Name of the Devil (30 page)

F
OUR HOURS LATER,
I'm in the heart of the US Secret Service headquarters, three blocks away from the FBI. While some of our mission statements overlap, you can see the cultural differences. The FBI sees itself as protecting the citizens of the United States, while the Secret Service guards the president, our money, and visiting heads of state. The framed pictures of limousine caravans and Secret Service agents standing stoically in exotic locations reflect this.

Dennis Ratner, head of the Secret Service unit assigned to the Pope's visit, appraises me with a look that's one part skeptical and one part leer as I'm escorted into their operation center and introduced around. Dressed in a Brioni suit, hair a little too long and stylish for the Bureau, he looks flashier than the Russian politicians and oil princes he protects.

There's about twenty people here. A mixture of men and women who, thankfully, seem to be a tad less fashion obsessed than Ratner.

He addresses the room full of agents. “This is Agent Blackwood, who I assume you all know of from her many, many interesting past exploits. She's here to keep his holiness from spontaneously exploding or being attacked by flying monkeys.”

This is one of those situations where, if I don't respond to his crack in kind I'll look weak, or like I don't have a sense of humor.
Everything I do or say from now on will be judged in that context. He's baiting me, trying to show how cool and relaxed he is as he asserts his dominance.

“Let's just hope the pope doesn't borrow a government vehicle for a hook-up with a transvestite hooker,” I zing back with a smile.

My reply gets a laugh from the room and Ratner blinks.

I spoke to a friend in the capital police for some background before I came here. They knew someone in the Secret Service uniformed division. It never made the news, but a few months ago one of Ratner's foreign assignees managed to cause an embarrassing situation he clearly didn't think made it outside of the office. Guess again.

“Let's hope not,” he replies with a cocky grin, trying to keep control of the situation. “So, why does the Vatican think you need to help us dumb saps out?”

“We think the pope may be a target of X-20. We suspect they've been targeting him for some time now. It's rather complicated, but we think they've been using psychological warfare techniques to make him seem unbalanced. He's made erratic speeches, said some unusual things implying he's not in control of his faculties. It has the appearance of a kind of psychological manipulation. The apparent goal is to make the pope think he's possessed.”

“Drugs?” asks an agent named Carver. I was told he'd be handling the actual visit, while Ratner was in charge of the advance preparations.

“We don't know,” I reply. “They've been testing him to see if he might have been given something. So far all the screenings have come back negative.”

“What do you think?” asks Ratner. I can tell he's buying time to process what I just said.

“In the case of Reverend Groom, the television priest who
killed himself, we think we found a form of electronic intrusion where they were threatening him on air and telling him how to act and what to say. Possibly in a manner that made him think he was having some kind of supernatural experience.”

“And that's not the case here?” Carver is taking this in without too much observable skepticism. Thank God for small favors.

“Apparently not. But that doesn't rule out other forms of electronic interference.”

“Are you saying some kind of magical mind weapon?” Ratner says mockingly. “Maybe we should get a search warrant for Hogwarts.”

I set my briefcase down on the table. “We think it's a little more real than that.” It's a lot to believe. I get that. I also don't have the time to build the whole case for them brick by brick.

“It's still a theory.” Ratner shrugs. “Over here we prefer to work . . . to work . . . to work with
monkey balls
.” He's shocked by the words that just shot out of his mouth.

The room is confused by the outburst.

“Monkey balls?” Carver keeps a straight face. “I don't remember that at the Academy.”

“What the hell?” Ratner glances around the room, baffled by what just happened.

I point to my briefcase. “I brought this to demonstrate. Thanks for volunteering.”

There's a flash of anger on his face, but he's still confused.

I open my briefcase and show them the disc of ultrasonic speakers Gerald cobbled together. “It's just a demonstration device. My coworker borrowed some stuff from an intelligence agency that doesn't want to be named. All we had time for was one phrase.”

“Monkey balls?” Ratner shakes his head.

“Gerald's idea. Not mine.” I point to the iPod plugged into the device. “It listens for a speaker then synthesizes their voice and aims it back at them with a little delay. What did it feel like?”

“Like an electric toothbrush set to kill.” Ratner inspects the device. “This would be great for getting confessions,” he admits grudgingly.

“You mean manufacturing them,” I correct. “In any event, this is what we think we're looking for.”

He looks up. “Normally, as a precaution, we'd sweep the area anyway. No offense to the Swiss Guard, but we take protection protocols pretty seriously.”

“I understand that. They do too. The important question is whether X-20 plans to use the oneLove festival as an opportunity.” I point to the machine. “I think they're past using that gimmick now. They're in the final stages.”

“May I look?” asks a woman named Hamed, who'd watched the demo with a certain amount of detachment.

“Sure.”

She begins to inspect the speakers and make notes.

“How would you suggest we figure out X-20's next step?” asks Carver.

I'd sent them my briefs about Marta. Looking at it on the page reveals how many blank spaces there are. Her methods range from the subtle to the extreme, and we still don't understand all of them. “We need to know if they had earlier opportunities. Is the method they used to disrupt him something they could just as easily have adapted to murder him? If the answer is ‘yes,' then it seems very likely they've been waiting for a more public situation to kill him in a dramatic fashion. If they haven't had the opportunity yet, then at least we know the degree of protection he has so far has been working.”

“We're going to offer him the same level of protection irregardless,” replies Ratner.

I bite my tongue at the ‘irregardless.' “How many agents will be assigned to this?”

“Probably forty, along with at least a hundred local police
tasked to work with us,” Carver points out. “And Dennis, it's ‘regardless,' not ‘irregardless.'”

This gets a laugh from the group. I get the impression Ratner is the butt of more than a few jokes here. It seems a friendly enough way to keep him in check.

I suppress my own smile. “We just found out that X-20 is believed to be behind a recent prison break in Oaxaca. They had over two hundred armed men storm the compound. So they're very capable of putting together an army.”

“This isn't Mexico,” snaps Ratner.

“True. It's not. But before coming over here, I looked up some statistics. Do you know how many X-20 affiliated gang members are currently on parole right now in the United States? At least eight hundred. Those are only the ones documented by gang units as X-20 related or had the X-20 tattoos on their necks visible in arrest photos.

“If they can gather two hundred men for a minor operation, we can only imagine what they'd pull in for something like this.

“I think this is their leader's one single purpose. The existence of X-20 was predicated upon getting her enemies. She's smart. She's rich. She's ruthless. And now she has an army.”

The room goes quiet. Assassinations are usually carried out by one or two people. I just outlined the possibility of a full-on military strike.

They're starting to grasp the scope of the situation. I continue. “If she could have killed him before, then we can reasonably assume she has something in mind other than brute force. This is a statement for her.”

“How do we settle the pope question?” asks Carver.

“We need to know how they made him act erratic.”

“That was all in Europe?”

“Yes. But going to Europe to investigate the locations where he went off-kilter like Groom wouldn't be practical at this point.
What we need is someone there who can be our eyes and ears . . .” My voice trails off as I get an idea. Up until now, I haven't really been able to pursue physical evidence tying the pope into all this. “Can you get a Skype feed on that video wall?”

Hamed brings me a laptop computer wired into their network. “What do you need?”

“One second,” I tell her. I pull up the list of speech locations, and pick the pope's second appearance. He was in a reception hall, but the photos I received from Oberst were too inconclusive. I couldn't make out enough details.

I find the number of the building he spoke at on Google. After several rings an exasperated man says, “Hola?” I speak slowly so he'll understand my Spanish. “Excuse me, Señor. I have an unusual favor to ask. I'm calling from the United States and would like to have a look at your building. Do you have a smartphone that can stream live video?”

The young voice responds, “If you're as pretty as your voice then the answer is yes, Señorita.”

G
USTAVO, THE NIGHT
security guard in the annex to the Palma Cathedral on the island of Majorca, was very bored when we called. It's probably not the most exciting of jobs. He eagerly took the call from Skype on his personal phone and chatted away as he walked down the long corridor from the security office to the reception hall.

“As you can see, Miss Jessica, this is the room where his holiness paid us a visit,” he says as he turns the lens on himself and smiles at the camera.

He's got a broad, friendly grin that would seem better suited for a tour guide than a night watchman.

“Were you there?”

“Sadly, no. I have the night shift and was sleeping. I understood he wasn't feeling well. My brother-in-law said he made a very strange speech.” He pans the phone around the room. It looks like any other hotel conference center. “Is this what you wanted to see?”

“Yes, Gustavo. I'd like to get a closer look at the walls and ceiling, if that's possible.” I press the mute button on the laptop and turn to the other agents in the room. “In Groom's studio we found a small antenna. Maybe there is something similar here.”

Gustavo aims his phone at the ceiling. “Is this where you want to attach the lights for motion picture?”

I couldn't tell him I was with the FBI and Secret Service conducting an investigation. This would raise too many red flags and likely lead us through a lengthy discussion with his superiors. To make things easier, I'd told him I was with a production company doing location scouting. I'm sitting with my back to the wall. The other agents are off to the side, out of range of the camera. “Ideally, we don't want to do anything to hurt the building. We need to see what fixtures are already in place.”

“Yes, of course.” He holds the phone up as high as he can and walks slowly from one end of the room to the other and back so we can see each section. “Is this helpful?”

“Very much so. Just keep walking like that.”

“Poor kid,” mutters Carver, covering his mouth with his hand.

“Do you think I might be able to have a role in your movie?” inquires Gustavo eagerly.

I hit the mute button for a moment as the other agents try to suppress their laughter. I don't want to make Gustavo out to be a fool.

“We'll see, Gustavo.” I throw the agents leaning in out of the camera range a glance. “See anything?” I can't spot an antenna.

“No,” says Carver.

Hamed is making notes on a pad of paper.

The ceiling, except for a few small light fixtures—too small to hide an antenna like the one in Groom's studio—appears clean. However, there's always the possibility something was brought in with a piece of equipment and carried back out.

“Gustavo, could you show us the walls?”

“Certainly. I have nothing else to do. Do you have a boyfriend?”

The question gets me the attention of the room. Hamed glances up from her notepad, and grins. She knows what it's like to be the one girl on the boy's team. “No. Not at the moment.”

“Maybe when you come to Majorca I can buy you a drink?” He nervously adds, “That's if you don't have a boyfriend by then.”

It's a safe bet I won't be in Majorca anytime soon. And right now, I need to keep our one man on the ground onboard. “How about I buy you coffee?”

“Deal.” He scans his phone over the back of the room. At one side there's a large rectangular panel painted the same color as the wall. It looks like a speaker, but it's missing a companion on the opposite side.

This asymmetry stands out to me. “Gustavo, what's that square thing toward the back?”

“It's a, what's the word in English? A speaker. We're having it replaced.”

“Why is that?”

“It doesn't work and some delinquents stole the other one. I chased them off myself. They were immigrants. The police arrested them.”

“That was quite brave of you.”

Carver has an interested look on his face. I mute the feed again and ask, “Can we get a look at police reports for there?”

He nods his head and pulls up the Interpol database on a laptop to my right.

“I have a crazy question, Gustavo. I have two big favors. First, could you put your phone flat against the speaker, looking out? I'd like to see the angle.”

“Do the acoustics concern you? Let me get a chair.”

A moment later the phone rises and comes to a stop facing out toward the front of the hall. I place my finger in the exact center of the screen. Underneath a restored fresco, it's the same spot where the pope stood when he went off script. Years of working in theaters have taught me good sound design doesn't have the speakers cross in the middle. This is odd.

“Gustavo, do you have a screwdriver?”

“I have a multi-tool on my belt. One moment.” He sets the phone down and pulls the unit down from the wall, laying it flat on a table facing up. “I'm beginning to think this is one of those hidden camera shows.”

“You said you wanted to be in a movie.”

“Yes, but television is different. Oh well.” He gives me his broad smile. “If I come in here one night and find you robbing the building, I'm going to be very upset. I won't be able to buy you that drink.”

He moves the phone and we watch out of the corner of the screen as his arms take apart the front grill of the unit. I pray for Gustavo's sake there's not some kind of explosive booby trap. I start to think I should have called the Majorcan police.

“Well that is very peculiar,” he says.

The other agents lean in to our video screen. I almost shout at Gustavo to show us what he's looking at, but after a long pause, he remembers we're waiting and picks up the phone to give us a better view. Instead of a large speaker element inside, there's a hexagonal arrangement of twenty small silver discs.

This is not any kind of speaker I'm familiar with. I glance across the room.

Hamed types into a computer to the side of me. “Transducer elements,” she whispers. “Sonic projection.”

“Well, monkey balls,” someone murmurs.

I'm too terrified for Gustavo's safety to high-five myself at the moment. “Gustavo, we need you to stay there. We're going to call someone with Interpol to arrange for that to be picked up. Don't touch it, just leave it be.”

“I knew it,” he replies excitedly into the camera. “You're not movie makers. You're spies. The good kind, right? This thing, will it explode?” He is suddenly nervous.

“I'm pretty sure it won't, but don't touch it just to be safe. And yes, we're the good kind.”

Carver tells someone to get on the phone with the local police and arrange for the unit to be taken from the building and inspected. Ratner stands across the table with his arms folded. I can see nods of approval from the other agents. I think I've earned their respect.

“So what exactly does this device do?” asks Carver.

“Let's see if we can find a lonely night watchman in Austria, and then I'll explain.”