"If Crusader involves Kate Sinclair, how come it pre-dates that whole episode during the summer-Sable Island and buried relics and all that?" Peggy asked.
"Sinclair's main objective was to put her son in the White House," said Holliday. "Those phony relics were just a means to an end. I think Crusader might well be her version of Plan B."
"How does assassinating the Pope accomplish that?" Peggy asked.
"That's what we have to find out," said Holliday.
He went back to Tritt's resume.
A graduate of the U.S. Army Sniper School at Fort Benning, Georgia, William Spenser Tritt spent the early part of his career in Afghanistan "advising" the mujahideen rebels, then moved on to Bush Senior's war in Iraq. After mustering out of the army with an honor-able discharge he immediately found employment with the DEA and their Condor Group assassination squads operating in Cambodia, Thailand and Central and South America. From there it was a simple step to the CIA. Sometime during his sojourn with Central Intelligence he was offered a great deal of money by one of the Colombian cartels to assassinate one of his rivals. From that point on he freelanced, working for anyone who could meet his exorbitant price. He took assignments from Mexican drug lords, the Russian mafiya, African despots and even his old friends at the CIA. He was the perfect candidate to murder the Pope, but there was no clue to the benefit his death would have for anyone, with the possible exception of a cardinal who desperately wanted to be Pope himself, which seemed unlikely. There were lots of intrigues and jealousies at the Vatican, but to Brennan, at least, none that would justify murder.
The Sinclair file was filled with details of the family's high-profile life, including their long association with Rex Deus, but that rumor was in the public domain for most people and fodder for Internet conspiracy theorists. Like the Bush family's membership in Skull and Bones, the Sinclairs' membership had just about as much effect on their image: none. If anything it gave them a certain cachet. Once again there was no perceived threat. Senator Sinclair was mentioned, as were his extreme conservative philosophies, but he certainly wasn't the only one in the senate who had the same views.
Like John McCain before him, Senator Sinclair was a "maverick," voting whichever way the wind was blowing, and whichever way suited the aggrandizement of his own career. There had been a number of articles over the years about his mother's influence over his voting, but none that had ever done him serious damage.
The "Itinerary" file was just as Philpot had described it, but with more detail, including flight numbers, airlines and an annex that turned out to be security camera video clips that showed Tritt leaving one place and arriving in another. The only ones of these not in the file were the clips showing the assassin's arrival and departure from Rome.
"There's nothing here that implicates Tritt as the Pope's killer," said Holliday. He shrugged. "All we have is the name Crusader and its association with the Sinclairs, and that could just as easily be coincidence."
"That truck with the snowplow was no coincidence. Whoever was driving it was trying to squash us like a bug," said Peggy.
The vague doubts he'd had about Philpot at the Mc-Donald's scuttled across his mind again. What was it he'd said? Something that didn't fit. The thought began to sink into his subconscious again. Then he had it.
"Philpot," he said.
"What about him?" Peggy asked.
"He said, 'This is worse than it looks, Doc. Stay out of it.'"
"What did he mean, d'ya think?" Brennan asked.
"He was playing me, but Potsy's not one to betray his old friends. It was as close as he could get to warning me off."
"But what is worse than it looks?" Peggy asked. "And why is counterintelligence playing you?"
"Potsy's under orders," said Holliday. "And I don't think it's the NCTC, either. The National Counterintelligence Center is joined at the hip with the CIA. It's really nothing but an excuse for the Agency to do business domestically."
"You think the CIA conspired to hire Tritt to kill the Holy Father?" Brennan said. "Why on God's green earth would they want to do that? The risks would be enormous."
"Like I said before, forget about motive. The facts all add up. The man who confessed to Father Leeson was CIA, Tritt was CIA and so was Philpot. There's been talk of a rogue CIA faction since the Kennedy assassination. Why not a CIA faction involving Rex Deus? Why couldn't Sinclair's people have a foothold in the Agency?"
"I don't believe it," said Peggy. "Now you really are talking like some loony Internet conspiracy theorist."
"Look," said Holliday grimly. "I sat around a conference table in Kate Sinclair's house with a televangelist, a member of the Joint Chiefs, two congressmen, one congresswoman, and I think a presidential national security adviser from the previous administration. There were half a dozen others present. Why couldn't one of them have been CIA?" He shook his head. "Sometimes there really are conspiracies out there."
"Do you have any proof that one of them was CIA?" Peggy asked, still playing devil's advocate.
"There's no proof that one of them wasn't with the Agency, either," answered Holliday. "It's a theory that fits the information we have."
"Actually it's a hypothesis. A theory has to be proven," said Peggy, her voice prim. "And we're just going around in circles now."
Holliday gave her a withering look but Peggy just smiled.
"I'm still not entirely sure why your friend Philpot or the organization he works for want you involved," said Brennan.
"Like I said before," stated Holliday, "they want to distance themselves from Tritt. I can't prove that, either, but they could sure as hell prove that I've got a history with Kate Sinclair. If there is a rogue group within the Agency they'll almost certainly warn their pet assassin. I think Philpot's people are using us as a Judas goat to bring him out in the open and then take him out with the minimum of fuss."
"We're bait?"
"Something like that," Holliday said with a nod.
"I still don't see it, Colonel. Much as you'd like to ignore it we need to address the question of motive. Cui bono, as the solicitors and the detectives in crime novels say. Who gains-Kate Sinclair in particular?"
"The only thing she truly cared about was installing her son as both the head of Rex Deus and President of the United States," said Holliday. "And she failed."
"There's nothing to stop her from trying again," suggested Peggy. "Like you said, Plan B."
Holliday stared at the computer screen for a long moment, as though it could somehow give him the answer.
"What was it the man in the confessional said to Leeson? Something about the White House," said Holliday.
"He talked about killing Our Father, about it all being a 'thimblerig' and the 'poor, doomed bastard in the White House,'" answered Brennan.
"Who were the last three Popes?" Holliday asked suddenly.
"If you don't include John Paul I, who died after only a month, there were Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI."
"Who was invited to the funeral?"
"Every head of state in the world."
"The president?"
"Of course."
"He was in attendance for all three?"
"Yes."
"Then that's got to be it," said Holliday.
"That's got to be what?" Peggy asked, frustrated.
"Dear God," whispered Brennan, seeing where Holliday was going. "They're going to kill the President of the United States."
7
"I don't get it," said Peggy. "How is killing the president going to help the Sinclair woman?"