Free The Templar Concordat by Terrence O'Brien

reached his scanner toward the chair to begin the security check, Ibrahim jerked horribly, croaked, and vomited all over himself and the chair. For a big man, Paulo pivoted like a cat to avoid the mess. He was quick, but not quick enough to avoid getting his leg and shoes sprayed.
    Ibrahim quietly sobbed with embarrassment and apologized. He was sorry, so very sorry. He feebly wiped at the ticket he clutched in one hand, the ticket that would allow him access to the special wheelchair section in St. Peter’s.
    The officer in charge of the station signaled Paulo to move Ibrahim and his chair to the side so he wouldn’t cause a backup in the line. Then he radioed for a nurse from the nearby aid station to check the poor man in the wheelchair.
    When the nurse finished cleaning Ibrahim and determined he was not in any real physical distress, she wished him a happy Easter, gave him back his cleaned ticket and a fresh hand towel, put a cool bottle of water in his cup holder, and let him proceed into the Piazza toward the huge Basilica of St. Peter. Ibrahim thanked her and said he was going to God soon. The nurse thought she had never seen such simple and pure faith. So little time left for him in this life, yet such faith!
    Of the 300,000 people who entered the Vatican state that day, Ibrahim was the only one who passed through security without being checked.
     
    *     *     *
    Callahan walked along the top of the colonnade surrounding the huge Piazza in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. He shared the top of the colonnade with 140 silent companions, all statues. He leaned up against St. Hubald and watched a group of spiky-haired teens who actually seemed a bit self-conscious in the middle of the huge crowd that gathered every Easter morning. The purple Mohawk hairstyles, unwashed black T-shirts, and studded belts set them apart. But terrorists rarely made a spectacle of themselves. “Look for the quiet loner,” his instructors had said. “Most people come to events with someone else, right?  They come with a wife, or children, or their parents. Some even come with their dogs. Face it, terrorists don’t drag Mama along when they want to shoot the president or blow up Congress. Don’t get sucked in by the obvious. It steals your attention. If you let your attention be stolen, you’ve already lost.”
    A day like today was as bad as it could get. St. Peter’s could hold 60,000, and the Piazza that fronted it could handle another 300,000. On Easter they swamped the Vatican, and God only knew how many of them were deranged, criminals, certified nut cases, or terrorists. How many are in any group of 300,000?
    He dealt with the terrorists. Let the shrinks and the cops take care of the nuts and crooks. His job here was to provide the final, floating level of protection that just might catch the terrorist who slipped through all the other security nets.  He looked for what the rest of the system overlooked. And since Costa Rica he knew what the rest of the system didn’t.
    Officially, he wasn’t at the Vatican since he was a Templar. But Zurich had connived to get Alberto Mancini, another Templar, into the number-two position in Vatican security, and he put Callahan on as a consultant.
    “Hell,” said Mancini, “if Zurich can bend the rules, so can I. And we sure need the help.” 
    The mere presence of a Templar inside the Vatican was a violation of a six hundred-year-old Concordat between the Church and the Templars, and now there were two. But that was something for the Pope and the Templar Master to hash out. He just went where they told him to go.
    “We know there is an Al Qaeda attack coming,” Mancini told him, “but we don’t know when, we don’t know where, and we don’t know how. When you put all that together, it means we really don’t know squat.”
    “Zurich doesn’t have anything better than that?” asked Callahan. He knew they did, but was under orders to pretend he didn’t.
    Mancini