terrorism from the safety of the Vatican; he would take his message of peace to
the very heartlands of strife and separatism. Indeed, word had already got out
that the pope intended to address a history that most Croatians preferred to
forget. In the ancient conflict between Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths,
there was much cause for contrition on both sides. And it was time, the pontiff
believed, for the Vatican and Croatia alike to confront the brutally fascistic
legacy of the country’s Ustashi authority during the Second World War.
Though Croatia’s leadership, and much of its citizenry, was bound to react with
dismay, his moral courage had seemingly only increased the devotion of his
throngs of admirers here. It had also—Janson’s suspicions had recently been
confirmed by his contacts in the capital city of Zagreb—resulted in a carefully
organized assassination plot. An embittered secessionist movement of minority
Serbs would avenge their own historic grievances by murdering the figure whom
this predominantly Catholic nation venerated above all others. In silent
collusion was a network of extreme Croatian nationalists: they feared the
pontiff’s reform-minded tendencies and sought an opportunity to extirpate the
treacherous minorities who had taken root among them. After such a monstrous
provocation—and no provocation could be greater than the slaying of a beloved
pope—none would stand in their way. Indeed, even ordinary citizens would
willingly join in the sanguinary business of cleansing Croatia.
Like all extremists, of course, they had an inability to anticipate the
consequences of their actions beyond the immediate realization of their goals.
The Serbs’ murderous act would indeed be repaid, ten thousandfold, in the blood
of his ethnic kin. Yet those massacres would inevitably inspire the Serbian
government to intervene forcibly: Dubrovnik and other Croatian cities would
again be shelled by Serbian forces, compelling Croatia itself to declare war
upon its Serbian antagonists. A conflagration would, once more, burst upon this
most unstable corner of Europe—dividing neighboring countries into allies and
adversaries, and with what ultimate results, nobody could say. A global conflict
had once been sparked by a Balkan assassination; it could happen again.
As a gentle breeze filtered through the medieval buildings of the city’s old
town neighborhood, an unexceptionable-looking man with short, gray hair—nobody
who would ever get a second look—continued to pace down the street Bozardar
Filipovic. “Four degrees off the median,” he said softly. “The apartment block
on the middle of the street. Top floor. Got a visual?”
The woman repositioned slightly, and adjusted her Swarovski 12X50: the gunman
lying in wait filled the scope. The scarred visage was familiar from her face
book: Milic Pavlovic. Not one of the Serb fanatics of Dubrovnik, but a seasoned
and highly skilled assassin who had earned their trust.
The terrorists had sent the best.
But then so had the Vatican, which sought to eliminate the assassin without the
world knowing what it had done.
The executive security business was only formally a new pursuit for Janson and
Kincaid. For that matter, it was only formally a business: as Jessica had
pointed out, the millions that remained in Janson’s Cayman Islands account were
his to keep—if he hadn’t earned it, who had? Still, s Janson had said, they were
too young to put themselves out to pasture. He had tried that—tried to run from
who he was. That was not the answer for him, for either of them; he knew that
now. It was the hypocrisy—the hubris of the planners—against which he rebelled.
But for better or worse, neither of them had been made for a peaceable
existence. “I’ve done the small-island-in-the-Caribbean thing,” Janson had
explained. “It gets old fast.” The bountiful cash reserves simply meant that the
partnership could be selective in choosing its clients and that there would be
no need to stint on operating expenses.
Now Kincaid spoke in a low voice, knowing that the filament mike carried her
words straight to Janson’s earpiece. “Goddamn Kevlar body armor,” she said,
stretching her long, loose-jointed body beneath the layers of bulletproof mesh.
She always found it uncomfortably hot, protested his insistence that she wear
it. “Tell me the truth—do you think it makes me look fat?”
“You think I’m gonna answer that while you’ve got a bullet in the chamber?”
She found her spot-weld—stock to cheek—as the craggy-faced assassin assembled
his bipod, and inserted the magazine into his long rifle.
The pope would be making his appearance in minutes.
Janson’s voice in her ear again: “Everything OK?”
“Like clockwork, snookums,” she said.
“Just be careful, all right? Remember, the backup shooter’s in the warehouse at
location B. If they get wind of you, you’re in his range.”
“I’m on top of it,” she said, suffused with the deep, glowing calm of a
perfectly positioned marksman.
“I know,” he said. “I’m just saying, be careful.”
“Don’t worry, my love,” she said. “It’ll be a walk in the park.”