“That’s the one,” Father Paul said. “Start the van.”

“Right.” Finnegan took off the headset, went to the front of the van, and squeezed into the driver’s seat, cranking the engine.

Father Paul opened the weapons locker under one of the bench seats and withdrew a flak jacket. All the Battle Jesuit flak jackets had a small emblem over the heart-a golden cross, the bottom of the cross in the shape of a sword blade. He shrugged into it, looked at the other two young priests in the back of the van. They looked of the same mold: young, athletic, a steely-eyed appearance that seemed to indicate a cool, calculated readiness for action. He’d seen their files but had yet to speak with them in person.

He nodded at the tall black man sitting across from him. “Father Starkes?”

William Starkes shrugged into his own flak jacket. “Yes, sir.”

“Good to meet you.” According to Starkes’s file, the man had served a hitch as an Army Ranger before earning a degree in religion from Princeton and then joining the seminary. Father Paul’s outfit had only recruited and trained him three months ago. He was a good man on paper, but he looked nervous.

The priests strapped on nylon shoulder holsters, checked the magazines of their 9 mm Glocks. Finnegan punched in the security code on the gun locker’s keypad and handed each priest a fully automatic H &K 9 mm submachine gun with laser sight and collapsible stock.

Father Paul shifted his attention to the short man sitting next to Starkes. Emile DeGaul had joined the French Foreign Legion at age seventeen and had already served eight years when his older brother-a priest-had been killed in an automobile accident. DeGaul had made some private deal with God that Father Paul didn’t completely understand, and DeGaul had answered the calling a month later.

“Are you ready for this, DeGaul?”

“Absolutely!” His French accent was thick, but his English was good.

Father Paul saw that Finnegan was strapping on a flak jacket also. “Where do you think you’re going, Monsignor?”

“You don’t think you’re going to keep an old warhorse like me out of this, do you, Father?”

“Didn’t you just celebrate your fiftieth birthday, Finnegan?”

Finnegan flexed, and muscles rippled beneath his frock. A grin spread across his ruddy face. “Would you like to arm wrestle?”

A smile tugged at the corner of Father Paul’s mouth. “No, I don’t think I would. Call off Blake and Santana. I don’t want to wait for them. Finnegan, take us to Zizkov.”

“Right.” The Irishman crammed himself into the driver’s seat and drove toward the target house.

The three priests in the back of the van checked one another’s equipment and made sure their gear was properly secured. They checked and rechecked their weapons. Father Paul handed out headsets. They put them on, plugged them into the compact radios on the shoulders of their flak jackets.

“Remember, this is an extraction,” Father Paul said. “I want Cabbot secured and out of there as fast as possible. Let’s try to keep casualties down. But never forget these are dangerous people. You see a threat, shoot to kill.”

Grim faces nodded back at him.

“Shall we say a quick prayer?” DeGaul asked.

“Lord, aid us in Your work and help us to triumph over evil in Your name. Amen.”

They all crossed themselves.

“How about grenades?” suggested DeGaul.

“Definitely not.” Father Paul wanted to keep the number of things exploded to a minimum.

“There’s a shoulder-based antitank missile in the storage compartment on top of the van,” Starkes said.

“No!”

“We’re a block away,” Finnegan shouted from the front of the van.

“Put us someplace dark,” Father Paul said.

“There’s an alley up here. Give me two seconds.”

Finnegan pulled in, the big van blocking the narrow alley. At this time of night, it probably wouldn’t matter, and Father Paul didn’t want to spend the time looking for a better parking spot. It would have to do.

“Stick to the shadows. Get into position. Wait for me to give the word. Go.”

They spilled out of the back of the van, scattered, then ran in the shadows toward the target house. Finnegan and DeGaul broke off for a back alley to take them behind the house. Starkes trailed behind Father Paul. It was late at night in a quiet, residential section. So far nobody had seen them, but they couldn’t count on luck for long. Best to get under cover as soon as possible.

Father Paul scooted under the low branches of a small tree in the front yard and signaled for Starkes to head down the narrow driveway to the side of the house. Father Paul then waited for everyone to get into position. The light was on in the front window. In a moment he’d need to creep forward and have a look.

“Where is everyone?” he asked in a low voice.

The earpiece crackled, and the priests reported in one at a time. Finnegan and DeGaul were in the rear, and Starkes was along the side. Father Paul covered the front. Nobody covered the other side because the target house was almost slap up against its neighbor.

“I want a quick scan. Tell me what you got.”

“One window downstairs. Two up,” Starkes reported. “All dark.”

“The lights are on back here,” Finnegan said. “Lots of movement. I see three people, no, make that four. Maybe they can-gun! I just spotted a weapon. They’re definitely armed, boyo!”

“That decides it for me,” Father Paul said. “We’re going in hot, safeties off. Just watch out for Cabbot. Pick your entry points, and wait for my word. Finnegan, is that one with the weapon upstairs or downstairs?”

“Upstairs. There’s a drainpipe. I can shinny up there, pop in, and handle the situation no problem.”

“It’s an old house, Finnegan, and you weigh ten tons. Send DeGaul up the drainpipe.”

A slight pause. “Understood.”

“Get into position and stand by.”

Father Paul checked his weapons, then slowly approached the front window, crouched over. The first-floor window was big and low, very easy access. He looked inside, saw the back of a man’s head, his chair back against the window. Beyond the man sat Allen Cabbot, looking tired and anxious. The priest wished he could get a better look at the other man. It was difficult to tell the exact situation. Father Paul had assumed that Allen had been abducted, but that wasn’t necessarily the case. Maybe there was a more subtle way to handle this.

Father Paul saw Allen’s eyes get big. Allen sat up in his chair, pointed at the window. The other man turned. There was a pistol in his hand.

Hell.

“Go!” Father Paul yelled into the headset’s microphone. He took three steps back, then leaped through the big front window.

Glass shattered and rained, sparkling fragments spraying the man with the pistol. The priest tucked and rolled, came up in a shooter’s stance.

The man with the pistol took a panicked step back and shouted, “Vatican thugs! Run!”

And then he pointed the pistol at Father Paul.

The submachine gun bucked in the priest’s hands, sprayed the man with lead. Red blotches sprouting across his chest and belly. The man jerked and fell, a pile of dead meat. Father Paul was simultaneously aware of more gunplay elsewhere in the house. His team was in.

Allen was up and running out of the room. The priest couldn’t blame him. People tended to flee from gunfire.

“Allen, wait!” Father Paul cried as he ran after him.

He ran into the kitchen, saw a young blond girl standing before Allen, her hand flung up in a Halt! gesture. Father Paul didn’t halt; he charged at her, machine gun raised.

He stepped on something, his foot sliding along the linoleum floor and out from under him. He went into the air, drifting backward, the kitchen a spinning blur in front of his eyes. He landed on his back. Hard. The air went out of him with a whuff, and his mouth worked silently, trying to find breath.