
“You been good?” Driscoll said, standing up.
“Not bad.”
“How’s the dark side treating you?” the detective asked as he reached for a jacket that covered his shoulder rig.
Jack shrugged. There was no point in hiding his CIA status from those who knew of it, but he still couldn’t discuss much. “I’m still hoping to get promoted to Robbery-Homicide someday. How’d you know I was on this case?”
Driscoll laughed. “You were in a house that blew up, Jack. That doesn’t happen every day, even in L.A. Word gets around, you know?”
“Aaron? You okay in there?” Don banged on the door. “You’ve been in there awhile.” He waited. He pounded again when no answer came back. “Aaron?”
“Is something wrong?” Carianne, his wife, asked, coming up behind him.
“Aaron!” Don yelled. “Answer me! I’m going to break down the door.” That was the cop in him, and the father, talking at once.
His wife pointed upward. Resting atop the door frame was a little key, just a loop of wire with a straight tail. He nodded and pulled it down, then jiggled it into the bathroom doorknob. It popped open, and he shoved the door inward.
Carianne screamed. Don thought he screamed, too, but he was only aware of himself rushing forward, slamming his knees against the side of the bathtub and plunging his hands into the pink water and dragging Aaron out onto the floor.
“It’s a screwed-up case, really,” Driscoll said. Jack hunkered down in the passenger seat of Driscoll’s Acura as the detective drove up the 110 Freeway and hurtled toward the 101. “Carney’s okay with you?”
“Fine,” Jack said. “Go on.”
“The case really started with LAPD. We got a whiff that these guys had something to do with illegal importing, so we were watching them. Then along comes this Federal group. Counter Terrorist Unit? Who the fuck are they?”
Jack laughed. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe not to you, but they stole our case away. They were kind enough to keep us updated—”
“I’ve heard that before,” Jack interjected.
“We were there when CTU collared them. You saw the box, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Looked to me like some of that stuff was missing.”
“I thought so, too. They’re working on the three suspects.”
Driscoll nodded as he exited the 101 and dropped down to Sunset, heading for Carney’s hot dogs. “I hear they’re acting tough now. They’ll break down.”
“I’ll be honest, Harry, I don’t have the time. I had an informant who gave me the idea that something’s happening tomorrow night.”
Driscoll’s mental wheels spun. “Informant… the guy who blew up?”
“Yes. I need leads. Did you guys have anything else?”
“We came in behind CTU and dusted for prints. There was lots of them and not much else. They had a cleaning lady, but she’s fifty-eight and from El Salvador. The other was the mailman. We had his prints on file. He was arrested in Pakistan for some violent protests against the prime minister. Came here a few years ago, but hasn’t caused a problem since. He’s a person of interest, but we don’t consider him a suspect at this time…’course, technically none of them are our suspects.”
“None of them are my suspects, either. Mind if I question him anyway?”
“Right after a chili dog.”
Yasin sat in the lobby of the Windows Hotel in Playa del Rey. He rubbed a hand along his smooth jawline. It felt wrong to be clean-shaven. A true Muslim wore a beard, of course. But this couldn’t be helped. He was known now in this country. It had been a risk just to return.
The man he’d been waiting for entered the front doors. Clean-shaven, including a shaven scalp, dressed in jeans, blue T-shirt, and court shoes, he looked like any one of the thousands of fit, middle-aged, multicultural Angelenos that formed the image of the city. As the other man approached, Yasin smiled to himself, satisfied in the knowledge that it was America’s pluralism that would help defeat it. The United States had too many open doors, too many faces, too many acceptable modes of behavior, to keep them out. They could blend in so easily. Because Allah was great, Yasin probably could have stood in the middle of the lobby dressed as a Bedouin and no one would have given it a thought. The Americans were so arrogant, so ignorant, that they were not even aware of the masses who hated them halfway around the world.
The bald, fit man arrived at his seat. He said to Yasin, “Good to see you, Gabriel,” using Yasin’s code name.
“And you, Michael,” he replied tersely. “You seem unhappy, Michael. Is something wrong.”
A look of disdain crawled across Michael’s face. “We’re in this together, but I don’t have to pretend to like you.”
“It will be over soon. Tomorrow. Let’s talk about the C–4. I assume that what the authorities found was the extra?” Yasin asked.
Michael nodded. “And the ones in custody don’t know anything. That, plus the fact that the police are inept, means we’re both safe.”
Yasin was not comfortable with this. “Don’t underestimate them.”
Michael laughed. “The FBI let you walk out their front door.”