#WorldBookDay Deal and New Release: Pius History

So, Pius History is back, completing the Pius series.

Damn, I love that cover.

Anyway, the description is ... really in the title. Pius History: The Facts Behind the Pius Trilogy

Ever wonder about what was fact or fiction in your favorite thriller? How much was made up or how much was just to push the story along? Well, wonder no longer as Declan Finn pulls back the curtain on his epic trilogy to show you his meticulous, painstaking research. Did his fictional pope grow up in a world as rough as described? Are the bad guys really that motivated to end the church? Are some of the weapons real? Did Pius XII really take a side for or against the Nazis? This book has the answers you're looking for.
For the record, this doesn't just discuss World War II. Because the novels didn't cover just World War II. This covers the Cold War, Poland, religious persecution, and the Sudan.

And while we're here, A Pius Man is $.99 for a few days.

The Final Stand

It's occurred to me that I haven't written a lot about the writing of A Pius Stand: A Global Thriller, even though it came out for rerelease this month. Looking back over my blog, I never really discussed the construction of the novel the first time through, either. As I tend to write more about writing than anything else (after all, I will only discuss politics if I'm pissed off) I'm a little surprised.

As Stand is book three of a trilogy, there are, of course, some spoilers.

When I first started on The Pius Trilogy, my thought process was fairly linear. The solution was cui bono: who benefits? In the case of A Pius Man, who benefits from destroying the Catholic church? I can come up with a list of nation states, a few dozen dictators, and every Left-wing organization in America, and that's before I even start writing the fiction. In choosing the villains for book one, Russian mercenaries with old Soviet ties felt right -- jihadis aren't organized enough for what I had in mind, and Russians have just the right level of Byzantine thinking. And after 80 years of old Nazis being the only acceptable villains, I think it's time that someone looks at the Soviets as actual bad guys for a change.

Keep in mind, A Pius Man was written in 2004, before Trump, and before everyone decided that Vladimir Putin was a James Bond villain. It was also after Afghanistan fell apart in a few months, and Saddam's regime crumbled in must a matter of weeks. Jihadis definitely felt like wimps.

A Pius Man is basically a nice little self contained story. And it probably would have been the end of it if the damn bad guy would have just stayed dead. But no, he didn't, so there was a backup plan.

Enter: A Pius Legacy: A Political Thriller

When the first plan of the villains fell apart, the next reliable ally for them was easy: The United Nations. After all, (again at the time) I'd listened to 5 years of anti-Catholic BS with nut cases around the world declaring that RICO charges should be up against the Vatican! Genocide! Abuse against women! And that's only for being against abortion. You can only imagine what happens if they attempted to do anything about it.

So it wasn't difficult to create a UN "resolution" that makes every "charge" leveled at the Catholic church an actionable offense, with the end goal of confiscating every bit of church property and liquidating it... It worked for Henry VIII.

Since even the USSR gave lip service to due process during their show trials, there was only one thing for my fictional UN psychos to do -- put on a show trial for the Pope himself. And it's not really dramatic enough if it the man just hands himself over when asked....

Let's kidnap the Pope!

Obviously, Legacy was largely political. A lot of time had to be dedicated just to make the UN a believable villain .... Okay, given everything we've heard about UN forces as rape gangs or slave traders or sex peddlers, it's easy to make them villains. But I needed them to try doing vile things in plain sight, and justify them under real world rules. It was even more disturbing when I had the UN lodging complaints against the Vatican the week I first published it.

And then there's A Pius Stand.

Yeah, that was fun. Largely because, well, how does one address a full scale assault on the Vatican, during peace time? When I wrote the first draft in 2004, I was hard pressed to juggle it so that America would deliberately stay out of it. In fact, the US became a deus ex machina at the end. I wasn't impressed with it, but I couldn't imagine the US staying neutral against such a blatant display of grand theft Vatican. At the time, I couldn't imagine a single President between 1970 and 2004 saying or doing nothing about it.

Then we met Barack Obama and my imagination improved. Between encouraging the "Arab Spring" (IE: the Muslim Brotherhood), arming ISIS, letting Libya turn into a terrorist state while ignoring the 2009 Iranian protests, I could see an American President sitting on his ass while the entire world burned.

Which left .... everyone else.

Let's face it, even the most virulent anti-Catholic Protestant or Evangelical would be unnerved by nations of the world banding together to all but reduce a religion to rubble. Jews would go "This feels disturbingly familiar." Every Catholic cop would just say "No, this ain't happening."

After a while, adding up all of the people who would object and become volunteers, I was worried that this would look too much like a fair fight. The NYPD alone has over 35,000 members.

But on the other hand, there were all those idiots who joined Occupy Wall Street (which, when it went international, broke up Catholic churches and statues), anarchists, and every Leftist group that smashed up a church in the past 40 years, Socialists from "feminists" to Anti-Fa variants.

Adding up those psychos, even without nation states deciding to say "The UN said I can confiscate churches, let's go," there would still be a fair number of street-level nuts wanting to tear up property and beat on priests.

Once I redistribute all of those in law enforcement to protect churches world WIDE, the number of the Vatican defenders become far less optimistic.

Leaving two heavily-armed private Catholic organizations.... the Mafia, and what's left of the IRA.

.... Yup. They're in trouble.

Anyway, the trilogy is out and it's complete. Enjoy.

Coming to a Close: The Last Stand of the Pius Trilogy

This has been a busy week for me. First there was Planetary: Venus, and tomorrow, A Pius Stand: A Global Thriller is coming back.

The Pius Trilogy, at long last, is coming to a close. I'm almost done. The stories and the book of history is coming next, and then the rerelease is closed up.

You know how hard it was to say goodbye to this thing the last time I did this?

I've actually been rather busy going through a lot of different things, so I haven't really be able to dwell on this thing finally being put to bed.

I wrote the original one-volume A Pius Man novel in 2004, during a slow season in my graduate studies -- I had written my Master's Thesis, For all their Wars are Merry, during the winter break. This original volume had guest appearances from Merle Kraft before he met vampires, Marco or Amanda. It was before Middle Earth's Most Wanted Elvin Assassin had grown into a character and took over whole novels.


And now, 14 years later, I can finally say goodbye.

The Pius Trilogy is the second longest running project that has consumed my life. I was 22 when I wrote it, and I'm just short of turning 36.  The only other thing that has eaten up even more of my life is my space opera project, which I started when I was 16. That's something I hope to be rid of by the end of next year.

So, there is some emotion when I dwell on the conclusion of this project for too long.

It's not even so much a matter of never playing with the characters ever again. I have already done more horrible things to Sean A.P. Ryan in Set to Kill, a sequel to It Was Only on Stun! and a bit of an epilogue to The Pius Trilogy. And several of the characters are already slated to come back in other work .... in part because I had written Pius as a capstone to a dozen other novels I had written, using secondary characters as the leads. Obviously, those will have to be rewritten. But I will be playing in this sandbox again. I'm not done with these people yet. They all have a long road ahead of them.

But this will be the last time I relive (and rewrite) the deaths, some of the more dramatic moments. The Pope's kidnapping. The final stand of the Vatican against the forces of darkness. The people I've buried. The moment when I finally, at long last, put a stake through the heart of this one son of a bastard who JUST. WOULDN'T. DIE!

I think that the first time I really ever answered the question "What advice do you have for people who want to be writers?" was on Geek Gab, with Brian Niemeier and Daddy Warpig. I don't remember exactly what I said, but my answer is still the same.

If you want to be a writer? DON'T. You have no idea what you're getting into. You really don't. Getting emotionally entangled with the voices in your head? Staying awake because of the plots and action burning up your brain until you write them down? You don't know what it's like until you get into it. But if you have to be a writer, go for it, all in. Don't even blink.

But then you have a project that eats up your life, with characters you don't want to kill, but you know must die, because they won't stop until they pay with their last breath, and they're at war with beasts who won't stop until one of them is dead. You'd think it would be easy, considering they don't exist except on paper and in the head of the author .... but no, the author has all of the biographies of everyone s/he kills. You know how they like their drinks, and their favorite songs. You know that this character grew up wanting to avenge the death of his father at the hands of the Red Brigade. You know that this other character had a girlfriend who died during the Irish Troubles, and could never love again because everything he had left went to The Cause. You know that the other one is actually a lesbian who doesn't even want to BE in this Charlie Foxtrot, but she's fully aware that the Vatican is the right team to be on, even if this all ends in fire.

And no, most of that isn't even on the page for your reader, but YOU know it, because these people are yours.

So, yeah. That's the end of The Pius Trilogy. No more battles in the Vatican. No more warring on the streets of Rome. I can finally say goodbye to the story of Pope Pius XII, the Battle of Rome, and this particular battle against the army of darkness...Next time, I'll remember to bring the chainsaw.

Writing A Pius Legacy

So, now that Silver Empire has rereleased A Pius Legacy: A Political Thriller .... what the bloody blue blazes was I thinking when I wrote that ruddy thing?
To start with, keep in mind, The Pius Trilogy was originally one 800 page monster called A Pius Man, and I had thrown in everything in that book. Largely, the problem was that the villain just wouldn't die. Even better, the bastard decided that he wanted to be Moriarty when he grew up. Not the one who appeared on the pages of Doyle's work, but the mastermind he painted to be retroactively responsible for damn near everything Holmes had to face. So, of course, this meant that the villain had backup plans. And just wouldn't die.

Granted, the "just wouldn't die" part came later. In the original one book version, the criminal mastermind suffer all of the problems he did in the full trilogy. There was no airport confrontation. There was no final battle for our heroes. Of course not. That was the climax to book one of The Pius Trilogy, not the climax to the single volume tome. So, our bad guy got away, and came back later with a follow up plan.

The follow up plan being every Left-wing psychopath's wet dream about the Catholic church: prosecute them for crimes against womyn, Muslims, Jews, etc, because the "evil church" stood against aborting children and contraception, and also launching the Crusade, the Inquisition and the Holocaust, among other lies.

So, let's kidnap the Pope and put him on trial in front of the Hague.

"Under what law?" you ask? Since the only international law in existence is natural law (that's a religious thing, can't have that) it's up to the most corrupt group of scoundrels in existence to make it up.

Enter the UN.

Yes, the United Nations! Home to more kleptocrats and dictators than anyone realizes. Did you know that about 2/3rds of the UN aren't democracies? That's right. How else would Syria and Sudan end up on commissions for arms and human rights, respectively. If you ever wonder how the UN rules against the United States so often, you may not have to wonder anymore.

But what would the UN do to prompt the kidnap and prosecution of the Pope? Easy: passing an International RICO statute. This is another wet dream of Lefty idiots, using it against the Catholic church for "hiding pedophiles" (funny, there is a higher percentage of pedophile teachers, yet no one is arresting the teacher's union).

In case you don't know, one of the things RICO does is confiscate any and all proceeds from a crime.

In short: it makes for a wonderful way to commit a legal heist.

So, the UN passes a RICO "law," it passes, game over.

"But wait," you say, "how could the security council allow it?" To which I answer: the Security Council is who? The UK, the US, Russia, China and France. The French need the money, Putin cares only for Putin, the Chinese hate Catholics, the UK doesn't care one way or another (remember, the English ruling class have their own church, and the Monarch is the pontiff), and the US?  Well, hey, that would require a President who thinks that nuns should be made to pay for birth control, sterilization, and abortions. And that would never happen....

Oh wait. It did.

As you can see, the last President was fairly good for the trilogy to move forward.

In the one volume A Pius Man, the entire incident with the Pope ran only about 50, maybe 70 pages. It was an interlude that made the next part necessary. When it came time to carve up the book, well, that became a problem. If I left in the legal fiction needed for the final action against the Vatican, that would be a really long book with talking at the front and fighting at the back. If I kept the kidnapping and trial of the Pope, that would be a really short book. What could I do to keep everything and have three novels?

Answer: Don't just kidnap the Pope. After all, there are other ways to wage war.

Hence a political thriller. After all, war is politics by other means... or is it politics is war by other means?

Either way, time for the villains to wage their own political battle. It's one part propaganda, one part bullets.

And don't kidnap just the Pope. Kidnap some of our heroes, and have a long, painful conversation. Though those people who liked what I did to Mister Ryan (I presume there's one of you) will have to settle for a more vague account of what I put him through.

Not to mention that a lot of this book involved a more thorough introduction to the characters. Because I was so damn tired of reviews saying they couldn't keep track of the characters, my mission was to compensate.... I may have overdone it a touch.

I won't, like so many, try to compare it to Empire Strikes Back.  It's a part two where the threat escalates, with a To be Continued at the end. That's it.

But yeah, there's a reason that Jim Butcher likes beating up his characters: you never know exactly what the results are going to look like.

Then the fun really starts.

A New Pius Deal and the Return of A Pius Legacy

Right now, A Pius Man, book one of The Pius Trilogy is out for $.99 on Kindle (free on Kindle Unlimited).

Most importantly, A Pius Legacy is now out for preorder.

For those who are new here, The Pius Trilogy is the Catholic answer to Dan Brown-- only I have facts instead of fantasy, footnotes instead of vague assertions of historical accuracy, and stories that are not only ripped from the headlines, but ahead of the headlines.

In A Pius Man, seven strangers came together to kick ass and take names in a battle against those who would destroy the Catholic church, and any who supported them.

In A Pius Legacy, we deal with blowback. There are messes to clean up, airplane hangars to reconstruct, legal affairs to sort, a case to be made to the UN, men to bury, and bullet holes to patch.

When the case in "international law" is turned around, and old lies come back to haunt our heroes, they must once again hold the line against the forces of darkness that threaten to overwhelm all they fought for in APM.

Then the Pope is kidnapped, and the fun really begins.

So, get A Pius Man now, and finish it by the time your preorder of A Pius Legacy comes out.

A PIUS MAN, ONLY $0.99, NOW TO OCTOBER

So, book one of my epic thriller trilogy, A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller, will be only $0.99 from this minute, until 11AM Eastern on Wenesday, October 4.

For those of you who don't recall what A Pius Man is about, the flap copy reads as follows.

Ahem.

Murder in the Vatican!

As the head of Vatican security, Giovanni Figlia must protect a new, African Pope who courts controversy every other day. The Pope’s latest project is to make Pius XII, “Hitler’s Pope,” a saint. Things haven’t gotten better since the Pope employed American mercenary Sean Ryan.

Then a body fell onto the Vatican doorstep.

Mercenaries, spies, beautiful women, international intrigue and ancient secrets – The Pius Trilogy has it all!

I won't be pretentious and say that this is my masterpiece. If I knew what I was doing, it probably would have capped a 12-novel series, and included everyone from Merle Kraft (from Love at First Bite) and almost everyone in the cast would have appeared in other novels as bit players. But it does have a love story, a spy story, an action adventure novel, a murder mystery, a techno-thriller, geopolitical war gaming, and the cast of the Lord of the Rings... Okay, that last part is a bit of an exaggeration.  Though one of my goals was go make it look like every Catholic conspiracy cliche ever... and then take them and turn them on their head.

I remember once doing an entire blog post where I was debating whether or not A Pius Man was pulpy. Jon del Arroz replied with "Dude, you had a bomb on page 5. Of course it's pulp."

Heh. Okay then.

Though as I look at the page for Pius, I see that people who viewed it also viewed: Forbidden Thoughts, and Carnage and Culture. Heh. That's some ... interesting company to be in.

Anyway, the book is up from now until October 4th for only $0.99.  If you were waiting for a price drop, this is your chance.

APM will be on sale for $0.99 through Wednesday, October 4.

#PulpRev, Astounding Frontiers, Trumptopia, and other updates

There is so much stuff going on these days, it's kind of hard to keep up. 

Heck, the past two weeks have included the launch of A Pius Man, as well as the launch of SuperversiveSF's Astounding Frontiers #1: Give us 10 minutes and we will give you a world, which is Superversive's answer to the Pulp Revolution.

You can hear several of the authors in issue #1, as well as the founders of the Pulp Revolution discuss both the Magazine and the revolution itself on yesterday's podcast. (Yesterday's post).

Anyway, Astounding Frontiers #1 features a whole bunch of interesting people. 

Including.

• John C Wright 
• Patrick S. Baker
• Lou Antonelli 
• Erin Lale 
• Sarah Salviander 
• Ben Wheeler 
• Nick Cole 
• Jason Anspach.

Yeah, these guys are awesome.

And then there's me.

Astounding Frontiers is a new pulp magazine from the minds at Superversive Press that will transport you to far off worlds of adventure! 

In our inaugural issue we have stories and serials from Dragon Award winners and nominees and many other great authors. 

We have stories from Dragon Award Nominee Declan Finn, Patrick S. Baker, Lou Antonelli, Erin Lale and astrophysicist Sarah Salviander. 

We have the first instalments of three serials. Nowither, the follow up to John C. Wrights Dragon award winning Somewhither, Galactic Outlaws, from Dragon Award winner Nick Cole and Jason Anaspach and a rollicking adventure from Ben Wheeler called In the Seraglio of the Sheik of Mars .

Please join us in travelling to Astounding Frontiers!

Click here, and take a look at Astounding Frontiers #1

Speaking of short stories and anthologies, remember the Trumptopia short story collection? It was an idea where they would be a collection of short stories about how amazingly awesome Trump is -- genres of SF, fantasy, etc. The same company had already done a "Trumpocalypse" collection, so the call for open submissions pitched this as the opposite end of the spectrum.

.... And then the cover had Trump looking in a cabinet, at his collection of heads in jars.

Yay.

There was a very, very quick writer revolt. And by quick it started on ... Wednesday. By the time I had heard about it on Thursday night, it was well under way. There was a conversation about changing the cover, and it looked like there would be a second cover. I thought the whole thing would blow over by Monday.

By Saturday, it was already

1. Cancelled by the publisher (he must have loved that cover)
2. Got another publisher and a new title
3. Had a new cover already drafted by ... wait for it ... Dawn Witzke.

Well, that escalated quickly.

By the way, there were problems with the short story that came with the mailing list. Click here to sign up, and it should be available. The short this month connects to A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller. It's called The Pirate King.

The leader of a band of Somali Pirates calls himself the Amir of The Sea. But when he decides to take on the world's largest cruise ship, he may have bitten off more than he can chew.

Will this be the "Amir's" greatest victory? Or will it be checkmate for the Pirate King?

And once you've done that, you might want to check out the novel, A Pius Man-- though if you already have read it, I ask you post a review. Even if you weren't thrilled with it ... okay, if you hated it utterly, feel free to lie a little on Amazon. Heh. Yes, I'm kidding. A review is a review.

Illegitimi non carborundum, y'all.

Review request: A Pius Man

A Pius Man is out.

You may have heard.

You'd think that would be part of my bad habit of understatements. Nope. There are actually people who have not heard about the release of A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller.

Strange but true. Sadly, I'm too tired to spam the entire internet.

Anyway, as of right now, I have only 37 reviews for A Pius Man.

"Only?" says the average human being. "Isn't that a lot? The book only came out 11 days ago."

Well, when you consider that I had 35 reviews that were ported over from the original release, no, not really. Also, Amazon doesn't start helping you with your book until you get 50 reviews.

Which means, though, that all I need are 13 reviews. So, if you've read the book, and you haven't left a review yet, now would be a good time.

In fact, one of the things I should probably do is highlight some of the reviews I've already got.

Item one: Lori Bird, over at Little Squirrel books has her own thoughts on A Pius Man, and they're recent:

All right, my little squirrel minions: what do you get when you cross a crime scene, the Secret Service, Vatican Security, Mossad, and a pope from the Sudan?

Correct.  This book.

Seriously, Vatican ninjas.

Let me rephrase: convincing Vatican ninjas.  None of that I Am Margaret dystopian-future-with-bad-worldbuilding nonsense.

I won’t give away too many spoilers, but basically, imagine what would happen to the world if the newly-elected pope was a hardcore badass from the Sudan who could bench-press a small car and was convinced that Islam had to be thwarted at all costs.

I think she liked it.

Then there's David Halliqust, on Amazon.

It starts off running: with a terrible multiple murder to cover up a discovery that could shift the world. In the next pages, Finn brings in the Italian Police, Vatican security, and intelligence agencies from the USA, Germany, Israel, Egypt as well as a cell of old school Cold War ex-Soviets. Even with all of these trained operators and high-tech weaponry, it's the ever twisting mystery that unfolds that holds you though the book and keeps the pages turning. The action is well done, thought out, and moves with violent speed across the pages.

So, if this sounds interesting, by all means, give it a go.  Thanks.

A Pius Man, Chapter 5: A Pious Death

A Pius Man is out and ready, everyone.

If you haven't bought it already, maybe this will intrigue you into buying it.

Also, I will just ask that you recall what I'm trying to do with this chapter. I want everyone to look at this and suspect everybody. Almost everybody at least. There are a handful I couldn't make look sinister enough.

Oh well, maybe next time.

...So, let me know if I make everyone look suspicious enough.

Enjoy.

If you like, you can order from Amazon.

And now, the final chapter to be released on the blog.

UNLEASH... THE FREEBIES.

Heh.

Chapter V:

A Pious Death

Maureen McGrail crouched over the dead priest in Dublin. Father Harrington’s arms had been spread out at his sides, deliberately posed as though he’d been crucified. The old man had been shot first in both knees, and finally in the heart. On his forehead was a precisely carved swastika. His silver hair was spotted with black, crusted blood, and his pale blue eyes were frozen open, staring at the ceiling.

McGrail sighed into her face mask before rising. She always hated wearing the bright white spacesuits at homicide scenes—meant for the protection of the evidence—but then, except for the occasional public-service murder, she just didn’t like homicides. Her green eyes scanned the room, and the luggage on the bed.

“And where were you going, Father?” she asked in a soft brogue. “And why?”

McGrail looked to the police officer in the hallway. For some reason, she could clearly hear him humming, “Come Out Ye Black and Tans.” “How old was he?” she asked. “Where was he going?”

Her assistant, Peter Boyle, looked up at her. “Almost ninety. He had booked a plane ticket to Rome to give an affidavit in the canonization thing.”

McGrail smiled. “Which one? Is it one of the local boys? One of the Belfast Martyrs?”

“Pius XII, Pope from 1939 to 1958.”

McGrail furrowed her milky white brow. As a police officer, McGrail had never needed to know much about history. The most she learned about history she read in what she dubbed “Catholic Paranoid novels.” They were stories about the Knights of Malta, Knights Templar, or the Church suppressing the truth about everything that happened before the Enlightenment.

As if the Church were ever that organized.

They were fun reads, but rubbish history.

“What about the Pope?” she asked.

Peter smiled. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

She rolled her eyes and patiently shook her head as she walked out of the room. It was true that her fellow citizens might read ten times the per-capita average for Europe. And yes, Dublin might have had one bookstore per block. And she could get a fellow Irishman to argue about anything from microcircuits to “the year of the French.” But the average Garda precinct would never have enough people to keep up with omnivorous Irish readers.

Boyle cleared his throat like a professor beginning a lecture. “Pius XII, born Eugenio Pacelli. Died 1958. There are books that blamed him as emissary from the Vatican, as papal Secretary of State, and as Pope, for aiding and assisting Hitler’s rise to power. Still another tries to make a case that the Pope did nothing to save Jews in Rome, and the only reason so many survived was due only to the rank-and-file Catholic priests.”

McGrail raised an eyebrow at him. “You’ve specialized in the subject?”

Boyle grinned. “No, but it’s amazing what you can fake just by reading the backs of books.”

McGrail sighed. “So, our dead man was to testify on the matter? He was summoned?”

“No, volunteered. We talked to the maids about how he’s been the last week. Agitated beyond all hell; he was annoying everyone, muttering that ‘the truth must come out’.”

She grinned. Boyle had a near-perfect memory, so everything he had just said was a near-quote. “He was going to talk about death camps and such?”

“Not quite. You see, Father Harrington was with Father Carroll-Abbing down in Rome when Harrington was still in the seminary.”

McGrail cocked her head to one side. “Father Carroll-Abbing?”

He nodded. “Ever read Susan Zuccolti’s Under His Very Windows?”

“Aren’t I happy to let someone else fight out the whole thing and wake me when the last man is standing?” she said with a smile. Boyle tried not to roll his eyes at the way she asked questions for almost every sentence. It was almost a regional dialect – if “Ireland” could be considered a region. It wasn't a particularly urban way of speaking, but she didn't quite sound like she was in county Kerry, as those folks tended to not speak to people, but sing to them, their accents were so lyrical. “She was a Catholic basher, ya?” McGrail asked.

“Not quite. Priests and nuns were the heroes in her book; her main argument was that while the rest of the Roman Catholic Church acted, Pius was asleep at the switch, through either timidity or malice aforethought.” He smirked. “Google is your friend, ya?”

McGrail nodded, stepped out in the hall, and then stripped off the hood of the suit, letting her raven black hair fall over her shoulder blades. She breathed in fresh air. “So this Carroll-Abbing is?”

“One of the hero priests—Irish. He died in 2001, in Rome. Father Harrington here—on the floor—was a seminarian in Rome in the forties—in his mid-teens, if my math is right. Who knows, Harrington might have been a footnote.”

McGrail sighed. “Well, he is now, isn’t he?” She peeled the suit off her body. By the time she was done, she wore only her black suit pants and loose white blouse; throw in the running shoes and she was five-six. “Any sense to this being a neo-Nazi thing?”

He cocked his head.

“Thought not. I was called in because I’m Interpol, and someone wants me to fly to Rome, wasn’t I?”

“Father Harrington was killed late yesterday, early today, don’cha know? We left the body in situ so you could see everything before it was disturbed. We called Rome. They’d be happy to help with our inquiries. Rome is expecting you soon enough, about six o’clock their time.”

“Doesn’t that mean I’ll—”

“Be leaving almost immediately? Definitely.”

McGrail headed for the door. “If you need me, won’t I be home, packing?”

McGrail stepped out onto the solid foundation of a Dublin street. She looked out over the early morning emptiness of the sidewalks deeply, enjoying the quiet. All of the doors on the buildings around her—in good old-fashioned tradition—were bright, vivid colors, each different from the other, in an assortment of greens and blues, purples and even the occasional…was that brown?

She looked behind her at the ugliest door on the block, which belonged to the Markist seminary she had just left, a garish color that looked like it wanted to be either brown or black, and only resulted in the color of mud.

“Aren’t they all barbarians?” she muttered.

McGrail was about to go about her business when she stopped a moment. She turned and leapt up the seminary stairs, taking them two at a time. “Boyle!”

Peter’s head peeked into view over the top of the stairs. “What?”

“Did Father Harrington live here?”

“No, he’s diocesan, over in Kerry. He was invited. The Markists were having a symposium on the Pius thing, and this guy was going to give a lecture tomorrow, then be on a plane to Rome not long after.”

“Can I go to his place, then? Or will the Captain not allow that?”

Peter Boyle shrugged. “Only if you can be three places at once.”

She groaned. “Are the Kerry boys at least searching it?”

He smiled. “Leave it to us to worry about that. I’ll let you know when they get around to finishing a report. Okay? Enjoy Italy.”

“Maybe.” She turned to leave, and then stopped, looking at the Markist brochures for the order and the seminary. She picked one up before heading out the door. The cover read, “Markist Brothers, Founded Berlin, 1958.”

The year Pius XII died. Hmm. Anyway, we’re off to see the Pontiff, the wonderful Pontiff of Rome …

*

Giovanni Figlia took both Hashim Abasi and Wilhelmina Goldberg into the basement of the Office of the Swiss Guard, a building next to the colonnade around St. Peter’s Square. The subterranean level looked somewhat new in comparison with the rest of the city, with metal security doors that Goldberg would have sworn she had seen on the vault containing the Crown Jewels of England.

Commander Figlia used a hand print, iris and retinal scan, as well as a nine-digit alphanumeric readout combination panel.

“What is this place?” Goldberg asked. “Where you keep old Nazi war criminals the Church is protecting?”

Figlia cringed, remembering the scolding he had received for joking about something similar once.

The metal vault began to swing open, very slowly. “Here, in fact, is our weapons vault.”

The wall of the vault was lined with bullet-resistant glass cases of futuristic weapons, as well as some old-fashioned guns, in addition to the obvious gas canisters, rubber bullets, and beanbags launched from muzzles the size of baseballs. And there were a few normal fragmentation grenades and flash-bangs. The entire weapons collection consisted of chrome and Plexiglas. Figlia stepped inside, and presented it like Tony Stark in the first Iron Man film. His black suit and polo shirt meshed so well with the chrome and glass finish, it was almost as though he had dressed to match the décor.

Goldberg gaped and took several steps inside. She tried to see directly into some of the cases, but eventually gave in, and grabbed a step ladder so she could see inside.

Abasi stayed at the door and looked around at the equipment. “I didn’t know you could afford weapons like this,” he began.

“We can’t, really.” Figlia stepped into the vault, leaning up against the wall opposite Godlberg. “The older guns, the lethal ones, all … come se dice? Ah, yes, they ‘fell off the back of a CIA truck’ during the 1980s. After the Pope was shot, and because il Papa was working with the CIA on the Solidarity crisis in Poland, the head of the CIA then, Bill Casey, delivered these. The latest assault rifles we have are all M16A2s—though I would prefer the M8, or more M4s. The rest are non-lethal weaponry we test for the companies that make them. As a result of testing their product, we are given free samples.”

Hashim Abasi laughed. “I almost thought you had paid for all of this yourself, like the Saudis’ Wahhabi mutaw’een – religious police. The ones that drive American SUVs.”

Figlia shook his head. “Our budget is … nonexistent, since we are given this for free, which is odd, because I think we should be the second-biggest market for nonlethal weapons.”

Figlia quickly opened a case, picking out a boxy, rectangular weapon that looked like an art-deco version of a Stinger missile launcher. “This is from the Air Force Research Laboratory, a directed energy cannon … a microwave gun. It doesn’t burn flesh. It only feels like it, very painful.”

Figlia gently placed it on his shoulder to demonstrate how to hold it, then placed it gently back in its case. He removed another weapon, which looked like a glorified water rifle.

“Anti-traction gel gun—anyone who tries to drive or walk on this will not be able to. Nontoxic, biodegradable, and dries up in twelve ore … hours, depending on conditions. We’ve also malodorants, stink bombs so bad they are limited by chemical-weapons treaties… which Vatican City never signed, so it doesn’t matter.”

Abasi chuckled. “You haven’t thought of the U.N.’s ways of doing things, have you?”

Figlia shrugged, putting away the weapon. “They are useful third parties, but in terms of making international law, they think they’re God, but without the sense. Some say John Paul II was unable to deal with the West because they gave his homeland to the Soviets. I think this pope cannot tolerate the U.N. because they put Sudan on the Human Rights Commission, which is like putting Hitler in charge of the committee on Zionism.” Figlia shook his head. “Anyway, we’ve also the new soft bullets, as well as the WebShot Kevlar nets from Falls Church. This is the one I’m particularly fond of …”

He pulled out what looked like a flashlight. “It basically uses ultraviolet laser light to transmit an electric current—a Taser beam that works at a range of two kilometers.”

At this point, Goldberg coughed firmly so she could get his attention – and she stayed on the stepladder so she could see eye-to-eye with him. “Excuse me, but before you even tell me what your tactics are, what are you doing with all this weaponry? The range of an MP5 is about the length of Vatican City. Right now, you got more than enough artillery to tangle with a small army. Is the Pope expecting an invasion of the Vatican?”

Figlia’s eyes went flat and his voice serious. “No. Why?”

“Where I come from, you need enough firepower to keep the shooter’s head down. With the MP5s, you got that. With the M16s, you got that squared. I guess you got sniper rifles too. But you can get the same effect by attaching the beam thingy to a telescopic sight. Hell, it could be made into a medium-sized handgun and you can call it a phaser. What am I missing?”

“Nothing,” he said flatly. “We’re just cautious.”

Goldberg looked at Abasi. “You don’t believe him? Do you?”

Abasi held up both hands before him, and took a step back. “It would be rude to say so.”

“That’s what I thought.” To Figlia: “For God’s sake, you expect me to believe that a Church as anti-science as this one will suddenly turn to devices like this? I mean, come on, you only just cleared Galileo two decades ago, and you threatened to cook him.”

A soft, polite cough sounded behind them. Goldberg looked over her shoulder, and spotted the priest from the bomb site, evident from the silver hair, young face, and bright violet eyes. “If I may answer,” he said in a soft, gentle voice. “There are a few problems with your statements. The Church is not anti-Science For example, Nicholas Orsme penned the concept of impetus and inertia over 300 years before Isaac Newton made it his first law of physics. St. Augustine invented psychology in the confessional 1500 years before Freud was conceived and is so listed in the better history-of-psychiatry texts.

“Galileo formed his heliocentric theory using the astronomical devices in his cathedral, and partially plagiarized a theory from Polish Archbishop Kupernick, generally known as Copernicus.. Galileo’s theories wouldn’t be proven until two hundred years after he died, and he was told to teach his theories as if they were theories, instead of fact. At the time, there was no evidence that it was true, so even by today’s standards, Galileo would have been laughed out of the scientific community.”

The priest shrugged. “Thus ends the sermon.”

Abasi looked down at the priest from his six-foot height.

“You go by Father… doesn’t that mean you walk around in a suit and tie?”

Father Frank laughed. “You’ve been to America! How nice. First, this is as much my uniform as a police officer’s; besides, women simply go crazy over the collar.” He laughed and waved it away. “They used to say back in the seminary that if a broomstick wore a Roman collar, women would chase after it.”

Abasi grinned broadly. “You’re very odd for an American priest.”

“That’s because I’m a Roman Catholic American, not an American Catholic.”

Abasi laughed. “Thank you. When I went to America last, I visited Georgetown, run by your Jesuits. They had taken down crucifixes because they accepted money from the government. I do not worship Jesus as you do, but even I have more respect than to take down his image for money.” He said the last with disdain.

Father Frank smiled. “I used to be a Jesuit. I and many Jesuits of the old school have gone over to the Opus Dei … unofficially.”

Agent Goldberg looked on curiously. “Funny, you don’t seem to be a right-wing fascist.”

Abasi and Father Frank glanced at her. Then, suddenly, Goldberg laughed. “That was a joke, fellas.” She rolled her eyes. “So, you routinely go around lecturing random VIPs?” she asked Father Frank.

“Not as a rule, no.”

“Whew, good to know…” She frowned. “I’m going to regret this, but what was Galileo jailed for, anyway? Being an arrogant prick?”

Father Frank hesitated. “He had started as being friends with the Pope. Maybe frenemies. That, and malpractice as a science professor. But, he kept all of his church pensions and kept up all his communications with other scientists around Europe. Was it smart to disobey a direct order from the Church, and make fun of the Pope during the Protestant Revolutions? No. But, because the Church sentenced him to house arrest for teaching a theory like it was the Truth, it has been labeled as ‘anti-progress’; nowadays it’s just good science. Some have even charged that Newton was prosecuted by the Church—which is difficult, as he was Anglican. Contrary to the claims of some best-selling novels, the church has never suppressed a scientist. Although I can think of a few novelists who’d fit the stake better…”

The priest smiled. “The fact is the Church has been a fan of science, especially with the development of the anthropic principle in 1974, which states that, scientifically, the universe seems to be made for mankind. As a cardinal contemporary of Galileo said: ‘the Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go.’ The Jesuits even run the Vatican observatory out in the American desert. No other religion has one.”

She glanced at Father Frank. “Can we help you, Father?”

“Yes,” he said, as soft as ever. “I was sent to assist Commandatore Figlia in showing you around. He knows the technology, but I know the history.” He tapped his collar and smiled. “Besides, a collar can open many a door here. You might say I could even get away with murder.”

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A Pius Man, Chapter 4: A Pious Mission

Sorry everyone, but I'm not actually going to be able to host a radio show tonight. I will, in all likelihood, be driving all through the night with my merry band of con goers, coming back from LibertyCon. It'll be seven hours before I drop off some of the people I'm with, and I crash at his place, before getting up the next morning and starting all over again.

Yay.

Anyway, today, in place of a radio show, I have to give you this special warning:  A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller has launched. It is live. It's alive. A-LIVE I TELL YOU! AHAHAHAAHAHAHAAH.

Ahem.

So, in the immortal words of Jack Bauer....

THERE'S NO TIME.

By now, you're probably well aware my yanking this from the shelves when I signed with Silver Empire Publishing.

But right now, it's back, and up for preorder, here, direct from the publisher, currently being sold with deep discounts. You can buy them cheap when you can. Because this deal will only last until July 1. So, hurry.  Or you can order from Amazon now.

And if you're new here, and have no idea what A Pius Man is ... It ate up ten years of my life, and the best use I have ever gotten out of my Masters in History outside of writing biographies of older vampires.

But here you go, here's the next chapter. When you're hooked, order it. 

Or preorder it. Or something.

You'll note this one is a little shorter than usual. Sorry about that. But a little Sean goes a long way.

Anyway, there will be more to come on A Pius Man. You have been warned.

Chapter IV:

A Pious Mission

The summoning had been easy. After all, it was merely, “We lost a target in Rome,” on a cell phone. He was then given information about the contact, and his travel information.

Scott “Mossad” Murphy allowed his mind to drift over the information he had been given. According to German Intelligence, a terrorist on the Mossad hit list had been found in Rome with two bullets in him. It looked like a professional killing, and Mossad didn’t kill him.

And, since it’s Rome, they decided to send in their golden goy, he thought. He looked around the Roman landscape and wondered, Gee, it’s not like a blue-eyed, dark blond Irish Catholic from Boston will stand out in Rome! What have my superiors been smoking?

Murphy couldn’t argue. As a Catholic, he had strong Goyim Brigade contacts in the area, so it sort of made sense. But still, if bullets were already flying, King Saul Boulevard should’ve known better than to send him.

Now all he needed was to meet his German contact at the alfresco restaurant. Murphy had only been given a contact phrase, and nothing else. At least he would get some fresh air while he waited.

Murphy caught his reflection in the restaurant window. His mix of brown-blond hair had effected profound confusion among his enemies, and the various dyes he employed made him excellent for work around the world. His skin was pale, and his eyes were dark enough blue to be considered a dark brown with improper lighting, which he always managed to find in the West Bank. He wasn’t that tall, almost like he had suffered from slight malnutrition in his youth. His build was due to habits formed during his previous existence as an accountant. He was very thin, which his family had always thought to be a genetic aberration, given that both of his parents and all of his five siblings—older and younger—had been tall basketball players.

He sighed. I’ll make do. There’s gotta be some tourists somewhere.

“Is this seat taken, or do you have a wife?” asked a rich, female voice. The voice was young, but over twenty, and had notes out of Barber’s Adagio.

She also said the magic words. Murphy turned in his seat.

The woman standing next to him was about 5’7”, and wore a charcoal-black turtleneck over deep gray slacks—dress so professional she could have been on her way to see the Pope. Her light pink lips were curled into a smile, which made her glittering amber eyes light up. Her eyes were slightly almond-shaped, set above gently sloped, obviously Slavic cheekbones. Her hair was a deep brown laced with flecks of dark gold, and the ringlets stopped about the middle of her well-endowed breasts—full enough to be noticeable, but not intrusive.

Scott Murphy felt his jaw begin to slacken, and automatically regained his composure. “I’m not sure if you want the chair, it looks a little dirty to me,” he replied. The chair was as shiny as polished silver.

She smiled, eyes glittering. “I know it does. I’m used to dirty, I come from Germany.”

Really? Can’t hear the accent. “How is the weather this time of year?”

“It’s snowing,” she said as she slid into the chair with grace. It was May.

Murphy opened his mouth and moved his lips, but no sound came out. He paused, rubbed his lips as though entering into deep thought, and slid his fingers up his face to rest on his cheek. He mouthed one more time.

She scanned his mouth, reading, “Do you read lips?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Do we need to exchange names?” he mouthed.

“We’ll be working together,” she replied, mouthing the same way. “So I’d guess so.”

He offered his hand. “Scott Murphy.”

“Manana Shushurin. Call me Mani.” She squeezed his hand lightly. “What have you been told?”

“Someone died, and we’re supposed to keep watch on someone… I hope you’re not the spy. You’re too dazzling. You’ll attract attention like you have flares attached to you.”

“That’s the point. I’m considered the perfect spy.”

Scott Murphy blinked. “The perfect spy is a gray colorless little man whom no one would notice if you tripped over him … which is sort of why they call me that around the office.”

She beamed. “Exactly. What were your thoughts on first contact?”

“That you’re too pretty to be a spy …” He stopped and chuckled. “Point taken.”

She nodded. “We were also told you attract no attention; I can be a diversion.”

No kidding; you’re a weapon of mass distraction. “Can you be inconspicuous for, I don’t know, the majority of the mission?”

She took out a cap, one usually seen on muggers in old “Foggy London” movies, and set it so the sweatband stopped just over her eyebrows. No one could see her face unless she was looking right at them.

“Not a bad adjustment,” he admitted. And it would be hard for someone to report what she looked like, even if they stared right at her … and they will be.

She nodded. “Thank you.” She studied him for a moment with those brilliant brown eyes. She looked over his hands, his arms, his face. She took him in, and then took him in again. “May I ask, why did they send you? Sorry, but—”

“I don’t look Jewish?” he joked. “I’m Irish Catholic.”

She cocked her head to one side with curiosity. “And yet you’re in Mossad…?”

Murphy shook his head. “First of all, we just call it ‘the Office.’ We never call it … by that name. As for me … Well, you heard about John ‘Taliban’ Walker Lindh? An American who went to Jihad University in Yemen? Well, I decided that we needed one for our side—” he started talking again, “—and I joined up.”

The waiter set down his cappuccino and walked away. Without even looking to see if he was out of earshot—which he was—Murphy continued. “Let’s just say,” he mouthed, “that I had a good view of the World Trade Center on an unfortunate day.”

Shushurin cocked her head, admiring what seemed to be Murphy’s own built-in radar.

A pipe appeared in his hand, and he held it up, waiting for her approval. She nodded. He lit up and let the smoke drift up, briefly letting his mind flit back to the morning of September 11, 2001. “Anyway, what about you? Shushurin sounds odd for a German.”

“East German,” she answered, as though it sufficed for an explanation.

“Ah, Russian father?” He thought a moment, considering the history of the area, and the border shifts over time. “Or is it Polish?”

“It’s from Lvov. It used to be part of Poland, then Russia. Do you carry a weapon?”

Murphy shook his head. “I’ve always been better at just spycraft. I can improvise.” He stopped mouthing his words as the waiter drifted closer to them—“I can make use of almost anything they have here for all sorts of”—as the waiter drifted away behind them, he started mouthing as soon as the waiter was out of earshot—“weaponry.”

Manana cocked her head. “I have to ask, how did you know he was out of range?”

“It’s a gift,” he mouthed to her. As he talked, he continued making hand gestures like an Italian Jack Benny, always able to hide his mouth from possible lip readers in the room, but making it seem natural. “As I said, I don’t do guns—as soon as you use, you lose. I’m never violent.” He emphasized that with a sharp cutting gesture. He leaned forward. “So, what’s the mission? Who, exactly, has died?”

“Ashid Raqman Yousef.”

“I hope he wasn’t related to Ramzi Yousef,” he joked.

She moved forward, allowing the world to imagine that she was merely about to kiss him across the table. “He was.”

Murphy didn’t show his visceral, gut-jerking reaction. This could be bad.

In the early 1990s, Ramzi Yousef had taken the first major swipe at the New York City World Trade Center. Before there had been Osama bin Laden, there was Ramzi Yousef. Even though that bin Laden had already started his career, next to Yousef, bin Laden had looked like a rich playboy who wanted a play at jihad, a mere Gucci terrorist. Yousef had made grand plans for terror across the planet, even making detailed plans for killing Pope John Paul II.

“What was Ashid Yousef doing here? I know his brother wanted to kill the Pope, they found the plans on him when they caught him, but—”

She smiled, almost reading his thoughts, and squeezed his hand to cut him off. “Yousef was doing research. The BND kept an eye on Yousef. He spent weeks going back and forth from his hotel to the Vatican Library. Then he died. Two shots, very professional. One day, Ashid made a phone call to Iran, and woke up dead.”

Murphy blinked. “Odd. That sounds more like an Office hit than anything al Qaeda would’ve done.” Murphy continued. “Could friends of his have hired someone to kill him? It’s unlikely, but a well-disciplined terrorist takedown of one of their own? They’d sooner steal a page from The Godfather, invite him back home, and work him over there. It’s either that or it was a CIA hit, but even that makes no sense; the CIA would kidnap him, or follow him around until he led them to someone higher up in the chain of command.”

Shushurin nodded, reached out and touched his arm to complete the illusion of intimacy. His eyes brightened in response. “Is there another possibility?”

Murphy took her hand in his. “It was a rush job. It needed to be handled immediately. Which means he was either going to run and talk to someone, or about to compromise an attack.”

“Could they have spotted our tail?” she asked.

He squeezed her hand right back, hoping that they would both go unnoticed as they continued with the charade. “This is Rome, not Moscow rules. They don’t have counteragents trailing our tails, which means that Yousef would have had to have spotted and reported your people. Unlikely if he was sent here to do research; I mean, if he knew how to empty an assault rifle into the Mall of America, he’d be out in the field, doing it, not locked up in some vault.”

“Vault?”

“The Vatican Archives—a large, fully stocked, fully furnished vault. My only question is, what was he doing?”

*

Wilhelmina Goldberg blinked at the priests and nuns in the Vatican gardens. The short Secret Service Agent didn’t even look away from the bizarre sight in front of her. “Tell me they’re not doing what I think they’re doing.”

Giovanni Figlia grinned broadly, looking like a male Italian fashion model as he kept one hand in his black slacks, and gestured with the other. “Tai chi. His Holiness wanted them to do this, if only to keep in shape. It’s only twenty minutes a day, as voluntary as the rest of the hour.”

Goldberg raised a brow. “Rest of?”

Figlia nodded. “We’ve hired someone to train our ‘citizens’ for self-defense. His Holiness wants to be certain that if someone shoots at him, anyone who feels compelled to attack the shooter could do so safely.”

Hashim Abasi frowned in thought at the idea. The Egyptian cop looked at the elderly nuns, the pudgy and middle aged priests, and shook his head. “Surely, you’re joking. The odds of such a thing happening—”

“Oh?” Figlia asked. “You mean an apprehension by one of our fine, upstanding nuns?”

Abasi bowed his head. “Of course.”

“The first person on John Paul II’s would-be assassin was a nun, right before a Swiss Guard. Luckily, the shooter didn’t mind being taken without a fight. Should it ever happen again, only with a suicide bomber, the Pope wants our people to have a chance.”

Goldberg nodded her obviously dyed blonde head. “Not bad. They’re a replacement for CATs – a Counter Assault Team, what we use to support a detail when it comes under fire.” She frowned, revealing worry lines all over her mouth, as well as her forehead. “Given the size of Vatican City, there isn’t much need for a mobile CAT. Training civilians isn’t a bad idea, if your trainer is smart enough to teach them when to approach and when to run.”

He nodded. “Si, Signore Ryan is very good about that.”

Abasi unbuttoned his tan jacket and slipped his hands in the pocket as he watched the Vatican residents continue to go through the motions. The Egyptian counted them and tried to decide how effective they would be. “And where, may I ask, is your trainer from? American Special Forces?”

“No. While loro sono molto bene—” Figlia paused, and began again, remembering to stay with English. “These are ordained priests and nuns. We will not have them carry guns. Our objectives needed them to learn how to disarm and disable someone. Special Forces do not have the luxury of taking prisoners. This man teaches mostly Krav Maga, but uses other techniques as well.”

Goldberg was intrigued. Protection that avoids killing? “Who’d you get?”

Another big grin. “I’ll introduce you.”

They approached as the final tai chi position was taken. The trainer saw them coming and said “Tempo finita. Take cinque.”

The trainer took a step off of a box and shrank a foot. While he moved with the lazy grace of an egotistical cat, and beamed with a charming grin, something was … off. He was in his late twenties, but he gave the impression of being younger, just in the way he walked, and how he looked at them with his electric-blue eyes—Goldberg had only seen that color once, in the middle of a particularly bad lightning storm. They stood out even against his pale skin and stark black hair.

“Hey, Johnny, come stai, mio amico?” he said grandly.

Figlia tried not to smile. Rusty phrases like that were as far as this man’s Italian went, and calling him “Johnny” instead of “Gianni” was typical of how he handled Italian. “I wanted to show you off. Meet Hashim Abasi , Egyptian police, and Villie Goldberg, U.S. Secret Service.”

The shorter man nodded and shook hands with each. “Charmed. Sean Ryan, of Sean A.P. Ryan & Associates.”

Goldberg cocked her head. “Aren’t you a security company? American?”

He nodded with a big grin, the bright eyes nearly glowing. “Yes, ma’am. Have you heard of me?”

She cocked her head and closed one hazel eye, studying him a moment. He was basically neat – professional haircut, clean cut, business casual dress … Her eyes shot open as it occurred to her.

“Oh, crap!” she blurted.

Sean Aloysius Patricus Ryan barked a laugh. “Yup, you’ve heard of me. Normally, I would say don’t believe anything you hear, but one of my employees is ex-Secret Service, so in your case, I would think you can pretty much believe everything.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the priests and nuns. “Don’t worry, though. I’m just teaching the civvies how to hold their own without killing or being killed. You can have Gianni’s boys and girls, I don’t deal in such things. Heck, I barely deal in this.”

Abasi glanced at him askew, still lost about the conversation. “Odd to hear you say that. If I may ask, what were you before you did … this?”

“Hollywood stuntman.” Abasi’s deep brown eyes almost popped out of his head. Sean Ryan laughed. “Now you know why they got me—I was trained how to hurt people without really hurting them, something the Fathers and Sisters need to learn.”

Abasi laughed. “With their bare hands, I suppose?”

Sean paused, turned, and walked back to the box he’d been standing on. He opened it and came back with a small black cylinder in each hand. He flicked both wrists, snapping the cylinders outward—they telescoped into tactical batons. He touched the butt of each baton together and twisted, locking them in place to form a seven-foot staff.

“I figured it would just be easier to teach them previously approved methods. I mean, if a medieval monk could use a staff without being excommunicated, it shouldn’t be a problem now.”

Goldberg raised her hand. “’Scuse me, isn’t this a little much?” She looked at Commander Figlia. “Your Pope seems to take a great interest in security. What is he, paranoid?”

For the first time, Figlia scowled. “Let us take a walk.”

They walked for a minute, making certain that they were far enough away from Abasi and Sean to be out of earshot. The head of Vatican security slipped his hands in his pockets, and made certain to keep his movements careful and controlled. “Tell me, Special Agent Goldberg, what do you know about the Sudan? Before the North-South split of 2011.”

She shrugged. “Arab Muslims killing or enslaving black Christians.”

“Si. You know the nearest, strongest, non-Muslim government? Uganda. The strongest religion? Catholicism. Archbishop Kutjok was the most hated clergyman in the Sudan. They tried to kill him twice, and that was before he became Pope. He’s terrified of a suicide bomber in the middle of Saint Peter’s Square killing dozens in an attempted assassination. He wants me to make sure that doesn’t happen, and you to double-check me, and Sean Ryan to make sure that innocent civilians aren’t helpless civilians. In the Pope’s world, all life is sacred, a gift from God, and no one is exempt from that. Trust me, he’s less worried about his death than the deaths of those around him. He knows the risk he takes every time he steps outside, and he finds it an acceptable price to pay for doing the work of God. But he doesn’t believe it’s acceptable that people should die just because they gathered to see him.”

*

Sean Aloysius Patricus Ryan watched Figlia and Goldberg walking away, and once they stopped, he started reading their lips.

“Hollywood?”

Sean sidestepped to square himself with Abasi, still reading lips around the larger man. “Yes, it was a family business. Now it’s security.”

Abasi leaned over, blocking Sean’s view of the other two—but Sean had already gotten enough details.

“What made you qualified for this sort of work?”

Sean looked at the Egyptian straight on, and quickly analyzed him. Abasi was big and bulky, without moving awkwardly. He certainly lifted, but he would probably take a second or two if Sean needed to drop him. Abasi’s tan suit was well tailored, and probably new—which was unsurprising, given the nature of his assignment would include making a good impression to a foreign country. Abasi looked 35, but was probably older, though Sean would have usually laid money on the reverse being true.

Sean gave him a broad grin. “I’m a mick. I beat people up for fun, doncha know?”

Abasi smiled. “I am sure my wife would have liked that.” Too bad she’s dead, Abasi thought.

Sean chuckled. “I always knew the Irish would marry anybody.” He hesitated a moment. “Or is it that anybody will marry the Irish?” He gave a casual shrug. “To tell the truth, I have a few connections here and there that keep me just one step ahead of everybody else. That and a Kevlar suit’s all I need.”

Abasi looked at the young man, studying his form and how he held himself. He was relaxed, almost languid, but in the way that a panther was lazy. The grace of a well-fed predator. “I somehow doubt it is that simple.”

Sean grinned. “Is it ever?”

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