I realized that might get the pope killed.

I turned to the State guy, still curled in the fetal position. “Get your ass out of here and get some tactical guys. No standard police. Get someone who can shoot and knows when to pull the trigger.”

He left and I turned back to Jacob, peeping out from behind the bend in the corridor. I saw his eyes, and recognized that he was serious, but not crazy. He held no fear. No hesitation. He was here to live or kill.

I said, “Jacob, I know who you are. I know what you went through. What I don’t know is why you’re doing this.”

He waved the weapon, and I saw it was an HK MP-7, telling me he’d taken it off of someone dead above. Which meant there was some carnage, and he knew he was lost because of it.

He said, “I’m not a monster. I didn’t want to kill that guy in Syria. I was forced to. I want nothing more to do with the Islamic State.”

Every word was a revelation, every syllable something that a trained negotiator could use. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a trained negotiator. I was a gunslinger.

“Jacob, the only way to prove you’re not a monster is to walk away. Right now.”

I heard the Holy Father speak, and worried he would only make the situation worse. Then I wasn’t so sure.

Jacob soaked in the words, appearing to hear them. I had hope. He returned to me and said, “I will kill this man. I will.”

I said, “I know you will. I believe you. I just don’t want you to.”

He said, “Then back the fuck off! Let me out.”

I looked into his eyes and said, “You know where this is going. Sooner or later there’s going to be someone who shows up to negotiate. Someone who’ll blow smoke up your ass. I’m not that guy. Leave him alone. Or die.”

*   *   *

Jacob cursed and pulled back behind the corridor. The Holy Father said, “He’s right, you know. They will kill you.”

Jacob said, “Does it look like I care about that?”

“I don’t know what you care about. I can tell you I care what happens to you.”

Jacob whirled on him and said, “You don’t give a shit what happens to me. You’re only worried about dying. And I might make that a reality.”

The Holy Father held out his sleeve, showing the blood, and said, “I’ve seen the evil you do. And I still care.”

Jacob said, “Why? Why would you give a damn what happens to me?”

“I care because I’m human. Are you not?”

“Yeah, I’m human. And I don’t need the holy mumbo jumbo. If I had a soul, it was burned long ago.”

“We’re all born of sin, yet we can all be forgiven. Yesterday is done, but your soul is pure tomorrow.”

Jacob snarled, “You haven’t seen the ‘pureness’ I have. You haven’t witnessed what was done to me in the name of Christ, or what I’ve done in the name of Islam. It is not pure, I promise.”

The Holy Father stared deep into his eyes and said, “Don’t confuse the fallibility of man with the grace of God.”

The Holy Father’s gaze was steady, and Jacob saw it was true. Saw the depravity of the Islamic State through the kindness in the eyes of the man he was supposed to kill. The waste of his life seeped through, the totality of how he had been cheated. He had one thing left to give, and it wouldn’t be for them. He wouldn’t destroy what was good with a hand bathed in evil.

His eyes watering, his face contorted in pain, he said, “Father, where were you?”

Before an answer could be given, he grabbed the pope’s collar and dragged him out into the corridor. Jacob placed the weapon against the pope’s head and shouted, “Time’s up! Do it now.”

He saw the muzzle flash a millisecond before the subsonic round split his head open.

95

The room was as quiet as a tomb, the heartbeat monitor the only noise. A couple of blips a second, dinging over and over until it really began to annoy me.

I know it was callous, but Jesus, couldn’t they turn the damn beeps off? It was bad enough I had to see Shoshana wrapped up in bandages like a character in a bad soap opera. I looked at her sleeping form, the thought bringing an incongruous bit of humor. She’ll probably wake up and say she is an evil twin. Or she has amnesia.

Then I remembered she might not wake up at all.

I heard the door open, and Aaron returned, looking haggard, a three-day growth of beard on his face. I said, “She’s still beeping. Can’t be all bad.”

He smiled, a cracked thing without any real joy, and said, “She’s always made me wait. Why should this be any different?”

I said, “She’ll wake up. You know it and I know it.”

He said, “I don’t know it. I wish I did, but I don’t.”

I looked at her bandaged face and said, “I do. She will.”

He said, “Thanks for the spell. I needed to get some food. Get out of here.”

“I can stay. This wasn’t a chore.”

He said, “I know. I appreciate it.”

He sat down and rubbed his face, his eyes squeezed shut. I could tell he was blaming himself for letting her go. He knew what was driving her forward. He’d let her walk out of that house with Jennifer knowing she was going to kill Omar, but he’d never thought she would sacrifice herself to do it.

And neither had I.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel guilt, in more ways than one.

We’d left Saint Peter’s Basilica as the heroes of the world, having saved the Holy Father from certain death. Anonymous, but heroes nonetheless. The Vatican’s version of a counterassault team arrived right after Jacob had been killed, and in the ensuing chaos, we vanished. They were taking credit for eliminating Jacob, and that was fine with me.

I’d been the one to pull the trigger, splitting Jacob’s head apart with a 300 Blackout round, hitting him right above the nose. But I knew I hadn’t saved anyone.

Jacob had searched the marble corridor with his eyes, and then had locked on me. He’d shouted his command, and placed his hand on the trigger, staring at me the whole time. I knew who had really spared the pope.

It was a difficult choice, and one I understood had to be made, but it left a confusing mishmash of emotions. The man had used me to kill himself, and I’d done it.

Initially, I’d had no issues with the shot. It was just one more, like the man I’d eliminated on the steps in Tirana. Later on, deep in the night, when the bad man came calling, I did. In the safe house, I’d woken up in a sweat, thrashing about, Jacob’s eyes condemning me.

Jennifer had felt the motion and had woken up as well. She said, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

I said, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

She’d sagged back into the mattress, not believing me. She said, “Talk to me.”

“Don’t have anything to say.”

She remained silent for a moment, then turned to me. She said, “I do.”

“What?”

Her eyes soulful, she said, “I think I killed Christine, and now Shoshana. I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”

I snapped fully awake. “What the hell are you talking about? Christine’s doing fine. She’s not going to die. And Shoshana made her own decision. Right?”

Her eyes now on the ceiling, she said, “Either way, I could have prevented both, and I didn’t. Same as Ringo. Same as Hussein. I don’t like this responsibility. I don’t want it.”

I said, “I know. I don’t either.”

She’d leaned up on an elbow, searching to see if I was just placating her. I was not.

I said, “We live in a violent world, with evil people who have no compunction about slaughtering innocents. Someone has to stop them. Nobody wants the responsibility over life and death, but someone has to take it. And that someone is us.”

She said, “What happened in the grotto?”

I turned my head away and said, “I killed him. Period. Nothing else.”