"You guys agree?" Blackburn nodded. "Put it this way. Whoever these guys are, they're heroes on the street. They've taken what all these coked-out jackasses fantasize about when they're plugged into their PlayStations and actually gone out and done it. I'm just hoping they don't start a trend here. But, yeah, I think there's more going on with these guys than cold efficiency." Jansson glanced back at Reilly. "So it looks like it's your baby after all." Reilly looked at him and quiedy nodded.
Baby wasn't exactly the first word that sprung into his mind. It was more like a two-thousand-pound gorilla, and, he mused, it was indeed all his.
***
The meeting was interrupted by the arrival of a slim, unassuming man wearing a brown tweed suit over a clerical collar. Jansson got out of his chair and offered his huge paw to shake the man's hand.
"Monsignor, glad you could make it. Please, have a seat. Everybody, this is Monsignor De Angelis.
I promised the archbishop we'd let him sit in and help out in any way."
Jansson proceeded to introduce De Angelis to the assembled agents. It was highly unusual to allow outsiders in on a meeting as sensitive as this, but the apostolic nuncio, the Vatican's ambassador to the United States, had made enough well-placed phone calls to allow it.
The man was in his late forties, Reilly guessed. He had neatly trimmed dark hair that receded in perfect arcs at the temples, with flecks of silver around the ears. His steel-rimmed spectacles were slighdy smudged, and his manner was affable and quietly unobtrusive as he acknowledged the agents' names and positions.
"Please, don't let me interrupt," he said as he sat down.
Jansson shook his head slightly, dismissing the thought. "The evidence isn't pointing us anywhere yet, Father. Without wanting to prejudice the matter—and I need to stress that this is purely an airing of ideas and gut feelings at this point—we were kicking around our thoughts about possible candidates for the raid."
"I understand," De Angelis replied.
Jansson turned to Reilly who, although uncomfortable with the idea, continued. He knew he had to bring the monsignor up to speed.
"We were just saying that this is clearly more than just a museum robbery. The way it was carried off, the timing, everything indicated more at play here than a simple armed heist."
De Angelis pursed his lips, absorbing the implications of what was said. "I see."
"The knee-jerk reaction," Reilly continued, "is to point to Muslim fundamentalists, but in this case I'm pretty sure it's way off the mark."
"Why do you think that?" De Angelis asked. "As unfortunate as it may be, they do seem to hate us.
I'm sure you remember the uproar when the museum in Baghdad was looted. The claims of double standards, the blame, the anger . . . That didn't go down too well in the area."
"Believe me, this doesn't fit their M.O.—in fact, it's nowhere close. Their attacks are typically overt; they like to take credit for their actions and they usually favor the kamikaze route. Besides, it would be anathema for any Muslim fundamentalist to wear an outfit with a cross on it." Reilly looked at De Angelis, who seemed to agree. "Of course, we'll look at it. We have to. But I'd put my money on another bunch."
"A bubba job." Jansson was using the politically incorrect shorthand for redneck bombers.
"Much more likely in my opinion," Reilly nodded with a shrug of familiarity. Individual "lone wolf extremists and violent homegrown radicals were as much a part of his daily life as were foreign terrorists.
De Angelis looked lost. "Bubbai'"
"Local terrorists, Father. Groups with ludicrous names like The Order or The Silent Brotherhood, mostly operating under an ideology of hate called the Christian Identity, which, I know, is a pretty strange perversion of the term ..."
The monsignor shifted uncomfortably. "I thought these people are all fanatical Christians."
"They are. But remember this is the Vatican we're talking about— the Catholic Church. And these guys, they're not fans of Rome, Father. Their twisted churches—none of which is even remotely Catholic, by the way—aren't recognized by the Vatican. Your people actually make it pretty clear they don't want to have anything to do with them, and with good reason. What they all have in common, apart from blaming all their troubles on blacks and Jews and homosexuals, is a hatred for organized government, ours in particular, yours by association. They think we're the great Satan—28
which, oddly enough, is the same terminology Khomeini coined for us and which is still echoing around the Muslim world today. Remember, these guys bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City. Christians. Americans. And there are a lot of them around. We just picked up a guy in Philadelphia who we've been after for a long time, he's part of an Aryan Nations' spin-off group, the Church of the Sons of Yahweh. Now this guy was previously Aryan Nations' minister for Islamic liaison. In that role, he's admitted to trying to form alliances with anti-American Muslim extremists after the 9/11 attacks."
"The enemy of my enemy," De Angelis mused.
"Exactly," Reilly agreed. "These guys have a seriously deranged view of the world, Father. We just need to try and understand what insane mission statement they've now come up with."
There was a brief silence in the room after Reilly finished. Jansson took over. "Okay, so you're going to run with this."
Reilly nodded, unfazed. "Yep."
Jansson turned to Blackburn. "Rog, you're still gonna look at the straight robbery angle?"
"Absolutely. We've got to cover both until something breaks that points us one way or the other."
"Okay, good. Father," he said, now turning to De Angelis, "it would really help us if you could get us a list of what was stolen, as detailed as you can. Color photographs, weight, dimensions, anything you have. We need to get some alerts set up."
"Of course."
"On that point, Father," Reilly interjected, "one of the horsemen seemed only interested in one thing: this," he said, as he pulled out a blowup of a vidcap from the museum's security cameras. It showed the fourth horseman holding the encoder. He handed it to the monsignor. "The exhibition's catalog lists it as a multigeared rotor encoder," he said, then asked, "any idea why one would take that, given all the gold and jewels around?"
De Angelis adjusted his glasses as he studied the photograph, then shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't know much about this . . . machine. I can only imagine it to have value as an engineering curiosity. Everybody likes to flaunt their brilliance once in a while, even, it seems, my brothers who selected what should be included in the exhibit."
"Well, perhaps you could check with them. They might have ideas, I don't know, collectors who may have previously approached diem about it."
"I'll look into it."
Jansson looked around. Everyone was set. "Okay, folks," he said, arranging his papers. "Let's put these freaks out of business."
***
As the others walked out of the room, De Angelis edged over to Reilly and shook his hand. "Thank you, Agent Reilly. I feel we are in good hands."
"We'll get them, Father. Something always gives."
The monsignor's eyes were locked on his, studying him. "You can call me Michael."
"I'll stick to 'Father,' if that's all right. Kind of a tough habit to break."
De Angelis looked surprised. "You're Catholic?"
Reilly nodded.
"Practicing?" De Angelis looked down in sudden embarrassment. "Forgive me, I shouldn't be so inquisitive. I suppose some of my habits are equally hard to break."